Aerocity

Welcome back to my blog Wanderer. Today we are looking at another long established settlement on mattblackgod’s World - Aerocity

Aerocity is a mishmash of hangers, terminal building, old vehicle wrecks and abandoned aircraft converted into buildings all contained behind a defensive scrap wall in what was a old airport. There is electricity, lights, bars, workshops, an arsenal and black thumb/Mek garages. The central control tower of the airport is the hub of command & defence. It has a lookout/sniper nest built on top it. 

When the end came refugees fleeing the firestorm hid in an nearby airport. It seemed to be the only place to have any shelter for them.  It soon became apparent that the airport had lots of useful resources for the survivors. Materials, shelter, abandoned luggage, fuel, tools and more. It wasn’t long until other smaller bands of survivors hiding there (mostly made up of airport/hanger/airline personnel) joined the new arrivals. In the weeks that followed they used the airport machinery to build barricades while covered by their comrades using looted airport security weapons. 

The strong arm of Aerocity 

As time went on they sent teams to salvage weapons and kit from the ruins. Food was grown in planters on roof tops, while the contaminated airfield was sown for fuel producing crops.  The city even has a small orchard providing apples, almonds and olives. Water is collected from atmospheric water distillers constructed across the site. The city uses all manner of aircraft bits to generate power. 

Aerocity trades with scavengers and traders for items they may need. The city has metals, parts, fuel, weapons, reconditioned oils and vehicles are items they have to trade. 

Tactical squad deploys. T markings on the helmets. Squad No1 as marked on the shoulder pads.

The city has grown since it was first founded with a estimated population of 450. The walls have been moved at least twice to accommodate the growing population. There is a outsider compound where traders and travellers can trade and stay without entering the city proper. This provides the residents a rare sense of security. The compound is watched and any trouble is met with a heavy hand. Squads of Aerocity warriors wearing old body armour look like something from the old times patrol the walls and gates. They employ a Big un to provide extra muscle. The massive flak cannon he carries tends to make people behave. 

There is stories about the faction owning a fearsome flame thrower war rig (possibly an converted 6 wheel airport fire engine), an actual working oldworld medium tank and some operational light aircraft. These may just be stories possibly generated to keep various Warlord’s hordes away. 

The assault squad deploys. A markings on their helmets. This is Squad No2 as marked on the shoulder pads.  

The Aerocity guards are old plastic 40K RT 1st ed era imperial guard with later 40k arms/weapons. I picked them up from eBay. I touched the figures up. An old plastic combat zone trooper with some putty shoulder pads Is also added. The 40K RT IG medic is also a rework I got from eBay. 

The sniper is a metal grenadier figure recruited from older retired faction.  The Ogryn acts as support. 

The plans are to grow this faction with extra rag tag units. I have been on a Oldhammer kick as such I have a handful of the metal versions of the old 1st ed 40k Imperial Guard , some very early IG figures (same helmet but different armour and 2 piece uniform) and mercenaries/pirates and adventures. Any unit shortfalls will get figures I have from other lines, just to mix it up.

Thanks for looking, stay safe out there. 

The court of Baron Schmitt

Hello and welcome back to my little place in the wastelands of the internet. Let’s look at Schmittville - and the court of Baron Schmitt. 

Schmittville lies in what was a oldworld industrial estate a days march east from Rubbleborg. Behind the clay brick lined scrap walls there lies a warren of old factories, old skips, dumpsters & vehicles converted into homes and plenty of ramshackle huts. There is very little power here. All light is provided by crude torches and oil burning lamps. 

The Baron rules with a iron fist relying on fear to control his people. He takes slaves to work the clay mine. Townsfolk are bullied by the Baron’s Enforcers and Goons. Those who offend the Baron end up as slaves in the clay mine or brick factory. Some offenders are beaten, stripped and taken out into the wastelands then left to fend for themselves. The hope is that in addition to the beating and humiliation bandits or a wasteland nasty will finish the troublemaker, if the harsh conditions don’t finish them first. Some survive long enough to be saved by traders who allow them to work off the debt for saving them. One unfortunate got captured by slavers who sold him back to the Baron the next day, much to the Baron’s amusement.

Schmittville’s major trade is clay bricks, pots and crockery. In addition to this they also produce home made hazmat suits from the massive stores of rubber sheet found in one of the factories. If asked the Baron has other trade assets. One of the factories has old stores of magnesium, copper sheet and aluminium ingots. The township has no use for them nor do they know what to use these items. He may also trade slaves who prove useless. 

Regular scavenging and salvage runs are made into the nearby ruins to keep the town supplied. Rad ghouls are a very real danger in those ruins. 

The Baron likes to trade with Slavers but isn’t beyond sending teams of Goons out to raid settlements for fresh slaves.

As the complex lies close to the old road the Baron has travellers and merchants delayed unless a tribute is paid. To get around this traders on the Trashford - Piean - Rubbleborg trade run will often call into Schmittville to trade as this avoids the tribute. 

