Warhammer Campaign - retrospective

Over the last couple of months I've managed to fit a series of games in a light hearted Warhammer campaign.    This series has come to a close, but I'd like to reflect on what I've learnt and what this might mean next for my Warhammer interests.

I've been using (as you may figure from various previous posts on this blog) my Vampire Counts for this campaign and had some fun and mixed success with it.  The rules for the campaign was that we had to take a special characters of approx 500 points, plus 2000 points of regular army.  I toyed between Vlad and Mannfred and in the end went for the spell caster supreme over the melee master - I'll comment on how well this went in each game!  The special character was fixed throughout the series of games, potentially gaining bonuses or penalties depending on how well they performed.  The rest of the army would be changed as you wished from game to game, but if you stuck with a list, you could again potentially gain some bonuses - but also suffer casualties as hang overs from previous fights.

Game 1 vs. Tomb Kings

Ok so it wasn't quite as bad as this picture looks, but it felt like it!  I have to hold my hand up here and say that I've not played with more than 1500 points for a very long time, nor special characters so I was headed into this campaign with no real idea what to expect.  A few weeks prior to this game, I had played Pharoh Rob, resident Tomb Prince at 1500 points and done quite well so I foolishly felt confident and comfortable with what the dry cousins to my army could do.  How wrong was I.?

Turns out very.  Rob elected to take Settra as his general which with some clever positioning meant that all but one of his units was either using the massive WS7 Settra has, or WS5 from the Tomb Princes scattered about.  For a largely WS2 army this was a bit of a problem!  In addition, despite some really favourable charges, Settra and his chariots refused to die (even with multiple killing blows landing) and Mannfred's magic and melee efforts were somewhat lacking.  In the end between Settra and a Sphinx I failed to contain it all looked very grim by the end of the game.

Poor things never stood a chance

What did I learn?  2500 is very different to 1500.  My magic was more opposed/contained than I expected - my low level mages not really getting chance to cast in the face of a level 3 mage on the other side.  Also my many small units approach suffers without the magic tricks I'm used to pulling so I need to think about hordes more.  A reshuffle for match 2 then I think...

Game 2 vs. Bretonnians

Nice axe?

Before this game, I decide to lose some smaller units, make a horde out of my ghouls and skeleton spearmen and give my lesser Vampire a nice choppy axe.  Feeling these minor improvements were enough, onwards.

Another army I've not played in an age is Bretonnians.  Poor Dan suffered a barrage of questions before the game started as to what on earth his various knights did these days and how lance formation worked.  With this roughly worked out in my head I set up with various shenanigans planned for my spirit swarms, bats and so on to mess with the Knights movement.  Dan had 3 large Knight formations, a small questing knight line and King Louen - surely I could contain this!  Alas turn one Mannfred disappeared into a vortex of chaos having cast but a single spell (I can't even remember which).  Punching a huge hole in my plans to bolster my own forces and hinder the foe, I attempted to make the best of things and get ready for the inevitable charges.  Sadly my lesser Vampire failed to take control of my horde and very quickly my force was falling to bits.  My small units evaporated in the blink of an eye (have you ever looked at their leadership?  Its really, really bad) and even the Varghulf wasn't long for the world.  Long and painful combats developed across the board but fairly quickly I was losing far more undead than I could possibly replace with a lowly Vampire and necromancer.  In the end I lost my entire force, to around half the Knights (plus memorably the Hippogriff).  

What did I learn?  Quite honestly I'm not sure I could have done much more with losing my general like that.  Mannfred is key to my army's performance, with the campaign's focus on the special characters and the extra burden a Vampire general must carry so without him from such an early point it was only a matter of time.  Overall I was quite happy with how I did things given what I had, but it was like trying to hold grains of sand.

Game 3 vs. Empire

Feeling luck was against me last game, not my choices I stuck with exactly the same army list and moved on to a new foe.

