Genteel Brutality; the Mohock Blades, a Bratt Gang

[EdT]

The Mohock Blades

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qDPRrzo4ATI/U6vmQzzd4QI/AAAAAAAACao/ZgVvji3YIqE/s1600/Confrontation+Scan+1.jpg

 

"Now is the time that rakes their revels keep;

Kindlers of riot, enemies of sleep.

His scattered pence the flying Nicker flings,

 

And with the copper shower the casement rings.

Who has not heard the Scourer's midnight fame?

Who has not trembled at the Mohock's name?

Was there a watchman took his hourly rounds

Safe from their blows, or new-invented wounds?

 

I pass their desperate deeds and mischiefs, done

Where from Snow-hill black steepy torrents run;

How matrons, hooped within the hogshead's womb,

Were tumbled furious thence; the rolling tomb

O'er the stones thunders, bounds from side to side:

So Regulus, to save his country, died."

 

- Fragment, pre-Unity Terra.

 

 

Hi, so after a period of not really doing much with the hobby I'm making a bit of a return. I have two projects on the go; the first will be focusing on the Mohock Blades, my attempt to celebrate the return of Necromunda by modelling a gang of Bratts.

 

I've always enjoyed the class warfare elements of the Confrontation background, and thought the Bratts were great fun; the House gangs are lovely but I still feel it was a bit of a shame that they were reimagined for Necromunda as the Spyrers, who are a great concept in themselves but nowhere near as varied and interesting. I've seen quite a few Bratt gangs using the classic confrontation models but never anything more up to date, so I figured that would be a fun challenge to set myself.

 

So where am I coming from with this? Here's a quick "concept board" I put together with some of the imagery I wanted to consider aside from the classic artwork and sketches.

 

 

Aside from the old Jes Goodwin sketches, which are wonderful, I was also heavily influenced by some of the sensibilities and costume design in Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, which scream Brat to me (ironic when you come to think of it, as Alex was decidedly working class). Alex and his Droogs in their cricket whites are clearly the most memorable costumes in the film and I didn't seek to imitate them particularly, but some aspects were very inspiring. I decided to adopt the film's colour palette, so predominantly white, black and orange as secondary colours and then red and purple spot colours. All those puffed sleeves done in full white should hopefully be rather “Droogy”.

 

As has been noted elsewhere, Brats share a lot of imagery with some aspects of the Eldar range, particularly Harlequins, so the challenge for me was to recall the old sketches without rescuing those design elements too obviously or clumsily, and at the same time also ensuring that the models weren't too obviously kitbashed from other sources.

 

There's also an interesting historical element I want to draw on- London in particular has a long history of aristocratic thugs causing havoc on the streets. From the Elizabethan era right through to the Regency period different gangs caught the imagination of the popular press (not always legitmately- a lot of the moral panic wasn't dissimilar to some of the more fanciful tabloid sensationalism today).

 

My plan was to follow the original concepts quite closely without using any of the classic models; instead I'd make use of various plastic components and greenstuff anything that wasn't immediately available. What that means in practice is a mix of Genestealer Cult, Imperial Guard, Harlequins and WHFB Empire bits, but hopefully not in a clumsy way.

 

My emphasis was on the group as a bunch of privileged youths rather than the more hardscrabble gangers of the underhive; Bullingdon droogs in space, basically. To me this meant a lot of ostentation in costume but a fairly uniform set of weapons; while an underhive gang might grab anything to hand and improvise weaponry, I saw my Bratts as mostly making use of antique pistols and blades pilfered from their family armouries and occasionally (for the more exotic stuff) daddy’s gun closet. There will be 7 members of the Blades; a Leader, a Heavy, four Gangers and a Juve.

 

I don't game, so I decided fairly early on that instead of putting the group on the usual slottas I'd receate a little bit of Hive Primus on a scenic base and have them posing, as if for a pict. There's obviously an element of Bullingdon in there. Because I'd like an element of interaction with the base, that's my first priority and will form the next post.

 

So that's the plan! next up, some actual work.

[Slave to Darkness]

Good to see another 'Munda thread, especially by a fellow Brat. :tu: *clicks follow thread button*

 

I read something a while ago on another forum regards to the Brats-Spyrer thing and someone said to think of the Spyrer's are the firstborn or favoured child of the noble families so they get the rare ass tech to play around with and the Brats are the siblings who live in the shadow of their more popular family members. 

[EdT]

Thanks. Completely agree re the Brat/Spyrer relationship; I also figure that while Brats are generally younger aristos acting out who will eventually grow out of it, the Spyrers are adults who enjoy the whole underhive stalking thing a bit too much and take it to an extreme. I've just always been disappointed by the execution of the concept tbh; I never felt the Spyrer models were up to the standards of the rest of the range and I'm looking forward to the rebooted versions.

