The Supreme Alliance grows!

Perhaps my New Year's resolution for 2017 should be to spend 5 minutes reading rules and stat cards before speaking about them.  During my first game of the new/current edition of Pulp City I was quickly reminded that this was not one of those read on the fly games and resolved to actually learn my stat cards before my next game.  Other than not optimising my use of my models' abilities it led to a more superficial even more embarrassing realisation, I've been repeatedly referring to my team by the wrong name.  They're NOT Team Breaker (that was their KS pledge name), they're not The Greatest Generation (which is how I referred to them in Ash's 'Learn To Play' video), their actual team name (as clearly stated on ALL their cards) is Supreme Alliance.

With that awkward confession out of the way please meet the newest member of the Supreme Alliance; Coldfire!

Coldfire adds one of the classic elements of superhero comics that has thus far been absent from the Supreme Alliance, a flyer.  In addition Coldfire works a little differently than my other supremes (that reading is paying off already!) but in a way I'm very familiar with from my Cryx forces for Warmachine, he can create/summon a flame fist which he can then use as an origin point for his abilities.  I'm pretty excited about tying this out as it means in theory he can tag objectives and civilians while still being slightly more flexible in terms of where and how he attacks.  

I've got two more 'core' members of the Supreme Alliance to get done (E.C.T.O. and Aquanaut) and then I'll be caught up on Pulp City......for a  while.

-Jay

Team Breaker! Reinforcements have arrived!

Two more supremes done for Team Breaker!  A-Beast and Battlesuit 7.

My first batch of characters really appealed to me as classic archetypes from superhero comics but something about A-Beast and Battlesuit 7 put me in the mind of old superhero RPGs like Villains & Vigilantes and Champions.

I've now got 5 of the 8 main supremes done for Team Breaker as well as the 3 minions.  I've still got a few more I'd like to get done but for now I think I need to get back to Warzone and get my Imperial Doomtroopers done.

-Jay

Team Breaker! Assemble!

I finally circled back to the cold war era Pulp City models I started in the fall.

Spybreaker, Sabotage and Trojan along with the three robo-dogs I had painted represent the start of Team Breaker, one of the two newest teams of Supremes that Pulp Monsters had kickstarted earlier this year.

I've still got 3 more Supremes to finish before I'm ready for my game tomorrow and it looks like about 4 more hours to get them done.

Wish me luck!

-Jay

Cybernetic dogs for America!

A while back I mentioned that without trying to I had collected and painted a lot of female steampunk mechanics without really trying to, apparently the other thing that I have accumulated a lot of over the years is cyber-dogs.  Cyber-dogs are cool but I never set out to have so many of them.

Having said that I'm getting ready to play Pulp City for the first time pretty much since it came out originally and the big push for that has been to play with the recently Kickstarted Cold War forces.  I'll be playing the American forces which include...you guessed it...more cyber-dogs.

One of the things I have to say I really appreciate about these particular models is that they're basically minor minions with identical stats but the folks at Pulp Monsters went to the effort to actually do three completely different sculpts rather than just one or one with minor tweaks to sell the idea that its three different models.

There's more coming for Pulp City over the next couple of weeks, and the colour scheme will be primarily red, white & blue.

-Jay

Black Flash

I've got a rare weekday off today so I'm trying to work my way through 2 larger projects but I had this guy sitting off to the side and decided to get him done during breaks in between waiting for things to dry, etc.

In DC Comics the embodiment of death for characters who have access to the Speed Force is Black Flash.  The basic idea being that Death needs an avatar who can 'catch up' to speedsters when their time comes.

Having the figure is a bonus when playing the Batman Miniature Game as a speedster can inadvertently trigger the arrival of the Black Flash which effectively gives their opponent and extra model in their force.

Hopefully I'll have a Warzone update later tonight and some Mirkwood at some point this weekend.

-Jay

How many Floyd Lawtons are enough?

Back to my Suicide Squad box set!  Today's addition Floyd "Deadshot" Lawton.

This is actually the third Deadshot model I've painted so far.  To put that in context I still haven't painted a single Batman or Joker for the Batman Miniature Game...but 3 Deadshots.  Other than Amanda Waller herself there is probably no character more identified with the Suicide Squad than Deadshot.  Its probably fair to say that he is to the Suicide Squad what Captain America is to the Avengers, he hasn't been part of every line-up but somehow it doesn't feel like the genuine article unless he's there.

