1990 entry by John James 1992 entry by John James After exploring the background and available informations on the Venator gangs in confrontation and after seeing some interest about the brat gangers by some other bloggers, I felt like giving some attention to some far more colourful factions. You can find some more info about confrontation and the venators in a previous post. For the Brat gangers, I will follow a similar way as with the venators, trying to get every bit of info I can from the original confrontation rules published in White Dwarf and trying to see if links can be made with previous and later concepts. Background : First mention of Brat gangs in the confrontation rules is found in the characteristics of Hive gangs : "The word 'gang' describes many different types of armed bands on Necromunda. Gang is a generic term which includes clan warriors, bands of ash nomads, savage gangs and mutant bands from the undercity, scavvies from the shanties, armed bands of techs, bands of fugitive psykers, unruly brat gangs of the upper hab layers, as weil as sanctioned gangs and professional bounty-hunters, guards and retainers such as the Venators and Custodians." The mention of the upper hab layers is the first information which indicates what makes the brats special. To understand it, you have to look at the maps and cross-sections given to illustrate the hive. You can see the hive concept is derived from the medieval castles and the vertical ranking of the time with the most powerful and leaders at the top and the poorest and working masses at the very bottom. The upper hab layers are under the Noble families facilities and under the protection devices but they are above everything else, including main habitation level, factories, and undercities. Now we get a clearer view of how nobles are organised in Necromunda. It looks like the noble families from the very top penthouse levels control sectors of the upper hive layers thanks to gangs made up of their rebelious youth. Those gangs frequently travel in the deeper areas of the hive to hunt, terrorise population and get weapons, drugs and equipment. We can also note the emphasis on fashion, elaborate costumes and hairstyles, tattoos and extravagant rather than practical clothing. This and the fact they tend to favor exotic equipment all coming from the fact they have great wealth ressources. We can also note that Drugs are one of their concerns and you can read in the section about Spook that : "There has always been a massive demand for drugs in hive-society, mainly to supplement the diet and ward off sickness. Spook became popular among the nobility who revelled in its exotic effects and it has slowly filtered down throughout hive-society." Rules : Looking at the Gang determination chart, you can see Brats are quite a rare gang with a chance of getting rolled of 5.5% just like Venators and Tech gangs. They are the second rarest gang after Psyker gangs and mutant gangs (both having a 2,7% rate of getting rolled), far more rare than Clan gangs who represent a 3rd of rolled gangs : The gang modifier chart indicates that Brats are not particularly talented fighters with Initiative and weapon skill being lower than average (though the text and chart don't state the same). They do rely on exotic equipment and drugs though : With no surprise, the brats start with a lot of credits (the imperial currency) with a starting wealth 2nd to the techs only and with the same amount as the venators. The modifiers on the trading charts also has some infos on the brats. They get a +5% bonus for guns, missiles, equipment but they get a +10% for drugs. Now we see that's easier to get spook when you're a noble. From this, we are led to believe that Brats rely on exotic weapons and drugs to fight but I've failed to find any rules for combat drugs in the confrontation rules. 4 types of combat drugs are available in confrontation but only spook is described in its effect though not in the rules. Spook: Increases the user's psychic potential, but makes their mind more susceptible to mental damage while they do so. Design : The brats have had the chance of being designed by Jes Goodwin who tends to make a lot of sketches for all his concepts. In the conforntation rules, we have a first sketch for a sort of "generic" brat. We have some feats which will be the Brat trademarks like : - tight pants - padded vests - big hair (called psychomanes in the sketch) - fancy decorations like jewels and ribbons - face decoration John Blanche also offered his take on the brats, You can read notes : Brats : Rich young middle-class (note : the rich middle-class seems a bit off with the description of nobles in the rules). About the hair : High Hair, Shock wigs, Beard wigs, Metalic thread wigs, Shaved foreheads, Multicoloured hair About materials : Rich materials, Silks, Velvets. About clothes : Doublets, Slashed cloth, Knee-length trousers , Occasional High Heels, Jewelled pouches, Hanging purses. About decorations : Jewels, Face paint, Body tatoos, Face paint, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Large earings, Multiple earings, Rainbow shades, Finely wrought weapons, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Riot of colour, Mock Ledar face Icons. Note the grotesque mask in the bottom right corner which looks more like a Venator's You can actually see that most of the ideas given here have been put in the models and the final drawings about the brats. They seem to have been quite inspirationnal to the artists of the studio. Apart from those generic attributes for the brats, Jes Goodwin's sketches show some variations for a number of different gangs. This helps to show that there is not one Brat style but as many as there are families and bands. The Dance Macabre : I like the name of it, coming from the french "Danse macabre". You can note the bat-shaped pectoral and the exotic crystal gun. I bet they are slightly less colourful than the rest of the brat bands, here is what the "danse macabre" was in medieval times : Taken from wikipedia The fright knights : Those look a lot like the limited release model (well I guess it's the other way round) and I like the mention "scream a lot" written in the description... The jaggers : Described as Duelling Freaks, they display bolts and a rather eccentric look : Necros : They display skull tatoos on the forehead and sport fencing style swords Rakehellions : Probably my personnal favourite, they sport white make up with beauty spots and coloured lips. They have exagerated neckties and ribbons everywhere. I can't help thinking someone gave a little inspiration here : Strypers : Apart from having wigs, the strypers distinguish themselves by wearing stripes pattern in clothes, hair, ...well, everything. Though the Brats do not appear in the rogue trader rulebook, there is picture of punks with big hair and fashionable clothes. They are clearly more on the punk side but the shape of the hairstyle is close to what the brats were going to have.: Taken form page 228 of the Wharhammer 40k : Rogue trader rulebook Since the description of the brats indicates they often raid tech facilities just to mess around, it is quite natural that 2 of the drawings depicting them are in fights against the Techs. Can you spot the famous studio members on this one? Not excatly sure these are Brat gangers, they look more like regular gangers to me... For the models, most people know the 3 armless gangers which were quite easily available. They have the shaved foreheads, big hair and decorations described in the design sketchs and they even have shades and communicators to indicate their good equipment. Those sculpts are the work of Jes Goodwin which seems natural since he did many sketches and that as we've seen there are many eldar/brats crossovers. The limited release Brat seems to have been based on the Fright Knight concept above. The sculpt is Jes Goodwin's so this comes as no surprise. It has the very "flat" pose many models had at the time (for casting issues). Limited edition Brat (Picture taken from Solegend) There have aslo been some unreleased models (found in the CCM wiki) which all seem to have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin too. Painted by Mark Dixon (Picture taken from Solegend) Now, looking back a little, the confrontation rules were published in 1990/1991 and from what has been said about the game, its developement has been made before in the late 80's which is not remembered as the most sober period in terms of fashion : I'm s I'm sure you all know an inifnity of other references of colourful 80's madness... But amongst all of these there is a particular trend that really seems to have inspired the design team. I'd like to thank zhu bajiee from The Realm of Zhu for pointing me in this direction (see comments below). The new romantics movement is full of those young people puting everything they are in their outfit : For further informations, may I advise you to read the references here for example. But what happened with the brats? We've seen that the Venators have gone back to square one in being zealots and fanatics again but what about the noble family members of the imperium today? Well first, in Necromunda, the sons and daughters of the Noble families who felt like going on a rampage in the lower levels were called "Spyrers" and were pretty much hunters : You can see that all their power comes from the very specialised equipment they wear and all traces of fashion and style has disappeared. Where the early designs described extravagant over practical clothing, in Necromunda it was the complete opposite. The paintjobs are colourful indeed but it sems to me that in this case it is more due to th epoor taste of the painter than anything else... It is intersting to note that the design studio abandonned this faction which was clearly bound with its time instead of updating it like they did with so much other races and factions. The only traces of models that have kept the colourful 80's design are the popular Harlequins (Jes Goodwin, eldars...): From here : to here : You can see how the new Harlequins have nearly all the characteristics of the Brat's design. The very fact that Brats were wearing exotic gear and somehow copying eldar outfit must have been the cause of their disappearance... both concepts were redundant on too many points. But after all, who said that all nobles of the imperium want to dress like predators with silly equipment? I have seen some interest in more elegant Brats lately and I am sure that we will some fashionable nobles come out of the hives ... PS : Many thanks to Axiom for his aid to decipher Jes Goodwin notes. (If you fancy Brat gangs, check out his blog, you might have a good suprise in little time)

