Weekly Waffle #340 – A mans best friend
6th July 2024
For this week,s weekly waffle I am sticking with the most notorious and sought after members of the under-hive. Although this time I’m turning the stature up a little. I do love my squats but not everyone feels that way. So we are going for something a little less vertically challenged. I already have quite a large contingent of Orlocks and I’m looking to expand that even further this week with the addition of Slate Merdena & Macula, Orlock Hired Gun. This is a set that I have liked since it first came out but I just haven’t got round to picking it up until now. And I’m really happy I finally made the leap,to pick it up.
Stealing some words from the Warhammer website. The Sump Dogs are one of the hardest gangs to ever ride the ash roads of the Spider Points, and their success can be attributed to one man: Slate Merdena. Slate controls a dozen Hive Primus Ash Gates in the name of House Orlock, and has earned a reputation for being nigh unkillable – having survived bullets to the chest, blades between the shoulders and even being thrown under the wheels of his own rig. Often the mere sight of Slate and his faithful Cyber Mastiff Macula, are enough to send enemies running, lest the end their days as a mile-marker on the Spider Points, like so many before them.
This multi-part resin kit contains the components necessary to assemble Slate Merdena – an Orlock Road Boss – and Macula, his faithful Cyber Mastiff and Exotic Beast. Slate Merdena is a shining example of Orlock leadership – decked out in standard duster jacket, heavy boots and slit-eye goggles, he’s carrying a wide array of tools, grenades and chains on his waist, with a plasma pistol by his side in his left hand and a large hammer slung over his right shoulder. Macula is a different proposition entirely; though recognisable as a dog, he has undergone countless augmentations. His front left leg has been replaced with a powerful cybernetic limb, around which the flesh is giving way to metal, and his metal spine is visible at the base of his neck. Other than this (well, and the sensor array in place of his eye), he’s a fairly standard pooch, albeit one with frankly irresponsible levels of muscle…
From a painting perspective I knew the colour scheme I wanted to use because he needs to fit in with the rest of my Orloks. Not having to worry about the colour scheme makes things much more relaxing when it comes to actually putting paint on the model. It didn’t take too long to paint Slate and I’m happy with how he turned out. Merdena on the other hand wasn’t as easy. That was mainly because I was trying to get a little bit of texture into the finished mini. I don’t think I’ve achieved what I set out to do but I’m happy that I gave it go. The idea was to use lots of very short brush strokes and to try and build up a bit of texture with the different layers of paint. I will be very happy to put this mini on the table and I think it looks good now that it’s finished. It’s just that I was trying to do so much more with it and that just didn’t pan out. But what to you think.
You can find more Necromunda mins from a few faction on my Necromunda Gallery here.
Now having said that was disappointed with how Merdena turned out I don’t think it was total failure. It might not be what I wanted but I do think it’s a good looking mini. I also think the approach I took to trying to get the textured effect is the right way to do it. My take away from this is that I think I need to do more layers, I get a little bit impatient to have things finished. I also think it would work better if the paints I used weren’t as thinned down. After all in this case it’s about making the layers visible rather than trying to merge them together seamlessly. But I’ll find something else to try it on in the future and see how it goes.
I ave also been somewhat distracted this week and not really done as much painting as I should have. i’ve mentioned it before but we have a D&D campaign coming up. Probably starting in August, and Anna our DM is doing a lot of prep work. To try and ease the burden she shared a link to site called ‘Hexton Hills’ and this has eaten up a lot of my time this week. Part of her planning is that instead of using a paper map for the adventure she is going to 3d print it. How spoiled are we. The idea being that one hex will be roughly equal to one days travel. Then as we explore more hexes get added to the map and we have this representation of our adventure.
The challenge is doing all this work takes up a lot of time and effort so she has asked if a few of us would have a look building a couple of towns and cities that could be used in the game. Essentially switching out from a large view to a more detailed town or city map. I really like the idea of doing this and have done loads of this sort of work some of our previous adventures. The only difference being they were all done in Photoshop and were simple flat paper maps. This time there is a chance to turn them into something you can touch.
There are lots of pre-defined hexes you can pick from and it’s just a case of drag and drop from a menu onto your board to make up a map. But as I’ve said it is really, really addictive and instead of the one or two she asked us to have go at I’m now at over twenty. Now I know that is way more than we will ever need for our game and the chance of any of them actually making it onto the gaming table are quite slim. After all Anna is the one with the plan for the adventure. I just can’t seem to stop dabbling.
I started with just a basic walled city with a town hall, market, tavern, blacksmith and the like. Then the town shape got a bit more random and we had poor and middle class districts. It wasn’t long before there were clear roads for the major thorough fares. Why not having a coastal town with a harbour. Then I stared reading up on some of the information Anna had shared about the setting and there is a major river that is used for trade in the setting. So why not have a city that covers both shores of the river with dock on each side and bridges connecting the two halves. I’ve done all of these and more with more ideas popping into my head all the time.
It’s all great fun and if there any D&D players out there who also dabble in a bit of 3D printing I would highly recommend checking out Heston Hill. But I take no responsibility if you become as addicted as I have.
Well that’s it for this week. I hope I have something for you next week but at this rate I may just be pictures of D&D maps. But here’s hoping I can get the paint brush moving again. Until next week I hope you all have a grate week whatever you have planned and that you all keep safe.
