Underhive Detritus: Necromunda Scatter Terrain

I don't have the most storied history when it comes to painting my boxed games.  I'm still neglecting my Blood Bowl set, and that Space Hulk I picked up back in 2009 isn't getting any younger.  The only boxed game I have ever painted in it's entirety is Mantic's TWD: All out War but I'm hoping to add Necromunda: Underhive to this very short list.

With my Escher gang already showcased here it was time to share the scatter terrain and objective markers.  They were painted first, because I wasn't sure how I would paint either of my gangs.  The main components were painted with a very quick and easy scheme.  I wanted something that was interesting, but still sat comfortably in the background.  All the bulkheads were based in a dull metallic with a terrain brush.  The basecoat wasn't important, because thick rust was going to be the predominant colour.  I sponged paint on in three layers beginning with a rich red brown, a warm brown, and finally, a dull orange. 

Most of the surface area ended up covered with very little of the metal peeking through.  I wanted to represent a haggard, broken down region of the underhive, rotted by harsh conditions, and neglect.  I don't think it is particularly realistic weathering but I was shooting for something visually interesting, so I wasn't preoccupied with veracity.  Afterwards, I lined most of the panels with a verdegris glaze.  I wanted some of that blue to orange complementary colour action I so fond of.  I finished up by bleeding Agrax into the recesses, and made a point of streaking the wash over some of the flat surfaces.  I hoped this would suggest watermarks, while adding more layers of texture to keep things interesting.

The beast's lair is my favorite piece in the set.  All of the pieces are cool, but this one captured my imagination the best.  It took me back to the old Necromunda and a fiction piece that was built around Moby Dick in the sump.  As a result I wanted a pallid monstrosity and made the tentacle a sickly white.

The relic box is a nice piece too.  I painted it quickly with scribbles on the parchment.  The four door terminals had been painted along with the barricades queue, then I came back to them and painted the screens and buttons to bring them a step up from plain, weathered metal.

The painted crates in the boxed set looked amazing, but a bit beyond my ken.  The studio likely took longer painting them than I do with most miniatures.  I wanted the essence of that, but with much less effort.  I gave my crates a similar treatment to the rest of the scatter pieces I was working on.  I realized my efforts weren't amazing, but unifying their appearance would make them look best when viewed collectively.

The explosives were an afterthought.  I steamrolled through these small parts as fast as I could, and they likely suffered for it.  I missed them early on and I was chuffed about being finished when I wasn't so the brushwork was hasty and resentful.  The finished set should go a long ways in dressing up any Necromunda table I produce in the future.  I love the new plastic terrain. but it may be out of my budget in the foreseeable future.  I'm tempted to build some, "old school" terrain due to the cost, but also for the sake of nostalgia.  There are more places in a hive than the existing terrain pieces represent so there should be room for some diversity.  On the topic of diversity the bulk of this set would be a welcome addition to games of This is Not a Test.

In closing I'm awaiting the arrival of some reinforcements for my Escher gang.  I like the Forgeworld weapon sets, but there seem to be a lot of extra pieces padding out the sets that I might not have much interest in.  As a precursor to the incoming reinforcements I dug through the remains of my first set, and my bitz box to see what I could cobble together.  I'm not so sure about the flamer or launcher, but I think the Queens should be able to scrape together the creds for a long las or two in the near future