New Paint for Old Friends: Necromunda Van Saar

I've got a blast from the past for you today in the form of my new Van Saar gang, which I just completed after collecting them off and on for many years. Further down I'll also go over a couple of nifty wargaming products for the gamer on the budget: brush-on matt varnish from Winsor Newton and plastic scenic wargaming bases from Champ Industries.

These Van Saar figures represent one of my earliest gaming purchases back in the mid-1990s. Memory is fuzzy, but I may even have purchased the gang before I bought the actual Necromunda game. Just looking at the box gives me warm fuzzy nostalgic feelings.

Unlike many of my other early gaming purchases, I painted these guys quickly, though to a standard that I find slightly embarrassing today. For some reason I've recently become rather taken with the idea of playing Necromunda, even though it's nearly a decade since the last new Necromunda product release and more than a year since the miniatures were unceremoniously dropped from the Games Workshop catalog.

Luckily, over the years I've managed to gather up enough minis for four factions, So my old gang went for a swim in paint stripper and I dug out a handful of other Van Saar and assorted scum models and got to work.

Most the gangers are stock with a few exceptions. Here are a few converted figures. The first ganger here is one of the multi-part Van Saar figures released later in the game's history. He has a Van Saar head, but hands from plastic Imperial Guardsmen and a Heresy Miniatures sniper rifle. The rifle is not really a practical or common weapon in the Necromunda game, but it can easily serve as a lasgun or autogun and is really an admission that these figs will see battle in games outside of Necromunda. The heavy is a Heavy Stubber gunner with an Imperial Guard flamethrower. The hose to the tanks in back is a piece of guitar string.

These next two are also multi-part Van Saar plastic figures. On the left, I've given her a head from Alpha Forge Salvage Crew (formerly sold by Megaminis) and a Warhammer sword hand. The fellow to the right has a new hands from plastic Imperial Guardsmen and a Rogue Trader-era Space Ork plasma gun, one of my favorite Games Workshop bits of all time. (I'm currently trading for more if you've got any…)

A quick word about the multi-part Van Saar who were released eight years or so after the originals: It's always nice to be able to add some variety to your warband, but in many ways these figures represent a missed opportunity. They do not have any of the slender grace of the original figures. The details are chunky compared to the finely sculpted original figures. Oddly, none of the heads on the sprue have the signature Van Saar hairstyles, or facial hair.

As usual, I opted for a fast paint scheme. All the figures were primed with white gesso mixed to a grey color. then I block-painted all of the basic colors, followed by a drybrush of light grey on the hair and light green on the green sections. The bases were given a brown wash and then they were brush dipped with Minwax Polyshades Tudor Satin.

To cut the shine from the Minwax, I varnished them with Windsor Newton Galleria Acrylic Matt Varnish at full concentration with no water added.

It was my first use of this particular brush-on varnish and I am completely sold on it. After years of searching, I have found my brush-on varnish! It's cheap, has low odor and it cuts all the shine in a coat or two. Eight ounces (250ML) is just $8 at my local art store! I've read online that you should use thin coats to avoid clouding the miniature. I found that it dried flat in just a few minutes and I was able to touch up spots I missed quickly.

However it does stay tacky for a while. If you plan on doing any painting over the varnish, it's probably best to leave the figures to dry thoroughly first.

Now let's see. What's in this cigar box?

Why it appears to be a Van Saar gang!

Let's take a closer look... here are the Juves

Lasgun and autogun gangers. I'm very pleased with the way the dark crimson color came out on thier weapons. I'm going to do more of this in the future.

Other gangers

Heavies.

Leaders and close combat gangers

The figure with the bandana is actually a Scum figure, but since he's already wearing half of a Van Saar body suit and the appropriate facial hair I decided to paint him as one of the gang. This is the other Scum figure that came in a pack with the Scum above. One of my favorites, this independent fellow is definitely not a permanent part of anyone's gang.

All the figures had their slotta tabs trimmed down to a peg under each foot and were based on Champ Industries plastic scenic bases with small holes drilled for the pegs.

