Goblin Cult Crew

The Goblin Cult is the first SMG crew I have finished, and one of only two that were fleshed out at all. In early 2016 Knight Models proclaimed 'coming soon' for SHIELD and HYDRA, however neither materialised. In addition, the Elektra card which materialised had her Affiliated with The Hand (Marvel ninja clan), and gave her Affinity to Kingpin suggesting plans were considered for at least 6 Factions during early development. Which makes the failure to adequately support or promote SMG by Knight all the more disappointing, as I think that could have led to some very cool characters being released.

With that polemic out of the way, on to the Goblin Cult! So what do we have? Well for one I have yet to play SMG, so my thoughts are all theories. SMG is basically an extra 'skin' of rules for BMG, but there are a few noticeable design features.

The first thing that sticks out is that crews are really geared to 400 Rep rather than the tournament standard of 350 for BMG. I say this simply because Goblin Cult can assemble a 340 Rep crew (with or without Venom), but not one at 350. The next thing is that the Spider-types (the two Spider-man options and Venom) have a suite of Traits bundled under a single label (Arachnid), and similarly the Goblin-types (Green Goblin and Goblin Knight) have a Trait bundle (Goblin Serum). The impact of this is that some bonuses are not immediately obvious, and these characters may carry a few more Traits than many of the typical equivalents in BMG. In addition, all of the Goblin Cult (except Venom) have the Fly Trait, making them highly mobile. The array of Traits is likely the driver for the relatively high Rep costs of the SMG characters overall.

The high Rep costs means that an SMG crew looks lighter on numbers than many or most equivalent size BMG crews (at 400 Rep I would expect 6-12 models), making competing for Objectives a trickier proposition, and I guess forcing the Goblin Cult to take a swarm head on since they can be outscored simply by not being able to cover all Objectives.

I hope to answer these questions for myself fairly soon as Brummie and me have a game planned, allowing him to use some high value Free Agent, Sidekick and leader characters.

Goblin Knight

Goblin Knight is my first painted mini in a couple of months, due to a lot of real-life stuff - at times like those I usually can write some stuff (hence the Supers Unlimited progress), but painting tends to take a hit. Thankfully I have cleared this mini which was started a while back, and I may try and tackle some easier to paint generic stuff soon to get myself back on track.

I really didn't enjoy painting this in anyway to be honest - the sculpt felt fiddly in terms of design, and the casting was poor in places, not uncommon with too many Knight Models in my experience. It does mean another SMG mini done, a range I expected to become defunct and since I commented about that it has come to pass. Brummie and me are planning a 400 Rep BMG versus SMG game sometime soon, so that will be a positive out of getting this mini painted amid the ongoing stuff related to the collapse of Knight's Marvel ranges.

In terms of my painting progress for SMG I am adding Venom and Elektra to the overall target list since I consider them part of the range; both had cards published digitally if not physically. I have since had my own copies printed for eventual gaming. Venom will give another Goblin Cult option for a bit of variety when I eventually get round to painting the mini.

SMG Painting Summary

SMG characters owned: 15+2

Percentage of owned characters painted: 47.1% (8 models)

Shameless Blog Plug!

As mentioned in my last blog post, I have decided to work up some ideas around skirmish minis games systems which I hope to publish eventually (very likely via Wargames Vault), all under the Kitbash Games brand.

The first project is Supers Unlimited - a supers genre game naturally! This will be followed by Squad Wars (think high-octane, Saturday morning pseudo-military 80's cartoons and action figures), Fantasy Wars (small Parties facing off and unleashing world-shaking abilities) and others.

The approach I am taking is to provide 'sandbox' rules which are fast-flowing and allow players to creatively tailor their characters without massive crunch - building a super in Supers Unlimited is something that can be done in a few minutes even on first reading. Essentially you will be able to grab whatever models you want to play with and quickly make them into a playable Team.

If any of this sounds like your cup of tea, please head on over to my Kitbash Games blog to learn more (click for link). Once the blog has a few more Followers I will be announcing a competition to win a copy of the only Kitbash mini so far (Doc Cosmos - seen in concept art and mini forms here), so if nothing else feel free to Follow for that reason alone!

All Quiet on the Eclectic Front?

February was one of those 'life stuff' months, and has been incredibly busy. Consequently, I have not felt up to painting, which puts me behind for the year already, but that is not to say I didn't get some motivation for other 'hobby stuff'. (And hopefully the painting will kick back in soon!).

I decided to dust off a few ideas which have been percolating through my brain for a number of years, and have made significant progress on a set of 'simple supers' rules I am provisionally calling Supers Unlimited. The characters are ideas that have been with me for a long time, while the rules engine is an amalgam of a number of ideas I have been working through in drafts for other games. There will be simple character creation but overall the rules will be light on 'crunch'.

One of the characters I am working into the background for the game has already appeared in the form of a sculpt I had commissioned a few years ago, so this has been a slow-burn to say the least!

I am not wholly sure what I will do with Supers Unlimited yet, but I hope to complete the first (very rough) draft quite soon - watch this space!