After a circumspect approach on foot, Tylo and his retinue finally reached their target in day's sodden, twilight hours. While his Kroot mercenaries readied themselves in the North-West, Tylo and Petrusch stood guard as Yana tampered with the machinery supplying the adjacent shack with copious amounts of noxious spirits.Locating the Enlightened Fire Cult wasn't difficult - the stench of burnt flesh of the 'Enlightened' was all but impossible to escape - but pinning them down was another matter altogether. The breakthrough came when via the phrase "C4", intercepted on a shortwave voxcast, was linked to a drinking hole frequented by indentured workers located in the Dunlop Manufactorium, close enough to the Spoils to be avoided by good Emperor fearing citizens of Libuscha and popular amongst those who have cause to fear the Emperor's judgement.
The results of C4's notoriety was readily apparent to those brave or hopeless enough to venture within its vicinity. Human scum littered the surrounding shanties - the underclass who'd gladly accepted the oblivion of C4's special hooch in exchange for a few ducats, some favours, a limb, organ or worse...
While C4's serving shack was typical of Dunlop's hovels, it was the adjoining distillery that was the true drawcard: a towering Still that pumped out a never-ending stream of potent firewater simply called "the Black" on account of the speed at which it would leave C4's clientele spinning into oblivion. The Still's success was in no small part due to its powerplant, liberated from a Goliath Truck and as such, capable of converting virtually any organic refuse into power. With the Thump Keg feeding directly into the serving shack, C4 runs non-stop, night-and-day.
"Boss," patched in Petrusch, "the Team is in position. Awaiting your order."
"Yana here - I'm good. Just say the word and that Still will go off like a bomb."
"Put your faith in the Emperor and wait for my signal," whispered Tylo. "Something just doesn't add up," he thought to himself, "but what is it..."
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My entry for the 2019 3rd Quarter's Necromunda Terrain Marker "Drinking Hole" Terrain Competition started out as a large nightclub sort of affair - I was actually quite well progressed in that regard, with over a square foot of terrain already built and painted. But then fresh inspiration struck and it was at the other end of the scale. It really got me thinking: if you'd go out of your way to rock up to the local "hole", how shite must the neighbourhood be? So I came up with the idea of something akin to a tiny shack with a massive Still churning out Mississippi Mist* for the locals.
If you don't want to read all about the build etc and just want to see the outcome, well here's a video that should satisfy that itch. There are more photos below which you may find provide better angles etc.
*Back in the day, there was a terrible tasting, cheap and potent spirit called Mississippi Mist, brewed in New Zealand no less! God the hangovers, my temples throb at the mere recollection of that poison!
What little I know of brewing moonshine (thanks Garath😉) was that they were two- or three-phased affairs, requiring a boiler and pipes to distil the gutrot.
For the big "Still" (I've just googled the technical terms) I had some of my Yakult silos leftovers and simply pushed one onto an old pumping fitting to make it stand higher. A poker chip on the top meant it could be used as a sniper's nest if required. With a wire cage around it and some suitable damage and pipefittings, I think it looks the part. When it came to painting the Still, I used a rattle can black primer then only three or four dry brushes (Leadbelcher, Death Guard Green, Skarsnik Green and a copper) - I've really found that if I restrain my hand when painting terrain, my results are much better.
I'd been saving some of my kid's broken toys for a long while and a helicopter engine coupled with a Beyblade launcher made for a great engine block - just the sort of thing that could be used to heat the Still's mash. It is only a little piece but really looks the part.
The Still feeds into a "Thump Keg" (what a cool name!): that was an old film canister, mounted upon a poker chip with sprues stuck to it. I went a bit too hard on my attempts at distressing, so found myself melting altogether too much plastic in an attempt to plug the holes I had created from... dripping too hot plastic onto the model! Yes a recipe for disaster if there ever was one, but I finally got to a point where I had adequately repaired more damage than I had created and therefore could leave it at that.
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| Space Marine for size - not that they'd be drinking this stuff! |
And onto the drinking hole itself, or as the locals call it "C4" - and could there be any more appropriate name for a joint that's brewing thousands of litres of moonshine on its doorstep!? C4's frame started out as one of my wife's abandoned Tupperware-type containers - the size/dimensions were exactly what I was after (4.5x3-inch footprint and about 2.5-inches high) and even better, I had two of them should something have gone horribly wrong - as if that could happen?!? Some tender caresses of my blowtorch quickly transformed it into a skeleton full of holes and melted waste.
Then came some more 'repairs'. I hunted around my useful box looking for lots of different textured elements to add to the frame: flyscreen, computer casing, cheese packaging, bits from an old fridge and a fair few sprues were requisitioned to the cause - one such spue being C4 from an old model kit (thanks Ross for that tip!). These were fixed to the Tupperware frame by a variety of means including heat/melting, hot glue and superglue. There were a few false starts, but we got there!
With all the various layers applied, I also built a door. It was a bit of a printer, cut and filed to size, with some more sprues stuck on. I melted that bugger down some but especially liked the interesting shapes on the door proper - there's even a peeking hole to enable vetting of customers before letting them in! I decided to leave the door as a separate item, allowing me to remove it altogether as and when circumstances dictate.
One everything was built, I primed it black the got onto the painting. I used around 8 different colours - all muted - primarily in a dry brush action. It took me an evening and I am very happy with the outcome.
In real life you can really appreciate the different textures and tones... it really feels like something that has been built from refuse (well it was) and has had all manner of fungus growths etc since.
A big consideration here was that I wanted the piece to work nicely with the rest of my recent SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 inspired terrain tiles and scenery (Project: The Spoils) and I think I've succeeded on that front. That being said, here are some family snaps (the only editing I've done is to superimpose a background into the pictures.)
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| I wanted to capture the roof of C4 - notice that the netting is sagging? That took more than a bit of patience! Also, the right-hand wall shows off the different textures I had employed, specifically fly-screen and computer casing. |
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| Here's the big Still - adding the metal wire cage around the yogurt the container really makes it look different - very important when I've also got a whole set of 20+ yogurt containers already painted and built for another Necromunda terrain build comp from earlier this year! |
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| The diorama looks a tad busy BUT all of the terrain you're seeing is scatter i.e. not integrated/fixed into the board proper. That provides lots of flexibility when organising games, designing scenarios etc. |
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| I went out of my way to try and capture the textures I've created on the walls of C4 - I was going for Gieger-esque bio foulness. On target! |
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| A shot of the back of the C4. Also, you can see the generator in the background - that piece came out rather well. I'll call that the luckiest part of the build. |
