I’ve had a lot of fun building terrain for our grimdark / Inq28 style sci-fi campaign (The Cauldron). I tackled somelargepieces for our modular underhive board, and now I’m back to showcase some smaller bits of scatter terrain to spice up the battelfield.
Up first are some industral pieces: two barricades (from Mantic’s Deadzone set, I think) and two gigantic oversized bolts that I liberated from my kids’ toy box and painted in crusty, rusty colors.
Up next we have some very simple alien growths, perfect for use as objective markers or to dress up a wall or panel. These are Tyranid cysts from some sort of 40k set. I affixed them to small pieces of plasticard painted in a simple rusty metallic paint scheme.
These pieces can be used on the ground as objective points, but to me they work even better when affixed to a wall or door with a bit of sticky tack.
They look like the sort of oozing, ichor-filled growths that would adorn a tunnel or hallway within an area that’s being overtaken by foul xenos. Yeah, that’s the stuff.
This last piece was something I’ve been wanting to kitbash for a long time – a servitor medicae station, one of countless thousands of such sites located throughout the working class levels of Hive Sacrament.
These little stations feature prominently in Darktide, the 40k first person shooter where you play as part of a ragtag Inquisitorial warband purging the taint of chaos from the cruel underhive.
This terrain build was pretty simple – a piece of pink foam fitted with a vaguely religious alcove piece kindly provided by John’s 3D printer. On top of that I affixed some industrial lamps, cables, and grating – all OSHA approved, of course. The servitor model was an old piece from the Inquisitor Karamazov kit that’s been bouncing around in my bits box for years.
After a couple of large, multiplayer sessions in our grimdark sci-fi campaign (The Cauldron), it was a nice to downshift a little bit and try a smaller, more intimate affair for this most recent game. We crafted a custom scenario centered on THE TECHNOBRIDGE, a terrain creation that you can read about at the link.
For this game, we set up a custom, somewhat assymetric scenario that saw Rian’s Battle Sisters assaulting the heretics’ fortified hideout. The Sororitas had three objectives that they had to complete in sequence: lower the bridge, enter the bunker on the far side to retrieve the corrupted data cores, and then escape into the sewer pipe.
The heretics had more forces (500 points compared to 400 points for Rian) but they arrived in piecemeal fashion over several turns. It was an interesting custom scenario that forced some do-or-die decisions on Rian as he advanced across the Bridge of Faith!
The game began with the Bridge of Faith raised (i.e. not present on the table, as you can see in the photo above). The small control station on the far side of the chasm operated the bridge. Rian would need to seize the control station in order to lower the bridge.
The sandbagged area represents the heretics’ fortified hideout. They also had an armored bunker and some other emplacements under their control – a potentially tough nut to crack, except that they had a limited number of warriors on the table at the start of the game.
Rian’s Sister of Battle deployed near their side of the bridge. They intended to seize the control panel as early as possible, to effect an assault across the relatively open bridge.
The game began with the Battle Sisters laying down covering fire from elevated ruins near Rian’s deployment zone.
The fast-moving Sisters Repentia, unarmored and wielding gigantic chainswords, raced ahead under withering fire and captured the control panel. The bridgehead was under the Imperium’s control!
I realized at this point that I didn’t get too many shots of my own miniatures. I didn’t have a ton of guys on the table at the start of the game, and my figures mostly lurked in their fortified hideouts taking potshots at his advancing soldiers. Interestingly, both Rian and I chose purple accent colors for our respective factions.
Now, most of the Adeptus Sororitas chose to advance up and over the bridge…except for Rian’s badass newly painted biker! She spent the game motoring around the lower level of the battlefield, engaging my warriors at range and generally creating havoc in my backfield.
The first clash came as the Battle Sisters consolidated their position aroud the bridgehead. The first wave of heretic reinforcements arrived, and Josh sent one of his cyborg brawlers charging headlong into combat with the Sororitas.
The clash was brutal and short-lived – the Battle Sisters mobbed the cyborg and dispatched him with ruthless efficiency. With that little threat out of the way, they advanced at a cautious, implacable pace.
Unfortunately, a “cautious” pace wasn’t going to cut it for our scenario! The two remaining locations that the Sisters of Battle had to visit (the bunker and the sewer pipe) were still fairly far away, and the clock was ticking. For Rian to succeed, he would need to abandon his cautious approach and light a fire under his nuns’ collective rear ends.
We quickly realized that the Adeptus Sororitas would have to take a “leap of faith” from the platform at the end of the bridge, onto the roof of the bunker, in order to secure the corrupted data core and escape through the sewer pipe by the end of the game.
