Well here we are, 2022 is over and 2023 has arrived. Hopefully all of you had a wonderful time over Christmas and New Year, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing! It’s at this time that I usually take a look back at the various developments that have occurred in this crazy hobby of ours, contrast them with my own efforts on various projects and generally take the opportunity to hold forth about whatever takes my fancy, to the (possible) delight of my readers. This year however that’s not going to be happening – try to contain your disappointment! Instead I’m going to be taking a final look back at the progress I’ve made on a project I’ve been focused on throughout the past year – namely trying to clear out my backlog.
First though, let’s talk a bit about how we got here. Like the vast majority of people who enjoy this hobby, I’ve built up quite a collection of unpainted models. The leadpile. The grey tide. The shelf of shame. The mountain of madness. Essentially it’s all stuff I was really excited about, but then never got around to actually getting painted before something distracted me. Attempting to get this amorphous mass under control isn’t a new thing, indeed it’s been a battle that has dominated my hobby time for many years, but in early 2022 I found myself giving it a lot of thought and changing my approach and attitude. Back in June, when I wrote about this I said the following, which I think still neatly sums things up.
Over the years my approach to the hobby has very much been a case of “this is for fun, paint whatever appeals in the moment, follow the hobby butterfly wherever it leads”. This has given me a lot of pleasure and has seen me paint a lot of models but whenever I look back at everything I’ve done I’m struck by the things I’ve still never finished and the models which I’ve been going to tackle “soon” for a very long time… In the past I’ve tended to view the backlog as a single entity which could be wrestled into completion through a combination of time and Herculean effort. All my projects would be completed as a side effect of this (that is to say, if all the models I want to paint are contained within the pile then by painting everything in the pile I automatically complete all of my projects).
Like I say, this approach gave me a lot of pleasure, and I ended up with lots of models I was really happy with, but at the same time I found that no matter how many models I painted there were still lots and lots of projects that weren’t even touched.
Before I go any further I should define some terms, albeit loosely. A model is a miniature – be that a Blood Bowl playing snotling, a Karstark spearman, an Ork buggy or a greater daemon of chaos. A “project” in my mind is rather more loosely defined. Usually it’s a collection of models; a Blood Bowl team, a Warcry warband, a Necromunda gang. Sometimes it might just be a single model – Magnus the Red is a project in and of himself. “Completed” is probably the loosest term of all, but generally what I mean here is painted to a stage where I’m calling it done, at least for now. For example I would call my Orc Kruelboys for Warcry completed, because we’ve got enough to play some games with them – even though there’s some more that I still want to paint just waiting for attention. Here’s a picture of some of them which I painted in September here to break up what is otherwise turning into a real wall of text.

I’m pleased to say that my efforts to clear out the backlog have paid dividends as well. Between January and November I completed 348 miniatures, putting me well on track for painting a model a day (something I once regarded as an unachievable dream). In the last month I painted nothing at all, but I also moved house and became a father. Right now I’m much, much more interested in spending time with the tiny, wonderful, sleep-depriving, fascinating human being that my wife and I have created than I am in painting Orks (and you know that’s high praise coming from me!).

Of course I’m not going to stop painting miniatures. Fatherhood is awesome but it doesn’t mean I need to give up being me, just that I need to reappraise some things and think about how I’m using my time. Knowing this I found myself looking at my backlog and realizing that there are a lot of unfinished projects – and if I want to finish them I’m going to need to make some changes. I’ve tried to structure my approach and focus my efforts, looking for “easy wins” and projects that were already close to being completed. I’ve taught myself to be less perfectionist in my painting – I’ve never sought Golden Daemon wins or that kind of thing anyway – but sometimes “good enough” really is good enough, I don’t need to push myself with every model. Similarly a colour scheme may be a bit of a cliche, and similar to what everyone else is doing, but if it looks cool and its easy to replicate why not just go with it – it looks a hell of a lot better than grey plastic. Conversions are cool but am I cutting this model up just because that’s my “thing” – maybe it was fine to begin with. Some people have suggested that I’ve moved from “Convert or Die” to “Stop converting everything or you’ll won’t get half of this done before you die” and they may have a point…

