Green Troops

When the latest batch of old miniatures were returned to me after twenty five years in storage, they included a few bits and pieces to go with projects I thought I'd completed.

Namely a couple of Braves for my Necromunda Ratskins and a single Gorkamorka Ork.

As I've been focusing on quick wins, they pushed their way to the front of the queue.

The Ratskins were done exactly like the rest of the gang which I won't repeat here, but there's nothing too exciting to talk about.

The only real points of interest is that I gave them yellow hair ties to give me a way of telling the Brave with the musket apart from the other one with exactly the same pose. Also, I previously didn't have a blunderbuss armed model in the gang, however, I'm.not entirely sure how effective a 'move-or-fire' close assault weapon will work out.

The Ratskins did actually get their first run out recently against Matt's Orlocks. I have to admit, I was somewhat worried that my inexperienced gang armed with black powder weapons were going up against a gang that has already fought three or four times in our ad hoc campaign.

I was especially worried when we rolled up the 'Hunters' scenario, meaning that my gang would be spilt up and Matt's whole gang (the Tunnel Snakes - named for the Fallout reference) would be bearing down on just a single solitary Ratskins, whilst the others were forced to stand back and watch until the shoot out (execution) was over.

The poor soul selected for this suicide mission was one armed with a shotgun, which turned out to be fortuitous as I managed to get the drop on them and fire the first shot...a scatter shell.

Some how, the blast not only took out it's intended target, the Tunnel Snakes' heavy, but also punch a hole in the tightly packed Orlocks.

It should be noted that this formation had been somewhat forced on Matt by the terrain and the deployment rules.

To add insult to injury, Matt's entire gang's shooting only managed to knock the Ratskins down, and he was able crawl away to safety.

When the rest of the Ratskins opened up from cover, the Orlocks were thrown into disarray and put onto the back foot for pretty much the whole game. They perpetually has three or four gang members down and we're making bottle tests from about the third turn.

The leader of the Tunnel Snakes did manage to launch a counter attack by himself, partly through daring and bravery, but mainly due to his terrifying meltagun.

He took out three or four Ratskins by himself, before being ganged up on and defeated by the Ratskin Chief.

The rest of the Ratskins slowly tightened the net on the Orlocks, constantly peppering them with shots, whittling down their numbers and reducing the Tunnel Snakes' ability to provide meaningful answering fire.

Pinned down in a kill box, the Orlocks tried to withstand the barrage of fire, but really started to have trouble when the Ratskins Shaman got in range with his Ghost Walk ability (represented by the token below).

It turns out that there was a touch of cheating from me on this front, as I was getting the rules for this wrong. I still think the outcome would have been the same if I'd got this correct, but realising my mistake did take the shine off.

The Orlocks eventually bottled out, but not before both sides had been bloodied. In the post-game sequence injury was piled upon insult when a couple of the Orlocks died of their wounds.

For my part, the Ratskins came out largely unscathed, with plenty of experience earned. I was even able to move my hideout from a useless wasteland to a clean water hole. All in all, a good first outing.

I also painted an Ork this week. It is Orktober after all.

Acquired: -61
Painted: 346
Lead Mountain: 656