Grandson of the first Baron of Schmittville the current Baron is a cruel man who rules Schmittville with a iron hand. He will not think twice of trying to rip off traders. As such he has a reputation in the wastelands as slimey, dishonest and untrustworthy. The Baron is one of the few township leaders who is happy about the Britannians and is willing to join them, for the right deal. 

The Barons wife Eleanor, is a self indulgent individual. As a born Schmitviller she doesn’t trust her husband and knows that as soon as she stops being useful to the Baron she will be discarded. But for now she has a lot of power and status. So why not enjoy it?

Wally is Lady Schmitt’s pet um...pooch I guess. Wally is a weird creature brought from the Shriek swamps by a trader. It is a strange mix of dog and frog. The Lady Schmitt fell in love with the creature. It is loyal and acts as her bodyguard. She has the town’s metal worker make it some armour for the pooch.

Krawford is the head of the Enforcers and is known as the “Baron’s Watchdog”. He is now too old for active duty and relies on other Enforcers and Goons to enforce the Baron’s will. The Baron keeps him around for his iron will and ability to psychologically break people during interrogations. 

Nunk is Schmittville’s techmonancer. He is one of the few people to use electricity in the township, provided by an ancient generator. Nunk is a mutant who came to Schimttville as a slave. His talents with ancient technology proved to useful to the Baron and he was invited to join the court. 

Guy is the Baron’s Head Goon. He is renowned for shutting down the area 31 riots by spraying the rioters with his automatic shotgun. Guy is a non nonsense character who lives by the rules. Guy leads Goon squads around the settlement and mine enforcing the Barons will. 

The court of Baron Schmitt is various figures by Blind Beggar Games. 

Thanks for looking. Stay safe out there Wanderer. 

Next rework in the queue.

Hello and welcome back Wanderer. 

There has been quite a bit going on with figure painting and planning new factions. I will get them posted up as soon as I get the background fluff written up. 

Meanwhile it’s time to fix up this bad boy and update it. The model fell off a shelf last year.

This piece was my first fully detailed interior model which I made around 15 years back. The inspiration for it came from a place I worked in. The design is set out so a 25mm base can move around inside.

The walls are foam board and the base & roof are cork board. The planters on the roof are old electrical connector caps filled with greenery. The tool cupboard, cupboard and filling cabinet came from a cheap Chinese garage set. 

Lots of bits from the bits box turned up including some bottles and bits from a tavern set (Grendel maybe?). The bed is scratch built from balsa, paper and putty. The chairs are chopped down oil barrels with cushions made from milliput. The stove/heater is another cut up oil barrel with card door. Lots of posters printed off from the web, the owner one ‘Mad Dan’ likes the goth female form. 

Time to repair - the corner of the roof has gone. The sign needs replacing. The exterior needs some paint touching up and will get the PA weathering. Inside may get some new details too depending on what is laying about. 

Keep watching for the next update. 

Thanks for looking. Take care out there. 

Terrain updates

Hello and welcome back Wanderer. 

I have been working on some terrain lately. 

First up is a quick wasteland ruin. What it was, nobody knows. From this distance it looks pretty intact.

This model started life as a card packing piece from some electrical item. 

It had a couple of cut outs which ruined the lines. My choices where to cover them up or do something with them. I made a rough looking doorway out of one, the other became a nasty looking hole. A bit of gift car makes a nice bit of detail above the door. 

After trimming the reinforcing edge off the packing piece I glued to the model some thick cardboard to reinforce the structure. Chimneys/exhaust stacks where added from old plastic drinking straws left over from the Triple tower rework. 

Seems legit.

After a black undercoat the whole model got a slightly gritting textured paint. Then it was sprayed with grey primer. A heavy white dry brush then brought out the detail. Heavy rust colours (dark browns and oranges) was added to the pipes. After which the model got a couple of dark brown washes. A little detail graffiti was added to finish it off.A quick and easy model.

My old city/fortress gates recently got a rework. Looking through the model collection I noticed a corner piece of the walls had sustained damaged (when a shelf collapsed). After a bit of repair work and some new detail on the wall top, the whole model was coated in light grey. 

A heavy white dry brush followed. The compulsory black and dark brown washes followed. The metalwork had new paint too. After which some new graffiti was added. I have some tamyia effects so I tried getting some nice rust wash off the metal plates on the top of the wall. It is quite subtle but looks effective. A quick coat of Matt varnish was added to seal the weathering. Finished - another rework added to the pile.

Over ten years ago I was heavily inspired by the Stalker computer games. As such I made lots of abandoned industrial terrain to recreate the battles on the tabletop. Fast forward to me checking the model collection ready to go to BYOL 18 and I found that the plates on top of this model had warped. I removed them to rework the piece. 

Originally the model was made from a CD as a base, 4 plastic bottle tops, 4 Yakut bottles and some scraps of diamond pattern plastic card to make the walkways.

18 months later I finally got my finger out. Scraps of gift card made up the new walk ways. One thing my models don’t have enough of is human remains, so a old citadel plastic skeleton was added to the base. A quick paint job and this is ready to return to the wastelands. 

Thanks for looking, take care out there Wanderer.