Painted Model Reveal: Necroharvester and Corpse Crawlers | Warmachine

Wednesday has arrived, which means it’s time for your weekly drop of new content and features in the WARMACHINE app!

This week we’re showing off the painted Necroharvester and Corpse Crawlers.

Painted Model Reveal: Necroharvester and Corpse Crawlers

Subscriber Content - Mark of Caine Part 1 of 3

This week’s update for subscribers is the first part of the novel Mark of Caine, an adventure that will find the gunslinger both back in action and in the same hot waters he’s been in before…

The man chuckled then, closer still to his ear. “It’s not your wallet I’m after, Allister Caine. It’s your bounty I want.”

Caine sighed. “Yeah. I see.”

He nodded to the moon-faced merchants as he passed them. At least the scene he was making had finally shut them up. The lot were delightfully speechless as he preceded his captor out of the bar a step at a time. 

“So, what’s that bounty up to now?”

“Fifteen-hundred crowns.”

“Big bounty, big trouble. Don’t yeh know that, kid?” 

The young man snorted as the two of them stepped out onto the creaking planks of the tavern’s front porch. Horse-drawn carriages clopped alongside townsfolk at the height of Prescott’s midday bustle. “Don’t you mark me for no kid, mister. I’m a bounty hunter like my pa and his before him. This pistol of mine shoots the same lead as theirs.” Again, the young bounty hunter jabbed his weapon at Caine for emphasis.

“Fair enough. Are yeh right-handed or left-handed?” Caine squinted at the sun, feeling its warmth on his skin as the young man herded him toward a nearby alley.

“Left. What’s it to you?”

Caine closed his eyes and called upon his gift. It had been a long time since he’d used his gift for anything other than defense. Too long, maybe. Too long since he’d felt the tingle of it in his hands and in his chest. Too long since he’d shaped it to form a spell. Too long since he’d used it to reach into the mind of a warjack and bend it to his will. It had, however, been more than enough time to leave him guessing if it could be controlled again once called for. 

Only one way to find out, he decided with a shrug.

From deep in his chest, Caine felt a welling rush. It was not the adrenaline that came from mortars falling all around you or seeing your men turned to mincemeat next to you as they exploded. This was not the rush of sidestepping an axe longer than you were tall, wielded by a maniacal eight-ton steam-powered walking machine. It was not even the simple thrill of taking out six gunmen on a bet while blindfolded and fall-down drunk.

No, this was the rush that came of magic.

In a nimbus of blue runes, Caine blinked out of existence. In half a heartbeat, he returned to the world, four feet away from where he had started. Those four feet conveniently had him standing directly behind the bounty hunter. The tables well and truly turned, Caine assessed the lanky Midlunder rooted the spot, the young man’s mouth hanging open. He didn’t look the part, but at least he gripped a pistol in his left hand, as he’d suggested. Caine reached for the weapon with practiced reflexes, pulling back the young man’s wrist to snatch the weapon. In one fluid motion, he pinned the bounty hunter’s hand against his shoulder. The young man gasped, stuttering for words, eyes wild as he tried to get a sense of what was happening.

“Yer gonna need a new line of work, kid,” Caine suggested, squeezing the trigger. A shot of lead burst from the barrel with a flash and a whiff of powder. It tore through his would-be captor’s palm and into his shoulder beneath, leaving both a blood-splotched mess. Caine twitched; his ears rang from the sudden report. He stepped back and let the young man fall to his knees. There was nothing as familiar to him in this world as the smell of gunfire except for a man on his knees waiting for the kill shot. He took it in with a deep breath, savoring it while he circled his victim to observe his handiwork. 

The youth sobbed and screamed, clutching his bleeding hand.

“Don’t yeh know who I am, kid? I’m the monster waiting in the night. I’m the one your mama told you steer clear of, that’s who. What the hell were yeh thinkin’ coming for me?” Caine snarled. The young bounty hunter flinched, backpedaling.

