Keep Calm and Hail Hydra

Just when you thought I'd gone for good, I return stronger than before!

 

Apologies for the hiatus. We've been having our kitchen and dining room knocked through and done up, so the house has been a bit of a mess and I've not really had the space or time to get any painting done.

 

Anyway, remember some time ago, I began to work on a Marvel project using miniatures from a range of manufacturers? Well, Batman happened. Along with Operation Unthinkable, and a range of other projects I've just not had the motivation to get anything done.

 

Until now.

 

Knight Models have announce that they are releasing a Spider-Man Miniatures Game using the same mechanics as BMG, and the intial four factions will be: Spider-Man (and his Amazing Friends...that's not the official faction title, but in my head it is), Goblin Cult, S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA.

 

Guess who's got a Hydra gang all ready and waiting to go?

 

 

So, this week, I set about rebasing the models I'd already done, and painting up my four remaining Hydra goons. Apologies, once again for the quality of the photos; I'm still having trouble fnding a way to get decent pictures from my phone.

 

 

I've not done anything special with them as I like to keep block colours on my comic book stuff as I like the fact that (to me at least) it captures the four colour feel of the genre. I've switched the bases from 20mm flat bases to 30mm bevelled bases. Primarily this is to make them compatible with the SMG (I like that abbreviation), however, I've grown to prefer the bevelled bases for skirmish games. You'll also notice that I've gone for static grass on the bases. This is mainly to mask the raised bases on some of the miniatures and although it doesn't really match the urban environments many of them will be used in, the separation of the bevelled bases tends to make this not really matter.

 

The leaders. Red Skull is from 'What The?' Miniatures, a really small scale miniature company, with a tiny range of Weird War II sculpts. They used to have a not-Captain America and Bucky available, but they clearly had some form of C&D from Marvel about it as he's no longer available. Fortunately, the unpainted 'Herr Totenkopf' looks like any number of skull-headed villains in popular culture and is still present in the store. Madame Hydra/Viper has been made using the Wargames Factory Female Apocalypse Survivors plastic kit. I may end up replacing her with a better model, but she'll do for now. Finally, Wrecker has been converted from 'Ram Jam' from Crossover Miniatures. Even though Crossover provide alternate heads for their models, I needed to file off the horns from one of the options and drill a hole in the hand for his crowbar. I'm aware that Wrecker isn't actually part of Hydra, but my thinking is that he's exactly the sort of hired muscle they'd make use of.

 

The Hydra Goons are Paramilitary Goons from Crossover Miniatures too. They are clearly sculpted to emulate the classic Hydra costumes, but are generic enough to be argued as any type of minion. Crossover also do heavy weapons goons, a goon officer, a female goon and a surrendering goon (which might possibly be a nod to Bob, Deadpool's sidekick), which all might find themselves added to my cell in time.

 

So now I have a fully painted and based Hydra crew for SMG. I know that not only are there no rules for any Hydra forces yet, and it's entirely likely that the Hydra henchmen in the game will have more varied weaponary. What's more, I've no idea whether Red Skull or Viper will make an appearance, but they're both likely. However, even if I can't use these models for SMG, I've also worked out that they make a handy 30 ratings cast for 7TV, so they are destined to hit the table at some point.

 

All I need now are some heroes to stop Hydra's nefarious plans. I'd better get assembling...

 

Zomtober: The Long Halloween

Following the success of my last zombie related posted, I'll continue the theme with some prisoners...you know, like in the Walking Dead Season 3...that's totally zombie related!

Okay, okay...I've been painting Batman stuff instead of zombies. These two are the creatively named Prisoners 3 and 4 from the second pack of Blackgate Prisoners. They are versatile fellows, able to work for everybody except Batman, Green Arrow, the Police and limited gangs like the Watchmen and Court of Owls. As they're fairly lost cost in terms of reputation, they are good for filling gaps or bringing a particular skill to the gang, for example, Prisoner 3's Axe brings low cost blood damage which is good for finishing off the injured, and Prisoner 4 has the Bodyguard trait enabling him to literally take a hit or two on behalf of more important models.

I've painted these two in order to be ready for my next Batman event, which it this weekend. It's themed around the seminal Long Halloween story and the focus is apparently more on narrative than tournament play. What's more, it's an escalation event, with the first game being at 200 rep, the second at 250 and the final two being at 300 rep. To help with gang construction, you're also not limited to keeping the same models in every crew.

