Still alive out there?

Hello and welcome back,

There hasn’t been a post for a couple of weeks. I am still alive and kicking. I have some 15mm figures to share when I get around to writing their fluff. 

A couple of weeks ago I decided to build the Ork trukk & boys that revell released a few years back for Orktober. Then the conversion bug bit and I fell down the Gorkamorka rabbit (squig?) hole. My inner Mek Boy went into overdrive. 

The trukk was stretched and a rather fun crows nest added. It is still a WIP. No idea about names for this gang yet. Maybe the Black Skarz?

Then I started this build intended for a character Trog I made a couple of years back. They frame is recycled sprue. The engine and wheels come from Foxbox.

Mattblackgod’s world has Trogs (Orks) who are Genetically Engineered Life Forms (GELF) that we’re brought to the world to fight during the end wars. Trogs are hardier than humans and found survival in the post apocalyptic world quite easy. Actually they think it’s great fun. Trogs are a threat across the wastelands and to the Last City. Trog raiders are always on the lookout for loot and slaves to take back to Trogwanna. One of Mattblackgod’s World’s continents is called Trogwanna. It is a wasteland overrun with the creatures and the Grots which share the same genetic engineering. Many humans surviving on Trogwanna are enslaved to the bidding of the Trogs. Some Trogs lead warbands of human “fanboys”. The large mutated Trog known as the Mattblack Trog controls the ruins of the planet’s capitol mega city and the tomb of the Mattblackgod. Another Trog Nob known as Da Duke controls the ruins to the North of the Matt Black City now known as Nu Ork. The Immortan Trog controls some of the deserts of Trogwanna using Humans as the main body of his warband. So I can quite happily twist and fit further Gorkamorka madness into MBW. 

At some point I would love to build this Ork slaver’s walker from the fluff in the 40K Rogue Trader rule book.

Until then the Mad Mek’s will have to keep a eye open for suitable gubbins to build it.

Thanks for looking. 

Stay safe out there. 

New additions to the Wastelands.

Hello and Welcome Back to my blog.

Finally I have got some miniatures finished. Hopefully my groove is coming back.

Out on the Western edge of the ruins of Matt Black City Vault 22 has opened. The dwellers have chosen to remain in the vault but now send scouting parties out in the ruins of the mega city looking for anything the vault can use.

Meanwhile on the other side of the ruins a Technomancer goes to work in his workshop in Wastetopia. Found any old tech you need to trade or fix then this is the guy for you. He is a bit stingy on trades though.

Wanderers are common in the in post apocalyptic wastelands of Matt Black God's world. Many are insane or running from their past. This Wanderer, Max suffers from both. Still he is a handy gun to hire and is a skilled driver. This means he is popular with those who need a dirty job doing.

x

Here is Immortan Trump, the leader of New Sodom City (NSC). Since arriving in the ruins of MBC the Immortan has restarted his war against Liberty City. NSC has started raiding Liberty City supply & trade convoys. He is also raising suspicions about Utiopa's presence in the ruins.

Out in the wastelands don't trust anyone, not even little girls.

This little girl is probably a cannibal. The figure is a OOP Hetzerdog Babylons Burning Ghoul miniature. I was digging through a old box of zombies and found her. She had her base tidied up. 

Thanks for looking. Stay Safe Out There.

Matt Black City Report 17 - Radio Static

Journal of Senior Mag Stevo.
Date 16070117

Day 26- Radio Static

It has been ten days since my last update to this journal.

To keep the home sickness and cabin fever at bay we have kept ourselves busy. That said it doesnt stop the feelings or thoughts on night watch.

We have busied ourselves with clearing out the block apartment by apartment. So far our efforts have reached down 20 floors. We have quite a pile of trade goods. We also found quite a few piles of human remains. These bones are piled near the resych suite until we can dispose of them correctly.

Alas we found the block armoury was stripped. Only a few close combat weapons and bullets remain. They are no use to us so they went into the trade pile.

Many of the old security cameras have been put back online or moved to cover key points in the block the four of us can't cover. At least it improves our security situation.

