Hog Wild

 

Get your motors running.

With the vague goal of having a functional 'outdoors' gang for Necromunda (and the even vaguer idea of playing a game of Ash Wastes at some point), I fell down a motorcycle rabbit hole over the summer. 

All the vehicles for Necromunda are pretty good, on the whole. They're also expensive, of course, and kind of limiting in terms of stock poses and gang-specific stuff. A Waster's Dirtbike is the game equipment to represent a rider of any kind your imagination can come up with, and that really screams conversion to me. Buying more GSC outriders, the obvious GW solution, didn't appeal. Apart from anything, you'd need bodies, probably gang specific ones, and not all of those torsos go with the legs and arms from the GSC kit particularly well. 

So I started looking elsewhere. Turns out, there aren't a lot of good motorbike kits for 28-32mm scale. They're either very time-specific (WW2 scouts and sidecars), or very expensive for a single, rider-less option. Loads of stuff for 3D printers, including some awesome stuff made with Necromunda in mind! I don't have a 3D printer, though. 

Enter the Warlord Games Project Z Biker Gang, which went on half-price clearance sale this summer. Timely! The box makes three bikes and a selection of gangers on foot. Made, I should say, it's been sadly discontinued for whatever reason. 

There's a command sprue biker with heavy weapons options, and I got an extra one of those so I'd have a fourth bike. Then the nice person in the packaging department threw in a bonus sprue of WW2 Afrika Korps, and between all that plus some stuff from the bits box, I managed a gang of thirteen models. 

He didn’t have to be to work here, but it helped

Lots of totally mismatched bits, of course. Escher heads, German infantry, Scion weapons, a real hodgepodge of styles. It works pretty well as a post-apocalyptic band of looters and thugs, though, and I've kept the colours pretty varied to help cover the modelling sins. 

One of them isn't a biker gang member. Delaque gangs have a specialist hanger-on, a Psychoteric Thrall. These hapless fools are members of other Houses or the Hive population at large who've fallen under the mesmeric spell of Delaque whispers. In game, they're a fairly standard body in terms of fight capability, but other Delaque can focus psychic powers through them, and they project an aura of unease that helps scare enemies off. This guy is particularly misshapen in his assembled parts, making him look a bit zombie-ish, and seems to fit the bill. 

Bit of Bride cosplay. Her katana keeps snapping off, very thin.

The Escher-headed girls can all be Escher gangers easily enough, and the other foot-soldiers make for decent scum. Or an Outlaw gang, who have some fun flavour rules to represent your choice of renegade outlanders on the lam from the law. 

Love this pose. Just chillin’ with my axe.

We're here for the bikes, though, right?

A two-handed sword is generally accepted to be the pinnacle of range, safety and accuracy for any armed biker. 

The kit is pretty good, lots of options for your bike and saddlebags. Likewise the riders and optional passengers, who have some very retro styles. Spindly weapons and exhausts abound, though, this is proper 28mm scale not heroic Warhammer stuff. Hard to snip and glue without risking some of those tiny barrels, and not a great match for 40K model limbs on the whole. The tyres don't give you much connection to the base, either, possible worth a pin although I got by with just plastic glue and brute force. 

The guys on foot aren't bad either, but their poses are pretty static. One running (the knife madman), the rest standing menacingly holding shotguns, axes, uzis and so on. Pretty cool, though, and makes for a good variety with the Afrika Korp, who are a lot more dynamic.

It's still good kit! Looks good once assembled, especially the boss bike with its passenger and chaingun. No credit for my creativity here, it's all straight kit. 

Quite pleased with the sky/earth nmm here!

Another box ticked for Necromunda, and the chances of that Mad Max game happening grow ever larger!