Boris/Mr. Pink

Boris is part of the 'Mobsters' blister pack and not really a mini I planned to include any time soon in my Black Mask crew, primarily as he would compete with what I feel are better options for funding (like Mesh or Deadshot); as Boris is conceived he looks pretty durable with Street Guy backing up Defense 3 and Endurance 7; I feel he is decent enough but Anatoly and Mule Goon also offer similar durability, so nothing new there, and his Funding takes out an ammo equivalent.

The reason why this mini stepped up the painting queue is the 'tournament card' version of his rules as Mr. Pink. The Mr. Pink version has Defense 4 (yet still a Henchman), Endurance 6, has a Bulletproof Vest and is immune to Arrest thanks to Runaway. He also adds Informer (a free 'pass') and has a 2 Blood Gun, but most of all costs $0! He has a high Reputation cost (55), but in my opinion that is worth paying for the rest of his package, especially as he offers a different kind of durability than Anatoly, Mule Goon (and especially Boris). I recently managed to acquire a copy of the 'tournament card' and that motivated me to get him done sooner than later.

The model had some big chunks and lumps of flash, which was an issue; cleaning up his face left some markings, so I decided to paint that up in a different shade of pink to invoke a sense of scar tissue (probably not visible in the pictures). In all, once again not a great cast from Knight Models unfortunately. On the plus side, for whatever reasons I was able to get the mini turned around pretty quickly (by my slow standards!), so most importantly this marks another minis 'done' from the range', and further progress to my annual painting tallies ( I am ahead of the same point last year which is nice), as well as now meeting my target for BMG minis for the year.

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 201 (added: Ice Penguin and Savage Penguin)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 21.4% (43 models)

Mr. Graves

Mr. Graves is my first painted Malifaux mini, having sat ready for painting for a good few months, maybe even a year. Don't worry though, I am not launching into a huge new project!

I picked up some Malifaux minis a year or so ago, as an option if I ever got to attend a local gaming club since I understand it is one of the games they play there; unfortunately that hasn't happened so far. Well, I decided I needed a change of pace on the painting front and so started this and another Malifaux mini recently, blocking out basic colours a week or two ago. The past week, however, has been my first in a new job and that has left me mentally tired and not up to painting during the evenings, so I didn't get around to finishing Mr. Graves until the weekend arrived (once I had some other work out of the way); unfortunetly the highlights are pretty washed out in the pictures, especially on the grey clothing. With the new job that has meant a slow start to painting this month, but I hope to catch up soon.

I was interested when I learned Wyrd were doing plastics, and was impressed with the first couple I assembled. I don't enjoy assembling metal minis, so this was a nice change. The sculpting style has a slightly exaggerated aesthetic which took a little getting used to as I was painting the mini.

I have some more Malifaux minis to assemble and/or paint (enough to manage a crew of up to 50 or so Soulstones I think), so may tackle a few more in the next few months.

Mr. Graves is dual-faction in the game, and can be fielded in Ten Thunders or Neverborn crews. Other than that, I know nothing about how he plays. I only have the small 'rules-only' Malifaux 2e rulebook, so don't know about his background either unfortunately, but I take it he is some kind of bouncer. A big one at that (he is on a 40 mm base!). Hopefully he gets some company before too long when the fancy takes me to do some more.

Halgar's Blacksmith (Fabled Realms)

Almost a year since the last Fabled Realms buildings from 4Ground that I constructed comes this  - Halgar's Blacksmith. As soon as I saw the kit I wanted it to add some more variation to the small collection I have. I hope 4Ground produce more non-domiciliary type structures in a similar size - a warehouse would be interesting, and I sure there are plenty of other ideas.

The minis used for size reference are Freebooter's Fate; Halgar's Blacksmith has already had game-time during my second Freebooter's Fate game very recently.

