Hazard lines!!!

I was totally inspired for Necromunda after playing a few games recently but not having much time I chose a quick scenery upgrade to improve my terrain.

I noticed some printable weathered hazard stripes on instagram a while ago and have been using them on the columns from TT Combat. Originally I was a bit dubious of 'cheating' by using printed hazard lines instead of painting them on but they actually look marvelous and are so easy to do!! I spent an absolute age painting hazard lines on the columns and they didn't even look very good so when I tried these print outs which literally take minutes to cut out and PVA on, my mind was completely changed!

Below you can see the printed hazard lines on the right which took 5 mins max and the hand painted hazard lines on the left which took hours to do all 4 corners!!

The link to the hazard line print out sheet is here:

https://yaktribe.games/community/vault/weathered-necromunda-hazard-stripes-for-scenery.494/download

And here are some stairs I've also added printed hazard stripes to...

 The effect is great as the stripes really bring out the details on what is quite a dark board...

I'm so taken with using print outs I'm in the process of adding some posters too. More on that soon...

James

fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.co.uk – A blog about Warhammer 40k and the Horus Heresy by four Dads

Back in the game! Necromunda

After a hugely busy end to the year it was almost a relief to hit January. Although I do love Christmas - catching up with friends and family and chilling out for a week.

This January I actually managed to get 3 games of Necromunda in! They all took ages as I couldn't remember the rules but they were great fun, had some brilliant cinematic moments in them and allowed me to mess around with different configurations of my TT Combat terrain from Element Games.

All of the games were with my Delaque and Orlock gangs and all were playing narrative missions.

Game 1

The Delaque got their backsides handed to them in this game as it was the first time I've played with the gang and had no idea what to do with their tactics or weapons!!! I realised that they need to stay together in groups and use their grenades in combination with their medium range weapons while the 2 snipers with long rifles pick people of at a distance. The Orlocks were solid and maintained board control for the entire game. Shotguns for the win!!!

Game 2

This was a cool board to play on with a big bridge across the centre. I played 'The Hit' where the Delaque had to take out the leader of the Orlocks for victory.

The game swung hugely from side to side and there were some brilliant cinematic moments - The Delaque were running up both sets of steps to take out Zed and his harpoon gun on the bridge. One ganger was being pursued by a pair of shotgun toting Orlocks and stopped on the stairs, turned around and blew one of the Orlock gangers clean off the wall with his own shotgun. Then with one side of attack being held up Zed ran to the other side of the bridge where 2 Delaque gangers were heading up the stairs and launched his harpoon gun through the first ganger, killing him instantly, and seriously injuring the second! Brilliant stuff!

Eventually the Delaque managed to down Roky and beat the Orlocks in this game.

Game 3

This was a much more simple set up but just as effective for a good game. I reversed sides in the mission 'The Hit' and again the battle swung both ways throughout each turn. Eventually the Orlocks managed to corner the Delaque leader and dispose of him however.

Three great games and the sheer variety of play available because of both the terrain setup and the way the game plays is really incredible and will never get boring. Can't wait for the next time now!!

James

fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.co.uk – A blog about Warhammer 40k, Necromunda and the Horus Heresy by four Dads

Where to start? - Necromunda!

As some of you may know, towards the end of my last 40k playing dad Steve and I started to get into Necromunda. Now we haven't played all that much but luckily we've been working on our gangs and terrain throughout the time we've spent away from 40k and managed the occasional game. I think I've said before that I absolutely LOVE Necromunda and ideally would get a campaign going at some point but time, as always, is the biggest issue.

Anyway as 40k has grown so much over the time I've spent away I do believe that still playing a game such as Necromunda will help in getting back into the game. It has helped me to stay up to date with Games Workshop, I have still painted occasionally, it has kept me in with the lore and background to some extent, and also I have been played the game so even though it's different I'm still involved with game mechanics, tactics, weapons and (my favourite) rolling some dice - although being an Astra Militarum player, not nearly enough!

One other element of gaming I have still really been into in this break from 40k has also been terrain building and painting. I have loved the MDF scenery from TT Combat which I generally get from Element Games. It's so easy to put together, cheap and looks great when it's painted. I've been getting this terrain together mainly for Necromunda - so hive style terrain - however, I have also had 40k in the back of my mind and so I have picked Zone Mortalis style and industrial bits that I think will cross over into bigger battles too.

