Shenanigans in the north of Scotland

[Doghead13]

@Punktaku I hear ya man, I grew up somewhere to hell and gone up the back end of nowhere in Scotland. Google 'Diabaig' - that's the place. Beautiful place to live, was great as a kid - a hundred square miles of adventure playground right outside the front door - but not so good as I grew up & got interested in things like wargaming, girls, and the pub. I still visit the place once in a while, but wouldn't want to live there again.

My first, Rogue Trader-era, gaming table - which I sadly do not have photos of - was deathworld themed and involved a couple of hundredweight of rocks, more lichen than you've had hot dinners, dozens of pieces of sea-eroded wood or root clusters out of peat bogs, and any amount of interesting gubbins off of the beach.

Scroungings are sparser in rural or semi-rural but there is stuff to be found, even if you're in a non-coastal location so don't have the benefit of beachcombings. Is there any fly-tipping problems in your area? Might be worth getting involved in cleaning up dumped rubbish - could be good materials in there. Any big/big-ish agri shows or whatnot in your area? Farming shows, dog trials, tractor pulls, festivals, that sort of stuff. They'll potentially use this sort of foamboard for signage, and you never know what's getting chucked out until you ask - or get involved with dogsbody work and cleanup at the end of such shows.

And, it's always worth asking if you can take things that are getting got rid of at work. The worst you'll get is told not to ask again.

 

[Punktaku]

Oh, i did ask. we had this awesome (like, unbelievable) pallet from Japan. Cool circular pattern made of dense plastic. i wanted to make it into a coffee table with a sheet of glass over it. beautiful geometry. was told nothing was allowed to leave the building.

the sheer amount of cardboard tubes i could score... various sizes and thicknesses... i could easily make an entire table of towers. tall ones. i’ve cried setting aside stuff for Damages to take away and dispose of (my job before this was awesome for damages to break and take after returns).

And i do ask. whenever i see a clerk change a register tape roll, i ask for the core. they’re so useful.

 

[Punktaku]

Hey! It’s november! what’s up with the shanty town?!?

And after much shopping around, i finally found a bottle of pledge.

 

[Doghead13]

What's up is that my laptop's refusing to read my camera's memory card, I haven't yet managed to dig out the right USB cable from the still-extant pile of boxes from the move earlier this year, and the build's been on hold while I churned out an Armies On Parade entry.

Structure's close to full height - just needs a couple final rooftop shacks and ladders - and I'm about to go looking for a spraypaint that can be used on polystyrene so as to avoid too much of a fuckabout getting the bottom half of it painted.

 

[Punktaku]

Testor’s “Model Masters” spray is ok on styrofoam. It’s slightly more expensive than regular Testors. The label clearly stated that it was safe on styrofoam so i gave it a shot, and it worked fine.

 

[Doghead13]

Testors sprays seem to be a cow to get hold of in the UK - on the other hand I've found another spray primer for polystyrene from someone else, so all good.

 

[Doghead13]

LET'S TRY THAT AGAIN SHALL WE, DERP.

So, having found myself the owner of two undamaged Mad Donnas with only one plasma pistol arm between them, I had no idea what to do with the spare. It seemed a shame to take a craft knife to a perfectly intact long-discontinued casting, but without a good chopping she's unsmistakably, well, Mad Donna Ulanti.

Then my incredibly generous friend, the one who turned round and gave me three entire original gang boxes with a bunch of extra Cawdor and half a set of first-gen Orlocks, posted something on Facebook about having dug out and thinking about paint for -his- Mad Donna.

She had a snapped-off chainsword blade. I instantly knew where my spare Mad Donna was going.

As a result, I find myself possessing this;

Damaged Mad Donna 1

• Doghead13
• Nov 25, 2017

Damaged old castings are fair game. No exceptions. Up craft knives and at 'em!

 

[Doghead13]

Scalecheck o'clock! L to R; Mad Donna, Mad Donna with her stance straightened, the NeoEscher I built and painted at my local GW today. They're all the same distance from my camera, and standing on bases the same depth.

Scalecheck o'clock

• Doghead13
• Nov 25, 2017
• 1

The scalecreep is overestimated. Now, with that out the way, it's time for Damaged Donna to get her gun. How much gun?

Lots of gun.

• Doghead13
• Nov 25, 2017

Lots of gun.

Pity the fool.

• Doghead13
• Nov 25, 2017

Mr T, leader of allegedly Orlock track maintenance crew and 'vigilantes' The Nice Boys, pities the fool who underestimates his second-in-command, Molly, because she's hot.