 

Should be a new post later today, btw.

[SW1]

Looking forward to following this closely. :devil:

[Slave to Darkness]

Yeah I felt like they were a bad Predator ripoff with the 'babys first hunting trip' right of passage thing mixed with the Avengers/Justice League. Wasnt that fond of the Minis either, they are the only Gang that I have never played since Necromunda came out because of the bad sculpts. 

 

I shall await your next post. :tu:

[Slave to Darkness]

Looking forward to following this closely.

Stalker... 

http://media.tumblr.com/a9e19dfde1c46c5f453808d0982d27dc/tumblr_inline_mt1anwXVBA1qz4rgp.gif

[EdT]

Well you don't have to wait long!

 

As I mentioned in my previous post, the first thing I wanted to tackle was the scenic base, which recreates a small chunk of the Palatine underhive.

For reasons which will become clear, rather than go for a tangle of gantries and precipitous drops, I decided to keep things quite flat with a mix of various metal decking plates, a roadway for ground traffic and accumulated piles of debris in places, with the odd clue that things stretched much further below. I wanted everything to be decrepit and derelict. As a first step I got a round bit of MDF of the right sort of size from a craft shop (it actually worked out rather larger than I intended), and drew on the broad strokes of my design with a felt tip. I then put down some cheap plastic spacers from a DIY shop as a curb to delineate the roadway.

Then it was time to do some road-building. The first step was to add some drains by the curb; then it was time for the tarmac. I always love it when model construction methods end up being similar to the real thing but on a smaller scale, and this was definitely one of those occasions; to provide the road surface, I emptied my coffee machine and mixed the used coffee grounds with some acrylic medium. This gave me a nice rough paste, which I slapped it on the base and smoothed it off with an oyster card to give a nice flat surface. Satisfyingly, when it dried it not only had the same texture as tarmac but a good colour too. Here's what it looked like at this point...



I wanted to have some depth, so I cordoned off a little area using some more of the plastic spacers and old sprue and placed some pipes and machinery; this would then serve as a bit of underfloor detail later on. I also added a few spacers here and there to support the deck when it went on. I then needed filler, so having wrapped some duct tape around the edge of the base and having caulked everything with acrylic medium, I poured a whole load of plaster of paris in there to raise the "pavement" level higher than the road. Here's a before and after..



Once everything dried, I lay down some embossed styrene sheets to serve as decking; I used two different types to add variety. I then covered the seams between the deck plates with some of the wonderful flexible rivet strips provided by Zinge. With that done it was time for the bits box; I started putting down pipes (also Zinge), vents and various other things including a rubbish-clogged hatch downwards. I also dug out a Cities of a Death street lamp, cut it up and then reconnected it with twisted wire to look like it had collapsed. Here's what it looked like at this point...



All of which is fine, but it was still too clean. I needed to dirty things up, and I did this by adding another acrylic medium texture paste, this time using a handful of gravelly sand. I added lots of little heaps of this and then stuck random bits from my bits box in there to provide junk and detritus. This left me with something far more lived in! Here it is...



There's still more work to be done- I need more junk for the Blades to interact with- but now I have enough to start working out poses and placements. Next up, my concept model and a bit more about the gang...

[Brother Dallo]

Looking good, Ed. Nice to see you posting round these parts again. I look forward to seeing how this project progresses.

 

Dallo

[Slave to Darkness]

ITS BEAUTIFUL!!!! :wub:

[apologist]

A warm welcome back. Lovely to see you posting again; particularly when it's a classic idea executed as well as this. The base already has your usual creative panache on show; can't wait to see the miniatures.

[EdT]

Really glad people are enjoying this! It's been a lot of fun so far, and it's nice to be back.

 

Anyhow, I have a small update, so on with that! I was intending to post my first member of the gang, but sadly I haven't had the opportunity to make progress on him! Hopefully this is a decent alternative bit of content.

