Confrontation hunters

Gibbons (left) and Bronson (right), 2 underhive hunters.

On today's menu I'm advising you a couple of confrontation hunters who have been saved from the limbos of abandon like most of my late models. It's kind of funny to find in a quite misknown game and model range as confrontation to find models that are even more misknown !

Those familiar with confrontation (brief history HERE) will know names like Bratts, scavvies, ash waste nomads, techs and all. If you've been on this blog before you might also have seen rarer gangs like the venators or Helmawr gangers.

Well today's gang is one of hunters but it is not a gang that was specifically described in confrontation's rule or background.

A quick look at the gang chart will tell you that the closest entry you could think of would probably be  the clan gangs (which represent a third of all gangs) although they could also be an undercity (read underhive) gang I suppose but I suspect their uniform to be too classy for mere underhivers. As a matter of fact, those were (briefly) sold in blisters with "underhive gangers" on them.

Gang determination chart taken from White Dwarf

Those models are really peculiar in that they seem to carry 2 opposing features being a sort of colonialist uniform with bone trophies on top that could echo tribal practices. The name "hunter" seems to be the explanation of the trophies and you can suspect those are a bunch of psychos hunting anything in the underhive for sport and trophies (and maybe a couple of bounties here and there to make hands meet I suppose).

The description seems to be close to what the spyrers were in Necromunda a few years later but the style is so far away...

The confrontation sketches publisehd in WD do offer some help though :

Concept sketch by John Blanche published in White Dwarf

The hunters seem to be in the middle class of gang cults and the (not easy to read) description by John Blanche states that some do wear trophies.

Bronson and Gibbons are a couple of hunters who like to enjoy the simple joys of life. It is often easy to just snap under the pressure that life in the underhive represents. Every day is a struggle for survival, to make your own place in the hierarchy of gangs, to escape the threats of bounty hunters, mutants, authorities, radiations, mutations and whatever.

No Bronson and Gibbons really do not care about all those. Instead, they just hunt. Ever saw a shark or a lion worrying ? Neither have they. Their whole philosophy relies on being on top of the food chain in the underhive. Being on top means everyone's under and that makes things reaaaaally easier to apprehend, that means everything's yours to take. They do share the same view with a bunch of other hunters but their little number means they can share the cake without stepping on each other's toes. 

Their life is just one of murders for sport (you have to train hard to stay the top dog) or for fun. The occasional raping and pillaging will usually be extra to end a good day and the  bounties will usually come right for you to pick...

What a wonderful world it is when you're on top of the world... as long as you can stay on top... 

Painting wise... what can I say... in all honesty, these guys were totally not as fun as I expected and you can sense that in how little funky they look and how I didn't even try to funkify them with checkers or free hands... Don't know, the sculpts were just not what I wanted to paint or maybe it's me being moody but they are quite demanding. The leader has some extreme details in some places and some super rough parts on others, really disturbing. I wasn't sure how to paint the bone armour on the one with rifle and it ended up looking very messy despite my attempts at cleaning things a bit...
Anyway the initial idea was to have them quite clean to represent a sort of parody of huters going on safaris but with he grotesque trophies on top hence my rather clean scheme in light blue and white.

I'll leave them aside for a while and might come back to add that jazz they lack right now but I need to let things settle a little with them.

Collection wise, two other models were meant to accompany these guys (you'll understand with the comments above that I'm not particularly eager to get these other 2). You can notice they are also sporting a chin beard, bone parts in place of an armour and the same kind of trousers. (all pictures taken from the CCM wiki)

And just because I can't get away from them for too long, here's a bunch of Venators I kitbashed recently. They still need a lot of putty work and one of them will be rebuilt to echo John Blanche's sketch but I like the look of them and the heads I sculpted are after all not that bad...

Oh and just because... you know, some music's always good to have and it sort of have a link... sort of ...