Building a better Space Hulk

So the camera's acting up and I can't get any decent shots of my WIP Deathwatch, of which I've only managed to progress two marines (Brothers Torres and Kesler, soon to be wearing bearskins), my order for SH3D components is trapped in some couriers van somewhere, and real life is no less disappointing sad to say.

Prototypes - I like a snub nose bolter :)

So it goes.

Ok, so what I can talk about is Space Hulk planning (for hardcore shulkers interest only)...

Space Hulk 3D, a.k.a. SH3D, a.k.a. an immense amount of work. The reason someone would do this is because it's the holy grail of Space Hulk players everywhere. The immersion, the game possibilities of a z-axis, and not least the freedom from the constraints of existing board sections. And it just looks... so... damn... awesome.

I drew up a quick spreadsheet to work out what my shopping list / budget would be (I like to have everything I need before I start a project, just in case something critical becomes unavailable midway - never happens but, well, one worries).

Going to the Floor

For a full set of board sections including Deathwing and Genestealer expansions I'll require some 400 floor tiles which I intend to be 40mm square to support modern terminators and any of the larger denizens of the hulk. The standard city of death floor sprue has 10, the Imperial Sector box has 5 of those sprues, so at this rate I need eight Imperial Sectors. A pound a tile, 400 quid total. Notgonnahappen.

Well I want to be a little less gothic than Nedius' set, in fact I want the set to be not a million miles away from background image on this blog, so some BPC flooring makes sense but for an awkward 55mm square it's about £4 a tile. They'll have to be for the odd special room or two, maybe gantries. Okaaaay, so plastruct. It's not cheap, but it's cheaper at ~£5 for A4 sheets (35 tiles a sheet) of tread plate, diamond plate, or similar. It's just a ton of effort. Time vs money, the classic. It also occurred to me that I could use 40mm monster base but I can't find a source cheaper than about 50p each anyway, and not in sufficient volumes, and then untextured, so probably needing the plastruct or aluminium mesh anyway.

And then there's these:

Creative Gamescapes Spaceship X

Now I'd dismissed these after initially getting quite excited by them because the half-height vertical just doesn't work for me at all and feels kind of boxed in, but for components I could make make 50 tiles or so out of each set at about 40p a tile, plus some unknown international shipping cost. We shall see...

Hitting the Wall

Ok, so the floor tile unit costs above are only a half truth because a 3D hulk wouldn't be very 3D without some walls, and the Imperial sector has a ton of those, and the SpaceShip X set has at least some useful raw materials. The problem here is that again I need around 400 wall sections, and most of the Imperial sector walls are full of windows, and/or battle damage. As gothic as space hulk is, a space ship can only use so many window sections. Even the manufactorum only has four (iirc) distinct wall sections. I also can't find anything even remotely suitable on the market.

As good as it gets?

Man, space ships are expensive.

---

Purchases so far:

• 1 x Imperial Sector
• 2 x Shrine of the Aquila
• 1 x Honoured Imperium (need that marine)
• 1 x Imperial Bastion
• 1 x Bio-Toxin Plant (Urban War)
• 10 (not a typo) x Modular movement tray (for baseplates)
• A couple of packs of dragonforge's power cables
• Some neodymium magnets (for board couplings, and maybe walls)

Rooms planned:

• Librarium (in tribute to Nedius)
• Teleportia
• Strategium
• Labs
• Habitation areas
• Double height halls (for the "wide corridor" sections)
• Chapel (for the dead ends)
• Infested rooms
• Breach rooms