Weekly Waffle #339 – You can never have too much
29th June 2024
This week’s weekly waffle is really a deja vu of last week in a lot of respects. As I’ve been saying for the last few weeks I’ve been focusing on Necromunda Hired Guns and that is exactly what I have for you this week. But it gets better because we have another Squat for you. And yes I do mean a squat and not a member of the League of Votan, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be making an appearance in a future update. No this week is a bonafide Squat in the form of the Ammo-Jack Ranger Gunnsteine.
But what is an ammo-jack and how do they fit into the game. Well the simple answer is that they are one of the many different ‘Hangers-On’ that your gang can employ. Each different hanger-on brings a different type of benefit or a special rule to the gang that employs them. They don’t normally take part in any battles because their role is more of a non-combat one. However, if a battle takes place on the gang’s own turf there is a chance that they unfortunate enough to be around when the fighting starts. If that’s the case they end up having to fight like the rest of the gang.
If they do find themselves in a bit of bind then they are ready to give someone a bad day. They have access to either a bolt gun or a shotgun with either salvo or shredder ammunition. And if things get up close and personal then they will meet their adversary with either a power hammer or a power sword. So they are very likely to mess up someone day.
But they aren’t really there to be in the thick of a fight. The real reason to have an ammo-jack working with you is because they can make sure the gangs weapons are regularly serviced. Which in game terms give you a re-roll on any failed ammo checks of a 1. And if you have more than one ammo-jack working with you then this bonus can stack which can be a real help in a fight.
Now there are lot of ammo-jacks out there and I have already got a generic one for my Orlocks but this time we are going to look at Ranger Gunnstein, Squat Ammo-jack .
The mini is really nice as he is covered in bullets and grenades, and carries a wealth of tools that he uses to fix weapons. The only change I have made is to put him on to a larger base because I wanted to add one of the ammo boxes he comes with onto the base. I think it’s just a little bit more characterful and as he will only ever be used in friendly games I don’t think anyone will object to him being on the wrong base. Especially because if he is ever involved in a scrap more people will be able to mob him.
Painting wise I again decided to stick with the standard colours that are used on the Warhammer web site. They know what they are doing there and the scheme does seem to fit the character, which at the end of the day is all I’m looking for. The painting went quite smoothly and I like how it’s turned out. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been painting regularly for some time now but things just seemed to work when I was painting him. I didn’t have any dramas with everything I tried to do working as expected. Granted I didn’t try to push the boat out in any way, shape or form with him. But it was pleasing when it all seemed to come together.
The finishing touches were to use some weathering powders to give the lower half of him a more grimy feel. Which I think is appropriate for the setting and is what I have done with all of my other Necromunda minis so he will fit in with them. One thing I have found over the last few weeks since I switched to AK Ultra Matt Varnish to finish my minis off is that I have had to turn the air pressure on the air brush right down. I used to use Vallejo matt varnish which was a lot thinker so the pressure had to be nice and high. The AK stuff is much more like water so there have been a few times when I’ve not turned the pressure down and I’ve ended up getting streaks from the weathering powder. As opposed to just sealing it in place.
But what do you think of him. Could he be the help your crew has been looking for.
You can find more Necromunda mins from a few faction on my Necromunda Gallery here.
I will have more Necromunda for you next week and I have already picked out the models that will be making their debut.
But I want to move away from Necromunda for a little bit as I’ve also been turning my hand back to a little bit of D&D this week. I have’t played since before the infamous lock downs a few years ago but Anna has kindly decided to run a new campaign. We are going to try and get a game in every other week depending on peoples schedules. But I’m really hoping it runs well.
I wanted to try something a bit different this time round having played a halfling monk and a dwarves bard, who didn’t sing and just told stories. In the last couple of campaigns. The Artificer class really appeals to me but i’ve not see or heard anything really good about it, other than you can sort of play Iron Man if you want. But I do like tinkering with things and I kept getting drawn back to it. So I’ve been working on a back story that would fit the world that Anna has created for us and that I also think will be fun to play. Although it will be something of a different play style for me because he will very much be a support character. Not someone who can run in to the mist of battle and not someone who can deal out a lot of damage.
He’s not particularly squishy and has some reasonable ranged attacks but he is in no way a fighter up close or a true spell weaver at distance. What I’m hoping the will be good at is when it comes to investigations, because there is always a lot of problem solving and role playing in Anna’s games.
I’m really quite excited about rolling this guy up and then trying to learn how to play him. Hopefully he is able to survive the first few levels until he can start to get some of traits that will with a bit of look work well with the rest of the party. But time will tell and I may be re-rolling a new character if things don’t turn out the way I’m hoping. Or if the dice gods desert me and I start rolling natural ones, slipping on a wet cobble and falling down a well to drown. But lots not get too pessimistic before I’ve even rolled the character up.
That’s it for this week’s weekly waffle. I hope you enjoyed it and if you did I hope you will be back for more next week. Until then keep safe and have fun whatever you are up to.
