The Porcelain. Shades of white

With BOYL 2017 fast approaching and less than a week to paint the whole gang as well as construct a speeder bike I ended up pulling several late/ into the next mornings to get them done.
Drawing on my previous speeder bike for 15mm inspired by the bike from Star Wars Force Awakens I used an old Rogue Trader Jet bike and a Highlighter pen lid as well as some bits to complete the gang.

Regarding their colours, I wanted to convey their wealth but also provide a more uniform approach because of the backstory and avoid the more Harlequins style. Partly inspired by the white fencing dress and also painting of duels, i settled on a white, sepia and gold scheme

unfortunately with the clock ticking I did not take by usual stage of shots but have some .

Due to the time limits I on ly washed the skins and will go back later with more detail.

The group were finished off just in time and ready to field at BOYL17

Photos and reports to follow 

The Porcelain. A History

The Death mask of Sword Master Napoleon Bon'Saar

Founded by Napoleon Bon'Saar, a member of a distaff family of House Van Saar, The Bon' Saar School was one of the Upper Spires preeminent sword fighting and Duelling clubs. 

 On his death his tomb was broken into and his death mask was removed and placed in the school and  it was renamed the Porcelain Society

The Society became an essential component of education, both in the fine art of sword fighting but also in navigating Spire society, for many young nobles and grew into a gentlemen's club.

Slights, insults and disagreements could be resolved within the Training Halls and fighting rings while outside the rules and traditions, death duels were arranged for greater slights and machinations and eventually led to a clandestine organisation to manage and then encourage the death duels.

To avoid official identification at the secret gatherings, members would wear porcelain masks

Following the deaths of several high profile members, the Society clamped down on nobles killing each other for sport and younger members were encouraged to to take their swords down hive.

Lone sorties became groups, allowing for the members to show off their skills and with the extra safety in numbers, venture further into the Underhive. Pict drones or live feed Servo skulls can often be seen trailing high profile raids, the battles been transmitted to Society members and supports safe in the Spire.

A clandestine extension of the Society, the Porcelain is a rite of passage for eager young nobles and they will dress in white and pale sepia colours as well as white masks which emulate the Society practice uniform and the founder. Because omg their pale attire and masks they are also known as Ghosts or Statues by other gangs and citizens of the Underhive.

Though they carry regular arms as well as their swords, kills at sword point are the only ones that are valued and add honour to the member.

The Porcelain can also be accompanied by tall antique gold fighting machines. These resemble spinning pillars with an array of blades and other weapon points embedded in the body. These are duelling machines from the Society's training halls and can be detached to offer support and also add to the devices experience. The machines themselves are of an ancient design that has it origins on the original colony ships that arrived on Necromunda.

Notable gang members:

Viscount Maximilian  Danton. Current leader of the Porcelain. Fights with a sword and Web pistol and is accompanied by an AutoHerald called Counter.

Lady Josephine 'Phina' Bon Saar. Daughter of the Porcelain Society master, Lord Paulus Bon'Saar and descendant of the Napoleon. Lady Phina is a wild and bloodthirsty fighter who has used her position to circumvent gang convention and prefers to use heavy weapons. 

The Porcelain. Machine Fighter

Building the back story for the Porcelain I held the initial idea of them as a dulling club. With that in mind i remembered the film Dune and Fighting machine

A free standing version would be a stylish addition to the gang and adding to the dueling theme.

Though my Green stuff skills are about as basic/non existent as they come i decided to try anyway...

Initial build, garden cane core with wire drilled through. From previous experience i have learnt to take GS slow and break it down.

Added a couple of rings a day with time in-between to dry

Time to build the base. The coiled wire is a guitar string

Build completed. Added some paper shapes for the detail and an undead scythe. wiring at the top to indicate it its unplugged

I had thought boy adding some pipes up or a bit of wall/bulkhead and attaching it to the side to make it look free floating but felt it would end up distracting from the machine so settled for a wire up to the base.

Initial paintwork. 

Gold over a brown base and them a coat of Seraphim Sepia

I went for quite a dirty look to the bases which will contrast with the bright Brats. With such large base I wanted to add a bit of focus and used a poster taken from Yaktribe, the brown would match the golden machine.

The completed Fighting Machine

This should add a unique look to the gang and gave me a test run for the bases and the gold shade to use with the gang members. Another very small notch on my GS skills post. I might revisit the idea again later but use wood and a lathe for the main body.

The Porcelain. Confrontation to Necromunda

October 1990 and White Dwarf magazine began the release of the game Confrontation. Confrontation brought to life the conflict between warring gangs and factions in the great Hive cities of the Warhammer 40k Universe.

In the following issues a rich background and cast of players was set out and I can still remember playing this with my brother with Space hulk bases used for corridors. I had Adeptus Arbities against his gang 'The Head kickers' , so named after their preferred method of killing!

Roll on some years and Confrontation became Necromunda and then that joined the ranks of legendary games. With my return to wargaming I had always planned to return to the Hive and as well as building an Adeptus Arbities force I started to look out for Brat gangers, these are a little harder to come by and a little bit pricier so this was a slow burn project that has finally paid off and I now have enough to field a while gang. Spurred on by BOYL and the posting of another Brat gang on the Oldhammer FB group, I have added to my build and paint list and started work on the Porcelain.

The gang comprises of original Confrontation figures, Brat gang and Bounty Hunters as well as a figure from the old Iron Claw Space Pirate range and a noble from the Colony 87 Kickstarter.

Arms and weapons were drawn from old Warhammer empire arms, Vintage Imperial guard and Skitarii. Bases were all made individually using plasticard and bits. 

One of the original brats wears a mask and as I am drawing this into the backstory extra masks have been made with GS for the rest of the gang.

All of the gang have also been given swords as part of their backstory

Regular Gang members armed with swords and laspistols. Masks clipped to their belts

Cyber herald using old Chaos familiar with GS to turn his long hat in to Brat hair.

Colony 87 noble as gang Patron

Cyber girl/ Space Pirate Loritta with some additional GS hair as heavy weapon specialist. She has also been a given a mask clipped to her belt

Bounty hunter armed with sword and pistol with additional detail on his trousers and chest to tie in with the other brats as well as mask on his belt.

Bounty hunter with skitarii rifle for the gang marksman, has also been given a mask.

Regular gang members armed with swords, las pistol, bolt pistol and pistol as an ornate archaic las pistol 

The gang will work in Confrontation but with the original release of Necromunda the gang type was dropped and the concept of Upper hive nobles descending to fight in the slums was turned into the Spyre Hunters.

To field the gang I will be using the Spire Brat Pack ruleset created by Anthony Case on Yaktribe

Yaktribe