Choose Your Own Adventurers (Bonus Post): Isabelle Vienne, Space Amazon

It's been 6 months or so since my last visit to the Choose Your Own Adventurers project. In theory, I think it might be cheetor's turn, but seeing as he's enthusing about tiny little sailing ships, it might be a while yet before we restart things. Consider this a bonus post linked to the project!

That said, I wanted to include a female figure in with the rest of my Bratts. The space amazon from the RT adventurers range was a good candidate - what with her tremendous hair, love of bows and rather exotic outfit. Curis has of course, already painted his wonderful version of the space amazon for the project, so I figured I could include her as part of the Sutter Dukes with no real issues.

Bratts go hunting for spook amongst weird dome fungus growths.

Isabelle Vienne AKA The Duchess is an integral part of the Sutter Dukes' hierarchy, occupying a place in the inner circle along with the Magpie Dandy and Beau Rouge. Where many Bratts tend towards impulsiveness and impetuosity, Vienne is cool and calculating. Most of the more complex hunts and traps carried out by the Sutter Dukes are by her design. Her luxurious furs mark her out amongst many other Bratts who prefer silks, lace and expensive fabrics - they owe much to the exotic fashions of House Escher, even if the fighters of Escher wouldn't recognise the upper-Spire translations of their characteristic trappings. 

Frills, Bows, Power Swords and Combi-Pistols - Bratt Leader

Every Confrontation gang needs an unmistakable leader - that flamboyant model with the over-sized gun or waving their powerful combat weapon. The Sutter Dukes have previously been led by the Magpie Dandy, but with an updated gang, I wanted to use the excuse and paint up my unreleased Bratt leader.

The sculpt dates from the early 1990s, along with the other unreleased Bratts, and is the pinnacle of over-ostentation. He wears a quilted split tunic over a shirt with puffed and slashed sleves. He has lace cuffs and ribbons and bows galore. He wears heeled and buckled boots, and an astonishing hairdo. In essence, he is the ultimate Bratt. The brattiest Bratt!

Beau Rouge is making a name for himself in the Sutter Dukes. Starry-eyed young fops admire his razor-sharp spire fashions and somewhat ultra-violent nature. Some even whisper into their scented cuffs that Beau has designs on usurping the Magpie Dandy! For now, Beau is content to undermine his father, the famous insterstellar merchant, Rouge Trader through his self-indulgent and reckless activities. After all, being noticed is everything.

Gold-Plated Pistols and Master-Crafted Plasma Guns - More Bratts

I'm really enjoying revisiting my Bratts and have added another pair to the group. This time round it's a flamboyant dual-pistol wielder and and a Bratt who's spent his pocket money on high-powered weaponry rather than his hairdo!

The Return of the Sutter Dukes and the Elusive Bratt

When I started this blog, I was in the throes of painting up a Bratt gang for Confrontation. In fact the de facto leader, the Magpie Dandy, is featured in the blog's title banner. The Sutter Dukes featured in the Ferrograd Confrontation game we played at BOYL 2014 (where all the maths was calculated by the amazing mind of antipixi), but since then have languished a little neglected in their spire-shag pads.

Cowboys and Rayguns - Dracula's America...IN SPACE!!

There's something innately cool about cowboys. Perhaps it's the swagger or the lawless lifestyle. Perhaps it's the cool hats and low-slung six-shooters. Possibly it's the jangling guitars and tolling bells accompanying the tumbleweed. Or it could be the high octane jail breaks and train robberies.

Needless to say, when Osprey published their Dracula's America ruleset last year, it got lots of folks I know pretty excited. After all, what could be cooler than cowboys plus vampires.

Cowboys plus vampires IN SPACE of course!

It is not a huge leap to transpose the whole game of Dracula's America into a science fiction setting. After all there's precedence for space cowboys - just look at Firefly, 2000AD's Lawless series and, er, Bravestarr. Not to mention that Rogue Trader has a bit of a frontier tinge and Necromunda was pretty much the Wild West too. 

So you have a nice, intuitive, fast and simple set of rules, with a variety of factions available. You have a bunch of people who would like to make some space cowboys and would like to yell 'Varmint!' across a table at each other.

Dracula's America in Space (DAiS) was born.

Big Boy Techs - A Serious Arsenal Upgrade

If I think back to previous versions of Necromunda, the weapon that everybody feared was the plasma cannon. Now I quite like plasma weaponry in the new version of Necromunda too, and it just so happens that Van Saar Tech gangs have access to plasma cannons through their House list. So it would be rude not to take one, right?

I've been keeping the final Roy Eastland tech sculpt back to use as a heavy weapon ganger - with his chunky frame, shades and cigar stub, he's perfect for a cool-as-ice champion capable of blasting any opposing ganger into oblivion.

He might be thickening around his middle, but very few folks are willing to suggest that Zepto loses some weight.

Getting Technical - A Pair of New Tech Gangers

I'm coming to the close on my Tech gang. I have another half dozen Techs to paint, including some reinforcements for a new campaign that will be starting at the end of May.

The Data Kings conduct tense negotiations with Ash Waste Nomads in an abandoned settlement outside the hive.

Grogan and Fischer are a pair of basic lasgun-armed Tech gangers, built using nothing more than a pair of torsos and period plastic arms and lasguns. Why do I need more gangers with lasguns? Why haven't I used short-barrelled lasguns that match the previous gangers? Because I'll be using these Techs to represent House Van Saar. And in the recently published Gang War 3, House Van Saar get cool new lascarbines as well as lasguns. Lascarbines effectively fill the same niche as autoguns do for other houses - slightly less accurate but with a higher rate of fire than a lasgun. In order to visually distinguish between the two weapons, my long-barrelled lasguns are lasguns, and the short-barrelled ones will be lascarbines. I should have taken a comparison picture, but I forgot. I'll just have to remember to do it another time. Perhaps when I add a long-las!