Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Necromunda - The Caller and the Rise of the Kuloq

The Hive Spirits are restless! Planning out some of the narrative for the next Necromunda campaign and one of the main villains will be The Caller and his Ratskin Renegades! I actually never played or painted Ratskins in the old edition (it being the favored gang of a couple others in our group at the time), so it's been rather fun painting old models that I'd never owned nor painted before.


I'd picked up an assortment of Ratskins from ebay which ended up skewing pretty far into the Braves side of the spectrum, an issue that I'll need to remedy via a few more judicious purchases soon, but overall it's a decent start for the group. A leader, a shaman, 3 warriors (counting Eats Bad Fungus whom I forgot to detach from the guilder gang before photographing), 4 braves and good ol' Brakkar the Avenger, just for a little extra punch. I need three more warriors to field the half-and-half mix of basic Gangers and Juves/Champions/Leaders/etc. that the new system enforces (and to be honest I think is a good rule).


I figured I needed a proper villain for the campaign and The Caller will be leading a rag-tag mix of Ratskins and Scavvies! This was a model that never appeared in our 1st ed. days, so it was doubly exciting to get the change to build and paint it. As a sculpt it's a bit ropey comparatively speaking, but it certainly is evocative, and I really dig that they provide a mounted and dismounted model.

There's been some reference to Ratskins in the 2nd edition but no direct mention of them being a playable force as yet, however the rules are similar enough that I'll be working up some conversion rules for them that hopefully will prove reasonably balanced in the new system!

8 comments:

  1. I always liked the Ratskins and your painting has made them look very effective. I think you could have done more with the warpaint had you chosen to do so. See last of the Mohicans, the Magnificent Seven remake and Native American warpaint searches on Google images.

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    1. Cheers! Aye, I gave it the ol' college try, but alas my skills were not quite up to the challenge. Two of them actually needed a full re-facing after I botched 'em.

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  2. Oh man, that's a blast from the past, great stuff!
    It's a shame GW have no plans to reintroduce them as they really are an evocative part of Necromunda IMO.

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    1. Aye, I can understand that certain aspects of the Ratskins could be considered problematic in today's views. I'm hoping that GW can find a way to update them somewhat to be a little less of a caricature of native american culture but still keep some of the flavor to 'em.

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  3. Oh very nice. "rise of Kuloq" sounds reasonably ominous as well, said in your Orsen Wells voice. I'm imagining that scence from 'The Birds' where the camera pans around the playground and the scene changes to one of immediate peril as view fills with birds - but with rats. In the underhive.

    Zzzzz

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  4. Although Orlocks were my faction of choice back in 1st Ed, I LOVED the Ratskins when they came out. Recently a mate dove into his own closet of doom (TM - Mord7th) and found some he never painted and gave them to me! So happy, though no idea when I'll ever get to them. LOL

    These are looking lovely mate - seems your painting standard has just gotten so much better than when I first started following your blog. Keep up the great work!

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