Convergence of Dominion, Element 3

The final component in this series is the piece that has had most of its stonework fall away from its surface, revealing the strange alien metal beneath. 

In some ways, this is the one that I feel least comfortable with. The main reason for this is the sheer extent of the hard metal surface on display here. Lots of plank and smooth surface makes for a tough painting challenge regardless of what miniature it is placed upon. I've taken a dry brush and weathering approach to the large black areas here, and tried to suggest worn metal that has been scraped over years of exposure, likely due to the stonework chipping away.

The green power nodes have been picked out with the air brush to create a glowing effect over the top of the flat areas. This provides contrast and takes the eye away from the extensive black areas. Otherwise, the remaining stonework has been picked out in the same manner as the other elements. 

This finishes the trio of necron terrain for the collection and although it has had its challenges, I'm happy with the painting approach taken overall and how it fits on to the battlefield. 

Convergence of Dominion, Element 2

The second element in the Convergence of Dominion is the half-worn away stone variation.

The painting for this piece follows the same basic approach as the first element. The stonework is contrast paint with Guilliman Flesh and the marbling effects have been achieved using a watered down black applies to the recesses and the grooves. 

Perhaps the main difference here is the increased use of the airbrush to go over the "shining" green spheres located in the centre, top, and sides of the top of the monument. More of the black and silver underneath parts are also exposed here and they have seen some weathering using metallic silver paints (e.g., lead belcher and so forth) to create a slightly worn effect, and some of the raised surface has had their bits highlighted and picked out.

I'm really liking the Convergence of Dominion -- it is a great addition to my (far too extensive) terrain collection!

Convergence of Dominion, Element 1

This is the first of the three elements of the Convergence of Dominion that I've finally managed to get painted up. 

After undercoating in black, the surface of the stonework was painted in a light grey colour to give it enough of a base and texture to hold some contrast paint. Here, the contrast paint that was used is Guilliman Flesh. This gives a nice overall effect, and whilst there is some pooling of the ink evident (notable at the ridge line three quarters of the way down, as well as some splodges elsewhere), from a certain distance this works very well for the miniature. 

The cracks in the stone work were inked by using watered down black and carefully painting them along the cracks, as required. This step has accentuated the worn stone effect by yielding a rather nice marbling effect to the miniature that I might carry over to other paint jobs I have in mind. 

For the recesses, I have left them mostly black and given them a drybrushing of lead belcher and a few highlights. Some of the edges of the stonework are similarly highlighted along the edges.

The final step here was to use the trusty old airbrush to give the green glow effect to the central orb and other orbs along the length of the body. These other orbs are more obvious in the other pieces in the dominion set which I will post soon enough. 

Dominion of convergence: 3/3

The final part of the Dominion of Convergence is the most worn away and stripped down of the triplet. 

With this piece, it is possible to see the entire inner working of this machine. Full Necron technology on display and naked to the world save for a few bits of characteristic stonework near to the bottom of the device. The piece does look alien in origin, I'll give it that. But I'm not so sure about the whole stripping away of the stone work around the outside of the technology. It strikes me as physically rather odd looking; not withstanding the narrative of what they are supposed to be. 

In terms of construction, once again this is a very easy terrain item with minimal amount of parts being used and needed to glue together. No special notes here to make really other than to check the filing of the smoother edges prior to painting. Speaking of which, I'd better get underway with that at some point soon!

Dominion of convergence: 2/3

This is the second component of the dominion of convergence set. What I find most odd about this particular piece is the extra bit of Necron stone attached to the upper regions of the monolith. In the image below, it can be seen stuck on the front facing panel to the upper right of the monolith.

I think my feeling of oddity stems from the way it is just kind of hovering there without support. Sure, its techno-babble magic something something holding it in place - yeah I get that. But from a gravity point of view, it just feels a little bit wrong to my eyes. Further, the reverse of the piece -- which can be seen sticking out at the left hand edge of the above image -- also feels a little bit off. I might fill in the gap that can be seen in the image with a bit of green stuff to make it a bit more convincing to my eyes before I paint it up, and potentially just add a little bit of support underneath it. 

Other than this visual, I do like the piece, and I like the feeling of age that it communicates with the weathered front "rock" face being eroded away to reveal the internal technology behind. 

