Necromuncy

By now you probably know the story of much of my original gaming collection being given to friends 25 years ago, sitting in said friend's girlfriend's dad's garage and ultimately being returned to me a couple of years ago.

Well, amongst the haul was my original 1995 copy of Necromunda.

Of all the boxes games I owned in my youth, this and Bloodbowl saw by far the most action. The reasons for this were a combination of their smaller scale (requiring less time and buy in) and the campaign features (meaning that games carried more weight).

Necromunda particularly took off when I moved in with my friends Tom and Will after finishing university.

We each had a couple of gangs: I had Orlocks and Ratskins, Will had Cawdor and Redemptionist its and Tom (who I only now realise this) had Goliaths, Delaques, Scavvies, Spyrers and Van Saars (or were these Will's...anyway, I digress).

The sprawling gang war that ensued saw the terrain that came in the original box and the Outlanders supplement take a bit of a battering, as there were periods where the game was being played, and the terrain assembled and disassembled, almost every day.

Will and Tom would play numerous games whilst I was at work and then politely enquire if I'd like to play against their massively advanced gangs.

I'm still traumatised by Tom's Delaque sniper who could (in my nightmares) shoot round corners.

This obsessive love of the game was one of the major reasons I left much of my collection with them when I moved out of London, but, as I'm sure you'd imagine, it also meant the cardboard took a bit of a battering, with tears and wear on display all over. With some areas just ripped in two.

And so, when I decided a couple of weeks ago to try to bring this well loved terrain set back to life, I knew that I had a job on my hands.

My fist step was to look at how others might have gone about restoring their terrain and I came across a video from Oli's Battle Barn which was extremely useful in breaking the process down into simple steps, making the task seem manageable and also suggested a few tips and tricks that I adopted.

If you are thinking of doing something similar, I'd strongly suggest giving the video a watch.

The first step was getting the cardboard into better shape which involved several steps:

1: Removing as much of the sellotape (yes, sellotape) that had been used to hold some areas together as I could.

2: Fixing ripped corners and reinforcing weaker areas with additional supports (being careful to ensure that there was still space for the bulkheads to slot in.

3. Using PVA to strengthen frayed corners and edges.

4. Flattening out the card, which was done by carefully ironing (yes, ironing) using a low heat (and no steam) before placing pieces between heavy books.

Although the result was not perfect, it was enough that would allow the set to go together again without further damage.

As finishing touches, I painted (to be fair, the yellow and black were done with Sharpies) all of the edges and folds, along with a few tears and the remaining sellotape, before hitting the visible surfaces with a matt varnish.

The varnishing was done primarily to reduce the shine (I do like to take the occasional photo) and also to better hide some of the dings and creases that the original gloss finish made horribly obvious.

I then turned my attention to the bulkheads, which needed washing (to remove 30 years of dust and grime) and the mould lines removing before I hit them with a black undercoat.

I proceeded to sponge them with two very old and half finished pots of Chainmail paint that I had knocking about and never used. I used this method rather than opting for a wash as the volume of surface area would have cost me a small fortune in Nuln Oil (yes, I know I could make my own, but I couldn't be bothered).

For the rust, I then sponged on some Mournfang Brown and Ryza Rust in places before hitting areas that didn't look quite right (mainly the parts the sponge couldn't get to) with some Dirty Down rust, which I later matt varnished as it came out too shiny for me.

As a final touch I added a few graffiti transfers that had come in the Judge Dredd: I am the Law boxed set.

I avoided the transfers that were too Mega City One coded or too dark to be visible and now have a smattering of gang tags around the board.

And then, with only a little bit of swearing and struggle, I assembled everything...

...and was immediately transported back to being a giddy teenager with a pretty full table set up of vertical terrain, useful for all sorts of sci-fi and post-apocalyptic games.

I'm intending to give the the Gorkamorka terrain I built a few weeks ago the same edging and varnish treatment, which will allow me to include them in my set up and it will then comfortably fill a 4'x4' table with the addition of a few barrels and barricades.