 You might be wondering why I chose my scenic base to have a roadway in the middle; well, I realised that I couldn't have a proper gang of aristocratic ne'er-do-wells without giving them a ride. Nobody has quite noticed yet (or if they have, nothing has been said), but there's a Ludovico De Large State Sedan missing from the House Catallus Motor Pool; this is one of the ways that the Mohock Blades are managing to maximise their time in the Underhive. It's not always the most practical way to travel and generally has to be abandoned a few levels down when the passageways get too clogged with debris, but it's a stylish way to travel and allows for a quick getaway if needed. Assuming 2 in the front, 6 in the back and potentially one in the boot firing backwards 1920s gangster style, I think it can fit the whole gang- assuming everyone breathes in, of course! If the Droogs can fit four in a two seater, then it should work. Here it is in the under-construction Underhive…



The car is from Wargames Exclusive. I'd been thinking about getting one for quite some time, and when I started this project I realised that this was the perfect opportunity. My brief review? It's a very nice kit, a tad smaller than I expected but perfectly in scale with everything else. I was slightly disappointed by how it was split into only three parts (you can probably see the greenstuff smoothing over the joins); separate wheels would have allowed for a bit more poseability, but it simplifies assembly and it's not a particularly big deal. It looks brilliant and fitted together fine with a little bit of flash removal and filing. There were a few artefacts from the 3d-printing process but nothing major.

As you can see, I did a little bit of personalisation. I added a nice little hood ornament, an aerial for a comms-link and added some tips to the fat exhaust pipes at the front of the vehicle. I rather liked the skull niches behind the passenger compartment too; to me they seemed perfect for servo-skulls, so I dremled the original detail out and stuck some plastic ones in there. These will act as the car's security and repair system. Finally, I wanted to stress the State Car aspect of the vehicle, so I added a coat of arms on top of the windscreen in imitation of the Queen's Bentley. I'm debating trimming off some of the larger, more extraneous rivets too.

The plan is to give this a shiny white paintjob, perhaps with a slightly subtle pearlescent effect on top. I want it to look very clean and out of place in the grimy underhive- as are the Blades themselves, of course.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I thought the vehicle was a Batmobile, and thought you planned to paint it black, with yellow (or gold) highlights.

[Vairocanum]

Wow, that is actually a brilliant idea to use the wargame exclusive vehicle! Will you have some minis interacting with the vehicle (sitting on the hood etc)? Looking forward to seeing more!

[EdT]

I thought the vehicle was a Batmobile, and thought you planned to paint it black, with yellow (or gold) highlights.

 

It's funny you say that; while my inspiration for the car was more The League of Extraordinary Gentleman than the Batmobile, I have to say that Gotham City in the Tim Burton films is a major influence in how I see the Hive Palatine. Anton Furst's concept drawings are beautifully grimdark and fir the aesthetic perfectly.

 

 

Wow, that is actually a brilliant idea to use the wargame exclusive vehicle! Will you have some minis interacting with the vehicle (sitting on the hood etc)? Looking forward to seeing more!

 

Oh, definitely! At least one of the Blades will be leaning on the thing; there may be somebody sitting as well.

 

 

Anyhow, time for an update. In this post I thought I'd share a bit of my thinking on the Brats and how they might fit into Necromundan society, as well as showing off the first member of the gang.

 

The background emphasises the fun and games element of being a Bratt. Obviously there's an element of illicitness in what the Bratts are doing, but I can't believe that this is anything but a delusion on their part, and a polite fiction on the part of their elders. Of course the Great Houses know exactly what their kids are up to; it just serves their purposes to pretend otherwise.

 

Why? I can think of a range of social and political reasons. Firstly, there's the obvious benefit of letting a bunch of very repressed and potentially dangerous youngsters blow off some steam; if the Bratts are off causing trouble below the wall, it means that they aren't having firefights on their own doorsteps. It also might let them get any potential violence out of their system, as per the last Chapter of A Clockwork Orange.

 

Secondly, it seems to me that the Bratt lifestyle is a great way of winnowing away the stupid, the gutless and the overly brutal from the mass of potential heirs; if you're incompetent or weak you might never come back from the Underhive, and if you're an absolute monster who survives, there's always the chance that you waste your time gallivanting around as a Spyrer rather than pursuing a political career; or perhaps being encouraged to take a commission with the Militarum. Conversely, it's also a good way of educating talented young nobility in the ways of the Underhive as well as teaching resilience and military tactics. If you're the Lord of a Great House and need a nephew or niece to take over command of your House Guard or act as your consigliere, I bet the first thing you do is look at what they've been up to in the evenings when they think nobody is looking.

 

I reckon the Great Houses also have all sorts of clandestine economic and political interests below the wall too- I wonder how many apparently random Bratt raids are actually about knocking out a rival house's drug production facilities or archaetech salvage operations? Perhaps some of the more self-aware Bratt gang leaders are aware of this, even if the gangers are just out to have fun and stab things?

 

All of which hopefully provides a bit of context for the Mohock Blades.

