Starting a Board for Necropolis

Starting a 16x16 diorama board for Necropolis—cutting foam, planning the frame, and discovering a cool free skirmish game with an awesome solo mode.

Transcript

Welcome to the Hobby Nomicon. Today we’re starting another board. I’ve been sitting on these foam pieces knowing I could do something with them. The material is a pain to work with, but I got them all glued together.

Finding Necropolis

I started searching for games I could actually play. I found several—I ordered the Sunrot minis thinking it needed multiple players, but it turns out you can solo it. I’ll go back and order that. I also need a Mordheim board down the road.

But in the meantime, I found a game called Necropolis (used to be called Necropolis 28). It’s played on 16x16 boards. I think one guy named Peter makes it, and he gives it away for free on his Discord. When I was researching it, the posted PDF didn’t have the solo mode, so I DM’d him and he immediately replied with the solo rules, noting they’re still rough. Really cool guy—talked to me about the game that morning. I’ll put the link in the description.

What Is Necropolis?

Everyone’s undead, which I love. It’s a skirmish game played on 16x16, and Peter calls it a “diorama game” because at that small scale, you’re very much encouraged to have well-designed boards and really cool terrain. A 16x16 is basically a small display board. So we’re going to do it up.

The Build

All my foam pieces are bigger than 16x16 or they’re 10x10, so I need to cut them down. Using a box cutter, counted out six inches, keeping it a little under eight on each side. The finish is rough but I’m going to put a lot of dirt and texture on top.

I love boards with old picture frames around them, so I’ll definitely frame it with a cool picture frame from the thrift store. But I can’t use power tools right now—everybody’s sleeping, and I’m not going to hacksaw at 11 o’clock at night.

Even without any terrain yet, the board looks pretty sick. We’re in the garbage stage again where we’re just gluing trash together, but we have our foundation and we’re off to a good start.

What’s Next

Tomorrow will be necropolis board work and hopefully painting the sculpt. Our Daemon Prince guy is fully cured—I’m going to do some work on the back, make his mold, cast him, and get one primed. Making progress every day, and that’s the whole point.