The other thing I’ve been doing is writing these round up posts, one at the end of each quarter, in which I take a look back at everything I’ve managed to complete for a number of broad goals. This time I’ve not managed loads but I think between the new baby, moving house and giving over October entirely to trying (and failing) to thrash fellow blogger IRO at an Ork painting contest, I can be excused for letting a few things slip. However as well as looking at everything I’ve finished over the last three months I’ll also be talking about the progress I made over the entire year – meaning this post is going to be even more long and waffly than it is already. Are you still awake and reading? Excellent – then let us begin!
Warcry
A bit of a mixed bag here – in some ways I’ve succeed far above and beyond my expectations, in other ways I’ve rather missed the mark. Let me explain; one of my key aims for the year was to paint up some more of the “core” Warcry warbands – the ones designed specifically for the game rather than ported across from the wider Age of Sigmar range. We really enjoy Warcry and round our house we play it more than any other game but the Iron Golems and Untamed Beasts have seen a lot of action and we’d like to bring out some alternatives. On this front I’ve failed entirely, despite having made a start on both the Spire Tyrants and the Khainite Shadowstalkers (not to mention assembling the Darkoath Savagers) I’ve not managed to get anything completed. On the other hand I also wanted to have a range of warbands from across the range and this I’ve managed in style; I can now offer a total of 17 different factions – from the Kruelboyz to the Nighthaunt to the Thunderstike Brethren of the Stormcast Eternals – in addition to the aforementioned Iron Golems and Untamed Beasts. Alas after powering through lots of models in the first few months of year I managed nothing at all in the final quarter. Hopefully 2023 will see me back on the right track.

Terrain
Terrain sets the scene and breathes life into the world(s) inhabited by our little painted dudes, so in my opinion a decent collection of terrain is a vital component of any wargamer’s home. Once again though I didn’t add anything here since the last update. Partly this was intentional, terrain tends to be big and awkwardly shaped (a bit like me) and much easier to move if it’s unassembled, and with a house moving looming I was happy to just leave everything in its boxes and return to it in the new year.
Earlier in the year I did much better however, first finishing off everything from the first Warcry boxset and having a little ruined town for my savage scumbos to fight over…

… and painting up a collection of walls and fences which will be particularly handy for “rank and flank” games like Warhammer or ASOIAF.

I’d really like to expand my collection of terrain for Necromunda/Warhammer 40k and I do have plenty of kits to be working with so I’ll try to make that my focus next.
Warhammer 40k and Kill Team
Not an easy one to quantify here, I’ve got a lot of projects I’d like to tackle and really I should break this down a bit further and look at specific armies (the Chaos Marines, Death Guard, Imperial Guard, Adeptus Mechanicus and so on). Honestly though I think that would lead to a lot of things being listed as “no progress” from one quarter to the next – I can only spread myself so thin after all. Still, at least this time I have something to show here, with the Orktober painting challenge leading me to add all these gits to my Ork army.

I may have been thrashed in our painting contest by that notorious freebooter IRO but I still got a lot of things done that I’d been wanting to tackle so I’m damn pleased with the result. And remember, Orks never loose – next year I’m going to come back for anuvva go!
One of the key things I painted in Orktober was Boss Snikrot, one of my all time favorite miniatures, and yet one which has been sitting unfinished on my painting desk since whenever he was released (2009 maybe?).

With the greatest Kommando of all time so fresh in my memory it was interesting to spot this silhouette appearing in Games Workshop’s recent preview of 40k models scheduled for release in 2023.

