Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Necromunda - Ash Wastes Nomads

With the initial Necromunda campaign well underway, I've been giving some further thought to the next one. Where the Dust Falls campaign is set about halfway up the hive, not too far below The Wall, the upcoming one will be set all the way down at ground level, at the Sump and near one of the outer walls. As part of the setting I'm intending to include a bit of territory outside the hive representing a portion of the exterior ash wastes, and that gave me an excuse to build some Ash Waste Nomads!


I had picked up a number of tallarn-esque torsos from Reptilian Overlords ( https://www.reptilian-overlords.com/ ) and was super pleased with the quality of the bits. I knew that I wanted to mix them with the Genestealer Cult bits mostly because motorbikes, and was really pleased with how well they went together with just a little greenstuff here and there to fill some gaps and de-cult-ify the models a touch.

 

One of the things I loved about the old Necromunda tules were all of the add-ons folks had done in the various magazines, including rules for vehicles in the Ash Wastes. As I was using the Jackals to make bikes, it only made sense to carry on and put together a Ridgerunner. Bodged a harpoon from the Orlock gang set which I think helps sell the aesthetic!

 

Figured since I was doing a Ridgerunner it only made sense to include a Goliath as well. Just a basic crew swap on this one, the cannon and gunner are separate to facilitate painting, and to allow it to be used as a more generic vehicle in scenarios as well.

 

And then of course things got weird. Got a bit of a wild hair to do some further vehicles and looking over the rules got me thinking it would be fun to do examples from all the various motive types (bike, wheeled, walker, tracked, skimmer and crawler), so next up is what I'm dubbing a Formicidae Ashwalker, a six-legged flatbed hauler. Using bits from an old Robogear Spider, a Sentinel, and some other miscellaneous bits from the vehicle bitsboxes, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out!


I'm still debating what color scheme to go with for the Nomads, whether to do them up in drab greys, tans, and browns so they blend in with the dunes, or in bright hazard orange and yellow, to reflect them wanting to be high-viz for rescue in case of storms, ash-slides and whatnot. In the meantime I got stuck in painting the cargo piles - I tried my hand at making some tarps to partially cover the loot using some kleenex dipped in a mix of PVA glue and water, then sort of laid over and mooshed into place to dry. I have to say I'm quite happy with the result, and will definitely be doing more of them in the future!

All in all a fun start to a new project! As with most of the Necromunda stuff they're small self-contained groups, though this one is looking to be a little bigger than the usual 10-15 models a gang includes. In the future I'm going to build out further generic vehicles for various gangs to use in some of the scenarios bubbling away in the back of my mind...

18 comments:

  1. Great conversions, sometime ago I made rules for the ash wastes you can check them out here: http://noigrimintothemaelstorm.blogspot.com/2018/08/necromunda-ash-wastes.html

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  2. Not wishing to detract from the very nice force you have created but they look more like a branch of the Imperial guard than nomads. The previous Fanatic versions, and the earlier still mini versions, as well as the recent artwork you can find on the net are more `characterful'.

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    1. Indeed, these guys are a bit more on the traveling prospector/miner side of the design docket rather than the 'rag-tag scum of the wastelands' sort of vibe. I still have some of the old ash wastes Fanatic minis, but I don't have the bits or sculpting talents to really go too far down that path. I'm working off of the old docs by Robert Reiner (Arbitrator General) and these guys fall more into the Hive Prospector Team/PDF Deserter Gang side, really. I'm just rolling them up under the Ash Wastes Nomads header...

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  3. http://leadplague.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-dustfarers-ash-waste-nomads-between.html

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    1. Indeed! That sort of very shabby look falls more on the Scavvy/Mutie side of the aesthetic, which I definitely like, but isn't what I'm envisioning with these guys. There are plans afoot to do some scavvys and muties though and there will be some blast-from-the-past minis seeing the light of day!

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  4. Wow, this is a great project! and that blue tarp is very well realized what colors did you use for it?

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    1. Cheers! The blue is a 50/50 mix of Vallejo Royal Blue and Shadow Grey (which I use as the base color for my Heresy World Eaters blue, it's a nice desaturated blue), highlighted with a little bit of Ice Blue on some of the edging. Once that was done I did a little bit of Army Painter Strong Tone in some of the recesses and to make some stains.

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  5. Excellent! I want to get some more of those Bikes for Necromunda as well, tho probably for my Orlocks rather than Ash Nomads. From the very start, I had it in mind that the Rust Bucket Crew do caravan guard work as well as underhive stuff.

    That Ridgerunner came out just about perfect. I wish GW had gone with a look more like that for the Missile Launcher on the official one.

    Note that Imperial tank hatches fit perfectly in the spot for the Goliath's gun mount, so it's really easy to use one of those to run it as a completely unarmed Vehicle when you want to.

    Def going to have to add some tarps like that to some of my Scatter Terrain piles. Thanks for reminding me about the technique!

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    1. For sure! I'm going to do a few more bikes for other gangers as well, the Orlocks would be perfect as they already have that 'biker gang' vibe to 'em! Good call on the gun mount on the Goliath, I'm thinking about ways to make it multi purpose/generic. An excellent suggestion!

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  6. Great work! The new Cult vehicles seem to have inspired a number of great conversion ideas around the web.

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    1. Thanks! Aye, as soon as I saw the Ridgerunner and bikes I knew I had to do some sort of project using 'em!

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  7. Great use if parts as ever chief, always wonderful to see your out of the box thinking.

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  8. Absolutely stunning builds - a really impressive-looking gang & vehicles. I'm looking forward to seeing these painted.

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  9. Neat! Loving these builds and hearing about this campaign.

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