Perfect Is The Enemy Of Good

Welcome back to Patriot City as I return with gusto to my nostalgia rabbit-hole project based on the superhero video game Freedom Force.

So far we've seen Gangsters, Dinosaurs, Giant Ants and disfigured Cultists assault this fair city with only a handful of heroes to stop them.

That's all about to change...

Enter three of the core heroes of the team...well, two and a sidekick, but still...

Miniuteman, the patriotic leader of the fight for freedom; Liberty Lad, his daring but youthful sidekick; and Man-Bot, a colossus barely able to contain the Energy X that surges through him.

All three come from the recently delivered Glory Guard Kickstarter from Kitbash Games (and, as usual, came with game cards for Super Mission Force and Pulp City), and as such are not quite exact to the original character designs. However, in the absence of official miniatures, I suspect these are as close as I'm going to get.

Minuteman

Minuteman is the first character you play in the game and is therefore central to the whole narrative.

A disgraced but patriotic pensioner, Frank Stiles is granted his youth and exceptional powers when he touches an Energy X infused statue whilst failing to confront communist spies.

He adopts the guise of Minuteman, clearly based on Captain America, in order to bring the enemies of freedom to justice.

The Colonel Glory miniature from Kitbash Games has quite a few differences from Minuteman's costume design, but enough similarities (the eagle topped staff, old military uniform, etc.) that he works well enough with the right paint job.

I've known this miniature was in the pipeline at Kitbash for quite some time, and so I haven't trawled through 18th century miniatures to find any potential alternatives.

One specific area that I needed to address was his lack of a tricorne hat. I clipped one off a miniature I picked up at Partizan with the intent of popping it on his head.

However, upon closer inspection, I found the staff to be too much in the way to guarantee that it would look stupid. Therefore I opted to have the hat sitting on the floor, having fallen off in combat.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's good enough.

Man-Bot

Arguably the most powerful member of the team, Man-Bot is almost a mash up of Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk, as playnoy Ted Taylor was infused with so much Energy X that it can only be contained by the suit he wears, and even then it still bursts out in dangerous blasts, one of which killed his brother, who designed the suit.

Tortured by his guilt and the threat he poses, Ted joins Freedom Force early in their adventure and ultimately becomes crucial to their mission to protect both the city and reality itself.

This is a chunky model that goes by the name of Armordillo and comes with a choice of hand options, the others being larger and more inhuman.

I trimmed off a helmet crest to bring him closer to the original character, but as you can see, this is much closer to the Freedom Force version than Minuteman is.

Having recently been painting silver Space Marines, I adopted much the same approach of a spray covered in Nuln Oil and then highlighted with Chainmail. I opted not to try to get the blue/purple tinge to the metal as I'm a coward.

The pink was done simply with a combination of Emperor's Children and Carroburg Crimson.

All in all this was really straightforward and I'm really happy with the result.

Liberty Lad

Nick Craft is a fan of Minuteman who uncovers a crime being perpetrated by the gangster Pinstripe. He manages to bring Freedom Force to the scene, but gets shot in the process. A blood transfusion from Minuteman grants him similar powers and turns him into a suitable sidekick.

Obviously based on Bucky Barnes and other teen sidekicks like Robin and Rick Jones, Liberty LL as is one of the less powerful team members who I only ever used if he was a mandatory inclusion for the mission.

The Kid Glory miniature is one of only a couple of single piece sculpts in the set and so required minimal preparation time to put together.

As you can see, again there are some subtle differences between the Kitbash miniature and the Freedom Force design, but the major beats of the character are all present.

I'm quite pleased with the blues I've done on Liberty Lad and Minuteman, which have had a Kantor Blue bases, a Caledor Sky layer, a wash of Drakenhof Nightshade and final edge highlights of Imrik Blue dry paint.

If you are wondering why I didn't do the starts in his chest, I should refer you toy earlier statement about being a coward. I might dig into my transfers collection to see if I have a star small enough.

I still have another half-dozen of this set to do, but I'm enjoying returning to superheroes as these individuals are a nice palette cleanser after the batch painting I've been doing recently.

Acquired: -83

Painted: 296

Lead Mountain: 674

Are We The Baddies?

The Badab War was a conflict between Space Marine chapters that began with the blockading of trade routes, led to the devastation of numerous planets and ended with the remnants of the Astral Claws chapter fleeing into the Maelstrom to become Chaos Renegades.

Perhaps this all could have been avoided if somebody had spotted the signs that the Astral Claws had gone rogue: withholding their gene-seed tithe; expanding their forces beyond prescribed numbers and, perhaps most of all, when they created a combined formation of Space Marines and planetary defence forces called...

...the Tyrant's Legion.

This is the first proper squad for my Astral Claws/Tyrant's Legion project and is a basic Tactical Squad featuring a Sergeant with a chain sword, a heavy bolter and a flamer.

Tactical Squads are one of the few Space Marine units that a Tyrant's Legion force (according to the out of date army list in the Imperial Armour: The Badab War book) can use without needing to include specific other units, and it conveniently allows me to use six of them in Kill Team should I choose to do so.

In terms of miniatures, I've mainly used the monopose plastic Marines from the Assault on Black Reach box, although due to having already uses some of them, I have supplemented the unit with a couple of Marines from the 40k Second Edition starter box, and replace a couple of missing bolters with some from my Horus Heresy Mkiv sprues.

The Marine armed with a flamer came with the set, but the heavy bolter is another Horus Heresy spare as the missile launcher from the original unit, currently serves with my Blood Angels.