I've decided to take Poison Ivy to this event for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's my most recently completed crew and I want to give it a run out, secondly I want to run an Ivy crew with Mr Freeze in tow as an homage to the critically acclaimed 'Batman & Robin' in a change to the usual Gotham Sirens theme that may Ivy players run with. Finally, given the event rules and the narrative focus, I felt that it was an interesting idea to switch Ivys during the event as she 'evolves'.

I'm really looking forward to this event as it is being hosted by the same people who ran the UK leg of he Worldwide tournament. Many of the spectacular tables that were on display there belong to them and given the organisation of the actual day, I'd imagine that the day will be really smooth. Most importantly though, is the narrative element. That's the area of the Batman game that I feel sometimes gets overlooked, and something I would like to see much more of.

Given that I've admitted that the Prisoners really aren't for zombie gaming, I felt it necessary to get at least one zombie done, and here he is...

Another Studio Z-Clips model. Not very exciting, but it adds to the horde.

In other zombie news, we're playing Last Night on Earth as part of our traditional Halloween Long Weekend gaming. As yet, the survivors have never survived in any game we've played of it, so we'll see how it goes.

Expect an event report next week.

Zomtober: Frozen to Death

My Zomtober updates are getting later due to life being a bit busy at the moment. Anyway, here I am with my next two hard-bitten survivors of a medieval/renaissance zombie apocalypse...

What?

Oh, all right...it's Elsa and Anna from Frozen that I've painted for my daughter's birthday. However, I have a range of reasons that legitimise their inclusion in Zomtober:

1. The original Anna model has flames issuing from its hand, and the hand I've replaced it with comes from the Wargames Factory Zombie Vixens sprues - she's part zombie!
2. In the film, she comes back from the dead, and is, therefore, a zombie!
3. Given that she's a zombie, Elsa, who survives an encounter with her is clearly a zombie survivor!
4. During the film, Elsa's magic snow and ice threatens to end life in Arendell...create an apocalypse , if you will. An icy apocalypse + Anna the zombie = Zombie Apocalypse!

As you can see, I've painted a zombie and a survivor from a zombie apocalypse movie using (partially) zombie miniatures. How appropriate for Zomtober is that?

The models are from North Star miniatures and are really nice, clean sculpts that paint up really quickly. Elsa, the Snow Queen was extremely straightforward to paint and, given the debacle of face painting I had on my last model, I'm really happy with how her face has come out. It's interesting that with North Star not basing these models on Disney characters in any way whatsoever, the Disney-like proportions of the eyes give her an almost Elven appearance. It's not the worst crime that Disney commit against the female form, but painting this has served to highlight the point.

Anna is a little more ropey around the face, but still an improvement on last week. She's been done with block colours and washes as I wanted to keep things simple due to the fact that my daughter is six and I suspect that I may be re-touching these miniatures at some point to deal with chipped paint.

I've really been struggling with Zomtober this year, but hopefully there'll be an equally appropriate entry before the end of the month.

Happy Zomtober!

It's that time of year again when Wargames bloggers around the world push their painting queue to one side to make way for the shambling dead.

I won't go through the rules again, regular readers know the score and it roughly boils down to, "I'm painting zombies this month and so are lots of other people!"

Other Zomtober bloggers might also suggest that I'm a little late with my first shambles. However, I'd like to point out that:

a) this is still technically the first week of Zomtober,

b) I was busy this week and have only just found time to paint,

c) and d)

So, without further ado, here's my first batch shuffling off the production line:

These are some Studio Miniatures Z-Clips plastic zombies I won in a competition run by Lord Siwoc (that's his real name...I'm pretty sure...) of the excellent Brains and Guts blog (see the sidebar).

The Z-Clips zombies are significantly better that the plastic male zombies from Wargames Factory I've done before. However, despite being better sculpts they are somewhat 'samey', with only for not-so-different bodies with interchangeable heads and legs, and with the exception of the guy with his face ripped off, the models are notably lacking the injuries by which they were transformed into zombies.

It's for this reason, and the chunky bases they're moulded with, that I'm glad I don't have a full box of 60 to get through. With only a couple more to go they won't make my horde too repetitive.

In other news, I didn't make any headway on my Dropzone Commander stuff and so no joker for me, but I have managed to incinerate my last remaining joker by buying a few Bolt Action vehicles at the Derby Wargames show, along with a petrol station from Ainsty Castings, which might make it into this month's festivities.

Next up is likely to be a survivor for my solo campaign, which might also get added to during Zomtober.

TTFN

Ready To Take On The World

The first part of my goal for this month is done!

I've completed all the necessary bits and pieces for the Batman Miniature Game Worldwide Tournament, the British leg of which is being held at Wollaton Hall, Nottingham, which was used as Wayne Manor in the Dark Knight trilogy.