1990 entry by John James 1992 entry by John James After exploring the background and available informations on the Venator gangs in confrontation and after seeing some interest about the brat gangers by some other bloggers, I felt like giving some attention to some far more colourful factions. You can find some more info about confrontation and the venators in a previous post. For the Brat gangers, I will follow a similar way as with the venators, trying to get every bit of info I can from the original confrontation rules published in White Dwarf and trying to see if links can be made with previous and later concepts. Background : First mention of Brat gangs in the confrontation rules is found in the characteristics of Hive gangs : "The word 'gang' describes many different types of armed bands on Necromunda. Gang is a generic term which includes clan warriors, bands of ash nomads, savage gangs and mutant bands from the undercity, scavvies from the shanties, armed bands of techs, bands of fugitive psykers, unruly brat gangs of the upper hab layers, as weil as sanctioned gangs and professional bounty-hunters, guards and retainers such as the Venators and Custodians." The mention of the upper hab layers is the first information which indicates what makes the brats special. To understand it, you have to look at the maps and cross-sections given to illustrate the hive. You can see the hive concept is derived from the medieval castles and the vertical ranking of the time with the most powerful and leaders at the top and the poorest and working masses at the very bottom. The upper hab layers are under the Noble families facilities and under the protection devices but they are above everything else, including main habitation level, factories, and undercities. Now we get a clearer view of how nobles are organised in Necromunda. It looks like the noble families from the very top penthouse levels control sectors of the upper hive layers thanks to gangs made up of their rebelious youth. Those gangs frequently travel in the deeper areas of the hive to hunt, terrorise population and get weapons, drugs and equipment. We can also note the emphasis on fashion, elaborate costumes and hairstyles, tattoos and extravagant rather than practical clothing. This and the fact they tend to favor exotic equipment all coming from the fact they have great wealth ressources. We can also note that Drugs are one of their concerns and you can read in the section about Spook that : "There has always been a massive demand for drugs in hive-society, mainly to supplement the diet and ward off sickness. Spook became popular among the nobility who revelled in its exotic effects and it has slowly filtered down throughout hive-society." Rules : Looking at the Gang determination chart, you can see Brats are quite a rare gang with a chance of getting rolled of 5.5% just like Venators and Tech gangs. They are the second rarest gang after Psyker gangs and mutant gangs (both having a 2,7% rate of getting rolled), far more rare than Clan gangs who represent a 3rd of rolled gangs : The gang modifier chart indicates that Brats are not particularly talented fighters with Initiative and weapon skill being lower than average (though the text and chart don't state the same). They do rely on exotic equipment and drugs though : With no surprise, the brats start with a lot of credits (the imperial currency) with a starting wealth 2nd to the techs only and with the same amount as the venators. The modifiers on the trading charts also has some infos on the brats. They get a +5% bonus for guns, missiles, equipment but they get a +10% for drugs. Now we see that's easier to get spook when you're a noble. From this, we are led to believe that Brats rely on exotic weapons and drugs to fight but I've failed to find any rules for combat drugs in the confrontation rules. 4 types of combat drugs are available in confrontation but only spook is described in its effect though not in the rules. Spook: Increases the user's psychic potential, but makes their mind more susceptible to mental damage while they do so. Design : The brats have had the chance of being designed by Jes Goodwin who tends to make a lot of sketches for all his concepts. In the conforntation rules, we have a first sketch for a sort of "generic" brat. We have some feats which will be the Brat trademarks like : - tight pants - padded vests - big hair (called psychomanes in the sketch) - fancy decorations like jewels and ribbons - face decoration John Blanche also offered his take on the brats, You can read notes : Brats : Rich young middle-class (note : the rich middle-class seems a bit off with the description of nobles in the rules). About the hair : High Hair, Shock wigs, Beard wigs, Metalic thread wigs, Shaved foreheads, Multicoloured hair About materials : Rich materials, Silks, Velvets. About clothes : Doublets, Slashed cloth, Knee-length trousers , Occasional High Heels, Jewelled pouches, Hanging purses. About decorations : Jewels, Face paint, Body tatoos, Face paint, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Large earings, Multiple earings, Rainbow shades, Finely wrought weapons, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Riot of colour, Mock Ledar face Icons. Note the grotesque mask in the bottom right corner which looks more like a Venator's You can actually see that most of the ideas given here have been put in the models and the final drawings about the brats. They seem to have been quite inspirationnal to the artists of the studio. Apart from those generic attributes for the brats, Jes Goodwin's sketches show some variations for a number of different gangs. This helps to show that there is not one Brat style but as many as there are families and bands. The Dance Macabre : I like the name of it, coming from the french "Danse macabre". You can note the bat-shaped pectoral and the exotic crystal gun. I bet they are slightly less colourful than the rest of the brat bands, here is what the "danse macabre" was in medieval times : Taken from wikipedia The fright knights : Those look a lot like the limited release model (well I guess it's the other way round) and I like the mention "scream a lot" written in the description... The jaggers : Described as Duelling Freaks, they display bolts and a rather eccentric look : Necros : They display skull tatoos on the forehead and sport fencing style swords Rakehellions : Probably my personnal favourite, they sport white make up with beauty spots and coloured lips. They have exagerated neckties and ribbons everywhere. I can't help thinking someone gave a little inspiration here : Strypers : Apart from having wigs, the strypers distinguish themselves by wearing stripes pattern in clothes, hair, ...well, everything. Though the Brats do not appear in the rogue trader rulebook, there is picture of punks with big hair and fashionable clothes. They are clearly more on the punk side but the shape of the hairstyle is close to what the brats were going to have.: Taken form page 228 of the Wharhammer 40k : Rogue trader rulebook Since the description of the brats indicates they often raid tech facilities just to mess around, it is quite natural that 2 of the drawings depicting them are in fights against the Techs. Can you spot the famous studio members on this one? Not excatly sure these are Brat gangers, they look more like regular gangers to me... For the models, most people know the 3 armless gangers which were quite easily available. They have the shaved foreheads, big hair and decorations described in the design sketchs and they even have shades and communicators to indicate their good equipment. Those sculpts are the work of Jes Goodwin which seems natural since he did many sketches and that as we've seen there are many eldar/brats crossovers. The limited release Brat seems to have been based on the Fright Knight concept above. The sculpt is Jes Goodwin's so this comes as no surprise. It has the very "flat" pose many models had at the time (for casting issues). Limited edition Brat (Picture taken from Solegend) There have aslo been some unreleased models (found in the CCM wiki) which all seem to have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin too. Painted by Mark Dixon (Picture taken from Solegend) Now, looking back a little, the confrontation rules were published in 1990/1991 and from what has been said about the game, its developement has been made before in the late 80's which is not remembered as the most sober period in terms of fashion : I'm s I'm sure you all know an inifnity of other references of colourful 80's madness... But amongst all of these there is a particular trend that really seems to have inspired the design team. I'd like to thank zhu bajiee from The Realm of Zhu for pointing me in this direction (see comments below). The new romantics movement is full of those young people puting everything they are in their outfit : For further informations, may I advise you to read the references here for example. But what happened with the brats? We've seen that the Venators have gone back to square one in being zealots and fanatics again but what about the noble family members of the imperium today? Well first, in Necromunda, the sons and daughters of the Noble families who felt like going on a rampage in the lower levels were called "Spyrers" and were pretty much hunters : You can see that all their power comes from the very specialised equipment they wear and all traces of fashion and style has disappeared. Where the early designs described extravagant over practical clothing, in Necromunda it was the complete opposite. The paintjobs are colourful indeed but it sems to me that in this case it is more due to th epoor taste of the painter than anything else... It is intersting to note that the design studio abandonned this faction which was clearly bound with its time instead of updating it like they did with so much other races and factions. The only traces of models that have kept the colourful 80's design are the popular Harlequins (Jes Goodwin, eldars...): From here : to here : You can see how the new Harlequins have nearly all the characteristics of the Brat's design. The very fact that Brats were wearing exotic gear and somehow copying eldar outfit must have been the cause of their disappearance... both concepts were redundant on too many points. But after all, who said that all nobles of the imperium want to dress like predators with silly equipment? I have seen some interest in more elegant Brats lately and I am sure that we will some fashionable nobles come out of the hives ... PS : Many thanks to Axiom for his aid to decipher Jes Goodwin notes. (If you fancy Brat gangs, check out his blog, you might have a good suprise in little time)

1990 entry by John James 1992 entry by John James After exploring the background and available informations on the Venator gangs in confrontation and after seeing some interest about the brat gangers by some other bloggers, I felt like giving some attention to some far more colourful factions. You can find some more info about confrontation and the venators in a previous post. For the Brat gangers, I will follow a similar way as with the venators, trying to get every bit of info I can from the original confrontation rules published in White Dwarf and trying to see if links can be made with previous and later concepts. Background : First mention of Brat gangs in the confrontation rules is found in the characteristics of Hive gangs : "The word 'gang' describes many different types of armed bands on Necromunda. Gang is a generic term which includes clan warriors, bands of ash nomads, savage gangs and mutant bands from the undercity, scavvies from the shanties, armed bands of techs, bands of fugitive psykers, unruly brat gangs of the upper hab layers, as weil as sanctioned gangs and professional bounty-hunters, guards and retainers such as the Venators and Custodians." The mention of the upper hab layers is the first information which indicates what makes the brats special. To understand it, you have to look at the maps and cross-sections given to illustrate the hive. You can see the hive concept is derived from the medieval castles and the vertical ranking of the time with the most powerful and leaders at the top and the poorest and working masses at the very bottom. The upper hab layers are under the Noble families facilities and under the protection devices but they are above everything else, including main habitation level, factories, and undercities. Now we get a clearer view of how nobles are organised in Necromunda. It looks like the noble families from the very top penthouse levels control sectors of the upper hive layers thanks to gangs made up of their rebelious youth. Those gangs frequently travel in the deeper areas of the hive to hunt, terrorise population and get weapons, drugs and equipment. We can also note the emphasis on fashion, elaborate costumes and hairstyles, tattoos and extravagant rather than practical clothing. This and the fact they tend to favor exotic equipment all coming from the fact they have great wealth ressources. We can also note that Drugs are one of their concerns and you can read in the section about Spook that : "There has always been a massive demand for drugs in hive-society, mainly to supplement the diet and ward off sickness. Spook became popular among the nobility who revelled in its exotic effects and it has slowly filtered down throughout hive-society." Rules : Looking at the Gang determination chart, you can see Brats are quite a rare gang with a chance of getting rolled of 5.5% just like Venators and Tech gangs. They are the second rarest gang after Psyker gangs and mutant gangs (both having a 2,7% rate of getting rolled), far more rare than Clan gangs who represent a 3rd of rolled gangs : The gang modifier chart indicates that Brats are not particularly talented fighters with Initiative and weapon skill being lower than average (though the text and chart don't state the same). They do rely on exotic equipment and drugs though : With no surprise, the brats start with a lot of credits (the imperial currency) with a starting wealth 2nd to the techs only and with the same amount as the venators. The modifiers on the trading charts also has some infos on the brats. They get a +5% bonus for guns, missiles, equipment but they get a +10% for drugs. Now we see that's easier to get spook when you're a noble. From this, we are led to believe that Brats rely on exotic weapons and drugs to fight but I've failed to find any rules for combat drugs in the confrontation rules. 4 types of combat drugs are available in confrontation but only spook is described in its effect though not in the rules. Spook: Increases the user's psychic potential, but makes their mind more susceptible to mental damage while they do so. Design : The brats have had the chance of being designed by Jes Goodwin who tends to make a lot of sketches for all his concepts. In the conforntation rules, we have a first sketch for a sort of "generic" brat. We have some feats which will be the Brat trademarks like : - tight pants - padded vests - big hair (called psychomanes in the sketch) - fancy decorations like jewels and ribbons - face decoration John Blanche also offered his take on the brats, You can read notes : Brats : Rich young middle-class (note : the rich middle-class seems a bit off with the description of nobles in the rules). About the hair : High Hair, Shock wigs, Beard wigs, Metalic thread wigs, Shaved foreheads, Multicoloured hair About materials : Rich materials, Silks, Velvets. About clothes : Doublets, Slashed cloth, Knee-length trousers , Occasional High Heels, Jewelled pouches, Hanging purses. About decorations : Jewels, Face paint, Body tatoos, Face paint, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Large earings, Multiple earings, Rainbow shades, Finely wrought weapons, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Riot of colour, Mock Ledar face Icons. Note the grotesque mask in the bottom right corner which looks more like a Venator's You can actually see that most of the ideas given here have been put in the models and the final drawings about the brats. They seem to have been quite inspirationnal to the artists of the studio. Apart from those generic attributes for the brats, Jes Goodwin's sketches show some variations for a number of different gangs. This helps to show that there is not one Brat style but as many as there are families and bands. The Dance Macabre : I like the name of it, coming from the french "Danse macabre". You can note the bat-shaped pectoral and the exotic crystal gun. I bet they are slightly less colourful than the rest of the brat bands, here is what the "danse macabre" was in medieval times : Taken from wikipedia The fright knights : Those look a lot like the limited release model (well I guess it's the other way round) and I like the mention "scream a lot" written in the description... The jaggers : Described as Duelling Freaks, they display bolts and a rather eccentric look : Necros : They display skull tatoos on the forehead and sport fencing style swords Rakehellions : Probably my personnal favourite, they sport white make up with beauty spots and coloured lips. They have exagerated neckties and ribbons everywhere. I can't help thinking someone gave a little inspiration here : Strypers : Apart from having wigs, the strypers distinguish themselves by wearing stripes pattern in clothes, hair, ...well, everything. Though the Brats do not appear in the rogue trader rulebook, there is picture of punks with big hair and fashionable clothes. They are clearly more on the punk side but the shape of the hairstyle is close to what the brats were going to have.: Taken form page 228 of the Wharhammer 40k : Rogue trader rulebook Since the description of the brats indicates they often raid tech facilities just to mess around, it is quite natural that 2 of the drawings depicting them are in fights against the Techs. Can you spot the famous studio members on this one? Not excatly sure these are Brat gangers, they look more like regular gangers to me... For the models, most people know the 3 armless gangers which were quite easily available. They have the shaved foreheads, big hair and decorations described in the design sketchs and they even have shades and communicators to indicate their good equipment. Those sculpts are the work of Jes Goodwin which seems natural since he did many sketches and that as we've seen there are many eldar/brats crossovers. The limited release Brat seems to have been based on the Fright Knight concept above. The sculpt is Jes Goodwin's so this comes as no surprise. It has the very "flat" pose many models had at the time (for casting issues). Limited edition Brat (Picture taken from Solegend) There have aslo been some unreleased models (found in the CCM wiki) which all seem to have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin too. Painted by Mark Dixon (Picture taken from Solegend) Now, looking back a little, the confrontation rules were published in 1990/1991 and from what has been said about the game, its developement has been made before in the late 80's which is not remembered as the most sober period in terms of fashion : I'm s I'm sure you all know an inifnity of other references of colourful 80's madness... But amongst all of these there is a particular trend that really seems to have inspired the design team. I'd like to thank zhu bajiee from The Realm of Zhu for pointing me in this direction (see comments below). The new romantics movement is full of those young people puting everything they are in their outfit : For further informations, may I advise you to read the references here for example. But what happened with the brats? We've seen that the Venators have gone back to square one in being zealots and fanatics again but what about the noble family members of the imperium today? Well first, in Necromunda, the sons and daughters of the Noble families who felt like going on a rampage in the lower levels were called "Spyrers" and were pretty much hunters : You can see that all their power comes from the very specialised equipment they wear and all traces of fashion and style has disappeared. Where the early designs described extravagant over practical clothing, in Necromunda it was the complete opposite. The paintjobs are colourful indeed but it sems to me that in this case it is more due to th epoor taste of the painter than anything else... It is intersting to note that the design studio abandonned this faction which was clearly bound with its time instead of updating it like they did with so much other races and factions. The only traces of models that have kept the colourful 80's design are the popular Harlequins (Jes Goodwin, eldars...): From here : to here : You can see how the new Harlequins have nearly all the characteristics of the Brat's design. The very fact that Brats were wearing exotic gear and somehow copying eldar outfit must have been the cause of their disappearance... both concepts were redundant on too many points. But after all, who said that all nobles of the imperium want to dress like predators with silly equipment? I have seen some interest in more elegant Brats lately and I am sure that we will some fashionable nobles come out of the hives ... PS : Many thanks to Axiom for his aid to decipher Jes Goodwin notes. (If you fancy Brat gangs, check out his blog, you might have a good suprise in little time)