Deadshot has the checkered past typically associated with members of the Suicide Squad but he got a ton of additional character development during his time (pre-52) in the Secret Six.  Lawton is arguably the most pragmatic and realistic member of both the Squad and the Six which makes some of his actions seem shocking in the context of comic book stories.

The Suicide Squad box comes with 2 different heads for the model.  I chose his classic masked head but the other one is Will Smith's likeness from the movie.  I think Will Smith is great but I couldn't help shake the feeling that him being unmasked through most of the movie reminded me of Stallone being without his helmet in Judge Dredd.  It feels like once a studio pays for an a-list Hollywood actor they want the audience to see the actor rather than the character once they're up on the screen.  I also would have had a hard time gaming with the model with the Will Smith head without constantly making 'Fresh Prince Of Belle Reve' jokes.

I'll close out by asking; now that I've painted 3 versions of the same character is it bad that I'm waiting on an Arrow-verse version next?

-Jay

Katana

Perhaps its oddly fitting that the one member of the Suicide Squad who isn't really a member is the one I got a defective figure for and then had to substitute with a non-Suicide Squad model.

Katana is a character that has hung around the fringes of Batman comics for years but to be honest I didn't truly become aware of until she showed up on Arrow.  Katana is a classic Batman character in that she isn't a meta-human but is someone who has undergone an unbelievable amount of training and has one additional element (in this case the Sooultaker Katana) that makes her extraordinary.

From a game mechanics point of view Katana is extremely useful for securing objectives as she is a volunteer and not subject to the normal Suicide Squad rules which can result in models suddenly (explosively) being removed from play.  I'm assuming Rick Flag will also have this rule but I'll have to wait until he's released to take advantage of that.

This figure is from the core Batman Miniature Game line as unfortunately the Katana I got in my Suicide Squad box was miscast to the point of not being salvageable.  Having said that I do like this figure and I'm extremely happy with how she turned out.

Well, this is what I got done on my lunch break today so with any luck I can still get Deadshot done after work today.

-Jay

Two more recruits for Task Force X - movie edition

Over the last couple of nights I've gotten my next two members of The Suicide Squad done.

First up is Boomerang (I guess by the time line of the movie he hasn't been promoted to Captain yet).  I've got to say that as much as Boomerang has been a staple of comics and animation for decades he was one of the characters I wasn't confident would translate well to a movie.  The character is fantastic but his comic book costume has always made me think of a 70s era flight attendant.  I really feel like the movie team did a great job updating the character's look and feel without falling into other even worse tropes or stereotypes (although the Fosters was a nice touch).  I also feel like after at least 10 years of Hollywood trying to make Jai Courtney happen this might finally be the breakthrough.

Next on our list is Killer Croc.  This is going to sound really minor but one of the things I like about the inclusion of a character like Killer Croc in the Suicide Squad from a cinematic-world-building point of view is that he feels like he subconsciously forms a bridge between Batman and Superman.  The question/challenge most non-comic fans have had with the idea of Superman and Batman existing in the same universe is their power disparity.  The idea that it's hard to believe both these guys can be considered 'superheroes' in the same shared universe.  Killer Croc is effectively the first non-Kryptonian meta-human we've seen so far in the DC Cinematic Universe, this gives the audience a practical frame of reference to understand that there are beings in this world that are significantly more powerful than Batman who aren't nearly on par with Superman.  To me that starts to fill in some of the grey space and start to make the cinematic world feel more like the comic world.

I'm happy with how both figures turned out but of the two I'm definitely happier with Boomerang.

If everything stays on track I should get Katana and Deadshot done tomorrow night!

-Jay

First 2 members of Task Force X - movie edition

This week I was able to get prep work on a lot of miniatures done but with Black Friday craziness I didn't get much actual painting time in.  I've got a small cluster of fantasy figures I'm hoping to finish when I have time this week but my primary focus will be on two separate sets of superhero figures.

This afternoon I finished the first two members of the Suicide Squad from the Suicide Squad box set for the Batman Miniatures Game (soon to be DC Miniatures Game?).  I decided to start with two of the easier figures to paint which resulted in my painting one of the most interesting and one of the least interesting members of the Suicide Squad.  <spoilers ahead>

First up is Slipknot....poor Slipknot....

