The Walking Dead - Andrea Complete!

Hey internet people!

So on Saturday I managed to paint my first survivor for the Walking Dead miniatures game, and I'm very very very happy with how she turned out, especially for the time I spent.

I knew since the game arrived that this model would be the first survivor I'd paint. Andrea was my absolute favorite character from the comic (who was given a disservice in the television series, yet her character was still enjoyable). She was a person who didn't want to be a victim and took training into her own hands, and managed to become one of the most reliable soldiers of the group and the best shot.

It didn't hurt that she had the best sculpt of the game in my opinion. Very rarely do we see sculpts of characters squared up for shooting. There's a possibility of this pose being a difficult sculpt or something, or perhaps it's not a dynamic pose, but I find myself wanting to see more of this in miniatures. It's also great to see a female character not cheesed up with skimpy outfits or over-emphasized body shapes. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy these models, but they permeate every game I have or look at and we need less emphasis on games overall. I like a good cheesy model, especially in anime based games, but it's not needed everywhere, and in this game it would betray the character anyway.

So I started out with my mantra in mind (get it table ready) but wanted to spend a little more effort on the survivors as they are the stars of the show. With this in mind I thought of quick techniques to utilize that still look professional - smooth textures for the shirt and leather, but drybrush for the jeans for speed. Lighter washes throughout the clothing to give smoothness and speed.

So with a light grey basecoat I sprayed 50/50 VGA Wolf Grey/VGA Shadow Grey for a lighter blue gray base. I then zenithal sprayed Wolf Grey then a light spray of Wolf Grey/White for the final highlights. I took SWM Storm Cloud Wash, which is a close color to the blue greys of Shadow and Wolf, mixed it with a few drops of GW Lahmian Medium to give more matte to the finish while keeping the wash viscosity properties, and a drop or two of water to make it more runny. I took this wash and heavily washed the shirt to tone down the white/lightness and provide soft shading throughout. Secret Weapon washes are excellent for this, as they're one of the only companies I know of that make light toned washes. They even have one that is a bright yellow green called Fallout. Having light washes is a good way to shade really bright tones and maintain its lightness, and most companies make very dark washes because it works most of the time.

With the jeans I based it with a few layers of GW Shadow for a solid opaque coating. I heavily washed with GW Nuln Oil, then drybrushed with GW Shadow and GW Space Wolf Grey (forgot the new name of this) to build up the highlights lightly and create that rough texture. Drybrushing has been a nice relief of a technique to use lately. Although I don't like the messiness of it (I like a lot of control for my blends) it's been nice to accept it as a valid technique for speed.

I used my usual Vallejo/Angel Giraldez recipe for the red leather on her straps and boots. For the hair I based with VGC Goldbrown, washed with GW Agrax Earthshade, and highlighted with VGC Goldbrown mixed with successive additions of VMC Dark Sand. I think I successfully reenacted Andrea's dirty blonde hair!

I was really proud of her eyes, as I tried a different technique for painting them. I'm getting much more accurate with these, although it is a frustrating element of painting. It's one of those details that is just so annoying to do, and I always have to redo eyes for every model which risks parts of the paint drying thicker in different areas and affecting the dot of the eye's application. But when you get this right it unlocks a higher level in your miniature and draws the attention to the face even more.

Of course, I had to include a picture of playing around with my toys!

Pretty soon I'll have a demo set up fully painted! I'm concentrating on getting two crews of equal level survivors painted, which means I have to figure out what combinations are good for demoing the game first. I am not much of a fan of having Rick/Carl going against the generic scavenger gang, as it doesn't inspire much enthusiasm in me. I was thinking of having Rick/Carl go against Andrea and her sister as an even match, and maybe including one more beater on each side. Fans of the Walking Dead may not like Andrea going against Rick, but I think they are better models to display the game's range - Rick and Andrea both reflect strong characters with support models like Carl & her sister Amy that need protection give the leaders some synergy.

Anyway, let me know what you think! See you next time.

The Walking Dead WIP & Other Stuff...

Paints... Paaaaaaaaaaaaints...