The build time was around six and half to seven hours, split over a few sessions on a couple of days. I was a bit rusty so had one cock-up which I think I have been able to cover over, which was aligning the outer frame of the upper story - but I had a real problem getting them to interlock and stick in place at the same time and think the sheets were very slightly bowed.

As usual I moved around a bit in the running order of the build to allow sub-assemblies to allow the glue to start to set. This time I used my paint roller technique on the roof before assembly, to change to a more pleasing (to me) colour.

An optional addition which is available is posters included on the instruction sheet, but I didn't like the look of them on the 4Ground site so left them off.

This is a kit I heartily recommend and one I would certainly suggest for anyone who has other Fabled Realms kits and wants to add more.

Quarter 1 2016 Painting Summary

2016 is off to a pretty good start for me hobby wise. I have done some painting, some terrain building (one still to be shown!), and I have also have racked up 11 minis games played so far (across 4 games systems), which is at least half the number of games I managed last year in total!

Painted in Q1 (+0 from Q1 2015)

• BMG: 11 minis (all were characters, unlike some of the 10 in the same quarter last year!)
• Pulp City: 4
• Anima Tactics: 1

The goals I set for the year ahead were to paint 12 minis for each of Pulp City, Anima Tactics and BMG, 4 more Zombies for Zomtober, 5 Hordes/Warmachine minis, 2 Tooth & Sword minis and 1 Freebooter's Fate mini. For Pulp City I want to get as many Minions and Grimm done as possible.

I also plan to get a start on Dropzone Commander (I set the goals for the year before I picked the game up) and some Malifaux minis, plus some other odds and ends. My overall target for the identified totals is 50; if I manage over 60 I will be happy.

So far, of those goals, the BMG is nearly done, and will likley be exceeded if I get motivation to complete two part-done crews. Pulp City *should* be manageable and I would love to exceed that goal, and the hardest to reach motivation wise will probably be Anima Tactics.

Quarter 2 last year saw a little drop off in output on the painting front as I was building a lot of terrain at that time, so i hope to side-step that this time around.

Court of Owls Tournament Crew

For my fourth BMG tournament I decided to take the Court in the configuration shown here, with a few changes from the previous post when at the time I did not anticipate getting all the options painted.

The Changes

• High Council Member instead of Benjamin Orchard - for 2 reasons: firstly, the High Council has a ranged attack, so offers a little more threat (I really do not want Orchard getting into a fight); secondly, the High Council has Endurance 7 which represents a tipping point against attacks doing either 2 damage or 3 damage (Blood or Stun) - he becomes less susceptible to being one-shotted.
• James and Nathan O'Malley instead of the Butcher - the O'Malleys offer an extra model for contesting /  controlling / threatening / attacking, vital in trying to minimise enemy VP and maximise my own; in addition, the 6 Attacks the O'Malleys offer are simply more efficient than the Butcher's Claws; finally, the O'Malley's do their respective tasks well (James as as back-line defender and as Bodyguard to the Leader, freeing up the Leader to get more involved; Nathaniel to de-buff enemies) while the Butcher does not really do anything very well in my experience, which is a real problem as he is the crew's most expensive character in game terms.

The Tournament

It was an enjoyable day as always, seeing familiar faces such as Kieron of Cheaphammer, and going along with Brummie/Simon to his first tournament.

I had two draws and a win with a crew I am still getting used to. I came sixth out of 12, which I was happy with all things considered. On the day I fought against two League of Shadows crews (one with Catwoman to rack up VP - the Court have nothing that comes close to that), and a Scarecrow crew lead by Deathstroke and including Zsasz.

On the day, I don't think I made too many mistakes and I was always on the back foot in line-up given that I was giving up 21 Reputation, which is the equivalent of a Henchmen in most crews, but the right decision on balance I feel (a couple of new 45-50 Reputation Talons would be most welcome to give the Court real options). 