It’s hard to imagine that this could be anyone other than Snikrot, so it seems that I painted mine just in time to see him replaced by a new version of the character. That said it’s hard to imagine that the new version could be any better than the old. More interesting is the possibility that this is hinting at a return to the planet Armageddon – where Snikrot stalks the jungles – and hordes of Orks do battle with regiments of Imperial Guard (who’ll be seeing a wave of releases early in 2023) and murderous warbands of World Eaters (who’ll also be seeing a wave of releases early in 2023). Could this mean we’ll be seeing more Orks (yes please!) before the year is out, perhaps alongside more World Eaters (something that there is currently a desperate need for) and perhaps even models for the Armageddon Steel Legion (possibly my favourite Imperial Guard regiment) – or am I just getting over excited about a silhouette and putting 2 and 2 together to make 22? I guess we’ll find out in the coming months…
That aside the biggest thing I managed to tackle this year was this bunch of Necrons that I worked on back in the spring and summer. They seem to have returned to their tombs for now but I’ve got plans to wake them up again soon.

Blood Bowl
Not a lot to show this time, but despite the last few months being busy it’s not nothing either – I managed to get a team of Skaven started and even recruited enough players for a game of Blood Bowl 7s.

Orctober also saw me add Varag Ghoul Chewer to the ranks as my first star player in my collection.

Technically I started the year with zero teams completed. My Orcs and Black Orcs were both pretty much done but at the time I still hadn’t painted that damn troll and I refused to call either team finished until I’d actually got paint on the blasted thing. As a result when I set myself the challenge of attacking the backlog the troll was one of the first targets.

Since then I’ve actually managed quite a few violent sportsmen and I now have 6 full teams match ready (the Orcs, Black Orcs, Goblins, Shambling Undead, Necromantic Horrors and Underworld Denizens) plus my small team of Skaven; the Lowdown Dirty Rats. Next year I’d like to return to my neglected Snotlings, get the Skaven up to full team status and add at least two more elves to the Elven Union team so they too can play at 7s. As usual I’ve got a few more ideas up my sleeve as well – we’ll see how things go.
Necromunda
Another year comes to an end and once again I’ve not done as much with Necromunda as I set out to. Partly it’s choice overload, I’ve got so many projects I want to tackle that, despite my enthusiasm, I just can’t get around them all. In the case of Necromunda however a big part of the problem has been something I’ve come to think of as “the Orlock knot”. All too often I find my painting process when it comes to Necromunda goes a bit like this:
1. I want to paint something for Necromunda! I am full of excitement! What shall it be today!
2. So many options! I am dizzy!
3. Well… I have been saying I’d work on my Orlocks since God was a boy, best start there I guess.
4. I don’t really feel like Orlocks today though.
5. I paint something else and Necromunda is left to slumber beneath filthy, toxic skies for a while longer.
That being the case I’m really pleased to started on the Orlocks at long last.

In a perfect world I’d have done more with them but I’m not going to beat myself up over that, my enthusiasm for the House of Iron is back to where it should be and plenty more Orlock gangers will be making their way to the underhive as soon as I find the time. Those aside I managed a few hive scum earlier in the year and again I’m planning to expand their ranks in the new year. The chaos cultists I painted recently will also be inducted in my old Chaos Helots gang (or perhaps found a new one), after which I’ll be looking around for what else the underhive has to offer.
Aeronautica Imperialis/Adeptus Titanicus
I love the idea of the Titans in the 40k universe and as a result have been very drawn to the idea of assembling my own collection of clashing God Machines. For a while the price of these kits really put me off but over the years a few really appealing deals have come my way and I now have a fair old stash of them. Have I painted any of them though? No, no I have not! Nor, for that matter, have I done anything about the Aeronautica Imperialis box I picked up in a sale a year or so ago. Ah well, maybe 2023 will be a better year for them.
Blackstone Fortress
Unlike Cursed City (see below) I’ve actually done pretty well here. With the great big mob of Chaos Cultists I finished recently I have the Escalation expansion fully painted, alongside Traitor Command, Deadly Alliance and almost everything from the core box (minus a couple of characters). That just leaves me with the Dreaded Ambull and Ascension expansions still to tackle so all being well it’s entirely possible I’ll get this one in the bag soon.

