Did Star Wars: Legion just win the coveted prime spot in the what Star Wars minis will this dork settle on debate? It may just have. While I really, really enjoy painting the Shatterpoint minis I have, the 40mm scale makes them stand out against the rest of my minis, and I really don’t want to double-dip on characters. Plus, I like squads, vehicles, and terrain, especially if I can use that terrain with other games.
The Empire Riot Control Squad is a fun one, since it comes with droids AND stormtroopers, and they’re a rare case of Atomic Mass Games making units that don’t appear in movies. I figured I would start off with the KX Droids, and apologies in advance: my lighting setup over-saturated things a little, I promise they look less gray in person, hahaha!
I’ve been keen to get some paint on these guys since I bought the box, but watching a bunch of them smacking innocent protestors on Andor really made me want to get them to the table! I’m not a fan of fascist governments, but I like having miniatures of them to shoot at in my games. Once again, everyone wins when the fascists lose, right?
Love the sculpts on these. Can’t wait to get the rest of the squad painted up!
I wish I had been a Fallout fan earlier. My oldest kid was way into it, and I remember listening as she played the hell out of Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Fallout 4. I’m a huge Skyrim fan, so you would think I would have played sooner. Really, it took the new series to get me to look at it again, and now I really can’t look back.
I love the Atom-Punk vibe of the whole thing. Alternate histories are a hell of a thing, too, and the games and show have strung together a pretty fascinating look at a future that looks a lot like our past had a baby with an old Flash Gordon serial.
I had the Welcome to Nuka-World starter for Fallout Factions, and sold it, thinking I wouldn’t get back to it anytime soon. I still had the Disciples set, and decided I would paint them up before making up my mind on more minis from the franchise.
I think I want more minis from the franchise. Modiphius has made some pretty cool minis, and the hard plastic kit for the Disciples is pretty keen. I was thrown at first because they’re a true-scale 32mm, so the features, hands, and feet are smaller than I’ve grown used to. But they’re fun to paint, take an oil wash well, and look pretty good once all is said and done.
I ordered the character command minis for this group, I should have one of them done for the next update!
For a lot of us middle-aged wardolly junkies, Mordheim was the Alpha and the Omega of wargaming when it hit in 1999. The art design defined what Grimdark meant without losing that whimsical edge that made it great. Playing with a dozen minis meant you could get a warband together in a good weekend of hobbying. It was also built off of (I think) Fourth Edition Warhammer Fantasy Rules, so it was easy enough to learn one if you knew the other.
Todd, a respectable demon lord, and his personal Valet, Timothy.
And then, like most great things, it disappeared, unloved and scorned by its creator, like the Creature when Victor decides to cast the wretch out to pursue other endeavors.
I’ve been chasing Mordheim now for over a quarter century. The rules set feels a little antiquated now, and while there are modern contenders to the game, I’m not smitten by any of them in the same way.
A desperate thug tries to sneak up on an unwary magician
Necromunda is pretty great in its modern incarnation, but I really don’t want to have to carry around half a library worth of books to get a game in. One Page Rules is fun, but a little too simple for what I want to sink my teeth in to. Frostgrave and Five Leagues from the Borderlands both come much closer to what I’m looking for, but I’m still struggling to find that Goldilocks system that works just right for me.
So, I think I’m just going to have to write it out myself. Something that bridges that gap between crunchiness and simplicity, allows some customization, and, most importantly, is miniature agnostic.
A group of barbarians in search of a hot bath…
I’ll be starting with a Witch Hunter warband, using the ideas I have in my head to get the classic warband on the table. I have plenty of figures to build out a good roster, and that’ll help me get more of my Paint What You Got challenge figures finished.
At first, I was a little daunted about base size, since I’ll be using some modern Warhammer minis in this warband, and they have larger bases. Then I realized that I’m not bound to those restraints, as I’m working my own forge now. So, the first step in setting myself free is setting those minis free. Goodbye, lovely decorative but overly large bases, and hello 25mm classics!
I’ll be mashing up some classic GW sprues with some modern classics from the Frostgrave range, which should allow me to have some fun with the warbands.
Next up, I’ll share some of the ideas I have for the mechanics, because why not? They’re not entirely mine, but after 40 years of gaming I have a billion game systems in my head that I am going to openly pillage.