Howdy folks!

Long time no post, as usual!

So I did quite a bit of hobby stuff recently and thought a good update was in order.

First up: my Novus building that you may recall from waaaay back in the day.

I took entirely too long to actually slap paint on this bad boy

I kept it simple like the other building. I under coated it with blank, then highlighted VGA Cold Grey and VMA Light Grey, then came back over with VMA Scarlet Red, an excellent vibrant red. Lastly I painted the interior walls with VMA Khaki or something. I still have work to do on it, like paint the debris and machines, but I've held myself to my 2018 mantra:

Get your crap at least table ready.

The flood in Houston forced me to consolidate all my hobby stuff and move them around the house, which when all piled together really became overwhelming when seeing all the stuff I have, and how none of it is completely painted.

So I'm going to try to get things at least presentable when I can, meaning actually painting rather than just thinking of painting. An hour here, and hour there, it all adds up and gets crap done.

So when I saw this building again I decided that's what I'll do, starting with this building, and did it.

Which transitioned into the next project:

The Walking Dead: All Out War Miniatures Game

I Kickstarted this game a while back, and even though I was hesitant when it first came out by the end of the campaign I was really excited to back it and get it on the table. When it arrived I played a few solo games but nothing serious, I mostly used the cars for terrain for other games and even the supply token pieces. I never really tried to get it on the table for our regular gaming group, though, as we usually played Malifaux and it just collected dust.

Recently, though, one of our regulars expressed interest in other games as Malifaux is starting to feel tired - this will happen when it's what your main game is (in our group) and it's played multiple times a week since 2013, which is when at least I joined the group so it's even longer for this player. When I thought about my catalog of games that might be interesting to introduce during this opportunity I brushed by my copy of TWD and figured why not.

I got really motivated to get this table ready and started on two of the walkers:

These were my test models for quick-painting concepts. I figured I'd rely heavily on washes and drybrushing (I hardly drybrush ever, so this shows that I really want to get these done lol) and came up with a recipe/paint order that may very well get the job done, and it's similar to how I painted my old horde Vampire army in Warhammer Fantasy.

For the skin, it's 50/50 VMA IDF Green/VGC Dead Flesh airbrushed on, then zenithal with VGC Dead Flesh, then a heavy wash of SWM Stone wash, then a drybrush of VGC Dead Flesh and a bit of white, followed by a spot wash of GW Green for shading and tone. A few dashes of GW Blood stuff adds contrast to the overall green tone.

For any other elements like clothing I just base, wash, drybrush, repeat as needed. As I said, really trying to get this done fast and not get held up on details like I normally do, and I feel like this recipe is a good balance between speed and aesthetics.

While I painted those I got started on the trucks that come with the game (for the KS version). I knew I wanted a red and a blue truck, as my wife used to own a cool red Chevy and when we first met we drove around in her blue Chevy, so I undercoated one with Black/Cold Grey/Light Grey then hit it with Scarlet Red like the Novus building. Then I washed it with GW Agrax Earthshade for quick weathering and did a few other elements like the windows.

Where it's at so far, these walkers are a breeze and fun to paint

The vehicles aren't done fully, as I need to pick out elements like the grill and hubcaps, and weather it even further with stippling and paint chipping, but as I said earlier - just get my crap table ready, so I did.

Speaking of table ready:

I couldn't help myself! I recently bought a Walking Dead mouse pad mat from our FLGS in anticipation of my recent motivation to get TWD table ready. So I plopped on some Battle Systems terrain, a few trees, etc. and before you know it I've got a pretty sweet table ready to rock this game! With its small model count I may actually get a game fully painted and ready for demos!

I have to admit I really like the small table size and model count, but when you have about 10 or so zombies on this set up you can see exactly the claustrophobia that this game meant to induce in players! It's going to be fun and intense.

