INT: Hive Maintenance Tunnels

 

That's good timing - I've just finished my Dungeons and Lasers set in time for the sequel to hit Kickstarter!

There's two lots to show you with this finished batch, the Engine Room tiles and the Core Sci-Fi set. This is also the place to review them, I think, so I'll give some random thoughts and scores below.

Engine Room bits first up. Bulkheads and wall-set reactors, mostly.

Not quite sure why I thought my cooker was the best place to set it all up (other than the lighting is quite good there), but it gives you a decent idea of the scale. This isn't quite all of it, there's about six walls I didn't use. It certainly covers a decent amount of ground, though, and it makes a fantastic backdrop for games!

This is the Core Sci-Fi set. Industrial corridors, and although I've done them battered and grimy, they'd work just as well pristine and shiny.

There's a pretty wide assortment of techniques in there. I did the hairspray chipping medium again, over a black, silver and brown mixed basecoat (not letting any of them dry properly before spraying the next one, either). Then an off-white layer over the hairspray before attacking it with toothbrushes, toothpicks and my children, then metallics, secondary colours and decals. Heaps of inks and washes, mostly Dry Rust from Army Painter with extra water, several different technical paints and a light silver drybrush to pick out metal here and there. A few paper posters slapped on with PVA, then a final varnish for toughness, and done!

Those are the floor clips you can see poking out, the double-length ones that go under the floor to join the tiles together. There are also half-lengths that are supposed to go at the edges, but I ran out for this setup!

Looking forward to using it now, it will look even better with some set dressing in there! Which I still have to paint - there are a bunch of tedious floor nodules that fill in empty peg holes, plus lots of things like security cameras, tv screens, alien eye nodes and gun turrets that plug into those holes in the walls. Fiddly, but will add even more once done. Then the rest of the extras, chemical vats, cryogenic freezers, stairs and such, that will get done with my Necromunda stuff. 

Couple of scale pics - the Primaris dude here demonstrating that the tiles give you a 30mmx30mm square grid, with each tile giving you four such squares (or eight for the long ones). The doors are a bit of a squeeze for Primaris, but that's probably appropriate.

Review time!

Ease of Use: 9/10, it clips off the sprue easily, it's plastic if you want to glue it, the clips are sturdy enough that it's harder to take apart than clip together. Only a few mild grumps - second floors are done just by balancing (the new kickstarter has a fix for this apparently), you can't junction a wall in the middle of a double wall and there could have been more half-clips included, but those are tiny niggles. It's great. It also flatpacks, which is ideal for those of us with tiny store cupboards. 

Looks: 10/10. Fantastic detail, you could spend a lot more time than I did and bring even more of it out. Enough variance between the reversible walls to make it easy to have everything look unique with the paintjob, and it all reads nice and clearly. Maybe the closed doors could use picking out in stronger colours? I chose not to, and they therefore blend in a little, but that's my choice. 

Value: 8/10, it's not exactly cheap. But it's certainly a hell of a lot cheaper than GW. Something like 2'x2' of terrain at under a hundred quid is very decent as this stuff goes, and it looks way better than MDF. 

Overall: a strong A grade, I highly recommend it!