Back with the Sinkhole Boggarts, my Marauder-themed scavvy gang. This time I've finished off their leader, who I'm currently calling Ned Crundle (TBC). I probably spent far too long thinking about this figure, but ultimately I'm happy that he fits nicely with the Marauder aesthetic.
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| The stinking Sinkhole Boggarts, led by Ned Crundle with his unstable plasma pistol |
Although scalies only became part of the scavvy gang in Necromunda, I liked the idea of including one in my Confrontation era Marauder scavvy gang. I could have used a 1990s or 2000s scaly, but I wanted one that fit the Marauder aesthetic. That meant digging out a suitable Aly or Trish sculpt. I looked at a lot of orcs, ogres & trolls, but ended up settling on the brilliant Talisman Troll sculpted by Aly. I had to modify him of course!
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| Grolch is regularly used by the Sumphole Boggarts to protect their miserly stash of 'valuables'. |
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| A ranging group of scavvies seek riches amongst the piles of scrap. |
After painting up two of the four Marauder scavvies last time out, it made sense to paint up the remaining pair (as a side note, this means I have now painted all 20 Confrontation miniatures produced by Marauder - showcase to come in the near future!).
It's with a little apprehension that I embark on a final Confrontation journey. The only gang I've not yet painted are the scavvies - once I've completed a scavvy gang, I will have "completed" the Confrontation range. At least I've saved the best 'til last!
I plan to paint the scavvies in a couple of chunks. First up are the four Marauder scavvies sculpted by Aly Morrison. Aly's sculpts are always fun to paint with nice chunky details and characterful faces. I started with the two sporting fancy headgear!
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| A pair of scavvies scour the underhive for gear. |
As I'm closing in on the end of the Confrontation project, I've decided to do some gap filling. This essentially means finishing off any WIP figures and making sure each gang is at least 10 models strong. After a bit of a stock-take, this meant that I needed to paint 3 more psykers, 3 more Helmawr, 2 more maniacs. Plus the Scavvy gang of course.
Step 1 was to get those psykers done. I had already converted one some time ago, but had conversions planned. So I got out the figures and the greenstuff and bashed them out.
It's funny how you can warm to a project over a few weeks isn't it? I really didn't enjoy painting the first Confrontation Elite gangers, but I'm closing off the project with a final pair, and they were a lot of fun to paint up. This time round it's a bit of an imposter-leader model, plus a champion with the coolest heavy weapon there is: PLASMA!
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| Elite gangers may not be upper-hivers, but they are definitely classy! |
In spite of not having enjoyed painting the previous batch of Elite gangers, I decided that I needed a bigger gang. So I took some of the duplicate ganger bodies and did some head swaps / repositioning to give me some more variety.
Although the Techs, Brats and Ash Waste Nomads from the Confrontation game got most of the limelight, much of the setting was about hive gangs. The few figures that were produced were split into four gangs which have become known as Dogskins, Hunters, Maniacs (or sometimes Maniax) and Elites. The Elite leader is an iconic miniature with his gnomish hood, pelisse and pit bull. I painted him back in 2015. But the other three gangers are pretty uninspiring. They don't really have a strong visual identity compared to the Hunters or the Dogskins. Maybe this was the reason they'd been in my WIP pile for several years!
However, in search of a quick post holiday project, I pulled them out, added some arms and got them painted:
A final pair of gangers to bring my Confrontation dogskin gang up to ten members strong. This means that I can field them as a Stargrave crew, and have just about enough members for a short Necromunda campaign.
Part of the fun in building these Confrontation gangs is converting or adding in models that fit the look of the original sculpts. Today's pair of Dogskins includes a gang champion that hopefully fits that bill (as well as a standard Dogskin ganger to fill out the ranks!).
I had hoped to finish my Dogskin gang over Christmas, but plans changed and they're still very much WIP. Nonetheless, I've finished another pair to bring my total up to six.
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| Typical gang behaviour - picking on the weak and vulnerable. |
Another group of 4 Confrontation models, which technically just leaves scavvies and the Elite gang to go. Of course, 4 figures isn't a gang, so before I get round to anything else, I need to paint up more figures for THIS gang. And which gang is it? The feral proto-ratskin gang that are generally referred to as Dogskins.
Hot on the heels of the pair of Marauder techs from a few weeks back is the very last tech ganger I needed to paint for a full set.
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| Tech gangers sculpted by Mark Copplestone. |
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| Caryatid by Stephen Tappin, published in White Dwarf #132 |
There have been many Citadel sculptors, but I really wish that Roy Eastland had stayed with Citadel longer than he did. He was responsible for the delightfully chunky non-Copplestone tech gangers, the flamboyant puffed sleeved space marine scouts and a handful of skeletons. And that was about it! The highlight of Roy's output for Citadel for me though is the small set of five Confrontation bounty hunters. They are brilliantly grizzled and hard-bitten characters, with eccentric hairstyles and exotic gear - 100% Confrontation in fact!
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I painted up one of the five as The Doc a few weeks ago, whilst another of the set was painted a few years ago as The Wolf of House Ulanti. I decided to paint up the other three and get the set completed.
I'll start off by saying that in general I'm not that keen on pop culture mash-ups. I prefer my Star Wars, Superheroes, Dune and Thundercats neatly compartmentalised and separate. Every so often, something happens and my willpower drops. I end up painting a RT pilot as Buck Rogers. Or a space pirate and weretiger as an alternate universe He-Man and Battlecat.
For no particular reason, I recently dropped my guard and ended up doing something I hadn't really intended, and is firmly in mash-up territory.
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| Notorious bounty hunters MJ MkFlay and The Doc |
Generally I'm 'not bad' at completing miniatures projects - I manage to paint up game-ready gangs and skirmish forces in a timely manner. However, I am also regularly guilty of over-ambition. I might make a gang of 10 figures, but acquire the material to make 10 more which sit unfinished long after I've completed a campaign with the first 10. This pair of figures is a pretty extreme example - when I was originally planning my Helmawr gang at the end of 2019, I decided I wanted some unique character figures. So I commissioned John Pickford to sculpt me a leader and a champion. He created me a pair of wonderful characters in early 2020. And I only got round to painting them a few weeks ago. Better late than never I guess?!
In December 2019 it wasn't my intention to abandon my Confrontation / Necromunda Helmawr gang halfway through. But global events took over, and the Necromunda campaign my group were planning didn't happen. The other week I was looking for a filler project, and that box of unpainted Helmawr figures caught my eye. I wanted some quick and easy wins, so decided to paint up a couple of figures ready to go, rather than work on the planned conversions. And what is more satisfying than painting a pair of unreleased figures to round out a set?
