Days of Rust (Part 2)

In Days of Rust Part 1 I talked about The Doctor's initial work on this project as well as our playing of the Necromunda starter scenario. Excited and rejuvenated by this experience Dr TSG returned to his man cave, with airbrush in hand, and has made considerable progress on his Zone Mortalis tiles.

"These are the paints I used, over an automotive primer."

"I layed down the purple over the primer, then came in with the raven black and dark rust mixture. Then, I added the red earth mixed with a little purple and raven black. Then highlighted with red earth." -Dr. TSG.

What follows is essentially a photo dump of his progress so far. He told me that this is the results of about 3.5 hours of work. Enjoy!

So far, so... grimdark!

Days of Rust (Part 1)

Welcome back to the Underhive, where decay and rust chart the march of time and industrial entropy. To commemorate knowing each other for 30 years now*  my good friend Dr TSG came down to hang out for a day over Labor Day weekend. He brought with him the current Necromunda boxed set along with some Zone Mortalis Battlefield Network wall sections and tiles.

Zone Mortalis sections prepped for priming.

He is going for a rusty industrial decayed look with the painting on the tiles which complements the pieces from the Necromunda boxed game just perfectly. He also pointed out that the sections work perfectly with the Necromunda tiles, so instead of playing with blacked out areas, he intends to use the Zone Mortalis sections for his Necromunda games.

Zone Mortalis tile. 

The Doctor has been studying a variety of techniques and tips in preparation for this (and other) projects. He shared a lot of this knowledge with me and also pointed me in the direction to do some research of my own. For example I was unaware that there was actually a periodical devoted to the topic! And it is very good and we both highly recommend it. As he sends me updates and photos I shall continue to share them in this Days of Rust thread.

With time limited we decided to give the game a go. The Goliath and Esher gangers from the boxed game were not yet assembled so we decided to use older models. I used the original Goliath miniatures from the '90s and he played with some old Orlocks and Future Warriors miniatures to represent the Esher.

The gangs set up.

We played the Starter Scenario that uses the inside of the box top as the board. This was definitely different but a pretty straightforward way to learn these new rules. We found that,  unlike Kill Team, this book wasn't as easy to reference and seemed to be written more for people to read through casually.  Which makes figuring out (for example) all the rules for how being Pinned works a bit of a challenge.

End of Round one.

Once we figured it out by the end of Turn 1 we felt confident about how this game plays. I had taken a model Out of Action and we had pinning figured out. By the end of Turn Two we had very few gangers still standing and we were having fun when we had to pack it all in due to the store closing. (The store's Sunday hours changed from 6 to 5!). We didn't declare a winner, since it seemed to be fairly even-handed, and the whole session was really just a learning exercise.

What movie did I see this in? I'm sure it was a comedy...

One thing I liked about this (the new Kill Team sort of does this too) were the pre-generated stat cards. It is a great way to learn the game or to quickly assemble one for a spontaneous gaming session. I would like to see GW do more in this area. It is nice to see them, once again, embrace the "Games" in their name.

My gang.

It was good to see The Dr again and to catch up on stuff, and we had a good time exploring Necromunda.

*(1988; a few months later he, and a few other friends, would introduce me to Warhammer 40,000.)

Happy New Year from Necromunda! And another White Dwarf Rant

Here we are in 2012! Hey, only 1,000 years from 2112! ROCK!!!! Anyway, I spent New Years Eve with my old pal, the anonymous "Dr." and we played a 2nd game of Necromunda, the 1st one having been played around the 4th-of-july last year. Strangely enough, neither of us have ever painted our Necromunda models. The models seen in these pics he acquired in a trade from the old friend that he named his gang after. Above is Scottie and Mr. Hiser. He named his gang after friends and people we knew in High School, I named my gang after people in his current gaming circle. All in fun, and also in a 'wish you were here' spirit as well.

The scenario was the one where the two gangs have to collect loot counters. It was a pretty awesome set up, and although I got in the 1st shots, it was those two models in the top pic that won the game! See these two red shirts in the foreground? See those two on the bridge in the background? My Juv (the one on the right) shot and pinned his Gang Leader, who, in the next turn, got up and downed the Juv! While his juv, Scottie, downed the ganger with the shot gun! And, to make matters worse, I failed the 1st bottle test either of us had to make!

This left him with the field held as my gang bolted from the scene. He was already holding onto 2 loot counters to my... none. He racked in the dough in the post-game for sure! Oddly, most of my gangers received skill advances in the post game. The next game should be interesting as a result.

Good fun, but it really does make me want to get my own Van Sar gang more than ever so we can both have fully painted gangs for these encounters.

