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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.