There's something of a tradition in new and/or one-off adaptions of Suicide Squad stories that the writers need to establish that the danger is real and unlike most comics the characters lives are in real jeopardy.  To establish this the writers always have to offer up an early death to sell the audience on what they're seeing/reading.  To my recollection the only story to break this rule was the Justice League Unlimited  episode "Task Force X" that due to being a cartoon marketed to kids probably wasn't going to have any neck bombs going off.  In the New 52 launch Voltaic drew the short straw, in Assault On Arkham KGBeast decided to test The Wall, in Arrow the character played  by Sean Maher (who's name I didn't even catch before he got neck bombed) learned the hard way that escape wasn't an option.  When the cast poster came out there were two things that struck me right away:

1.  Slipknot had less of a 'costume' than any of the other Hot Topic models in the movie

2.  Adam Beach is playing Slipknot!  Wow I haven't seen him in a major studio movie since....oh....

If you knew the formula it was pretty obvious that getting emotionally invested in Slipknot was probably not a good idea.  In addition I consider myself a comic-book fan of reasonably extensive knowledge and I don't think I've ever owned a comic with Slipknot in it.  Totally unrelated to DC Comics or this movie I would also like to point out that when my daughter was younger she watched an educational PBS show called Word Girl that had a superhero theme and the one villain that never got taken seriously (even on a show directed at 3-6 year olds) was "Amazing Rope Guy", draw your own conclusions.

The other side of the coin is El Diablo.  I hadn't been reading much DC stuff in the years before the New 52 launch so I'm not sure how prevalent El Diablo was then but when New 52 Suicide Squad title launched there he was and he was one of the characters that work best in stories like this.  He's clearly not a hero and he's done some terrible stuff but he's got a conscience and he's not a one-dimensional psycho.  But once again, unfortunately for El Diablo he has a place to play in fulfilling the Suicide Squad formula and it can't be every version of the story where Rick Flag is either the noble sacrifice or the good man left behind.  Sorry El Diablo you were (ironically) too good for this world.

There you have it (so far).  I've got Deadshot and Killer Croc on my table next as well as some newer Pulp City figures.

-Jay

Androida

Today's addition was a quick repaint.

Androida was one of the first Pulp City models I painted as she came in the mixed hero starter box.

She could also make a decent Jocasta stand-in if you were playing a Marvel game of some sort.

Ultimately Androida was a bit of a one-off for me.  As I mentioned the original Pulp City starters were mixed faction boxes with the good guys have 2 "Blood Watch" characters and 2 "Heavy Metal" characters.  Although I liked Androida and Iron Train the rest of the Heavy Metal faction didn't really appeal to me so they've just been hanging out not actually getting used for anything.

Who knows?  With more Pulp City on the Horizon for me maybe Androida can get a second (or would this technically be the first?) renaissance.

-Jay

Happy...I'm going to say...Columbus Day

Here in Canada it's Thanksgiving today, in the U.S. it's Columbus Day.

But even though I'm in Canada I'm going to spend my Columbus Day painting some super-patriots!  Pulp City is a superhero miniature game I first got interested in years ago (7 or 8 years, I can't really remember) when it first came out but it never really gained any traction with my gaming groups so I slowly moved away into other superhero game systems.

A Kickstarter was fairly recently concluded for Pulp City to launch two new Cold-War themed superteams.  My buddy Ash will be working on the Soviet themed team while I will be working on the forces of the good ol' U S of A.  What I really enjoy about this launch is that while many of the figures will seem familiar or may even feel like direct rip-offs of existing characters to casual comic fans the truth is most of them represent tropes or archetypes that have been used by multiple characters in multiple different comic companies over the years.

For example the team leading, shield bearing Spybreaker will immediately put most people in mind of Captain America but he's also reminiscent of Agent Liberty, Spy-Smasher and The Shield.

I just started these figs this morning but I'm hoping to finished at least one or tow of them today.

-Jay

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

There's only room for one dandy on this team....

If you understood that title you read the same comics I do.

I finally finished up the Mad Hatter today.  I'm pretty stoked because much like Bane the Hatter can be a member of the Secret Six but he is also the leader of his own gang (The Wonderland Gang).

Mad Hatter is very likely to end up in any version of the Secret Six I play with for the next little while.  Until more Secret Six members become available the Hatter's low recruitment cost should keep him in my warbands.

I'm a bit torn right now.  I've got Captain Boomerang on my desk as well as the Guardians Of The Galaxy and I'm also trying to sculpt a Pip-boy onto an Infinity miniature so it might be back to hobby A.D.D. for me.

-Jay

Bane crew

Progress on the Secret Six and/or Suicide Squad continues.  In the meantime I am also trying to circle back and paint some of the henchmen I have that have been half done or untouched.

When I first tried the Batman game I painted Bane and got 2 of his 3 mercs started (3 colours and based) so I could try the game out.  Yesterday I finished all 3 mercs that came in the Bane starter.

