Forge World put out a Necromunda miniature I loved from the second I saw it. It was the Narker…
Now, the rules for the Narker are shit. Okay… not shit… just very limited in their application so, while I loved it, I had no idea what to do with it. My wife is a very patient woman who allows me a lot of leeway in my hobby but… buying minis just because they’re cool that sit in blister packs for years… I mean… she knows what a pile of shame is and don’t try to tell her it’s actually potential. She knows the difference.
But then I saw someone had replaced her back hand with a weapon and it clicked for me. I knew exactly what I wanted and I knew her story.
She was the Psyker, Sarah.
She… Helmawr is a clever bastard and, while he’s supposed to give up all his psykers to the Black Ships, when he finds a talent he just kind of… squirrels them away for his own uses. Sarah was one of them. As a mind reader, she could be very useful. So he set her up to listen in to the thoughts of his nobles, to alert him to any… plots… before they could be executed. And he assigned her two Palanite enforcers to guard her… and by guard her, of course I mean to shoot her in the head if she looks to be going rogue.
But she’s a psyker, see… so it’s a little more tricky than that and, over time, she wormed her way into her guards’ heads and convinced them that they should break her out. So they did. Then they became her champions as they went into the underhive and she began to gather thralls around her as her gang. And, because she’s at least a little by psycho after her experiences, she thinks she’s a Disney princess talking to forrest animals when… really… they’re giant hive rats.
And to finish the gang is an ambot, built out of scraps in worship of her by her thralls.
She likes to doodle, on her ambot, and on her thralls, and so each of them have a little decoration she left on them. I mean, before they joined her, they were just hive scum. Now look at them!
And that was the idea…
So I followed through on my own to convert the Narker who was obviously a psyker. I cut off both her hands and replaced them with a power sword and plasma pistol, both from the Escher kits.
The hand with the plasma pistol is maybe a little large but… if you’re looking that close, go get a beer and quit looking for trouble. The rest of the model is bog-standard though! Just with my own paint on it.
And these are her rats. Sharp eyed readers might notice that the header image had the rats in more traditional filthy bandages and that’s because I painted them before I was sure they’d be Sarah’s rats. Then, after my first game with them, I realized that she’d wrap them up in her own clothing and I went back and painted over the original bandages. Probably no one notices but me but, goddamn it, I notice!
Little Buddy, (yes, seriously, that’s his name) was also fun to paint. I’d never painted anything like that before. I did his base colors, that purple and green, then hit it with a bunch of Leadbelcher sponging. Then, to bring the color back a bit, I sponged on the base colors again which really built up some thick layers but kinda worked for a scrap built murder robot. Then I added Sarah’s graffiti and it just brought it all home. Can you imagine how insulting it is to be slaughtered by a pieced together trash-bot that someone drew flowers and happy faces on?
And that’s the rest of the gang. At least… it was. I’ve added a few new scummers to the mix since just for diversity and because when you run this gang in a campaign, scummers die faster than fruit flies. So I thought, since they’re all worth more or less the same, just do a bunch of diverse load-outs and pick the dead guy’s replacement more or less at random. But, for a starting gang, they’re not bad!
Tips for playing Outcasts
- Your leader is everything – People say it because it’s true. Think of outcasts as a cult of personality. Your leader is your star, your champs are your backup dancers, and everyone else is scum… literally.
- Your champs aren’t great – it’s sadly true. For champions, there’s not much special about them compared to standard champions from any house. So don’t rely on them too much.
- Consider a brute – if you can afford an ambot or an ogre, think about it because scummers have very limited lists and heavy weapons are rare on the ground. A brute can bring a little extra oomph to the party.
- Consider pets – I gave Sarah two rats because they’re cheap, they’re hard to hit, they have a great save, and they soak up target priority. Their whole job is to soak up damage as Sarah makes her way into a charge.
