Last time we looked at the first wave of cultists for a Dark Heresy/Necromunda crossover project – a group of carnival miscreants called the Bedlam Feast. This time we’re looking at the cultists that infiltrate the upper echelons of society – the Red Revellers.
Cut to the chase
Our Dark Heresy campaign had our characters grapple with all rungs of the social ladder, from the mucky footsoldiers that pursued them from the Red Cages and attack in numberless waves, to the sneering elites that had fallen into the Dark God’s embrace.
Basically I needed some fancy-dancy slicey-dicey NPCs that could threaten our players in otherwise “safe” social situations, or provide dangerous and unpredictable muscle in traditional combat encounters.
The campaign book called them Redjacks, barbershop-looking nutjobs with sliced up faces and wielding cutthroat razors. I would reskin them slightly to fit the carnival theme of the Bedlam Feast, and I wanted some mean Assassins Creed-looking assholes to act as Champs or Leaders for potential Chaos Helot gangs in Necromunda.
I looked around a lot, and the rather excellent Brotherhood range from Freebooter Miniatures fit the bill perfectly. To date this project massively, this was pre-Brexit postage fees. I dread to think how much it would cost for a handful of (admittedly brilliant) miniatures like that these days.
When my handful of revellers arrived, there wasn’t much to do except assemble, base, and paint them.
What’s yellow, white, and red all over?
The first lad is the most regal looking, potentially a leader of sorts. He is the Master Assassin miniature, and certainly looks the part. The only editing I did to the base model is remove the crossbow in favour of another sword.
I knew I wanted to paint him in yellow so I could lean into the Lovecraft ‘king in yellow’ vibe if I needed to. I just really, really didn’t want to paint yellow…
I’m glad I did though, as it’s come out rather well. I guess that’s what tediously painting 10+ layers of watered down yellow will do, huh.
The miniature also had a strange split across its face, the store model painted to look like a kind of skull face? I wasn’t really sure what the intention was, but for me it was an opportunity to break out my favourite gore paint, Blood For The Blood God.
These guys would be big on self-mutilation and hiding it behind their masks, and what better than having a creepy leader who has a mask in place of skin?
A little trickle of blood on the inside of the mask and dribbling down his top helps sell the imagery, and he definitely looks like someone who’s going to cause trouble when the mask comes off.
What’s the matter, never seen a black and white before?
Next up was this sneakthief from the Coscritti and Harlequin set. I wanted to do a domino look with white and black alternating patterns, but there was a lot more cloak than I was anticipating.
I didn’t have the time or energy to give the stitched-together cloak as much attention as it deserved, so I went for a boring grey on the outside.
I wanted to have some unifying colours across all the squad, so even though they were brightly coloured and individual, you could tell they ran as a pack.
The inside of all the cloaks were painted the same crimson, and traces of fresh wounds are visible under all their masks. Finally, all their weapons were given a blue wash rather than the usual brown or black, giving them a slightly uncomfortable hue.
Maybe if I had more time I would have painted different shades of grey on the cloak patches to emphasize the domino look. But hey, perfect is the enemy of finished.
Digging the Dancing green
This lady I really liked. She is the other half of the Coscritti and Harlequin set and had such a dynamic pose I couldn’t help but spend some extra time on her. I opted for green as her base palette, but I had real difficulty figuring out which bits of clothing ended where, and which shade they should be as a result.
I am particularly proud of the pinstripe pattern across her arms and legs that match her feathery headdress. It actually came about by accident, as I was painting different coloured swatches onto her legs to figure out which kind of green worked better against the darker tone I’d picked for her corset and poofy leg bits.
The contrast of both stripes really worked and I talked myself into doing some freehand across the arms and legs, and I’m glad I did!
I used Athonian Camoshade as the wash for most of this miniature so the green tones come through more. I also took a craft knife to her face before priming so there would be lots of lovely gouges I could splash some gore paint into.
The bases were same as the other Bedlam Feast – cobblestone resin bases from Ragnarok Hobbies – painted in various shades of grey and tan, then given a heavy black wash. Typhus Corrosion was stippled around to look like muck, and flicked onto cape hems and boots.
Silent night, holey night
This was my favourite by far. The Bonaccia miniature, unchanged, and painted in a variety of purples. This lady struck a chord with me, I think because she reminded me a lot of one of my favourite Oldhammer minis, Aenur.
The silhouette is very different, but the vibes are the same for me. It has the same stoic pose (with thigh high boots), grasping the cloak in one hand, and a single blade in the other. They both have an aura of menace about them.
You can tell I enjoyed painting this mini because I went all out on the cloak. A freehand starry night scene, complete with multi-tone blended background? Who on earth am I trying to impress with that?
I tried to bring the design over to the front as well, painting a little star on her mask, but I’m not sure how well that translated.
I also very much enjoyed her ruff collar, a clear visual tie-in to something I attempted with my previous mooks and I would continue on to use on my killer clowns…
But that’s a story for another time!
I’m very happy with how these came out, especially given the short time I had allotted myself for painting them. They had their first brief outing in the World That Was, so I’m excited to bring them back out again when we start out game nights back up. Perhaps this time with slightly better stats!