I'll take em all on

Howard is fairly new to Warhammer and suffering a terrible losing streak at the moment.  With this being my first game against him I wasn't sure whether this meant if I lost I should hang my dice up for good or it was some sort of initiation ceremony.  I've played Empire a LOT over the last, ooo, 14 years but haven't faced the new book before.  Howard had opted largely for a gun line so I new it would be a magic vs shooting game.  Some early over committed cavalry from Howard saw some quick losses for him.  I tempted fate with my dire wolves to see what a hellblaster was like (and if I could fluke a misfire from it).  Turns out hellblasters got good again - I avoided it from then on.  Howard attempted to blast my ghouls from the table with pretty much every gun he could bring to bear and I countered with summoning spells at every turn.  In the end I destroyed his army utterly with only very minor losses (thanks for a blinding game from Mannfred this time).  

What did I learn?  When things go well with magic, my army hits like a landslide.  To be fair there wasn't a lot of elite melee troops in this army, the few knights I faced were hit by the sort of combined charge you only see as an example in a rule to explain how different unit types work...

Game 4 vs. Chaos Daemons

After the success against Empire, I stuck once again to the winning list and marched into a Storm of Chaos battle vs. Will.  My extra 500 points went towards a pair of dragons, a little one and its slightly larger cousin.

Rainbow warriors

So Daemon are, wait for it, an army I haven't faced in an age.  In fact I have never played them as their own army list, only as part of the oh-so-ancient Chaos army (which included beastmen, warriors of chaos and daemons in one huge, all powerful melting pot).  As you might expect, Will was faced with a deluge of questions as to what on earth was on the table, let alone what it did.  On top of this, although I had read the rules this was my first Storm of Magic game so I really didn't know what was going to happen.

Will had a Slannesh/Tzeentch army which with cataclysm spells topped out at 32 different cards - plus the Blue Scribes tricks to boot!  I managed a mere 23 (Mannfred bringing the lion's share) and wondered if we'd ever get our of the magic phase.

As it turned out, my Vampire counts were more than a match for the Daemons in close combat and the multiple monstrous threats I had at my disposal more than outclassed the magic advantage Will hoped to use.  The dragons burned, trampled and ate many a demon.  My ghouls obliterated flamers and horrors.  Even humble skeletons outfought demonettes (with some support from my new favourite thing in the game, Vargheists).  A convincing victory for me, especially once a dragon ate the Blue Scribes and Will couldn't regain a fulcrum or find a way to knock Mannfred or his apprentice necromancer of their own.

What did I learn?  Even in Storm of Magic you can have too many spells.  The monster/pact/magic item bonus points were key for me and next to useless for Will (he took some Vampires and Ghouls) so spending them wisely is important.  The fulcrums are at the end of the game, the only thing that matters, so big undead blocking units are great for this.

In summary.

An epic post there!  I'm learning a lot about Warhammer 8th at the moment, especially at the higher points values.  I'm looking forward to more games, but still a bit stuck as to how to beat the Tomb Kings with my current choices - I may have to look into mixing up my characters and considering the other new book additions.  I am keen to avoid too much power gaming so don't want to build death star units which means clever play and favourable match ups.  I just need to work out what they might be!

My final list was something like:

Mannfred Von Carstein
Vampire Count with Enchanted Shield and Ogre Blade
Necromancer (Level 2) with Master of the Dead

40 Skeletons with spears
20 Skeletons with spears
40 Ghouls
27 Grave Guard
20 Zombies
3 Vargheists
1 Varghulf
5 Dire Wolves
2 Fellbats
1 Spirit Swarm

Sci-fi Troopers from Heresy and Hasslefree

Been a few weeks last my last update, I've been very busy with holidays and other things - more on some of this next week.  For now, here's an update on my Rainbow (Grey) Knights as I've painted up a number of henchmen recently and another ABC warrior, enough to field a small force now and try them out with the 6th ed rules hopefully.

I really liked the idea of an inquisitor commandeering troops from all over the place as and when he needed them, especially if they were good at their job.  This was totally inspired by Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn and Ravenor series and offered my a really good opportunity to use figures from outside of GW's range.  Initially I was just going to supplement GW guardsmen and other henchmen with a few extras, but as time as gone on I have found so many excellent sci-fi figs out there, there's very little GW in my army yet and this may continue as there's been some amazing things  released I still don't have and think would be fun to paint and use.

There's a female trooper in this squad, can you spot her?

