Steady Painting Progress - Lyran Urbanmech and Fantasy RP Figures

 

I got this Urbanmech about 80% done last weekend, and settled down to finish him up on Sunday afternoon. I tried drybrushing the majority of the paint on, but it hasn't resulted in a great line between the white and the blue. I'll go back to my previous technique for future 'mechs, but this one is fine.

I now have a couple of painted Battlemechs for my planetary militia force, and a couple for my Lyran Guards. I've got the "Game of Armored Combat" box where I've started scraping the mould lines ages ago but paused on that given I hadn't finished painting the ones that were ready to go. With all the ready to paint 'mechs now fully painted, I'll likely get back to them soon.

I've paused a little on the Dungeon Fiend set because I'm using new painting techniques for those, and that needs a little more brain power than I have. So I'm plugging through a few smaller, simpler jobs that are sitting about that I can just knock out. First up is this skeleton ogre I bought on Facebook many years ago.

I was a bit dubious of the undercoat spray for this one, so I decided to build up from darker colours. I've started by throwing black onto all the areas that will be metal, and a dark brown onto all the bone. I might block in another couple of colours, or just throw on the metal drybrush for all the chainmail sooner rather than later.

Joining the ogre in "dubious undercoat club" is this dwarf watchman from Bears Head Minis, who now sadly don't sell to the public and instead just sculpt for mini companies. It was very restful to just drop in some simple basecoat colours while the wash was drying on the Urbanmech's base, and he's not got much to do before he'll be tabletop ready.

I've got these giant centipedes from Otherworld Miniatures up next, as they don't have many colours and will be another quick and simple job. I am off LARPing next weekend so I'm not sure how many more things I'm going to finish in November.

The D&D paint jobs are pretty common at the moment because I'm aiming for tabletop quality, I don't have a particular scheme in mind, and they don't require much brain power. I do want to start hitting a few more forces for wargaming - my Combined Army, more Battletech, and eventually my Nomads and Malifaux Outcasts.

Wizkids Deep Dragon

I'd been meaning to get a pre-painted Wizkids Deep Dragon for a while. It came out in the Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse lucky dip set, which released a while ago. Then, one day, I went to the online store I get my individual blind box minis from to discover it was out of stock.

Bother.

After a bit of searching, I paid a chunk more than I would have if I'd bought it when I first wanted it, and got it from an eBay seller abroad. This isn't helping my "impulse buying" instincts in any way.

The Deep Dragon is a nice weird non-standard dragon profile for a dragon that lives deep underground. Their profile is in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, which has a whole bunch of ideas for personalities and plots a dragon might be involved in.

Currently it feels like D&D 5e is currently best placed to use a homebrew setting to fit in all the good character and culture elements Wizards have published around dragons and giants. My favourite setting, Eberron, doesn't use either of those settings elements. Wizards has really not done very well at all with its any of its other setting books, although the Planescape book might be a bit better, I've not had a chance to read through it and find out.

 

The miniature itself is nicely detailed, but is far too big to be the "Young" Deep Dragon it's marketed as. It's clearly the right size to be an Adult Deep Dragon, an older and more powerful profile. It does include a marker ring for what the base size of the Young Deep Dragon should be, but it's so small under the model you can barely make out where it is.

Here the dragon is alongside a brave knight trying to put an end to its vile schemes, but I really don't rate his chances...

Deathwatch Vanguard Veterans

A got a few more Deathwatch Vanguard Veterans painted by Squiggle's Studio. I still haven't got a game of 10th edition in yet, but hopefully I'll find the time some point soon...

Infinity ITS 15 - Resilience Operations with Nomads

One of the new game modes for the new season of ITS (the Infinity Tournament System) is "Resilience Operations". This is a 'random mission' system that uses the new "Operations Deck". There's been a bit of delay in people trying it out as not everyone's been able to pick up the new deck, but both me and Yashar had ours, so it was time to try the new nonsense.

I was continuing to learn Nomads while Yashar was running their beloved Merovingia. You draw four objective cards, then discard one. You also pick a pair of battlefield conditions and discard one. I discarded a mission to have surviving points, and picked "Urban Combat" so everyone got a bonus move over "CQB" which would have limited shooting over 32". In retrospect, Ariadna's Sniper game is strong and I should have taken CQB...

Chilling out behind the orange objective widget are some Puppetbots, which I decided to take for this game to see how they play.

I was also giving the Sin Eater with Heavy Machine Gun a run, but I accidentally picked up this old Intruder model instead...

Knauf caused me quite a bit of grief in early shooting, and between him and a linked Viral Sniper, both my Total Reaction Remote and the Sin Eater died completely in the first turn. I managed to get rid of him with my Intruder HMG in my own first turn, but my ARO presence was seriously depleted compared to my opponent's

My Sombra Hacker had to reveal to stop an Apache absolutely wiping my Puppetbots and getting into my cheap fragile pieces that were fuelling my orders. This left her visible and she ended up getting taken out, meaning I had lost a whole ton of points that I was no longer going to be able to use for N Domination.

Fortunately, it meant that I still had two Puppetbots still up. They were able to take out two or three pieces and push up the table.

A Chasseur had scored 3 points passing a WIP roll with an objective in my deployment zone, and was standing on a console, so my Moran Maasai turned back to take him out and deny Yashar the objective point. I was in real trouble if I failed this, as it would cost me a point for scoring the near zone that I desperately needed.

In the end, two Puppetbots cleared the far zone, scoring me two points. They'd taken out one of the three Priority Targets, and the Moran still held the near zone for a fourth point. With the Chasseur off the console, they had only scored three from the scenery in my deployment zone objective, giving me the bonus point for having scored more, for a final mission score of 5-3.

