Out on the Plains we gave them Hell

In the gathering darkness of dusk, Brutus led the way! The black thirst were upon them, things were stirring in the desert, things were coming to a head. It was time to fight again. The Warpig had been made ready, it was repaired and fine tuned, the new boosters had been fitted and the fuel tanks were brimming full… Virgina Ferrum of ancient Terra were blasting out of the speakers, the other lost boys thought him a freak, but Brutus didn’t care! The lost Boys were going to war!…

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We fought him hard

We fought him well

Out on the plains

We gave him Hell!…

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Things are coming to a close, october and the Tor Megiddo game is just around the corner and the lost Boys are almost complete.

Recently I finished Crazy Joe, wasteland warrior extraordinaire, second in command whenever the Scrap Queen is  not present. Maybe he will betray his family and take over command of the lost Boys before this is all over, you never know… I have also been busy building, painting and weathering all the foot sluggers’ ride; the Warpig. It is always fun to scratch build and paint a post apocalyptic war machine, I had a lot of fun doing this one.

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Crazy Joe and Rosa Molotov

The biggest and the smallest members of the gang of lost Boys, and to be honest one girl, but she is more of a mascot.

Crazy Joe is a big fighter, he prefers beating people to a pulp with his wrecking ball. Like little Rosa, he also loves to blow things up.

One sunny, dry as death day, he found this incomplete armour on a corpse imbedded in a dune, on the armor was this large rune, that hurt the eyes… Crazy Joe was a big boy, bigger than everybody else and armor that fit was extremely hard to come by… He donned the armor, he thought that evil powerful rune looked very cool and he loved the way it seemed to scare people. After donning the armor he started to change… He became more and more aggressive and bloodthirsty! He started to pick fights all the time, sometimes when he fought his mates for sport and training, he would stop holding back and kill them… Now he has even taken to drink the blood of those he kills…

The most scary part of crazy Joe is not his fury and fighting prowess, but the fact that he is intelligent, cunning and generally a convincing and cultivated speaker. He can charm most people to his side in a dispute. He has assumed second in command of the Lost Boys. Since the Scrap Queen mostly lurks in the darkness of her cave like a spider, the tribe of techno barbarians need someone to run things on a daily basis. Rumour has it that Joe is the consort of the Scrap Queen and therefore has her power by proxy. At the same time he wins more and more of the boys to his own cause and that is not always the same as thee Queens…

Don’t mess with Crazy Joe

Originally Crazy Joe came from Tor red Sands, he escaped from the fighting pits there many many years ago. He joined a gang of desert bandits, that were enemies of the people of Tor Red Sands. As time went by, Joe charmed and convinced the gang of bandits to help him usurp power from their original leader old Max. In the end Crazy Joe killed old Max and took over the whole gang of desert bandits. They fought an ongoing war of vendetta with Tor Red Sands, for years.

One day they were approached by the Scrap Queen, then known only as Ilse the Vengeful. She had her own grudge against Tor Red Sands and they agreed to join forces and destroy the tor once and for all!

Joe was the only survivor of old Max’s gang and he joined Ilse and Raegar in establishing a new tribe and a new hide out out on the plains. The found the oilasis in the shadow of an old promethium refinery and made their living there. promethium, gasoline, oil and fuel in general were abundant there, but it needed constant defending, hence they started recruiting every misfit and cast out, happening by.

Brutus thought “beware that crazy Joe, he is not to be trusted, he is turning the boys against our queen, but nobody listens and if he finds out that I am in to him, he’ll kill me in a heartbeat! It’s going to be hard, he has most of the boys convinced to do whatever he says.. the walls have ears… He is a canny one.”

“And that bullshit about having fallen from the stars, that is just something that he says to impress people. Better be careful and keep my eyes open. If only there was someone of our number, I can trust with this.”

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Not everything is as it seems and in their darkest hour of the greatest need, the Lost Boys seem to ba falling apart and becoming their name… Lost!