Now we’ll see how long this conviction lasts, I could do almost all of this with the 5x from x system and be just as happy!
I’ve been continuing my obsessive build-out of my Warcrow Northern Tribes group, and the Evoker may end up being my favorite miniature of all time.
Just like the Alborc mini from earlier this month, the Evoker was given a purple and red underpainting, which you can see peeking out from the finished paint job.
It’s not just the details, which are plentiful. She has so many cool things on her kit, with fertility idols, vials, and other cool tools. She also looks mysterious and full of schemes.
She’s literally pulling a spell out of a skull’s eye sockets. That wasn’t something I noticed until I started painting, which was a happy discovery!
Also, the fact that the orcs just tromp around with giant tusks and bones strapped to them is amazing. I love it!
The little details on her kit are fun, as well as the idols and statues that she’s standing on. I would love Corvus Belli to release some simple terrain bits that match this!
I’ll have her favorite battle friend, a giant stone troll, ready soon. It’s a really fun model, and I can’t wait to show it off!
Teapot? Check. Fertility idol? Check. Skulls and a mammoth tusk? You bet your ass!
I have to confess an undying love of Weird War X settings, throw some werewolves into the trenches and I’m pretty much hooked. So, surprise to no one anywhere who knows me, I feel in love with Konflikt ’47.
This game is screaming for kitbashing, so the Fireflies, Stahltruppen, and mechs from the starter set might be the only official K47 minis I end up using. Plus, I want a sneering vampire leader for the Axis troops, and that figure does not exist… yet.
The Axis leader is in heavy armor and packing quite a sneer. I painted him up in an urban camo scheme, and will follow that up with his honor guard and additional Stahltruppen units.
For the US commander, I painted him up with the standard color scheme I was planning on using for the rest of the fireflies. These guys are fun, but he’ll probably be the only one I put out with a tactical rock.
What’s next? Axis zombies, some rank and file troops, and more enhanced US troopers. I’ll be using Isaiah Bradley as the leader of the enhanced, because why not? Cap is cool.
Corvus Belli excels at offering outstanding lore for their wargame settings, and fantastic miniatures to live out the conflicts represented in that lore on the tabletop. Infinity’s lore has been a lot of fun to follow over the past decade, and Warcrow is proving to be even more fun only a year or so after launch.
Early color blocking over a red a purple underpainting layer, which is really making the main colors pop! The Summoner on the right should be ready to show off soon!
Take the Northern Tribes, for instance. Here be orcs. They don’t expect to live long, and rate their value by what they can take at the point of a spear. They live in some of the harshest climates of their world, and share that space with the Varank, outcast elves that ended up in the frozen wastes.
Bones, bones, bones…
The Orcs of the Northern Tribes are shamanic people, and look to a Wrathmane to lead them in good times and bad. One such Wrathmane is Alborc, who is criticized openly for his willingness to work with the Varank.
Layering in some highlights on the bone armor and mail skirt, and starting the NMM on the sword. I really hate NMM, but wanted to give it a shot!
Alborc has had visions his entire life that he will lead his people to a better life, but only if he brings the Varank along as allies. Which means you not only get to play really awesome orcs in Warcrow, but some very cool Nordic Elves as well.
The finished Alborc miniature in all his glory!
The sculpt for Alborc is very dynamic, but, as it’s from the earlier offerings from Warcrow, I don’t think Corvus Belli had dialed in the casting process for Siocast as well as they have now. With those growing pains in play, Alborc suffers a little from casting artifacts that can make him a little hard to assemble.
One of the other negatives to siocast is that it is surprisingly brittle! Here you can see a shoulder tusk that broke while I was trying to nudge it a little after gluing. Lesson learned!
There’s also some duller aspects of the sculpt here and there, and I really do think that’s part of the early siocast work. The newer boxes of Siocast minis I’ve picked up from Corvus Belli for Warcrow have been fantastic.
The biggest challenge for me on this project was letting the underpainting exist in the final paint. The subtle pops of purple and red shining out seem really obvious up close, but from a distance they’re adding a lot to the overall tonal feel of the miniature.
Still, Alborc assembled and painted is AMAZING. These figures are so detailed and fun that I find myself looking for ways to challenge myself a little, so for my Alborc I went with a purple and red underpainting layer. I don’t have much experience with this, but holy cow… I love the results!