Cursed City
Poor old Cursed City. Launched with such fanfare and lauded for the quality of its models it swiftly disappeared once more amid a flurry of contradictory social media posts in lieu of open, honest announcements. “It was going to be available for years”, “no it wasn’t”, “it was always supposed to be limited edition”, “we never said that, that never happened”. I guess the news media think they can get away with saying “You know that thing we said last week? Well it’s not true, we never said it and if you think you heard us say it you’re a conspiracy theorist!” and GW thought “I wonder if that would work for us”. Nah, sorry Gdubz, it doesn’t work for anyone…
In what may well be the ultimate case of nominative determinism Cursed City went from being one of the most highly anticipated games in GW’s stable to a byword for making a total arse of things. The expansions, long promised and finally delivered, were a very long way from what GW had hinted at and really only served to make people more pissed off; the kind of bonus content usually reserved for an issue of White Dwarf instead sold as extremely overpriced limited-edition content for the hardcore completionist only.

Now I tend not to care too much what GW, or any other company, are doing with the “official rules” or how well a game is being supported by its publisher. Still it’s hard to shake off the feeling that GW made a right royal balls of things here (and I’m sure there are designers up at GW HQ still quietly fuming that everything they had planned has been scrapped). It may be projection but it’s hard not to get a sense of bitterness even from the official announcements – no normal person wants to be responsible for peddling bullshit on behalf of an uncaring employer after all. They screwed up, then they lied to us, they tried to cover it up and then to rip us off, their (presumably awesome but sadly now unknowable) future content will never see the light of day and they just wish the whole nasty business would go away and us customers would just focus on the new exciting thing instead.
Against such a backdrop it’s sometimes hard to feel the enthusiasm I once did and this is reflected in the fact that I’ve still not got very much done, and nothing at all in the final quarter of the year. It’s not been a dead loss though, 2022 did see me making a start on the core of the rank-and-file baddies and getting two heroes ready for adventure.

We’ll see how things go but I’d like to rediscover my drive, complete the second half of the skeleton squad, paint a couple more heroes and then – buoyed up with newfound enthusiasm – power my way through the rest of the box in 2023.
A Song Of Ice And Fire
2022 was also the year I got into the A Song of Ice and Fire miniature’s game (that’s Game of Thrones for those of you who’re more familiar with the TV show). I actually discovered it in 2021, having been a big fan of the novels for many a long year, but didn’t get around to starting some painting until March. Being a UK based fan of the game can be a bit frustrating at times, with releases sometimes not appearing for sale here until years after they’ve reached other countries (I’m still waiting for the Lannister Red Cloaks to reach these shores for instance). The forces of House Martell have been available for a few months now, but not round here they haven’t, and so my temptation to throw my support behind the lords of Sunspear is stuck on the backburner for now. Still, given their slanderous treatment in the TV show supporters of the Dornishmen have become used to rough treatment, and if you’re not accustomed to waiting years and years for the slightest hint of a release then George Martin may not be the author for you – so perhaps those of us who are enduring the long wait for the Martells to reach the British Isles are the ones who are truly embracing the spirit of the game!
Anyway, at the moment I’ve got two projects on the go here; an army from House Stark and another from House Lannister. Of the two the Lannisters are definitely lagging behind and saw no progress at all in the final quarter of the year. Still, I’m excited about them and I like the colour scheme so I’ll try to return to them soon.

The Starks did a bit better and, with the addition of a squad of Karstark spearmen, now stand at more than 30 points (the minimum size for a game).

Of course I’m already thinking ahead to potential future projects as I explore the other factions in the game. Barbarian hordes and big monsters have always appealed to me so the draw of the Free Folk is very real, and the reaving Greyjoys have also been calling to me, as have the aforementioned Dornishmen of House Martell. In fact looking at the Martells has me wondering what other factions might be waiting to join the game in the future, and honestly despite the depth and complexity of the world described by George RR Martin the list isn’t long. House Arryn seems an obvious choice and I can’t help but wonder about the Brotherhood Without Banners or the alliance from Slaver’s Bay. However, and here I’ll need to speak carefully to avoid spoilers for those who haven’t read the books, the most obvious contender of all has to be the Golden Company lead by *cough* “Young Gryff”. Yet the Golden Company were released back in the summer as part of the Neutral faction. In some ways that befits their status as a mercenary company but hardly does justice to their role in the story so far, or their likely next moves based on the chapters from Winds of Winter that have been previewed. Watch this space I guess but if CMON don’t remove the Golden Company from the Neutral faction and turn them into a faction in their own right at some point in the future they’re missing a trick.
Hate
I’ve got no real plan or structure here, I’m just enjoying chipping away at the models (which at the end of the day is what this is all about right?). As a result I didn’t manage anything else over the last few months so here’s a look at everything I’ve managed to paint in 2022.