First port of call was Heresy.  Andy has made some really great sci-fi troopers that I've bulked out 2 squads of henchmen using.  The helmets really made me think of Halo so I've gone for Red vs Blue squads.

Follow me boys!

Painting these figures was pretty easy, they've been sculpted with this in mind I think!  To start with I painted the guns, boots and jump suits dark grey.  This was then washed with black ink (the new GW Nuln Oil is excellent with a couple of coats) to darken this down and the effect is good enough that no highlighting was required.  The boots get an extra couple of coats to really darken their colour.  After that its pouches, a mid brown with a brown wash over is good enough.  The armour plates are easy to pick out and each is a three stage (base, thick highlights, edging) process.  The visors are GW shining gold with GW Devlan mud to create the contrast.  The guns are based coated over the dark washed grey with GW codex grey to a mod grey and then edged with GW astronomicon grey.  Spot of GW blood red for laser sights and we're done.

Adding unique style to my squads

I am also a fan of Hasslefree miniatures and while I only have a few troopers from Kev (there are more you'll find) I do have plenty of his pulp, sci-fi and fantasy adventurers to use as other things in my army I'll hopefully show off in future.  These 4 ladies were actually from the Mantic special box set, I think one of them is exclusive to that set.  They were painted much the same as above, only these have skin! 

The lighter tones are GW tallarn flesh highlighted to GW elf flesh.  The darker tone was Coat d'arms Chestnut highlighted a blend of GW tallarn.

The final showcase this post is Joe Pineapples.  Another ABC warrior I've based very closely on the colours and art of Kev Walker.  Joe has looked different in many of the comics, the figure has all the details Kev added, but is posed based on Simon Bisley's work (see both pictures below).

Vindicare Assassin anyone?

My Joe is slightly converted to make his sniper rifle closer to the first art work pose and suggest the sniper role more obviously, using a spare Space Marine sniper rifle barrel I had.  Painting was a mixture of the techniques above for the leather jacket and a lot of blues and blending for the armour plates and goggles.  The base isn't quite finished and I may yet highlight the gun a bit more.

ABC, it's as easy as....

This week I found myself tidying up all sorts of bits and bobs hanging around on my hobby table.  They aren't all 100% finished (I've been a bit under the weather this week) but I wanted to get these guys up on my blog.

The now infamous bro fist image

I've been thinking about 40k allies a lot this week with the information leaking in from the 6th edition rules and then confirmation yesterday.  I've been toying with a Grey Knights army for a while now, but I was focusing on Inquisitors and henchmen, not space marines, in my plans.  These ally rules mean that I can get them on to the table sooner than I previously thought as I can bolster then with my Dark Angels or vice versa.

Here's the twist.  My army will mostly be made of non-GW figures.  Its going to be made of pop culture, geek culture and just generally cool figures.  Now this means I'll never set foot in GW with this force, but hey, I don't go in there to game generally anyway.  I'll hopefully revisit this army over and again in coming months as I add new figures to it, but lets start with what I did this week.

Spread the word

I've been a long time fan of 2000AD and really its no surprise that I was a big fan of the original Rogue Trader version of 40k, the settings, art work and indeed even the artists were all fairly interchangeable in the mid 80s.

The ABC warriors in particular got me started on this alternative Grey Knights force.  Foundry miniatures do a fair old range of 2000 AD figures so I've managed to collect all of the ABC warriors they've created (more on this below...).  The models I think are largely based on the characters as imagined by Kev Walker (seen above) - who also did the art for the original Dredd movie (in which Hammerstein cameos) and plenty of GW and Magic the Gathering art too.  I'm trying to paint my warriors in the same scheme he used.

Removing the metal base he was standing on was a pain

I've had Mek-Quake sitting on my desk for months barely base coated.  He's a fairly big 'bot and one of my favourite characters.  The miniature here has him in a fairly unusual shape (actually based on art in the Nemesis comic), he's more often in his 'kill dozer' body (he can swap his head onto other bodies you see).  Now a kill dozer version is a potential future project for me, especially seeing other people have done excellent versions.  Critically, the kill dozer body has the big screen on his chest where I can paint his catch phrase "Big Jobs" in an 80s digital font.