I absolutely loved @possiblynerdyrob (Pics below) on Instagram and the way he painted his Orlock gang and terrain

and originally copied him but I'm nowhere near as good an artist so it really didn't come out right and I found it too slow. My method was to spray undercoat black, paint the whole thing Dawnstone, paint the metal bits leadbelcher, wash with nuln oil and then paint the hazard stripes in yellow and black. This took forever and didn't even look good! Quite disheartened I went back to the drawing board...

I happened to be in the 'yellow shop' in my town (it's basically a cheap shop with bright yellow signage so everyone knows it as the yellow shop) and noticed that they were selling car paint for £1 a spray can!!! The colour looked slightly darker than dawnstone so I bought a fivers worth and got home pretty quick! The paint worked great on the MDF not needing an undercoat and although it was a bit of a darker grey than I wanted it still looked good. I decided to then drybrush dawnstone and ulthuan grey on the terrain pieces to lighten them up and bring out the details and (I thought) they really looked good. I really wanted some hazard stripes on though and my painting method was far too time consuming so after sopme online research I stumbled across the method of printing some out on paper, cutting out strips and PVA'ing them onto the terrain. I was very sceptical about this but am always up for trying something different so downloaded some weathered hazard stripes and got to work...

I have to say that this method is amazing!!!! They look great on the terrain and it's so quick to do!! Perfect! Here are the two side by side - My early failed effort on the left and the new effort on the right...

And a few pieces together look like this...

And our latest battle...

So my hobby bug is starting to resurface through Necromunda and, more specifically, the terrain part of it. I really like modular terrain as you never get the same game or setup twice and I would say I'm about 3/4's of the way through painting my MDF collection so I really should have a solid industrial battlefield to fight 40k game across very soon.

Next up I need to get up to speed with where my armies (Astra Militarum and Flesh Tearers) are at in the new 40k universe...

Catch you soon.

James

fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.co.uk – A blog about Warhammer 40k and the Horus Heresy by four Dads

Two years later....

Wow I can't believe it's been over 2 years since our last blog post here!! To be honest I think that Covid has just removed 18 months without any memory of it so we'll just call it 6 months!!!

Anyway I hope that whoever reads this is well and doing ok after the historical pandemic we have just/are currently living through. Our apologies for not contributing to the Games Workshop universe in any way over the last couple of years but a lot has happened - just not much in the way of Warhammer!

I (James) have just been working solidly. I am a teacher in a special school so we have been in full time all the way through but just much busier as the extra Covid responsibilities and risks have increased our workload.

Steve has also been working solidly in his school as he has had to be bringing the school up to date tech wise for online learning and working from home.

Dave has been involved in his own engineering career and has been doing lots of GW stuff but has focused on his own projects and Instagram page (@dave_the_dr) and getting involved in the community as he lives in Nottingham and we haven't been active at all!

Rich has been an international jetsetter! He now lives and works in Jordan and has a new family home in Orkney!!! This has obviously impacted his hobby time!

Anyway so here we are and I thought I'd try to write down some updates as to what we're up to as and when, to both keep me interested in the hobby and also to hopefully provide some interesting content to read for others. It's been such a long time since I was involved with 40k I thought it might be interesting to share a little of my journey back into it over the coming months.

I have to say that it's a scary prospect to reintegrate back into 40k as things have changed so much since I last played and it's a quite intimidating prospect to get updated and get back into the game. I wonder if many people feel this way and if GW lose any custom because it's a difficult game to get back into once you're out?

There's no doubt that the volume and speed of releases are incredible but just how alienating is it to those, like me, who haven't properly played since 5th, 6th or 7th edition? I did get the 8th rulebook but only played a couple of games. On the plus side I have been playing Necromunda with Steve which is absolutely brilliant and I'll also be bringing our progress on that side of things too.

If anyone wants to chip in and help or offer their experiences please comment below and I'll gladly bet a conversation going.

I look forward to posting again soon,

Adios!

fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.co.uk – A blog about Warhammer 40k and the Horus Heresy by four Dads

Eversor Assassin - Painting the evil little blighter!

The finished model. See more pics and find out how I painted him/her/it below...

The finished Eversor Assassin

Quick update as the Mantic Terrain Crate scenery grows with more magnets!

Here is a quick video showing how the Mantic Terrain Crate Scenery is growing after I received some more magnets this week.

It is completely modular and can be altered at will. The strength of the magnets is impressive too allowing 2 walkways to join together across a gap which will hold a fair amount of weight.