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A New Year's Resolution? Since every other gaming blog has at least one, why not? How about I resolve to get as many unfinished minis that are currently on my painting station done in 2012?

Heck, this alone could be a blog: just talking about the minis living out their existance on my table! Have fun picking out what they all are! And, before someone asks, this pic does not include the previously blogged about Land Raider and Drop Pods (but look closely and you might spot the Land Speeder Typhoon!) because there is is simply no room for them here! :)

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And on to a brief 'What is going on with White Dwarf!?' sorta rant. The above image was taken from the GW website where you can also find this statement: "January's White Dwarf will be released on Saturday, January 7th. Subscriptions should be expected within 10 days from that date."

This makes for the 1st time in my memory that I didn't have a shiny new White Dwarf to drool into around, or at, xmas! This is also the 2nd time in recent months that they played with White Dwarf's release schedule to accommodate an element of (what they think will be) surprise about a new release (they did this with the Dreadfleet launch also). Now, the content of WD, which followers of this blog have seen me rant about before, has improved. However there is a new problem:

I haven't received my subscription in the mail for 2 months in a row! In fact, I have had to make arrangements with Customer Service (who I have to state have been, and always have been, marvelous to work with) to receive my last two issues (way late I might add) which makes this whole jerky-rescheduling of the release date game they're playing even more annoying! I might not get the next issue until the 21st! Now, I'm like the only person I know who actually subscribes to this magazine any more (the others left when the content did), and this is somewhat begrudgingly considering they don't offer any real deals with it anymore. I think you get the approximation of a 'free issue' and the option to BUY a Limited edition model! Rewind this back to the '90s when you'd get a free small boxed set or, hell, at one point they were giving away Gorka Morka boxed sets! And it was significantly cheaper than buying it from the local game stores.

So, as a subscriber, I'm feeling a bit jaded. I'm thinking I will not re-subscribe but rather I will get it locally. This will allow me to get it before subscribers do (which isn't supposed to be the case BTW), but it won't be mangled by the post office, and if I really want the limited edition model, I can just get the near perfect knock-off from China after awhile... :/

Deodorant Tank parade on 4th of July weekend

Obviously 4th of July weekend was weeks ago, but as you might guess my schedule has prevented this update from being timely. During said weekend, I visited an old friend of mine in Cincinnati (we shall call him 'Doctor'), He was in the process of cleaning out a lot the extras and overstock that he has accumulated over a period of  2 decades of being in the GW hobby, and also working on his Dark Angels. While doing so, he noticed he had a lot more of the original Rogue Trader era Predator tanks than he thought! Which led to us discussing what the Iron Wing was supposed to be, and if GW were to ever elaborate on it, how they intended it to function etc. (The Iron Wing, BTW, was the mechanized vehicle arm of the Dark Angels, discussed only once - as far as I can tell- in early Epic materials), Then he pulls out the deodorant tank!

Yes, somewhere, he acquired this thing in a trade, we're pretty sure from an old HS buddy. The missile launcher on it's side is made from Legos!

On the other side we have an oddly place satellite /radar dish which appears to be the hatch from a Rhino tank, as are the handle in front of it.

The turret is an actual original Predator tank turret, only that it doesn't swivel and is therefore set up for fixed fire. This was the reason the Doctor pulled this out; he intends to break it back down and restore the turret back to a Predator chassis. He told me this after I got such a great kick out of this that I even offered to paint it! "No, I'm going to reuse that turret!"

Back in the early days of Rogue Trader, anything went! The deodorant tank was merely the poor-boy's quick option for vehicle that look 'sci-fi-ish' with just the right amount of imagination and bit of paint.

We also played Necromunda.

None of the models are mine, and most of these the Doctor also acquired in trades over the years. I played the Van Sars (in Xmas red) and he played the painted Orlocks. We spent some time setting up scenery and creating our gangs, and then we played. Here is my side of the field, with a Heavy (with a Heavy Plasma gun) hiding and in overwathc, with my Gang leader and the 2 juves.

He got in the 1st shot of the game, pinning one of my guys on the tower. Here's my guy on the high spire targeting his two gangers. This pic was taken for LOS purposes was never intended to be a blogging pic, but why not? He has a pic of the same situation from his vantage point (if he sends it I'll post it).

Here's my guy taking a shot at a target below. On another turn he'd throw a grenade through that window taking out a heavy and a his gang leader, an action that would force a bottle test which would end the game. The thing about Necromunda is, it's not ALL in the actual game, but the post game. We both did fairly well I recall, however next time we meet, he will be the one bringing in the giant-killer bonus! This is the 2nd time using Van Sar models I don't own to play this game, and I really need to commit myself to tracking those models down and painting a gang for myself.

-Joel