Dominion of convergence: 1/3

When I originally saw the release for the Dominion of convergence, I knew that I wanted to have this set as part of my (far too extensive now) scenery options. What I like about this kit is the sheer simplicity. They literally are just line of sight blocking obelisks. But they're more than that: they have the feeling that they can slot in well on almost any kind of set up outside of set-piece space hulk style battles. Even deep in the subterranean confines of hive cities and spires, they might not plausibly look out of place to drop in there. 

The putting together of these scenery items is very simple indeed. There are so few parts to be worried about, and they all slot together very nicely. My only tip is to be aware of the base that comes in two halves. It is imperative that that base lies flat to prevent wobbly model syndrome affecting this otherwise glorious looking scenery. In some following posts, I will show the others obelisks one by one with a couple of thoughts on each. More to follow. 

Thermic Plasma Conduits

Something a little different today: new terrain. It has been a long while since I turned my attention to one of my major loves of the hobby. I picked up the thermic plasma conduits as an accessory to my under hive / manufacturing forge world planet before the pandemic lock down kicked in. And I finally opened it some 12 weeks or so later. Not quite sure how I resisted, but it was one of those items that I thought to myself I would do once summer had arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. Hence the unboxing began!

What I like about this set is the same as what my indecision is about: the modularity!

I really want to generate two to three pieces out of this set and glue them together, rather than leaving it completely modular -- in other words: reduce the number of configurations that I want to worry about. But this is where I'm getting a bit stuck. I think I might assemble a few of these bits as a two-layer horizontal pipework, as per the picture on the boxed set. Then with the remaining pieces, I'm tempted to make a snake at ground level, plus maybe an upright for a bit of variation. I'm not quite sold on that yet, so drop me a line if you have the same set and let me know what you did with yours? I'm basically looking for cover terrain and large areas being covered more than these pipes laying flat on top of walkways. Choices, choices...

Zone Mortalis update

When the news broke about the new Necromunda underhive scenery being available, I was fairly excited. The new scenery pieces are amazing, and much less expensive (at least in principle) compared to the older resin pieces produced by Forge World that have been discontinued of late.

What I did not quite expect was a full-on update to the Zone Mortalis rules set to be released for the Horus Heresy at the same time! The new rules can be found via the Warhammer community website. 

Fundamentally, the new rules are not that much different to what has gone before. There's an attacker, a defender, a couple of missions, and some special rules. 

As per usual, the tight confines of the Zone mean that a player cannot select a monstrous creature, or dedicated transports. Base size limits are in effect too: no bigger than 60mm, and certainly nothing bigger than walkers. 

Terrain plays a big part still in the Zone. The rules for bulk heads are still there, along with platforms and stairs. Given the new stair wells in the plastic Necromunda kits, these rules will be cited a lot in play I believe.

I like the retention of the special firing rules, as well as the "catastrophic damage" table which is nice to see. The rules for poisoned air, or void fighting remain pretty much the same, and void enhanced armour is recommended to avoid the effects of extra rending rolls being imposed. 

Overall, I like the update. What I feel is missing is some of the more in-depth rules for various types of scenery. It might have been good to see some rules supplied for the Horus Heresy for the sector mechanicus servo-haulers for instance (the entire boxed set could readily be adapted for the Horus Heresy, I contend), along with specific conversion rules for the rest of the sector mechanicus boxed set (some of which is pictured here). Other than that - its all good!

Gloomtide Shipwreck ghostly painting

This is a bit of a work in progress, but regardless, I wanted to share the basic painting technique that I've used on this piece of scenery from the Age of Sigmar.

This piece is actually really detailed and a splendid addition to most gaming boards that feature any amount of water. Even in the grim dark future of 40k, it could readily be used for a backward feudal planet. Or maybe just random remains.

Here, I have gone with a white spray undercoat (Corax White). I added an extra layer of the same once the first was dry to ensure that the white was coming through nicely and good enough to take the next layer. In short, the next layer was a combination of Hexwraith Flame (green, upper parts) and Nighthaunt Gloom (blue, lower parts). This was followed by a dry brush of Nihilakh Oxide to bring the two colours together and create a very ghostly look that will ultimately tie in with the previous terrain pieces that I have prepared for use with this one (i.e. the blue-green shardwrack spines).

