Psyker gang from the underhive

Here's a little more meat to feed you people in this post ! This one's taken me a bit more time than I would have loved but things are what they are you know.

I'm still as huge fan of the whole confrontation setting and I'm really glad to have one of he iconic gangs done ! (they all are in my eyes anyway).
I'd also like to thank Cédric a lot for getting me those treasures, massive thumbs up to you mec !

As you can see the models are the original Marauder psyker gangers along one of the Imperial psykers from 40k 2nd ed (look at his typical flat YMCA pose).

Let's have a look at them each and see how they fit in the confrontation grid :

This sculpt above is mental, I mean, he has a collar twice the size of his already oversized mutant head... And the collar is decorated with gems or lights whose wires you can spot in the rear (can't help but think of a Chirstmas decoration). This guy got a rather sober paintsheme compared to what he was like 20 years ago really. In the end, I just couldn't refrain myself from adding green hair and gems of different colours just a a little reminder (and show he's the boss).

Funny thing is that the design keeps many features from the older marauder references like the huge collar (common thing amongst wizards) but also the eye symbol, the weird armour plates and the jewels all around.

I realise that the yellow gloves make think of something entirely different but I just can't get the image off my head now :

Yeah I know...

The next guy seems a bit older and his head is full of little crevices and weird textures to suggest age (or a very dry skin). He also has a nobler look and probably has a high rank in the gang. I suppose the smaller the weapon, the more powerful a psyker is so with only a laspistol, he must be pretty good. I've kept the same  basic colours for the whole gang so without any surprise this guy looks like his boss. I really like the blue fur and yellow cape combo though and the way it contrasts with the darker parts of his gear pleases me. You get a duality from the dark weapon and the arm holding it and the flamboyant look on the other side probably used to cast spells. I'd say he's the henchman of the band.

 The next one is rather cool, probably my favourite sculpt or at least my favourite pose of all 4 really. It is a bit strange though with some peculiar armour pieces on one side and fur on the other. Like for the previous pysker, I've decided to treat this duality with the colours as well to have both the martial dark look on one side and the fancy and psychedelic one on the other. I was quite surprised to realise this lad only has 4 fingers on his left hand (and far larger than the ones on his left hand really. If you combine this trait and the fact he's still alive with the bad-assery of his pose, I suppose you can tell he's a hardened ganger.

Next guy has a bigger gun, no laspistols now but a lasgun. No fancy fur either and less jewels and bling than some. He does look like he knows his business though so I bet he's a proper ganger. Not much to tell painting wise about this guy, same recipe again and you can still note the lack of symetry on this one. 3 of the marauder models were badly miscast but this one was by far the worst with a big problem in the mould alignement. I fixed what I could beforehand but missed some problems I tried to hide later on while painting him. To be honest, the angles hide pretty much all the ygly things but turn him a fourth of a turn and you'll see some ugly things.

That's just the way it is with old models so no big issue really. His skull seems almost normal (for a marauder model at least) but he looks tough all the same, I'd guess he's a hardened ganger.

Last of all is the kid, well his face doesn't exactly look like he's one but he does look like he's a more recent recrew. He might have a great potential though if the size of his head can tell anything but his weapons and the way he holds them scream raw recruit to me so that's what he shall be from now on.

His oversized traits bear the mark of the marauder studio and while the proportions are totally bonkers, they prove to be very pleasant to paint.

So here we have the whole group ordered in the right order :

Leader, Henchman, 2 hardened gangers and a raw recruit.

We can gather a few informations on the psyker gangs in the underhive by reading the 131th issue of White Dwarf :

You can notice one of the sculpts is pretty much exactly the one depicted in the sketches from John Blanche. The description though doesn't really fit with how I painted my psykers (the sculpts actually don't quite fit with the description I find). They're meant to be secretive but the sculpt bear fur and gems, plenty of things that don't really fit...

There are models that fit a bit more to the secret society depicted in the brief text :

Lucky me, I own them all and if you read carefully, there's a mention of a secret coven called "the immortals", looks like I'm not done with psykers yet ...

Oh and there's also a mention of old friends of mine... look carefully... YES, the venators !

That's 2 full marauder gangs meeting, helped by creations from Goodwin and Naismith, what more to ask (yeah I know, more time to paint the rest).

If you have loved the psyker gang, why not take a look at how my pal Colin painted his on his blog RIGHT HERE.

I have plenty of stuff in progress right now but I can ensure you you'll get some pretty iconic stuff from the old days (sometimes with a rather new approach I confess) so stay tuned ;)