Necromunda: Underhive Scenery WIP

Ever since I bought the new version of Necromunda last November, I have been doing a lot of work for it so that I can showcase it to its best advantage on my blog. This new version of the sci-fi skirmish game comes in two flavours. The boxed starter set is a boardgame played with miniatures and is referred to as Zone Mortalis, whereas the old style Necromunda, that many players like myself, are familiar with, is played with on 3D scenic gaming boards, and that version is known as Sector Mechanicus. In this post, I'm concentrating on the Zone Mortalis version.
The starter set comes with 9 double-sided heavy card tiles that can be set up in various configurations to show the area your gangers will be contesting.

This photo shows a typical set up, with the addition of some of the plastic doors and barricades that also come in the box. Obviously, no figures have been placed yet. It looks fine and I'm sure many people would be more than happy to play their games in this manner. But, when browsing the internet for Necromunda scenery, I came across this picture below.

It's got proper walls! I was hooked. I wanted my boards to look like that. I quickly discovered who produced these walls - an American firm called Death Ray Designs. These walls are made of MDF and come in kit form, unpainted. If you are interested in purchasing them, it is the Deadbolt's Derelict: Corridors Bundle set and it costs $130.00. For that you get 24 columns, 20 single walls and 18 Double walls, which is more than enough for any of the scenarios presented in the Necromunda: Underhive rulebook. I don't mind MDF models at all but I saw a few problems with this set. Although $130 wasn't a bad price for the amount of stuff you're getting, the $82 post and packing charge was too high for me. Plus, such a heavy parcel coming from America would most certainly incur customs and excise charges, which I most certainly did not want to face. So, I shelved the idea of buying this set. But the idea of having 3D walls wouldn't go away, and I started thinking, how hard would it be for me to make my own? And that is exactly what I did!

Here is the same board set up that I showed above, but this time with my scratchbuilt 3D walls added to it. How cool is that? I'm really pleased with how they have come out.

 Here's a different view of the same game board.

Here is a close up of my columns, single walls and double walls. They are all made of black foam-board, which is 5mm thick. I based their dimensions on the ones used by Death Ray Designs. I added strips of thick cartridge paper to them. The front and backs of the walls are recessed and I made use of the scenic bases that Games Workshop provide their ganger figures with, and thankfully, also sell separately. I had no intention of using these bases with my figures. Instead, I used circular MDF bases and coated them with sand and gravel to match the bases of all of my other 28mm scale figures. However, I did think that the new bases would look good as part of a scenery piece. I used the smaller 25mm diameter ones on my single walls and two of the larger 32mm diameter ones on my double walls. For my columns, I added a single control panel from TT Combat's Industrial Hive Control Panels set. There are three different designs for these panels and I used a mixture of all three. I had to buy two sets to cover all that I needed, as you only get 18 in a set and I needed 25.

 I made 25 columns and here they all are. Each column only has one control panel on it.

I made 15 double walls and 20 single walls. This gives me enough to play any of the scenarios from the Necromunda: Underhive rulebook. The one thing that my home-made walls don't do, which the MDF walls do, is link together. That's not a problem for me. I'm not in the habit of knocking over  scenery on my gaming table, so I should be okay.
Painting them is going to be a major task, simply because there are so many of them. I'll be keeping the paint schemes simple - a base coat, a wash and a dry brush, should suffice. I may add some little touches like graffiti and blood splatters on some of them, but not too much. It just goes to show what can be achieved with a little bit of imagination and a little bit of skill. Making these saved me a fortune over what the MDF ones from Death Ray Designs would have cost.