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EImLaff9VOo/UY5TJu9M4gI/AAAAAAAAXlA/BlZAVT3dD1A/s1600/Oldgotham-3.jpg

 

St Mohock's Institute for the Instillation of Manners, Piety and Courtly Grace is one of the premier finishing schools in the Hive Palatine, occupying a small spire in the upper reaches of the hive. Mohock, for what it's worth, was a lesser Martial Saint of the period immediately following the Age of Apostasy. The Institute is one of many schools catering for the children of the Necromundan nobility, aiming to prepare them for the social and religious demands of aristocratic life. Discipline there is harsh and unforgiving, but it does foster strong bonds of comradeship amongst the student body. Access to the Institute is tightly guarded and unauthorised absence is theoretically difficult, although clandestine routes of escape have been painstakingly passed down through generations of pupils.

 

The Blades are all students at St Mohock. The organising catalyst was The Exalted Lady Araminta Tanit Xanthippe Alicia Dominica Catallus, more commonly known (because the aristocracy has always loved nicknames) as "Vellocet". As a younger daughter of a middle child of Lord Catallus himself, she is actually a very senior member of the Palatine Hive's social hierarchy. The other members of the gang are her social circle- friends, distant relatives, a couple of younger siblings dragged along for the ride, her bedder... On boring term-time nights, they pull out their costumes and wigs, get their duelling pistols and blades out of their cases, and sneak off for a jaunt below the wall. In the holidays, they have even more freedom and sometimes their jaunts can last for days at a time.

 

...so with all that in mind, here's the first of the Blades in WIP form, although fairly far along. This is The Exalted Lord Maxentian Guido Tertius De Vere Cattallus, ("Pongo" to his friends), a minor cousin of Vellocet. He's basically a Genestealer Cult neophyte with WHFB Empire arms. To get the distinctive Brat look I started by covering all the ribbed bits of his torso and legs with a layer of greenstuff; I then scored a diamond criss-cross pattern into it with a knife, which gave me a nice quilted effect.

 

 

 

I had a couple of heads to choose from, but when I saw a moustachioed one (from the Greatswords kit, I think?) inspiration struck, and I gave him long glam-rock hair, rather than the punkier alternative. I wanted him to be my tribute to Derek Smalls, basically. I'd never done long hair in greenstuff before, but it proved to be fairly simple; after a couple of layers I felt it looked quite good, and nicely voluminous.

 

I didn't want my Bratts to be very heavily armed; I've never liked Necromunda gangs sporting more exotic weaponry than an Astartes Chapter, and prefer simpler stuff like stubbers, las and auto weapons wherever possible. As a result I gave Pongo an antique laspistol. I wanted all the guns used by the gang to be well-made artisan pieces rather than the mass-produced or scavenged stuff used by their lower-class rivals, so I made the laspistol by using an Empire pistolier weapon with the barrel cut off and replaced with the tip of a Victoria Lamb retro Lasgun. In the other hand I gave Pongo a flask full of Spook, the Bratt drug of choice. I was hugely happy to find that Spook is generally hydrated and drunk, rather than snorted or smoked; this is thematically wonderful, as it meant that the Blades could wander down the Korova Milk Bar to sharpen themselves up before heading to the Underhive. Here's Pongo in situ;

 

 

 

There's still a fair bit to be done on him- I need some pretty ribbons before I can call him done- but hopefully you get the general idea. Pongo is on the less flashy side, as befits a minor cousin; some of his friends will be far more OTT.

[Vairocanum]

Pongo looks great, love the bottle of spook you've given him. Also the fluff is pretty interesting especially with the concept of whittling down heirs, definitely looking forward to seeing more artisan type weapon conversions!

[EdT]

Thanks all. I think the general consensus is that the model is good but the hair isn't quite right, so I have taken Pongo in for a quick trim- I have something a bit more Bratty now, so as soon as the greenstuff is cured I will share his new 'do...

I've made some other bits of progress here and there, but nothing quite worth showing apart from one small thing. From the very beginning of this project I've been determined to feature one of the more enigmatic bits of the Necromundan background ; the Caryatids, little blue devil-cherubs that live in the Hive Palatine and adopt particularly lucky individuals. Here's one;



It took me a fair while to find a suitable model; my original idea was to take one of the cherubs from the Space Marine range and give it little bat wings, but the bitz market didn't really have any thing suitable. In the end I went with the same solution several others came to and used a Familiar from Reaper. This had the nice side effect of recalling great Bratt projects like this.

The model's unconverted so I took the time to put some paint on him. Nothing complicated really. Instead of going for the more obvious glowing red eyes, I went for reflective black, which is more subtle but hopefully as unsettling. Here he is...