Communications with Utopia have been virtually non exisitant. There is a lot of interference and static in our radio comms. We know they are there and they know we are here but no meaningful communication has been achieved. Magistrate Warren pointed out that this is a common phenomenon since the orbital bombarment and is nothing sinister.

The static has also limited our use of the drones. We nearly lost another due to loss of comms. We got lucky recalling it. The good news about this is that the static has blocked the awful Kraptoidiots corporation's radio transmissions. I think the static is preferable.

Our supplies are starting to get low and we have begun rationing as we have had no resupply information from Utopia. Maybe the environmental radio interference is stopping a resupply?

I have continued the mapping of the settlements and anomalies across the ruins. It seems that some bands are making their way to larger settlements. There is logic in the safety in numbers argument. We also think we have may have discovered the location of the settlement Wastetopia we have heard in the radio chatter before the static. Wastetopia is suspected to be near the North Eastern edge of the ruins. Hopefully we can get a drone sweep once the static dies.

The anomalies fields continue to change and puzzle us. We need more people and equipment to collect more data. They only thing we do know is that they are still deadly.

Matt Black Data Report #12- Scavengers

Whilst many townships do not allow scavengers Wastetopia gets a a fair bit of trade from them. The Warlord's guards keep a close eye on them as they tend to determine drunk, cause trouble, cheat and steal anything not bolted down.

The figure is a Copplestone Casting Scavenger. 

Beyond the towns deep in the ruins and wastelands beyond Scavengers loot easy places leaving the more dangerous places to the Stalkers and recovery teams. The Scavenger's also attack any easy targets such as wounded stalkers or merchants. Not all encounters with Scavengers are bad. There are stories of them trading or coming to help people in distress. Despite this they are considered to be a hazard by many. 

Matt Black Data Report #11 - Dead Eye

Meet Dead Eye, he watches from the tower on the Headshot Armaments compound. Anyone making off with the merchandise cops a bullet to the head. 

Dead Eye is a figure from the Nuclear Renaissance range by Ramshackle Games. The rifle barrel snapped off in a kitten incident so he has a carbine.

Matt Black Data Report #10 - Bunker Bustards

A guy in a suit of old power armour walks into Wastetopia looking for a drink. The armour has come from several sets and has many custom painted parts. 

Meet Captain Bustard who leads the Bunker Bastards, a team of pre war bunker hunters. They find the bunkers and break in, looting what they can. They then move to the nearest town to spend their loot. Most of the team have suits of power armour. 

This figure is a slightly customised old plastic 40K RT era space marine. 

Matt Black Data Report #9 Mr Hanky

Out in the Greasy Poon settlement a mutant has arrived.....

Meet Mr Hanky. A living pile of muck. Rumor has it that it escaped from a outhouse someplace. Don't get too close besides getting muck all over he may be radioactive too. 

Mr Hanky comes from Ramshackle games mutants line.

Matt Black Data Report #8 - more Wasteocrates

A few more recruits for the Warlord's Wasteocrates gangs in the township of Wastetopia.

A tough wasteland lady and a short range sharp shooter who covers the Warlord's back when out waving at the hordes of Wastetopia. 

The chick is from Foundry Miniatures and the sharp shooter comes from Ramshackle games. Sadly the barrel had snapped off the rifle

Meet Squeek and Snitch. Squeek is the Warlord's advisor about the Vermen of the Brood that the big man is trying to form an alliance with. Snitch is the Warlord's spy out in the township. Ratlings are naturally stealthy and it lends to Snitch's job of snooping about. 

Squeek is a old plastic Skaven with a shotgun  modification. Sneak is a old Warhammer Halfling. I converted him back in the late 80's to fit into my Rogue Trader games by adding a laser pistol.

Matt Black Data Report #7 - Brittannia tech specialist

Brittannia city have founded a colony in the ruins called "Mirandatown". The detachment also feature power armored troops. 

This is a specialist technologist who goes out with the power armoured troops and helps identify the arcane items to be removed from the ruins.

This figure is a old 40K RT era space marine specialist. 

Matt Black Data #6 - mutant Verman.