I am delighted with how this has all turned out and I'm now fairly motivated to get some more of my Necromunda backlog finished and perhaps encourage a few games to be played.

Acquired: 83

Painted: 225

Lead Mountain: 613

Orktober's End

I wasn't planning to have an Orky themed month, but it's sort of turned out that way. So what better way to end the month than by sending the Orks to Waaargh!

And given that Pete was fielding his Space Wolves it was sort of Halloween themed - wolves are Halloweeny, right?

I fielded almost all of my Orks in a 1400 point list for 5th edition 40k which has some glaring issues: namely, mobs that are too small and a distinct lack of anti-tank capability or anti-power armour weapons.

Warboss

Big-Mek with Shokk Attack Gun

Goffs (Nob, 15 Slugga & Choppa)

Bad Moons (Nob, 9 Shootas, 2 Big Shootas)

Evil Sunz (Nob, 9 Slugga & Choppa, Trukk)

Grotz (Runtherd, 24 Gretchen)

Nobs (2 Slugga & Choppa, 1 Power Klaw, 3 Kombi-Skorcha, Painboy, Trukk)

Deff Skulls Tankbustas (6 Rokkit Launchers)

Warbuggies (Skorcha, 2 Big Shootas)

Big Guns (2 Lobbas)

Killa Kan

Gobsmasha (Looted Wagon with Boomgun)

We were playing the annihilation mission (which wasn't great news for my easy to kill mobs) and I deployed first, putting my Mek in a good firing position and the Goffs clscreened by the Grotz, ready to get stuck in.

Pete turned up with a Space Wolf force ready to rumble (I may get details mixed up):

Wolf Priest

10 Blood Claws

10 Grey Hunters (with Wolf Banner)

9 Sky Claws

5 Wolf Guard

5 Scouts

3 Thunder Wolves

Venerable Dreadnought

Predator

Vindicator

He started by deploying his Wolf Priest with the Blow Claws and the Grey Hunters. He put all of them in cover and out of sight of my Shokk Attack Gun.

I clearly had him scared...

Ork Turn 1

There's not much to report other than my army arrived and rushed forwards, the Nobs' Trukk helping them to get up to support the Goffs, followed more sedately by the Bad Moons and Killa Kan.

One of my flanks was secured by the Buggies and Tankbustas, whilst the Gobsmasha and Evil Sunz patrolled the other.

Space Wolf Turn 1

The Sons of Russ arrived in force and proceeded to hide from most of my 'horde', heading down the flank guarded by the buggies.

My two big shootas and Skorcha were going to make all those power-armoured transhumans backed up by a tank pay for their cowardice.

Meanwhile, in the centre, the Blood Claws ploughed into the Grotz and, in an outcome that will surprise nobody, slaughtered all of them with no damage done in return.

One-nil to the Space Wolves, but they had fallen into my kunnin' trap.

Ork Turn 2

Waarrrgghhh!

Orks surged forwards and the Goffs and Nobz barrelled into the Blood Claws, cutting them and the Wolf Priest down, but losing lots of Orks in return before consolidating back into cover to await the inevitable countercharge if the Thunder Wolves.

Meanwhile the Buggies and Tankbustas managed to slay a smattering of Marines (certainly not enough), the Gobsmasha obliterated a single Thunder Wolf and the Shokk Attack Gun began it's long series of missing its target...the Vindicator.

I shall not be mentioning the Big Mek again.

However, at this point I was leading 2-1. Let's hold on to that thought.

Space Wolf Turn 2

The Space Wolf main force advanced on my flanking units of Buggies and opened fire.

Somehow these lightly armoured vehicles weathered the storm, but all three were shaken, stunned or immobilised and so hadn't given up their kill points...yet.

In the centre, my hopes of repelling the Thunder Wolves were dealt a somewhat fatal blow when the Vindicator managed to drop a shell on top of my Nobz unit, killing them all, along with the Warboss.

