Painted Press Gangers

These are the ubiquitous Press Gangers for Warmachine. They’re Mercenaries by faction, and mercenaries in the sense that they can also be used in four other factions. So far, I’ve only tried them in the Mercenaries faction so I have no idea how they fare out-of-faction. Having said that, I’m pretty bad at Warmachine, so it could accurately be said that I don’t really know much about their performance at all. For me, their main advantages are having Advanced Deployment so they can start scenario pressure, and being cheap so I don’t worry too much when they inevitably die like flies. I initially took them to play with Gorten Grundback (Gorten1) who can cast Solid Ground and stop them being killed so easily by blasts and keep them standing if they make a tough roll. In practice, keeping them close enough to Gorten to benefit from this spell means that I’m not taking advantage of the scenario pressure. Anyway, they’re fun to play and I quite like the idea of starting my motley Mercenary army with a tide of screaming pirates racing across the field.

I’ve picked green as a colour with which to tie this fledgling Mercenary force together, so each Press Ganger has at least a bit of green on them. There are only a few different sculpts so I tried to make each piece at least a little unique by swapping the colours for the various items of clothing. I got these guys at the same time as my Nyss Hunters (more on them later) and the contrast between assembling these guys, who come as single piece to be attached to the base, and the Nyss, who come in approximately 100 fiddly pieces needing to be pinned, could not be more irritating.

This is the Lass, leader of the unit and bearer of a few extra powers like being able to make enemy pieces take actions for her. I love the character of the sculpt, with one hand beckoning and the other holding a cudgel behind her back. Unfortunately, I could not get my camera to take a nice photo of her at all, and gave up after many shots of which these were the least bad.

I really like the various improvised weapons the Press Gangers are wielding, particularly the table leg held by the chap in the middle. The one on the right with the lamp appears to have a squirrel tucked away in one of his coat pockets, which seems an odd choice for the admittedly surprisingly land-based sailors.

The central chap here is the only other unique sculpt in the unit (after the Lass), and I really like the body-in-a-sack he has over his shoulder. I imagine that the hat is some common piratical accoutrement but I can’t help but see it as a bunnet and painted him accordingly.

Here are the final three Press Gangers. They have a rule which allows them, under certain circumstances, to turn a living enemy trooper into another type of pirate. Hilariously, various other combinations of rules means that they can do this to dogs and possessed trees. It amuses me no end to think that the Warmachine world is filled with the kind of magic that allows people to put a trained war dog into a sack and pull out a scurvy sea dog.

Next on the painting table: Francisco Ortega

Painted Santiago Ortega part 2

Now for Santiago Ortega, another of the Guild gunslingers for Malifaux. Sadly, much like Sam Hopkins, I’m dreadful at using him. He’s a shooter with no simple way around cover, and has a gimmick where he gets better if you hurt him. But since I can never seem to make him a threat, no-one ever bothers to hurt Santiago. His stock does go up a bit with Perdita Ortega as the master as she has a few tricks that rely on the Family keyword; for example she can usefully Relocate to him. I’ll be happy to learn from anyone who has a lot of success using Santiago.

In contrast to my opinion of Santiago on the tabletop, I love the miniature. He’s really big and has such a characterful, dynamic pose he was a joy to paint. For some reason I have always felt that those huge mutton-chops need to be ginger, despite him obviously being Mexican (or at least pseudo-Mexican) in the story. Even my metal Santiago had ginger hair.

Next on the painting table: Press Gangers (probably).