Killer Frost

This version of Killer Frost is based on her incarnation in the Injustice video game, and while a cool-looking mini (no apologies for that pun!), it was a pain in parts to paint, which slowed me down, and was the reason why I picked up Swamp Thing, Alfred and Scarecrow as 'quick wins' - all were started after Killer Frost!

The mini's arm positions made it really awkward, which was compounded with some poor colour choices in places, which makes the final mini a little rougher than I like, but it is another mini down which is the most important thing. The arms were a pain to get into position, with very fine contact points and no obvious way of pinning as they joined at a right angle to wrist and bicep.

Killer Frost can be used in pretty much all villainous crews as a Free Agent, becoming a Sidekick in Mr. Freeze crews, which seems more about cold theme than how either character is consistently shown in the comics. She can also be used in a Suicide Squad team alongside the likes of Deadshot and Riddler - so I may have to look at building up a few more members for that option before too long.

In game terms she looks reasonably durable for an End 6 character thanks to Acrobat, Adaptable, Resilient and Runaway. On top of that she brings a low threat shooting attack and Stop, on top of unarmed attacks doing 1 Blood. So definitely some useful stuff, but not top-tier by any stretch.

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 280 (added: nothing)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 24.6% (69 models)

Scarecrow (Batman Begins)

Scarecrow (the version depicted in Batman Begins) was a nice quick win for me, painted in short spurts over a few days, and helping maintain my recent momentum of finished minis. He can only be used in a League of Shadows crew, which means I am not planning to field him any time soon, but that aside, it is another mini taken out of the growing backlog. I purposefully picked this one to do now as I thought he would be fairly straightforward, and thankfully that was the case.

In game terms he offers area of effect threat through a template, but that is limited in range so places him in harm's way. More importantly, he has a Trait allowing him to remove a KO character within 20 cm, so ideally he would follow a character doing Stun as opposed to purely Blood damage.

Next up for BMG I want to finish at least one of Killer Frost or Robin, and maybe even Zsasz (the latter has been part-painted for months unfortunately), and ideally I would like one of those to be completed before the end of the month.

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 280 (added: nothing)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 24.3% (68 models)

Alfred

I started painting Alfred before switching to Swamp Thing, but ended up finishing the latter first, and chose both simply because I am struggling to paint a couple of other minis (Damian Wayne/Robin and Killer Frost). I felt I needed to get something finished as the most important thing, and so I am pretty pleased to have finished both of these minis.

Alfred is a Henchman for Batman crews, but not one I envision using much as he is very much predicated on a support role. For his Reputation value his Medic and Business Agent abilities in particular are simply not enough to make me want to use him.

There has been a little controversy about how Knight Models marketed and made available the Alfred miniature. Originally it was pitched as an 'exclusive' miniature available to pre-orders of the original BMG core rule-book; later it appeared as an occasional tournament prize, and later still it was made more widely available through a couple of sales promotions. As a consequence there is no regular Alfred alternative on sale at this time, and Bat-fans lacking the mini but wanting a list with Alfred may need to wait until the next sales promotion.

In the next couple of weeks i hope to get another couple of BMG minis painted and retain some momentum if I can.

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 280 (added: nothing)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 23.2% (67 models)

Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing is my latest painted BMG addition, and is yet another Sidekick. Swamp Thing primarily sits within the Poison Ivy crew, but his Affinity to Batman makes him a Free Agent in Batman crews. I am not especially looking to build up either crew right now, instead I wanted to get a mini painted very quickly and Swamp Thing seemed to fit the bill, once he was readied....

Assembly of the mini was straightforward and just required a bit of green-stuff filling at the various joins (none were a snug fit, and each join had a gap ). However, before that I had to remove the 'surf log' the mini was attached too. Knight Model's way of solving the fact that they sculpted the mini with a stance wider than their designated 'Large' model base size was to mount him standing on a log, which in no way fitted the urban basing style I have for the line - all my BMG minis are mounted on bases from the same range (Fraktured by Dragon Forge). That meant a lot of clipping, sawing and filing to remove the log, and with assembly included, meant that prepping the mini probably took longer than the painting.

