Norm's Atomic Dumpster: Sub-Orbital Lander

Natalya mounts a vigilant watch whilst Bob the Borg trudges his way through his endless menial tasks

I've always liked the idea of having spacecraft as terrain pieces for a skirmish game, as they look good on the table and they're also very easily built into a scenario that involves loading something/someone onto them to escape or capturing what's already aboard.

Equally appealing is the idea of recycling old stuff in order to do the same, and I've seen toys from the Action Force/GI Joe range used in this way on multiple occasions in the past and subsequently spent ages scouring Ebay for something suitable, only to be amazed at the prices people ask for them!

Necromunda 3.0: It's a Proxy Party! - Part 3: Get into the Juve...

It seems like one of the things that a lot of gamers have been left asking for in the release of the new edition of Necromunda is models that are suitable for representing Juves, the callow up-and-commers that tag along with the average Underhive gang in the hope of surviving the fight and gaining enough experience along the way to eventually blossom into full-grown gangers.

I expect that this is something GW will get onto in their own good time, but there are still people out there looking for an answer in the short term, so I've been scouting around for a solution - and I have to say, there really isn't one that's going to satisfy everyone!

The obvious answer would seem to be the Juve miniatures from the original release of the game, but the evident scale creep that can be seen in the new sculpts, scarcity and price, as well as the need to customise the weapons on a range of models that were all metal, could be a real issue when taking that option.

Unlike full gangers, the non-GW manufacturers out there are not replete with sci-fi or dystopian near-future miniatures of the youth, but there are some that could be used at a push.

Stefania by Hasslefree Miniatures

Necromunda 3.0: It's a Proxy Party! - Part 2: Non-GW Alternatives

Last time I spent some column inches looking at the various hacks and customisation jobs that creative gamers had come up with to either make their Necromunda experience their own, or else avoid shelling out more than they had to in buying official GW products.

But of course there's always the option of choosing to use miniatures and/or terrain manufactured by another company, which has the advantage of being quicker and leaving you with more time to work on assembling, painting and actually PLAYING the game as well!

This option also has one over on scouring Ebay for what you want, as it's all there to be ordered, and most companies are sensible with their prices (unlike many Ebay sellers) - but be warned, buying new stuff, while expedient, is not always the cheapest option, and in some cases, may actually turn out to be more expensive than GW, so think about whether you're willing to shell out more for that unique look to your gang or underhive terrain.

Meg's Girls by Maxmini - In Soviet Russia, the Eschers gang up on you!

Necromunda 3.0: Orlock Heavy by The Ewing Workshop

After having featured the rather excellent kit-bash Orlock Heavy by James Ewing in my recent post on gamer-made Necromunda proxys, I was too eager to post the article before the shots of the finished miniature that James had kindly promised to send me arrived, and so I've decided to take the time to post them in a short piece all of their own.

I think James and the miniature alike deserve this, as it's hands down the best original creation for the new edition of Necromunda that I've seen yet.

Note the detail of the sculpting on the chest, shins and the arms - plus the faithful recreation of the House Orlock crest.

Necromunda 3.0: It's a Proxy Party! - Part 1: Player Hacks

One of the things that makes me love small-scale games like Necromunda far more than those which require large armies is the scope, or some might even say necessity, for making that small gang of miniatures unique.

The new edition of Necromunda's not been out for more than a week or so, and already social media is filling up with shots of the ways in which gamers have chosen to customise the miniatures in the actual game and also to come up with their own alternatives.

Custom Orlock Heavy by James Ewing of The Ewing Workshop

Necromunda 2.0: Wikipedia to the Rescue

After posting yesterday about the Fanatic range of miniatures that was released around 1999 and greatly expanded the range of gangs and hired guns available to players of second edition Necromunda, I did a little digging and found a very helpful Wikipedia page that details all of the sculpts in their unpainted (lack of) glory.

Click here to check it out.

I have to say that it pretty much confirmed my thoughts about this period in Necromunda's history, with none of the miniatures impressing me and the newer gangs just seeming to be fairly banal variations on existing themes.

I mean, if you have Redemptionists, are Choas Cultists really that big of a deal?

Scavies existing must make the addition of Plague Zombies and Ash Waste Nomads just a variation on a theme, right?

Maybe it's just me!

There were also some new characters, such as Cal Jericho, that I'd heard of and then forgotten over the intervening years, as well as a couple of new Bounty Hunters that I'm going to talk about below, as I think that they pretty much sum up the way in which the distinctive character had been bled out of the range by this point.

Fanatic Bounty Hunter #1 - Everybody loves head...

Necromunda 2.0: The Incarnation that passed me by...

I confess to having been cautious about the new version of Necromunda that's currently being chewed over by the gaming community (mostly it seems with positive reactions), probably because I've never been a Goliath fanboy and on account of some of the changes that they've made ("Boards?!? What madness is this???").

But then I saw the previews of the new Orlock models, and all was forgiven.

This new interest in gang-based skirmish games was also one of the reasons that I was inspired to return to painting miniatures after almost ten years away from the hobby, and after looking out my own odds and sods Rogue Trader/40K stuff, I inevitably took to Ebay to find more interesting things to paint as well.

I recognised most stuff, but then I came across a couple of miniatures being sold as Orlocks that I didn't - not unusual, as many sellers list proxies as Necromunda models. But these clearly had Necromunda stamped on their tabs, so they looked to be the genuine article.

I knew that the rules had been reworked and published long after the original boxed game.

Specialist Games Edition of the Necromunda rules

Terry Pratchett's Discworld: The Luggage

Free delivery - it literally follows you home when you buy at Sapient Pearwood Furnitureland...

I painted this a good few years ago now, and it remains the only Discworld miniature that I've ever seen in the flesh or had a good look at, then or since.

"Hail to the King" - King Dangerous Custom Action Figure

On your knees, peasant scum!

I've been working on custom action figures for a number of the guys that wrestle for EBW (Elite British Wrestling) here in Sheffield for a couple of years now, steadily going from doing the bare minimum that I could get away with to the stage where I'm now taking the entire figure back to a plain black undercoat and building everything up from scratch.