What remains now is to attend to some of the details that I do not want remaining in the ghostly colour. Namely the lower part of the ship where it touches the floor. Although, even there, I'm somewhat happy with the result remaining in this scheme to be honest!

Azyrite Ruins

When the Azyrite ruins came out, I knew that I wanted to purchase a set to paint up for my terrain collection as they looked really nice on the internet and I thought that they could readily fit in to a 40k game, as well as Age of Sigmar. 

The construction of the ruins is very, very simple. Here I have glued the parts together so that no two parts look the same. This ensures some variation for the on-looker, and players alike.

For the painting of these ruins, I have deliberately kept it basic. An undercoat of white, followed by a layer of dark brown as the base coat. This is gone over with a wash of brown-black mud colour (my own concoction) and then drybrushing with kislev flesh. This is accented with the green columns for which I have used a white basecoat and then inked with Hexwraith Flame. I find the hexwraith technical paint a very nice product to work with (largely since it does all the work, similar in some ways to the new contrast paints, except it is very livid in colour). This is doused down with a slightly darker ink before a little bit of drybrushing to help out with the details.

The overall effect is one of a very aged set of ruins, and one that looks right at home in both Age of Sigmar, as well as the grim dark future of Warhammer 40,000. 

Volkano Game Mat

One of my more recent purchases is a new game mat. This one is the "Volkano" (Volcano), produced by PWork Wargames. 

The company is based in Italy and prices their gaming mats at a comparable level to other companies that I have dealt with before who retail similar mats. As always, I opted for the neoprene version (which is the mouse mat material) since it works a lot better for my needs and preferences. The game bag comes as a separate purchase to the game mat with this company (others sell it alongside as a default), but I was happy to pay a little extra for the portability factor.

What I like about this mat is the near-realism of the detail. Zooming in on the image above, it is obvious that the makers have studied how lava surfaces look. The top level of the detail is a black to grey textured area that is clearly dried or cooled lava rock. This gives way to the runnier mantle material as we look deeper in to the mat. Some other retailers have chaos-like symbols everywhere, or other features that I didn't think contributed to the aesthetic that I was after. With this mat, I am free to interpret it as a chaos terrain board should I desire, as well as a young planet, or one suffering from a post-apocalyptic event. With this flexibility, the use of the mat is wider than ones specifically dedicated to chaos, and I cannot go past the pseudo-realism of the mat either. Top grades from me, but clearly my tastes may differ from yours(!)

Blue-Green Shardwrack Spines

I bought some new Shardwrack Spines to go with a very specific game board recently. I have painted them up in the colours that should never be seen together (according to some): blue and green.

The undercoat here is citadel spray paint Corax white. On top of this, I base coated the upper parts of the spines in a second layer of white to give them a stronger and cleaner colour to work with. The lower parts were base coated in an off-white colour - more creamy. 

Leaving the upper parts alone, I daubed a combination of ultramarine blue, brown, electric blue, and pure white on the lower portions in a very haphazard manner. When dry, the lower reaches were then soaked in a generous layer of Nighthaunt Gloom. This is I think the first time that I have used any of the Gloom paint and I do like it. However, I like the other new paint I bought a lot more: Hexwraith Flame green. This goes on top of the pure white exceptionally well to create a truly unique vibe. Although most commonly used for ghostly miniatures, I wanted the upper parts of the spines to pop a bit more thanks to this colour. 

The next step was to use Skink Blue dry paint. This was applied to the central parts to create a better looking blend between the green and blue colours of the upper and lower halves. This choice works very well with both of the technical paints that I've used here and is a great complement to them. The final steps were to pick out the spots in bright green and paint the upper part of them in yellow as an accent.

Overall the result is an alien flavour flora that looks deadly and ethereal. However, the colour scheme was not originally going to be so alien. I was more after coral. I think the effect has worked regardless and I am very pleased with it. I will show the game mat for this terrain item in the future. 

Wargames Gallery: Infestation

Deep within the rotting heart of the lower levels of the Hive spire lurks something altogether more sinister than brutish gangs in need of expedited Imperial discipline...

Salted Mechanicus

I began a salting project for my Mechanicus Scenery a while ago and have progressed significantly with it offline. Today is therefore an update on this (rather large) project. 

