Trucco

Last year, my main gaming buddy Rob and me set out to paint up playable forces for Freebooter's Fate, While we have not yet contrived to play the game, we have been talking about what we want terrain wise to do so, and that in turn sparked some motivation from me to paint another addition to my Brotherhood Crew.

I started this mini a week ago and it continues a trend of some recent fairly quick (for me) turnarounds, which is quite pleasing. I don't really have a 'uniform' colour scheme for The Brotherhood, but all rely on a generally dark palette of colours, so I picked that up again with Trucco.

This mini adds another Specialist to my Crew and takes it up to exactly 400 doubloons if used in its entirety. It will probably be a next year before I finish another Freebooter's Fate model I guess, so my Crew will have to be made up from what I have available. Rules-wise the biggest difference between Trucco (100 doubloons) and Apagado (90 doubloons) is that Trucco has a ranged attack with his Throwing Knife.

I have also picked up a couple of 4Ground buildings recently, which we plan on featuring as terrain for our eventual games; I am going to a show next weekend so I will try and grab a couple more if they are available.

Solomon Grundy

Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday, but painted over many days over several weeks! Grundy has long been one of my favourite DC villains, since first seeing the character in the pages of All-Star Squadron in the early 80's.

The character is named after a 19th century nursery rhyme, and for me has always had a very cool history and visual until New 52 shenanigans from DC, which for me ruined both his look, and unnecessarily (in my opinion) changed his origin.

As a kind of super-Zombie, I had hoped to finish Grundy during Zomtober 2014, but that was not to be. He is done now, and adding to my slow-build collection of Knight Models minis. I am a while away from a playable force, but that is due to the force construction limits of the game. You have to include a 'Sidekick' or 'Leader' for your Band, and cannot only use 'Free Agents', despite the fact that Free Agents make up the bulk of the models in the Batman Miniatures Game range. A quibble, and one that probably bothers  me more than other fans of the range.

I am not sure what I will paint next for the BMG range, I will have to wait and see where the fleeting muse takes me I guess - this could be a very slow-burn project, especially considering it has taken me a year to paint four minis so far from the range!

The Watchmen characters should really be something I try and focus on, if only to create a playable force, but time will tell. I could create playable forces from lots of other options right now, but I feel turned off from those other options by the fact that the game seems optimised towards henchmen. That is not borne out by playing though, and I may be completely wrong in my assessment! There is finally a print version of the game coming, so maybe my concern will be addressed there, and Band selection will be freed up a little.

That said, I have and will have a few alternative options to play the Knight Models minis in games with Power Legion, likely picking up Supersystem 4th edition at some point, and also through the development of Pulp City's 'build your own Supremes' rules.

Zombie Groups (update)

In a recent Zomtober 2014 post I mentioned my approach of 'colour triads' for my Zombies; basically the upper body clothing of a set of 3 Zombie minis painted with a matching colour shade, or a set of thematically linked minis like Zombie cops. The idea being that it become a set of models that can be visually picked out easily if required. Basically the principle is ease of identification of sub-groups on the table. It could be used to identify special Zombies etc., depending on the type of game you are playing.

I initially started doing that for running the Zombies in previous edition Pulp City 'Invasion' scenarios, but as it has proven useful in finishing sets of 3 minis,

I have since carried the practice on, especially as it may aid in-game activations wherever they be used, as well as not looking unusual as the horde grows. Of course it is probably irrelevant for a lot of Zombie games, but it works for me, and it also makes choosing paint colours easier.

I have shown some previous Zombie Groups on the blog, and thought it was time for an update, with the 'green', 'orange' and 'black' triads.

I have started the 'white' group if you saw my Zomtober 2014 bonus post. I also plan to eventually paint up some Zombie religiously themed minis, and of course I need more Zombie Clowns for a set or two of those; note I said need there, not want - Zombie Clowns are the scariest of Zombies, hands down. So plenty of groups to tackle in the future!

Roll on Zomtober 2015!