Now I just have to balance a mad desire to do nothing but Warcrow minis for a while! There’s a lot of grey from a lot of games in my backlog, I can’t get obsessed with just one game, hahahah!
Turning my frantic eye back to 15mm scale gaming for a bit, I’ve decided I would like to get one warband finished up for 15mm Mordheim. These minis would also work great for Frostgrave and Five Leagues from the Borderlands!
The first thing I wanted to tackle was a big possessed brute for a chaos warband, and this queen pretty much settles all scores, right? She’s hulking big, with lots of tentacles, teeth, and a little sneaky nudity for good measure.
I have one or two more possessed to finish up, and some Undead to plow through as well, but we’re off and truly running, and I couldn’t be happier!
I am also planning on getting some pretty elaborate terrain finished up for these warbands! The nice thing with this scale is 2′ by 2′ is going to give you all the gaming surface you need, and you can really go mad with kitbashing buildings, too!
As I continue to mend, my stamina is picking up a little and I’m able to paint a little more! Just finished up Emil Blonsky, AKA The Abomination! He’s a delicious figure for sure!
He’s also positively huge, easily twice the size of the Hulk and close to Hulkbuster in stature. Very cool!
I’m still trying to figure out if I want to put him in a Hydra group or a Criminal Syndicate group, the big factor here being which group I’m going to get rid of. The syndicate has some cool models, but the Hydra group has a ton of Jack Kirby coolness that I love. On the other hand, Nazis. I hate those guys.
After assessing my overall storage capacity and several near death experiences over the last few years, I’m leaning heavily towards narrowing the collection down to one or two affiliations. The collector in me is shrieking like a gibbon at the moment, but I really don’t want to leave a ton of minis behind if something does actually catch up to me! That might sound a little morbid, but we all go sometime, and I would like to leave as little of my hobby behind to clean up as possible!
Enough of the maudlin, I’m hankering for some 15mm action!
Here’s another proxy job for my 40mm miniature collection, it’s funny how much energy I spend trying to find that “goldilocks” scale! Rogue in classic MCP suffers from Jim Lee design syndrome, and again… I’m not knocking Jim Lee’s design, I would just like to acknowledge that she’s had other, really cool costumes!
Luckily, I had extra bases from other MCP figs, so I swiped an engine piece from a Necromunda model for her to perch on, and she looks pretty cool!
This is probably my favorite Rogue costume ever, so kudos to the folks who put in the work on it!
I am currently working out some fantasy prints in this scale, as I’m realizing that there are some benefits to working large like this. I love the challenge of painting 15mm scale minis, and you can’t beat the storage options, but 40mm has it’s charms as well! I’ll explore them more in depth in an upcoming post!
I am back after a seven month battle with my pancreas that saw two hospitalizations, a major surgery, and an inability to eat food due to the cessation of my digestive tract. The surgery was undertaken to fix that issue, and I am happily able to eat now! I apologize for the absence, although my pancreas has informed me that it will happen again.
With that out of the way, though, let’s look at some minis! I love the X-Men, and, while I was a fan of the Jim Lee costumes that debuted 33 years ago, I don’t think they’re the end-all, especially when it comes to the original five students of Charles Xavier. Jean’s costume in particular never really gelled for me.
When the Krakoa storyline started a few years ago, I was really happy to see Jean’s first non-school uniform show up again, and spent some time looking for a suitable proxy model to use.
Before anyone rattle a pitchfork too mightily in my direction, I have a staunch take on proxy use! I always strive to own the original model, since I am playing a game that someone spent a lot of time and resources on, I want to support that. I also make sure that my opponent is cool with me using a proxy before we play. This allows cool battles like X-Men VS X-Men, with an obvious time travel element thrown in because of the costume variations!
I found this file of Jean in her Hickman era costume, and here’s how she looks painted up!
While I’m not 100% sold on the pose, I think the sculpt is actually pretty good!
I really do hope that Atomic Mass Games are able to branch out and explore more costume designs in future minis, because there’s a vast and wondrous world of X-Threads beyond Jim Lee, but let’s face it; those costumes were iconic, immortalized in the ’90s cartoon, and nostalgia sells war dollies better than any other marketing tool!
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