I commenced the project by applying salt to random parts of my terrain in clumps and lumps all over the place. This was done by simply using water and salt (the water acting as a weak glue) over the base coat. The base coat here is black. However, I have used some silver spray paint to go over the black to provide a bit of a random look to the base coat in many places. This approach was deliberate in order to get a varied look from the salting technique at the end of the day.

The next step that I undertook was to grab my air gun and spray paint the Mechanicus terrain with green paint, followed by various highlights in grubby orange colours. The first image shows the result of this step.

The globs of salt can clearly be seen still stuck to the terrain at this point (check out the left hand panel of the railing in the image above in particular - but also the other two panels of the same railing and a few other bits that can also be seen in the image. 

To proceed, I took a strong toothbrush (and at one point, a needle) and started to chip away the salt that I'd scattered over the terrain. The purpose of this is to get rid of some of the sprayed on green and orange paint to reveal the black and silver base coat beneath. The next image shows what the terrain looks like after removing the salt.

With the salt off, the specks of black and silver start to show through. Its like the green paint (or decay?) has been chipped away to reveal some fresher metal beneath. Of course, we could have inverted this process by having something brown and rusted looked at the base coat layer -- chipping away the paint in this manner would reveal the brown rust layer beneath. That's also perfectly valid. Here I have simply chosen to do it this way to reveal the original metal beneath -- it still looks solid, but the terrain looks like it has been weathered, worn, and not seen too much attention recently, which was the look I was after.

Already at this stage, the chips showing through look realistic. However, I wanted to further enhance the look of the chips. I did this by carefully applying an edge of lighter green and in some places black to the outskirts of the chipped paint. The result of this is below.

Overall this communicates a terrain piece that has been neglected for a long while and could do with a new lick of paint. As if that is going to happen in the underparts of some patulous hive city. 

There is still plenty of work to do on this terrain though. I want to pick out some of the cables (I started with a red on that connects the underside of the middle and right panel of the rail here) and get to work on splotching some muted yellows around the place to give it a muckier and more industrial look. So although the main work of the salting is now complete, there is plenty left to do with this project yet. 

Undercoated Mechanicum Terrain

Deep in the Hive Cities, lurks various pipework relays connecting to vast storage vats and arcane boilers, incinerators, and forges. 

This particular kit is one that I've had for a while in the background awaiting some work alongside the rest of the Ferratonic Incinerator and Promethian Forge terrain of Sector Mechanicus fame.

For undercoating this, I wanted to take a bit of a different approach to normal and make use of some highlighting. So instead of using just a pure black undercoat, I have applied a zigzag of silver to the surface of it, as illustrated in the image. 

What I intend to do from herein is a bit of a "salting" approach to some weathering for this piece. I intend to apply table salt to the surface and then add my layers on top of the salt. Hopefully the salt will then scrub away revealing the black and silver underneath the chipped paint and provide some authenticity to the age of this sector. Once done, I intend to apply some browns and Typhus style corrosion effects to the chipped paint work. At least, that's the idea that I have in the back of my mind right at this moment in time. We shall see how this takes shape soon!

Swamp Game Mat

One of the earlier game mats that I purchased was the Swamp mat from Deep Cut Studio.

The image below shows the mat in all its glory.

What is really interesting about the mat - artistically - is how the overall effect tends to blend in to the background, and yet the the level of detail in the mat itself is actually very high indeed.

If you click to open the image, and zoom in, you will be greeted by a huge and surprising level of detail that include individual tree roots that meander across the swamp's floor; foliage from individual trees; different colours of swamp foliage and plant life in the underlying background; several different species of plant life; and more besides.

The only thing missing is an over abundance of mosquitoes to be perfectly honest. But I will leave the flies to some Nurgle armies for the moment.

Overall, I am very impressed with this purchase. The mouse mat backing of the game mat means that it won't be slipping any time soon and the fall of die on the surface will not cause a huge clattering noise. The surface is wipe-able with a damp cloth, and anything spilt on it can be mopped up quickly with a minimum of fuss (well, maybe not red wine stains: I'm not at that level of consumer testing to be honest! ....Yet). A full 5 stars from me on this mat :)

Astromancer

Although not a new release, the Lair of the Astromancer will always hold a place in my imagination. When it first came out in its modern (ish) form, it was a set that I had wanted to get, despite my focus on 40k and 30k. However when I finally got together the money to make the purchase, (and remembered about it too, to be totally fair), it had pretty much sold out locally. And then it was no longer available online. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that the Lair of the Astromancer was probably one of those scenery items that I could live without.

