Fort Construction: Workshop

 

Another big section of the fort is finished. This one is the spanners' workbench and tools, including some nice hydraulic arms. I probably went a bit overboard with the cables and the ductwork, but since the workbench itself was so detailed, I wanted the rest of the room to look like it matched.

As you can probably tell, most of this wall section is just built from the Mekboy Workshop terrain set, though it did take a bit of work to take the freestanding workshop and build it into the existing wall of the fort.

The biggest part was flipping the main wall of the workshop around and installing the bench on the wrong side. I decided to make the more detailed side of the piece face forward, since the other side would be glued to the wall. The piece is fairly symmetrical, so I really only had to carve some holes for a couple of wires and pipes to get the bench to sit (mostly) flush with the wall.

I ended up grinding off the back half of the wall to better attach it to the fort, so the workbench is now at a slightly odd angle. Plenty Orky, though.

Nice to see that the Orks keep their workspace as tidy as I keep mine.

Since the Mekboy Workshop came with a big hydraulic arm and I already had another as part of the gubbinz for my big trakk, I wanted to make some spots around the workshop where the arms could be installed. I went a little overboard making the mount for the arm, adding as many motors, compressors, and gears as I could fit into the tiny space I'd allotted myself. Though I guess going overboard is kind of on par with the rest of the workshop.

I was originally going to mount the second arm on the floor right next to the workbench, but that didn't give me much space if I wanted to make sure that this piece still fit together nicely with the other fort walls. Also, there was already more than enough detail crammed in this little section, so it couldn't hurt to spread it out a little bit.

I ended up making a little freestanding platform for the arm to sit in. I modeled it mostly on the assembly line platforms you see in car manufacturing plants, which seemed appropriate. I also had to pack more lead weights into this little thing than any other part of the fort just to keep it from tipping over when the arm swung around. Turned out pretty well, though.

Only a few more sections and this thing will be ready for some paint.

Fort Construction: Shanty Town

 

In most mobs on Gorkamorka, the nob and spanners would just curl up to sleep in their beloved vehicles, but other members of the mob probably get booted out once the comfy spots are taken. I'd imagine that a few industrious grots could nick a few sheets of metal and build themselves a nice hovel, while the yoofs in the gang could also nick a few sheets of metal...and make the grots build them a nice hovel.

I wanted to sort of give the impression not just that this section of wall contained the mob's sleeping quarters, but that the walls were probably honeycombed with little nooks and crannies that the mobsters had either purposefully left while constructing the fort, or hollowed out at some point.

Unsurprisingly, I used a rather eclectic range of materials to build this little shanty town. There's lots of plasticard, some bits of random toys, a bit of green stuff, and some tiny cast details. Also plenty of bolts and rivets.

Overall, it certainly doesn't look like the greatest of living conditions out in the deserts of Gorkamorka, but I have some friends in San Francisco who've definitely paid to rent worse places.

Fort Construction: More Storage

 

I figured that my fort needed some additional supplies like food and ammo (and plenty of booze) to keep the mob running, so I made another little spot for stashing supplies behind one of the walls.

I had a bunch of Necromunda crates that looked pretty appropriate for Gorkamorka, but a bit too pristine. After a bit of fiddling around, I decided that I needed quite a bit of variation in the crates to make them look proper Orky, so I ended up making a few of my own out of plasticard and green stuff.  I also made a few wooden crates. Although wood is pretty scarce on Gorkamorka, it seemed like a good way to store a bunch of tasty mushrooms.

In the end, I made more crates than would actually fit under the wall, so I might not be able to get them all on the finished product. Or I'll have to get a bit creative with my stacking. We'll see.

Fort Construction: Spare Parts

 

Now that my mob has a way to gas up their trakks, the next thing they needed were some spare parts for making repairs and building gubbinz. I picked another section of the wall that needed some sprucing up and added a storage area.

Most of the bits for this section came from the various scrap piles that you get in Ork terrain kits. In fact, if you look closely (or not really that closely), you'll notice that I made quite liberal use of the scrap piles and Orky barricades as I was adding detail to the various wall sections.

