Don't worry we're here to help, after all we are "heroes"

I managed to finish my Dark Avengers team with nearly 37 minutes to spare before the first game I'm using them in.  I've got to say, its been a while since I did that.

I'm really excited about having these figs because much like the Secret Six they will feel "right" whether they team they are fighting is made up of heroes or villains.

Knight Models does really nice well detailed figures but I have to say for the first time I encountered some minor problems with that.  The Iron Patriot has a well designed star-shaped unibeam on his chest but I found after priming and applying a basecoat to his chest plate I could barely find the outline to paint it afterwards.  Having said that at arms length on the tabletop it looks just  fine, it would just be nicer if the awesome sculpting work on this model was slightly better defined in the final casting.

Anyway, I'm off to fight mutant terrorists!

-Jay

Dark Avengers WIP

This morning before work I got a good start on my Dark Avengers team for the Marvel Universe Miniatures Game.

The "Dark" Avengers were Norman Osborn's (the Green Goblin) team of heroes that he led once he became head of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the comics.  The great thing about the original Dark Avengers concept was that the team was very much like The Thunderbolts or The Suicide Squad in that it was primarily composed of not reformed villains but also had the added twist that they were actively trying to pass themselves off as established heroes.
Ares and The Sentry were two morally questionable members of The Mighty Avengers team that immediately preceded The Dark Avengers.
Moonstone put on Ms Marvel's old costume as they already looked similar and had similar powers.
The assassin Bullseye  dressed up as Hawkeye.
Venom toned it down a bit to pass himself off as black suit Spider-Man.
And Norman Osborn himself hijacked a suit of Stark-tech armour and re branded himself as The Iron Patriot.

The Dark Avengers were one of my favourite comic runs of the past decade because it had everything that made comics great.  It was full of awesome art and action, had tons of story going on in both the background and the foreground, and managed to be dark while still having a sense of humour.

I'm looking forward to finishing up in the next day or two.

-Jay

Two more Guardians Of The Galaxy

I'm trying to wrap up my "cosmic" hero team for the Marvel Universe Miniatures Game before the Dark Avengers become available.

For those of you unfamiliar with the modern Guardians Of The Galaxy there have basically been three versions of the team during the Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning run which revitalised the team from it's original run back in the 70s and 80s.

The first version was the team everyone knows from the first movie with; Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Gamora, Drax, Groot, Adam Warlock and Phylla Veil in action with Mantis as their support back at their base on Nowhere.  For  this iteration of the team I finished Drax earlier today.  I've got to say I was pretty indecisive about how to paint Drax bouncing back and forth between a comic book look and the movie look and settling some where in between that truly looks like neither.

Drax's background in the comics is slightly different than the movie.  In the comics Drax was a real estate agent named Arthur Douglas who was killed along with his whole family as collateral damage of Thanos' arrival on earth.  Arthur Douglas was later resurrected and given super powers (immense durability and near Hulk-like strength) for the purposes of destroying Thanos.

The second version of the team  was basically the first team without Warlock (who'd turned evil) but the additions of Bug, Moon Dragon (Drax's daughter) and Jack Flag (a character simultaneously almost completely unknown while being connected to tons of A-list Marvel heroes).

After a final cataclysmic battle against Thanos and Death in the Cancerverse (seriously, I'm not making that name up) the realisation was made the the original Guardians team was made up of whatever 'spare-parts' happened to be lying around and they weren't really the kind of heavy hitters you would expect to actually guard the galaxy.  At that point of team was assembled of some of Marvel's most powerful "cosmic" heroes.  The final team was made up of; Gladiator, Quassar, Beta Ray Bill, Ronan The Accuser and Nova Prime Richard Ryder.

Nova Prime and the Nova Corps are Marvel's version of the Green Lantern and the Green Lantern Corps.  Both forces are cosmically empowered space-cops that travel through the galaxy maintaining order with little to no oversight.

I was really happy with how Nova turned out but I have to admit that once I took a photo with decent resolution his final highlight on his gold armour looks a little chalky.  The funny part is even though I can clearly it in the photo when I look at the model with the naked eye he still looks fine to me and I can't detect the chalkiness at all.  Maybe this is the benefit of getting old and having bad eyesight?  I can convince myself that I'm a better painter than I actually am.

Three figures down, three to go and then I can get to my three separate "are they heroes or are they villains?" forces.

-Jay

I.....AM......GROOT!!!

I'm all over the road at this point.  My plan was to paint the Mad Hatter and then do Groot but I decided to skip ahead to Groot while I reconsider my painting priorities for the Secret Six and the Suicide Squad.  The irony being that once I was done and I started reviewing stats I'm actually fairly certain I can't play the Secret Six with the existing models unless I include Mad Hatter...irony.

Anyway Groot (if anyone reading this hasn't seen Guardians Of The Galaxy) is the Guardian resident 'brick'.  Which in superhero terms means he's the big strong guy who punches things.  Groot is basically a giant treeman so this is also I good reminder to get back to my Sylvaneth.

My one regret about collecting the Guardians Of The Galaxy is that in hindsight I wished I'd started with a bad-guy force for Marvel as well as that always has more RPG crossover potential.  Having said that if you're old (like me) you might remember that three of the Guardians five core members (Groot, Drax & Gamora) started off in comics as villains.  So depending on what era I set a game in Groot could still show up as a baddie.

-Jay