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

Looks like the Angel gang is riding into town...

I recently played a game of This Is Not A Test with a more "traditional" mutant warband where the members were humans affected by radiation rather than human/animal hybrids.

The Inheritors did pretty poorly in the first 3-4 turns of the game but towards the end the momentum (and the two-handed sledge hammer) swung their way and they were able to make a respectable showing of themselves.

As is tradition in the post-game sequence my warband got a little beaten up but also acquired enough barter scrip to add on to their gang.  This set me to looking for another figure that would fit in with the clearly mutated but still mostly homosapien warband.  This led me to my collection of Judge Dredd figs.

I've had Fink Angel sitting half done since Christmas so I decided to finish him up first and then see where he slots into the warband.

I wish I had thought ahead a bit more because truthfully I have other mutants that are a better fit and more functional (you mat see one or two before the end of the week).  Having said that I painted Mean Machine Angel awhile back and if I can ever lay my hands on figures for Pa and Junior they might turn into a playable warband for a Judge Dredd game.

I don't know which Cursed Earth Fink will wander but he'll wander one of them.


-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

Dial "9" for MEAN!!

I've been bouncing back and forth on mutants and survivors for my post-apocalyptic gaming lately so today I landed on a model that covers both; Mean Machine Angel.

Mean is a member of the infamous Angel gang from the Cursed Earth of Judge Dredd comics.  The Angel family was basically a bunch of cannibals where a couple of them (Mean and I think Fink but I'm not 100% sure) where also heavily mutated or impaired by the radiation of the Cursed Earth.

I'm hoping to get some Judge Dredd games in this year but I could also use Mean in games of This Is Not A Test or even Gamma World.  I'm also hoping to get my hands on more of Foundry's version of the Angel gang but that can be difficult at best in my part of the world (or any part of the world that isn't the U.K. for that matter).  If not I'll mix Warlord and Foundry models together and hope their scales are similar.

I'm also newly energised to paint some scenario specific models for This Is Not A Test so some zombies and a trade caravan could be on the way shortly.

-Jay

The Kill-Joys

Last night I finished the 6 "Old School Mutants" figures for This Is Not A Test in preparation for playing through the demo rules against a Peacekeeper force.

I've got to say I really enjoyed painting these figures as the mutants themselves have tons on neat little bits and pieces you may not notice at first (it looks like Snake-Eyes has a partially formed conjoined twin growing out of his side!).  I decided to go for a slightly jaundiced skin-tone with the idea that these guys should match any Fallout -style super-mutants I'm able to lay my hands on in the future.

                                            (Left to right)  Davey - Kill Roy - The Twins

                                                 (Left to right)  ? - Snake Eyes - Pokey

Although I painted these guys for This Is Not A Test I could also see them making it to the tabletop as mutants in Judge Dredd or Necromunda as well.

More from the wasteland coming tomorrow!

-Jay

Female Judges!

I took a break from stuff I'm currently gaming with or planning to game with to go back and do some stuff I just plain want.

At some point when I actually play a game of Judge Dredd I'm going to have a pretty good sized Justice Department.  Tonight I finished up the three named female Judges I have figures for.

Judge Dekker is a relatively minor character in the Dredd mythos.  She did appear in multiple issues over a number of years so I found it really odd I don't have a single comic with her in it.  She basically fills the same role in the comics as Judge Giant being a Judge Dredd trained and then appeared later on in the series as a full Street Judge.  Unfortunately her career also ended the same way as Judge Giant....

Galen DeMarco appears typically in the comics as a former Street Judge turned Private Investigator.  She's a neat character because she feels like the audience-eye-view of what's going on in Mega-City One.  She's a great miniature because outside of a Judge Dredd game she would make a great sci-fi heroine; cool uniform and armour, techie-looking gun, and looks like she's ready for action, not some pin-up girl.

Judge Anderson is probably the best known of these three characters.  She's had her own lengthy series, appeared in a lot of big Dredd stories and appeared in the latest film adaption.  Unfortunately she's also probably the most poorly executed figure of the three.  Her face is blocky,  her hair is a bit over the top, she looks out of place compared the other two Judges.

I've got a lot of odds and ends on my painting desk so next update might be a random fig or it might be back to the Blood Angels.

-Jay

No no no Fishy, I am the law!

What have I said in the past about me having hobby A.D.D.?  After spending some time trying to decide if my 28mm sci-fi focus this year will be on Warzone or 40K I've finally settled on Judge Dredd.....

When I decided to play Judge Dredd I ran up against a principle in war gaming that is in some circles referred to as "the Zulu problem".  The origin of the name is centered on the idea that tons of war gamers like to plan and play the Battle Of Rourke's Drift (as seen in the movie Zulu), the 'problem' part of the name is based on the idea that EVERYONE wants to play the British and no one wants to play the Zulus.  There are a ton of different forces you can play in Judge Dredd but EVERYONE wants to play the judges, how do we solve this problem?  The good folks at Mongoose and/or Warlord have thought ahead and built their own practical and thematically appropriate solution into the game.  Ladies and gentlemen please allow me to introduce Chief Judge Cal!

Judge Cal was the villain in a story line way back when where he rose to the position of Chief Judge, then promptly went insane (naming his fish Fishy Deputy Chief Judge just in-case you couldn't tell he was insane before) and brain-washed most of the Judges of Mega-City One into following his edicts.

By choosing to play a Judge Cal force I will be able to use most of the Judge figures I have already painted while talking in a voice like Hedonism-bot from Futurama while gaming.

Thankfully now that I've made that decision I can put away my Warzone and 40K figures for now......say, did the Imperial Knight just go up for pre-order?