They are excellent bases with crisp casting and none of the drawbacks (flat bottom, bubbles, flash, etc) that one gets with resin bases. They were originally created for the Rezolution: Dark Tomorrow game and are now available direct for the ridiculously low price of 30 cents each! The only drawback is that each of two themes only has 4 different sculpts.

However, they're easy to modify and really simple to work with! One wonders why more companies aren't making plastic bases.

There you have it. My first Necromunda gang gets a new lease on life and some more useful products for the thrifty gamer. I'm not done with Necromunda either. I've got the figures for Escher and Cawdor and maybe Delaque and Orlock gangs as well.

Lastly, this figure just came to me from Tim a week ago.

With his flamboyant outfit, lack of insignia and bulbous head, I though he was a Genestealer Cult character. However it turns out he is an Imperial Psyker. Necromunda has rules for Wyrds (psychics) and I think this guy will be perfect!

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Bloodbath in the Nanotech Dustbowl

Last week we gathered to play a few more games of Nuclear Renaissance. I wanted to get more experience with the game's close combat, so I crafted a scenario to push opponents in that direction. The game takes place in our home brew sci-fi setting called the Galactic Frontier.

I came up with a new planet for this game -- Fornasis II, a barely habitable desert rock that orbits very close to the sun in the Fornacis system. The surface is hollowed out and barren from decades of mining and prospecting, battered by gale-force winds and scourged by high temperatures. Remains of mining camps and processing stations dot the landscape, though, still stocked with raw ore, valuable equipment and other, more mysterious bits of scrap.

At some point in the not-too-distant past, an industrial accident at one of these mines unleashed a horde of mining nanobots into the atmosphere, and this hazy death cloud now infests most of the abandoned facilities on the planet's surface. Exploration and salvage is only possible for the best equipped (or most insane) prospecting teams.

Our game took place in one such ruined industrial site. Captain Endarson, leader of a Maersk-Tesla Corporation survey team, met a space prospector who implied that one particular abandoned mining camp seemed ripe for the picking -- if the raid could be accomplished quickly. Captain Endarson decided to pull his team off their scheduled route to make a fortune in black market plastrium. Unfortunately, he was not the only person gunning for a quick score...

Greybeard's scavenging team traveled the outskirts of the galaxy looking for tech to trade. When they heard the rumor about Fornasis II, the team hoped this would finally be the last score that made them rich beyond their wildest imaginations. 

But Fornacis II was not entirely uninhabited. Years ago a starship carrying a group of mysterious mechanical creatures crashed onto the planet. They have been scouring the industrial sites on the planet, seeking plastrium and spare parts to repair their ship, and will suffer no competition in this regard.

This was basically a deathmatch scenario. We doubled the move distances in Nuclear Renaissance to represent the terrifying time crunch, and halved the shooting distances to represent the deadly fog of sand and nanobots.

The first turn of the game was uneventful as forces moved slowly into position.

The mechanical warriors crept through the abandoned ruins toward the survey team.

Here, a member of the survey team lines up a shot on a scavenger.

A robot warrior moves into a defensive position. 

Bob Kneely, the scavenger sniper, prepares to fire, while Dr. Bewm looks in two directions at once.

Steve Dave managed to kill a dude with his steely glare. Don't look into his eyes!

Uh oh. Steve Dave is in trouble. 

After a few turns, Captain Endarson and his men were decimated. The Maersk-Tesla Corporation will need to muster a search party to investigate their last known coordinates in order to to recover the corporation's gear and property. 

The robots and scavengers fought bravely for a few more turns until we had to call the game at the end of the evening. The mechs were not consumed by the nanobots, but the tech introduced a virus into their systems which deactivated them. They stand motionless on the sand-pitted surface of Fornacis II, their metal skin slowly corroding in the swirling sand and grit. There were no survivors. 

