Returning to the Underhive

The first of the big projects that we'll be tackling in the coming weeks is getting back into one of our all-time favorite games: NECROMUNDA.

This week, we've got WIP Necromunda scenery and model photos from photovore09 and forcedperfect! 

::THE SKINNY::
Holy crap, this game is AWESOME.  Seriously.  If you haven'theard of it, I'm not surprised.  It was effectively shelved shortly after its release in 1995 when Games Workshop realized that they'd made the perfect consumer-side miniature skirmish game:  one that you didn't have to continually buy more stuff to enjoy.  


In fact, it's been so written off that you can download the rules for free from the "Specialist Games" section of the Games Workshop website.  As such, I recommend that you stop reading this right now and go get it, because it's just that great.


Got it?  Kickass.  Moving along...


This game is about rival gangs fighting through the ruins of the lowest levels of the sooper-dark techno-goth megacities of the 41st Millenium, on one of the worst planets in the Games Workshop universe.  Say what you want about their business practices, those guys know how to write a kickass backstory. 


Basically picture a totally lawless environment populated with people willing to kill each other in exciting ways to compete for scarce resources while, several miles' worth of grime and steel above all this, mega rich people eat space caviar and pretend like the whole thing isn't happening (or occasionally put on predator costumes and go downstairs to hunt the gangers for sport.  No, seriously).


::BUILDING HORRIBLE PLACES::
So my best friend photovore and I have been playing this game since it first came out back when we were in high school.  The thing that drew us most to it is sadly the thing you won't get with the freebie version:  THIS THING CAME WITH A WHOLE 3-D CITY TO FIGHT IN.


I'm serious, it was the coolest thing ever.  I always liked building scenery for our 40K games way back in first and second edition (yeah, we're that old), but this thing was good to go out of the box.  All you needed were a box of gang fighters (I think the gang boxes went for like 30-40 bucks back then) and you were theoretically golden.  Forever.  


And the greatest part about it was that the combat was totally based around this idea of a 3-D environment- lots of lining up targets that you may or may not have been able to peg because they were above/ below you, hauling 28mm ass up a bunch of stairs and ladders so you could bash someone's head in with a rusty axe, getting shot off of a four-story high catwalk en route to said bashing, etc.  Really engaging stuff.


Anyway, photovore still has two old original Necromunda sets and its expansion, Outlanders, and we'll probably be using some of those buildings in our new game. 


But let's face it.  We're older now.  We've had grown up jobs.  We worked around the clock and didn't have time for our games.  This lends an interesting variable to the equation that didn't exist when we were younger:


We can afford power tools.


So photovore has been hard at work up in Minneapolis making a gigantic undercity for us to fight in when I move up there in a couple of weeks.  Here are a few WIP shots:

We'll have a tutorial on how photovore made this, as well as all of our super awesome finishing touches,  in an upcoming entry.  With our help, you too can build a fake city to beat up your friends in, so that's cool.


::HIRING PEOPLE TO SHOOT YOUR FRIENDS::
We've also been getting the models together for our gangs.  photovore opted for some 'girls with guns' models from Hasslefree Miniatures to make his gang with, and they got delivered from the UK, assembled, and primed within like a week.  So Hasslefree gets a big Imploding Sixes thumbs up for being rad.

Girls with guns.  What's not to like?

I, on the other hand, started converting some GW models and ordered some 'Iron Brotherhood' stuff from Micro Art Studio.  Mine have sadly not made the crossing from Poland just yet.  However, their customer service is great and they've kept me in the loop with shipping progress.  I also ordered some conversion parts from Dragon Forge Designs, who also have righteous customer service, excellent prices, and great modeling supplies.  I'll get some photos up as soon as I get them in my hands.  In the meantime, here's one of the GW conversion WIPs I'm working on.

WIP Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-Guard

::WHILE YOU WAIT::
We recommend visiting Yakromunda, the handiest Necromunda resource we've found online yet.  Our blog will primarily be focused on the modeling and ridiculousness aspect of gaming, but Yakromunda has EVERYTHING to do with Necromunda tidily wrapped up on one site.  If you're going to play, you should definitely hit them up.


Anyway, that's where we're at on this one right now.  More to follow.


-fp