Time Travelling adventurers from Heresy

Wow, my post last week is now the most visited page on my blog - thanks to everyone who shared it and my new subscribers.  I do have a competition on the way, the prizes are now almost ready so please do subscribe to get a chance at winning!  On to the new stuff...

I've been sitting on this post for a little while as these figures were done as birthday presents for big Dr Who fans I know.  Now they are happily with their new owners I can share them.

Heresy Miniatures do a wide range of figures for a variety of genres and there's a few of the sci-fi range that with a bit research could be painted up to resemble certain pop culture icons.  I selected Dr Hugh and a Sharclon officer as suitable figures.

So here's Dr Hugh, complete with red sneakers.  Very pleased with this chap, looks better in real life but my ongoing battle with my camera aside hopefully you can see how this chap looks.  I've noticed that these photos are at the stage where I hadn't quite finished the base, but you get the idea.

Detail from behind.  A nice coat he has on, quite a lot of surface to play with if you like that sort of thing when painting.

This stout little chap is the Sharclon.  I'm really happy with the paint job on this and the sculpt itself is a masterpiece in all the right detail in the right places, the face is wonderful and you get a selection in the pack, including a helmeted version if you prefer that.

Based to roughly match Dr Hugh, these two figures have ended up in the same household after a couple of birthdays - so now they can face off or band together as the wibbly-wobbly timelines play out!

Unexpected Agendas Tournament

After an exciting and fun filled day, here's my write up of the Unexpected Agendas tournament that ran on 02/03/2013 at the 7th Heaven Games Shop.

The tournament was based on encounter driven multi player games, which mean each table had a strong theme.  So on a busy Friday night of roleplaying, I snuck into the shop to set up the tables the night before with Rob's help.

Seamus's evil plans are on display for all to see on the Badlands table - here the Irish madman is going on a killing spree near the dead zone while the Von Schill crew toy with the other half of Sonnia's embattled crew.

From top to bottom, left to right we have the graveyard, the Badlands (actually from a game in progress- thanks to Bryan for his scenery here), the street of Malifaux and the bayou (with some excellent trees made by Will) .  

With the tables all set, I thought I was all ready for a busy day of running the tournament.  What I had forgotten was the Rob was getting all the agendas (much like schemes in a normal game) printed and I would need to get this cut out before the players arrived.  As our first contenders arrived I presented them with sheets of card and scissors and everyone got involved with the Blue Peter spirit!  This meant I didn't get photos of everyone's crews, which I apologise for.

Eventually we had 13 players with all the cards they needed and 4 great looking tables to battle over.

Here's an in progress shot from the first round battling over the graveyard.  The gremlins have found the real Necronomicon and are running away from Kaeris on the warpath with her pet bipedal stream train!  Lucius wants in on the action too so is frantically ordering his special forces into the mix.

Here's a Ronin reinforcement that Matthew hired into his Seamus crew during a game where he was the underdog.  Its a turtle fantasy football figure from Greebo's upcoming Nippo Goblin range (I got it early from an Indiegogo project).  Next to Leonardo is Bryan's hand from late in the second round - it looked like his Viktorias were about to unleash hell with cards like that!

Here's a battle unfolding on the Mailfaux table, with the Ortegas attempting to sneak into the creepy haunted house early before anyone notices!  Big demons have descended upon Ramos while the Viktorias are eyeing up the shape of the fighting and waiting for the right moment to break cover.

 

A couple of Andy's new recruits to his guild crew.  The Austringer is a homage to Richard O'Brian I'm told.  The cards and spell picture next to them is Leviticus casting unnatural wasting on Lillith for a staggering duel total of 30 - she was down 5 wounds after this, only to be punched in the face by Rusty Alice - who would have thought?

A furious rumble in the bayou is unfolding - the Silurids enjoying the watery scenery.  Leviticus is spreading out looking for scrap in ponds while Kaeris lines up some devastating fire-power.

 

I managed to snap a few crews on the day - here's Will's Kaeris in situ on the bayou board.  They are all mounted on metal grills over furnace like bases.

Here's Dan's Lillith crew.  Great use of Heresy's demon here as an alternative mature Nephilim.  Dan won the Sportsmanship award on the day, so well done!

Here's Karl's Ramos crew which won the best painting award.  My photo really doesn't do them justice - combination of bad lighting and a bit too much reflection.  There's some lovely subtle colours and highlighting on these figures and the crew look great together on the table.  There were some really nice crews in play on the day (see Bryan's here on his own blog) so Karl did well to come top.

So who won in the end?

3rd Place went to Louis with his Marcus crew - you can see him in action on the Bayou board above using his dratted frog men to great effect.

2nd Place went to Matthew with his Seamus crew.  Clearly his evil plans worked pretty well.

1st Place went to Mark with his Kaeris crew, which I really must get a shot of!  Mark was great fun to play against, scoring well in the sportsmanship award and he was certainly a contender for painting too.  However it was with an eye on the prize that Mark ruthlessly hunted down his agendas (note the Steam Golem bashing  his way though gremlins in the graveyard shot above) - to the point of even shooting Kaeris in the back with one of his own models to ensure he spent all of his soulstones in one turn to achieve a personal agenda item - that saw him ultimately victorious.  He didn't quite demolish the entire creepy structure in round 2, but it was close and he did manage to land mine about 50% of the figures on the table in one turn as well.

So that's all done and dusted for this month, but I am pleased to report many players were very keen for more, so I'll be planning something for April.  Any excuse to wear a cowboy hat and carry a nerf gun around all day...