1990 entry by John James 1992 entry by John James After exploring the background and available informations on the Venator gangs in confrontation and after seeing some interest about the brat gangers by some other bloggers, I felt like giving some attention to some far more colourful factions. You can find some more info about confrontation and the venators in a previous post. For the Brat gangers, I will follow a similar way as with the venators, trying to get every bit of info I can from the original confrontation rules published in White Dwarf and trying to see if links can be made with previous and later concepts. Background : First mention of Brat gangs in the confrontation rules is found in the characteristics of Hive gangs : "The word 'gang' describes many different types of armed bands on Necromunda. Gang is a generic term which includes clan warriors, bands of ash nomads, savage gangs and mutant bands from the undercity, scavvies from the shanties, armed bands of techs, bands of fugitive psykers, unruly brat gangs of the upper hab layers, as weil as sanctioned gangs and professional bounty-hunters, guards and retainers such as the Venators and Custodians." The mention of the upper hab layers is the first information which indicates what makes the brats special. To understand it, you have to look at the maps and cross-sections given to illustrate the hive. You can see the hive concept is derived from the medieval castles and the vertical ranking of the time with the most powerful and leaders at the top and the poorest and working masses at the very bottom. The upper hab layers are under the Noble families facilities and under the protection devices but they are above everything else, including main habitation level, factories, and undercities. Now we get a clearer view of how nobles are organised in Necromunda. It looks like the noble families from the very top penthouse levels control sectors of the upper hive layers thanks to gangs made up of their rebelious youth. Those gangs frequently travel in the deeper areas of the hive to hunt, terrorise population and get weapons, drugs and equipment. We can also note the emphasis on fashion, elaborate costumes and hairstyles, tattoos and extravagant rather than practical clothing. This and the fact they tend to favor exotic equipment all coming from the fact they have great wealth ressources. We can also note that Drugs are one of their concerns and you can read in the section about Spook that : "There has always been a massive demand for drugs in hive-society, mainly to supplement the diet and ward off sickness. Spook became popular among the nobility who revelled in its exotic effects and it has slowly filtered down throughout hive-society." Rules : Looking at the Gang determination chart, you can see Brats are quite a rare gang with a chance of getting rolled of 5.5% just like Venators and Tech gangs. They are the second rarest gang after Psyker gangs and mutant gangs (both having a 2,7% rate of getting rolled), far more rare than Clan gangs who represent a 3rd of rolled gangs : The gang modifier chart indicates that Brats are not particularly talented fighters with Initiative and weapon skill being lower than average (though the text and chart don't state the same). They do rely on exotic equipment and drugs though : With no surprise, the brats start with a lot of credits (the imperial currency) with a starting wealth 2nd to the techs only and with the same amount as the venators. The modifiers on the trading charts also has some infos on the brats. They get a +5% bonus for guns, missiles, equipment but they get a +10% for drugs. Now we see that's easier to get spook when you're a noble. From this, we are led to believe that Brats rely on exotic weapons and drugs to fight but I've failed to find any rules for combat drugs in the confrontation rules. 4 types of combat drugs are available in confrontation but only spook is described in its effect though not in the rules. Spook: Increases the user's psychic potential, but makes their mind more susceptible to mental damage while they do so. Design : The brats have had the chance of being designed by Jes Goodwin who tends to make a lot of sketches for all his concepts. In the conforntation rules, we have a first sketch for a sort of "generic" brat. We have some feats which will be the Brat trademarks like : - tight pants - padded vests - big hair (called psychomanes in the sketch) - fancy decorations like jewels and ribbons - face decoration John Blanche also offered his take on the brats, You can read notes : Brats : Rich young middle-class (note : the rich middle-class seems a bit off with the description of nobles in the rules). About the hair : High Hair, Shock wigs, Beard wigs, Metalic thread wigs, Shaved foreheads, Multicoloured hair About materials : Rich materials, Silks, Velvets. About clothes : Doublets, Slashed cloth, Knee-length trousers , Occasional High Heels, Jewelled pouches, Hanging purses. About decorations : Jewels, Face paint, Body tatoos, Face paint, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Large earings, Multiple earings, Rainbow shades, Finely wrought weapons, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Riot of colour, Mock Ledar face Icons. Note the grotesque mask in the bottom right corner which looks more like a Venator's You can actually see that most of the ideas given here have been put in the models and the final drawings about the brats. They seem to have been quite inspirationnal to the artists of the studio. Apart from those generic attributes for the brats, Jes Goodwin's sketches show some variations for a number of different gangs. This helps to show that there is not one Brat style but as many as there are families and bands. The Dance Macabre : I like the name of it, coming from the french "Danse macabre". You can note the bat-shaped pectoral and the exotic crystal gun. I bet they are slightly less colourful than the rest of the brat bands, here is what the "danse macabre" was in medieval times : Taken from wikipedia The fright knights : Those look a lot like the limited release model (well I guess it's the other way round) and I like the mention "scream a lot" written in the description... The jaggers : Described as Duelling Freaks, they display bolts and a rather eccentric look : Necros : They display skull tatoos on the forehead and sport fencing style swords Rakehellions : Probably my personnal favourite, they sport white make up with beauty spots and coloured lips. They have exagerated neckties and ribbons everywhere. I can't help thinking someone gave a little inspiration here : Strypers : Apart from having wigs, the strypers distinguish themselves by wearing stripes pattern in clothes, hair, ...well, everything. Though the Brats do not appear in the rogue trader rulebook, there is picture of punks with big hair and fashionable clothes. They are clearly more on the punk side but the shape of the hairstyle is close to what the brats were going to have.: Taken form page 228 of the Wharhammer 40k : Rogue trader rulebook Since the description of the brats indicates they often raid tech facilities just to mess around, it is quite natural that 2 of the drawings depicting them are in fights against the Techs. Can you spot the famous studio members on this one? Not excatly sure these are Brat gangers, they look more like regular gangers to me... For the models, most people know the 3 armless gangers which were quite easily available. They have the shaved foreheads, big hair and decorations described in the design sketchs and they even have shades and communicators to indicate their good equipment. Those sculpts are the work of Jes Goodwin which seems natural since he did many sketches and that as we've seen there are many eldar/brats crossovers. The limited release Brat seems to have been based on the Fright Knight concept above. The sculpt is Jes Goodwin's so this comes as no surprise. It has the very "flat" pose many models had at the time (for casting issues). Limited edition Brat (Picture taken from Solegend) There have aslo been some unreleased models (found in the CCM wiki) which all seem to have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin too. Painted by Mark Dixon (Picture taken from Solegend) Now, looking back a little, the confrontation rules were published in 1990/1991 and from what has been said about the game, its developement has been made before in the late 80's which is not remembered as the most sober period in terms of fashion : I'm s I'm sure you all know an inifnity of other references of colourful 80's madness... But amongst all of these there is a particular trend that really seems to have inspired the design team. I'd like to thank zhu bajiee from The Realm of Zhu for pointing me in this direction (see comments below). The new romantics movement is full of those young people puting everything they are in their outfit : For further informations, may I advise you to read the references here for example. But what happened with the brats? We've seen that the Venators have gone back to square one in being zealots and fanatics again but what about the noble family members of the imperium today? Well first, in Necromunda, the sons and daughters of the Noble families who felt like going on a rampage in the lower levels were called "Spyrers" and were pretty much hunters : You can see that all their power comes from the very specialised equipment they wear and all traces of fashion and style has disappeared. Where the early designs described extravagant over practical clothing, in Necromunda it was the complete opposite. The paintjobs are colourful indeed but it sems to me that in this case it is more due to th epoor taste of the painter than anything else... It is intersting to note that the design studio abandonned this faction which was clearly bound with its time instead of updating it like they did with so much other races and factions. The only traces of models that have kept the colourful 80's design are the popular Harlequins (Jes Goodwin, eldars...): From here : to here : You can see how the new Harlequins have nearly all the characteristics of the Brat's design. The very fact that Brats were wearing exotic gear and somehow copying eldar outfit must have been the cause of their disappearance... both concepts were redundant on too many points. But after all, who said that all nobles of the imperium want to dress like predators with silly equipment? I have seen some interest in more elegant Brats lately and I am sure that we will some fashionable nobles come out of the hives ... PS : Many thanks to Axiom for his aid to decipher Jes Goodwin notes. (If you fancy Brat gangs, check out his blog, you might have a good suprise in little time)