And as a side project:

I started and almost completed Rosamu from the board game Yashima. I've always liked this game and its miniatures, and thought it could double as a model in A Fistful of Kung Fu. I painted it mostly by brush, so it felt like painting with one hand tied behind me as I've heavily airbrushed for the last few years, but it's nice to get back to your roots - I just shouldn't have done so after picking orange and yellow as my colors, because man I forgot how tedious and painful those colors are when painting by hand! The difficulty and disappointment actually led me to stop painting this guy for now, but - and this is my new mantra - he's table ready!

That's it for now, I'll keep in touch when I can!

Blood Bowl Commission

Holy crap, two months?!

What the heck, man...

So why the long absence? Well, firstly I got a promotion at work and with that came lots of training and more responsibilities, so this obviously came into conflict with extracurricular stuff like hobbies. Also, because I was working on the commission, I stopped any projects that were personal to ensure it got done, so it became a standstill for my own work.

Although once I got done with that stuff I was out of the groove in terms of upkeep for the blog. Now that I've gathered my wits I'll make sure to get this back up and running regularly.

So with that I present the completed commission:

(So it turned out really grainy and looked much better on my phone/computer, but in the future I'd be using a camcorder and not a phone!)

This video was slapped together haphazardly, so it's not really a reflection of what I'd want to eventually do with the hobby in regards to making videos. I just thought it would be cool to try out, and I did so immediately after getting the painting done so I was extremely tired. Anyway, thought you'd enjoy it!

So what about pics?

Here's the Ork team in all its completed glory. As stated earlier I was tired, it was around 1AM on a worknight, and I couldn't find my usual camera to take photos of the job. I had to use my phone, which doesn't have a white balance option and doesn't take macro photos, so bear with me with the yellow pics.

Like I said, they're really yellow...

Initially these guys were a lot more vibrant, but due to the matte varnish it knocked the oranges down a lot and made them more muted. It did a great job blending the decals into the paint job though, and it's crucial when working with decals to have a painted-on look.

Although this guy was my test model for the Orks it shows a bit more on its vibrancy, although I had others that looked better.

The team on the field...

Now for the humans, the Reikland Reavers!

These guys turned out way better than I anticipated, and turned out to be one of my favorite paint jobs! It was a breath of fresh air painting these guys after the Orks, they have more unanimous shapes for the armor plating and the blue turned out spectacular. I had also finally worked out an effective assembly line schedule for painting and got them done much faster than I had with the Orks.

I have a ton of WIP photos for both teams, but figured it's not a crucial item to display.

I learned a ton from this commission! I finally figured out how to paint black in a way I'm satisfied with, as it's a color I struggled with much like brown a few years back. I couldn't figure out how to highlight the color without making it look too much like the highlight being the main color, for this instance grey. I also learned how to do a very vibrant blue. And although I've done green skin numerous times this is my first foray into blending it smoother, and I learned to love the new GW Glaze line they offer (it's amazing for glazing!). The most important thing I learned though was organization and learning how to effectively paint in an assembly line, since I hadn't done that since around 2007. I really prefer painting one model at a time, though, as I tend to sacrifice a tiny bit of quality for quantity.

Let me know what you think, and if you have any questions on paint recipes I'll be happy to share them! For the next update I'll post on my last two Malifaux tournaments along with a few items I've learned from them, as well as progress regarding Parker Barrows in my recent experiments!

10,000 Views! 100 Posts! Terrain! Frostgrave! Words! Emotions!

MERCS Shantyville

First off, this blog has finally hit 10,000 views! Thanks to everyone who stops by for a hobby fix. I know there are blogs out there who hit this probably monthly, but it's still a pretty cool milestone for a little ol' gamer like me. This is also my 100th post. This blog has always been something I did to simply track my hobby progress, it's an added bonus to hit achievements like this.

Anyway, lots of progress in terms of terrain. First off my buddy Mike and I had a hobby build day on Saturday. With his extensive know how and my good looks/charm we managed to get this thing built:

So much awesome...