Spotted out in the ruins...a large Verman mutant. The fact it has metal bands and shackles indicates that it may have been a pit beast (gladiatorial combat is a popular sport in a lot of settlements). The question is, did it get loose or was it freed? 

Is this beast an indication of other Vermen living in the tunnels under the ruins? 

The miniature is a old GW Skaven Rat Ogre, I found this figure cheap on ebay many years ago. The paint is as I bought it. As it was based on a square base with the traditional GW park green basing, I rebased it. The purpose of this figure is to act as a bullet magnet for my Verman gangs.

Matt Black Data #5 The bounty hunter.

Meanwhile a mutie bounty hunter walks into Wastetopia town looking for work. 

I wonder if he will find work?

The figure is a rebased Clix Johnny Alpha (2000AD Strontium Dogs). As usual with clix figures a wash and some touching up was needed.

Matt Black Data #4 - Immortan Ork

Immortan Ork: 

30 miles south of the ruins in the wastelands of the hell zone lies a settlement built around what appears to be a old world aquifer. The leader of this settlement is a old mutated Trog known as Immortan Ork. The Trog has survived here for a long time. He was here even when the Hellzone was too toxic for anything else to live.

He and his Warboys terrorise the wastelands to the south of the ruins in souped up vehicles.

Immortan Ork would contest the Matt Black Trog's position in the city ruins but his Warboys are deeply superstitious of the ruins and cannot be coaxed or bullied to go more than a mile into the old mega city. 

The chances are that it would be suicide to contest the Matt Black Trog as his Trogs outnumber the Warboys. 

Immortan Ork is a based on a current 40K Ork Nob with a heavy amount of customisation. The mask was made to look more Orky than the Mad Max Fury Road character. The Warboys are GW Gorkamorka Digganobs painted in a Warboy style.

Matt Black Data #3 Headshot Armaments

Headshot Armaments:

Hailing from the Liberty City Ruins, Headshot Armaments started making pipe rifles which they traded with locals. They moved into repairing weapons and moved into weapon building. The company also specialises in munitions manufacture.

The company hires Stalker bands or organises missions to find old pre end weapons and equipment. They then refurbish them and trade them on. As a result the company found itself attracting raiders after free weapons. This has lead them to equip and arm their employees. 

Heeding the call Headshot Armaments moved to the ruins of Matt Black City. Looking around the company decided that the township of Wastetopia would be a good place to set up. Added security provided by the Warlord and his Wasteocrates is an attraction. Plus the Warlord demands reasonable tribute of one decent weapon  or armour a month and a weekly tribute of ammunition. 

The Warlord likes the Headshot being set up in Wastetopia as it will attract traders and a weapons manufacturer would be handy in an assault on the town.

The minis are a mix of old 40K RT Squat, Plastic Space Marine conversion and Space Lords figures. This faction will be growing with time. 

Matt Black Datat #2 Squat Bikers.

Squat Bikers.

These Squats are not from the usual settlement of Govin but are freelance gang of engineers.

They roam from settlement to settlement trading their skills for supplies. This gang is well armed and can take on anything that decides to mess with them. There settlement in the ruins is called Hammer town. 

The figures are old 40K Rogue Trader Squat bikers/Engineers guild. 

Matt Black Data Report #1.

These are some of the data items sent to Utopia High Command by the Expedition team currently setting up in the ruins of Matt Black City.

Halfpintskis:

These stable mutations have been spotted out in the ruins. They appear to be tribal versions of those guarded by Brittannia's Black Daggers company. It is thought that they may be decendants of the people who lived in this city before the end.

They live in the rubble zones of the city and raid for food. However they can be easily won over by gifting or tradeing for food.

The Halfpintskis live in rubble caverns beneath the ruins in a settlement they call "Halfpintington". These mutants are known to help those lost or in trouble near their settlement. However do not cross them as they are well armed and can be aggressive.

I bought these minis as a impulse buy many years ago (because you have to have tribal machine gun toting hobbits! ) and now I can't recall the manufacturer.

