Necromunday: Chem Dealer and Brute Handler Model Review

Games Workshop was kind enough to provide us with these models for review.

SRM: Fowler, resident all-around-cool-guy and Necromunday Underboss, asked Dylan and I if we wanted to split this particular set of Necromunda weirdos. As Goonhammer’s resident Goliath enthusiast, I offered to take on the Brute Handler, while Dylan, our weirdo aficionado, took the Chem Dealer. Did Dylan absolutely get the better end of the deal?

DYLON: Was I psyched to get the guy who is trying to sell drugs to all the cool teens behind the library at the edge of campus? Hell yeah, I was. Is this shady dude going to fit in perfectly with the rest of my traders in the Archeobazaar, yep! Is Crumbs right that I got the better deal?

SRM: I very much am!

Detail

SRM: The details on the Brute Handler are fantastic. He looks like dozens of dudes I’ve played Warhammer with over the years; big gut, ponytail, regrettable facial hair and all. This very well may be the first model I have painted with a soul patch. Beyond his general dirtbag attire, his equipment tells his story better than any included flavor text could. His ample bionics show that this fella has probably gotten handled by one too many brutes, with a chained collar and shock whip being his tools of the trade. He’s also got the same gas mask on his belt that’s hanging off the ‘Zerker’s mouth, fitting since Goliaths get this dude for half price. From a detail standpoint, this guy gets top marks, with none of the 3D print lines I ran into when reviewing the Goliath Champion and Durgan Kill Fist previously.

DYLON: This guy is great. Simple in design, not overladen with detail – but drawing from the visual language of the other Necromunda weirdos in the range. Metal capped toes peeking out from a Delaque-esque robe, a bandolier slung over a shoulder, filled with whippets instead of bullets, and some nice shoulder pads with an angular face mask, hiding their identity. The medical-style chem masks are a nice touch, with one held out and a couple others on his belt, which intimates that he could hook up few people at once. The cast on this guy was immaculate, with almost no cleanup required.

Assembly

SRM: No need to bury the lede here: this model is not particularly enjoyable to build. He’s only 9 pieces, but aside from his body and limbs, they’re all extremely fiddly pipes, collars, and other underhive bric-a-brac that requires tons of cleanup. There’s a load of resin flash between many, if not all of these awkward and fragile components, with some particularly rough ones in the midst of the collar that attaches to the chains on his shoulder. Said collar has interior-facing spikes to carve around, and they are easy to accidentally slice off. This piece in particular attaches weakly at the end of a chain and I fear that should I paint it slightly too vigorously, it will snap off. I wish it anchored on his pants or something for a bit more stability. There’s also a tiny teeny pipe that attaches from his belt to his shockwhip which also is just begging to be cut in half whilst trimming out the flashing. Break out the tweezers when you’re putting that piece on.

Lastly, the end of his whip has tons more flashing to cut away and the space between excess material and actual detail is a little shaky. I wouldn’t say it’s an impossible model to build or anything, but it well test your dexterity like a game of Operation where instead of a tinny buzz, your errors are signified by your own frequent and inventive cusses.

DYLON: Counter to Crimbo’s experience, I assembled this guy while full on Christmas breakfast and in the post-present opening fog that is getting woken by a seven-year old from a deep sleep to open stockings in bed at 7am. The Chem dealer is only 3 pieces and, like a model of yore, needs no instructions or much thought to get him together. There’s a support under his arm that I almost forgot to trim off, but the only tricky bit is to be careful with removing the hose from the sprue block. The hose itself has a little tab on it (don’t trim it off) that connects positively into the Dealers body, strengthening the joint. As mentioned the cast was great, requiring only a tiny bit of scraping on one side.

Painting

DYLON: After hurriedly priming this guy in 15º weather (warm your spray cans, run outside, spray and then bring the mini inside immediately to dry) and letting him cure for a few hours, I sat down on Christmas night with the intent to start him. An hour and a half later, I sat back and realized I’d basically finished him.

I started with a zenithal basecoat and white drybrush. I started by highlighting his coat by hand with pure white, to get some brighter highlights when I Contrasted it. Then it was a coat of Garaghak’s Sewer over the entire coat. Then I painted all the metals with silver, leather straps with Snakebite Leather and the gloves with a coat of old Vile Green mixed with white. I painted the face cups with XV-88, for that natural rubber color, and highlighted them up with white. The hoses and shoulder pads were painted black, with the shoulder pads getting a wash of Doombull Brown and then some sponged-on chips with silver. I washed the metals and highlighted the hoses and finished it off by painting the visor with Mephiston Red, a little yellow, and a coat of ‘Ard Coat.

SRM: Where Dylan has gone for gritty realism, I have decided that the circus is in town and kids seats are still just five bucks. Necromunda weirdos like these are fantastic opportunities to get out of your comfort zone and paint something weird and wild, and I’ve done that here with an Oops! All Secondaries! color scheme. I started with basecoats of Barak-Nar Burgundy, Averland Sunset, and Sotek Green, and worked my way up to their next shade with each of them. His yellow and magenta both also kinda work with my Goliath and Escher gangs, respectively. Painting him also meant I got to become even more familiar with his details, which are well defined and easy to pick apart.

There’s little pipes in his leg, studs pinning his skin to his bionics, and all of his aforementioned equipment. You can really go wild with these or stick to a simpler approach and the model will still look good – I picked out some of the pipes just because I wanted to have more teal on the model, but they’d work fine in a simpler palette. The only really tricky bit of painting this fella was the space between his whip and pant leg, with everything else being a fairly simple and enjoyable process. I knocked him out in two decent painting sessions over the course of a day, and I’m real happy with the results.

Final Thoughts, Parting Shots, and What Have You

SRM: The brute handler first reminded me of an especially unflattering likeness of our own Rob Jones, which says even more about the brutes who write for this website. He’s a handy dude to have in any gang where you plan on hiring a Brute (IE: Most of them) and at half price for Goliaths he’s a no-brainer for the gang with the fewest brains to go around. I wish assembling him was half as enjoyable as painting him, but he’s got the precise quantity and quality of dirtbag energy I want to see from a Necromunda weirdo.

DYLON: The Chem Dealer is exactly the kind of non-combatant weirdo that I want more of in the underhive. I’m still waiting for a pack of random unarmed dudes to populate my hive city with, but this is a great start. Rules-wise, this guy is cheap for Goliath gangs to hire and can show up with a dose of a drug to hand out. All-in-all, pretty rad.

Thanks for reading, scummers! If you have any questions for us, want to suggest a future article, or just want to show us pictures of your kickass gangs, drop us a line over at Necromunday@Goonhammer.com.