Ambull!! AMBULL!!

 Hello and welcome back. Now for something unpleasant.

The Ambull is a creature native to the death world Luther McIntyre IX. Some time in history a mating pair was brought to Matt Black God’s world as an exhibit in the planetary capital’s Zoo. 

Things where going well until one morning the Zoo Keepers discovered that the Ambull display was empty. At the back of the pen a yawning tunnel was seen where the Ambulls had tunnelled through the Plascrete escaping from their enclosure. The tunnel lead deep below the city and soon became a complex network. Parties sent to capture the Ambulls kept disappearing. Patches of blood or some mutilated remains where all that was ever found of the search parties. 

Fortunately for those who had the task of the capturing the Ambulls (well kind of), the Mattblackgod’s life support failed at this point in history and it was nothing to do with the escaped Ambulls despite what the cleaner claimed. Suddenly there was other things to worry about as the planet descended into chaos. Rioting broke out across the world, terror attacks became a daily (and sometimes hourly) occurrence and open warfare began as various groups started pointing the fingers of blame at each other. The wars grew uglier and uglier with terrible weapons being deployed by all sides. Chemicals, biological agents, plagues and more. When the Federation arrived on a mission of mercy they where horrified with what they found and decided to wipe the world out as a precautionary measure. They then went on to isolate the world to protect the galaxy. The horrors could not escape the world. 

The Ambulls were soon forgotten by its hunters. The creatures bred in the dark below the city feeding on survivors who fled into the tunnels to escape the firestorm and fallout.

Today the Ambull preys on those who have returned to the ruins of the world’s capital. The Trogs of the Mattblack City ruins have put a hefty reward out for anyone who can bring in a dead Ambull. 

The Ambull has spread across the world and it is possible to find them nesting in caves, old sewer systems, old bunkers and vaults. One sure sign that there may be Ambull lurking in the vicinity is the lack of ghouls and other underground nasties in the tunnels. 

The Ambull is a plastic kit from GW Blackstone fortress add on. The kit is snap together with little opportunity to customise it. There is stats for it in 40K in the box too plus all manner of cards for the Blackstone fortress game. 

Thanks for looking and take care out there

Hotel Paradiso

Hello and welcome back to my blog. In his post I am looking at another model to receive a refresh. 

Welcome to the Hotel Paradiso - we hope you will never leave. 

Hotel Paradiso is a older model in my collection, in fact it was the first ruin I ever built. This piece was built before this blog and even the founding of the Post Apocalyptic Wargames forum. I was playing a lot of Babylon’s Burning and Combat Zone at the time. I guess it must have been around 2004-2005.

It is a pretty large piece. The name was inspired by the Bottom TV series spin off film “Guest House Paradiso” with the late Rick Mayall and Adrian Edmundson. Although I suppose I could have called named it Faulty Towers.  The model is built from some white polystyrene packing sheet (liberated from a skip at work), foam board and plaster the hotel looked like this when finished. 

I am sure you agree ok for the tabletop but not exactly realistic looking. In recent years my tastes have drifted towards the older overgrown ruins. I have taken inspiration from pictures of Pripyat near Chernobyl, the Across the Dead Earth game boards and the Horizon Zero Dawn Computer game. Curtis from Ramshackle Games’ models have also inspired me.

So after a heavy light grey dry brush and a white dry brush I had a more concrete looking ruin. The old plastic drinking straws that make up old pipes in the rubble where reinforced by putting rolled up tin foil into them with a spot of hot glue. A sign was made up from a old gift card and laser cut MDF letters. 

After this lots of brown and green washes where added along with some old GW plastic skeletons. The rusty metal bits where painted and the sign letters got a coat of burnished gold to make them stand out. Classy joint this you know. 

Green flock was added but proved to be a shade or seven too bright. More dark brown washes toned it down and some green dry brushing in various shades made it look more realistic. 

Then the fun of adding plant rubber moss/matting, various plants, grass and flowers followed. I used it to hide the joints in the polystyrene walls. 

I am pleased with the how the model turned out. It feels good to give this old model a new lease of life.

Thanks for looking and stay safe out there.

Hacking Rhinos to bits.....vehicle WIP

Hello and welcome back. 

I have been staring at this old 40k Rhino I got as a eBay special. It was a badly painted chaos one and after a bit of work (and some Ork and Ramshackle parts) it became a armoured ride for various factions over the years. After my experiences of Helsreach at BYOL 2018 decided to turn it into a cargo transport.

 

I split the sides apart and slowly unpicked the side doors. The inner doors where cut (hacked) out. The back of the top portion of the hull was cut out. Then the rear door was fixed in place with struts under it to keep it in place.

I just got to paint it now. Filling some of the holes may be an idea too.

Speaking of eBay specials I picked up these four for a massive £25. 

A bit of Oldhammer goodness there. The old MK1 Rhinos have a soft spot with me. These need a little repair work. Hull bottom panels/hatches are missing as the builder was trying to spread his parts around. I am thinking of kit bashing a couple into a stretch rhino. That may need a custom hull if I can’t join two hulls together.

Thanks for looking. Take care out there.