I've been a fan of Ambush Alley Games'
rulesystems since the original Ambush Alley (I even paid out to have
it printed and ringbound from PDF a couple of years ago). When
Tomorrow's War came out it seemed to be the toolkit I was looking for
– flexible enough to handle everything from Corporate Wars to
Martian miners rebellions to Bug Hunts. But I was missing a few
things; firstly, psychic rules. I like Psychics, be they Mass Effect
style cybernetically enabled Biotics or Star Wars Force users.
Secondly, I wanted more detailed aliens rules. Thirdly, I wanted to
be able to do various Cybernetic horrors, like Shadowrun/Cyberpunk
cyberzombies.
The supplement, 'By Dagger & By Talon', has delivered all of this, and more. It has also given us a
fascinating 'master' race in the form of the Darghaur. First
mentioned in Tomorrow's War and with 15mm minis produced by the
granddaddy of 15mm SF, Ground Zero Games, the Darghaur are a brutal
oppressor species, implacable and unknowable – even to those they
enslave. In short, fighting species are preserved and weaker ones
obliterated.
Even though the Darghaur themselves are
only available in 15mm at present, I game mainly in 28mm scale. I do
remember an inference on Lead Adventure and there was a poll on the
Ambush Alley forum asking who would buy 28s, so there may be hope...
The most useful thing about this from a
wargamer's point of view is the variety of models that can be used as
the villains. Over the next couple of articles I'm going to walk you
through a couple of the ranges I'm planning on using as Darghaur
slaves....
First up; Heresy Miniatures Sharclons
I picked these up as new releases at
Salute 2013. They're really characterful little guys, clearly not
your standard space dwarf. Bulky, clearly heavily armoured and
professional, but with no beards! I could see them being converted
for Demiurg for 40k as an alternative use – the downside being
there are only 2 poses at present.
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| 3 merciless warriors on the hunt for their masters' enemies... |
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| This shot shows the 'weak spot' on the back.... |
How to use them for TW?
The Sontarans (who the Sharclons are
based on) are presented as a warrior race – huge numbers of clone
soldiers deployed in en-masse, Soviet/WW1 style wave attacks to grind
down the enemy through attrition. This background still works for
Darghaur Sharclons, and makes them the perfect disposable cannon
fodder for the unscrupulous commander. Given the initial high cost of
the minis (make no mistake – they are chunky little fellers) and
their clearly heavily-armoured nature, I feel a high armour value is
warranted, at least D8, maybe D10. Tech level 2, at least.
Weapons wise they are certainly at least tech level 2. But what about
Quality? This could be a random factor due to cloning batches. I
would certainly see the leaders being decent, but the line grunts
maybe not so much. D6-D8 is my feeling. Morale would be high too, due to their disregard for losses and commitment to the cause!
I think you could do something characterful with the 'weak spot' on the back (as visible in the rear shot above). Maybe grant a +1 firepower to attacks made against them from behind (in GM'd games/campaigns, maybe award this knowledge once they've been shot at from the rear?)
The main issue for them is likely to be
their inflexible weapon choices (at least until Andy sculpts some
more, hint hint ;) ), but this is simply part of their character for
me. I would like to add some vehicles for them. Originally the
Sontarans used Dr Who dimension folding tech for their craft (not
unlike the TARDIS's 'bigger on the inside' schtick (obviously a
cunning trick to save the production some cash!). I think I'd like
something a bit more conventional for them though. Given the shapes
of their armour I'm thinking Scotia Grendel's Void Syntha tank might
be a good match? I might get another of the officers to add an
'unbuttoned' commander to the top hatch and have a crack at sculpting
a different right arm to lose the pistol.
Painting
The base colour is GW Dark Reaper with
an edge highlight of Dawnstone on the armour plates. I then applied a
Druchii Violet wash to the bodysuit and the deepest recesses between
armour plates.
Following that I painted in the outline
for the unit markings in Dawnstone, and then went over this with
Wazdakka Red. The eyes were also picked out this way, and both unit
markings and eyes were given a slightly thinned coat of Tamiya Clear
Red (of which and blood effects in the next article) to bump up the
shine.
Weapon casings were edge highlighted
with Vallejo Model Colour Black Grey, and the silver is simply GW
Leadbelcher with a Nuln Oil wash. The glowy power cores were done
with a Vallejo Model Colour Fluorescent Green, highlighted with VMC
Fluorescent Yellow and finally given a wash of Tamiya Clear Green.
I wanted high-contrast bases, so I went
for a light sand colour (VMC Dark Sand), which I inked with GW Agrax
Earthshade and then drybrushed back up with Dark Sand.
They won't win any prizes for painting,
but I'm very happy with their presence. I have another two to finish
up for this squad, and I'm looking forward to getting a couple of
hours to finish them off.
My review verdict?
For those who like no-nonsense metals,
these are pretty good! 3 parts for the infantrymen, (body, weapon and
head) and 2 for the officer (body & head), with good-fitting
parts. As I noted earlier, they're not the cheapest bulk soldier out
there at £4 apiece (£3.20 while Andy's currently got his sale on),
but they do have a particular character and I don't feel that's an
unreasonable price for well sculpted minis these days. They are a joy
to paint, and the large open areas would lend themselves to extra
blending or freehand very nicely. These three were finished in about
6 hours, all told, and the quality of the sculpt shows itself there
in my opinion. They are limited by the very small number of poses,
but I hope that once Andy's got some of the Dragon backlog out of the
way these will appear – I'll be picking them up as and when they
do!
Score: 6.5/10 due to the tiny
range. If there were more options, I'd push it up to 7.5
easily.
Posted by The Doc
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