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)

Talia (Arkham City)

This Arkham City version of Talia was started at the same time as the comics version, and both were set aside together. It is one of the older sculpts in the range and wasn't the greatest cast, with some of the detail shown on the 'studio' picture that was simply not visible on the copy I had. Therefore I am happy with the mini being 'done' more than what I have achieved with it - I did a better job on the comics version Talia than this one; for example the highlighting on the face is a bit sharp to my eye in the picture.

The hair colour I chose is pretty atypical for Talia in comics and movies, but looking at screenshots of Arkham City it looks like she had a kind of 'dark blonde' colour so that is what I opted for, even though the studio paint-job has her a a red-head. It also helps differentiate her from comics Talia.

In rules terms, I prefer this Talia to the comics alternative. Both are Sidekicks, but this one is simply a better combatant in my view, and as there is an alternative tournament card set of rules for her, that one may be better again as the cheapest option able to cover ranged and close combat offering greater flexibility. If I did field a League of Shadows crew I would be more tempted with the tournament card profile, but time will tell if I ever get around to playing that crew.

In all it has been a productive couple of weeks for me with my BMG painting, and I have even made a start on yet another mini I hope to complete soon - Robin (Damian Wayne), probably inspired by painting up two version of his mum!

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 271 (added: Alberto Falcone, and I have a bundle of stuff on order)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 23.2% (63 models)

Talia Al Ghul (comics)

Talia is my 62nd painted BMG character, and oddly enough, only the first Sidekick I have painted in the range. For readers unfamiliar with the game there are several main character ranks: Leader, Sidekick, Free Agent and Henchman. Out of 270 character models (and rising....) almost 40 are Sidekicks, so in other words, I am long overdue actually painting one...

This is one of currently two versions of Talia, both of which I started a while back and both were subsequently sidelined to finish other stuff prior to my recent painting slump. Regaining BMG momentum helped get me on track to finish this mini and do a little more work on the Arkham City version of Talia. I have seen Talia depicted with an array of hair colours over the years, so decided on painting her as something of a red-head. Probably a lighter hair colour than she has been depicted with, but I am happy with the contrast to all the dark parts of her costume.

I don't have painted League of Shadows or LexCorp crews yet (Talia is the only dedicated LexCorp mini released so far), so I don't expect to use this Talia anytime soon, or indeed ever. However, even if I was using either crew, she does not wow me with her character design in game terms, so she may be destined to forever remain in the cabinet. Still, the most important bit is another mini done, and my first Sidekick to boot!


BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 270 (added: nothing)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 23.0% (62 models)