1990 entry by John James 1992 entry by John James After exploring the background and available informations on the Venator gangs in confrontation and after seeing some interest about the brat gangers by some other bloggers, I felt like giving some attention to some far more colourful factions. You can find some more info about confrontation and the venators in a previous post. For the Brat gangers, I will follow a similar way as with the venators, trying to get every bit of info I can from the original confrontation rules published in White Dwarf and trying to see if links can be made with previous and later concepts. Background : First mention of Brat gangs in the confrontation rules is found in the characteristics of Hive gangs : "The word 'gang' describes many different types of armed bands on Necromunda. Gang is a generic term which includes clan warriors, bands of ash nomads, savage gangs and mutant bands from the undercity, scavvies from the shanties, armed bands of techs, bands of fugitive psykers, unruly brat gangs of the upper hab layers, as weil as sanctioned gangs and professional bounty-hunters, guards and retainers such as the Venators and Custodians." The mention of the upper hab layers is the first information which indicates what makes the brats special. To understand it, you have to look at the maps and cross-sections given to illustrate the hive. You can see the hive concept is derived from the medieval castles and the vertical ranking of the time with the most powerful and leaders at the top and the poorest and working masses at the very bottom. The upper hab layers are under the Noble families facilities and under the protection devices but they are above everything else, including main habitation level, factories, and undercities. Now we get a clearer view of how nobles are organised in Necromunda. It looks like the noble families from the very top penthouse levels control sectors of the upper hive layers thanks to gangs made up of their rebelious youth. Those gangs frequently travel in the deeper areas of the hive to hunt, terrorise population and get weapons, drugs and equipment. We can also note the emphasis on fashion, elaborate costumes and hairstyles, tattoos and extravagant rather than practical clothing. This and the fact they tend to favor exotic equipment all coming from the fact they have great wealth ressources. We can also note that Drugs are one of their concerns and you can read in the section about Spook that : "There has always been a massive demand for drugs in hive-society, mainly to supplement the diet and ward off sickness. Spook became popular among the nobility who revelled in its exotic effects and it has slowly filtered down throughout hive-society." Rules : Looking at the Gang determination chart, you can see Brats are quite a rare gang with a chance of getting rolled of 5.5% just like Venators and Tech gangs. They are the second rarest gang after Psyker gangs and mutant gangs (both having a 2,7% rate of getting rolled), far more rare than Clan gangs who represent a 3rd of rolled gangs : The gang modifier chart indicates that Brats are not particularly talented fighters with Initiative and weapon skill being lower than average (though the text and chart don't state the same). They do rely on exotic equipment and drugs though : With no surprise, the brats start with a lot of credits (the imperial currency) with a starting wealth 2nd to the techs only and with the same amount as the venators. The modifiers on the trading charts also has some infos on the brats. They get a +5% bonus for guns, missiles, equipment but they get a +10% for drugs. Now we see that's easier to get spook when you're a noble. From this, we are led to believe that Brats rely on exotic weapons and drugs to fight but I've failed to find any rules for combat drugs in the confrontation rules. 4 types of combat drugs are available in confrontation but only spook is described in its effect though not in the rules. Spook: Increases the user's psychic potential, but makes their mind more susceptible to mental damage while they do so. Design : The brats have had the chance of being designed by Jes Goodwin who tends to make a lot of sketches for all his concepts. In the conforntation rules, we have a first sketch for a sort of "generic" brat. We have some feats which will be the Brat trademarks like : - tight pants - padded vests - big hair (called psychomanes in the sketch) - fancy decorations like jewels and ribbons - face decoration John Blanche also offered his take on the brats, You can read notes : Brats : Rich young middle-class (note : the rich middle-class seems a bit off with the description of nobles in the rules). About the hair : High Hair, Shock wigs, Beard wigs, Metalic thread wigs, Shaved foreheads, Multicoloured hair About materials : Rich materials, Silks, Velvets. About clothes : Doublets, Slashed cloth, Knee-length trousers , Occasional High Heels, Jewelled pouches, Hanging purses. About decorations : Jewels, Face paint, Body tatoos, Face paint, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Large earings, Multiple earings, Rainbow shades, Finely wrought weapons, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Riot of colour, Mock Ledar face Icons. Note the grotesque mask in the bottom right corner which looks more like a Venator's You can actually see that most of the ideas given here have been put in the models and the final drawings about the brats. They seem to have been quite inspirationnal to the artists of the studio. Apart from those generic attributes for the brats, Jes Goodwin's sketches show some variations for a number of different gangs. This helps to show that there is not one Brat style but as many as there are families and bands. The Dance Macabre : I like the name of it, coming from the french "Danse macabre". You can note the bat-shaped pectoral and the exotic crystal gun. I bet they are slightly less colourful than the rest of the brat bands, here is what the "danse macabre" was in medieval times : Taken from wikipedia The fright knights : Those look a lot like the limited release model (well I guess it's the other way round) and I like the mention "scream a lot" written in the description... The jaggers : Described as Duelling Freaks, they display bolts and a rather eccentric look : Necros : They display skull tatoos on the forehead and sport fencing style swords Rakehellions : Probably my personnal favourite, they sport white make up with beauty spots and coloured lips. They have exagerated neckties and ribbons everywhere. I can't help thinking someone gave a little inspiration here : Strypers : Apart from having wigs, the strypers distinguish themselves by wearing stripes pattern in clothes, hair, ...well, everything. Though the Brats do not appear in the rogue trader rulebook, there is picture of punks with big hair and fashionable clothes. They are clearly more on the punk side but the shape of the hairstyle is close to what the brats were going to have.: Taken form page 228 of the Wharhammer 40k : Rogue trader rulebook Since the description of the brats indicates they often raid tech facilities just to mess around, it is quite natural that 2 of the drawings depicting them are in fights against the Techs. Can you spot the famous studio members on this one? Not excatly sure these are Brat gangers, they look more like regular gangers to me... For the models, most people know the 3 armless gangers which were quite easily available. They have the shaved foreheads, big hair and decorations described in the design sketchs and they even have shades and communicators to indicate their good equipment. Those sculpts are the work of Jes Goodwin which seems natural since he did many sketches and that as we've seen there are many eldar/brats crossovers. The limited release Brat seems to have been based on the Fright Knight concept above. The sculpt is Jes Goodwin's so this comes as no surprise. It has the very "flat" pose many models had at the time (for casting issues). Limited edition Brat (Picture taken from Solegend) There have aslo been some unreleased models (found in the CCM wiki) which all seem to have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin too. Painted by Mark Dixon (Picture taken from Solegend) Now, looking back a little, the confrontation rules were published in 1990/1991 and from what has been said about the game, its developement has been made before in the late 80's which is not remembered as the most sober period in terms of fashion : I'm s I'm sure you all know an inifnity of other references of colourful 80's madness... But amongst all of these there is a particular trend that really seems to have inspired the design team. I'd like to thank zhu bajiee from The Realm of Zhu for pointing me in this direction (see comments below). The new romantics movement is full of those young people puting everything they are in their outfit : For further informations, may I advise you to read the references here for example. But what happened with the brats? We've seen that the Venators have gone back to square one in being zealots and fanatics again but what about the noble family members of the imperium today? Well first, in Necromunda, the sons and daughters of the Noble families who felt like going on a rampage in the lower levels were called "Spyrers" and were pretty much hunters : You can see that all their power comes from the very specialised equipment they wear and all traces of fashion and style has disappeared. Where the early designs described extravagant over practical clothing, in Necromunda it was the complete opposite. The paintjobs are colourful indeed but it sems to me that in this case it is more due to th epoor taste of the painter than anything else... It is intersting to note that the design studio abandonned this faction which was clearly bound with its time instead of updating it like they did with so much other races and factions. The only traces of models that have kept the colourful 80's design are the popular Harlequins (Jes Goodwin, eldars...): From here : to here : You can see how the new Harlequins have nearly all the characteristics of the Brat's design. The very fact that Brats were wearing exotic gear and somehow copying eldar outfit must have been the cause of their disappearance... both concepts were redundant on too many points. But after all, who said that all nobles of the imperium want to dress like predators with silly equipment? I have seen some interest in more elegant Brats lately and I am sure that we will some fashionable nobles come out of the hives ... PS : Many thanks to Axiom for his aid to decipher Jes Goodwin notes. (If you fancy Brat gangs, check out his blog, you might have a good suprise in little time)

1990 entry by John James 1992 entry by John James After exploring the background and available informations on the Venator gangs in confrontation and after seeing some interest about the brat gangers by some other bloggers, I felt like giving some attention to some far more colourful factions. You can find some more info about confrontation and the venators in a previous post. For the Brat gangers, I will follow a similar way as with the venators, trying to get every bit of info I can from the original confrontation rules published in White Dwarf and trying to see if links can be made with previous and later concepts. Background : First mention of Brat gangs in the confrontation rules is found in the characteristics of Hive gangs : "The word 'gang' describes many different types of armed bands on Necromunda. Gang is a generic term which includes clan warriors, bands of ash nomads, savage gangs and mutant bands from the undercity, scavvies from the shanties, armed bands of techs, bands of fugitive psykers, unruly brat gangs of the upper hab layers, as weil as sanctioned gangs and professional bounty-hunters, guards and retainers such as the Venators and Custodians." The mention of the upper hab layers is the first information which indicates what makes the brats special. To understand it, you have to look at the maps and cross-sections given to illustrate the hive. You can see the hive concept is derived from the medieval castles and the vertical ranking of the time with the most powerful and leaders at the top and the poorest and working masses at the very bottom. The upper hab layers are under the Noble families facilities and under the protection devices but they are above everything else, including main habitation level, factories, and undercities. Now we get a clearer view of how nobles are organised in Necromunda. It looks like the noble families from the very top penthouse levels control sectors of the upper hive layers thanks to gangs made up of their rebelious youth. Those gangs frequently travel in the deeper areas of the hive to hunt, terrorise population and get weapons, drugs and equipment. We can also note the emphasis on fashion, elaborate costumes and hairstyles, tattoos and extravagant rather than practical clothing. This and the fact they tend to favor exotic equipment all coming from the fact they have great wealth ressources. We can also note that Drugs are one of their concerns and you can read in the section about Spook that : "There has always been a massive demand for drugs in hive-society, mainly to supplement the diet and ward off sickness. Spook became popular among the nobility who revelled in its exotic effects and it has slowly filtered down throughout hive-society." Rules : Looking at the Gang determination chart, you can see Brats are quite a rare gang with a chance of getting rolled of 5.5% just like Venators and Tech gangs. They are the second rarest gang after Psyker gangs and mutant gangs (both having a 2,7% rate of getting rolled), far more rare than Clan gangs who represent a 3rd of rolled gangs : The gang modifier chart indicates that Brats are not particularly talented fighters with Initiative and weapon skill being lower than average (though the text and chart don't state the same). They do rely on exotic equipment and drugs though : With no surprise, the brats start with a lot of credits (the imperial currency) with a starting wealth 2nd to the techs only and with the same amount as the venators. The modifiers on the trading charts also has some infos on the brats. They get a +5% bonus for guns, missiles, equipment but they get a +10% for drugs. Now we see that's easier to get spook when you're a noble. From this, we are led to believe that Brats rely on exotic weapons and drugs to fight but I've failed to find any rules for combat drugs in the confrontation rules. 4 types of combat drugs are available in confrontation but only spook is described in its effect though not in the rules. Spook: Increases the user's psychic potential, but makes their mind more susceptible to mental damage while they do so. Design : The brats have had the chance of being designed by Jes Goodwin who tends to make a lot of sketches for all his concepts. In the conforntation rules, we have a first sketch for a sort of "generic" brat. We have some feats which will be the Brat trademarks like : - tight pants - padded vests - big hair (called psychomanes in the sketch) - fancy decorations like jewels and ribbons - face decoration John Blanche also offered his take on the brats, You can read notes : Brats : Rich young middle-class (note : the rich middle-class seems a bit off with the description of nobles in the rules). About the hair : High Hair, Shock wigs, Beard wigs, Metalic thread wigs, Shaved foreheads, Multicoloured hair About materials : Rich materials, Silks, Velvets. About clothes : Doublets, Slashed cloth, Knee-length trousers , Occasional High Heels, Jewelled pouches, Hanging purses. About decorations : Jewels, Face paint, Body tatoos, Face paint, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Large earings, Multiple earings, Rainbow shades, Finely wrought weapons, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Riot of colour, Mock Ledar face Icons. Note the grotesque mask in the bottom right corner which looks more like a Venator's You can actually see that most of the ideas given here have been put in the models and the final drawings about the brats. They seem to have been quite inspirationnal to the artists of the studio. Apart from those generic attributes for the brats, Jes Goodwin's sketches show some variations for a number of different gangs. This helps to show that there is not one Brat style but as many as there are families and bands. The Dance Macabre : I like the name of it, coming from the french "Danse macabre". You can note the bat-shaped pectoral and the exotic crystal gun. I bet they are slightly less colourful than the rest of the brat bands, here is what the "danse macabre" was in medieval times : Taken from wikipedia The fright knights : Those look a lot like the limited release model (well I guess it's the other way round) and I like the mention "scream a lot" written in the description... The jaggers : Described as Duelling Freaks, they display bolts and a rather eccentric look : Necros : They display skull tatoos on the forehead and sport fencing style swords Rakehellions : Probably my personnal favourite, they sport white make up with beauty spots and coloured lips. They have exagerated neckties and ribbons everywhere. I can't help thinking someone gave a little inspiration here : Strypers : Apart from having wigs, the strypers distinguish themselves by wearing stripes pattern in clothes, hair, ...well, everything. Though the Brats do not appear in the rogue trader rulebook, there is picture of punks with big hair and fashionable clothes. They are clearly more on the punk side but the shape of the hairstyle is close to what the brats were going to have.: Taken form page 228 of the Wharhammer 40k : Rogue trader rulebook Since the description of the brats indicates they often raid tech facilities just to mess around, it is quite natural that 2 of the drawings depicting them are in fights against the Techs. Can you spot the famous studio members on this one? Not excatly sure these are Brat gangers, they look more like regular gangers to me... For the models, most people know the 3 armless gangers which were quite easily available. They have the shaved foreheads, big hair and decorations described in the design sketchs and they even have shades and communicators to indicate their good equipment. Those sculpts are the work of Jes Goodwin which seems natural since he did many sketches and that as we've seen there are many eldar/brats crossovers. The limited release Brat seems to have been based on the Fright Knight concept above. The sculpt is Jes Goodwin's so this comes as no surprise. It has the very "flat" pose many models had at the time (for casting issues). Limited edition Brat (Picture taken from Solegend) There have aslo been some unreleased models (found in the CCM wiki) which all seem to have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin too. Painted by Mark Dixon (Picture taken from Solegend) Now, looking back a little, the confrontation rules were published in 1990/1991 and from what has been said about the game, its developement has been made before in the late 80's which is not remembered as the most sober period in terms of fashion : I'm s I'm sure you all know an inifnity of other references of colourful 80's madness... But amongst all of these there is a particular trend that really seems to have inspired the design team. I'd like to thank zhu bajiee from The Realm of Zhu for pointing me in this direction (see comments below). The new romantics movement is full of those young people puting everything they are in their outfit : For further informations, may I advise you to read the references here for example. But what happened with the brats? We've seen that the Venators have gone back to square one in being zealots and fanatics again but what about the noble family members of the imperium today? Well first, in Necromunda, the sons and daughters of the Noble families who felt like going on a rampage in the lower levels were called "Spyrers" and were pretty much hunters : You can see that all their power comes from the very specialised equipment they wear and all traces of fashion and style has disappeared. Where the early designs described extravagant over practical clothing, in Necromunda it was the complete opposite. The paintjobs are colourful indeed but it sems to me that in this case it is more due to th epoor taste of the painter than anything else... It is intersting to note that the design studio abandonned this faction which was clearly bound with its time instead of updating it like they did with so much other races and factions. The only traces of models that have kept the colourful 80's design are the popular Harlequins (Jes Goodwin, eldars...): From here : to here : You can see how the new Harlequins have nearly all the characteristics of the Brat's design. The very fact that Brats were wearing exotic gear and somehow copying eldar outfit must have been the cause of their disappearance... both concepts were redundant on too many points. But after all, who said that all nobles of the imperium want to dress like predators with silly equipment? I have seen some interest in more elegant Brats lately and I am sure that we will some fashionable nobles come out of the hives ... PS : Many thanks to Axiom for his aid to decipher Jes Goodwin notes. (If you fancy Brat gangs, check out his blog, you might have a good suprise in little time)