But now, the temptation is back. Re-branded as the Warscryer Citadel, the new Lair of the Astromancer contains all of the old appeal, including the telescope dome at the top (but seriously: no astronomer extends their telescope *outside* the dome as pictures, the dome protects not only against rain, but wind buffeting as well folks! What, its run by an Astromancer? Well, I stand corrected), and the background fluff that it has been built atop a crashed comet that has been hurled from the heavens by Sigmar himself.

It is certainly a big scenery piece, and a central one at that. Yet I remain unconvinced that I would get much use out of it for the attached price tag. Such a shame, as should I win the lottery, it might be on the list of things to get!

Large Sector Mechanicus Forge

This is what happens when one combines a Ferratonic Incinerator to a Promethian Forge in a horizontal layout (rather than a vertical direction).

In terms of just the sheer dimensions, this is more than enough for a centrepiece item of scenery. One could easily imagine this being at high level tournaments on various boards. However, I think that to truly do a board complete justice, one may wish to have double this (i.e. two lots of each) to fully complete a board's look. This would have the knock-on effect of creating more line of sight blockages, and interesting areas to run around on top, as well as fire from. In some ways, the walkways at the top are rather exposed. Hence although my thought was "I may need more of theses sets", perhaps what is instead required is simply an abundance of ancillary pieces to finish the look of the board. In particular, the crates sold by GW provide a good counter balance to the walkways with true line of sight (solid) blocking and several of them scattered around would be a good thing to employ. Pipelines as well at ground level would be a superb addition to complement what is already here. 

I will leave it at that for today ... the snow is falling and the ice is forming thick underfoot locally ...

Vertical Forge

Carrying on from my two previous posts on the mechanicum series of scenery, today I wanted to just briefly show and demonstrate the kind of vertical arrangement that is possible when one stacks them together. 

Here I have taken some items from the Promethian Forge and some from the Ferratonic Incinerator, just to see what it looks like.

The hard reality of a centre piece scenery item like this is that I don't think I would make too many of them. And moreover, I think I would want to be playing on a smaller board as well -- say 4ft x 4ft at maximum. This gives a good "condensed" area in which to play and is very suited to kill teams and similar games. Ultimately, I think those kinds of games are probably best for such vertical arrangements. Large armies on these kinds of ensembles are tough to do (and to place). Anyway, just thought folks might like to see what is readily available to construct with a bit of forethought and planning. I reckon the piece looks good - very good in fact; but I just don't think that in a 6ft x 4ft board, it would be too appropriate to have too many multi-level items like this, unless the entire board is geared toward this type of game, or it is a simple one off central terrain item. Just some random thoughts. 

Complete Promethian Forge

Its been a little while coming, but the Promethian Forge is finally completed. 

For this scenery piece, I wanted to adopt the same modular approach that I had started to take with the Ferratonic Incinerator. Indeed, I want both of my assembled kits to be interchangeable with each other and also be transportable. Hence although this piece looks glued together in this particular configuration, it is not. The octagonal platform for instance is in two parts - one containing the chimney and one containing the other have plus the first segment of the bendy walkway. The other bend constitutes the other fragment of the overall modular design.

Having learnt my lesson the hard way with the Ferratonic Incinerator, I made sure to dry fit each and every under-hanging bit to the piece before gluing it in to place. Moreover, this meant that I could readily add the sidewalk shields or bannisters (sorry, not really sure what the correct noun is for them yet!) without worrying where the support struts actually were located. 

The kit is large, and I have intentionally made it apparently even bigger by making it occupy as much of a horizontal distance as possible. I did not want to opt for the picture on the front of the box where the curved walkways are surrounding the central octagonal platform. This serves the purpose making sure more of the board appears to be covered in scenery (to be clear, I know it is the same area, but having it more snaking around the board creates a bigger impact which is something that I want). 

In future posts later this week, I want to show the modularity of the kit in two ways. Firstly in the vertical direction, and then by combing it with the Ferratonic Incinerator to make a centre piece building. They both have their pros and cons in terms of gaming, and I'll talk through them this week.