Mr T

• Doghead13
• Nov 25, 2017

Mr T used to be an Ork wartrakk gunner until he took a me noticing shaving the Orky head off and a little green would make him into a very big human male to the knee. He then became a big black man (and ensured that his gang is going to be much the same) when one of the regulars at GW Inverness pointed out that he - at that point halfway through being undercoated - looks like no prizes for guessing who. He'll be getting a rifle slung over his back in a shotgun scabbard sort of an affair later tonight.

Molly needs a little green work round her right elbow and left shoulder, her stocking needs a little repair work where I separated her old hand and narrowed her stance, and I intend to sculpt her an open-at-front leather jacket replete with sleeves while I'm at it, but that's about that. Her arms are from the plastic Escher sprue, and her heavy stub was kindly donated by the Imperial Guard. Oh, and her eye's not cybernetic - that's a gunsight.

 

[Punktaku]

you seem to be pic-less

 

[Doghead13]

Ah rats, I'm seeing them. Hmm. Hang on, might need to change the settings on the media gallery - I've not used this mode of file upload before.

 

[Doghead13]

@Punktaku Couldja hit refresh on my plog and let me know if they're working now? I'd made a dog's breakfast of the permissions on the album they're in.

 

[Punktaku]

It's working for me now. That is a lot of gun for Miss Molly.

 

[spafe]

Cracking conversion dude! and that scale shot is priceless for allaying the fears!

 

[Kommissar Shriken]

oh yes thats a cool repair. she looks great with that big gun!

 

[Kiblams]

Back on track after a very stalled week. The shanty complex is quickly approaching completion - just needs roofs, that one wall I missed derp, a handful (2-4) rooftop shacks, and a few more ladders before it's pain o'clock.

View attachment 15542

This has become a pretty heavy structure. Good bit of weight just in the foamcore. It's also achieved the starting objective of coming out taller than the tallest of my Shadow Wars scenery pieces - this is by a wide margin my tallest and heaviest scenery piece, though considering the (relatively) small scale of the rest of what I've built that's not exactly surprising.

View attachment 15534

A lot of the external walkways, particularly on shanty level 5, have steel edging, allowing catwalks and assorted barricades to be magneted onto them. And yes, that's a random damaged bulkhead. I had kicking around.

View attachment 15538

The rope bridge hangs right out over the tracks below when the building's in its intended position alongside them. There's a pair of metal Orlocks on the platform down there.

View attachment 15535

This monster is definitely centrepiece stuff.

This is pretty awesome! great job!

 

[Doghead13]

The custom Orlock gang is now essentially finished. I've done a little more work - touching up the odd detail here and there - since taking the individual photos of the gang members, but that's by the by: I present, the Nice Boys.

Completed gang

• Doghead13
• Dec 6, 2017

Though usually identified as Orlocks, they're not actually part of the house's power structure in any even remote way - the sole point of real connection is the fact that their leader (and his little brother) were born Orlocks.

As a gang, they started life as a track maintenance crew in one of the big interhive freight handling yards who, after becoming heartily sick of the local gangs taking pot-shots at them while stealing things from boxcars, started shooting back, and recruited a couple of relatives or other such hangers-on. They claim to be vigilantes, but in reality are just more downhive scummers.

Mr T

• Doghead13
• Nov 25, 2017

Mr T, the leader of the gang via having been the leader of the track maintenance team and being big enough there's whispers he's got some Goliath in his ancestry. Surprisingly soft-spoken for such a large man - but then, a man of his size rarely needs to raise his voice.

Benny

• Doghead13
• Dec 6, 2017

Benny, who's Mr T's kid brother. One of the two members of the gang not actually part of the original track maintenance team, he thinks he's a good deal bigger than he actually is. Will he grow into his boots or get his head kicked in? Only time will tell.

Molly

• Doghead13
• Dec 6, 2017

Molly, the other member who wasn't actually part of the original track maintenance team. Originally just someone Mr T knew, she's violent enough and good enough at being violent that she's now the gang's second-in-command.

Big Jack

• Doghead13
• Dec 6, 2017

Big Jack, the deputy leader of the original track maintenance crew due largely to being almost as hard as Mr T and a man wise enough not to argue about Molly taking up the 2IC position when they became a gang.

Kenny

• Doghead13
• Dec 6, 2017

Kenny, beside Lurch and Mr T the third longest-term member of the track crew. Some of the local residents suspect he's actually a Delaque agent, a theory he reacted to with hoots of derisive laughter. He's been seen buying brown cam-cream but then again he's notoriously keen on jerking people's chains. Who knows.