1990 entry by John James 1992 entry by John James After exploring the background and available informations on the Venator gangs in confrontation and after seeing some interest about the brat gangers by some other bloggers, I felt like giving some attention to some far more colourful factions. You can find some more info about confrontation and the venators in a previous post. For the Brat gangers, I will follow a similar way as with the venators, trying to get every bit of info I can from the original confrontation rules published in White Dwarf and trying to see if links can be made with previous and later concepts. Background : First mention of Brat gangs in the confrontation rules is found in the characteristics of Hive gangs : "The word 'gang' describes many different types of armed bands on Necromunda. Gang is a generic term which includes clan warriors, bands of ash nomads, savage gangs and mutant bands from the undercity, scavvies from the shanties, armed bands of techs, bands of fugitive psykers, unruly brat gangs of the upper hab layers, as weil as sanctioned gangs and professional bounty-hunters, guards and retainers such as the Venators and Custodians." The mention of the upper hab layers is the first information which indicates what makes the brats special. To understand it, you have to look at the maps and cross-sections given to illustrate the hive. You can see the hive concept is derived from the medieval castles and the vertical ranking of the time with the most powerful and leaders at the top and the poorest and working masses at the very bottom. The upper hab layers are under the Noble families facilities and under the protection devices but they are above everything else, including main habitation level, factories, and undercities. Now we get a clearer view of how nobles are organised in Necromunda. It looks like the noble families from the very top penthouse levels control sectors of the upper hive layers thanks to gangs made up of their rebelious youth. Those gangs frequently travel in the deeper areas of the hive to hunt, terrorise population and get weapons, drugs and equipment. We can also note the emphasis on fashion, elaborate costumes and hairstyles, tattoos and extravagant rather than practical clothing. This and the fact they tend to favor exotic equipment all coming from the fact they have great wealth ressources. We can also note that Drugs are one of their concerns and you can read in the section about Spook that : "There has always been a massive demand for drugs in hive-society, mainly to supplement the diet and ward off sickness. Spook became popular among the nobility who revelled in its exotic effects and it has slowly filtered down throughout hive-society." Rules : Looking at the Gang determination chart, you can see Brats are quite a rare gang with a chance of getting rolled of 5.5% just like Venators and Tech gangs. They are the second rarest gang after Psyker gangs and mutant gangs (both having a 2,7% rate of getting rolled), far more rare than Clan gangs who represent a 3rd of rolled gangs : The gang modifier chart indicates that Brats are not particularly talented fighters with Initiative and weapon skill being lower than average (though the text and chart don't state the same). They do rely on exotic equipment and drugs though : With no surprise, the brats start with a lot of credits (the imperial currency) with a starting wealth 2nd to the techs only and with the same amount as the venators. The modifiers on the trading charts also has some infos on the brats. They get a +5% bonus for guns, missiles, equipment but they get a +10% for drugs. Now we see that's easier to get spook when you're a noble. From this, we are led to believe that Brats rely on exotic weapons and drugs to fight but I've failed to find any rules for combat drugs in the confrontation rules. 4 types of combat drugs are available in confrontation but only spook is described in its effect though not in the rules. Spook: Increases the user's psychic potential, but makes their mind more susceptible to mental damage while they do so. Design : The brats have had the chance of being designed by Jes Goodwin who tends to make a lot of sketches for all his concepts. In the conforntation rules, we have a first sketch for a sort of "generic" brat. We have some feats which will be the Brat trademarks like : - tight pants - padded vests - big hair (called psychomanes in the sketch) - fancy decorations like jewels and ribbons - face decoration John Blanche also offered his take on the brats, You can read notes : Brats : Rich young middle-class (note : the rich middle-class seems a bit off with the description of nobles in the rules). About the hair : High Hair, Shock wigs, Beard wigs, Metalic thread wigs, Shaved foreheads, Multicoloured hair About materials : Rich materials, Silks, Velvets. About clothes : Doublets, Slashed cloth, Knee-length trousers , Occasional High Heels, Jewelled pouches, Hanging purses. About decorations : Jewels, Face paint, Body tatoos, Face paint, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Large earings, Multiple earings, Rainbow shades, Finely wrought weapons, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Riot of colour, Mock Ledar face Icons. Note the grotesque mask in the bottom right corner which looks more like a Venator's You can actually see that most of the ideas given here have been put in the models and the final drawings about the brats. They seem to have been quite inspirationnal to the artists of the studio. Apart from those generic attributes for the brats, Jes Goodwin's sketches show some variations for a number of different gangs. This helps to show that there is not one Brat style but as many as there are families and bands. The Dance Macabre : I like the name of it, coming from the french "Danse macabre". You can note the bat-shaped pectoral and the exotic crystal gun. I bet they are slightly less colourful than the rest of the brat bands, here is what the "danse macabre" was in medieval times : Taken from wikipedia The fright knights : Those look a lot like the limited release model (well I guess it's the other way round) and I like the mention "scream a lot" written in the description... The jaggers : Described as Duelling Freaks, they display bolts and a rather eccentric look : Necros : They display skull tatoos on the forehead and sport fencing style swords Rakehellions : Probably my personnal favourite, they sport white make up with beauty spots and coloured lips. They have exagerated neckties and ribbons everywhere. I can't help thinking someone gave a little inspiration here : Strypers : Apart from having wigs, the strypers distinguish themselves by wearing stripes pattern in clothes, hair, ...well, everything. Though the Brats do not appear in the rogue trader rulebook, there is picture of punks with big hair and fashionable clothes. They are clearly more on the punk side but the shape of the hairstyle is close to what the brats were going to have.: Taken form page 228 of the Wharhammer 40k : Rogue trader rulebook Since the description of the brats indicates they often raid tech facilities just to mess around, it is quite natural that 2 of the drawings depicting them are in fights against the Techs. Can you spot the famous studio members on this one? Not excatly sure these are Brat gangers, they look more like regular gangers to me... For the models, most people know the 3 armless gangers which were quite easily available. They have the shaved foreheads, big hair and decorations described in the design sketchs and they even have shades and communicators to indicate their good equipment. Those sculpts are the work of Jes Goodwin which seems natural since he did many sketches and that as we've seen there are many eldar/brats crossovers. The limited release Brat seems to have been based on the Fright Knight concept above. The sculpt is Jes Goodwin's so this comes as no surprise. It has the very "flat" pose many models had at the time (for casting issues). Limited edition Brat (Picture taken from Solegend) There have aslo been some unreleased models (found in the CCM wiki) which all seem to have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin too. Painted by Mark Dixon (Picture taken from Solegend) Now, looking back a little, the confrontation rules were published in 1990/1991 and from what has been said about the game, its developement has been made before in the late 80's which is not remembered as the most sober period in terms of fashion : I'm s I'm sure you all know an inifnity of other references of colourful 80's madness... But amongst all of these there is a particular trend that really seems to have inspired the design team. I'd like to thank zhu bajiee from The Realm of Zhu for pointing me in this direction (see comments below). The new romantics movement is full of those young people puting everything they are in their outfit : For further informations, may I advise you to read the references here for example. But what happened with the brats? We've seen that the Venators have gone back to square one in being zealots and fanatics again but what about the noble family members of the imperium today? Well first, in Necromunda, the sons and daughters of the Noble families who felt like going on a rampage in the lower levels were called "Spyrers" and were pretty much hunters : You can see that all their power comes from the very specialised equipment they wear and all traces of fashion and style has disappeared. Where the early designs described extravagant over practical clothing, in Necromunda it was the complete opposite. The paintjobs are colourful indeed but it sems to me that in this case it is more due to th epoor taste of the painter than anything else... It is intersting to note that the design studio abandonned this faction which was clearly bound with its time instead of updating it like they did with so much other races and factions. The only traces of models that have kept the colourful 80's design are the popular Harlequins (Jes Goodwin, eldars...): From here : to here : You can see how the new Harlequins have nearly all the characteristics of the Brat's design. The very fact that Brats were wearing exotic gear and somehow copying eldar outfit must have been the cause of their disappearance... both concepts were redundant on too many points. But after all, who said that all nobles of the imperium want to dress like predators with silly equipment? I have seen some interest in more elegant Brats lately and I am sure that we will some fashionable nobles come out of the hives ... PS : Many thanks to Axiom for his aid to decipher Jes Goodwin notes. (If you fancy Brat gangs, check out his blog, you might have a good suprise in little time)