Goals and Summing Up
In previous round-ups I’ve talked a bit about the goals I was hoping the achieve in the months ahead. This time I’m not going to do that, and I probably won’t bother with a March 2023 round up either – my hands are just too full at the moment and setting myself targets is setting myself up for failure from the get-go. Obviously being a dad is eating up a lot of my time and energy at the moment but I’ll still be painting and I’ll still be sticking to my aims as set out above. This approach has worked really well for me in achieving a lot of these long held goals but I’ve still got plenty of ground to cover. I’m also looking at ways in which I can speed up my painting, and manage my hobby time differently, whilst still making sure I have fun with it. Of course much as I’d like to pretend that I’m just going to focus on the models I already own I’m sure I won’t be entirely depriving myself of new stuff – there are World Eaters coming soon, and more Warcry warbands and Necromunda gangers, so even in this cost of living crisis I’ll try to allow myself the odd treat. Right now though I’ve got a baby to bath, boxes to unpack and other survivors of 2022 to fight for food and fuel. Have a wonderful 2023 all!
Scum’s Thoughts – Part 6
Us Necromunda fans have a fairly good idea of what’s coming our way over the next few months. Gang warfare on the polluted planet has traditionally centred around the six great houses, each of which received a set of plastic models in the wake of the game’s 2017 relaunch. In January 2020 the Goliaths were bolstered by the addition of new gang champions and prospects and this pattern has continued ever since at a rate of roughly one house per quarter (Covid related delays notwithstanding). Now the reinforcements for House Cawdor are almost upon us and the shadowy agents of House Delaque are only a few months behind. I’ll confess my love for the new Redemptionists has waned somewhat since they were first revealed but that’s just left me wanting to kitbash and improve them until they look the way they ought to.
However what I’m wanting to talk about today is the final section of the “road map” revealed by Games Workshop, the part which covers the last quarter of 2021 (and beyond). Now that we’ve seen the key releases from the “House of…” series it’s time to turn our attention to the further future. Care to join me for some baseless speculation and wild guessing?
Despite their significance there’s a lot more to Necromunda than just the big six houses. In this edition we already have rules and models for Enforcers, Genestealer Cults, Helot Cults, Corpse-Grinder Cults, Slave Ogryns and Venators. The possibilities don’t end there either. If they want to Games Workshop have a host of possibilities and potential new factions to explore. Indeed I would argue that this is exactly what they intend to do. It’s understandable for fans to fear that support for Necromunda may be inconsistent, or even nonexistent, in the future. GW have already dropped the game entirely from their catalogue once back in the 2000’s and even now support for some of the other “specialist games” like Adeptus Titanicus and Aeronautica Imperialis remains patchy and even Blood Bowl hasn’t seen much attention since last autumn. When the going gets tough, as it has in the wake of the Covid outbreak and Brexit for instance, the specialist games suffer so that the big cash cows like 40k can continue to thrive. Still, I don’t think it’s wishful thinking to suggest that Necromunda is well placed to remain an established part of the GW catalogue for a long time yet. At least, let’s hope so. Anyway, let’s leave those worries for another day and indulge in some guesswork instead! Here are a few of the gangs I think might be tearing up the underhive near you over the next few years – I’m sure we can all look forward to having a good laugh at how wrong I turned out to be!
Ash Waste Nomads
It may be grim in the hive but it’s even worse outside. The whole planet is a hellish, polluted wasteland, the only water is the toxic run-off from the great factories, storms of scouring wind and acid rain sweep over the tortured landscape and the people you encounter are as wild and dangerous as any underhive scummer. You wouldn’t think anyone would be mad enough to live out there but the Ash Waste Nomads have been getting the odd mention in recent books – with the Orlock book in particular offering some choice titbits on these outlanders. A couple of years ago we even saw some concept art, albeit fairly vague, for these road warriors…
… not to mention their dangerous looking steeds…