So here he is, in the blue-grey colour seen in Kev's art work.  I'm quite pleased with the result, just need to do the skull and shell cases and generally tidy the base.

I think it was worth it, the 40k round base is a nice finish

Now to keep Mek-Quake company on this post, I fetched my Hammerstein down.  He's been painted for at least 3 years, but recently re-based.  Painting this chap entirely in bronzes was not much fun, I think I would approach the project differently now but he doesn't look too bad, certainly resembles the art work and the film incarnation nicely.

Now he did he get his name then?

This figure really closely follows the art work in terms of the detail - the helmet damage is a fairly typical state to find him in for some reason, he's always getting it knocked off.

Just waiting for an opponent to start using chaos marines so I can paint this helmet

Now in terms of using these guys in game I'm leaning towards using them as dreadnoughts.  The scale shot below shows how big they are next to scale marine (poor guy).  Not quite a bulky as the walking coffin dreads, but certainly tall enough.  I quite like this idea because the ABC warriors spend a lot of time on Mars, which in 40k is the home of the Adeptus Mechanicus so they could be advanced dreads/bots perhaps?  Maybe they got a retro fit after some adepts found them in storage after 25,000 years or something.

They're right behind me aren't they?

Now the big burning hole in the Foundry range is my absolute favourite ABC warrior Mongrol.  A Frankenstein mix of different robot parts, the monstrous ape with the heart of gold is a great character and sadly missing an official figure.

The story seems to be that one was sculpted but the green was crushed during the mould making!  I've yet to find a version of this figure anyone's produced that does him justice.  It doesn't help that he's rarely drawn completely, certainly not till the recent Volgon wars series where, as awesome as he is, he both looks and acts quite differently to the classic character.

Mongrol SMUSH!

So I have decided to try and make my own version.  Now there's a more than one image showing Mongrol at a fairly epic size.  The key reference here for me was that he was able to subdue and hold Hammerstein using just his hands - that makes him huge!

Big hands, tiny legs

Now this version I have here is just a mock up to see the sort of scale I am working to and how his arms and legs could actually work.  The character in the comic often knuckles his way around a battle and the rare shots of his legs do seem to show them being really small compared to the rest of his giant physique.

Run!  He's hungry!

So can he subdue Hammerstein?   I hope from this shot you can see he most certainly can.  In terms of 40k Mongrol will be used as a Dreadknight.  This allows him to be both hard to kill and hit really hard as he's a monstrous creature rather than a vehicle, suitable representation I think.

I'm supposed to be inspired by this fallen statue?  Worked for Frodo you say?

I also quickly finished off a space marine ruined statue I had collecting dust on a shelf.  In 40k 6th edition various bits of scenery can have special rules, much like in WFB 8th.  An Imperial Statue is one of these special pieces so this was reason enough to give it a quick dry brush.  Needs some Martian grass and then its done.


Finally an update on the Spirited Away display piece I was working on for my Wife's birthday.  I've finished sculpting, painting and positioning all the characters now.  As well as No-Face, I've created some soot sprites (including one carrying a piece of coal) and also Boh (the baby) when he's been turned into mouse.  They are all mounted on a nice chunk of wood.  The wife is very pleased with the final piece.

3 little speckled frogs, sat on a speckled log... no wait!

40k 6th Edition and 1st Edition Marines

Well White Dwarf finally confirmed what everyone seemed to know anyway, 6th Edition of Warhammer 40,000 is due out - next week in fact.

So here's a look at the new rulebook.  Turns out its the picture that's been slowly building up on the spines of White Dwarf this year.  This edition is the turn of the Dark Angels to be the cover boy.  As the first legion, its been a long time coming frankly.

With this momentous event and the recent completion of a squad of marines that have been sitting 90% finished on my table for a while, its time for some 40k ramblings.

My first real army was Space Marines.  Like so many other people RTB01 was the start of this army but I hadn't picked a chapter.  I owned the Compendium and had randomly painted a squad in desert camo - it seemed in the Badab war this was allowed (apparently this is explained in the recent Forge World books).   