1990 entry by John James 1992 entry by John James After exploring the background and available informations on the Venator gangs in confrontation and after seeing some interest about the brat gangers by some other bloggers, I felt like giving some attention to some far more colourful factions. You can find some more info about confrontation and the venators in a previous post. For the Brat gangers, I will follow a similar way as with the venators, trying to get every bit of info I can from the original confrontation rules published in White Dwarf and trying to see if links can be made with previous and later concepts. Background : First mention of Brat gangs in the confrontation rules is found in the characteristics of Hive gangs : "The word 'gang' describes many different types of armed bands on Necromunda. Gang is a generic term which includes clan warriors, bands of ash nomads, savage gangs and mutant bands from the undercity, scavvies from the shanties, armed bands of techs, bands of fugitive psykers, unruly brat gangs of the upper hab layers, as weil as sanctioned gangs and professional bounty-hunters, guards and retainers such as the Venators and Custodians." The mention of the upper hab layers is the first information which indicates what makes the brats special. To understand it, you have to look at the maps and cross-sections given to illustrate the hive. You can see the hive concept is derived from the medieval castles and the vertical ranking of the time with the most powerful and leaders at the top and the poorest and working masses at the very bottom. The upper hab layers are under the Noble families facilities and under the protection devices but they are above everything else, including main habitation level, factories, and undercities. Now we get a clearer view of how nobles are organised in Necromunda. It looks like the noble families from the very top penthouse levels control sectors of the upper hive layers thanks to gangs made up of their rebelious youth. Those gangs frequently travel in the deeper areas of the hive to hunt, terrorise population and get weapons, drugs and equipment. We can also note the emphasis on fashion, elaborate costumes and hairstyles, tattoos and extravagant rather than practical clothing. This and the fact they tend to favor exotic equipment all coming from the fact they have great wealth ressources. We can also note that Drugs are one of their concerns and you can read in the section about Spook that : "There has always been a massive demand for drugs in hive-society, mainly to supplement the diet and ward off sickness. Spook became popular among the nobility who revelled in its exotic effects and it has slowly filtered down throughout hive-society." Rules : Looking at the Gang determination chart, you can see Brats are quite a rare gang with a chance of getting rolled of 5.5% just like Venators and Tech gangs. They are the second rarest gang after Psyker gangs and mutant gangs (both having a 2,7% rate of getting rolled), far more rare than Clan gangs who represent a 3rd of rolled gangs : The gang modifier chart indicates that Brats are not particularly talented fighters with Initiative and weapon skill being lower than average (though the text and chart don't state the same). They do rely on exotic equipment and drugs though : With no surprise, the brats start with a lot of credits (the imperial currency) with a starting wealth 2nd to the techs only and with the same amount as the venators. The modifiers on the trading charts also has some infos on the brats. They get a +5% bonus for guns, missiles, equipment but they get a +10% for drugs. Now we see that's easier to get spook when you're a noble. From this, we are led to believe that Brats rely on exotic weapons and drugs to fight but I've failed to find any rules for combat drugs in the confrontation rules. 4 types of combat drugs are available in confrontation but only spook is described in its effect though not in the rules. Spook: Increases the user's psychic potential, but makes their mind more susceptible to mental damage while they do so. Design : The brats have had the chance of being designed by Jes Goodwin who tends to make a lot of sketches for all his concepts. In the conforntation rules, we have a first sketch for a sort of "generic" brat. We have some feats which will be the Brat trademarks like : - tight pants - padded vests - big hair (called psychomanes in the sketch) - fancy decorations like jewels and ribbons - face decoration John Blanche also offered his take on the brats, You can read notes : Brats : Rich young middle-class (note : the rich middle-class seems a bit off with the description of nobles in the rules). About the hair : High Hair, Shock wigs, Beard wigs, Metalic thread wigs, Shaved foreheads, Multicoloured hair About materials : Rich materials, Silks, Velvets. About clothes : Doublets, Slashed cloth, Knee-length trousers , Occasional High Heels, Jewelled pouches, Hanging purses. About decorations : Jewels, Face paint, Body tatoos, Face paint, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Large earings, Multiple earings, Rainbow shades, Finely wrought weapons, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Riot of colour, Mock Ledar face Icons. Note the grotesque mask in the bottom right corner which looks more like a Venator's You can actually see that most of the ideas given here have been put in the models and the final drawings about the brats. They seem to have been quite inspirationnal to the artists of the studio. Apart from those generic attributes for the brats, Jes Goodwin's sketches show some variations for a number of different gangs. This helps to show that there is not one Brat style but as many as there are families and bands. The Dance Macabre : I like the name of it, coming from the french "Danse macabre". You can note the bat-shaped pectoral and the exotic crystal gun. I bet they are slightly less colourful than the rest of the brat bands, here is what the "danse macabre" was in medieval times : Taken from wikipedia The fright knights : Those look a lot like the limited release model (well I guess it's the other way round) and I like the mention "scream a lot" written in the description... The jaggers : Described as Duelling Freaks, they display bolts and a rather eccentric look : Necros : They display skull tatoos on the forehead and sport fencing style swords Rakehellions : Probably my personnal favourite, they sport white make up with beauty spots and coloured lips. They have exagerated neckties and ribbons everywhere. I can't help thinking someone gave a little inspiration here : Strypers : Apart from having wigs, the strypers distinguish themselves by wearing stripes pattern in clothes, hair, ...well, everything. Though the Brats do not appear in the rogue trader rulebook, there is picture of punks with big hair and fashionable clothes. They are clearly more on the punk side but the shape of the hairstyle is close to what the brats were going to have.: Taken form page 228 of the Wharhammer 40k : Rogue trader rulebook Since the description of the brats indicates they often raid tech facilities just to mess around, it is quite natural that 2 of the drawings depicting them are in fights against the Techs. Can you spot the famous studio members on this one? Not excatly sure these are Brat gangers, they look more like regular gangers to me... For the models, most people know the 3 armless gangers which were quite easily available. They have the shaved foreheads, big hair and decorations described in the design sketchs and they even have shades and communicators to indicate their good equipment. Those sculpts are the work of Jes Goodwin which seems natural since he did many sketches and that as we've seen there are many eldar/brats crossovers. The limited release Brat seems to have been based on the Fright Knight concept above. The sculpt is Jes Goodwin's so this comes as no surprise. It has the very "flat" pose many models had at the time (for casting issues). Limited edition Brat (Picture taken from Solegend) There have aslo been some unreleased models (found in the CCM wiki) which all seem to have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin too. Painted by Mark Dixon (Picture taken from Solegend) Now, looking back a little, the confrontation rules were published in 1990/1991 and from what has been said about the game, its developement has been made before in the late 80's which is not remembered as the most sober period in terms of fashion : I'm s I'm sure you all know an inifnity of other references of colourful 80's madness... But amongst all of these there is a particular trend that really seems to have inspired the design team. I'd like to thank zhu bajiee from The Realm of Zhu for pointing me in this direction (see comments below). The new romantics movement is full of those young people puting everything they are in their outfit : For further informations, may I advise you to read the references here for example. But what happened with the brats? We've seen that the Venators have gone back to square one in being zealots and fanatics again but what about the noble family members of the imperium today? Well first, in Necromunda, the sons and daughters of the Noble families who felt like going on a rampage in the lower levels were called "Spyrers" and were pretty much hunters : You can see that all their power comes from the very specialised equipment they wear and all traces of fashion and style has disappeared. Where the early designs described extravagant over practical clothing, in Necromunda it was the complete opposite. The paintjobs are colourful indeed but it sems to me that in this case it is more due to th epoor taste of the painter than anything else... It is intersting to note that the design studio abandonned this faction which was clearly bound with its time instead of updating it like they did with so much other races and factions. The only traces of models that have kept the colourful 80's design are the popular Harlequins (Jes Goodwin, eldars...): From here : to here : You can see how the new Harlequins have nearly all the characteristics of the Brat's design. The very fact that Brats were wearing exotic gear and somehow copying eldar outfit must have been the cause of their disappearance... both concepts were redundant on too many points. But after all, who said that all nobles of the imperium want to dress like predators with silly equipment? I have seen some interest in more elegant Brats lately and I am sure that we will some fashionable nobles come out of the hives ... PS : Many thanks to Axiom for his aid to decipher Jes Goodwin notes. (If you fancy Brat gangs, check out his blog, you might have a good suprise in little time)

1990 entry by John James 1992 entry by John James After exploring the background and available informations on the Venator gangs in confrontation and after seeing some interest about the brat gangers by some other bloggers, I felt like giving some attention to some far more colourful factions. You can find some more info about confrontation and the venators in a previous post. For the Brat gangers, I will follow a similar way as with the venators, trying to get every bit of info I can from the original confrontation rules published in White Dwarf and trying to see if links can be made with previous and later concepts. Background : First mention of Brat gangs in the confrontation rules is found in the characteristics of Hive gangs : "The word 'gang' describes many different types of armed bands on Necromunda. Gang is a generic term which includes clan warriors, bands of ash nomads, savage gangs and mutant bands from the undercity, scavvies from the shanties, armed bands of techs, bands of fugitive psykers, unruly brat gangs of the upper hab layers, as weil as sanctioned gangs and professional bounty-hunters, guards and retainers such as the Venators and Custodians." The mention of the upper hab layers is the first information which indicates what makes the brats special. To understand it, you have to look at the maps and cross-sections given to illustrate the hive. You can see the hive concept is derived from the medieval castles and the vertical ranking of the time with the most powerful and leaders at the top and the poorest and working masses at the very bottom. The upper hab layers are under the Noble families facilities and under the protection devices but they are above everything else, including main habitation level, factories, and undercities. Now we get a clearer view of how nobles are organised in Necromunda. It looks like the noble families from the very top penthouse levels control sectors of the upper hive layers thanks to gangs made up of their rebelious youth. Those gangs frequently travel in the deeper areas of the hive to hunt, terrorise population and get weapons, drugs and equipment. We can also note the emphasis on fashion, elaborate costumes and hairstyles, tattoos and extravagant rather than practical clothing. This and the fact they tend to favor exotic equipment all coming from the fact they have great wealth ressources. We can also note that Drugs are one of their concerns and you can read in the section about Spook that : "There has always been a massive demand for drugs in hive-society, mainly to supplement the diet and ward off sickness. Spook became popular among the nobility who revelled in its exotic effects and it has slowly filtered down throughout hive-society." Rules : Looking at the Gang determination chart, you can see Brats are quite a rare gang with a chance of getting rolled of 5.5% just like Venators and Tech gangs. They are the second rarest gang after Psyker gangs and mutant gangs (both having a 2,7% rate of getting rolled), far more rare than Clan gangs who represent a 3rd of rolled gangs : The gang modifier chart indicates that Brats are not particularly talented fighters with Initiative and weapon skill being lower than average (though the text and chart don't state the same). They do rely on exotic equipment and drugs though : With no surprise, the brats start with a lot of credits (the imperial currency) with a starting wealth 2nd to the techs only and with the same amount as the venators. The modifiers on the trading charts also has some infos on the brats. They get a +5% bonus for guns, missiles, equipment but they get a +10% for drugs. Now we see that's easier to get spook when you're a noble. From this, we are led to believe that Brats rely on exotic weapons and drugs to fight but I've failed to find any rules for combat drugs in the confrontation rules. 4 types of combat drugs are available in confrontation but only spook is described in its effect though not in the rules. Spook: Increases the user's psychic potential, but makes their mind more susceptible to mental damage while they do so. Design : The brats have had the chance of being designed by Jes Goodwin who tends to make a lot of sketches for all his concepts. In the conforntation rules, we have a first sketch for a sort of "generic" brat. We have some feats which will be the Brat trademarks like : - tight pants - padded vests - big hair (called psychomanes in the sketch) - fancy decorations like jewels and ribbons - face decoration John Blanche also offered his take on the brats, You can read notes : Brats : Rich young middle-class (note : the rich middle-class seems a bit off with the description of nobles in the rules). About the hair : High Hair, Shock wigs, Beard wigs, Metalic thread wigs, Shaved foreheads, Multicoloured hair About materials : Rich materials, Silks, Velvets. About clothes : Doublets, Slashed cloth, Knee-length trousers , Occasional High Heels, Jewelled pouches, Hanging purses. About decorations : Jewels, Face paint, Body tatoos, Face paint, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Large earings, Multiple earings, Rainbow shades, Finely wrought weapons, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Riot of colour, Mock Ledar face Icons. Note the grotesque mask in the bottom right corner which looks more like a Venator's You can actually see that most of the ideas given here have been put in the models and the final drawings about the brats. They seem to have been quite inspirationnal to the artists of the studio. Apart from those generic attributes for the brats, Jes Goodwin's sketches show some variations for a number of different gangs. This helps to show that there is not one Brat style but as many as there are families and bands. The Dance Macabre : I like the name of it, coming from the french "Danse macabre". You can note the bat-shaped pectoral and the exotic crystal gun. I bet they are slightly less colourful than the rest of the brat bands, here is what the "danse macabre" was in medieval times : Taken from wikipedia The fright knights : Those look a lot like the limited release model (well I guess it's the other way round) and I like the mention "scream a lot" written in the description... The jaggers : Described as Duelling Freaks, they display bolts and a rather eccentric look : Necros : They display skull tatoos on the forehead and sport fencing style swords Rakehellions : Probably my personnal favourite, they sport white make up with beauty spots and coloured lips. They have exagerated neckties and ribbons everywhere. I can't help thinking someone gave a little inspiration here : Strypers : Apart from having wigs, the strypers distinguish themselves by wearing stripes pattern in clothes, hair, ...well, everything. Though the Brats do not appear in the rogue trader rulebook, there is picture of punks with big hair and fashionable clothes. They are clearly more on the punk side but the shape of the hairstyle is close to what the brats were going to have.: Taken form page 228 of the Wharhammer 40k : Rogue trader rulebook Since the description of the brats indicates they often raid tech facilities just to mess around, it is quite natural that 2 of the drawings depicting them are in fights against the Techs. Can you spot the famous studio members on this one? Not excatly sure these are Brat gangers, they look more like regular gangers to me... For the models, most people know the 3 armless gangers which were quite easily available. They have the shaved foreheads, big hair and decorations described in the design sketchs and they even have shades and communicators to indicate their good equipment. Those sculpts are the work of Jes Goodwin which seems natural since he did many sketches and that as we've seen there are many eldar/brats crossovers. The limited release Brat seems to have been based on the Fright Knight concept above. The sculpt is Jes Goodwin's so this comes as no surprise. It has the very "flat" pose many models had at the time (for casting issues). Limited edition Brat (Picture taken from Solegend) There have aslo been some unreleased models (found in the CCM wiki) which all seem to have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin too. Painted by Mark Dixon (Picture taken from Solegend) Now, looking back a little, the confrontation rules were published in 1990/1991 and from what has been said about the game, its developement has been made before in the late 80's which is not remembered as the most sober period in terms of fashion : I'm s I'm sure you all know an inifnity of other references of colourful 80's madness... But amongst all of these there is a particular trend that really seems to have inspired the design team. I'd like to thank zhu bajiee from The Realm of Zhu for pointing me in this direction (see comments below). The new romantics movement is full of those young people puting everything they are in their outfit : For further informations, may I advise you to read the references here for example. But what happened with the brats? We've seen that the Venators have gone back to square one in being zealots and fanatics again but what about the noble family members of the imperium today? Well first, in Necromunda, the sons and daughters of the Noble families who felt like going on a rampage in the lower levels were called "Spyrers" and were pretty much hunters : You can see that all their power comes from the very specialised equipment they wear and all traces of fashion and style has disappeared. Where the early designs described extravagant over practical clothing, in Necromunda it was the complete opposite. The paintjobs are colourful indeed but it sems to me that in this case it is more due to th epoor taste of the painter than anything else... It is intersting to note that the design studio abandonned this faction which was clearly bound with its time instead of updating it like they did with so much other races and factions. The only traces of models that have kept the colourful 80's design are the popular Harlequins (Jes Goodwin, eldars...): From here : to here : You can see how the new Harlequins have nearly all the characteristics of the Brat's design. The very fact that Brats were wearing exotic gear and somehow copying eldar outfit must have been the cause of their disappearance... both concepts were redundant on too many points. But after all, who said that all nobles of the imperium want to dress like predators with silly equipment? I have seen some interest in more elegant Brats lately and I am sure that we will some fashionable nobles come out of the hives ... PS : Many thanks to Axiom for his aid to decipher Jes Goodwin notes. (If you fancy Brat gangs, check out his blog, you might have a good suprise in little time)

Brooke Shields photographed by Andrea Blanch || 1984

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 !