Now when I say "we" I mean almost entirely "he," as this is his forte and I have little to no experience working with wood. We had been discussing doing something of a build last week and the topic of folding boards came up. A folding board is something I've wanted for about five years, ever since I first read about a build in the Privateer Press forums. I can't find the original link, but below is a picture of it:

I don't know who made it, but it's pretty spectacular

In that example he made the fold pretty seamless. The entire board is made up of Hirst Arts molds, which made it extremely heavy. It is semi-bare with more or less cosmetic elevation changes to add interest, but a Warmachine table is generally pretty void of terrain by necessity.

Not having much experience with wood working has kept my grand plans at bay, but Mike volunteered to put his knowledge to work. On Saturday we got a few materials and he went to town on the dead trees.

He had kept this idea as a prototype for future folding tables, trying to see if there were any snags or problems he'd come across. It seemed to go pretty smoothly and he had it done in about 4 hours time, which included going to buy materials and me distracting him as much as possible.

This thing turned out pretty sweet and is pretty heavy, which is something that comes with the territory. It's super strong, and I have no worries about carrying it around and falling apart or anything.

We made a 3x3 board, which is a good size to have as it's the most common size for the games we play. Also keeping it 3x3 lowers the weight to a minimum, as this thing is pretty heavy as it is and can take up the whole back seat of my car. It shouldn't have a problem for my trunk, though, I just have too many items in there to store this in right now.

I plan on making a Frostgrave inspired board with this and I am super excited. I'm picturing a frozen dockside city, complete with several elevations and resin water effects. I've spent a long time thinking about what I'd build on a folding table and I used to almost always picture a canal city, inspired by Carnevale boards (that game has such a cool aesthetic!), and a frozen version of that seems appropriate. It's most likely going to be composed mostly of pink insulation foam for all the layers and to keep it light. I also plan on using paint rather than flock for the snow effects. This keeps is much less messy and shouldn't rub off as much. Using an airbrush for snow drift effects and stippling on white should do the trick, and if need be I can add some extra stuff. If I can find an appropriate model it would be cool to have a sunken boat frozen in the water as well. This board can work for Frostgrave, Malifaux, and any other Fantasy based game or RPG easily so it works well as a prototype. Also shaping and sculpting stonework with pink foam is very easy so it keeps the barrier low on building skills.

Also I spent a bit of time punching out more cardboard from my Battle Systems Kickstarter and made another building. I quickly set up a MERCS table using the Shanty Town bits on my 2x3 mat from the Terminator game.

I'm still pretty over the moon about this terrain set. It works so well on so many levels - I quickly put this together with no real idea of what I wanted to make, I'd just put walls and stuff together bit by bit.

Also notice the Tail Feathers board game in the background, just got that one last week!

This stuff easily fills up a MERCS board, maybe a bit much for some but I don't see how it can cause much of a problem in a game. A few things here and there would make it more playable, like eliminating the railings in a few spots, but overall it's playable as it is.

I just love the visual interest it provides, not to mention this all packs away very quickly and is the opposite of heavy. I know that this is one of those things that should you see being played will instantly draw your attention. Terrain like this is what got me interested in the hobby in the first place, as to me the hobby has always been visuals above all other aspects. 

Another thing I had done over the weekend was get my Frostgrave warband together to figure out what I'd need to paint to finish it. I haven't seen some of these models in years as I had painted them over 6-7 years ago. They are still pretty interesting to look at and it's always stimulating to take a glance back and see how you've improved on painting over time. I've figured out that I only have to paint the apprentice and a warhound to have a finished warband, so one day I'll need to get to it. We have four or five players getting ready to jump in on this campaign, it's going to be a fun ride!

Anyway that's what I've been up to, until next time keep calm and paint on!

Malifaux Tournament 3/19/16, WIPs, Relic Knights

Howdy folks!

So I hadn't done much the last few weeks in regards to painting, but I have been trying. On Saturday I attended another local Malifaux tournament, but I hadn't planned on going originally so I didn't prepare mentally like I usually do. This was especially daunting as I was using a new list, including Ashes and Dust, and didn't know how the interactions would go in a real world environment. The list was as follows:

• Leveticus
• Desolate Soul
• Pariah of Iron
• To the Earth Return
• Hollow Waif x2
• Ashes and Dust
• Scramble
• Mechanical Rider
• Oath Keeper
• Freikorps Trapper
• Freikorpsmann
• Hodgepodge Effigy

I do want to note that I preferred to swap the Freikorpsmann for a Necropunk, however I did not have the model in time. I made the swap as it was equal in points and he can technically run schemes, but not nearly as well as the Necropunk can.

