'Laque Hats

Back to the Hive!

Whilst trying to remain unexcited about the fact that the new Kal Jericho and Stubbs kit will be plastic (!), I did manage to slip in a Delaque gang into the painting schedule by way of celebration.

Delaque! They were my favourites in Original Necromunda. In the year-long campaign we played (the one General Pootle's Orlock gang The Flumps dominated), my feeble gang The Black Knights was Delaque. It was the long coats, I think - stylish and cyber-cool. And the bald heads. My gang were mostly named after various rude terms for baldness, like Coot, Shine and so on.

They got off to a bad start when the Leader died in one of his first encounters. And with my usual flair, I lost about half of the others over the coming games. In the end, the gang was led by the Heavy, Joker (horrible scars, painted to look like the Batman character as a result), who had managed to scrounge a lascannon from the trading post.

Not cheap, lascannons - the gang was four members strong for a long time. I ended up in the middle ranks, partly because I could boss Raid fights by shooting the objective with the lascannon and then immediately running away. But mainly because there were a lot of people who started gangs and never played. That's my favourite opponent, really.

The updated models are pretty cool, although they lean a bit heavily into the Matrix for my taste. The originals weren't quite as flashy in their flasher macs, but they worked for me. Would they have looked like this if the tech was better back in the day? Dunno. I like the slightly inhuman proportions here, though, and they're undeniably better in terms of dynamic movement poses, which is clever considering the coats hide a lot.

The kit isn't quite as flexible as the other newer ones I've done. The arms are particularly limiting in their poses, they would benefit from a couple more that could either go straight out (not that you could hold these ridonkulous hand cannons out straight irl) or holding rifles across the chest. The fact that there's a sniper rifle in the kit that you can only put slung in a back holster is playing rather hard to the Forge World upgrade market, too. Cheap, GW, cheap.

My old paint jobs (sadly long lost to eBay) were green trenchcoats with yellow or blue trim. This is a fairly straight nod to that, although I did try something a bit different in the basecoat stage. All this Citadel Contrast talk has me interested, so I thought I'd have a go at zenithal basecoating, something that's supposed to save time later on.

Basically you undercoat black, then spray from above with white, then just use washes or shades to get your colour. Bam, instant lighting effect, or so I'd heard. In reality, it saved me no time at all, because I then got carried away with twiddly details instead. But the coats, all done with spooky Nighthaunt Gloom, came out pretty well, and it did reduce the amount of shade coats I'd usually need. Worth practicing more with, I think.

I wanted to keep it all dark and shady despite the colour trim, anyway, and there was much debate about which looked best. Stylus liked the orange ones but I thought purple was inherently more sinister and evil (see Skeletor et al), and I just couldn't decide. In the end, I did both, and the orange ones get to be Juves. They'll show up better at night, draw fire or something.

Painting Guide: -

• Undercoat - see above
• Greatcoat - Nighthaunt Gloom watered down with Lahmium Medium, washed with Coelia Greenshade. No layers or drybrushing, and I think I kind of miss it? Maybe not - the zenith basecoat works pretty well and the gradients are nice and smooth, it just kind of feels wrong not to layer it!
• Trim - either Xereus Purple with Genestealer Purple layer or Jokaero Orange with Trollslayer Orange layer
• Guns - Incubi Darkness plus Lahmium Medium wash, Runefang Steel trim, Nuln Oil Gloss
• Skin - Rakarth Flesh, Seraphim Sepia wash, Some Carroberg Crimson or Druchii Violet around scars or implant edges, Rakarth layer, Flayed One Flesh layer, Flayed One Flesh plus Pallid Wych Flesh highlights
• Metals - Leadbelcher, Nuln Oil Gloss, Stormhost Silver highlights
• Breathing Pipe - Black, 'Ardcoat
• Boots and Straps - Rhinox Hide, Nuln Oil, Rhinox plus Skrag Brown highlights, finished with a bit of Deathclaw Brown added in
• Armour Panels - Black, Martian Green colorshift paint, 'Ardcoat. I also used this for some of the occular implants and headplates
• Floor - Leadbelcher, Agrax Earthshade, watered-down Skrag Brown wash, Ironbreaker drybrush, Black rims

Two more gangs to obtain before I can call it a full set. Not that it will be by that time, I reckon Venator Gangs might just get their own kit (Arbites, even, if we're lucky) with the new book. But I'm not really sure why I'm trying to buy a full set! I'm not even playing the game at the moment, sadly!