Matt Black City Report 16 - Questions

Journal of Senior Mag Stevo.
Date 06070117

Day 16- Questions

We had some good news from Utopia today. It appears that the PSI signal from the Tomb is weakening. The city is hardly effected now. If current predictions of the signal decay are correct it will only effect the ruins of Matt Black City within 18 months. It makes us think that this is some sort of gathering or summoning call. But why?

As we predicted the Utopia High Command is interested by the anomolous activity and ordered a drone fly past to collect more data. To our surprise the anomalies had moved a few hundred meters towards the centre of the ruins. After collecting more data we conducted a sweep of the ruins and discovered yet more anomolies further towards the centre of the city. Some are singular and others grouped together. The anomolie placement and pattern seems to get more concentrated further towards the centre of the city. Curiously these anomlies do not appear in or around Trog City.

One fear I had was that this was some sort of Trog weapon or possibly a side effect of a Trog experiment. Their Meks are famous for trying to make new weapons and teleporters. Often they tinker with things they do not understand. The Meks are also famous for accidentally making a weapon when the original design was something more functional like a tin opener or plumbing. It is possible a Trog Psyker could be behind this using a PSI amplifier of some kind.

As a precaution I asked Magistrate Monk if she could pick up anything from the anomalies. What she "read" was disturbing. The anomalies are generated by a powerful Psyker or possibly some sort of Entity and they are used as defence mechanisms by it. The random outer single anomolies we have observed are uncontrolled side effects.

Pushing Monk further to find who or what the Psyker is, she confirmed that this is not a Trog but is unsure if it is a human. More disturbing is that the Psyker is also located in the Tomb or tomb complex.

Monk was too tired to continue as her gift often leaves her exhausted. It does leave us with more questions than answers. Is the PSI signal that brought us here linked to the Psyker? To my mind if it is powerful enough to generate anomolies in the laws of physics then they could easily generate the PSI signal.

How is the Matt Black Trog and the Trog's linked to this? Are they summoned as some sort of guards? Why has "it" summoned everyone to the ruins of the capitol? Or was that a side effect of calling the Trogs? Did the Trogs terraform the captiol for themselves or for everyone? Who and what is the Psyker? Is it human or some unknown entity?

There has been some wild speculation between us that this could possibly be the Matt Black God. But he died long ago and as far as history recalls our planet's founder had no psychic abilites. Can the machines that kept him alive still be working?

Legend has it a cleaner accidentally unplugged his life support to run a vacuum cleaner. Did the Trogs revive a long dead corpse? If so, how?

So many questions. The longer we are here the more questions this place generates. I guess we cannot know more until Monk recovers.

If the anomolie fields are a defence mechansim (from who and what? Another question!) then if we can by pass them we may find a way to the Tomb and possibly the rogue Psyker.

Matt Black City Report 14 - Strange Events

Journal of Senior Mag Stevo.
Date 04070117

Day 14 - Strange events

Last night we noticed on a drone feed what appeared to be a small campfire few miles out from our location. When taking a closer look the fire vanished. The drone could not pick up activity or movement in the area other than a small heat patch where the fire was seen. A mutated beast was moving towards where the fire had been spotted. As it walked across the heat patch a flame suddenly erupted out of thin air incinerating the beast. It lasted only a couple of seconds and left only ashes.

Shocked by this we swung the drone further out we noticed some distance way a blue light. Thinking that a camp or vehicle was there we moved the drone towards it, promising to revisit the sight of the fire later. As the drone approached the light we noticed faint blue sparks dancing around a spot. Nothing indicates a power source near there. They seem to be generated in thin air.

What is odd is the drone picked up all manner of strange readings from both these sites. Gravitational, increased background static and more. Radiation seemed to peak a little too. Magistrate Warren thinks that these are some sort of anmoloies in the laws of physics. The how and why we cannot determine at this time. As we do not want to risk losing another drone with a closer swoop we will map them and send the data home. When we get a chance we will send a team to investigate them further. No doubt the science teams will have questions. These ruins get stranger and more hazardous by the day.

The only other thing worthy of note is that again we are seeing some fluidity in the camps out in the ruins. One day they are there, the next gone. Where are they migrating too? Surely not Trog Town??