Thankfully, Grimdark Future: Firefight has simple rules for jumping. Just roll some dice and hope for high results. If you fall, you’re pinned. Can’t be that hard, right? Wellllll…..
As you can see from the photo above, the Sisters’ attempts at jumping across to the bunker left a lot to be desired. Three nuns flubbed their rolls and fell flat, one after the other. The execution was so abysmal that we suddenly wondered whether the Sisters of Battle were going to be slaughtered outright. My Dark Mechanicum leader (Rho-Terak, the Enslaver of Logic) rushed into the fray, killing the Sororitas leader as she lay prone on the groud. Big yikes!
Thankfully, the Sororitas champion on the bike was still present as a threat on my flank. She kept up the pressure just long enough for one of the Battle Sisters to successfully make the leap over to the bunker. Hurray – Rian was two-thirds of the way to victory!
Beyond this point, I did not capture photos of the final moments of the game. The last wave of heretic reinforcements showed up – two small fire teams of three models each – but alas, Josh and I didn’t place them particularly well, and the new arrivals were unable to interdict the Adeptus Sororitas as they raced from the bunker to the sewer pipe to make their escape.
So it was a major victory for Rian and the Sisters of Battle – but only just! If he had dithered, or if the heretics had been able to stall his advance even for one turn, the outcome would have been dramatically different.
This was a fun game with a nifty scenario that featured creative input from all the players. Oh, and we got to use THE TECHNOBRIDGE. So that was a win all around.
You may have seen a fun new terrain piece in the background of my recent battle report (Cultists Rampant!). It’s a gigantic sci-fi bridge from Pegasus Hobbies, and I love how it turned out so much that I bought another one. (It’s also super cheap at $15.99 on their website.)
Here’s a peek from the game earlier this month, with a tank parked atop its rusted, pitted surface. THE TECHNOBRIDGE fits right in with the rest of our grimdark sci-fi terrain!
I’m ashamed to report that this simple, effective terrain kit languished in my projects pile for probably 2+ years until I got around to building and painting it. It’s simple to put together – a sprue for the large bridge panels and another sprue for the guardrails, and you’re done! All sci-fi terrain kits should be this easy.
As far as painting, I wanted to try some rock salt chipping to create rusty pits and gouges in the metal surface of the bridge. I painted the whole thing black, then sponged on some bright orange spots in the center of the two bridge channels. I sprinkled rock salt over the orange areas and stuck it in place with a quick spritz of hair spray.
My friend Jim had gifted me a spray can of metallic silver, so I used that spray over the entire model. Once that was dry, I used a toothbrush under running water to gently loosen and scrub off the salt, revealing the spotty orange rust patches. Then the entire TECHNOBRIDGE got a heavy black wash to dull down the shiny metallic finish and the bright orange rust spots. After that, I did some gentle sponging with oranges and browns to punch up the rust effect throughout the model.
This was a VERY fast paint job, accomplished exclusively with spray cans, heavy washes, and various chipping/sponging effects. No small paintbrushes were harmed in the creation of this TECHNOBRIDGE!
I think the overall effect is great, and I’m continually impressed by the sheer size of this terrain piece. You could comfortably drive a Land Raider across the TECHNOBRIDGE. In fact, it served as the centerpiece of a forthcoming battle report from last week’s game of Grimdark Future Firefight! Here’s a sneak peek.
Following their tactical defeat in the darkest depths of the sumps in Hive Sacrament, the forces of the Imperium fell back in the face of a frenzied pursuit by a hodgepodge of cultists. Some were sworn to serve the hereteks of the Dark Mechanicum; others bore the sigil of the many-armed Star-Children. Shockingly, among their number strode a few power-armored Astartes of the Dark Angels. Why would the Sons of the Lion make common cause with such vile heretics? Truly, it was a riddle wrapped within an enigmas.
Welcome, dear reader, to the second session of our Grimdark Future campaign, The Cauldron. The first session was an epic 8-player affair, featuring two side-by-side games set in the lower levels of Hive Sacrament. With the forces of the Imperium generally routed (with some exceptions), it seemed appropriate for the heretics to continue their uprising by pushing into unexplored areas of the underhive.
The heretics caught up to their quarry in an abandoned service sector, which showed signs of having been the site of a battle years or even decades ago. Here, amongst the blackened platforms and rusted catwalks, the defenders of the Imperium would make their stand.
Here’s our table setup, featuring some exciting new pieces of terrain.