Seeing the terror he had wrought, Caine paused and then relented with a growl. “Look across the street there.” He pointed with his newly acquired pistol. “That’s Doc Silver’s joint. If he’s in, he’ll patch yeh up. Then yer gonna leave town.

Shuddering, the young man looked up at him with damp eyes. At the end of the alley, a couple of spectators had been drawn to the noise of the shot, including the town blacksmith, Rand Cooper.

“Nothing doing here, folks. The kid just had a misfire is all,” Caine laughed, shaking his head sympathetically. “Anyone know if Doc Silver is in yet?”

“Yeah, he arrived a half-hour ago, John.” The blacksmith slowly took in the scene.

“Much obliged.” Caine nodded and waited for his audience to shuffle back to their corners. When they had reluctantly withdrawn, he turned back to his young prisoner. “Now, where were we?” 

Caine studied the kid’s pistol appreciably, sighting an imagined target down its length. It had been a while since he’d held his own piece, and his armor had been packed away and left to rot. This was no spellstorm, but it was nice work. It was a revolver like his own, a rare enough thing. He turned it over, admiring the brass trim at handgrip and barrel. Your family must have a few crowns to spare, Caine guessed. It should fetch enough crowns at the market to settle his tab with Rollie and then some. He looked back down at the whimpering young man. 

“Stop that. Yeh played and yeh lost, but yer alive. But I see yeh around here again,” He brought the barrel level with the kid’s face, “the next time yeh see this gun, it’ll be putting a slug between yer eyes.”

The bounty hunter nodded, his eyes averted from the barrel. He rose unsteadily to his feet and, without looking at Caine again, ran across the dirt road to the doctor’s shack, just as he’d been told. 

Caine watched him go, silently fuming. So much for bygones. Two years past, and the old bastard still feared for his precious secrets. As if Caine were nothing more than a bought-off traitor at large. He had his vices, but when had he ever been that? Never, that’s when.

Never, ever that.

Caine pulled his beard. He had been lucky. The wake-up call had been this kid—it could just as easily have been someone with the stones to put him down. Either way, the message was clear.

Scout General Rebald was not going to let this go.
 

Change Log for October 30, 2024

SUBSCRIBERS

• Mark of Caine: Part 1 of 3 added to subscriber library

ADDITIONS

• None

REMOVALS

• None

CORRECTIONS

• Boomhowler the Destroyer: Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.

• Destroyer: Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.

• Drago: Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.

• Dr. Arkadius: Limited Battlegroup [Arkadius] now references “Mercenary Farrow warbeasts.”

• Falcir, the Merciless: Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.

• Gharlghast (web spinner head): Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.

• Great Bear (battle axe): Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.

• Great Old One: Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.

• House Ellowuyr Warden Executioner: Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.

• House Ellowuyr Wardens: Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.

• Ironclad: Tremor (★Attack): This attack does not need a target. This attack does not require an attack roll and does not cause damage. Other models within 2" of this model become knocked down.

• Israfyl: Generator: This model has the Power Field special rule. This model cannot spend focus points to reduce damage or heal while its Generator (G) or Head system (H) is crippled.

• Kapitan Yana Kovoskiy: Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.

• Megalith: Remove Magic Ability.

• Midas: Change the text of Curse [Bone Grinder] to “This model can use Curse once per activation at any time. Choose an enemy model/unit within 10" of this model. Friendly Bone Grinder gain +2 to attack rolls against the chosen model/unit. Curse lasts for one turn.”

• Negator: Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.
  

• Reef Troll (boarding axe): Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.
  

• Specter: Generator: This model has the Power Field special rule. This model cannot spend focus points to reduce damage or heal while its Generator (G) or Head system (H) is crippled.

• Stryker: Tremor (★Attack): This attack does not need a target. This attack does not require an attack roll and does not cause damage. Other models within 2" of this model become knocked down.

• Swamp Horror: Critical Amputation: On a critical hit on a warjack or warbeast, fill in the unmarked damage boxes or circles on the last column or branch damaged by this attack.

• Woldwarden: Remove Magic Ability.