Here's my team that's going to attempt to take on the world.

Batman (Arkham Origins) - a beast of a character (rightly so), whose goal is to put the hurt on as many enemies as possible with both Batarang and fist. His mobility and toughness, should keep him safe, but I need to stay aware of models that can put out a lot of hurt quickly, as I almost lost him to ninjas the last time I used him.

Catwoman - fast and agile, she's going to be focused on her Primary Objective: Loot trait, which enabled her to rack up between 10 and 12 VP's per game in the last tournament. She needs to avoid fights, and I need to remember that she can climb to escape pursuit.

Red Hood (Comics) - the eagle eyed will spot that this is a new model to my collection. Jason Todd was the second Robin, but was killed, resurrected, went mad, turned bad, then good and now pals around with Green Arrow's former sidekick Speedy. He's got the ability to deliver devastating close ranged attacks with his pistols, and so I'm hoping that he can ambush a high value Free Agent or take out a few henchmen per game.

Agent Ron - The only cop in Gotham smart enough to carry a sidearm. Ron is largely a defensive piece, ideal for hiding behind an objective and taking shots at those who approach to closely. To help him in this, I've given him some extra ammo.

Male and Female Cops - these two are pretty much of a muchness. The Male Cop is marginally more aggressive and the Female Cop is a tiny bit more defensive. Their are my objective grabbers, who will also seek to Arrest those taken down by Batman. The Male Cop has a Whistle to interfere with enemy movement, and the Female Cop had a Med Pack to help keep herself, ore someone else in the fight.

I've also had to get some new lampposts and sewers as Knight Models ruled that players could only use their products at their event. This is a fair enough decision, but I had a couple of gripes with it:

1. The decision was made late in the day and KM's distribution network is less than perfect, which meant getting hold of them in time has been a bit of a pain. I was let down by one supplier after a two week wait.
2. I don't like them. The sewer entrances are too bulky for what they're meant to be, and the lampposts are top heavy, awkward to put together and are mounted on base toppers (which I'm not a fan of). The lamps themselves aren't a regular shape either.
3. The come in packs of two lampposts and two sewers, yet the basic rules of the game require you to have three.

Overall, I feel I've had my arm twisted to buy something which is over-priced and I just don't think is good enough. But they're done now, so at least I won't have to fuss about future events.

Finally, my objectives. KM made a similar ruling about these needing to be official, but back-tracked when folk pointed out that their objectives pack doesn't come with enough riddle objectives (which would require purchasing a second pack for a single objective) and that their decision was a bit boring and stifled creativity. To their credit, they adjusted the rule to say that objectives made by companies which are producing items for BMG without permission (such as Counter Attack Bases, who made the question marks I used for my riddle objectives).

Therefore, I set about making a point about creativity. I've always preferred my Ammo objectives to the official ones, so that was fine. I added some gold coins to my Loot objective, as it was the one I was least happy with. Finally I made Riddle objectives which not only contained actual riddles (and clues to their answers), but might possibly be making a cheeky point about crews which aren't available for the tournament either due to being unable to field a 350 rep crew, or not being released yet, even though they featured heavily in a recent, rather successful, console game.

So that's me ready for the weekend. It's going to be a long day as it starts early and has unusually long gaps between games to allow people to fit in a tour of Wollaton Hall. If I'm honest, my hopes of overall success are fairly low as looking at some of the other crews people are using, I think I might find myself short-handed and out-gunned in some games. I'm aware that I was lucky with my match ups at the last tournament I went to, as in at least two of the games I had the gang better suited to the scenario. Even with Red Hood taking over from the ever useless Robin, I suspect that I'll still struggle to cause enough damage in some games.

However, the goal is to have fun, win at least one game and meet some people I've only spoken to online. Looking at the prize pool for the event, I suspect that everyone will be walking away with something, and in fact, if I'm in actually danger of winning, I might throw my last game, as I have no space for the first prize, which is a massive MDF Arkham Asylum!

Tune in next week for a tournament report and and update on how I've got on with the Dropzone Commander models I wanted to get done. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

Getting Back in the Fight

After a brief hiatus in my painting productivity, I'm finally getting back in the groove. This time of year always has this effect as the start of a new school year beckons, my painting output drops, and having not set myself a clear target this month didn't help with that.

What I needed was a deadline, and two have come along at once.

Firstly, after our initial forays into Dropzone Commander, the 'new game arms race' has begun in earnest as we all rush to add new threats to our forces.

First up for me is an M3 Alexander heavy command tank.