Although the scrap piles have a lot of really nice detail, they're basically just big hollow domes with detail pressed into their surface, which makes it pretty challenging to dismantle them into individual parts. I was essentially left with half of a bunch of parts, which I just rearranged into a different sort of junk pile. It worked pretty well considering what I had to work with. And I got lots of use out of my Dremel. 

The Ork terrain has quite a bit of Imperial iconography scattered around it, which makes sense in most Ork settings, but much less so on Gorkamorka.  While most of the scrap on the planet originally came from Imperial ships and vehicles (and who knows how many alien vessels might have been part of the 'Ulk), these bits have been recycled over and over again for hundreds of years. With the exception of the Muties, it seems unlikely that anyone would have a centuries-old heirloom toolbox with a perfectly preserved Aquila, so most of those details got filed off.

A few of the bigger details like tires are just blue tacked onto the piece for now, since it seems like they'll be easier to paint separately. I think most of the empty floor space will probably end up with stuff on it eventually.

Fort Construction: Fuel Tank

 

You can't have an entire gang of Morkers riding around in the desert all day long without someplace to gas up their buggies when they get home, so I added a nice fuel tank to one section of my fort. I made the tank out of a tall, thin soda can, but since I'm pretty obsessed with making my terrain as durable as possible, I made sure to fill it with expanding foam before adding it to the fort.  It's still not immune to getting dented, but it should be at least durable as the rest of the wall section.

I added plenty of pipes on the inside, mostly made from some kids' building sets. I actually went through a number of these sorts of sets before settling on this one (although a lot of terrain builders are big fans of this one), but the others had joints made from more bendable, rubber-like materials. Again, since durability is an important factor for me, I try to avoid bendable components that could flex and crack off their paint. 

This section turned out really well and is certainly one of the more characterful sections of the fort so far. Excited to see how it looks all painted up.

Fort Construction: Ladders

 

One important aspect of any fort (especially as far as the rules are concerned) is a way to get up onto the ramparts. In Gorkamorka, attackers can climb the walls from the outside, but ideally you'd want a way for your own boyz to get up there first. At one point I'd considered simply building ladders or stairs into some of the wall sections, but I decided it would be better to put the ladders where you need them, regardless of how your fort is put together.

The main structure of the ladders was built out of some aquarium parts that had a nice grid to them. I originally went with ladders that were two squares wide, but that made the ladders too wide for anyone but my Nob. Most military ladders tend to be thin and lightweight anyway, so I decided to err in that direction.

Like most everything in the fort, I magnetized the ladders so that I don't have to worry about bumping them or having them tip over.  I could also use the magnetic couplings on my walls to attach other sorts of walkways, though I don't know what I would do unless I wanted a really long walkway crossing the entire fort for some reason. Maybe I'll think of something.

Fort Construction: Inner Walls

 

Making some good progress on detailing the inner walls of the fort.  Since this is where my gang's disproportionate number of Spanner Boyz hang out working on new gubbinz and making repairs to the mob's vehicles, it seemed like the fort would have to have some decent (if still somewhat ramshackle) electrical systems. Basically I imagine their fort to be a sprawling auto garage that has grown out of control.

This section is just a bunch of pipes and conduits, with a convenient access hatch on the top. This piece also has the outside, so presumably all the waste from the generators and refineries (and, of course, the Orks) flows through these pipes before being unceremoniously dumped into the desert.

I used a pretty eclectic assortment of materials for this section, including a chunk of a model railroad car, a box of raisin bran, some drinking straws, and loads of plasticard. The rivets and bolts are mostly tiny hex nuts, though quite a few of them are actual nails I used to attach the bits to the underlying XPS foam structure. I also inadvertently melted a bit of the foam with super glue in a few places, which required some appropriately Orky repair jobs.

This piece was a bit more straightforward in its construction. It was mostly plasticard with some random bits from my bits box. Most of the rivets on this piece were tiny glass beads, which I'd previously used on my Big Trakk. These were a lot harder to work with than the bigger greeblies I used on the other section, so I kind of gave up on the beads after this.

I was especially pleased with how these big electrical panels turned out. Not bad for mostly scratchbuilding. 

Now I need to start working on some appropriate power tools to make this a proper chop shop.