I like the idea that the Caryatid hasn't attached itself to anyone in the gang yet, but is potentially going to; so it's just hanging around in the background watching at the moment. When the base is done he'll be perched on the wall looking on.

That's all for now but hopefully next time we'll be looking at some snazzy haircuts and possibly the next member of the gang.

[EdT]

So today I had a sick day, which wasn't great but it did let me make some progress on a number of elements of the project. If I'm waiting on some bits, stymied until the greenstuff cures or am unsure of how to move forward, I like to do little conversions to elements which I can then combine later on; a model looks way better if it has a personalised weapon or a unique accessory/haircut/pose, so it's time well spent. I can't wait to see some of the gang come together now.

One thing I did manage to get 95% done today was Pongo's new haircut. I hope you agree it looks rather Brattier than before- this is why feedback is always so important in these sorts of projects.  

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Pongo looks impressive. I notice a bottle in his left hand. Is he trying to get drunk?

[EdT]

Pongo looks impressive. I notice a bottle in his left hand. Is he trying to get drunk?

 

Not drunk, although that would be nice too- the bottle is of Milk+, which is the drug of choice amongst Bratts (they go down the Corova Milk Bar, of course); it's Spook hydrated with the addition of milk.

 

And speaking of which, somebody has thoughtfully provided the Blades with a tray of the stuff, as well as a hipflask of Amasec.

 

 

We will meet the person responsible later although it won't be a while as not all the components have been delivered yet.

 

One other update from me. I got some paint on the Ludovico- still have some weathering to do, but other than that I think it's done. It certainly makes a bold statement in the Underhive...

 

 

In real life it's rather shinier- plus you can see the colour of the tinted windows better, which are probably my favourite detail on there. But hopefully you get the idea!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The limo looks great!

 

 

Pongo looks impressive. I notice a bottle in his left hand. Is he trying to get drunk?

Not drunk, although that would be nice too- the bottle is of Milk+, which is the drug of choice amongst Bratts (they go down the Corova Milk Bar, of course); it's Spook hydrated with the addition of milk.

The 'A Clockwork Orange' reference is a good touch. Edited September 29, 2017 by Bjorn Firewalker

[Slave to Darkness]

This is coming together nicely. When do we get to see more Gangers??

[EdT]

The 'A Clockwork Orange' reference is a good touch.

 

Thanks, I’m really trying to channel the visual aesthetic of the film- when it comes to painting the Blades my colour palette will be taken directly from Kubrick.

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_T961o3r1ib8/TIkSVZtezoI/AAAAAAAAKo8/iNaUE01QSGc/s1600/color+1.png

 

 

This is coming together nicely. When do we get to see more Gangers??

Soon! I have four in various states of completion including Vellocet, the leader. As they are either awaiting another round of greenstuffing or there’s a crucial bit that hasn’t yet been delivered, they aren’t quite done enough to post. I’m taking my time as I’m trying to be quite perfectionist on this project; I really want the end result to match my mental image. Edited October 2, 2017 by EdT

[EdT]

Right, sorry for the delay in updating- it's been a busy few weeks. But I do have some progress to show for it; two more members of the Mohock Blades.

The first is The Honourable Cherubia Montez Amal Catallus-Molyneux, better known as "Chebs".



Chebs is made from a wide variety of parts, but the core of her is this lovely female greatsword. I'm really pleased with how she turned out; I want there to be quite a lot of show-off posing in these models rather than "action" poses, and there's something about her stance that's rather smug.

The next gang member is shamelessly inspired by both subjects in this wonderful piece of artwork;



A lot of the older Confrontation illustrations have little mini-mes accompanying the characters, and I knew that I had to have one with my gang. So, meet Aloysius!



St Mohock's employs a small army of vat-grown homunculi as bedders and housekeepers for, and informants on, the student body. Aloysius is Vellocet's bedder, but he has somehow deviated from his mental conditioning; he acts as the gang's spy, procurer, fixer and wine-waiter.

He's based on one of the rather nice Renaissance-themed halflings produced by Short Wars; he originally had a completely different head but I ended up swapping in one from one of my other planned gangers because it just seemed to work somehow. He is holding a drinks tray- I will load it up with more bottles later when I paint everything.

Here's the whole gang so far...



 

[apologist]

I can barely believe my glazzies; this horrorshow blog goes from strength to strength – and the combo of Necromunda and Burgess is a dream come true :)

The mini-me with the old moloko plus is a dobby addition, but Chebs is a triumph. Occasionally you get a classic figure that really sums up a group; and she's one such treat. Great work.

[Mr Yellow]

That scenic base is really well put together, looking forward to this all coming together.