She's the captain now

I finished (mostly) one more figure late last night to join my special forces team.  I say 'mostly' because macro-photography has revealed more than a few areas that need some touching up.

This is another USAriadna figure for Infinity and I figured she looks just different enough from the other two troopers to stand out as a leader.

I'm going to take a short pause from the Apocalypse to paint a fantasy figure and start costing out my force and figuring out what kind of fanciness I can afford to add.

-Jay

They don't 'survive' in the post-apocalypse, they 'thrive' in it!

I've been playing a lot of post-apocalyptic games lately and as much as I've done the wacky (lots of Gamma World inspired stuff) I've decided to take a crack at painting some stuff that's more in line with some of the other fiction and games I've been in to.

One of the popular concepts in fiction and gaming is a pre-apocalypse society having put fail safes into place should the apocalypse happen.  This is the basic idea behind the video game The Division as well as the roots of both The Brotherhood Of Steel and The Enclave in Fallout.  For myself I've been reading a fiction series called The Remaining and am an old enough gamer to have played The Morrow Project RPG.

To that end I've decided to paint some high-tech near-future military figures with the idea of using them both as Reclaimers for This Is Not A Test and professional operators for Last Days.

I have an assortment of USAriadna models for Infinity that should be perfect.  I started with two basic assault rifle armed troopers but if I stick with it I've got some support weapon models to add in later.

Not sure how far I'll take this but I expect to paint at least a few more of these before I get distracted by the next shiny thing.

-Jay

Yul

Feline Force Five is done!

I've painted my final cat, Yul.  Because every successful post-apocalyptic warband needs a Siamese cat with an M-16.

I've got to properly points out my stuff for my This Is Not A Test game on Thursday.  I think I'm under by roughly 50 barter script so there might be a hired gun in my future.  Perhaps some sort of...robot?

Anyhow, probably a one or two day break before starting on anything new and then probably some more stuff for D&D.

-Jay

Julio Jaguar

I've moved past the monstrously large cats and into the 'normal' (doesn't quite seem like the right word) man-sized cats.

Julio Jaguar will be my psychic mutant.  Julio is a figure from an old Pulp City three pack; the Dark Solar pack.  I bought that pack to use Solar as a generic superhero in a superhero RPG I was playing in a few years ago, I guess I lucked out that I had an extra catman laying around.


The nice thing is that Julio has way less (as in no) tech gear or equipment so although I'm painting him for a This Is Not A Test game in a few days he's more perfect than most of the figures I've painted for Mutant Crawl Classics.

Two more cat-people are hanging out on my painting desk and will hopefully be done before the weekend is out.

-Jay

Here kitty kitty kitty!

My first 2 mutant big cats are done.  I say big cats because both of these dudes are on 40mm bases and are closer to ogre-sized than to man-sized.

I finished up my Lykoi and although I'm not entirely happy with how the tartan turned out for a first attempt I'm relatively pleased.  I may have to dig through my box of unpainted models and see if I have another kilt wearing model I can experiment on.

I did these 2 first because I was excited about the models.  It's time now to start constructing a roster and figuring out what else I need to paint to make up a starting force for This Is Not A Test.

-Jay

Lykoi (WIP)

I was hoping to finish my second cat today but his tartan is taking longer than I expected (I honestly surprised myself that the words I just typed form a sentence).

My next cat, and probably leader figure is Lykoi.  A lykoi is a relatively new breed of cat that looks like a wolf.  This allowed me to use one of the awesome Infinity antipode models in my feline force.

I'm usually a fairly boring painter and don't try new things as often as I should but I decided to try something new and am working on a tartan.  I found a few great articles online about painting tartans and I have to say like a lot of things it becomes far less daunting when someone breaks it down step-by-step.

Tomorrow is a shorter day at work so with any luck I can finish Lykoi and hopefully get atleast one or two other models started.

-Jay

Gotta get back on that horse...

One of the things I've found about painting miniatures is that as much as I love doing it once I take a break for a few days sometimes those days drag on and I take more of a break than I was planning on.

This week I was travelling for work most of the week so I had 3-4 days I couldn't paint...but then I added on 2 more days that I really just didn't paint.  When this happens sometimes I have to look past what I "want" to do and just pick  something that I can get done so I can get the momentum tolling again.