In White Dwarf 130 the Space Marine strike force was advertised and there were these really cool white marines.  From this point in I was collecting Dark Angels, specifically the first company "the Death Wing" - some of whom were lucky enough to wear terminator army.  Things have changed a lot since then, but on restarting 40k a few years ago I settled on Dark Angels again - but this time I'd do them green.

The completed squad, in Rogue Trader deployment formation

So then, my first proper 40k figures post on the blog and its a real nostalgia trip for me.  I noticed very quickly in the multi-part marine sets that you got a few Mark VI (beakie or womble) pieces. Unfortunately collecting a complete tactical squad of Mark VI marines was looking like I would need to wait a really long time, so I took care to assemble the pieces on the same figure, but didn't expect to get a complete squad.

The plastic half of the squad, plus resin missile launcher

Then last year Forge World started releasing resin early Marine Mark kits and I just had to get some.  They also released some classic weapon kits, so I was able to get the old cobra style missile launcher, a retro melta gun and even a low slung flamer.

The lanky combat squad

With some trades with my brother and spares from the Dark Angels veteran kit I was able to get 5 plastic Mk VI marines together which combined with the resin 5 gave me the complete 10.

Side detail, the lovely cobra missile launcher and retro Mk VI squad markings

Mark VI armour, as well as the beaky (or corvus) helmet, has one knobbly shoulder and one smooth.  This means the squad markings have to be combined on the right shoulder so a little bit of retro research was required to make sure I got this right.

Still not true scale

An interesting feature of the resin marines is that they are noticeably taller than the plastics.  I've tried to hide this a bit by using crouching legs, the missile launcher and the raised fist on the sergeant, but as you can see above there's a definite move to taller Adeptus Astartes from Forge World.

Ready for all eventualities

One thing I was keen to try and stick to with my new Dark Angels was "What you see is what you get" (or WYSIWYG) but I couldn't afford or spend the time to paint every option as a separate figure.  Instead I've been investing in magnets.  I'll post more experiments with these in future, but here you can see my special weapons approach.  Tiny round magnets in the fist of the marine and the gun means I can swap them around but they don't fall off mid game.  The only real sad thing is the low slung flamer requires the arms to be in a very different pose to hold it, so I didn't use them in the end.

Well that's done for now.  I'm getting quite interested in what 6 ed will bring.  It sounds like allies, new rapid fire rules and vehicle changes will really help my chosen play style.  The new mission objectives sound like they shake up the slightly stale approach currently being used and defined (and interesting!) scenery will help make my growing selection more entertaining to use.  More on this when I get the book.

Follow me!

...and my PC is back!  After a hard drive 'incident' I've been without computer since pretty much my last blog post.  Some updates will be on the way later in the week but a couple of exciting blog events have happened since my last post.

I have followers!  So thanks to FeldMarshal G, Tony Maher and Gartenzing to taking the bold move in admitting you've looked at this blog.

There's little doubt in my mind this momentous event occurred because I have been accepted into my first blog network - the House of Paincakes.  Thanks to John for letting me sneak in there - the big logo is now pride of place on the right of these very words.

Ghouls - lots of them

Its been a busy few weeks so I've neglected my blog a little.  Time to catch up with a bumper post.

Diary notes:

• A few weeks ago I introduced a number of my friends to Malifaux, the session went quite well with everyone at the least interested in the way the game played (which in contrast to Song of Blades and Heroes is saying something!).
• I've joined a Warhammer fantasy battle campaign with 7 other players.  Its a larger size (2500 points) than I have been used to so its kicked off lots of mini projects.

Right on to the main post then.  When 8th edition of Warhammer was released it led to a lot of experimenting with what worked on my existing forces.  A clear winner in my Vampire counts army was ghouls, at the time they were the same price as skeletons and far, far superior undead the new core rule set (hello poison and supporting attacks).

My 6th edition skirmishing(!) ghouls

I already had around 28 ghouls, of which only 8 or so were painted.  In previous editions ghouls worked differently every time an army book was released and were never especially effective so I hadn't been too keen on them.