What generally seems to make playing villains with henchmen (as opposed to all named DC villains) more flexible is that a lot of henchmen are available who don't use extra resources.  The biggest challenge I've had figuring out crews so far is what I can "afford" in terms of funding rather than reputation.  If anyone has any suggestions for good crew builds I'd love to hear them in the comments below.

I'd also like to point out that if you ignore the meta-humans this game's henchmen figures would work for a variety of modern/near-future games.

A little bit of hobby A.D.D. is looming on the horizon with figures for 5 different games sitting on my desk waiting to be painted right now.

-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

The Fresh Prince Of Belle Reve

(I will literally NEVER get tired of referencing Suicide Squad to Fresh Prince Of Bel Air)

Tonight I got my third Secret Six member and first Suicide Squad member done; Deadshot.

Deadshot is a core member of the Secret Six who has been on every (pre-52) version of the team and is also one of the longest serving, most re-occurring members of the Suicide Squad.  In fact to my recollection his longest absence from the Suicide Squad since the mid 80s was the pre-52 period that he  spent with the Secret Six.

Deadshot has frequently been depicted as more of an amoral anti-hero than a true hero or villain throughout his career.  Typically if Deadshot is coming after you with intent to kill you probably deserve it.

There are currently two version of Deadshot available for the Batman game.  This one I believe is based on  the look of the character in one of the Arkham video games.  I'm not familiar with the series but his costume looks pretty radically different than this in every comic I've ever seen the character in.

I've got to be honest, I'm not 100% happy with how the mask turned out.  It definitely could have used a bit more work on my part but I was struggling with the overall lack of texture on the mask as compared to the rest of the figure.

I've got one more Secret Six model to paint and then I'm going to detour into the world of Marvel comics for a bit.

-Jay

Catman!

Yes!  CATMAN!

In my area there is suddenly a ton of interest in the Marvel Miniatures game by Knight Models so for some reason that has translated into me wanting to paint DC characters for the Batman Miniatures game.

I finally finished Catman (so see, I did paint something brown) who is still one of my favourite DC comics characters.

With the addition of the Flash/Arrow supplement for Batman there is now a ton of support for the two CW network TV shows and the other chunk of content in the book is bringing some more comic teams into the game.  Catman is the leader of the Secret Six which as I have mentioned before was (pre-52) one of my favourite DC comics.  At this time there are only models for four members of the Secret Six; Bane, Catman, Deadshot & Mad Hatter.  The plan is to get Mad Hatter and Deadshot done over the next week or so and then transition to painting some members of the Suicide Squad which will both give me more figs to paint and be useful if I ever get around to running a DC Adventures RPG.

-Jay

Project Plans For The Next 3 Weeks

Honestly I should probably stop stating my plans because every time I do I end up not entirely following through.  Having said that I have an event coming up that I want to use as a deadline to get some more stuff done so here's my plan for what that looks like.

FROSTGRAVE
I should be able to play Frostgrave one more time before I have to hit the road for work.  For the next scenario from Thaw Of The Lich Lord I will need 4 pillars/columns which will be some cake pillars I'll be painting up and then adding to my scatter terrain as well.  In addition I need 6 Armoured Skeletons which will be represented by Mantic Undead Revenants.   Once I get a few more of those done they will also be joining my Age Of Sigmar Vampire Counts.  That's all I need but I suspect I will try to do a few odds and ends to add to my wandering monsters as well.

Also at the end of the month Lords Of War here in Oakville is hosting a Wizard & Apprentice painting contest.  Speaking honestly I never expect to do that well in painting contests but they are a great way to push yourself to get some stuff done by a fixed date.  The plan is to get the Soothsayer and Apprentice done before the end of the month.

BATMAN
On February 6th my local FLGS will be hosting their 1 year anniversary and is running some mini-games for people to participate in.  For the Batman event each participant is invited to bring in a single character up to 150 points.  I just picked up The Wonderland Gang so even though he's only 75 points I'm going to get the Mad Hatter done up to play with.

MALIFAUX
As part of the same celebration at Lord Of War on February 6th they will also be hosting an Enforcer Brawl.  This is basically a free-for-all where everyone fields a single Enforcer model.  I've got a bunch of Enforcers done but again this is a great push to get something new done.  I'm planning on painting up a Mature Nephilim that I will be needing for a Through The Breach campaign this year.

Well that's the plan.  Will I get it all done (for a change)?  I hope so.

-Jay