When the Thunder Wolves ploughed into Goffs, there just weren't enough bodies to hold them back and the Boyz were beaten, ran down and eaten.

Pete was now 4-2 up an I wouldn't be seeing the lead again any time soon.

Ork Turn 3

Everything that could opened fire on the Thunder Wolves who proceeded to pass an offensive amount of armour and cover saves.

The only achievement of the turn was a humble Lobba immobilising the Venerable Dreadnought.

Space Wolf Turn 3

Now, things got messy.

The Grey Hunters charged into the Tankbustas, wiping them out in close combat; the Sky Claws hacked at the Skorcha, leaving it immobilised and weaponless, and the Predator blew up my Wartrakk.

The jammy Thunder Wolves pounced on the Gobsmasha, and tore it open with a power fist.

Meanwhile, the Scouts finally showed up, shoving a melta-bomb up the exhaust pipe of the Evil Sunz Trukk, killing all but four of them.

The Space Wolves were now leading 7-2 and was running out of things to throw at them.

Ork & Space Marine Turn 4

The writing was on the wall. Although the Killa Kan managed to finish off the Thunder Wolves at last, I had nothing left to give.

The Sky Claws pounced on the Lobbas and the Bad Moons were only saved from annihilation by tactical removal of casualties.

We called the game with the score at something like 9-3 to the Space Wolves.

***

So, I lost. However, I was pretty certain that this would be the case and the game was really good in firming up a few things that I need to address:

1) my mobs need to be bigger to be able to stand their ground;

2) I probably need to put theTankbustas in one of the Trukks to get them closer quicker;

3) more power klaws.

More importantly, it was apparent that there's something about losing with Orks that feels different. Narratively, they're just enjoying the scrap, and so you do the same.

If you get into the Ork mentality, you can't actually lose.

That's what I'll be telling myself, anyway.

Road Trip

A couple of weekends ago, Matt and I took the somewhat regular trip down the A1 to Newark and the Partizan wargames show (or was it The Other Partizan; I'm never sure which is which).

Neither of us was looking out for anything in particular, just browsing to see if anything took our fancy, especially if it was a bargain.

We'd barely got through the door before we were both handing over our hard earned cash.

The thing is with the Partizan shows, is that they've taken to putting bring and buy stalls in a covered area outside of the main door, which means that we were immediately caught up in bargain city.

Matt grabbed some extra Gorkamorka Orks to beef up his mob and I scooped up some very reasonably priced movement trays for my Sharp Practice British.

Matt then pointed me in the direction of an old-style Ork Warbuggy and Warbike which proved impossible to resist given that the price was very reasonable.

I've wanted one of these Ork Warbuggies ever since they came out (they are part of the Gorkamorka range) as I really like the Noddy-car aesthetic (I'm wishing I'd done it in yellow and red now).

I was delighted to find that despite already being assembled, everything was present with the only slight issues being a bend in the flag pole (fixed with hot water) and part of the hinge on the gun being broken (but this turned out to be a benefit as I'll discuss later).

In terms of painting, I went for my usual Agrax Earthshade heavy approach followed by a bit of weathering via sponge.

The only part of any real interest is the bit of freehanding I did on the front. It's the same design I did on a shoulder pad a couple of weeks ago, but I think it came out well.

The biker was also complete and unassembled, with the rider still on sprue. Genuinely I think the seller could have got much more for it on eBay, but I'm grateful they didn't.

I still had a single Gorkamorka body and a second edition arm knocking about and decided to use these to add a little variation.

The bikes of this period all had the same rider and I figured that the next one I get my hands on (as I still need at least one more for a unit) might be already assembled and leave me no choice.

 
The only other detail of note about these two vehicles is that I've put them together in a way that allows the crew to be removed.

This was in part facilitated by the broken hinge on the buggy's gun, meaning that the connection point is not to tight to prevent easy removal.