A pick of 3/4 tables, the one at the end that's hard to see was my favorite

A pic of all the players, including some weirdo in the white shirt

So knowing that I'd be playing this list for the fist time I didn't feel too much pressure to do well, although as always I still want to win and will try my hardest. I also decided to try going Mono-Master throughout the whole tournament and used the exact same list all three games.

Round 1 against Rasputina

So my first round was against Doug's Rasputina crew, a crew he's very familiar with. I loved the table set up, it was very balanced and interesting. The PlastCraft Post-Apocalyptic terrain looked really good, and that was one of the sets I was least impressed with when the pictures came out. I never thought I'd ever want the set, but after seeing it in person it made me think twice, although I have one of the Malifaux Swamp buildings (the big one) and it turned me completely off the line when I tried building it twice.

The deployment was standard and the strategy was Interference, perfect for this version of Leveticus. I saw that the terrain wasn't too compromising on LOS and cover for Leve either. He deployed first and put almost everything in one corner while Miranda and a Wendigo were at the opposite side. I deployed in three areas, the right had Ashes and a Waif, the middle had the Trapper and the Freikorpsmann, the left side had the Mech Rider, Waif and Leve toward the center. I figured Ashes could deal with the right easily enough on his own, the Trapper can lend a hand if I held his activation off until he pops into LOS, and worst case scenario Leve can pop out for next turn there. The middle was going to be left alone, as I didn't want to lose models for the strategy if within 6" of the center, but if a scheme marker could be placed there early on it could bait some models to come into the center to deny the scheme, and if they don't then that's a good placement for Convict Labor. The left was where I thought the bulk of the action was going to take place as the Ice Golem, Silent One, Snow Storm, Ice Gamin, and Rasputina were all there.

Overall the game went very smooth for me, as I got to set the tempo early on and made him reactionary from the get go. I picked Convict Labor and Covert Breakthrough (I think), while he had Leave Your Mark and a Quick Murder - all hidden of course. At the start of turn one I moved my Freikorpsmann out early to bait a lot of his attacks to him rather than anything else, as I didn't really need him to run schemes necessarily. I made it where it was just out of range where it required additional moves on his part for Rasputina to attack him. He moved his Ice Golem in range to do so but failed to kill the Freikorpsmann by one wound. With him in range I got one shot from Leve off on him taking him down by half wounds, setting it up for a kill next turn. I've found it's really hard for Leve to get 2 shots off on first turn, so knocking a big model down is a good alternative if you can get the range. On the other end he moved his Wendigo into LOS for the Trapper - which he didn't notice was there - and got shot down to low wounds. Ashes and Dust then charged it for the kill and managed to poop out an Abomination, who just went forward to try and tie up Miranda. Miranda killed the A-bomb and the Mech rider just walked up the other side to anchor.

Over the next few turns it pretty much went my way, I systematically killed everything and all that was left was Snow Storm, Ice Gamin  and Rasputina. I lost two Waifs and a few others along the way due to Miranda's sneakiness and stuff, I also accidentally moved the Trapper in the 6" bubble but luckily it didn't help or hurt. I also lost Leve for the first time at the end, due to my dumb assumption that my anchor didn't have to be in LOS. Luckily it didn't change anything. I ended up winning 7-3 (I think, I don't have my notes with me).

The next round I played Travis and his absolutely disgusting Colette crew. We played on a beautiful table that was not very functional. I actually gave up deploying second just to make sure I wasn't on the worse side, although it didn't help me much.

