Almost ready for my almost first Mutant Crawl Classics funnel!

I wonder how many times during the time I've been writing this blog I've used the expression "best laid plans of mice and men..."?  A small group of friends and I were planning on playing through our first 0-level funnel tomorrow but once again real-life called an audible and the game is off, at least for a change it's not my schedule disrupting things for everyone else :)

So I had today off and rushed through getting 11 of the 12 miniatures done we needed for tomorrow.  Six of them were just re-bases and touch-ups of some older models and I painted five new figures today.  It was a bit of a time crunch so I really just slapped paint on basic models but now that I have time before we're actually going to play I'm going to go back and add some debris and salvage to these guys to make them feel a bit more appropriate to the setting.

Having said all that let me show you what I got done today.

In Mutant Crawl Classics characters at 0 level start off in one of four categories; Humans, Mutants, Manimals or Plantients.  Today I was making due with models I had on hand so although I represented all four groups Plantients got the short end of the stick (pun intended).

First up the humans.

Three of these are re-purposed figures from previous games.  The guy on the left of the picture is my old Dungeon Crawl Classic character Jaqar.  Ironically he's no longer a suitable miniature for the fantasy game I'm playing because he should have more hi-tech gear.  The next figure over in the jeans and leather jacket is new, he's a Cursed Earth Desperado from the Judge Dredd miniature game.  Next in line is the jester I painted for the first round of The Iron Painter three years ago, and finally Bloody Brannigan a pirate model from Warmachine.

Next up the mutants.

Starting again on the left is a Reaper Tiefling Wizard.  Next in line is Junior Angel from Wargames Foundry's Judge Dredd line and finally is a nameless Reaper mutant who looks very Incredible Hulk to me.

Next up the manimals.
(these guys are my favourites)

One the far left we start with some sort of Reaper Lizardman (I lost the package).  Then in the center we have one of my Rangifers from Frostgrave touched up and slightly re-based.  And finally....why not Zoidberg? from Armorcast.

Last up my lone plantient.

This guy is a Games Workshop Dryad which I seem to be using for a lot of games lately.

I'm probably going to phase a bunch of these out and do some conversions that have some suitable looking scrap on them before we reschedule our game so keep an eye out for those.

-Jay

Mootant Cows

Okay first up; that 'Mootant Cows' thing, not even my pun, that's the actual product name.

In the Fallout universe there are certain creatures (Death Claw, Rad Roach, Mire Lurk, Rad Scorpion, etc) that feel like a defining part of the background.  One of the most pervasive animals in the wasteland is the Brahminn which is a two headed mutated cow that functions both as a source of food and as a pack animal.

One of the scenarios for This Is Not A Test requires a caravan of four pack animals and six caravan drivers.  I decided to get the pack animals done first because I'm sure I have enough poorly armed survivors to sub in as the caravan drivers if I don't get something specific done in the next few weeks.

The figures themselves are part of Armorcast's Lance & Laser line.  The detail level is good but I suspect the molds are getting older as some of the parts didn't fit together quite as cleanly as I would have hoped.  Having said that I think they were great value for the price given that they look perfect and will be perfectly functional.

Alright, back to my desk.  What's next?

-Jay

Return of the hobby grab bag!

Hobby A.D.D. is back in full effect!

This week I have six different projects on my desk for five different games.  Two of them I MUST finish before the end of the week because they are for games that are looming on the horizon, the other four I really need to get done before I can move on and do some other things.

First up, I have got to finish my Imperial Trenchers for WarZone.

The Beta just got released for Prodos' updated version of WarZone so my buddy Ash and I are going to try to get a game in this month.  To do that I need to finish these ten figures and then get three more done from scratch.

Next in terms of priority is four Brahmin for This Is Not A Test.

There is a caravan scenario I want to play and if you've played the Fallout games the Brahmin is very distinctly Fallout-ish.  The Brahmin miniatures are from Armorcast under their license with Lance & Laser.

After that I need to get started on my Black Squadron security forces for Broken Contract.

Broken Contract is a new sci-fi miniatures game that went through a successful Kickstarter last year and has some really awesome models.  In addition thematically (big corporations vs the little guy) it seems very in the now.

After that will be Johnny Atomic for This Is Not A Test.

Johnny is a wasteland radio DJ and alongside Gas-Mask Girl is one of the semi-official mascots for the game.  It's impossible to tell from this picture (sorry) but he's a fantastically detailed model that is covered in cool post-apocalyptic survivor bits.

My final two projects are definite maybes because I don't need them for any game soon.  So if they're not done by Monday they'll be moving to the back of the line again.

First up on the B-list (actually that's really appropriate in this case) is Catman!

Catman is one of my favourite DC Comics characters and is the alpha if not the actual leader of the Secret Six.  I'm super-stoked about finishing Catman and playing with him at some point but I don't have any Batman games planned so he's not a priority right now.

Next up is Sophia Illmora for Anima Tactics.

I've never actually played Anima Tactics but my plan was to use Sophia as a replacement for my apprentice in Professor Vitale's Frostgrave warband.  I may be changing plans and starting a new warband so I may or may not need her but I'd like to finish painting her eventually.

So that's what this week looks like hobby-wise.  I have a track record of NEVER completing all the things I lay out in these WIP posts so hopefully the fact that there's a couple things in there I don't really need means I can at least get the relevant stuff done.

-Jay

ROBOTS!!

I've been bouncing around back and forth on a number of things the last few weeks and one of the things I had started in earnest a while back and recently came back to was a robot gang/crew/force.

Judge Dredd currently has rules for renegade robots as a playable action and the dialogue on the This Is Not A Test Facebook page would also indicate that an all robot band may be in the works.

So far I've got my first six retro sci-fi robots done.  Three were previously finished, one was a re-basing job late last night and two got painted yesterday during the baseball game.

First up Junk-Bot had previously been based on a lipped base and I just wanted to put him on an unlipped textured base with some light rubble.

Next up is Mr Doc-Bot.  Mr Doc-Bot is another Fallout inspired pseudo Mr Handy this time re-imagined as a medical robot.  I  had always intended to do a medical robot but the timing is ironic because about 5 hours after I finished painting him I got the model that  will probably end up replacing him.  So Mr Doc-Bot may or may not ever make it to the gaming table.

Last but not least is the first figure I've gotten painted from the Robot Townies line by Armorcast.  Robot Townies is a line that is 90% robots and characters inspired by Futurama.  I expect to get all of the Robot Townies line painted before year end (I think Santa-Bot might be next).

That's the current state of things.  I expect more robots this week and then I might detour back to Frostgrave for a bit.

-Jay