Going Downhive

After so long spent plodding through tidying my armies for Warhammer: The Old World, I fancied a bit of a palette cleanser. More specifically I was keen to paint something from scratch and finally make some inroads into the Lead Mountain.

Therefore, with a Necromunda campaign (the original version, not that new-fangled thing) being mooted in our group, I turned my attention to a group of models that have sat unpainted for over 25 years: the Ratskin Renegades.

The Ratskins are absent from the current incarnation of the game, probably because Games Workshop are a much more globally aware company than they were in the nineties and returning to this somewhat ham-fisted reference to the western tropes of Necromunda could probably lay them open to more than a few accusations of cultural appropriation and insensitivity.

These Native Necromundans are the tribal remnants of the original inhabitants of the underhive, fiercely guard their spiritual sites, raid settlements, wear bone totems and even have warriors called 'Braves'. Although not ostensibly presented as 'bad guys', clothing them in the hides of Giant Rats really wouldn't help GW's PR department, especially as the internet just won't let them forget the sins of their past... for example, the Pygmies...

To put it bluntly, I don't expect these guys to return to Necromunda any time soon.

However, I do not have a shared price to worry about and lazy 'it was a different time' 90s stereotypes aside, these are really lovely miniatures. There's a real joy to be had painting older metal sculpts from this period as there is a charm and character to the models that I find to be missing from GW's more modern, cad-designed and (in theory) better plastic miniatures.

When it can to painting I adopted an approach of using contrast paints as a base coat and then applying dry brushes, washes and highlights.. this has allowed me to get a wider variety of different browns on the models than I would had achieved previously.

I've gone with yellow as a spot colour for the gang mainly because I'd bought some Nazdreg Yellow contrast paint and wanted to experiment with using it as a yellow base. It's been highlighted with Averland Sunset and I can confirm that it works and will be an approach I'll use again.

When it came to basing, I used AK Terrains Muddy Ground. I have recently been enjoying using Stirland Mud, but it's a bit pricey if you're going to use a lot of it, and with the AK Terrains texture pastes you get significantly more for your money. In case you are wondering, the Muddy Ground has more green in it than Stirland Mud, but fundamentally that achieve the same effect.

I've topped that off with pools of Nurgle's Rot technical paint, as the Ratskins inhabit the gooey end of the Underhive, and it provides a nice contrast to all the brown.

Whilst I was in a Necromunda frame of mind I also took the opportunity to rebase my old Orlock gang, The Core, ready for the campaign. They had previously been moved onto 30mm bevelled bases, and so they've returned to the classic 25mm round bases to allow more of them to be blown up by a grenade whilst clustered behind some barrels.

Once rebased it was time for The Core to take on Matt's Orlocks, the Tunnel Snakes (apparently these are named after the tutorial mission in Fallout 3) in what would become known as the 'battle of the bandanas'; an attempt to prove once and for all that purple is a better sartorial choice than orange.

Two very similarly armed crews lined up for this gang fight and, as is traditional, hugged whatever cover they could find.

I had a narrow advantage in terms of longer ranged weapons, but Matt had a swarm of Juves ready to get up close and personal.

Look at how many of my gang can cower behind that bulkhead now that they're on smaller bases.

This group were tasked with getting up close on one flank, whilst my lasguns and autoguns held off the Juves on the other.

My Heavy Stubber, Drake (the gang is derivatively named after the colonial marines from Aliens), was positioned at a vantage point and sprayed bullets at anything that appeared. He didn't achieve a great deal, but I think the Tunnel Snakes took longer to engage whilst they were hiding from him.

Conversely, Matt's Heavy Bolter only managed one shot before running out of ammo. However, he did take Crowe, my Lasgun guy, out of the game.

The main part of the battle was my close assault team taking on Matt's terrifying (he has a Melta Gun) leader and two other gangers, and we both took advantage of whatever cover we could find.

Fortunately for me, Flamers and Shotguns ignore cover and so I was able to gain an advantage and down several of the opposing gang, however Matt passed his bottle checks and, despite being set on fire, his leader stayed in the fight.

Hudson did manage to get in close with the Tunnel Snake ganger with a shotgun to administer a coup de gras. The obligatory war cry of, "game over, man, game over!" was issued.

Matt had sought to bring reinforcements into the fight and covering fire began to spray down from above, repeatedly pinning Frost (Flamer) and Hudson, but failing to take them out of the fight.

Although he'd been flamed twice and survived, the real turning point was Matt's leader needing to stop, drop and roll, allowing my Juve, Spunkmeyer, to rush in and raise his status in the gang immensely by capturing the enemy boss.

Although the battle was by no means one-sided, this meant that when my leader, Apone, finally wone the ranged duel he'd been having, Matt's bottle check was taken on a lower value and therefore failed, giving victory to The Core.

Purple bandanas are best!

Somewhat appropriately for an 'in-house' fight, nobody was killed. An amicable prisoner exchange resulted in everyone back where they should be and me getting a Grapnel Gun for my trouble. Hicks (Shotgun) lost a point of Initiative but most of the gang gained advances. Spunkmeyer got three and is almost a fully fledged ganger.

This was a reminder of just how much of an enjoyable game Necromunda has always been. I've never played the newer version, but I've never felt the need to switch up, as the original always delivers.

Acquired: 10 
Painted: 228
Lead Mountain: 837