Magnets!!! - Terrain crate Gang Warzone from Mantic - Part 3

As you may know I am in the process of putting together the Gang Warzone Terrain Crate from Mantic Games (bought from Goblin Games) and have been documenting the process so far in part 1 here and part 2. This blog post is all about magnetising this scenery pack to make it truly modular. At the end there is a short video showing how the few pieces I have magnetised fit together and how strong they are - happy reading!

The Gang Warzone Set

Disclaimer - Later on I have included a few videos to show what I have done with the magnets as it's quite hard to explain in text and much easier to show instead - I accept no responsibility for the adverse effects of my voice on anyone's health. Apologies also for having to use Youtube, the file sizes of the videos were too big to upload to the blog.

Recap
My vision was for a cheap, good looking set of industrial terrain to use for both Necromunda and Warhammer 40k. Also I wanted the terrain to be completely modular so that I could arrange it however I wanted individually for each game I play.

If you have been following then you will know that the terrain is well priced and very well detailed for the price. I really like the 'boxy' look although I understand that some people may not like this look. It is fairly easy to paint with car paints from Halfords which also makes it cheap too.

The paints I used

At the current moment the terrain is at a basic level of painting which would look fine for a game - I have sprayed the base colours on (part 2) for a weathered look and have now painted all of the silver parts in Leadbelcher which just needs washing with Nuln Oil.

Metal bits painted - Nuln Oil needed

Painting and weathering - Hairspray & Salt - Terrain crate Gang Warzone from Mantic - Part 2

Following on from the discovery from Goblin Games and unboxing of this kit in part 1 HERE I got right on and started painting. I had no real idea how to paint this terrain other than that I wanted to get it done fairly quickly as I was excited about putting it together and playing with it!

I turned to the dads and asked their advice and Dave came up with the idea of using Halfords car paints for ease of use and cheapness (£6.50 a can). Rich and Steve came up with a colour scheme of mustard yellow - kind of like the colour scheme on the box. I haven't got an airbrush though so Dave suggested to use the hairspray and salt weathering method instead. Now I haven't done this before so thought it would be exciting to give it a go!

Firstly I split the bits up into four parts and blu-tacked them to 4 pizza boxes - 2 x wall panels, 1 x floor panels and accessories and 1 x metal bit so that will just be sprayed black then Leadbelcher.

Laying the terrain out ready for spraying

Unboxing and Review - Terrain Crate Gang Warzone from Mantic - Part 1

As you may realise Steve and I (James) have been getting into Necromunda recently and have been playing through the missions on the board in the box set. We are now nearly through them now though and I have been looking around trying to find some terrain that is suitable both price wise and that will cross over and work for Necromunda and Warhammer 40k.

As you may know I have been experimenting with TT Combat's laser cut terrain which I reviewed the large crates HERE and the drum barrels HERE.

I was impressed with both sets and have been considering getting one of their industrial terrain sets. However, I just haven't been able to commit as I just don't like the look of the lasercut terrain.

Therefore I have been looking out and stumbled across Mantic's terrain crate series - in particular the gang warzone and industrial sets.

Mantic's Gang Warzone

I then read some mixed reviews of them but thought that the look, the price (which is very reasonable from Goblin Games!) and the fact that they are modular ticked all my boxes. In the end I got too excited and pulled the trigger on this box set...

My purchase - Mantic's Terrain Crate Gang Warzone

Shipping Containers painting update

Thought I'd post a quick update on my progress on the large crates that I bought from TT Combat with the little hobby time I have had.

For my review of TT Combat's kit check out the 2 posts - Part 1 and Part 2.

I want to get a bunch of these containers and so I decided to use these 2 as my pilots to find the simplest and most effective way of painting them in a short space of time. I thought that I would paint the large crate red as a base as I have a Dragon Red army painter spray can and the small crate blue as I would have to brush paint it.

Priming
I used Chaos black spray to prime the wood and I was surprised that 1 coat was fine for coverage as I had read a lot about lasercut wood soaking up the paint but no such problems here.

Primed with Chaos Black

Base Coat
The red base coat went on fine and provided a good base colour too. This was fairly quick with the can so all good so far.

Based with Army Painter Red Dragon Spray

The blue paint took a little longer to brush on but not significantly to warrant spending any more money for different coloured spray paints. Also I needed to do 2 thin coats because of streaking but again my tank brush coped perfectly well with the task. In all time difference to base coat each crate was only 5 minutes or so longer with the brush.

Based with Mordian Blue by Brush