Nuclear Renaissance - Marauders 600pt Starter gang, the 'Sons of Simius'

Here is my first completed gang for Nuclear Renaissance, a savage band of depraved marauders that go by the name of the 'Sons of Simius'

This gang was put together as a gift for a friend and I'm really chuffed with how they turned out, especially the vehicles. Painting each mini as an individual rather than a uniform squad or army was refreshing and helped to keep my interest up.

This is Simius, the gangs fearsome leader and his wasteland steed; Cheryl the saab 93.

 As with all the miniatures Simius is from em4 miniature's 'savages' range and were it not for the long hair and the fact he's kept his trousers on, he could easily pass for the road warriors 'lord humongous'.

The saab 93 started out like this, unfortunately I didn't take a proper 'before' shot.

And ended up a little more 'used'! 

The speakers and subwoofers bolted to the roof and poking through the rear hatch were made from several old pairs of mobile phone earphones and other various electronic bits and pieces to serve as amps and crossovers.

Not just for show they also have an in game effect as the 'sound system' upgrade, which in turn boosts the range of the inspirational 'bard' skill.

In game This car has the 'turbo' and 'race tuned' upgrades and although saabs of this era are generally turbocharged to begin with, I wanted to do something to represent the car being tuned up, so I also added a front mount intercooler.

Next up is 'Wibber' and his truck 'Redneck'. 

Redneck started out as a corgi classic renault, not the most promising base for a mad max machine you might think, but this truck is perhaps my favourite of the six vehicles I've built so far for this project. The idea was to end up with a real ramshackle 'outback' style vintage truck.

The rear wheels were removed and doubled up on the front, and a wider set of wheels were doubled up at the rear along with some homemade rear arches.

An old chimera dozer blade mount was turned into a pick up bed, and the engine block (Lascannon power cell) and blower scoop were added along with smoke belching exhaust pipes and a feed pipe leading to nitrous oxide bottles mounted on the rear of the cab. 

The ram bars are various swords and blade from plastic guardsmen and a cut down piece of sprue.

Last up is the gangs heavy vehicle 'knock knock' together with driver Ziggy and Simius's right hand man; Krump the Ape'prentice.

Ziggy is the slightly flamboyant fellow armed with a sword and Krump (definitely inspired by beyond thunderdome bad dude 'ironbar') is entrusted with a deadly double barrelled shotgun.

'Knock Knock' stared out as a an old corgi bread van (a Bedford?) like this one, though sadly not with the lucozade markings which I might have tried to keep somehow.

The van was heavily knocked about, dented and bullet holed, the plough was made from chimera track guards mounted on hunter killer missile rails. 

Other leftover chimera parts (my best friend in this project) became armour panels and firing ports and a whole mess of stowage was added to the roof.

So that's the first 'starter gang' complete. Next up the 'good guys'

At 600 points (the rule books sample gangs are 650) theres room to expand the crew with a new member or two without slowing gameplay down too much.

For anyone that's interested below is the gang roster for the sons....

Gang 1 - Marauders 'Sons of Simius'

Simius the invincible (hero) - 30

Bard - 15

Driver - 7

Fighter - 10

Mechanic - 15

Strong - 6

Skilled - 20

Pistol - 70

Large weapon (punch dagger) - 10

x1 hand grenade - 10

Total - 193

'Cheryl' (buggy) - 20 (driven by Simius) 

Race tuned - 15

Turbo - 15

Safety features - 10

Sound system - 10

Total - 70 

Wibber (goon) - 10

Driver - 5

Rammer - 5

Fighter - 6

Large weapon (chain) - 10

Total - 36

Redneck (Truck) - 30

Ram bars - 15

Nitro x2 - 20

Supercharger - 25

Total - 70

Ziggy (driver) - 15

Driver - free

Fighter - 6

Sword - 5

Total - 26

'Knock Knock' (truck) - 30 (driven by ziggy)

Extra armour - 30

Plough - 15

Total - 75

Ape'prentice Krump (soldier) - 20

Marksman - 4

Fighter - 8

Strong - 5

Shotgun - 80

Knife- 5

Total - 122

Simius and Cheryl - 263

Wibber and redneck - 106

Krump, ziggy and knock knock - 223

Total - 592