This unit packs a hefty punch and is the one unit in my army that can offer a serious threat to buildings and enemy heavy armour. Sadly, this makes it a massive target for artillery fire, and so far I've found it a bit of a race to get the Akexander to have an effect on the game before it's inevitably destroyed.

The other element that this unit brings to my army is that it houses my cousin commander which opens up the use of command cards to add another layer of strategy to the game.

It's a big beast, as you can see from the picture above, but it's slow and I'm wondering about the validity of keeping it aboard it's Lifthawk for another turn to help get the Alexander further into the action.

I've got a few more units to paint this month: an additional Lifthawk, some Freerider bikers and a couple of Cyclone attack helicopters. As such, I've definitely burned one of my three remaining jokers on Dropzone Commander. My goal is to get these done before the end of the month and before I buy anything else.

The other project I have is this:

In two weeks I'll be going to Wollaton Hall  (which was used as Wayne Manor in the Nolan Batman films), to play in the first official national BMG tournament.

Not only do I have to get another model painted for this, I also need to get some official lampposts, sewers and objectives done as KM have ruled that you have to use their stuff in their event. This in itself is not a problem, but I really could have done with more notice on this requirement as with just a fortnight to go I'm still waiting for the stuff I've ordered to arrive.

However, having spent more money on what I need, that's another joker gone, leaving me on just one. I consider myself to have succeeded this month if I can get all the BMG stuff I need for the tournament done as well as the models for Dropzone Commander.

Busy, busy, busy...

Building for the Future

A bit of a slow week for me. I e not actually managed to get any painting done. However, that doesn't mean that progress hasn't been made.

This is my new card Dropzone Commander Ruinscape terrain that I managed to grab for a tenner in my FLGS, Wargames Emporium. The reason I got it so cheap (RRP £30) is that it was second hand and incomplete. I've only got 15 tiles of 24, and 9 buildings of 20.

Although this leaves me unable to do a 4'x4' board as the rules recommend (nothing that a colour photocopier won't fix), my table is 3'x4' which will be plenty big enough whilst my forces grow. Also, I currently have no small buildings, but again, this is eniminently fixable given that. Hawk Wargames offer their building for free download.

As well as building in card, I've also been building in MDF.

This is partially finished Public House from Timeline Miniatures that I bought at Triples just over a year ago.

It has lots of nice details and features including internal walls, fittings in the barroom and a removable upper floor.

My only gripe would be that the fitting points are so snug that once I'd sprayed the parts, they upper floor didn't go together as evenly as it should and so took a bit of trimming to make it slide in neatly. Also, the instructions are a little vague and I got one of the supports for the upper floor in the wrong place and had to improvise another from a soar bit of MDF.

In addition, I've also put together a couple of Sarissa kits that I got for my birthday this year.

Sarissa are, in my opinion, amongst the best MDF kits around and this workshop/office and pump house are no exception, requiring very little glue to hold them together.

I was a little surprised that the pump house doesn't have a removable roof like most of their buildings, but given that it's so small, I can't se that being a major problem.

The workshop has a removable roof and upper floor and a really nice access stairway. It's worth noting that the detailing on the steps did cause a bit of a problem as the corners on some snapped off when taking them off the sprue and thus required me to trim the rest to a similar shape. However, this may be because I let my daughter do this bit... :)

All in all, things are moving on quite well. I'm aware this month hasn't been as productive as others, but I knew that would be that case and that was the reason I took the pressure off myself in terms of deadlines.

A Growing Collection

Progress has slowed a little on the Batlog as we've been out and about enjoying being not at work. However, I've still managed to get a few models done.

And so, I present my Poison Ivy gang...

I've kept thing pretty simple with these models, just using a very limited palette with washes and dry brushing.

The casting of the plants is a bit rough and ready, and I haven't spent as much time as I should cleaning them up, however, as plants, a bit of unevenness isn't too much of a problem.

Ivy herself caused me a few headaches as I was going to keep her legs bare, but I couldn't seem to stop her legs from looking grubby and so I changed tack and went for a look similar to the 1990's animated series.

Additionally, her right eye was a bit off and so I had to keep going back to it and I'm still not convinced her face is right. I also want to add some foliage to the base. On the plus side though, this particular model is unlikely to see a lot of table time, simply because the Arkham version I've had for a year is so much more scary, and makes better use of the plants.

I'm glad to have got these done though, and I'm happy enough with them. I suspect I may need to buy a Classic Harley Quinn to allow me to properly do a do a 'Gotham Girls' crew.