We’re playing Grimdark Future Firefight for the first portion of this campaign, starting at 250 points and escalating to larger games as the campaign proceeds. For this game, each player brought 350 points of units. The game was structured as a 3-on-3 team game, which was large but not unmanageable (since we are veteran OPR/Grimdark players).
As the game got underway, the cultists boiled forth out of the depths of the underhive, sweeping like a foul tide into defensive positions that were thinly held by elements of the Adeptus Sororitas, Imperial Guard, and Space Wolves.
John’s Guardsmen and Rian’s Sisters of Battle had a fairly advantageous deployment zone, as it featured a lower level where they could maneuver in the backfield in relative safety and out of line of sight. From a tactical standpoint, I couldn’t easily see their units from where I was sitting, and I honestly forgot where some of them were located! Literal stealth!!
Daniel’s newly painted Genestealer Cult warband, the Starchosen of Manifest Salvation, played a central role in the heretics’ assault. Quite a few of his hardest-hitting units had the ambush or scout ability, which in Grimdark Future Firefight gives them the ability to either deploy further forward or pop out and ambush unsuspecting units later in the game. He used both abilities to great effect.
In the pic below, Daniel’s crusty mutant races forward to menace a fire team of Imperial Guardsmen. This beastly creature was defeated, but his mere presence disrupted John’s advance and helped isolate his snipers so my long-range cultist riflemen could pick them off.
Speaking of snipers, they proved to be a high risk / high reward unit for John’s warband. They seized the high ground early on and laid down punishing fire on the few heretics who were caught out in the open. After some losses, the heretics adjusted their tactics, sticking to cover and using their relatively few long-range firepower to eventually take down the snipers.
On the flank, Parker formed up his Space Wolves and advanced to meet the cultists. After some hot dice rolls in the opening turns, I was confident about my chances here. Unfortunately, the Space Wolves rallied and pushed back the cultists, ultimately seizing the objective on this flank.
In the end, the heretics had swarmed over most of the board, despite taking horrendous losses. The game came down to a handful of key dice rolls in the final couple of turns.
One such clash came when Parker’s Space Wolf equipped with a jump pack (!) and a flamethrower (!!!) landed behind my long range cultist sniper. In a miraculous display of zealotry, the cultist made all his saving throws and managed to return fire and pin the Space Wolf, effectively neutralizing the threat on the final turn of the game.
And so an uneasy silence settled across the abandoned hive sector. The defenders of the Imperium withdrew to better defensible positions elsewhere in the underhive. The cultists went to work harvesting equipment and weapons from the fallen warriors and carrying out unspeakable rituals in the black depths of the hive.
Truly, a dark tide is rising in the depths of Hive Sacrament. While the pilgrims still go about their holy duties in the upper levels, the fate of the Gamma Euphorion star system is being decided in the grim, gore-splattered underhalls of the resplendent hive city.
And so our second campaign session concludes with the hard-pressed defenders of the Imperium once again seeking to stem the tide of heresy. Stay tuned for more – our next game(s) will see the players bringing 500 point warbands for Grimdark Future Firefight. More to come soon!
In the depths of Sacrament, far below the glittering hive towers and their resplendent terraces, below the incense-filled halls of statuary and throngs of offworld pilgrims, below the vast administratum strata, filled with warrens of offices and functionaries dedicated to the daily operation of the sector’s most popular shrine world, below even the turgid reclamation levels where basic utility functions are carried out by low-wage menials — deep in the depths of the underhive, something stirred. A psychic signal, pulsing and building in strength. An indifferent malevolence seeded decades ago that is just now beginning to pupate.
What will its emergence mean for the hive world of Sacrament, the world of Gamma Euphorion Prime and its attendant moon Drusichtor, and the greater Juventius Sub-Sector? Not much is known, but we can be certain that the outcome will be both grim and dark.
Welcome, gentle reader, to the official kick-off game for our 2023 narrative sci-fi campaign: The Cauldron. We’re starting small, with a series of skirmish games using Grimdark Future: Firefight to build our warbands and probe the edges of the Gamma Euphorion Prime setting.
The campaign name is a reference to the pressure-cooker environment in the beleaguered shrine world planetary system, where a dormant genestealer threat may be awakening, just as techno-cults rise to pursue their own nefarious aims, and plague disciples arrive from offworld bearing gifts for the shrine world’s pilgrims. Can the light of the Emperor pierce such absolute darkness?
The primary setting is the hive city of Sacrament, on the planet Gamma Euphorion Prime. A secondary setting that has already been explored in a recent game is Drusichtor, a moon of Gamma Euphorion Prime that boasts a massive industrial mining operation.