Quite a while back I asked the question "Do I play this game?" with regards to Infinity.  At this point I'm pretty sure the answer is "no, I do not" but I still buy their figures to use for other games.  Primarily I've had an eye on figures that would make good modern/near-future survivors.  I purchased the figure below around the time The Division came out because I felt he fit the feel of that setting fairly well and could see myself gaming it at some point.   To circle back to where I started about just wanting to get something done he was a fairly good choice because he's well textured but doesn't have a ton of fiddly detail.

I've got everything set I need (I think, better double check) for my Ravenloft game Monday night so assuming I'm right about that I'm going to try to get some Raiders done for  a solo play of This Is Not A Test on Sunday.

-Jay

Starting to remember how this game works....

Last week I played my first 2 games of Infinity in about 2 years.  It was an interesting experience because I forgot how much over watch really controlled an dictated the pace of the game.

With that in mind I circled back around and added a sniper to my Pan Oceana force.  It's still 2-3 weeks before we increase our game size so the sniper will probably sub in for one of my existing models.

Once I get caught up on my Malifaux I might put together a Fusilier link team.

Anyway a brief pause and then back to my Desperate Mercenaries...

-Jay

Last night my Medic needed a Medic!

Last night I had one of those moments every miniature painter dreads.  I had finished my final model for game 1 of the Infinity escalation league I'm going to play in, I had just carried it in from gloss-coating it outside...at which point I clipped the box I was using on my door frame and sent the model to my tile floor.  The little headset piece broke off and flew off never to be found again and I was left staring at a no longer finished (or even decent looking) model.

So I ended up puttying up the hole where the headset is supposed to mount and doing an hour of paint touch-ups to the hand and head to salvage the model.

Except for the irregularity around where the beret now blends into the head a bit I think it turned out okay.

.....definitely a good reminder why I prefer chunky plastic models as opposed to fine detailed metal models.....

-Jay

To Infinity and beyond!

Tomorrow I take my plunge back into Infinity.  So tonight I've been doing some touch-ups and cleaning up some scenery.

First up I've got two of the three holo-ads from Micro Arts Studios done.  This is the laser cut MDF with printed acrylic inserts.  I think they look pretty decent but unfortunately I don't have any other matching scenery yet.

Next up I have five of the six figures I need to get my first 120 points done.  I still need to finish up a Fusilier Medic tonight and I will be using the Fusilier Hacker as a regular Fusilier in my first game.

Lastly in prep for gaming with my daughter I had some familiars out on my desk so I could add a fun talking animal to her party.  I decided to paint up a black cat to go on her adventures with her.

That's it for tonight.  Hopefully I'll get that last Infinity fig I need done before I go to bed.

-Jay

Infinity - Do I play this game or not?

Infinity might be the miniature game I currently have the strangest relationship with.  I love the look of the models and the world and I've painted up a reasonable number of Infinity figures over the years, I've also played at least a dozen games and yet...I still don't know if I really play this game or not....

Infinity is one of the most visually stunning miniature games currently on the market and it has a really deep rules set that lets you do pretty much anything you want during a game.  But, and this is kind of a big but, it's generally been poorly translated, confusingly laid out and really unforgiving when you play against a more experienced player.

So I'm jumping back in and getting some Pan Oceana guys done up and this time I'm going to really enjoy it.....I'm pretty sure I'm going to enjoy it....I might enjoy it.......wait, do I play this game or not?

Anyway here's the hacker for my new team.

-Jay
 

Pan Oceana WIP

This week I'm painting a few figures that I unfortunately won't be posting pictures of until Dec 25th to keep a few people surprised about some Christmas goodies that are coming their way.  I am however also doing up a few odds and ends I thought I'd share so that you have something to look at in the interim.

Today's post is some figures I had started about a year ago and got to a minimum tabletop standard for a few games that I am now going back and finishing up.  These are 6 miniatures from the Infinity game for the Pan Oceana faction.  I had painted a Haqqislam force for Inifinity a few years back but then several of my gaming friends also chose to do Haqqislam so I decided to start a new force.

Hopefully these figures will be finished by the end of the week and I can get started on the next batch.

-Jay

ORC Trooper, Hacker & Fusilier Lt (WIP)

 

ORC Trooper, Sikh Commando & Grenadier (WIP)