EXT: INT

Terrain month has nearly let up! I can almost see the finish line, and it has yellow and black warning stripes.

This is the Iron Labyrinth set from TTCombat. After Necromunda came out, there was a thoughtful pause from many gaming terrain makers, and then a sudden proliferation of sets of this kind of stuff - solid bulkheads that fit over the dark areas on the Necromunda board sections to give you that extra 3D effect.

If anyone from TTCombat is reading this, I'd love it if you made a set that represents the generators, pools and fans in the artwork, simple overlays to give them a little depth. That would be awesome!

Did GW miss a trick here? I'd say no, if they made this in super-detailed plastic you'd have to buy heaps of it to cover a board, and it would just cost too much. Here, for about £60, you get what you could accurately label a metric shit-ton of mdf, much cheaper than many of the market equivalents from 4Ground, Paperworks and so on, and just as good looking even if you have to paint it yourself.

But first, you have to build it!

Hoo boy, this took a while. I started doing a couple of the square linking sections a day while I was building and painting Stylus's stuff. Overall, it took a month to get through the whole set, plus a fair few head-scratching moments. Not that the (only online) instructions aren't decent from TTCombat, but there are one or two bits that are probably more complex than they need to be.

And a few that are just a pain - the round pipe sections are made from thinner gray card, and it just isn't up to the task of being slotted into wood, or glued into cylinders. Maybe I'm too heavy-handed as well, I'm not the most patient builder. But PVA glue makes the card go soggy, then it tends to fold or crumple as you try and get it in place. Bleh.

However, overall you get a lot of variety, from sections with fans to blank bulkheads that you can decorate yourself with an assortment of lights, ladders, doors and I-bars. I also had a few spares from the other buildings I've got that I swiped. The long and short sections slot into the square bits with a pair of hooks, and the holes that these can slot have an alternative, a hook with lamps on. I did consider having that, but actually the holes look fine without, and the idea of painting dozens of tiny optional light fixtures left me stone cold.

Midway through, all the work bar the stripes and details done

Looks good once painted! And that was a pretty quick bit of work, considering. Mostly done with spray paints for speed, then a two-day stint of sorting out the detailed bits. Scenery is pretty fast, I find, even if you aren't super accurate the scale you're working in is pretty forgiving. A few paper posters for after-touches, and job's a good 'un!

Assembled for final varnish

Painted and varnished, they still slot together fairly well, although you'd need to take care not to force them if they stick. The hooks are a little fragile, especially to sideways bending, and one or two have already snapped. Not that it matters, they still fit together well. There's enough in the box to cover all the tiles from the Necromunda set handily. I've got the expansion tiles too, alas, and that means if I really want to do the full table of Hive Interior, I'd need to paint another Iron Labyrinth set up! Not sure I can face that right now, it'll have to wait for a good long time.

Painting Guide:

• Basecoat - spray black from below, then a dark brown from above, then a light coat of a rust-effect brown (that contains actual glitter and ought to be relabelled Unicorn Poop, but looks good once washed) and an even lighter silver spray coat from above
• Washes - Typhus Corrosion where I thought water would gather, then a very watery wash of Skrag Brown, then a thin and selective one of Tau Light Ochre over the Skrag bits
• Stipple - Leadbelcher on with a sponge, then a lighter attack with Runefang Silver, then a medium layer of Ryza Rust in places
• Drybrush - Stormcast Silver over the edges
• Lights - Averland Sunset, Bad Moonz Yellow highlighted up to White
• Warning Stripes - Drawn on with laundry pen where it wasn't already marked into the mdf, then Averland Sunset and Black, both thinned with water and avoiding rusty bits where needed
• Cables - Either Evil Suns Scarlet with Wild Rider highlight, Macragge Blue with Lothern Blue or Caliban Green with Warpstone Green
• Terminals - Black and silver with a variety of colours not far removed from the cables, but finished up to a more reflective look with extra white
• Oil Drums - just the basecoat and wash from above, then a hard Ryza Rust stipple

Expect more shots of it in action soon, but here's some mocked up Necromunda shots using the boards and box along with the new stuff!

Come and get me, boys!