Last time we looked at the second wave of gangers added to Hive Noon and vaguely ruminated on the reasoning behind each assembly. This time, we’ve got them all gussied up ready for photo day, plus a couple of extras that didn’t make the cut last week. Let’s take a look!
JONAH FEX
This fella didn’t get a lot of action in the campaign – he was picked up in the last few weeks, by which time he was looked over in favour of heavy hitters or fighters with equipment more suited to the scenario. He’ll definitely be an early purchase for the next campaign!
Puny Owens anD Tiny Oakley
After the outrageous success of Baby Face Fanglayson (the familiar attached to Baron Clint Von Beastwood) I had to pick up more familiars. They’re 25 credits, available from the House list and give your extremely squishy Acolytes a fighting chance to get into combat. Anybody looking for one piece of wisdom to take away for their own GSC gangs: buy all three familiars.
These two were from the Deathwatch: Overkill set that I picked up crazy cheap from ebay. One had a broken hand, so I replaced it with one from the Acolytes kit with a wedge of metal as a makeshift club.
The Maw With No Name
Another star player in the campaign, despite being picked up about halfway through. Cheap to field and versatile on the game board, he kept plenty of people behind cover and away from my advancing hordes.
The only extra kit he picked up was an infrascope – good for popping people behind cover who think they’re safe from his Overwatch skill and useful when all the lights go out.
The Lone Render
Look at that shit-eating grin. He knows what he did. Absolute #Lad. If you’re playing GSC and you haven’t taken advantage of a) the Infiltrate skill b) cheap demolition charges or c) both at once, you’re missing a trick. Sure, he gets killed pretty quickly (and often) if you position him poorly, but the mayhem he causes is worth it.
He was usually accompanied by a familiar to keep him alive a little longer, and acquired smoke grenades and a chainsword for versatility and a fighting chance in close combat when he’s inevitably charged.
Stubber Ocelot
I’m overwhelmed by how well this guy fits in with everyone else. I know it seems like a minor thing, but I was very concerned the one model that inspired the gang wouldn’t actually fit into the gang once assembled and painted up.
As it happens, he was a great combatant too – I wrote about why last week – and the three pistols were also terrifyingly effective in close combat when you could bring all of them to bear.
Strong Wayne
I had a really tough time with this guy. I couldn’t get the blend between pale flesh and blue carapace right and I must have redone those arm/leg sections two or three times. Also, painting between all those chains I added proved to be far trickier than I’d anticipated, and I ended up filling in a lot of dead space with washes just to avoid having to try and paint them. Still, despite all those problems, it ended up coming out rather nicely, and adding the splashes of red to the weapons was good fun and rounded off the figure nicely.
Calamity Gene
Another ganger I’m likely to pick up earlier in the campaign when I play these guys next. The extra pistol combo with the hand flamer is particularly tricksy as you can shoot it at the same target as your hand flamer, so long as the flamer template is centred on the target. If you line your guy up correctly, you can still hit a few people with that teardrop template.
Yoswarmite Sam
This poor fella never even made it into the roster before the campaign was over. A simple loadout of shotgun and bombs (kept ambiguous so it could be either a frag grenade or blasting charges depending on the gang’s wallet) but late on in the campaign such a loadout was never called for – they were too busy saving up for the big guns! Shame really – the shotgun/dynamite combination was one I sketched together early on because of the obvious western aesthetic, but there was always something more important to spend the creds on. Another to pick up early next time perhaps?
Second wave
The second wave is now (obviously) completed, but as much as I’d have liked them to be done and dusted for the campaign, many of them had a few games half-painted or blue-tacked together before getting their final lick of paint. I like to think it added to their charm…
There’s certainly a few slight tweaks I’d do to them before sending them back out again – I’ll likely pop a chainsword on the Lone Render’s belt as it’s a strong addition to his lineup, and I think I’ll be swapping the power pick from Billy the Nid with a shock whip. It’s cheaper, more effective against most targets (power pick only really excels at high wound/armour targets) and gets him into combat faster.
Otherwise I’m very happy with this lot and I can’t wait to use them again in the future! I’d be lying to myself if I said I wouldn’t be adding more guys to the gang, but for now I’ve run out of bodies and legs, so unless they bring out some Necromunda rules for bikes or vehicles, I think all my foot soldiers are done for now. (That is, of course, until the next GSC update…)
I think next week we’ll make something big…
