You know how sometimes an idea gets lodged in your brain and you have no choice but to just try and puzzle it out? Well this project started as one of those.
I’m not sure why exactly, but while I was rearranging some stuff in my Warhammer: Underworlds Embergard box, I remembered that back in the early days of the game, there were three terrain sets released which fitted the blocked hexes on the Shadespire, Nightvault and Beastgrave boards. As I packed everything back into the box, I began lamenting how there wasn’t such a terrain kit for Embergard, though to be honest there are only two blocked hexes on the board, so I can see why it’s not at the top of GW’s to do list.
Thus began a train of thought which went something like this:
You own the Beastgrave terrain set, you could use that couldn’t you?
Yes, I own it, but the hexes on the boards are now smaller, and the terrain doesn’t thematically fit Embergard because it’s a mine.
Ok, Beastgrave won’t work, what about the Nightvault and Shadspire sets?
They’ve been out of print for quite some time so any that can be found for sale will either be built, built and painted, or horrendously priced.
Ok, so that won’t work either. What about using some Age of Sigmar terrain, there’s some kits with broken pillars, they could be shattered support columns in a mine, right?
Yeah, that might work - there’s plenty of kits with pillars, lets have a look at what’s available…
[A short time later]
So, I’ve done a pretty exhaustive set of searches online and there are some kits which might be able to contribute to this idea, but they’re either quite pricey, or out of print, or both…
Ok, so that’s not going to work then is it? Do you own any other terrain kits that could help?
Hmm…[looks at board again] oh, wait a minute… the Adeptus Titanicus/Legions Imperialis Manufactorum stuff is pretty techy looking and Embergard is a realmstone mine…
So, I dug out the sprues and after a few minutes had come up with a set of gubbinz which could concievebly be something you’d expect to find in an Age of Sigmar mine working such as a fume extractor, water pump or magic-infused generator and although the AT/LI stuff is intended to be for 10mm scale stuff, I’ve found it works incredibly well for 28mm scale mechanical stuff in the past, such as the powerplant of a Furibundus dreadnought and the exhaust stacks of a Rhino variant.
Rather excitedly, I cleaned up and assembled all of the bits, popped them on a pair of 40mm bases, slapped some texture paste on the bases and then once that was dry, primed everything light grey.
When it came to painting, I knew almost exactly how I wanted to do them, with copper, iron and brass being the order of the day to make them look suitably like ‘arcane machinery’ with the added bonus being that these are pretty quick to paint. The recipes I used for each were as follows:
Copper
Basecoat Balthasar Gold
Shade Agrax Earth
Layer Hashut Copper
Highlight Ironbreaker
Iron
Basecoat Iron Warriors
Shade Agrax Earth, then when fully dried, shade Nuln Oil
Highlight Ironbreaker
Copper
Basecoat Retributor Armour
Shade Agrax Earth
Layer Skullcrusher Brass
Highlight Stormhost Silver
As you can see, they all share one shade which means that once the basecoats have been layed down, you can just apply the Agrax Earth over everything, just make sure to apply it evenly so as to avoid it pooling too heavily on any flat areas. You can always add a second layer if you’re not happy with how it’s looking. Once it’s dry, carefully shade the iron bits with Nuln Oil and away you go.
Citadel shades don’t take all that long to dry these days (unless you’re really slathering the mini in them) but you can speed things up even more with the careful use of a hairdryer if you’re in a particular hurry. I say careful, because although most miniatures are made of plastics that have a reasonably high melting point and a hairdyrer isn’t directly applying heat to the miniature, it’s still possible to warp or bend parts if you apply too much heat.
Once the shades are dry, you can start on the layering work straight away, but as I also wanted to add corrosion to pieces, I thought I’d do this first so that I could tidy up any over enthusiastic applications with layering and highlights if needs be.
For the verdigris on the copper and brass I just thinned some Sotek Green to about the consistency of milk using Lahmian Medium and then painted it around all of the details where I wanted it. Working across each piece in turn meant that by the time I’d finished both, the first application was dry, so I added a second application in some areas, where I wanted the corrosion to be heavier.
The rust on the iron was done in a similar way, but using thinned Skrag Brown instead. In both cases though, I decided not to paint any streaks of corrosion because the Embergard mines are meant to be quite hot places, so I reasoned that while moisture might accumulate in places on machinery, it’s unlikely to flow down it for too long before it evaporates.
Near the top of each device is a ribbed section, which I interpreted as being a filtered intake of some kind, so after highlighting up the ridges in varying shades of blue-grey, I washed some thinned Skavenblight Dinge around them (which is the same colour I used to basecoat the base) to suggest there was an accumulation of dust and dirt on the outside of the filters. I did the same around the bottom of each device too, to help them ‘bed in’ to the bases.
As I was finishing up the metals, it occured to me that I could try and incorporate some glowing Emberstone into the devices and briefly considered trying to do this with the intakes, but some careful experimentation with very, very thinned paint revealed that this would completely counter them looking like dirty air filters and so wouldn’t work. Then I remembered that the less domed of the two devices had a wee port on one side and it seemed reasonable that this could be where a chunk, or rod of Emberstone was inserted, perhaps as an auxiliary power source, or to be refined into a purer form, but how to paint it?
Then I remembered reading an article in a recent White Dwarf about creating characters using the ‘Anvil of Apotheosis’ which features in each Age of Sigmar Battletome and the example the author used was a Cities of Sigmar general who had chunks of glowing Emberstone on his base. I dug the issue out, and after a quick re-read, painted the protruding part of the rod of realmstone with Yriel Yellow before applying a shade of Casandora Yellow over it. I then gave it a chunky highlight of Yriel Yellow to set up for a final ‘patchy highlight’ of Rhinox Hide around the top to suggest that the rod is cooling at the edges.
And that was that - they aren’t perfect by any means, but I think they’ll do a good job of making for more immersive games of Underworlds going forwards and they made a great wee project during the Easter Holidays that scratched the hobby itch without being too time consuming to boot.
As always, until next time though - thanks for reading and happy hobbying!
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