Greetings Terrans, and welcome. This is it folks, the big one, Kulo’s Castle in 3D… I have been looking forward to completing this part of the project, but let’s start at the beginning, shall we? From the Marine briefing in the Book of the Astronomican:

“The stronghold is built around the ruins of a crashed Ork spacecraft, and is heavily garrisoned. There is a main entrance to the south and a separate vehicle entrance to the north. There is an additional domed area covering an aerial launch pad, through which it may be possible to bring airborne troops, although it will probably be necessary to destroy it first.”

And from the Ork briefing:

“The stronghold is built on two levels: a top ‘spaceship’ level, and a bottom ‘dungeon’ level. Kulo never leaves the bottom level except in a dire emergency.”

The original scenario used a whole bunch of GW floor tiles that were available back in the day, arranged as per the maps included in the book. I had many kind offers of PDF access to these floor tiles, but I really wanted to do something a bit special for BOYL, and so wanted to recreate the maps in 3D… no small task! But I broadly had the concept that the first level should be industrial, while the second level could be less so. I figured that the dungeon level would probably share a lot of the look of the first floor, as the Orks would no doubt salvage parts of their ship to make walls and such.

I had many different thoughts and ideas on how to achieve this, but eventually settled on using the Mag Bellum system from Heresy of Us… I spoke with Mark about it back in April, and we worked out how to recreate an approximation of the map using magnetic floor tiles and plug-in wall sections. I commissioned the project, and we went to prototyping. After a few alterations, Mark had a system figured out, and then did an incredible job in casting a total of 12.25 square feet of floor tiles & 3D printing a staggering 399” of walls and 60 edging strips! The final kit list is as follows:

• 20 x 3”x3” smooth floor tiles
• 12 x 6”x6” smooth floor tiles
• 39 x 3”x3” industrial floor tiles
• 22 x 6”x6” industrial floor tiles
• 16 x 3” edging strips
• 44 x 6” edging strips
• 57 x 6” walls (including 6 with big doors and 15 with small doors)
• 19 x 3” walls (including 4 with small doors)

Mark very kindly hand delivered all 229 individual parts at the beginning of July, and even more kindly stuck around for ten hours to help sand & clean all the bits, and then we had to glue all the magnets into the floor tiles and edging strips… 864 magnets in all!

I have spent the last three weeks spraying, shading, drybrushing and weathering it all – I think it is fair to say that this was a hell of a job, but it was finally finished on Monday night. I used the same recipe that I used on the generator buildings – remember that they were built from salvaged spaceship parts, so it made sense to keep a common palette. Once all the bits were finally painted, I put it all together and worked out a few snags – this is an advanced prototype after all! After some fettling and adjustments, I ended up with this for the top ‘spaceship’ level:

 

And then reconfigured it all with different floor tiles to create this for the ‘dungeon’ level, (with cork rocks to build the tunnel walls):

 

And here are some staged ‘action’ pics for your pleasure:

 

I also picked up a nice little template for Navigator Fogg’s vortex bomb – I was going to make my own, but it was cheap, and time is against me:

 

So what do you guys think? I know it isn’t perfect, and there are a few design changes to discuss with Mark, but it’s pretty damn impressive, no? Of course, it is looking a bit sparse so I need to get some scatter terrain in there! I really really need some help with this so please, if you are going to BOYL and you have any crates, barrels, book shelves, generic Orky furniture, etc. then can you pack them & let me have a lend please? I’m going to spend the remaining time doing what I can, and I’ve had some kind offers from a few people already, (James, Curtis, you sexy legends!), but the more the merrier…

Right, back to it – seven more days until I pack & head to BOYL!! Let’s see what extras I can crank out between now and then 😉