All in all, this was a fun scenario. I think we need to adjust the starting locations to keep everyone equidistant. Mike and I ended up ganging up on Karl's survey team. The doubled move rates certainly helped us get into close combat faster, but the halved shooting range did not make an appreciable difference. I enjoyed the frantic, bloody pace of this game. Nuclear Renaissance plays very well without any vehicles, and I hope to try additional scenarios in this vein in the future.

-- Josh, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Deadzone Modular Terrain

I have had a large pile of Deadzone terrain sitting around since we received the Kickstarter months ago. I actually acquired a second large pile of sprues, but since I had no plans to play the actual Deadzone board game, I wasn't sure how I wanted to assemble these pieces.

While riding the train to work each day, I pass by a yard full of shipping containers, stacked up and pitted with rust and chipped paint. I used this as my inspiration.

My main priority was to make sure that these pieces were full of usable features. Increased elevation was a primary issue, as we've had a lot of fun with elevated buildings in our games lately.

The bridge between these two watchtowers is removable.

The charred edges were painted using Badger Minitaire Ghost Tints. I airbrushed the edges in black, followed by a halo of brown. I finished it off with a very fine line of black on the interior edge. This was all done after the other details were painted.

Some of the details from bits on the Deadzone sprues, supplemented with Games Workshop bits, plasticard, resin pieces, random odds and ends, and even some ammo casings.

I also used parts from Mechwarrior clix which, if you've never looked at them before, are a treasure trove of industrial bits. And super cheap these days!

I paid careful attention to each addition to make sure it was usable for cover, or as a way to traverse levels.

The colors were based on colors I saw in the container yard on my way to work.

Each interior space is also accessible.

This is my favorite building. Not only is it the tallest...

with cool balconies...

But it is reconfigurable!

This version is quite tall!

Here is a view from the top. Bob Kneely is ready to snipe, and you can see his colleague down below for scale.

I had a bunch of scrap pieces left over, so I made these ruins and barricades.

Here is a cool action shot of Bob Kneely kneeling.

Overall I am very impressed with the Deadzone terrain. The modular clip system is neat, but a bit delicate. I recommend gluing these pieces for best gaming experience. I was having issues fitting the clips until i discovered that there are mold lines inside the connection holes that need filing. A standard square hobby file works perfectly for this.

Keep an eye out for a battle report featuring this terrain in the very near future!

-- Josh, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Terrain: Post-Apocalyptic Shanty Compound & Shed

Ever since I began browsing the wondrous terrain creations over at the Post-Apoc Forums, I've wanted to try my hand at building my very own shanty building. It wasn't until recently that I managed to assemble the critical mass of raw materials to embark upon this effort. A bits order to Ramshackle Games gave me a goodly pile of doors, junk, machinery and smokestacks. To that I added a big pile of leftover Deadzone plastic pieces and scrap plasticard given to me by Josh. Then last weekend, I started building.

I went with a fairly simple design to start with: a two story compound with an overhanging balcony. I basically glued two low, square cardboard boxes atop each other, then wallpapered the structure with a hodgepodge of plasticard, balsa strips, Deadzone bits, Ramshackle bits and other assorted pieces of junk. Here is what I came up with.

It's pretty big! Probably 12 inches by 10 inches. It can definitely work as the centerpiece of any shantytown. I added some gravel, rubble and other junk to the base, then started painting. In the past, this is where my terrain seems to fall down on the job. No matter how hard I try, I always seem to make the colors too dark and muted. That's fine for rubble and ruins, but for this piece I wanted to make it a little more visually interesting. So I took a page from Voark's impressive shantytown called Tull's Resolve, and went with a rusty basecoat followed by some dabs of brighter color, then more rust and dust.

Here's the final product.

I painted up a few pieces of scatter terrain specific for this shanty compound, to create a little bit of cover for the large flat roof areas. There will be sandbags for the topmost roof (near the hatch) an at least one metal barricade on the first level roof.

And just for fun, I used the leftover bits to whip together this small outbuilding. Maybe it's a shed, or a jail, or even the entrance to a subterranean bunker?

Check out the pic at the top of this post for a look at the larger compound with 28mm miniatures for scale. Can't wait to get 'em all on the battlefield together!

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member