The painting was intentionally quite rough to begin with, with a base layer, a variety of brown and green washes, with some dry-brushing, then picking out areas of colour, all of which made painting quite a big mini pretty simple.

Although I said I wasn't looking at developing my Poison Ivy or Batman crews right now, I like the thought of Swamp Thing coupled with either Clayface or Solomon Grundy. Swamp Thing is a costly but powerful, potentially hard-hitting and seemingly durable character, and could lead to lists quite unlike those I usually go for. Hmm, thinking hat on....


BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 280 (added: nothing further)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 23.6% (66 models)

Alberto Falcone (BMG)

You wait several years to paint yourself a BMG Sidekick, then three come along seemingly at once! Alberto Falcone is a character who first surfaced in The Long Hallowe'en Batman story, and is a very recent addition to the BMG range.

I have been working on another mini (Damian Wayne) but stalled over some of the fiddly bits of painting that one, so decided I need to get something finished really quickly or risk hitting another slump.Looking in the painting queue I saw Falcone who I reckoned I could get finished quickly, and thankfully I was correct. A couple of brief painting sessions over the course of a day got him done, so I am very happy about that.

Alberto Falcone is part of the Organized Crime crew, but this does not mean I am embarking on Organized Crime any time soon, it was simply expedient to paint him up. He seems a decent and sneaky threat on the table, especially to more vulnerable Leaders with his Assassin Trait offering up extra Victory Points.

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 280 (added: forgot to include the Batmobile in my last update)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 23.2% (65 models)

Who Will Save Us Now? Watchmen 'Homebrew' Update (BMG)

I like the Knight Models' Watchmen minis (missing detail on Nite Owl aside!), but found them somewhat lacking on the table (only one run out mind you, so hardly cast-iron evidence - I will accept!), a view which seems shared by many. Basically the game has moved on but Knight have never really addressed updating the Watchmen despite several recent opportunities.

Well it turns out that Knight can no longer produce the Watchmen - by which I take as the movie incarnations as the movie rights are a somewhat messy affair; Knight are not saying why they cannot produce them, just that they cannot do so.

So what to do with an underwhelming crew? Homebrew update of course! Several years working on a supers-based minis game has taught me that it is better to be cautious as it is easy to make things 'over-powered'. As a consequence I approached my personal update with a simple rule of thumb - each character got one new Trait, no more, and two characters each got a single Ammo weapon. Then it was a case of dusting off my GiMP skills to produce some cards - the downside meant retaining a certain level of Spanglish that was inherent on the source cards.

The Updates and Why I Chose Them
Working through in some kind of order:

Comedian - he had a hefty array of Traits as-was, and his greatest weakness was his relatively low Defense for a character of his Reputation value. I added Undercover to reflect that he stumbled on to Ozymandias' plan to an extent, was at the Kennedy assassination, may have murdered Hooded Justice and was generally very good at sneaking around as a special ops and spy. To cap this off I added a tear gas grenade which he is seen firing during the 1977 riots in the movie.

Ozymandias - was given Precise Blow; I saw this on another gamer's homebrew update (credit to Liam Callebout). Based on the source material, especially the Before Watchmen comics, this just seemed very fitting for a man who always plans every single move he makes, and who has the coordination to parry a bullet with a piece of furniture and later catch one in his hand.

Nite Owl - I chose something simple for Nite Owl, Master Fighter. Functionally this is worse than the rerolls Silk Spectre gets from Unarmed Combat Master, but I didn't want to duplicate what she had, and at a similar Reputation cost Damian Wayne has the same Trait. With Bonebreaker, Brutal and Arrest already I feel it is a fair trade-off and upgrade.

Rorschach - I felt Cruel fit his efficient way of putting foes down; while the character has some nobility about him, he is incredibly brutal and the rule functionally fit with his existing repertoire. On top of this I added a one-shot attack based on firing his grapple gun at a hapless target.

Silk Spectre II - I had a few thoughts about stuff that could fit, but a lot came down to 'gamey-ness', and so when I thought about Silk Spectre I recalled two sequences in the movie in particular (the street gang fight and the prison raid) when she just mows through hordes of mooks, and Devastating Blow seemed the nearest representation of that.

Let me know what you think, comments and critique welcome!