Pierce Gavestone - Helmawr Gang leader and Jokaero

Pierce Gavestone (with caryatid) and Gordo the Jokaero

Back In April 2014 (yep that's more than a year ago) I was in my preparations for BOYL14 and much of my attention was on confrontation.  A year or so later, not much has changed (on the hobby front  only) with me still preparing myself for BOYL and with my attention still highly focused on confrontation.

You may remember from a post at that time that I had modelled a couple of Imperial nobles but my studies on confrontation and the whole Necromunda setting and a few interesting trades lead me to consider a whole Helmawr gang.

For those of you who are a little less familiar with the background of it all, Lord Helmawr is the Imperial commander of the whole Necromunda Hive world. His position makes him very influential and important. He has to rely on many mercenaries and bounty hunters to work in the shadows for him (like Venators to cope with the pyskers and mutant threat) but also on his own gang for tasks that require unquestionable trust.

Imperial commander Lord Helmawr

You can already get from the picture above and from their privileged position that Helmawr gangers will most likely be showing off and sporting outrageously distinctive outfits...

The main inspiration I used apart from the picture of Helmawr himself is this beauty from John Blanche...

I did mention it when I first built the models a year ago but what I see in this illustration is those :

I did not try to stick exactly to the original concept (always hard when you're not a pro sculptor plus I wanted to give it my own touch) so I came up with this concept :

A mixture of Imperial guard bits (both cadian and catachan), some old Empire halberdier right arm, an empire swordmaster pair of legs, a little putty work and here I was. The Caryatid was a very recent addition and I owe it to Chris from Antipixi's Hobby blog who had the kindness to send me some as we both share a particular fondness for confrontation (and with who I had the pleasure to share some games last year at BOYL14).

The little monkey (a Jokaero for our purpose here) next to our Helmawr ganger is a simple Empire state handgunner powder monkey traded from Paul over the Sho3box against some other critters :

Picture taken from Bits and Kits

I simply drilled through the powder barrel to remove it and inserted a lasgun taken from a scion sprue. The little device at the end of the left tail was simply stolen from a skitari backpack (useful box if there ever was one) to sci-fi this little guy up.

Painting wise, I knew I wanted to use a traditionnal Blanchesque palette but with my own style (far much cleaner and far less inspired let's face it). So the most important colours were of course red, white and black with some added iron and gold.

The caryatids were painted in a soft blue as explained in the background material. I'm usually one to let such intel aside if I don't like it and I do not feel compelled to slavishly follow what's written in any book BUT I loved the look of it AND my pal Axiom had used the same colour on his own so I loved to keep a certain consistency between our projects...

Being in a blanchian mood, I obviously couldn't help but paint checkers somewhere and what better place than that shoulderpad ?

The very last touch came in the form of a fly on his cheek to echo renaissance practices and Kirk Hammett's beauty spot.

I also tried to paint Gordo's left eye as bionic but at arms length it just looks weird... probably should have added a more evident piece of technology to clearly show the bionic eye but Aren't Jokaeros meant to be experts at miniaturisation ?

I'm realising now that I must have been a little inspired by Jon's Magpie dandy at some point when I painted my Helmawr leader (right hand on hip, left hand holding a cane, silly hairdo and caryatid on the right shoulder) :

Picture borrowed from Magpie and Old lead

I have to admit I only realised it very recently (when I decided to glue that caryatid on my own model actually).

Pierce Gavestone is one of Helmawr's favourites and owes it his position of ruler of Hive Worncall. Born in a noble necromundan family, Gavestone has always been a witty individual quick to manipulate others and reluctant to dirty his own hands...

His great eloquence and charisma (and many sordid plots) though have helped him gain tremendous prestige in the penthouse levels of the hive right to some of the deepest layers of it. He likes to maintain his unique look and has already had surgery to get artificial abs he likes to show around.  He's been heard a lot referring to himself as "the Duke of Worncall" and the few that have had the mediocrity to mock him "the douche of Worncall" have had to pay that pun with their lives.

Being a great spook consumer, Gavestone has built a complete drug cartel in the necromundan system with the blessing of Helmawr who gets incomes in the process and the assurance that the drug market is under his hand...

Pierce Gavestone is like many aristocrats and likes nothing more than to brag about the most audacious of things. That's the reason why he can be seen at times getting with his gangers on the field. Though his combat skills have no real influence in the outcomes, his far above average intellectual ressources and incredible prestige will often come as a great advantage during combat. He also seems to be blessed with an unrivaled luck (or by some mystic powers he gained from the massive doses of spook he's taken). Whatever the truth about him, he will always make the balance bend on his side when around and the dedication of his men to protecting him will mean he will never be an easy target.

Pierce Gavestone has gained the company of a caryatid very early in his life when he was just a young man building his own world of manipulation and intrigue. He had already gained great prestige at that time and being followed by such a creature at such an early age increased his aura even more. The creature has never left his side so far and it is not unusual for Gavestone to be seen discussing with other creatures of the sort (when most hive worlders have not even seen one in their lifetime).

The noble (in title) ganger is often followed by his own personal Joakero  Gordo who maintains his gear (especially his concealed protection force field) and designs or upgrades weapons for his most trustworthy gangers.

As you can see above, I painted an extra "free" caryatid to play as an objective, NPC or just to give a caryatid to a character who doesn't have one. The one I gave to my Helmawr leader has been slightly converted to raise the chin up which meant I had to resculpt the whole mouth and breasts (not a particularly funny or good job but that will do). In the future I will give some other particularly deserving characters caryatids and will try to convert them in the same way to keep some individuality.

The model is a Reaper winged familiar and I realise as I type it never occured to me to file the little horns away from the first two..., well too bad, I knew I couldn't stick 100% to the fluff anyway !

In the coming days (or weeks depending on my motivation) I'll add 7 more gangers to this crew, some being actual Helmawr ganger models from Citadel and some others being kitbashes like this one above.

Hope you like those, you're going to get a full plate more !