Fort Hardknox Part 2

Posted on 29/05/2019 by sho3box

Post Apocalyptic Trip Advisor says “STAY INDOORS!”

Fort Hardknox gets an upgrade.

Hobby time is extra rare at the moment, but what little I had available in May was spent happily expanding my post apocalyptic fortifications with extra wall sections, some scatter terrain pieces, breached walls, some clever little frontage pieces and some nice, big towers.

“Dust Falls” image from Necromunda: Outlanders

Most significantly, this batch of pieces takes Fort Hardknox up a storey or so.  The towers break up the silhouette of the fort in a very satisfying way, desirable for all sorts of settings really, but I particularly enjoy that the new silhouette reminds me a lot of this image from the “Necromunda: Outlanders” expansion from the mid 90s.

The entire Fort Hardknox, ready for action.

The three towers are large, solid pieces. Adding a little height to terrain increases drama, but often leads to delicate, awkward terrain pieces. Not with these.

Navigator Heinlein and Astropath O’Blivion accompany Inquisitor Verhoeven in the exploration of slums on Memphis 8IV

The “shack fronts” that can be used to make the areas beneath the ramparts represent living areas are fun.  Cosy-ish, relatively speaking.  They remind me of the sorts of places where humans eke out a fairly dismal existence (occasionally in flashback) in The Terminator/Salute to the Jugger/Mad Max etc.

Scurvy swabs from Skabsquigs Skallywags be a-guardin’ the breach, while the other privateers dig fer treasure!

Breached fortification areas are the sort of thing that I regularly talk about making, but almost never do, so I got a kick out of these two pieces of wall remnant.

Two orks enter, no ork leaves!

As for painting, the methods that I used on this half of the fort are fully documented in my “Rapidly Painting Rusty Terrain” blogpost and are identical to the methods used on the first half of the fort.

“Mushrööm Klöwd” coagulates on the top tower ramparts.

The graffiti is pretty basic, but even so it took me longer than I expected to complete. My impatience can be seen in the quality here and there, but y’know, it’s post-apocalyptic graffiti, not Dürer: it’s good enough.

Veer-myn Hrud defend against Ursa Miner Forgefather assault.

The graffiti did provide an easy way to add a bit of visual “pop” here and there, but I really think that I should have weathered over a couple of the graffiti elements at least. They currently look like some reprobate ran around the fort painting daft things all over it over the course of one evening – which is technically quite close to what actually happened – which isn’t ideal. I may go back to it later, or I may not.

2029: Remnants of the human resistance try to hold off the relentless legions of Skynet.

Painting Fort Hardknox was a pleasure.  It was a big job, but by approaching it in a certain way, each step was fairly rapid to execute and required limited precision.  I threw on a Netflix sitcom and ploughed through it over a few weekend days over the last couple of months and suffered from very little of the “Oh God, when will it end!!??” that I sometimes get when even painting a ten man unit.

I learned a lot in the process, which in itself has led me to question how I approach painting things in general.  I need to speed my processes up a lot in order to get to the things that I want to get to before I reach average life expectancy, and this project was an eye opener in many regards, allowing me to get a pretty good effect with limited focus required.

The Fort Hardknox Kickstarter is still running at the time of writing, with some nice additional freebies available.  I thoroughly recommend the set, for all of the reasons that I set out in the first Fort Hardknox post.

Some traditional Irish graffiti crept in along with the other references.

 

Filed under: Terrain | Tagged: , , , , |

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33 Responses

  1. Allison Mackay, on 29/05/2019 at 18:42 said:

    “Bono is a pox”? LOL. But I like how you made the graffiti ambiguous enough to use this fort in a bunch of settings. It’s orky… but not too orky. Mad-Max-like too, but not specific to any game. Overall it looks great!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    • sho3box, on 29/05/2019 at 19:38 said:

      Cross compatibility was important to me. I can imagine a variety of games being played on it Al.

      As for Bono, as a connoisseur of some of the odder patterns of graffiti yourself Al, do an image search for “Bono is a Pox”. It’s something of a pastime for inhabitants of Dublin 😀

      Thanks for the feedback!

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
  2. Warburton, on 30/05/2019 at 00:02 said:

    Very nice indeed. It does capture the Outlanders vibe very well. I think the graffiti is good but you could always touch it up with some transfers later if you wanted.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  3. Mikko, on 30/05/2019 at 01:16 said:

    Works really well, Bono and all. The silhouette makes a big difference!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  4. imperialrebelork, on 30/05/2019 at 03:32 said:

    Awesome man. I want one

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  5. Alex, on 30/05/2019 at 07:58 said:

    Cracking job mate, this set really does look the business!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    • sho3box, on 30/05/2019 at 09:51 said:

      Thanks Alex, it’s a great set.
      Have you begun work on your Wolf Time terrain yet? I’m extra behind on my blog checking.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
      • Alex, on 30/05/2019 at 11:31 said:

        Sure is mate!
        I’m still not started on the WT terrain dude – still finishing the Marines!! I’m down to the last 20 Wolves though, so mot too much longer I hope… it’s going to be bloody tight though! :-/

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply
  6. curiso, on 30/05/2019 at 08:11 said:

    I’ve had those Space Orks on loan from you for so long that it’s weird seeing them in other people’s photos and not my cabinet!

    I proper love the rocky terrain in the background. Your paintjob works a treat with a very well judged pallette that makes it look gnarly and tetanus inducing.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    • sho3box, on 30/05/2019 at 09:57 said:

      The orks enjoyed their trip. I think that you got some good use out of them.

      The rocky terrain is a little too close in some shots, but it does help the visual. Filling in the space behind large models can be tricky, and those do a nice job for dusty, desert style models.
      The palette did work out nicely, thanks.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
  7. SymphonicPoet, on 30/05/2019 at 08:19 said:

    I love what you did with it. The graffiti is great. And you really show off some of the potential with your different configurations. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  8. Suber, on 30/05/2019 at 22:37 said:

    Wow, really atmospherical. The kit is great, right, but the way you painted the pieces and how you made them work is sweet.
    (BTW, I didn’t know about the ‘Bono is a pox’ thing, so the post has also been educational) 😀

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    • sho3box, on 31/05/2019 at 10:04 said:

      The “Bono is a Pox” aspect is just a bit of a laugh, and now Sho3box readers are in on the joke.

      I put a bit of time into working out how I wanted to paint terrain like this over the last few months. As a result, painting the fort was straightforward, fast and fun. I think that it shows in the finished product 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  9. Mark A. Morin, on 01/06/2019 at 21:10 said:

    Man that looks awesome- so well done. kudos to you!

    Like

    Reply
    • sho3box, on 01/06/2019 at 23:13 said:

      Thanks Mark. I’m very pleased with how it turned out.

      It’s a straightforward process, as shown in the earlier post: simple, procedural and enjoyable, if you have anything around suitable for trying it on.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  10. clovermilk01, on 05/08/2019 at 16:54 said:

    Oh boy oboy that’s nice!

    And man it’s been quite around here lately!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    • sho3box, on 05/08/2019 at 19:18 said:

      Thanks Clovermilk!

      I have been doing loads of hobby work, buy had little chance to photograph and blog it.

      Hopefully I will catch up a bit soon 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  11. “Shack Me Up” Towers – Fogou | sho3box, on 21/10/2021 at 09:40 said:

    […] had a lot of fun painting the Fort Hardknox release in 2019. As a knock-on from that I was offered these pre-release items at a reduced rate […]

    Like

    Reply

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