The (un)Dead
Somewhere else which has been getting a lot of mentions in the recent Necromunda books is Hive Mortis, enough to have caught my eye and got me thinking. A terrible plague has run rampant through the hive, leaving the entire population dead and their possessions unguarded. If you’re a ganger who wants to get rich quick and isn’t frightened of a little thing like plague then this is the place to go. However not all of the locals have taken death lying down. Plague zombies have been a part of Necromunda for a long time and Hive Mortis is apparently crawling with them.
The Corpse-Grinder Cults have already brought us a Necromundan spin on Khorne which leaves me wondering how long before the other Chaos gods try to get in on the act. Could the pudgy hand of Nurgle and his ghastly, disease-ridden cultists be reaching out from the fallen hive even as we speak?
The Immortal Cult
The Necromunda core rulebook also contains a brief description of the Immortal Cult, a cabal of rogue psykers who seek to bring about a psychic awakening in all of mankind. The cult first appears around the 34th Millennium and is still active in the setting’s “present day”, gathering outlaw wyrds who would otherwise be taken to the Black Ships to their banner. Just as the Corpse Grinder Cults put a new, and distinctly Necromundan, spin on Khorne and Hive Mortis could well be the start of a Nurgly invasion, so these sound to me like the Tzeentchian equivalent. House Delaque may think they’ve cornered the market in unsanctioned psykers but there are plenty more witches lurking in the depths of the hives…
Pitslaves
If you’re looking for entertainment in Hive City and getting cheated and shot in a Delaque gambling den, or drinking until your innards explode with a bunch of down-and-out scummers in an Escher bar doesn’t sound like sufficient fun then you need to head to the fighting pits! Here you can enjoy the sight of cybernetically-enhanced, stimmed-up gladiators beating the hell out of each other or fighting against monstrous wild animals.
Of course, when it comes to finding people to actually get in the ring and fight demand tends to exceed supply and although Goliaths are known to enjoy getting stuck in most fans prefer to watch from the sidelines. Fall foul of the Guilds, fail to pay your debts or otherwise end up on the wrong side of the law however and you might just find yourself sold into a life as a pitslave, and rewarded with a few “enhancements” to make your life of vicious, crowd-pleasing violence and mayhem a little more interesting for the spectators. However it turns out that taking a bunch of hardened criminals, throwing in a few honest citizens who’ve suffered one punishment too many, arming them to the teeth and giving the best combat training available by making them fight each other until only the strong survive, might not be a good move in the long run. Pitslaves are known to revolt, butcher their way to freedom and enjoy a life on the run down in the underhive – where things are no less violent but at least they get to keep the profits.
Pitslaves have been a part of Necromunda for many years but back in the old days the models were, to be frank, less than inspiring. Imagine how good they could look now though…
Spyrers
Whilst most people in the underhive are just trying to stay alive and avoid catching too many bullets, the Spyrers are there for a little fun. Rich arseholes from the upper part of the hive these spoiled young nobles have spent daddy’s money on the best guns around and have headed down into the very worst part of town to live like common people and do whatever common people do – which on Necromunda means “shoot each other”.
I know a lot of people really want to see these making a comeback but frankly I’m not entirely convinced. By my memory they always seemed disastrously powerful in game back in the old days, not to mention a little out of place amongst the rag-tag gangs, and as a result I never really liked the spoilt gits. That said I’m not going to lie to you, if GW produces some models my addiction to Necromunda will probably see me starting a small army of them. Plus I’d not be averse to seeing how the braying oiks enjoy a kicking from an ambot! I’d still rather see something else though. Speaking of which…
Scavies and Muties