Rosa Molotov

Rosa Molotov was born and raised in Tor Kerosene. The petromongers kept her as a slave and worked her almost to death and used her for unspeakable purposes. The petromongers were always known to court dark powers as well as hoarding fuel and getting rich and powerful enough to rival the people of the golden cities. One day Rosa succeeded to burn the face of one of her guards and escape her thraldom. Being in a place like Tor Kerosene, fuel was very easy to come by.. In her efforts to escape, Rosa blew up half the Tor and set the rest on fire. In the confusion, she ran into the desert night. She was very good at hiding, being only a slight girl of ten… The biker warriors of tor Kerosene never managed to find her. She disappeared into the desert. The Grand Fueler, ruler of Tor Kerosene put a large prize on Rosa’s head, he was not a man to be crossed.

She was found by Brutus, starved, half dead of thirst and horribly burned by the sun. Brutus nursed her back to life and brought her back to the Scrap Queen. Having an affinity for the underdogs and a general defiance to anybody in power, the Queen instantly took a liking to Little Rosa. In the end, the Scrap Queen took Rosa Molotov in and declared that from then on, Rosa was her daughter.

Rosa is like a mascot for the Lost Boys, being the Queen’s own daughter, no one dares touch her. She is rarely seen without a bunch of molotov cocktails and her trusty old blowtorch, that she brought with all the way from Tor Kerosene.

“Maybe Rosa can help me bring a message to the Scrap Queen, she has access, but she’s only a child and Joe can get real close as well” Brutus thought as the doubts were eating away at his soul.

“The Warpig cometh! The Warpig cometh! The Warpig Cometh!” they started to shout and chant. The Warpig was finished and the black thirst were upon the Lost Boys. It was time to defend the turf! It was yet again time to burn and maim their enemies, the cries for war drowned out everything else, coherent thought became impossible as the blood rose and the adrenaline mixed with the gasoline and everything became combustible.

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The Lost Boys roll out under cover of the darkness

To War

Ready for battle

Burn the enemy!

It’s been great fun to scratch build the Warpig. I had this orc war waggon lying around and frankly I needed to thin out my stash a bit, so it was a no brainer to use it as a ride for the Lost Boys. I kept most of the front and that lovely dozer blade, I did not attach all the extra details and plates and ended up with a rather generic and simple truck front. I built a cage in the back out of brass lengths and plastic profiles, I measured it, making sure there was room for all the boys. I added a few details with a 40K flavour, a big chimney out of some tubing and a Goliath ganger as commander. Well I don’t think he commands much, he is just there to pick a fight.

I went all the way with weathering, using most of my tricks from traditional scale modelling. First I airbrushed it silver, varnished, applied chipping fluid, then painted it black with a little colour modulation. When that was dry, I activated the chipping fluid and chipped it to pieces, I brush painted some extra paint chips and scuff marks where it made sense, then I sealed it with another coat of gloss varnish. After that I painted all the rest of the details, the skulls and the guy on top. Then I gave it a dot filter of oil paints and dragged it down to create a streaky and worn colour. Once that was dry I built up some rust wherever I found it sensible. I held back a little on the rust, because we are in a desert environment, so it was not supposed to look like something left out in the rain for years. I do imagine that Tor Megiddo get some pretty hard acid rains from time to time, some rust is ok. I did not hold back with the dust though… I put a lot of dust coloured pigments on the Warpig and fixed most of it with white spirit, after that I could wash and rub excess dust off until satisfied, then I added gravel and small rocks which I fixed with pigment fixer, glue and matte varnish. At last I made a lot of grease and oil stains all over the thing and painted soot at the chimney and vent.

All in all the treatment you would give a desert based AFV.

Warpig

Dust, oil, rust and dirt

More grease

Going to war

Back door

Goliath the grease monkey picking a fight!

The Lost Boys are ready for war

Looking for prey

After the accident, the Scrap queen has become more and more reclusive, sitting in her cave running things like a spider with her web. Now things are boiling over, the black thirst is stronger than ever. Things are stirring everywhere on Tor Megiddo, things are coming to a close, change is in the air. One can smell the smoke, the mightiest struggle for power is brewing. If the Scrap Queen is going to stay a player for power, she has to come out of her cave and take a hand, else she will sink into oblivion and with the Lost Boys, divided as they are.

It’s getting close now!