Space Marin- erm, Interstellar Commandos?

In a week where GW made the news in a way they probably aren't too pleased about, I'm posting about my Grey Knights army that doesn't have any Space Marines, hopefully avoiding any legal issues.

Sci-Fi Troopers from Mantic and some 40k action

Some weeks a lot of projects come together all at once - its one of those this post.  I've been playing some bits of the new edition of 40k and with so many space marine armies around in our local group I was keen to bring something not in powered armour to the table.  As I've posted previously I'm collecting a Grey Knights army based around Inquisition troops and various other sci-fi miniatures I am interested in.

Very recently I got a copy of Mantic's Project Pandora as I was keen to try the game as I had heard good things from Frontline Gamer and the designer himself.  My ulterior motive was to get some of Mantic's Corporation figures to see if they would be another good source of troopers for my slowly growing force.

The Status Quo guitar swing in full motion

So what do I make of these guys?  They are roughly the right size to go with my Heresy and Hasslefree troops, although somewhat more spindly (possibly more realistic but less fun!).  The figures come with very limited options - a few alternate heads and a few special weapons (which I elected not to use).  Not the end of the world in my experience, but even the repeated 3 fixed pose bodies are very similar meaning the overall look of the squad is very repetitive.

My favourite kind of trooper, one with no face

The figures arrived already removed from sprues so I'm not quite sure whether what comes in the game box is the same as what's in the squad box if you buy them separately.  I also discovered the plastic is somewhat different to the previous plastic Mantic used, superglue being a better choice with this stuff than liquid poly.

The guns I found really hard to paint for some reason, especially given the industrial polymer (or 'grey') look I am using on my guys.  They also look slightly bent to me - see the blue dude above.

One of these things is not like the others...

Like the rest of the troopers so far, I'm continuing the red and blue squad split.  I was originally planning to make each squad a different colour, but this limits the intermixing I can do - especially as I don't know what figures I will eventually put in the army overall.  Inquisition henchmen squads have a lot of options.

The powerfist equivalent thingy is pretty nice actually

Overall I didn't much enjoy painting this squad, the model's details are quite shallow which means most of the detail is sort of hinted at rather than nicely raised and accessible to paint - especially for rank and file troops (potentially as cheap as 3 points each) I'm not willing to spend a lot of time teasing out subtle details!  The guys do fit into the rest of my troopers reasonably well, especially when mixed in.  I don't think I'll be getting any more of these to increase my army size and I fear these chaps will long be the first casualties from a squad (which in the new rules means putting them in front...)

So moving on, and to prove I'm not unfairly judging these guys, its time to show off some other figures from my growing force.  I'm still experimenting with the best way to get photos of my figs (I will give up and get a lightbox at some point) so excuse the spam here!

First up and key to the selections I am making is Inquisitor Coteaz.  By taking this dude as my HQ I get to take henchmen as troops rather than elites, allowing me up to 6 squads!

This is the first Finecast figure I got from GW and despite a few issues (I had to sculpt a new finger, fix a toecap and a few bubbles) the detail is exceptional on this thing.  I've since varnished it, but for the first few games he was unprotected and no paint rubbed away so the material seems to be pretty good if you can get a good casting.  My Mannfred Von Carstein on foot is story for another day...

In contrast to my issues with the Mantic guys, this figure was sculpted to be painted.  Despite the density of the detail in places I had no trouble going to town on him and am very pleased with the final result.  I also changed the skin tone as a nice reference to Samuel L. Jackson in Star Wars - you'll notice the hammer has a purple (s)haft.

Next up is another Hasslefree figure, the Smudgester.  Despite being tiny (that's a 25mm base he's on) he's full of character and perfect for use as a Jokaero in my henchmen.  I quite like the orang-outangs of 40k but this guy is even cooler if you ask me.  He also reminds me a man-hound character from the Ravenor series of novels called Fyflank - we'll come back to his owner in future.  The Jokaero are also quite small and have some unique abilities in game, the key one illustrated by this figure is being able to fire one of a variety of very heavy weapons each turn so I am very happy with this proxy.  I've named him Frank in reference to Men In Black's little alien talking Pug dog.

Next up are a couple more ABC warriors (from Foundry) - I'm getting close to having them all done now.  This is Deadlock who despite being generally a nice model has a pretty awful sword blade - I might replace it at some point.  So aside from being armed with a spatula like weapon this is another figure I like a lot with a lot of cape to go to town painting.  In game so far I've used him as a lone Paladin - yes I've actually got a Grey Knight (proxy) in my Grey Knight army, don't worry there wont be many!  Turns out having a unit of one is quite a lot of fun and the rules aren't a bad match for Deadlock's character.

Here's Ro-Jaws.  He's a toilet cleaning bot in the stories, so I use him as a servitor, it sort of fits.  I've upgraded the heating unit in his head to a multi-melta so he can do more than just fling poop at my opponent.

Finally (usually for me) some sneak previews of future bits for this force.

First up is a Knight Paladin figure.  Based on a design a friend of mine came up with using pieces from all sorts of GW kits, this huge figure (that's a Dreadnought base) is a reference to the Epic games of yesteryear. I've decided to use this as a Dreadknight - if I ever get my Mongrol built I'll have 2 then!

To finish here's my first Chimera proxy.  Its a land train/ bull dozer thing from Ramshackle games. This was a bit of a pain to build but it looks great (and check out the prices) so I may just get several more when they reopen their store.  They are roughly the right size and again fit in with another character theme I am working towards in this force.

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.

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)