There was so much hard cover on this thing I couldn't get a shot in, and LOS was tricky at best. Not only that it was Corner Deployment and Squatter's Rights, a terrible combination. Well, not only that, the scheme pool was awful. And Travis is a Beast. It was clearly stacked against me, and the game was an exercise of my flailing about and dying miserably. Situations like Cassandra locking me in melee with Southern Hospitality on her was cruel. It was the first game I ever used Leve's melee option, and it proved why I avoided it. 

Every time I play him I beat myself in my mind, I've got to stop going into a game feeling like I've already lost and making a self fulfilling prophecy. I lost 10-3.

The third round I felt pretty flustered, as we only had 90 minute rounds and absolutely no time between rounds for some reason. We played on a really cool table with PlastCraft's wild west buildings, and I thought the set up was very fair and balanced. I ended up playing against Jack Daw with a pretty standard build using Lady Legaia, Montressor, 3 crooked men and a Hanged. If I had given it a moment's pause in hindsight I think I should have gone with the Viks on this one. For one they have a good matchup against Outcasts, so even though I knew he'd play Jack Daw the Viks can handle most of the Masters in Outcasts. The Viks don't care about Jack's negative twists at all, and with all the LOS blocking from the buildings they wouldn't have to worry much about shooting, at which they'd most likely shoot Hannah who I use just to take that. Not only that, there's no difficult terrain between the buildings, making it perfect for them.

I did tell myself to try out a Mono-Master though so I stuck to my guns anyhow. There were ups and downs for this game, Leveticus hardly got to do anything since due to the LOS lanes everything got Hard Cover against him, which is his bane really. Not only that (I'm saying that a lot) Jack Daw has WP 7, which is not good for Leve.

Essentially all the tasty targets stayed out of Leve's LOS, and I was relegated to taking pot shots at Jack and managed to only kill a Nurse. I took Convict labor and Set up (for the first time), and had to leave Montressor (my Set Up target) alone as much as possible before being able to set up the scheme. Luckily I was able to pull it off in the last turn using the Mechanical Rider and the Freikorps Trapper, but I found out I much prefer to just kill them outright. Leve had plenty of opportunities to do so, but I didn't want to risk screwing up my scheme. I had Convict Labor going perfectly though and had 5 scheme markers to choose from at all times. I mostly learned that I suck with Headhunter as a strategy. We ended up drawing 5-5.

So what major lessons did I learn?

• Although I love Leve now, I have to factor in the table terrain. I've been told this before but when you're in a controlled Meta you tend to see the same types of boards so I never had to experience it. But these boards were cover heavy, and mostly hard cover, so it was not a good day for Leve when he's usually damaging on a negative flip now
• On the same token, I should remember to focus more often if ever shooting against hard cover. It may not have the same pizzazz, but at least it's consistent damage over time
• If the terrain is to dense I may have to consider Viktorias
• I love Convict Labor, I can't see doing two other schemes at the moment over including this one
• Ashes and Dust rocks. It's too good. I tried avoiding using him since everyone uses him, but man can that dude rock markers. I did learn that using him in the center spells the end of him, and he pretty much is relegated to just Dust Storm if that happens, but it's always a good backup to have since there are usually plenty of scrap markers lying around. There's nothing like a surprise 10" push from a melee beast like him.
• The Trapper isn't such a good anchor. I tend to want to deploy him far up a flank for fire support and scheme placement, especially in something like Squatter's Rights
• Ashes and Dust is also a mildly bad anchor, mostly because he wants to do his own thing and can get really far ahead of the waif. He is a good backup anchor however, and if you ever push your Waif too far you can surprise the opponent with a leftover anchor in the Dust Storm
• Freikorpsmann aren't good at anything. Specialist models and money over everything. I can't wait to swap out this guy for a Necropunk.
• I lost more Waifs that day than I ever have in my life. This is probably due to the shift in my anchors from being as tanky as possible to attack driven, not to mention having a Trapper as an anchor means a small base not being able to block LOS like Hannah did.
• I may swap out the Mech Rider for now as much as it pains me. I love this model, both as a game piece and a show piece. But with this tournament running only 90 minutes a round we hardly got past turn three, let alone turn four. The riders shine most when they can go all the way. I'll definitely keep her in Interference as that summon and push with the great movement and Oathkeeper are just gold for that strategy. But for others like Headhunter I may just go for something more killy or tanky, like Flesh Constructs.
• So far I've played Leve spread out, with Anchor points on far flanks and the middle. If I swap out for tanks and Belles I may play centralized for consistency and best ranges of fire throughout the table
• I need to work on getting more familiar with achieving the other schemes. I've realized the value of Leave Your Mark, and may take Soulstone Miners simply for that, or utilize the Hodgepodge Effigy as a good scheme runner. A four point speed 6 minion is priceless, regardless of what else he can do.
• I definitely kept my schemes more in mind this time around, as I resisted the temptation to go and kill as much stuff as possible over scoring efficiency