For the kickoff game, we assembled eight total players — possibly a record for John’s game room! We divided up into two smaller games of Grimdark Future: Firefight. Both were structured as 2-on-2 team games. As is typical, I got rather a lot of photos of the game I was involved in, and fewer photos of the other game. Read on for luscious photos and a gameplay report!
We pooled our collective grimdark terrain to create these two battlefields, representing an upper level in the underhive (on the right) and a fetid lower sump (on the upper left), replete with stagnant pools of water and rusty walkways.
The combination of textured terrain tiles, playmats, elevated risers, and scatter terrain really created a satisfying hive environment, with lots of cover and claustrophobic areas. Plus, all of our disparate terrain seems to more or less match!
We imagined these games as taking place roughly atop each other, on different levels of the underhive. The sump level, with its drains and waterways, played host to an incursion from well-intentioned warband of space dwarves working alongside the questionably loyal servants of the Imperium. This oddly matched pair of factions went up against the faith-drenched forces of the Adeptus Sororitas and their allies, the Astartes of the Salamanders chapter. Unshakeable loyalty versus … well, slightly more porous loyalty! But loyalty nonetheless!
And, a horse!
The game that I was playing in took place in the upper portion of the underhive, a few levels above the clash in the sumps. My game featured a tenuous alliance between two warbands of tech-obsessed Mechanicus scavengers (are they good guys or bad guys? who can say?), battling against a team-up straight out of Codex Astartes: Space Wolves and Dark Angels!
Did I mention this game had a horse as well?
Two horses in the underhive?! How do they even eat? It doesn’t make any sense…
Anyway, given that we were playing Grimdark Future: Firefight, it should come as no surprise that the games were fast and furious, with lots of careful maneuvering and explosive combat.
The sump level game began with the orange-armored space dwarves advancing alongside the servants of the Imperium, led by the sweatiest cavalry officer on the entire planet of Sacrament.
Creeping through the damp, fungus-ridden corridors in their bid to waylay the interlopers were the Sister of Battle, running a herd of chainsword-wielding repenters ahead of the battle-armored Sororitas.
The grubby agents of the Imperium, perhaps misled into thinking the Salamanders were their true foe, crashed headlong into the Sons of Vulkan and were probably massacred, if this photo gives any indication of their fate.
Over in the upper levels of the underhive, two teams of Mechanicus-minded tech cultists began filtering through the dim hallways, intent on finding and destroying their foe.
The Space Wolves and Dark Angels were few in number, but they were frightfully tough. Jim had just three Astartes models in his warband, and I think Parker had a few more, something like five or six. They looked very imposing as they strutted across the battlefield in their beautiful Astartes power armor.
Thankfully, the cramped terrain setup provided plenty of cover for our scrappy cultists as they fought to close in on the objectives that were scattered around the battlefield. This is definitely the ideal setup for grimdark skirmish gaming: lots of cover and elevation, with several routes for advancement so that nobody was funneled into a bottleneck.
Owing primarily to Daniel’s hot dice, the Mechanicus warbands secured an early advantage when they defeated a couple of the Astartes warriors in the early turns. Because they were so few in number, the Space Marine players really couldn’t afford to lose many models. We were playing a game with five (5) objective markers, and so we needed a lot of warm bodies to cover the objectives.
Having the Astartes on their back feet early in the game provided an opportunity for the Mechanicus cultists to surge forward, putting on a brave face as they charged into combat with a power-armored superhuman. They took casualties, but managed to stun the Space Wolf warrior who was guarding the flank.
Eventually the techno-cultists swarmed over the objectives, overwhelming the Space Marines by sheer weight of numbers. Ain’t that how it always plays out though? A few gallant Astartes, defending the barricades until the very last, until they are dragged down and dismembered by the howling hordes?? Yeah, it played out pretty much like that.
So it was a mixed outcome for our two side-by-side games of Grimdark Future: Firefight. The forces of the Imperium prevailed in the sordid depths of the sump level, but the techno-cultists of the Mechanicum succeeded in driving off the Space Marines and claiming the objectives in the upper portion of the underhive. Who can say what arcane secrets they unlocked for their own nefarious purposes?
Let us end with another glorious photo of the cavalry officer with nerves of steel and ice in his veins, as he urges his reluctant mount forward to seize these, er, run-down corridors in the name of the Emperor!
Once again Grimdark Future: Firefight provided a couple of nice, fast-playing skirmish games. Each player brought 250 points to this game, and our intent is to increase the point value for subsequent games, with a requirement that each game must feature a newly painted model. That’ll light a fire under us! Stay tuned for more grimdark narrative gaming in the depths of The Cauldron!
Comrade's Wargames 