Necromunda The ballad of how I lost my mind and decided to paint a ton of stuff

[SuboptimusPrime]

So, finally Yakcomp time again!

I was thinking about reviving the terrain tile I started last year, but I already added Necromunda terrain as an entry at some point, so that was a no. I had been planning on giving my old metal Cawdor boys a glow-up, but that's for another day. So here goes, the old metal geezer himself:

Mordheim Ogre Parts.jpg

• SuboptimusPrime
• Aug 3, 2026

He's seen better days.

This is him after being released from his Ethanol bath that he's been stewing in for the last three weeks, after I found him while cleaning up some crates at the back of the manufactorium. I have no photos of the painstaking process that was stripping the VERY thick layer of paint off of him, and finding, to my surprise, that somebody went through the trouble of putting a layer of white primer on him back in the day.

From that, I can also confirm his story, in that he belonged to a friend of mine, who was one of two who played tabletop stuff with me on the regular. He got a hold of a can of actual Skull White spray, which was quite the feat around here in 1999. He painted it in a rather generous amount of acrylics, and added lots of blood for that grimdark look. At least that's what I presume was the attempt, he looked more like he'd covered himself in ketchup, not entirely implausible for an Ogre, they are know to be messy eaters, but usually they manage to keep the carnage to the front of their shirts.

Anyway, I scraped most of the paint off, removed decades-old superglue, and put him back in the alcohol so I can hopefully get some of the more stubborn flecks of paint tomorrow, when I will clean and reassemble him.

 

[SuboptimusPrime]

In other hobby-related news, and the reason I am not so sad that I cannot continue working on the ogre today, I've been engaged in a different project for a while. You see, the room my hobby desk is in is both the largest room in our new apartment and, ironically, also the least used. Partially that is owed to it also being the darkest room, facing straight north with a large tree right in front of the window (I love that tree) but also because we always keep the door closed due to Primecat's sad and incurable addiction to little plastic parts. Knowing I could never be disciplined enough to clean up the desk every time I use it, I devised a most cunning construction, turning this:

Desk of Work.jpg

• SuboptimusPrime
• Jun 25, 2026

State of the Desk 25th June 2026

Into this:

Fortified Hobby Desk.jpg

• SuboptimusPrime
• Aug 3, 2026

Construction Phase 1. Functional, but very very ugly.

Now, I also did more. I finally found a way to properly mount the LED light I bought off the net so it's directly above my working area (And it even involves chains, for that extra 40k-ness) I got another one of those mounting boards from IKEA and learned that the little trays IKEA sells perfectly fit a bunch of GW pots and are actually so cheap right now, it makes more sense to buy these than to 3d-print them.

Chiefly though, I built this thing in a sweat-soaked 3 hour marathon of badly measuring how to screw my hoard of metal angle plates to precisely cut MDF. It still needs work, being MDF it sags at the back, but I'll add a wall mounting there tomorrow, also I'm actually planning to paint and decorate the thing so it doesn't look quite so much like a coffin. But for now, it works, and I can finally leave the door open and leave the desk after hobbying without worrying about having to explain to a vet why there is a plastic orc head stuck in my cat's colon.

 

[Punktaku]

I actually thought it was cardboard at first (I’m in my phone).

 

[SuboptimusPrime]

I actually thought it was cardboard at first (I’m in my phone).

Considering it's 100% the color of cardboard, a very understandable mistake. Another reason why I plan on painting it.

 

[trollmeat]

Considering it's 100% the color of cardboard, a very understandable mistake. Another reason why I plan on painting it.

Massive warhammer log on the side, necro terrain tiles painted on top?

 

[cainex1]

Angle iron will fix that sag, Omnissiah approved!

 

[Arnulf]

Bright pink with a feather boa is the obvious choice.

 

[SuboptimusPrime]

Since the sun is once again "blessing" Vienna with weather that is the equivalent of Dubai, all efforts to do hobby were stalled a little bit. I did manage to finally play a game of 40K though! ...2nd Edition. Which was fun! And very confusing, really, I am a child of 40K 3rd edition and only ever really played 7th edition, so melee especially was a bit of a surprise.

2nd Edition Group Shot.jpg

• SuboptimusPrime
• Tuesday at 9:50 AM

This gang of warriors wishes to tussle with the army in the back. Went better than expected.

What was also a surprise was how damn small a Chaos Space Marine army with 1000 points was in 2nd. This is them. All 13 of them. Couldn't fit a Rhino in, should have.

2nd Edition battle lines.jpg

• SuboptimusPrime
• Tuesday at 9:50 AM

Complete with period-accurate cacti.

Battle lines were drawn across a really nice table, complete with bright green toothpick cacti. And for a second, it was 1995 again. Also, I realized just HOW outnumbered I was. The game started off bad for me, the bikes, wartrakks and buggies obliterated several marines with absurdly accurate fire. My plasma gun marine, the only one who could stand against them, was punted off that ruin by the ork weirdboy TWICE, breaking his neck the second time it happened. In turn, my marines couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, even though I usually needed 3s to hit, I rolled like the Austrian Winter Olympic medal count in the late 90s, aka a parade of 1s and 2s. By turn two though, it became clear how absurdly durable Terminators are, especially with the mark of Nurgle. But I wasn't making much progress, until the bikes accidentally came within 12" of the Dreadnought while trying to outflank my dwindling Marine squad.

2nd Edition Endgame.jpg

• SuboptimusPrime
• Tuesday at 9:50 AM

Dreadnought decided shooting isn't fun, fought the entire Ork army instead.

He decided that shooting plasma was lame, he wanted to fight. And he did, first eating two Ork bikes in one turn, then consolidating into a mob of Gretching, followed by a mob of boyz, and then the Warboss and his assistants, backed up by the skar boyz, which he held in place long enough for my surviving terminators (lost the autocannon termi to another wartrakk-mounted sniper) and my lord to catch up with them and basically turn everything into fine red mist, with the boss barely surviving due to his refractor field.

It was a blast, I really need to read the 2nd edition rules properly, and I actually...won? 5 VP to 3 VP but it has to be said I only got that because my opponent graciously
allowed me to reroll my mission card, so I had Assassination instead of Dawn Raid.

Other highlights were the ork buggy losing his driver and careening through a whole mob of boyz, the Bombardment card hitting the Shokk Attak gun, the runtherd and every Snotling base, but wounding...none, the flamer trakk being heroically spared utter destruction by being piloted to safety by its pump gretchin after both the driver and gunner were killed in round 3 after eating 6 bolt rounds each (I managed to roll a lot of 1s on the hit location for that trakk) and some other very 2nd edition moments.