There are probably more lessons I can put down, but this post is long winded as it is.

In other news, I've done a quick test paint scheme on a Zombicide model:

I managed to do this in about 30 minutes, including primer time. I sprayed zenithal highlights and painted entirely in washes. I've still got to finish his base as I sloppily put on some grey in my haste, but I like him a lot for what he is. There are 72 models in the box. There's no way I can spend any time on these individually. I plan on fixing up the base eventually and making it look like pavement using paints only, no flock or sand. All in all it's not terrible, it looks good enough for the game.

Also theres this...

I recently discovered the Relic Knights miniature line and got bitten by the bug. I had been planning on getting Arena Rex models for the longest time, and just when I decided I was going to do it I saw these and changed my mind. 

I bought these purely for painting. I love models in an Anime style, that's why I got into Infinity before giving up on it for now lol. Not only were they cool minis, they were extremely cheap on Amazon as it's a semi-old game with little interest in comparison to other miniatures games. They had a fairly rocky Kickstarter and people complained about the quality of work in the sculpts as compared to their CAD designs. But man, they still look awesome. I can't wait to paint these bad boys up, there are a few others I haven't even built yet that just kick ass.

I got excited just thinking about painting these, as they'll be a good break from the normal paint jobs I do with Malifaux and Warmachine, although really my style for Malifaux can fit right on these bad boys, just with a different color scheme using bright pinks and yellows and stuff, maybe a splash of white. I miss painting armor panels, and in Malifaux I got to do that on Hannah and the Mech Rider, my favorite models I've done for that game. I'm really tired of cloth right now, as it's not my strongest area and Malifaux is full of it. Sometimes I need a dose of Sci-fi, which is my all time favorite genre. Anime just scratches so many itches right now.

I do plan on using them in game, however. I've had the rules to SuperSystem 4 for a long time now. It's a Superhero game where the main deal is that you get to custom make any superhero you want. It's basically scratching the conversion itch for me, as well as how I miss making custom characters like in an RPG or in Warhammer. There's a lot of flavor in SS4, and the powers in that system can envelop virtually any hero you can think of. Just for these models alone I've thought of their power set and how they can be translated into the game. I figure it would be fun to do even if I never get a game in that system with them, but if I already have models and stats done I can probably do a demo with some friends and maybe get them into it. The rules are only $10 or so, and you can use literally any model you like for it, which just begs for good conversion work.

Also, check out that Chun-Li. How can I resist?!

An example of a sweet model, I got this bad chica too

The game actually looks really interesting too. It uses cards rather than dice like Malifaux, but it's more akin to Magic the Gathering than Malifaux and uses custom cards. It's a lot more streamlined, however it takes a lot of conventional tabletop gaming mechanics and flips it. Deployment, for example, doesn't use any zone of any kind. You just plop them where you want one after another, which reminds me of the old terrain rules for 40K which is a mind game in itself. There's also the activation queue mechanic, where you choose the models you want to activate ahead of time so that planning is crucial, especially when you can see your opponent's queue as well. 

Although I only got models I wanted purely on aesthetics it turned out I got a lot from the Cercei Speed Circuit faction, so really all I'd need to do is get a starter for another faction like Star Nebula Corsairs (totally Japanese) to get a demo going for it as well. You should check this game out, it's not very active but it seems like a fun project.

Anyway, that's it for now!