Comedian

Comedian is my final painted Watchman, and gives me my fifth painted playable crew (after Poison Ivy, Black Mask, Court of Owls and recently starting Joker). After painting the main base colour I found the rest of the mini a bit of a plod to finish, doing a bit each day, but not feeling I was getting much progress, especially once I had blocked in the browns. But I accept I am far from the world's speediest painter, and the most important thing is it is now done. :)

Comedian is my 27th painted BMG mini this year, and take me to 58 painted characters for the game. At the current rate of release I will always struggle to keep pace, but it is such a favourite IP of mine that I will continue to collect them!

I have yet to use the Watchmen, but on  considering stats alone Comedian looks like one of its most important fighters, with a mix of ranged and close combat Traits. I think I will need quite a few games to get a feel for them, and against as wide a variety of opposing crew styles as possible. Comedian looks pretty tough with End 9 and Hardened, but only Def 3; he seems something of a jack of all trades without mastering a a particular aspect. Consequently, I am going to have to learn how durable he really is and how best to use him.

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 253 (added: nothing)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 22.9% (58 models)

Silk Spectre II

Silk Spectre II is done, and being finished means another Watchman painted! That puts me one mini (Comedian) short of the full crew of five, and will hopefully lead to another playable painted BMG crew for me early next year. That said, Silk Spectre has been a very long gestating paint-job....

I have been painting the Watchmen on and off (mainly off....) for almost two and half years now, so getting them cleared will be long overdue. The irony is that I suspect they have fallen behind the pack as the BMG game overall has progressed, so I guess they will be challenging to use. If they become my main crew for next year I reckon I will face a lot of losses along the way - although I am vacillating between Watchmen, Joker, Mr. Freeze and a weird-ish Organized Crime list.

In game terms Silk Spectre seems a cheap defensively-focused character (she has high Defense, Acrobat providing Dodge, Martial Artist and Counterattack), and although she puts out a lot of Attacks, that won't lead to a lot of Damage so she may even struggle taking out some Henchmen, Essentially I see her sitting on an Objective (preferably Ammo or Titan for the Ping rolls).

Thematically, taking a Watchmen crew to tournaments could be cool as they are not often seen, but I am a gamer at heart, and I don't know if I will be able to get the best out of them and face another steep learning curve after the Court of Owls at tournaments, so time will tell how much they get used when finally done. Meanwhile, I have made a start on the Comedian, maybe I can finish one more mini this year....

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 253 (added: nothing since the last mammoth haul)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 22.5% (57 models)

The Thing (MUMG)

The Thing is added to the 'done' list! Although I had not really planned on painting any more MUMG in 2016, when I bought the The Thing I assembled him pretty quickly in readiness for possible painting. My thinking was that with a simple colour scheme, he would be quite quick to do despite his large surface area (he is 65mm from the bottom of his base to the top of his head!). Then I found myself focusing on other stuff.

When I decided it was time to tackle the mini, the painting stages were: an orange-brown base layer; Devlan Mud wash (with some extra spot washes of AP Soft Tone); dry-brush the same brown; dry brush a lighter brown; then pick out top edges of  'rocks' with successively lighter highlights (4 passes on the highlights).

Because it was quite methodical work, the bulk of the painting felt pretty straightforward - even if he did get dropped on the floor at one point...

Finishing The Thing gives me 17 Levels of Superhuman Heroes (with Black Widow and Black Panther), or 16 Levels of Cosmic Heroes  (with Groot). I am most likely to play an Avengers style team I think so will be mostly adding to the Superhumans as things progress next year.

MUMG Painting Summary
MUMG characters owned: 24
Percentage of owned characters painted: 16.7% (4 models)

Spider Robots (SMG Henchmen)

These Spider Robots are my first painted minis for the Spider-man Miniatures Game (SMG) from Knight Models, companion game to BMG (albeit with many caveats). Theoretically SMG and BMG are compatible, but time will tell (as will those caveats I mentioned).

These are not the most interesting of minis, but I set out to get something painted very quickly and these fit the bill! I tackled them as a 'speed painting' exercise which is something antithetical to my usual plodding approach, so that too was satisfying. Either way, I have started on yet another range (albeit one limited to 15 minis at present).

It will be a while before I get an SMG crew together, and it may require house-ruling allowable inclusions due to the dearth of options (especially for the Goblin Cult which I want to play first); right now, assuming 500 Rep increments, Goblin Cult could be played at 200, 250, 350 or 400 Rep, but not 300, and at 350 Rep (typical for BMG tournaments I have been to) the crew has only two models. Right now with no new releases in 11 months SMG seems dead in the water, but they have updated the rules document for it recently so who knows if there will be more SMG models (as opposed to ports from MUMG)? Well Knight Models do, but of course they are not saying either way.

SMG Painting Summary
SMG characters owned: 15
Percentage of owned characters painted: 20.0% (3 models)

Mr. Grin (white) & Mr. Grin (black)

The 'Grin Twins' (as Knight seemingly call them) are taken from the recent Suicide Squad movie where they were briefly seen as part of Joker's gang. Like other Joker Henchmen from the film, they are considered Elite: Cosplayers, meaning only Jared Leto Joker can take more than one of them.

I have recently struggled for painting motivation, so with a simple colour scheme, the Grins fit the bill for something to paint to get a quick turnaround. Painting two at the same time obviously sped things up, and I was able to finish them by painting for 20 or 30 minutes here and there over a few days.

Although I am planning a Joker crew, I am not planning on using the Grins anytime soon, but if I change my mind at least they will be ready.

Painting these two BMG minis takes me past 60 minis for the year which is pretty satisfying, and I hope to match or exceed last year's 63 in total.

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 253 (added: a LOT - Suicide Game box/15 minis, Captain Cold, Heatwave, Rick Flag, Bird and Mercs, Mr. Freeze crew box, Calendar Man)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 22.1% (56 models)