1990 entry by John James 1992 entry by John James After exploring the background and available informations on the Venator gangs in confrontation and after seeing some interest about the brat gangers by some other bloggers, I felt like giving some attention to some far more colourful factions. You can find some more info about confrontation and the venators in a previous post. For the Brat gangers, I will follow a similar way as with the venators, trying to get every bit of info I can from the original confrontation rules published in White Dwarf and trying to see if links can be made with previous and later concepts. Background : First mention of Brat gangs in the confrontation rules is found in the characteristics of Hive gangs : "The word 'gang' describes many different types of armed bands on Necromunda. Gang is a generic term which includes clan warriors, bands of ash nomads, savage gangs and mutant bands from the undercity, scavvies from the shanties, armed bands of techs, bands of fugitive psykers, unruly brat gangs of the upper hab layers, as weil as sanctioned gangs and professional bounty-hunters, guards and retainers such as the Venators and Custodians." The mention of the upper hab layers is the first information which indicates what makes the brats special. To understand it, you have to look at the maps and cross-sections given to illustrate the hive. You can see the hive concept is derived from the medieval castles and the vertical ranking of the time with the most powerful and leaders at the top and the poorest and working masses at the very bottom. The upper hab layers are under the Noble families facilities and under the protection devices but they are above everything else, including main habitation level, factories, and undercities. Now we get a clearer view of how nobles are organised in Necromunda. It looks like the noble families from the very top penthouse levels control sectors of the upper hive layers thanks to gangs made up of their rebelious youth. Those gangs frequently travel in the deeper areas of the hive to hunt, terrorise population and get weapons, drugs and equipment. We can also note the emphasis on fashion, elaborate costumes and hairstyles, tattoos and extravagant rather than practical clothing. This and the fact they tend to favor exotic equipment all coming from the fact they have great wealth ressources. We can also note that Drugs are one of their concerns and you can read in the section about Spook that : "There has always been a massive demand for drugs in hive-society, mainly to supplement the diet and ward off sickness. Spook became popular among the nobility who revelled in its exotic effects and it has slowly filtered down throughout hive-society." Rules : Looking at the Gang determination chart, you can see Brats are quite a rare gang with a chance of getting rolled of 5.5% just like Venators and Tech gangs. They are the second rarest gang after Psyker gangs and mutant gangs (both having a 2,7% rate of getting rolled), far more rare than Clan gangs who represent a 3rd of rolled gangs : The gang modifier chart indicates that Brats are not particularly talented fighters with Initiative and weapon skill being lower than average (though the text and chart don't state the same). They do rely on exotic equipment and drugs though : With no surprise, the brats start with a lot of credits (the imperial currency) with a starting wealth 2nd to the techs only and with the same amount as the venators. The modifiers on the trading charts also has some infos on the brats. They get a +5% bonus for guns, missiles, equipment but they get a +10% for drugs. Now we see that's easier to get spook when you're a noble. From this, we are led to believe that Brats rely on exotic weapons and drugs to fight but I've failed to find any rules for combat drugs in the confrontation rules. 4 types of combat drugs are available in confrontation but only spook is described in its effect though not in the rules. Spook: Increases the user's psychic potential, but makes their mind more susceptible to mental damage while they do so. Design : The brats have had the chance of being designed by Jes Goodwin who tends to make a lot of sketches for all his concepts. In the conforntation rules, we have a first sketch for a sort of "generic" brat. We have some feats which will be the Brat trademarks like : - tight pants - padded vests - big hair (called psychomanes in the sketch) - fancy decorations like jewels and ribbons - face decoration John Blanche also offered his take on the brats, You can read notes : Brats : Rich young middle-class (note : the rich middle-class seems a bit off with the description of nobles in the rules). About the hair : High Hair, Shock wigs, Beard wigs, Metalic thread wigs, Shaved foreheads, Multicoloured hair About materials : Rich materials, Silks, Velvets. About clothes : Doublets, Slashed cloth, Knee-length trousers , Occasional High Heels, Jewelled pouches, Hanging purses. About decorations : Jewels, Face paint, Body tatoos, Face paint, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Large earings, Multiple earings, Rainbow shades, Finely wrought weapons, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Riot of colour, Mock Ledar face Icons. Note the grotesque mask in the bottom right corner which looks more like a Venator's You can actually see that most of the ideas given here have been put in the models and the final drawings about the brats. They seem to have been quite inspirationnal to the artists of the studio. Apart from those generic attributes for the brats, Jes Goodwin's sketches show some variations for a number of different gangs. This helps to show that there is not one Brat style but as many as there are families and bands. The Dance Macabre : I like the name of it, coming from the french "Danse macabre". You can note the bat-shaped pectoral and the exotic crystal gun. I bet they are slightly less colourful than the rest of the brat bands, here is what the "danse macabre" was in medieval times : Taken from wikipedia The fright knights : Those look a lot like the limited release model (well I guess it's the other way round) and I like the mention "scream a lot" written in the description... The jaggers : Described as Duelling Freaks, they display bolts and a rather eccentric look : Necros : They display skull tatoos on the forehead and sport fencing style swords Rakehellions : Probably my personnal favourite, they sport white make up with beauty spots and coloured lips. They have exagerated neckties and ribbons everywhere. I can't help thinking someone gave a little inspiration here : Strypers : Apart from having wigs, the strypers distinguish themselves by wearing stripes pattern in clothes, hair, ...well, everything. Though the Brats do not appear in the rogue trader rulebook, there is picture of punks with big hair and fashionable clothes. They are clearly more on the punk side but the shape of the hairstyle is close to what the brats were going to have.: Taken form page 228 of the Wharhammer 40k : Rogue trader rulebook Since the description of the brats indicates they often raid tech facilities just to mess around, it is quite natural that 2 of the drawings depicting them are in fights against the Techs. Can you spot the famous studio members on this one? Not excatly sure these are Brat gangers, they look more like regular gangers to me... For the models, most people know the 3 armless gangers which were quite easily available. They have the shaved foreheads, big hair and decorations described in the design sketchs and they even have shades and communicators to indicate their good equipment. Those sculpts are the work of Jes Goodwin which seems natural since he did many sketches and that as we've seen there are many eldar/brats crossovers. The limited release Brat seems to have been based on the Fright Knight concept above. The sculpt is Jes Goodwin's so this comes as no surprise. It has the very "flat" pose many models had at the time (for casting issues). Limited edition Brat (Picture taken from Solegend) There have aslo been some unreleased models (found in the CCM wiki) which all seem to have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin too. Painted by Mark Dixon (Picture taken from Solegend) Now, looking back a little, the confrontation rules were published in 1990/1991 and from what has been said about the game, its developement has been made before in the late 80's which is not remembered as the most sober period in terms of fashion : I'm s I'm sure you all know an inifnity of other references of colourful 80's madness... But amongst all of these there is a particular trend that really seems to have inspired the design team. I'd like to thank zhu bajiee from The Realm of Zhu for pointing me in this direction (see comments below). The new romantics movement is full of those young people puting everything they are in their outfit : For further informations, may I advise you to read the references here for example. But what happened with the brats? We've seen that the Venators have gone back to square one in being zealots and fanatics again but what about the noble family members of the imperium today? Well first, in Necromunda, the sons and daughters of the Noble families who felt like going on a rampage in the lower levels were called "Spyrers" and were pretty much hunters : You can see that all their power comes from the very specialised equipment they wear and all traces of fashion and style has disappeared. Where the early designs described extravagant over practical clothing, in Necromunda it was the complete opposite. The paintjobs are colourful indeed but it sems to me that in this case it is more due to th epoor taste of the painter than anything else... It is intersting to note that the design studio abandonned this faction which was clearly bound with its time instead of updating it like they did with so much other races and factions. The only traces of models that have kept the colourful 80's design are the popular Harlequins (Jes Goodwin, eldars...): From here : to here : You can see how the new Harlequins have nearly all the characteristics of the Brat's design. The very fact that Brats were wearing exotic gear and somehow copying eldar outfit must have been the cause of their disappearance... both concepts were redundant on too many points. But after all, who said that all nobles of the imperium want to dress like predators with silly equipment? I have seen some interest in more elegant Brats lately and I am sure that we will some fashionable nobles come out of the hives ... PS : Many thanks to Axiom for his aid to decipher Jes Goodwin notes. (If you fancy Brat gangs, check out his blog, you might have a good suprise in little time)

Plasmatics Poster

A Clockwork Orange (1971) dir. Stanley Kubrick

taxinomie(s)

I started my collection of GW original artwork by tracking down Eldar-themed pieces, but sometimes opportunities come along which just require a broadening of horizons. Last year I made contact with Martin McKenna and was offered a wide selection of pieces, including Rogue Trader, WFRP and others besides. Martin's style is very precise, often with great attention to the expressions of the characters he's drawing. After much consideration, I decided purchase three of Martin's lovely pieces, this being the first:  If you're familiar with the Rogue Trader rulebook, this piece will be instantly recognisable to you from p223; I love the perspective and detailing of the illustration. It depicts a multi-racial war council made up of humans (Imperial Guard and Marines) in league with the abhuman Squats and xenos Space Elves (Eldar). I dread to think what dire threat has lead to this uneasy alliance...perhaps an Ork horde, Chaos renegades, or even the dreaded Enslavers! Comparison of the orginal against the published version The next two pieces I purchased are both from the wide selection of illustrations Martin drew for the Confrontation rules set. The first piece is a very cinematic illustration of some Hive gangers blasting away with their weaponry. I had originally mistaken these for Brat gangers, but I now believe they are intended to be lower class gangers as represented by John Blanche's concept sketches published on p67 of WD 131. Check ot the middle concept sketch below - the padded jerkin, hair crest and forehead snake tattoo are all faithfully copied on Martin's illustration. John Blanche's Hive Ganger concepts And here's the published comparison. You can see, unsually, that the illustration was published at full size and uncropped. The final piece I purchased is below; I don't believe it was actually published in any of the Confrontation White Dwarf articles (correct me if I'm wrong). Does anyone know if it was published elsewhere? The illustration is the same size as the other gang piece, but this time depicts a single Brat ganger accompanied by his faithful caryatid (who carries some sort of sub machine gun!). There's a little bit of a family resemblence to a certain Brat ganger of my own don't you think? Did this illustration ever get published? Any resemblance to the above illustration is purely coincidental! Feel free to check out the rest of my original artwork collection! Part 1 - Spacefleet Eldar by Tony Hough Part 2 - Craftworld Eldar by Des Hanley Part 3 - Eldar Terrain & Cityscapes by Roberto Cirillo Part 4 - The Tony Ackland Aquisition Part 5 - Fangorn's Epic Painting

Keith Richards poolside at his rented home in Bel Air, California. Photographs taken by Ed Caraeff on June 21st, 1970.