In the 7th edition book at least they were a ranked unit and with the right choices, a vampire could increase the unit size so I had started to build up a good sized unit.  I wasn't a fan of the GW plastic ghouls (more on these shortly) so I looked around and got some of Mantic ghouls (see my previous post on these here including some painting ideas).  I also needed a Ghast to lead the unit so I found this huge beasty from Reaper to lead them.

Don't mess with the big guy

With my gaming group we started a 500 point 'tale of gamers' type series of games to allow people to start new armies and try out Warhammer.  500 points isn't an especially balanced size game, but it was small and fast.  I decided to build an all ghoul army as an add on to my standard force (especially as experiments with skeletons resulted in consistent losses!).

My brother had some very old metal ghouls lying around he wasn't too fond of - I think these are 4th edition as there were earlier incarnations of ghouls (the "night horror" range included at least 2 ghouls) which saw use in 3rd edition and earlier.  I do like to have as many generations of figures as I can in a unit, but these chaps are tiny and pricey on ebay so I'll relax my rule.  After some brush restorer dipping, these were returned to battle ready status in the now trademark purple skin tone.

Comical, but at least they rank up

Finally there's the GW ghouls.  I had bought 20 but only built 10 at this point.  These little @#%$ are not my favourite figures.  They don't rank up and generally look silly with the crazy over the top piercings and trophies.  They do however fill up my ranks and add some variety to the unit so needs must...

Not actually genestealers, honest.

This mob is lead by the Ghoul King from the top of the Terrorgeist.  It seems unlikely to me I'll mount the big bat beastie if I take it, instead using it as a rare choice.  This sorted my second Ghast model out for me.  The real question is, if I do take a Ghoul King on foot, do I use the Reaper giant or the leaping GW model?

So having completed 54 ghouls, including movement trays my ghouls were finished and all good for battle.  I had plans as we expanded beyond 500 points to increase the size of the units so bought some of the really excellent Heresy ghouls to add to the mix.  Then, the new Vampire Count army book arrived.

Great.  Ghouls now cost 2 points more each and can't be raised beyond their starting numbers.  They also cost twice as much as a skeleton.  So for a long time, the Ghouls sat shiny and ready for battle without leaving the shelf.

Now with this big campaign I'm playing in I am considering them seriously again.  If I take a large unit (40+) they may well work for me - an experiment with 30 didn't go too well in my first game, but their size wasn't the only factor in the problems they faced so I am willing to give them a few more tries.  They are also all painted so I want to use them!

I've also finished some more undead themed scenery.  I picked up some gravestones from Mantic (actually produced by Renedra who I think mold Mantic's plastics) and added them to the small pile of bits I had from GW skeleton and zombie sprues.  I still have more left over which I may make more scenery with, but I am also trying out some regimental basing (inspired by my brother and Rob Hawkins).

My unit of skeletons (about to be raised)

Kirai crew - part 1

Following on from last week, I'm going to walk through my Malifaux crew in a bit more detail.

I was introduced to Malifaux through a few sources.  My brother had an interest some time ago although we didn't get chance to play a game.  Then I saw a few posts about it on Frontline Gamer and was interested again after reading these.

I was finally convinced when a local hobby store ran a Malifaux introductory day.  A watched a few games play though and bought myself a small rulebook.

After getting a feel for what this was all about, I had to decide on how to start the game.  Malifaux is roughly split into 5 factions, each of these having at least some themes running across all the crews within so narrowing down to one of these was one option.  There was the pretty candy approach, pick the miniatures that appealed the most - this nearly did it for me.  Then there was the voice of reason, discussion with veterans of the game and some forum reading.  I was sorely tempted by 'The Dreamer' both the background and the models looked really good to me.  I was warned off as a starter crew they might be a bit much.





Instead, encouraged by my wife's choice and a recent viewing of 'Spirited Away' I chose Kirai and the Spirits of Vengeance.


The Japanese style of these figures plus the undead faction they belonged to gave me several things I could work with.  I didn't know a lot of the Malifaux background when I bought this box, so instead I started thinking of my own.