What this means is that these two vehicles are now much better for use in Gorkamorka than my existing Wartrakk and Warbike where the crew are glued in place.

I now just st need to work out what I'm going to do about flags

The rest of Partizan didn't see us spending very much money, but we did get to have a good look around at the display games.

I'm often a bit envious of what people are able to put together but I try to keep in mind that these are clubs working together and clearly people with much more storage space than me.

It's also interesting to see periods, settings and scales which I've never played, and probably never will play.

However, all the excellent terrain on display does motivate me to get back to my Venice board for Carnevale.

Perhaps my favourite display was depicting the confrontation between Aslan's army and the forces of the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

A whole range of fantastical beasts had been sourced from a variety of sources to field the two armies in what was clearly a labour of love.

Very much up my street.

Although Too Fat Lardies weren't actually in attendance at the show (they usually are) a demo game of Sharp Practice allowed me to bend Matt's ear about it enough that when we got back from the show he took advantage of the discount on their website (due to then not being at the show) and bought the rules.

I consider that a win.

All in all, it was a really successful day.

Acquired: 82

Painted: 178

Lead Mountain: 659

The Neverborn

There is a special place in my heart for those times when I manage to squeeze extra value out of Games Workshop.

And so, when I built a Daemon Prince for my Tzeentch Daemon army, I kept the spare parts, which made up almost a whole upper body, in the hope that I'd be able to locate some suitable legs at some time in the future.

Fast forward to now...and that time has arrived.

The extra parts have come mainly from the Tyranid Hive Tyrant kit, which had almost an entire lower body going spare.

Smashing these two piles of spares together, whilst muttering eldritch prayers to the dark gods had allowed me to summon up a second Daemon Prince for my army, taking up one of the two unused heavy slots in the army.

Unlike my previous Prince, this one has a much more 40k vibe thanks to the power armour, meaning it won't be pulling double duty in other games any time soon. Also, it's lack of wings will see it mainly used as a line breaker unit.

When it came to joining the Daemon parts with the Tyranid parts, they scaled together really well. The major issues were the groin area and the back of the model.

The gap in the groin was easily covered with a chainmail loincloth from the Daemon kit, whilst I found that the best answer to the torso issue was to use one of the spare head carapaces from the Trygon kit I built earlier this year.

I did experiment with trying to attach the Chaos vent things, but they would have displaced how the shoulder pauldrons sat.

Obviously, when trying to shove two different kits together, there are some rough bits, and primarily these appeared down the side of the back carapace, where significant gaps had been left.

However, one of the big advantages of kitbashing Chaos creatures in 40k is the fact that pretty much anything goes. It's the warp, innit?

Extra arms? Why not, let's use these Pink Horror arms. Space in the armpit? Let's shove these Tyranid adrenal sacks in there as some kind of buboes.

The final gap was covered by a sheathed dagger from the Lord of Change kit, and the Daemon had been spawned.

I've leaned into the colours I've used previously in the army, meaning that he's loosely wearing the colours of the Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines.

Chaos Space Marines can have Daemon Princes too. Does this mean I've just started another army?

Anyway, a terrifying Daemon has stepped of af the aether, formed of nothing but the echoes of what has come before.

And it didn't cost me a penny!

Acquired: 82

Painted: 176

Lead Mountain: 661

Angels & Demons

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, my happy place in this hobby is getting use out of miniatures in unforseen ways, and this week my attention fell onto a handful of old Wargames Factory models who have been unwillingly drafted into two different holy wars.

The models in question are four plastic Numidian infantry that I had still lying around from way back when I was putting together a Carthaginian army for Warhammer Ancient Battles.

These very simple miniatures had already proved somewhat versatile in that they had provided me with two units of Numidian skirmishers and bulked out my unit of Iberian light infantry.

I'm not sure why I'd left four of them unused, but I was struck with 'divine' inspiration of how to use one of them whilst I was rushing in my bits box recently.