Twenty-five years after his death, Jarman’s films, paintings and words are as incisive and inspiring as ever, writes Richard Martin

I think I've now been working on my Brat gang for over six years. At least that's what my old photos indicate! Funnily enough I've only ever played a handful of games with them, so it's high time they got an extended run on the tabletop. With a new Necromunda campaign kicking off in early September, I decided to get the Brats game-ready. I'll be using the Brats as an Escher gang - they're a close fit stylistically and in terms of gear. After reviewing my existing models, I established a dearth of standard rifle fighters. I had plenty of combat fighters, and a pretty decent selection of special weapons, but not much in the way of a solid firebase! The three figures above are ones that I started working on in 2013 and never got around to completing. Happily they'd just sat in a case over the last six years and were just waiting for the right opportunity! Masque Max is one of the original armless Jes Goodwin Brat sculpts. Aside from a pair of Victoria Miniatures arms and a repair to his mask's flattened nose, he's a straight up paint job in my now preferred Brat gang colours of jade green and white (with pink, orange and gold accents!). Ultra Rox carries a suspiciously sleek lasgun - in fact it's taken from a two-part plastic monopose Eldar guardian from the early 1990s. The figure is based on one of the duellists from the short-lived Empire Citizens range in the early 2000s that I wish I'd bought more of. I added some holstered pistols and sculpted the gloves and whacky hairstyle. Durran Dan was converted back in 2013. I suspect the greenstuff work would be better now, but it's certainly passable for a low-level gang fighter. The figure was based on a Confrontation bounty hunter, with some work to his tunic and shorts and more Victoria Miniatures arms. I think the dog was from Farmer Maggot (the hobbit set). The lead was certainly a strip of greenstuff. I suspect I should have painted his dog in a more exotic colour scheme, but I quite like the fact that he seems a little meaner and no-nonsense compared to some of his gang mates. Overall, I blasted through this trio to get them table ready. I think I could go back and add some extra highlights here and there - perhaps I will. But for now they're good to go. I think I have another three Brats to paint and then I can call them finished, in so far as any project is ever truly finished!

Little did I imagine in 2014, when I started assembling a Confrontation Brat gang, that I would revisit the project sporadically over the next five years. But that it what has happened - I've assembled and painted an 18-strong brat pack, as well as a biker brat and the Bratmobile. The pack includes all five unreleased brats, both limited edition brats, a bunch of conversions, and, as of this week, all three of the standard release brats. To all intents and purposes, I pretty much consider this project now complete as I have enough figures and a nice variety of weaponry for most Necromunda campaigns. I also don't have any more brats that I can chop up for the cause! This last addition to the Sutter Dukes nicely embodies the conceit that brats get all the cool exotic wargear, being armed with a Hrud fusil. The Hrud fusil is an illegal xenos weapon from the black market trading post in the most recent Necromunda supplement, the Book of Judgement. It is described as a "powerful long rifle" utilising plasma technologies. The widely released brats comprised metal torsos, intended to be completed using either the bare hive gang or clothed Imperial Guard plastic arms. I originally gave this brat a sword and pistol combination from Victoria Miniatures, but as I already have a number of sword/pistol brats, I didn't get round to painting him. I was motivated to give him a more exotic weapon by our current Necromunda campaign. I was tempted by the neural flayer and Rak'gol razor gun, but something about the Hrud fusil's description appealed to me. Keeping the Victoria Miniatures arm, I built a new gun from a range of pieces. The metal component is a Rogue Trader space ork bolter dolly. I removed the barrel and sight, and trimmed the magazine. The new barrel is simply a length of brass tube with a length of thin plastic strip and a few notches cut for detail. The muzzle is made from the end of a Forgeworld Van Saar shock baton. After taking these photos, I decided to add a ring of greenstuff on the barrel as an extra bit of detailing (you can see it in the painted pics). Like all my other brats, I went for the tried and tested colour scheme. The only real changes were the fusil itself. I decided to paint the fusil brass with a glowing green plasma coil, hopefully rendering it as an exotic and unusual weapon! Whilst I was taking photos, I decided to take some group shots of the Sutter Dukes. All 5 unreleased brats. The 3 standard-release brats (front) and 2 limited edition brats (rear). My brat pack leaders (L-R: The Thin White Duke, Visage and the Magpie Dandy). Converted and co-opted brats. So that's it for now for the Sutter Dukes - I need to focus on improving their campaign performance rather than painting them!

1990 entry by John James 1992 entry by John James After exploring the background and available informations on the Venator gangs in confrontation and after seeing some interest about the brat gangers by some other bloggers, I felt like giving some attention to some far more colourful factions. You can find some more info about confrontation and the venators in a previous post. For the Brat gangers, I will follow a similar way as with the venators, trying to get every bit of info I can from the original confrontation rules published in White Dwarf and trying to see if links can be made with previous and later concepts. Background : First mention of Brat gangs in the confrontation rules is found in the characteristics of Hive gangs : "The word 'gang' describes many different types of armed bands on Necromunda. Gang is a generic term which includes clan warriors, bands of ash nomads, savage gangs and mutant bands from the undercity, scavvies from the shanties, armed bands of techs, bands of fugitive psykers, unruly brat gangs of the upper hab layers, as weil as sanctioned gangs and professional bounty-hunters, guards and retainers such as the Venators and Custodians." The mention of the upper hab layers is the first information which indicates what makes the brats special. To understand it, you have to look at the maps and cross-sections given to illustrate the hive. You can see the hive concept is derived from the medieval castles and the vertical ranking of the time with the most powerful and leaders at the top and the poorest and working masses at the very bottom. The upper hab layers are under the Noble families facilities and under the protection devices but they are above everything else, including main habitation level, factories, and undercities. Now we get a clearer view of how nobles are organised in Necromunda. It looks like the noble families from the very top penthouse levels control sectors of the upper hive layers thanks to gangs made up of their rebelious youth. Those gangs frequently travel in the deeper areas of the hive to hunt, terrorise population and get weapons, drugs and equipment. We can also note the emphasis on fashion, elaborate costumes and hairstyles, tattoos and extravagant rather than practical clothing. This and the fact they tend to favor exotic equipment all coming from the fact they have great wealth ressources. We can also note that Drugs are one of their concerns and you can read in the section about Spook that : "There has always been a massive demand for drugs in hive-society, mainly to supplement the diet and ward off sickness. Spook became popular among the nobility who revelled in its exotic effects and it has slowly filtered down throughout hive-society." Rules : Looking at the Gang determination chart, you can see Brats are quite a rare gang with a chance of getting rolled of 5.5% just like Venators and Tech gangs. They are the second rarest gang after Psyker gangs and mutant gangs (both having a 2,7% rate of getting rolled), far more rare than Clan gangs who represent a 3rd of rolled gangs : The gang modifier chart indicates that Brats are not particularly talented fighters with Initiative and weapon skill being lower than average (though the text and chart don't state the same). They do rely on exotic equipment and drugs though : With no surprise, the brats start with a lot of credits (the imperial currency) with a starting wealth 2nd to the techs only and with the same amount as the venators. The modifiers on the trading charts also has some infos on the brats. They get a +5% bonus for guns, missiles, equipment but they get a +10% for drugs. Now we see that's easier to get spook when you're a noble. From this, we are led to believe that Brats rely on exotic weapons and drugs to fight but I've failed to find any rules for combat drugs in the confrontation rules. 4 types of combat drugs are available in confrontation but only spook is described in its effect though not in the rules. Spook: Increases the user's psychic potential, but makes their mind more susceptible to mental damage while they do so. Design : The brats have had the chance of being designed by Jes Goodwin who tends to make a lot of sketches for all his concepts. In the conforntation rules, we have a first sketch for a sort of "generic" brat. We have some feats which will be the Brat trademarks like : - tight pants - padded vests - big hair (called psychomanes in the sketch) - fancy decorations like jewels and ribbons - face decoration John Blanche also offered his take on the brats, You can read notes : Brats : Rich young middle-class (note : the rich middle-class seems a bit off with the description of nobles in the rules). About the hair : High Hair, Shock wigs, Beard wigs, Metalic thread wigs, Shaved foreheads, Multicoloured hair About materials : Rich materials, Silks, Velvets. About clothes : Doublets, Slashed cloth, Knee-length trousers , Occasional High Heels, Jewelled pouches, Hanging purses. About decorations : Jewels, Face paint, Body tatoos, Face paint, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Large earings, Multiple earings, Rainbow shades, Finely wrought weapons, Mock eldar armour, Metal face masks, Riot of colour, Mock Ledar face Icons. Note the grotesque mask in the bottom right corner which looks more like a Venator's You can actually see that most of the ideas given here have been put in the models and the final drawings about the brats. They seem to have been quite inspirationnal to the artists of the studio. Apart from those generic attributes for the brats, Jes Goodwin's sketches show some variations for a number of different gangs. This helps to show that there is not one Brat style but as many as there are families and bands. The Dance Macabre : I like the name of it, coming from the french "Danse macabre". You can note the bat-shaped pectoral and the exotic crystal gun. I bet they are slightly less colourful than the rest of the brat bands, here is what the "danse macabre" was in medieval times : Taken from wikipedia The fright knights : Those look a lot like the limited release model (well I guess it's the other way round) and I like the mention "scream a lot" written in the description... The jaggers : Described as Duelling Freaks, they display bolts and a rather eccentric look : Necros : They display skull tatoos on the forehead and sport fencing style swords Rakehellions : Probably my personnal favourite, they sport white make up with beauty spots and coloured lips. They have exagerated neckties and ribbons everywhere. I can't help thinking someone gave a little inspiration here : Strypers : Apart from having wigs, the strypers distinguish themselves by wearing stripes pattern in clothes, hair, ...well, everything. Though the Brats do not appear in the rogue trader rulebook, there is picture of punks with big hair and fashionable clothes. They are clearly more on the punk side but the shape of the hairstyle is close to what the brats were going to have.: Taken form page 228 of the Wharhammer 40k : Rogue trader rulebook Since the description of the brats indicates they often raid tech facilities just to mess around, it is quite natural that 2 of the drawings depicting them are in fights against the Techs. Can you spot the famous studio members on this one? Not excatly sure these are Brat gangers, they look more like regular gangers to me... For the models, most people know the 3 armless gangers which were quite easily available. They have the shaved foreheads, big hair and decorations described in the design sketchs and they even have shades and communicators to indicate their good equipment. Those sculpts are the work of Jes Goodwin which seems natural since he did many sketches and that as we've seen there are many eldar/brats crossovers. The limited release Brat seems to have been based on the Fright Knight concept above. The sculpt is Jes Goodwin's so this comes as no surprise. It has the very "flat" pose many models had at the time (for casting issues). Limited edition Brat (Picture taken from Solegend) There have aslo been some unreleased models (found in the CCM wiki) which all seem to have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin too. Painted by Mark Dixon (Picture taken from Solegend) Now, looking back a little, the confrontation rules were published in 1990/1991 and from what has been said about the game, its developement has been made before in the late 80's which is not remembered as the most sober period in terms of fashion : I'm s I'm sure you all know an inifnity of other references of colourful 80's madness... But amongst all of these there is a particular trend that really seems to have inspired the design team. I'd like to thank zhu bajiee from The Realm of Zhu for pointing me in this direction (see comments below). The new romantics movement is full of those young people puting everything they are in their outfit : For further informations, may I advise you to read the references here for example. But what happened with the brats? We've seen that the Venators have gone back to square one in being zealots and fanatics again but what about the noble family members of the imperium today? Well first, in Necromunda, the sons and daughters of the Noble families who felt like going on a rampage in the lower levels were called "Spyrers" and were pretty much hunters : You can see that all their power comes from the very specialised equipment they wear and all traces of fashion and style has disappeared. Where the early designs described extravagant over practical clothing, in Necromunda it was the complete opposite. The paintjobs are colourful indeed but it sems to me that in this case it is more due to th epoor taste of the painter than anything else... It is intersting to note that the design studio abandonned this faction which was clearly bound with its time instead of updating it like they did with so much other races and factions. The only traces of models that have kept the colourful 80's design are the popular Harlequins (Jes Goodwin, eldars...): From here : to here : You can see how the new Harlequins have nearly all the characteristics of the Brat's design. The very fact that Brats were wearing exotic gear and somehow copying eldar outfit must have been the cause of their disappearance... both concepts were redundant on too many points. But after all, who said that all nobles of the imperium want to dress like predators with silly equipment? I have seen some interest in more elegant Brats lately and I am sure that we will some fashionable nobles come out of the hives ... PS : Many thanks to Axiom for his aid to decipher Jes Goodwin notes. (If you fancy Brat gangs, check out his blog, you might have a good suprise in little time)