In other news, I've burned a couple of my 6MMRPC jokers recently. Firstly, I've begun to expand my Dropzone Commander army by buying a command unit for my Resistance army. I want the standard M3 Alexander tank, but my FLGS didn't have any in stock so instead I went for this:

It's actually a special character model, but it's technically the same tank as I wanted, but pimped up a bit. In game I'll use it as a standard Alexander, but for a few pence more, I got the command cards to allow me to use the special character should I want to at any point.

The second joker I burned was on these:

They're actually for my daughter. North Star Miniatures have these listed as 'Young Fire Elementalists', but with a different paint job, and a switch from fire to ice, they seem to be a pretty good, totally accidental, representation of these two:

What an amazing coincidence...

Operation Unthinkable: Muskets & Tomahawks

Another month, another target met. I'm doing quite well with all this.

This month I set myself the target painting all of the Woodland Indians I'd originally bought to play Musket & Tomahawks, but later got co-opted into my perpetually stalled War of 1812 project. 20 Warriors, 2 Chiefs and 5 Villagers stood in my way.

At the beginning of the year, when I began Operation Unthinkable, I'd mentally earmarked these miniatures as destined for eBay, but the timely intervention of Dave, from the Spider Web of History blog, inspired me to save the tribe from this ignominious fate and get them done.

To celebrate this feat, I decided to do a little photo shoot of the tribe launching an attack on a small group of settlers in their farmstead. The settlers are putting up a fight, but are hopelessly outnumbered and regretting their decision to not bother with any fences (I need to make some of them). Their fate looks sealed.

I'm quite pleased with what I've done, and along with my settlers, I clearly have the makings of a scenario. However, what I don't have is an opponent for Muskets & Tomahawks. Matt has said he'd give it a go, but that would require him to add to his massive total of seven British infantry, whic have so far taken him four years.

What's more likely is that later in the year, I'll set myself the goal of painting up my War of 1812 Americans and use them for a couple of games.

I'm guessing that this qualifies for another Joker from 6MMRPC, but I've no plans to spend yet.

August is hopefully going to be a big month. As I'm not at work, I'm going to take the opportunity to take a chunk out of my Batman backlog (hereafter to be known at 'the Batlog'), which should include at least a dozen models, three buildings and numerous other pieces of scenery. As ever with the Batman stuff, nothing is being got rid of if I don't get it all done, but if I succeed, I might be burning a few of my Jokers restocking.

The Village People

No! Not those ones. Well, maybe the one in the middle...

With the summer holidays started, ive begun to pick up pace and I've managed to get my Native American villagers done.

Even more so than with the warriors, I've kept these simple as they'll ultimately enjoy even less table time. However, they'll make for a good objective in scenarios, and I might have a crack at making a lodge at some point (or even a wigwam as a kind of creative trolling :) ).

The miniatures are from Redoubt Enterprises and I'm torn about them. In the one hand they're quite characterful with nice details, on the other, the casting is really rough and ready. The woman grinding corn has a massive mould line down the centre of her face which I couldn't get rid of, and the children are quite flat miniatures. My settlers are Redoubt too and I've found quite a few miscasts amongst them. Redoubt are affordable, but a bit 'buyer beware'.

I've also done my chiefs.

Again, these are Perry and you can see the difference between them and the  villagers in terms of quality. I think I'll take a little flash removal over miscasts and oddly shaped heads.

The chief on the right is clearly based on Chief Joseph Brant, a famous Mohawk Chief during the French & Indian War and so I aimed to paint him in a similar way to the paintings I found of Brant.

The other Chief was done in colours of a vaguely French theme as I may end up splitting my warband to fight on different sides and I wanted an easy way to decide who was on which side. Yes, I'm aware that the French hadn't adopted the the tricolour at this point, but white would not make for an interesting model. I also figured that blue would work for the handful of natives who fought on the side of the United States in the War of 1812.

So that's all my Woodland Indians done (well, except for a baby in a crib, and a dog urinating against a tree), and now I have a couple of days to get them all based...

All of a quiver...

Another quick update on my progress with the Woodland Indians. Another six done; this time it's all the models with bows.

All six of these are from Perry Miniatures and the difference in detail and animation between these and the Crusader models I've mainly been painting is noticeable.

However, as ever with Perry figures, the additional detail also comes with significantly more flash and cleaning up required.

Nevertheless, better models are more enjoyable to paint and my spirits are higher than last week as now only have two chief models and half a dozen villagers to do before the end of the month. The villagers should be quicker due to the lack of weapons and war paint, so I might try to be a bit more ambitious with the chiefs.