I stumbled on a spare arm from when I built my Pink Horrors for 40k which had feathers sprouting out of it and I was reminded of the Cherubim in Carnevale.

These are altar boys who are forced to undergo a horrific and painful transformation into divine seraphim by the Vatican faction.

As my Vatican force is already mainly kitbashed, I set out trying my own hand at some heavenly transformation.

The process involved little more than attaching a Pink Horror arm to the Numidian body and replacing the hand with the end of a Screamer's tail. A few other feathers were attached here and there and his foot was removed to echo one of the official models. The process was finished off with a head from Crooked Dice and the morning star from a Heroquest Orc to stop him flying away.

All in all, I'm quite pleased with the job I've done. He's a bit bulky and muscular for an altar boy, but that's easily explained away as part of the awful transformation.

He does look weird, but that's the point.

Whilst is was in the process of heavenly transformation, I decided to do something similar for a denizen of the Bad Place.

Specifically I wanted to make a Wretched for my unfinished Court of the Seven Headed Serpent warband for Trench Crusade.

The Wretched are poor unfortunate mortals who have fallen into the clutches of the legions of Hell and suffer psychological and physical agony as they are driven into battle.

For this conversion I used the head of a Chainrasp from Age of Sigmar that I had left from a unit I had given to my nephew. Finding and positioning an arm to fit with the hand in the stocks was the trickiest part of this process, but I figured that dowsing the wrist in blood effect technical paint would hide any awkwardness.

A liberal dollop of blood on his skeletal visage is meant to sell the idea that his face has been flayed off, which I'm not sure I like as an idea that has come out of my head.

The only thing I don't really like about this miniature is that I forgot to clean the mould lines off before it was too late.

I still have two more bodies to use and I could easily just do a second version of each of these conversions, but I'm tempted to do something different with them.

A Rashaar Slave for Carnevale is an easy choice apart from the fact that they are pretty much useless in game and I already have four of them.

I'm a little tempted to have a go at making some Caesar's Legion for Fallout Wasteland Warfare, but just having two of them wouldn't really be that useful.

I'll just have to see what inspiration strikes me.

Acquired: 81

Painted: 175

Lead Mountain: 661

Old Boyz

I am probably at my happiest in this hobby when I am finding ways to use miniatures beyond their original intention.

I enjoy kitbashing, printing and converting, especially when it means I can use something I already own rather than buying something new and shiny.

That's why the blog is called Cheaphammer and why I'm always surprised that I took so long to realised that 40k Orks are my spiritual home.

Recent forays into Gorkamorka moved my brain into an Orky space and so when I completed the somewhat rigidly specific Napoleonic British, it was only natural that the freewheeling spirit of Orks would call to me.

Also, it's Orktober.

However, the only unpainted Orks I owned were a handful of monopose (sort of, they have different weapons) Heroquest Orcs.

Not to be deterred I set about trying to make them look 40k enough by adding pouches and armour plates. I also swapped a morning star for the head of a power axe I had lying around, and I used a single Orks slugga from the bits box, although this did required a bit of arm repositioning.

With me only having a single slugga, guns were a slight issue and I couldn't really just give them all holsters like the one with the axe.

However, I still had half a dozen plastic Goliath arms from the original Necromunda plastics. Although horribly proportioned for the models they were intended for, the hands were suitably sized for Orks.

A few hand swaps later, a few blades added to belts and hands and I had five new/old boyz.

I painted them up as Goffs to help bulk out my existing unit (10 Orks is never enough) and painted them in the same style.

They only bit of this process of note was realising that Goff checks looked weird on a space marine should pad, and so I freehanded an Ork glyph, which I'm quite proud of (again, Orks are quite forgiving in this area).

All in all, I love them. They are a bit goofy and static, but they'll blend into the horde without too much fuss.

Importantly, they cost me nothing and they make this old boy smile.

Acquired: 78

Painted: 173

Lead Mountain: 660