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!

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)

Ozymandias

Well I seem to have inadvertently broken my streak of painting one Watchmen character each July! Don't expect the final two imminently though!

I started Ozymandias as I was finishing Nite Owl and did the bulk of the work in stints over two weekends, only finishing him once I had completed work on Mesh and Prisoner 01. That said, start to finish was a little over a week.

I am fairly pleased with how he has turned out, and I think it was a case of right model, right time, while I have some painting momentum - I almost enjoyed painting him, which is to say I don't really enjoy the painting process, but do like having finished models to hand. Despite not finding the painting process ttoo arduous for this mini, and accepting I don't plan to finish Comedian or Silk Spectre any time soon, I do like the idea of playing a Watchmen crew in the future, and technically I have a 225 Reputation crew ready with Ozymandias, Nite Owl and Rorschach, but I feel it is better to play them in full as key stuff like Comedian's ranged threat would be missing.

In game terms Ozymandias looks like he is quite a contrast to what I am used to, having very high Defense (I am used to most of my models being easy to hit with Defense 2) coupled with Martial Arts (to counter being outnumbered in close combat) and Acrobat which allows him to Dodge ranged attacks, with a re-roll from Reflexes, giving him something like 89% chance of Dodging successfully if my assumption of probability is correct. I could imagine that if used right he could tie up multiple models by weathering a number of futile attacks, while being potent enough to KO lower-Defense Henchmen without assistance.

In addition to his combat abilities, Ozymandias offers some game management options with Mastermind (helping with Take the Lead) and Great Strategist giving extra Strategy points. So if and when I do play Watchmen, they will be interesting.

Anyway, all in all I have had a pretty successful painting month so far in July, not least due to finishing 6 BMG minis (a quarter of all my painted BMG minis in fact), so the painting side of the hobby has been pretty positive lately for me - I hope it lasts. :)

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 132 (added: nothing)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 16.8% (24 models)

Nite Owl

My second Watchmen mini, and like Rorschach, Nite Owl was painted quickly by my standards, in around 2-3 hours over a few short sessions. I had some sudden impetus last weekend after finishing Scarecrow and Mule Goon and decided to take advantage of it!

Of course at the current rate of painting, it will be 3 more years before my Watchmen crew is actually finished.... :)

The palette is very muted and limited, with primarily 3 variations of brown, and I tried to echo the movie incarnation to an extent, within my own limitations as a painter! In all it is not perfect but it will do for me, and it is pleasing to have painted a few minis already in July after paltry output in March and April, and it has also put me way ahead of my 2015 target for painting BMG minis.

While I think it could be quite a while before I have a playable Watchmen crew, the characters look quite interesting and varied in rules terms, although I suspect each will have unique learning curves, and that the two least powerful fighters (Nite Owl and Silk Spectre based on Damage output) will require the most learning.

One gripe to note - for some reason my casting does not have the scale armour on the outer left thigh, which I think is either down to the sculptor forgetting to do so or Knight Model's casting - either way a crass quality control error for a mini with a premium price point. I would welcome comment from anyone else with the mini if theirs has/had the same issue.

Moving forward for BMG, I do want to get Mesh painted, and maybe Hush too, for my Black Mask and Poison Ivy crews respectively. After that I may rest my BMG painting to concentrate on other stuff, but time will tell!

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 125 (added: nothing)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 16.8% (21 models)

Rorschach

The first mini on the blog in a while! This was a 'quick and done' type of paint-job, intended to fit with my BMG minis, but not taking ages to complete.

I was talking with main gaming buddy Rob a few days ago about not getting much done and painting a couple of quite fiddly minis recently, so he suggested doing something easy like a dog. While I had a couple of things in mind, my first thought was this mini, since it would require a relatively simple colour palette, was a one-piece cast (quick to get ready), and was a change from the recent focus on Anima Tactics minis. This was prepped and undercoated the probably took around 2-3 hours of painting in 3 sessions over 2 days. I am happy with the outcome for (for me) such a short turnaround.

The mini is simple enough and nicely evokes Rorschach, although hands in pocket seems a cop-out sculpting wise, since he could have had arms out ready for a fight, and the drapery on the trousers could have been a lot better I think. So far I have painted stuff in very random order for BMG, and this is no exception. I suspect it will be a while before I get a Crew together. Although I love the Watchmen minis, so that could be the first Crew I finish possibly.

I am still a long way off playing the game, and I hope that Knight Models produce a printed rule book (preferably hardback), and that they rethink their game cards. The game cards are an unwieldy size I feel, and do not fit any typical game card sleeves. Worse still, the trimming of some leaves them larger than the standard KM size, meaning they are bent when used for packaging, not a good thing when paying a premium price for a mini in my opinion.Small criticisms, but relevant ones I think.