Once the Court engages the enemy they put the hurt on to a very respectable level, and I think are almost peerless in that regard; all of that is down to the plethora of Handy, Sharp and Blood damage. The thing for the future is maximising that advantage and learning to take some more risks with them to make them feel really competitive.

Both in the tournament and out of it I have fielded the Court against Penguin, Bane, League of Shadows (twice) and Scarecrow crews, and in all of those games Stealth had little or no impact, which is the biggest hurdle I feel with the Court - being able to close with the enemy without being gunned down.

The List (329 Reputation / $1200 Funding)

• High Council Member
• William Cobb (Camo Vest; Climbing Claws)
• Strix (Ammo; Antidote)
• Xiao Loong
• Brandon O'Malley
• James O'Malley
• Nathaniel O'Malley (Camo Vest; C4)

Contra-Auguste (Joker Henchman)

This is my just-finished Contra-Auguste, another Joker Henchman. I had planned on building up a Joker crew as mentioned a while back, but I got sidetracked when the last Court of Owls crew box was released as that was a far more appealing option for me. In fact, I think I have painted 10 other BMG minis between this Joker Henchman and the last (August).

I completed Contra-Auguste primarily as I had a little spare time and some 'extra' painting motivation while working on an unrelated mini, and managed to get a good chunk done earlier in the week after previously starting and abandoning the mini (I started a few Joker Henchmen at that time to speed up some of the painting). That said, The next crew I want to finish off isn't Joker, and is one I hope to conclude within the next two months (a personal deadline). Then again, I think I have a Joker list in mind which only requires me to finish 3 more minis, so who knows? Painting Contra-Auguste puts me just 1 mini short of  my BMG painting target for the year, with 9 months to go, which I think will be safely beaten.

The mini suffers unfortunately some of the common issues of Knight Model's casts, and was not a crisps cast. In addition the super-soft metal used saw me bend the bat after painting was finishing with light accidental finger pressure. The metal compound seems to vary significantly between models I have from the range.

I game terms Contra-Auguste looks an interesting proposition; I am not a fan of the Bat/Baseball Bat weapon, as I think it is inefficient, but with the model's Obsessive Trait he actually damages on a 3+ against the first enemy he starts attacking until that enemy is KO, but has to carry on whacking it into the ground so is a win-lose proposition. His Defense 3, Endurance 5 and Hardened should make him surprisingly durable for such a relatively cheap (in Reputation) model, which is part of the reason why I had planned to include him in my Joker list.

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 199 (added: nothing)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 21.1% (42 models)

High Security (BMG Henchman)

A couple of hours work and I have added a surprise completed mini to my BMG collection. I say surprise as I had a notion of doing High Security soon, but wasn't sure when I would get around to him. Well a couple of hours spare during annual leave today saw him done, and he will probably get an outing next week as part of a Poison Ivy crew. For a quick turnaround i am pretty satisfied with the results.

I had put off painting more of the Prisoners as I was becoming averse to painting orange (probably my least favourite colour to paint), but a week or two ago I had an insight into how I could tackle High Security - make him match my Arkham Asylum inmates such as Pavilion A Subject and File No. 08923. As soon as I decided that, he jumped up the mental painting queue, then circumstances arose to give the Poison Ivy crew a run out, and sudden painting motivation hit and he was finished pretty quickly.

High Security is my tenth BMG mini of the year, out of an original target of 12 (I had planned one pre month...), following a few days after finishing Nathaniel and James O' Malley for the Court of Owls. I suspect I will exceed that particular annual painting goal, and the sudden momentum is helping my overall productivity which is nice.

In game terms I read good things about High Security. Certainly, at 48 Reputation he is not a cheap Henchman, and I dismissed him early on because of that, but Combo with Knives, coupled with +1 Strength and CRT: 1 Blood from Devastating Blow makes him a real threat, especially if he can take out an enemy model early in the game.

BMG Painting Summary

BMG characters owned: 199 (added: nothing new)

Percentage of owned characters painted: 20.6% (41 models)