All in all, Resilience Operations are a fascinating and weird set of objectives and scenarios that present very different list building challenges to more static traditional ITS games. It feels like an excellent addition to the available options, and one I'm keen to play again.

Brushchewer: Salute Promotional Figure and Bad Squiddo Horror

 

My commission painter Brushchewer Inc got another batch back to me last month. First up, we have a handful of miniatures from Bad Squiddo, plus an old promotional figure from a previous Salute.

First up is the Salute promotional figure, from the year they were Steampunk themed. While I don't really play Steampunk games, Pathfinder's world of Golarion has an area where firearms are relatively common - Alkenstar and the Mana Wastes, and in particular, the rich of the area commonly have firearms as a status symbol. This model works excellently as a rich noble with a tricked out custom firearm, ready to see off some pesky bandits and other miscreants.

Here we have Margaret the vampire hunter and Clara the witch from Bad Squiddo. A sensible lady with a crossbow, and a slightly creepy lady holding a scorpion will definitely both be figures who can see some use in an assortment of roleplaying games and skirmish games, depending on what I'm running at the time.

Continuing the Bad Squiddo minis, we have a pair of vampire thralls, who really look ready to wreck some absolute fool. I love these as they're very clearly capable in a fight and a definite threat, rather than floating around in a night dress. They look significantly more dangerous than many other vampire figures who are just lounging around doing nothing much in particular. These look grubbier and more low fantasy, and I really love how they've turned out. 

What I got up to in October

 

It's been a busy October, although not one with much in the way of my getting my paint brushes out. I did manage to get the Gator TAG assembled to get some games in with it.

I've also had a ton of painted models back from commission painters. Between that and unpacking TAG Raid, a bunch of hobby time ended up being used in sorting those out. I've still not finished photoing all the different minis I've got in, and they'll be going up on the blog over the next few weeks.

I did make it over to SELWG Show and got in a demo game of Warcrow. I was very impressed and it's definitely something I'll be looking into in future.

I've also played quite a few games with my Nomads. I'm still learning them at this stage, but I'm having fun working out how they play and which of their unit combinations work well for my play style.

So, a productive hobby month all told, even if I myself didn't end up finishing painting any figures. It's definitely a priority for November to bring that balance back a bit, I think!

Infinity NA2 New Forces

 

I sent off a couple of batches of Infinity figures to Thunderbrush to get various bits and pieces I've been picking up for my NA2 factions painted up. Unfortunately, my original NA2 miniatures are on Antenocitis Workshop bases, who are now very sadly no longer trading. Fortunately, Monstrous Makings are now making some base toppers with similar designs.

On the left we have the slightly daftly named "Wolfgang Amadeus Wolff", a mercenary who can fight for the Druze. He's a punchy, tough character, which is really useful for the somewhat fragile Druze. On the right is an old 2nd edition Ghulam sniper I won at a tournament at some point. I think I already have one somewhere but I will often run a multiple sniper defensive link in Dahshat, so it was worth getting him painted up.

Both Dahshat and Druze use Monstruckers, and they also turn up as reinforcements for all the NA2 factions. I grabbed several copies of these as so many of my factions use them and they were going out of production!

Originally, just Ikari Company and Qapu Khalqi had access to Yuan Yuan, but they've been expanded out to Druze as well at some point in N4. I have the old sculpts, but the new ones are really pretty, so I got them an update...

And finally, Dahshat company gets the new Hulang. This is a bit of an indulgence as Dahshat only get one, but it was a flimsy excuse to get the new Crazy Koala models...

Infinity Battle Report: ITS15 - B-Pong

 

I arranged to have a game down the club to keep learning Nomads. My opponent was running Ariadna, and we picked the new ITS 15 mission "B-Pong". This is a new mission where you're trying to move a beacon towards your opponent, while controlling the beacon and consoles, each scoring each turn.

My opponent had Armand Le Muet covering the central objective, so I decided to clear that first. I sent the Cheerkiller with Multispectral Visor up first, causing him a wound and thus removing his Mimetism -6. I then moved up the Gator, who took Armand out before retreating a little back into cover.

A Veteran Kazak (out of shot) opened fire with an AP Heavy Machine Gun, taking two wounds off the Gator.

My Morlock managed to throw down smoke in between the Kazak and the TAG, protecting it for this turn. But wait, was that an incoming bear?

... yup, that's a bear. It stomped on the Gator to make sure it was dead, too...

The Unknown Ranger took control of a Console...

While an Irmandinho took control of the central beacon.

 

I took out the Irmandinho and tried to use a Spektr to take the centre console, but while he was challenging to clear, he didn't stay around long.

At least Pi-Well and a Morlock should be plenty to control the console, right?

Ah, no, never mind... Smoke and a chasseur managed to stop me scoring it. The Cheerkiller swiftly disposed of the Chasseur, but it had done it's job denying me points...

And eventually, Pi-Well and the Morlock were dispatched for a Dynamo to grab the console to leave my Ariadnan opponent with a 5-4 win.

Overall, I really like B-Pong. Going second is certainly very strong in the mission, and I think this is probably one of those missions that needs a tailored list to deal with its unique challenges. Also, I over-extended my TAG and need to be more cautious with it...

Dungeons and Lasers Lich

 

I won a charity auction to have a single miniature painted, and I picked this Dungeons and Lasers lich. He's done now, ready to torment characters in RPGs.

I've been quite impressed with the general quality of the Dungeons and Lasers miniatures. I've got a few boxes lined up for me to paint, but seeing one done has definitely given me some keen.