Background projects: Space Hulk

As some of you may know, there's a new Space Hulk video game inbound from Tactical Soldier: Undead Rising developer Full Control. Now, since you're reading a 40k blog, I'm going to assume you know Space Hulk, but there's a decent chance you haven't tried its spiritual 40k successor, Zone Mortalis from Forgeworld. The rules for ZM are free from Forge World and can be acquired here, they build off of the Boarding Action scenarios from IA 9 and create the rules for a fairly brutal close quarters match. I've never played (I mostly play pickup games and those are generally on store tables, so no ZM terrain), but I've been heavily interested ever since they started releasing their Zone Mortalis terrain.



So, with the ZM boards out of reach, I've been quietly thinking about and planning a build for my own board. I have wanted such a thing, honestly, since I first encountered the Sin of Alacrity online, a creation of pure genius. I wanted one then but it was completely inconceivable, I wouldn't even have somewhere to store such a board. But with the idea of doing modular pieces, my acquisition of more gaming area in my new house, and a much greater confidence in my hobby skills, I now thing I am ready.



Now, the most common way to make a ZM board is to just use blocks or strips of foam, because its way, way cheaper. The most common way to make a cinematic space hulk board in the past was to kitbash Games Workshop kits. The building walls and floors actually give you really detailed tiles that fit in a space ship,a ndt eh only flaws in the walls are all the windows, which can easily be covered, or better yet filled and left as baroque wall details, inlets etc. This method is great. I love it. But, it does take a fairly large investment of money, and the tiles are little repetative, and limiting.



Now, if I'm not kitbashing, I have a few other options. One, buy one of the many 3rd party scifi corridor setups.







There are a few other options, but really, there's a reason I'm at the point I am (designing and building my own terrain), its because this particular niche isn't really filled outside of FW right now. No biggie! I've been learning more and more about molding...now its time to take it to the next level! I bought some liquid resin the other day and am planning to start learning the in's and out's, The end goal is of course not just building a Space Hulk board, but also getting the manufactorum going for various parts I use a lot (eg parts for my scratchbuilt vehicles, symbols for doors, shoulder pads, etc). That said, my goal is primarily focused on making rubber molds of my custom space hulk interiors, allowing me to build 16 1'x 1' sections representing a Space Hulk. I am opperating off of this floor plan that I have designed, but I may make adjustments to make it more modular:



So, with this planned out, I'm now looking for inspiration. What follows are some pictures to get the brain moving, I'm pretty excitd to start messing around with this, and should start next week, as I am planning to finish my NOVA army hopefully this weekend.








I think its also useful to look at scifi shows and real life pictures for inspiration:










So, there we have it, some ideas, some inspiration, the plan is coming together! What are your experiences with ZM or Space Hulk? Have you ever built a crazy board like one of the ones above? I'm flirting with a dangerous world taking on such an intricate project, but if I can get half a dozen styles of floor tile, and maybe a dozen walls (two sets of 6 designed to fit together) cast, I know I can spend the time and energy assembling the resin. So, design, cast, build.