Necromunda Freight Hub Board

After about a month's worth of work, here is the completed Freight Hub board. This is (just about) how it will look when it debuts at this years' Adepticon Necromunda events (though I'll likely shift a few of the crate piles into the blank spot in the center right of the first picture). The crate stacks themselves were made using the wooden ones I had done a few years ago as a base, I drybrushed them in tans and bieges to bring out the texture a bit more, and then I glued some Dust Tactics crates and GW Munitorium crates. The walkways are also ones I had painted up several years ago. This is the only section where there's heavy graffiti because the Guilder patrolmen hate heights and are too busy keeping the hub floor secure. Munitorium containers were done just really quickly by priming, then basecoating in Rustoleum Camo Khaki, given number stencils from the old IG transfer sheet, and finally given chipped rust with various shades of red and orange.

And, yes, the train DOES run.

Necromunda Freight Hub: Structures

Following up on yesterday's post, here are the completed structures for the Freight Hub. Due to the volume of the train, container lifter, and the various cargo piles; I really didn't need to make very many of them. In keeping with the aesthetics of the board itself, I mixed and matched various pieces from the Sector Mechanicus kits, IMEX Platformer, and old O-gauge Lionel train buildings.

 
Previously, the O-gauge buildings were ever so slightly too tall in proportion to 28mm minis however, with the change to 32mm and the tall proportions of the newer GW terrain, they fit in much better.The bases are all 3mm MDF, glued together to provide more rigidity and resistance to warping. I also made a full sheet of Necromunda-specific propaganda posters to apply throughout the board, since we want our workers to stay safe and report any threats to the Guilders. Time is Credits!

First up is the Pump Station/Generatorium. The main structure was an O-Gauge brick watertower base, to which I added Platformer walls, SM bits, and some cheap chinese toy pipes. The nice thing about Lionel kits is that the parts are molded in different colors, so you usually don't have to paint them beyond simple weathering. I also found a quick and easy way to replicate GW Boltgun Metal/Leadbelcher for terrain - prime in black, then lightly spray a misting of Krylon Metallic Aluminum, then spray it thoroughly with flat clear coat, and paint and weather accordingly! 

Next structure is a Promethium Fueling Station for locomotives. I wanted this structure to stretch across the tracks like a gantry crane and the SM arches are the perfect height to allow the train to run underneath. While I do like the SM floors, I think the combination of both floors and arches are a bit too busy for my taste, so for these larger structures, I used 2mm plasticard with black granny grating applied on top. The tank itself is an old vitamin bottle, with some plasticard added, and the cap from an orange juice bottle (I think the brand was Dole, which has both large and small sizes).

I needed a small, tall structure to serve as another support for walkways between the other two so I came up with this small loading bay.

The last and largest structure is the Control Tower. The tower itself was a Lionel switching tower with its windows replaced with black granny grating mesh, some Imperial Eagle supports, and another chinese toy pipe piece. This piece spans two tracks.

Necromunda Freight Hub: Freight Train

All aboard! I forgot to share pictures of the completed freight train for the freight hub table. As many of you know, most of my Necromunda terrain was inspired by Ironhands' work and, ever since he posted his excellent converted train, I wanted my own.

This is made (almost) entirely of old O-gauge Lionel cars that I received via Facebook train sale groups or Ebay lots. In addition to gaming, I'm also a model railroad fan, so I've amassed a pretty good selection of O-gauge trains over the years. As more model railroad fans upgrade their tracks to the more realistic tracks with plastic ballast bases, these old 3-rail tracks continue to drop in price, usually about $10-15 for a 6' oval, and the lack of ballast actually makes them fit in better with the futuristic look of science fiction games. To make them look even better, I sprayed them all over with Krylon Rust Red primer and then used sandpaper on the top of the tracks for a worn look (and to provide better electrical contact between the transformer and engine).

I held off doing any type of graffiti on these trains because I wanted this to look like the Guilders put some energy into security and didn't let taggers run amok in the freight yard.

The locomotive itself is a Ready Made Trains' "BEEP" engine, which is a super-deformed version of the eponymous GP-7 locomotive. This is an excellent engine for 28mm gaming because it's less than half the size of most realistically-proportioned O-gauge locomotives without looking diminutive next to the cars themselves. It also has an easily removable body shell that just clips on and off, so it allows you to switch between weathered, painted bodies for gaming and nice bodies for railroading (mine has a spare Chicago and Northwestern body). I painted this body using salt weathering (actually old toothpaste!) and spray paint, with decals from the old Imperial Guard transfer sheet, and weathering done in acrylics.

There was some possibility that RMT would end production last year, but it appears that they are back in business.

This was originally a Lionel gondola car with covered coil hoppers. I had it for years but never used it since I pretty much only run trains and cars consisting of midwestern US lines (it's a model railroad fan thing, you wouldn't understand). I don't use the coil covers since it makes the car look too big and then figures can't be placed inside the car, which provides a great deal of hard cover.

I painted this body using salt weathering (actually old toothpaste!) and spray paint, with decals from some old 1/48 aircraft transfer sheets, and weathering done in acrylics.

This is an old Lionel plastic flat car. This (and the tank car) are SUPER cheap because they're from the late 70s when Lionel switched most of the materials over to plastic to save on production costs. You want to search for "MPC" or "MPC-era" lots on Ebay, as these usually go for ~$3 per car.  I painted this body using Krylon Red primer spray paint, painting the wooden deck in tans and greys, with decals from some old Imperial Guard transfer sheets, and weathering done in acrylics. I added crates from the Munitorium Containers set, leaving just enough room on each side to position 2 figures with partial cover.

Another Lionel MPC "three-dome" tank car. These are actually really rare cars in reality but I love the look of them so much, I have about 4 for my model railroad. Since they were rare, they actually look much better in fictional settings. This one actually came to me missing the hatches (really common because they're just separate plastic pieces that weren't glued in well during production), so I made new ones using 25mm washes, 20mm washes, and plastic hex nut covers from IKEA. I painted this body using Krylon Red primer spray paint, with decals from some old 1/48 aircraft transfer sheets and old Imperial Guard transfer sheets, and weathering done in acrylics.

Crashed Aquila Lander

Battle of Macragge was a pretty awesome starter set for 40K, even it was a little underwhelming. Though I don't have the rest of the set anymore, I did keep the excellent crashed Aquila Lander terrain pieces, which tend to get a lot of use in skirmish level games. My initial paintjob wasn't fantastic and, after several years making the Adepticon rounds, it was looking a little worse for wear, so I decided to give it a repaint.

I went with a Reaper Dark Elf skin purple for the exterior and Vallejo Olive Green for the interior. I also used various decals for both the old Imperial Guard and Cadian transfer sheets. I then did some little wear around the damaged pieces and airbrushed some Territorial Beige and Khaki for the churned-up ground.

Necromunda Freight Hub - Container Loader

In the process of building a Freight Hub table for Necromunda, I realized that - while I have a lot of Munitorium Containers - I don't have anything to load or unload them. Not wanting to spend $50 on a GW loader, I hit up some of the old toys my son used to play with. This is a plastic Erector-style building set where you can build a couple different construction vehicles. I think it's called Caterpillar Max Builder or something like that. Mostly this is straight out of the box with the addition of a skull crane and stack from the Sector Mechanicus kit and a Land Raider engine, as well as some granny grating to cover some of the windows and vehicle walkway. Though a little large, this does work well as a piece of terrain.

As for painting, this won't win any awards. I did the priming and yellow undercoat with spray paints and weathered with acrylics.