Dicky

• Doghead13
• Dec 6, 2017

Dicky, the original instigator of the crew taking up arms, having managed to talk Mr T into the idea less than a month after hiring onto the track crew. He has a Catachan accent that doesn't go away when he talks in his sleep, may very well be an Imperial Guard deserter, and is definitely armed with a Guard-issue lasgun he's owned since long before anyone in the area met him.

Lurch

• Doghead13
• Dec 6, 2017

Lurch, who got the name because his pose didn't work out how I wanted it. A long-term member of the original track maintenance crew, long enough he was already part of the crew when Mr T joined, he's a man of little (okay, actually NO) words and ungainly gait. Nobody's sure what's up with him, but he follows his teammates without question - not that the without question part is actually surprising as nobody alive will admit to ever having heard him speak. Some people say Lurch is a ghoulam. Mr T says he pities the fool who believes that sort of crazy talk.

Pretty Boy

• Doghead13
• Dec 6, 2017

And last but possibly not least, Pretty Boy, like Lurch solely in being a man of no known given name - he turned up with that shotgun aboard a freight train from the Quinspirius one nightcycle a few years back and picked up a job working on Mr T's crew. The shotgun's rare and valuable wooden stock and the fact that Pretty Boy acts as if it's nothing special hints at him being just as Necromundan as Dicky, but then again there are dark-skinned families in the Noble Houses - wherever he's from, he ain't telling.

With any luck I'll be using these dubious characters in an N17 campaign starting early in the New Year, and will be cooking up a potted chart on which to roll the origins of any new members they may conscript.

 

[Deleted member 10658]

Cool looking gang - and great back story. I really like the atmospheric group photo in amongst the scenery (those little tufts of vegetation are a nice touch.)

I see those are mostly Space Wolves heads, but I can't tell what heads you used for 'Benny' and 'Pretty Boy' though.

 

[Doghead13]

Pretty Boy has a head I got out of an Ebay bits lot. It's definitely from a Space Marine, it has the back of neck thing - I'm fairly sure it's from a Blood Angel, it's got the right look.

Benny's head is from the old Empire Free Company sprue. The one with a lopsided skullcap - I added a hat brim using a piece of plastic offcut from shaving one of the Space Marine necks down.

 

[Doghead13]

Ah yes, the Grim's Bay Vigilance and Fisheries Committee, as they call themselves. I suppose you could compare them to a bounty hunter gang, but they don't actually hunt bounties. They merely dedicate whatever free time they can find to making the lives of any gangers they happen across nasty, brutish, miserable, violent, and short. Much like their Squat pal, if one is to be entirely honest. Vile-tempered little ba-

What? What they think they're doing? Oh, they got a little, how shall we phrase this, a little... Frustrated? With the local gangs shooting up their hovels. Things may have got a little rowdy at the pile of junk they call a dockside bar, shots may have been fired, fires may have been started, boats may have been sank, someone may have been thrown into the sump with weights tied to their feet. When the dust settled three uphive idiots who thought a showy piece and a lot of bravado made them significant had been lynched in what passes for a village square down there and that gave the lot of them ideas...

Seriously? Where did you think a bunch of downhive yokels got hold of fancy toys like hand flamers or web pistols or that baroque monstrosity of a plasma gun? Like they've got that sort of money! Oh no, believe you me, they're on the order of dirt poor where they can't afford to eat Soylent Brown and never mind good wholesome corpse starch. Guess where their all-persuasive odour of fish comes from, they're sump fishers, subsistence fishery for the main part but I understand that they typically catch just enough to earn a miserable pittance on the side.

Funny thing is they seem to get a better price for their catch when they've recently strung someone up. I figure some guilder or another appreciates the gangs being kept on their toes and pays well over the odds for sumpfish when there's a fresh corpse hanging at Grim's Bay.

- Mr Fixer, 'contacts man'.

Spider Mike and The Old Man

• Doghead13
• May 30, 2018

Scorch Adamson and Steindorf

• Doghead13
• May 30, 2018

Mitzi McCade and Sane Dave

• Doghead13
• May 30, 2018

Billy Bedlam and Benny Bedlam

• Doghead13
• May 30, 2018

 

[Deleted member 10658]

Good to see you back, for your first update this year!

Love the back story, and some of those esoteric weapons (what did you build that plasmagun out of?)