My crew would be lead by Kirai, who was acting a bit like Dorothy in Return to Oz in my vision of Malifaux.  Taking the role of Chihiro from Spirited Away, Kirai has returned to a spirit world she visited as a child.  This time where there were only occasional dark elements to the world, now the world of Spirited Away is very much a part of Malifaux.  Returning as an adult has seen Kirai again abandon her real name and is known as 'Sin' (rather than 'Sen' from the film) which also ties into Kirai's Malifaux background nicely it turns out.

Kirai and friend

Kirai has become a Master in the world of Malifaux, with the unique ability to bind spirits to her will.  More, she is driven to discover what has become of her protector from her first visit to the spirit world, Haku.  She has been unable to summon him fully to her side, instead only an animalistic, spirit, version of himself has answered her call.  Followed as ever by faithful soot sprites, Kirai dominates the will of other spirits in her quest to find Haku and woe betide any who get in her way!

My Kirai crew then are, where I can find a link, inspired by characters from the Spirited Away film.  In terms of the Kirai figure, I've more or less use the colour scheme from the official boxset, Chihiro wore a red dress in the film so this is fine.  She's standing on wooden boards, as will all the crew.  This represents the bath house that most of the film is set in.  Finally I replaced the decapitated head between her feet with a soot sprite.  While Kirai is certainly not shy when it comes to battle, I felt this was more in character!

Ikiryo, the dark(er) side of Kirai

Spooky head tilt in full operation

Kirai is a 'two part' master in Malifaux.  Able to summon her own dark spirit forth to enact her vengeance from afar, the Ikiryo is a nasty minion that can be unleashed time and again.  This miniature was a tricky one for me to both place in the background and paint.  In the end I decided it was a new character to the story and used a combination of the official colour scheme and one I have used on my warhammer banshees.  I'm reasonably happy with the end result.  There's no real tie to Spirited Away on this character, aside from the mandatory wooden boards.

The robes on these are really nice to paint

The Onryo are a couple of the bath house girls who in the world of Malifaux became drained spirits.  Kirai quickly bound these women to her will.

Again the official colour scheme was used here.  There's plenty of echos from the film in the red and white kimonos, and the jade is a nice third colour to add to the mix.  I do have a couple of soot sprites to add to the bases here, I didn't get chance before the tourney last week.  They are at least mounted on the wooden boards however.

Rar!

Probably the most popular character from Spirited Away is 'No Face'.  This harmless spirit is corrupted by the greed of others in the bath house and becomes a gluttonous monster of titanic proportions in a key moment of the film.

Lots of robes to paint in this crew

This is perfect for the 'Gaki' spirits that can form a wall of slavering monsters in a Kirai crew.  The more of these spirits you have, the hungrier they get - the rules a perfect match for No Face.  I've got a pair of these beasties currently but really I want 3 or more.  I am trying to sculpt one of my own to closely resemble No Face, my first attempt is a bit large for the in game rules however so I am still thinking that one over.

For now I have painted these in dark blues to sharply contrast the colours of the female spirits.  Their skin isn't black as No Face's is, but a dirty grey/brown.  If I do make No Face he will be in his true colours, but these are his lesser cousins.  Once again soot sprites and wooden boards link the crew to their bath house origins.

Finally, for this post, is my Haku figure.  Now in game terms, one of the best characters available to Kirai is the Shikome spirit.  This is actually a sort of Japanese version of a harpy/witch, but I have to admit I really, really dislike the official figure.  This problem was one of the key pieces in the background puzzle I created for myself.  The Shikome's role is that of a relentless hunter.  Fast, flying and very dangerous in melee I quickly thought of oriental dragons, which in terms of Spirited Away is the character Haku when not in human form.

A game winner and clear favourite figure for me

 I hunted the internet for oriental dragon figures and was really surprised and disappointed by what was available - very little.  I finally had some luck with Bushido releasing their Mizuchi figure, which I reviewed here.  I spent a lot of time painting this chap and I am quite pleased with it.   As it represents an older incarnation of Haku, some of his colours are deeper, he's hairier and has longer horns.  His base is decorated with a small paper figure, one of the minions that pursues him during the film.

There's more figures in the crew, but they are not quite complete.  I also have plans to slowly expand Kirai's minions to cover the options that seem to fit the theme, so future posts will cover these.