Matt Black City Report 13 - Vikings???

Journal of Senior Mag Stevo.
Date 03070117

Day 13 - Vikings ??

Still acting on the Intel from the character known as the Wanderer we sent the drones to the location of the raider camp.

It is circled on the map in red with our position marked in blue.

The drone images show a typically equipped raider band. Much of their equipment seems to be old but functional.

The Vikings gang are from various sources. Most are converted in some way.

By cross referencing our data we can see that these Raider bandits hail from the northern parts of the Brittainna wastes. They call themselves The Vikings but have little to do with the ancient Earth warriors other than raiding.

This band is from areas near the Blasted Ruins and we thought many settlements around those parts had been over run long ago by the mutant armies from the ruins. If they survived then this band will certainly be battle hardened.

Magistrate Black thinks we should hire Claw Company to take them out. The thought of hiring criminals irks me even if it is to deal with bandits. We will wait for instructions from High Command.

Matt Black City Report 12 - Claw Company

Journal of Senior Mag Stevo

Date 02070117

Day 12 Claw Company


After the Intel from the Wanderer that one of neighbours may be the infamous Claw Company we decided to use the drones to take a closer look.

There location is here on the map circled in green. Our location is the one circled in blue. Claw Company base is 11 miles away.

 The images show a well equipped and armed group of around 12 warriors and what looks like a old combat droid. We have confirmed that they wear the claw co markings. This band will certainly be well trained veterans. They are certainly a threat to our security.

The figures are EM4 Combat Zone plastics featuring a few conversions. 

These mercenaries spotted our drone and shot it down.

Claw Company are renowned for having few morals and kill for fun. They have been known to turn for better wages or even turn on their employers.

The presence of these cold hearted murderers burns into every law man sense we have. I had to fight every impulse to go and deliver justice to these criminals for hire.

Magistrate Black thinks we should hire them to take out local threats or even to go up against the Trogs. Then we can deal with them. I do not want to act as there is only four of us and it contravenes our orders.

Magistrate Monk pointed out that destroying our drone could be classed as a crime or even a act of war if we needed a reason to act.

Claw Company is planned to be replaced at some point in the future. 

Wasteland Wondering - a change of direction.

Hello and welcome back to another Wasteland Wondering.

Like real wasteland wandering you sometimes encounter things that cause you to change path. Things like radiation pools, a horde of hungry rad ghouls, angry super mutants, Jedwood or a thousand other possible wasteland horrors. So a change in course is required. Or more likely in my case just stopping, pointing in a random direction and yelling "THAT WAY!".

Many of my recent posts have been setting the scene for the Matt black city setting. They have been following the trails of the Utopia city expedition and has been great for setting the scene. I have a few extra posts drafted but I have found that the path has changed.

There was recent finds of two factions I had stored in a separate location to the rest of my collection. That is now 80 factions. I never realised my 28mm collection was that large.

I am now ready to start taking pictures and writing the background fluff. What is going to be fun is each faction has now got a new settlement in the Matt Black City ruins. Some are outposts, trading posts, colonies or a new settlement. I will have to dream up new settlement names.

There is another issue of me mixing some factions together. When I was reviewing the lists it dawned on me that some factions such as traders would be based or operate in another settlement. That would offer a customer base and some security.

On top of this, I am planning on retiring a couple of factions or combining them. This means that the draft Life in Matt Black City posts will need rewriting as they feature some of these factions. I best get the renforcements to the Utopia forces.

In addition to Trog Town, the major factions will operate townships with trading posts in the ruins of the planetary capital. Brittannia, Liberty City, Wasteocrates, Great Lakes, Greasy Poon, Nu Sodom and a few others will offer trade, law and a few other comforts of civilisation. I hope to run two of these as largely anarchic townships where anything can be sold an bought. The plan is that these will attract all manner of trouble.

Historic faction feuds may also be rekindled such as the war between Liberty City and Nu Sodom.

Hobby wise I have gotten a few figures finished ready to pose for pictures and fluff writing. A couple of factions are ready to be fielded too. Things are ticking along slowly on that front.

Thanks for reading and stay safe out there.