At the very opposite end of the Necromundan social hierarchy from the Spyrers we have the scavies, muties and their ilk. Hive City being the polluted pit that it is the odd minor mutation like an extra finger is given a bit more leeway than it might be elsewhere in the Imperium but any more than that and it’s only a matter of time before either the Redemptionists or the Enforcers turn up to “have words” (and by “have words” we mean, kill everyone and burn the settlement down to make sure). If it turns out that the reason your friend, family-member or neighbour never takes off their hood or ragged robe is because they’re hiding a couple of tentacles then the best thing to do is to drive them off into the underhive as fast as possible. There they can do what muties do best, sneaking around in the dark and gobbling up unwarey hivers.
Only those who’ve fallen on the very hardest times, houseless scummers without the common decency to drink themselves to death, would sink so low as to fight alongside these muties or join scavie gangs.
Needless to say I have a real love for the muties and scavies. Back in the old days they would drive herds of mindless plague zombies into town to spread mayhem, employed hulking mutants known as “scalies” as enforcers and even had their own mutant dogs. I’d absolutely love to see them making a comeback and in the meantime I’ve even made a few of my own.
I already have my eye on turning a few of the new Kruleboyz Gutrippaz into scalies. A nice new kit for these dregs of the hive would be a dream come true though – and undoubtedly well received by anyone looking to spice up their collection of chaos cultists for 40k as well.
Ratskins
For some strange reason that’s never been made entirely clear, the overpopulated, polluted, industrial hell of Necromunda gave rise to a race of carbon copy Native Americans (as envisioned by spaghetti westerns at least). I’m sure people can and do enjoy many a happy hour debating (read: yelling at each other on social media) over whether they actually were racist or just seemed racist, but one thing that can’t be denied is they were woefully out of place and extremely lazily designed.
Something you could never accuse the writing for modern Necromunda of is laziness however. A vast amount of love and attention to detail has been poured into the world in recent years and it’s paid off with some wonderfully well developed factions. It can be hard to overlook the rather heavy handed Native American aesthetic of models for the Redskins – sorry, that should be Ratskins! – and the use of terms like “chief” instead of leader and “brave” instead of ganger (and yes, that is a bit racist). However if you strip away these trappings, at their heart this is a tribal people, trying to live a peaceful, spiritual life away from the rest of Necromundan society, but who keep being bothered by local thugs shooting up the place until they have nowhere left to run to – and that’s a concept with a lot of potential. Cut away the “cultural appropriation” before the online activist brigade work themselves up into a collective aneurism, get back to the core concept behind the Ratskins and have the current writers rebuild them from the ground up and I reckon they still have a lot of potential.
Beastmen and Squats
No, not all together in the same gang. However something that Necromunda has done very cleverly has been to dig back, not just into the game’s own history in the late ’90s and early 2000s but even further back, to the very earliest days of Warhammer 40k itself. Until recently the vast majority of us didn’t really expect to see Squats stamping around the landscapes of the far future ever again, and then Grendl Grendlsen showed up in the underhive and proved us all wrong.
Whether or not we ever see Squats taking to the battlefields of the Warhammer 40k in force, and taking their well deserved revenge on those Tyranids at last, remains to be seen. Likewise I’m not holding my breath for regiments of beastmen to be pressed into the Imperial Guard (nice new models for ordinary humans in the Guard seems like a big ask at the moment so let’s not set our sights too high!). However there are still plenty of us who love these old factions, and though Games Workshop’s moneymen may not, in their infinite wisdom, be willing to invest in whole armies of them, a Necromunda gang might be a fine place to give them a home and keep them alive. Or perhaps I’ll have to finally make good on my promises and pick up a box of Gors and a box of Kharadron Overlords and make my own.
These are just my thoughts however – now it’s your turn. Was there something obvious I missed from my list that you’re just itching to see unleashed in the hive? As ever the comment’s box below is the place for you to get it all off your chest!
28 Comments | tags: Ash Waste Nomads, Comment, Editorial, Muties, Necromunda, Nurgle, Pitslaves, Ratskins, Scavies, Spyrers, Squats | posted in Editorial, Necromunda