-Jay

Judge Death

I said it would a bad guy and Judge Death is just about the baddest guy to ever square off against Judge Dredd.

I got this figure years ago as part of a bundle with a bunch of other Judges from Wargames Foundry and at the time I really wasn't interested in models for the dark judges at all.  Now here I sit years later wishing I had bought all 4 of them.

I basically did him up in the same colour scheme as the regular judges I just added in a bit of bone on his armour and painted his flesh in a more necrotic tone.

-Jay

Walter The Wobot

One of the things I've recently been finding funny about both pop-culture fandom and the rise of nerd-culture in popularity is how some of us see (or remember) things we really liked in our youth.

The best example I can give from my younger days is when the first 'modern' Batman movie came out staring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson there were loads of people who were suddenly comic fans talking about how Tim Burton had finally given Batman the dark presentation the comics had always had, which was really ONLY true if your entire exposure to Batman at the time was the comics Frank Miller had written.  Fast forward a few years and I see the same thing applied all over the place, my personal favourite example being the unfortunately bad reception the movie Punisher: Warzone received.  That movie was very true to the tone of Punisher comics in the 80s and early 90s, the Punisher himself was incredibly violent and dark but almost everything that happened around him was pretty ridiculous.

But what does this have to do with miniatures I've been painting?

Well, here's the thing, earlier this year Judge Dredd fans like myself got to enjoy the awesome Dredd 3D (by the way you should all go out and buy a copy of Dredd 3D) and almost immediately everyone began spitting on the grave of the 90s Stallone Judge Dredd movie.  First up, let me be perfectly honest as a movie goer and a Judge Dredd fan I did (and still do) think that movie was (and still is) awful, but having said that it gets beat up a lot for things that really weren't wrong.  Case in point; Rob Schneider.  A lot of things in that movie just didn't belong (romantic side-story, ABC Warriors, Dredd not wearing his helmet, etc) but as an ACTUAL fan of Judge Dredd and 2000AD comics I thought Rob Schneider was great.  Most people forget that Judge Dredd is not a dark, gritty view into the future...it's a satire of those exact things, and as such it has certain characters who highlight the ridiculousness of the setting as a whole.

Enter Walter The Wobot.
Walter The Wobot is a robot with a speech impediment that functions as Judge Dredd's valet and provides some comic relief.  Walter frequently tries to do the right thing but it turns out wrong due to either his own ineptitude or the unfairness of the world in which he operates (sound like any movie character we were just talking about?)   I don't know how necessary a miniature of Walter is for gaming Judge Dredd but he's an awesome character and a great fig so I had to paint him up.

Also, it means I didn't technically break my own rule about skipping ahead on new Judge Dredd models.

-Jay

More Judges Part 2: The Return Of The Revenge (sequel names are hard!)

This morning I managed to finish up my 2 remaining Mongoose Street Judges.  I have to say I warmed up to this half-step between the comic and movie colour schemes pretty quickly but now that I have 5 models painted in matching colours I like it even more.

I'll probably be taking a break from painting Judge Dredd figs for a week or two as I really need to finish all my Plasticville buildings and get my mercs for Fallout done.

Thanks for visiting

-Jay

There's alot more Judges on the streets these days.

 

Female Judges

Out of my additional 4 Judges from Mongoose I've managed to finish 2 of them tonight.  These 2 represent a regular Street Judge as well as a Psi Division Judge.  I basically used the same colour scheme on these 2 that I used on my earlier test model. 

I'm looking forward to finishing my other 2 Street Judges and then either doing up some of my Judges on Lawmasters or possibly painting some of the Wargames Foundry models of the actual characters from 2000A.D.

Thanks for visiting

-Jay

More Judges on the streets!  Well this street atleast.

 

Works in progress.....

Well it looks like hobby A.D.D. is back with a vengence!  I have 4 projects on the go right now so suddenly alot of hobby work is being done but not alot of figures are getting finished.

First up a friend and I have decided to give the Fallout Warfare rules a try and are painting up some forces now.  I thought mercs (think Talon Company or Reily's Rangers from Fallout 3) might be cool so I'm working on UAMC Infantry from Defiance Games.  I'll be starting with a test of 3 basic trooper models before I move onto anything more elaborate.

For my second project.....well, it looks like I warmed up to the Judge Dredd model I painted last night so I've got a few more Judges on the way.  If I'm still excited after those are done then Lawmasters will be next!

For my third (and seemingly never ending) project I'm going to add some Wargames Foundry SWAT models to my zombie survivor collection.

My fourth project appears in all 3 of the pics tonight but is 2-3 weeks away from completion, unlike the rest of this stuff which shouldn't take more than 2-3 nights of painting.  I'll talk more about it and what it's for when I've got more to show.

Thanks for checking in

-Jay

War never changes....

 

Wait...you are the law?  I thought I was the law!

 

Even cops dial 9-1-1

 

 

 

Dredd 3D Test Model

I've had a love-hate relationship with painting Judge Dredd miniatures for years.  I love painting them because I've been a huge Judge Dredd fan for over 25 years, and I hate painting them because I always felt the colour scheme didn't translate well from comics to miniatures.

After seeing Dredd 3D (which was great fun!) I decided to paint a test model to try applying the movie's colour scheme to a tabletop miniature to see if that worked.  On one hand the combination of grey, black and dark blue comes out a little washed out as they all tend to blend together, but on the other hand it looks significantly better (in my opinion anyway) than the green that is all over the boots and other accessories in the comic art.

To me the test model looks okay, especially for something I painted in 30 minutes so I may paint another 5 or so Judges just to see if it carries over.  If not he may not surface in a Judge Dredd game but I'm sure I can use him as a generic space-cop in some sci-fi rpg.

Thanks for visiting
-Jay