looking for input on how to model part of a hive city

[Rob Haskin]

Ive had a long term project in mind for making a large scale diorama and was wondering what would be the best way to start modeling the outskirts of a hive city thats under attack?

[Wolfshade]

This is a hive :



Though sounds like you want the outsikirts.

In one of the various Gaunt's Ghosts novels, the Ghosts find themselves defending an hive. From the way it talks it sounds like the edge of the hive itself is a curtain wall with various tower and gun emplacements, similiar to mediveal forts. Then with roads/rail/canals to the main gate.

The out skirts sounds like some shanty towns with huts and other non-permanent structures and lean-tos with some manufacturing taking place on the outskirts.

So I would start from a fortified wall with turrets with some ruins/abandoned buildings as you get further out.

[Psychosplodge]

I remember the WD with that board in, it was corkin'...

I'd imagine depending on the world the structures either side of the curtain wall could be anything from the modular imperial buildings you can buy to shanty town learn-tos as Wolfie describes.

I'd imagine the hive perimeter something like this from FW

[Rob Haskin]

that definately helps some and gives me a basis to start drawing up on to work with had an idea in mind sincei originally started what feels like a lifetime ago of making a full table sized diorama of a battle of epic proportions with all kinds of little detailed scenes in it just for the sheer joy of the modeling challenge

[tankbusta]

Several of the Gaunts Ghosts novels have overhead maps in them, you can get an idea of the overall layout of a hive city and its surroundings, and then choose how to model it.

I remember the cork board from decades past, it would be interesting to play a few games on, stating with a kill team mission all the way up to a large force.

[-Tom-]

Ive had a long term project in mind for making a large scale diorama and was wondering what would be the best way to start modeling the outskirts of a hive city thats under attack?

Quite a lot of the Hive Cities are said to be on worlds that would have toxic atmospheres. The cities are self contained and isolated. As such, there wouldn't really be an 'outskirt'... Have you seen the new(ish) Dredd movie? Where there is all the irradiated wasteland, and then the wall, and then the city just starts as full blown 'city'. There's no 'green belt', or 'suburbs'.

They're also HUGE. On a game board scale, coming at one to attack from the outside, the 'snippet' of that you would be able to model would really just be a massive wall.

Imagine if Houston were a walled city. On the scale of a 40k gaming table there, you'd just have wall extending off both table edges, (unless you were at a corner), and probably 6" high. With a hive city, there's going to be 'layers' of city stacked on top of each other so the height of the wall would extend off the top of the gaming board too (i.e. it only runs out vertically for practicality of modelling purposes).

So, I guess the question is to decide a level, vertically, at which the hive is being attacked. At ground level on the planet, you'd be going into 'Underhive'. It's going to be full of sludge, gangs, mutants, and be highly industrial with rubbish living conditions/shanty town sort of set ups. Or, on other hand, I suppose you could attack at a higher level. In the upper spire, with the 'elite classes', there's probably windows and balconies, landing platforms, etc., that would allow for an intrusion point.

[tankbusta]

Tom makes some very good points. Consider taking a current map, and think how it might represent a hive.

The hives are somewhat sci-fi speculation but also drawn from the industrial cities we have today. Even in the 40K world, a city might start as a planned area, but grows as its population and resources do, both vertically and horizontally. I doubt any two imperial hives would have the same layout.

For modelling ideas I propose that you'd have wastelands/wilderness outermost, then some small industrial settlements, think of them as transit points or way stations on roads leading to the hives. Those would look like a typical 40K battlefield.
Closer to, but outside the hive wall some heavier settlements, camps, markets, fuel points, etc. Possibly a more urban , but not dense set up, think about how much space a railyard, container shipping port, or truckstop takes up, lots of open area wit ha few hard buildings of various heights. Fuel Storage yards, granaries on a large scale to supply the hive, etc. would be there prior to being brought inside the hive wall.

[Rob Haskin]

Tom and Tank Busta you both have very good points was just thinking over from a book i read recently where it was dealing with the inquisition grey nights dark angels and a hive city on a jungle deathworld that had a few regiments of catachans on it part of my thought process was going along the lines of something like that but more a barren planet or plains like region some hives are massive true but the one in the book said it was designed for like crap i cant remember the pop limit for it gonna have to go back through the book