On the subject of Blood Angels, the Sergeant is actually making use of a metal Blood Angel Death Company miniature, but his original heritage is not too obvious.

When it came to iconography I've used transfers from a company on Etsy called Impatient Tabletop. I can highly recommend to transfers which are ready to apply very quickly after popping in water and the only fiddly element is the fact that you need to trim the transfer very close to the image as it's not done for you.

An interesting comparison came with the old Tactical Squad marking transfers I've used on the couple of shoulder pads that didn't have them already moulded on. These didn't need trimming, but did take an age to soak and had a very washed out colour that benefited from being painted over.

All in all I'm pleased with this very simple unit, and combined with the Goliaths I painted a couple of weeks ago brings me to around a whopping 300 points in 10th Edition 40k.

There's much more to do, but I don't actually own very much else to paint right now, so I might need to track down a bargain or two before proceeding.

Acquired: -82

Painted: 293

Lead Mountain: 677

All Creatures Great & Small

 

All things vile and verminous,
All creatures great and small,
All things wild and wickedness,
The Horned Rat loathes them all.

With the release of the Skaventide box for Age of Sigmar 4th edition, I return to my stop-start attempt to build something useable from my existing backlog.

I'm still focusing on trying to field a Skaven force, just using very old models, and having already put together two units of Clanrats led by a Grey Seer, my attention has turned to something a little heavier.

I've had these three Rat Ogres for something like thirty years (maybe) and they were originally bought for use with Bloodbowl.

Only Boneripper (the one with three arms) ever got a coat of paint as part of my championship winning team, the Pitspike Stealers, and so he needed stripping before assembly, whereas the others needed some old glue chiselling off them.

When it came to painting, I used much the same simple methods that I've used on the rest of the army so far, relying largely on contrast paints for the base coats of the skin (Gulliman Flesh), fur (Wyldwood) and claws and horns (Skeleton Horde).

The fur was drybrushed Ushabti Bone and the metal was given a coat of Leadbelcher before both were washed with Agrax Earthshade.

I'm terms of details, the loincloths were done with Nazdreg Yellow, scarring was picked out with Agrax Earthshade and the gold elements on Boneripper were done with Retributor Armour and washed.

Meanwhile, I made plentiful use of GW technical paints. Wounds were bathed in Blood for the Blood God, pustules were done with Nurgle's Rot over Elysian Green and the eyes were given a glow with Hexwraith Flame.

Bases were done simply as well, with AK Terrain Muddy Ground texture paint with pools of Nurgle's Rot and a black rim.

Although I'm not going to win any awards with these models, I was struck by how easy modern materials make getting miniatures finished to a decent tabletop standard, and I considered just how much more I would have got painted in my youth had they existed.

Luxury! Young whippersnappers, don't know they're born!

I'm addition, the release of the pdf rules for Age of Sigmar 4th edition highlighted that not only are there currently no rules for Giant Rats, but also the Endless Spells (or Manifestations) are something that a player can automatically access.

This made making a decision about what to do with the Giant Rats I had already painted easy, and I based then up as the Vermintide Endless Spell effect.

This was easily done with the right sized base, a few bits of cork and the same basing strategy. In fact, it was so easy I'm not going to count it as a painted model (also, I've already counted the rats).

This decision also gives me a couple more mini-projects to do as I need to put together the other Skaven Endless Spells. Additionally, I think I also need to kitbash some Endless Spells for my Tzeentch Daemons, although I have plenty of spare bits from the Lord of Change that should be useful.

In terms of the Skaven force, I still have models to paint but I don't have anything to use for the Clan Skryre Engineer or Clawlord on Gnaw-Beast to complete the Spearhead force, so I might need to actually...you know...spend money...

Acquired: -82
Painted: 284
Lead Mountain: 686

The Worst of the Worst

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'll know that I have periods of extreme enthusiasm for specific projects followed by long, sometimes very long, fallow periods.

Therefore, when I made the decision to jump aboard the Badab War project train, I was caught between wanting to do things properly in terms of the Tale of 4 Gamers challenge, but also wanting to strike whilst the iron was hot in terms of harnessing my enthusiasm.

My answer to this conundrum was these guys...

I can hear what you are thinking: how do very old Necromunda Goliaths (oh my God, are those the horrific plastic ones?) fit into a Space Marine Chapter?

Well, it's like this. The Tyrant's Legion is an army formation from the Imperial Armour: The Badab War books which combines Astral Claws Space Marines with regular human troops. Most of these are clearly intended to be Imperial Guard...sorry, 'Astra Militarum' models, however there are also Renegade Marauder Squad. These represent the scum, pirates, xenos and heretics the Astral Claws allied with out of desperation, and one of the suggestions for using these on the tabletop is Necromunda models.

Obviously I could, and still might, just use my Orlocks and Ratskins, however, I was looking for something to paint and all I had available was these guys: the plastic Goliaths from the original release of Necromunda.

They are famously bad models. No necks, weird musculature, massive hands and arms that reach down to their knees (this is particularly bad with the posable pistol arms). Combined with this, the plasma gun conversion is a really rough one I did over twenty years ago when my standards were much lower.

The four metal models are marginally better in terms of proportions and detail, but actually have more weird musculature happening. Unlike most models in the old Necromunda range, these guys don't hold up, and the less said about the chainsaw hat, the better.

They were not fun to paint either as there's not really anything to work with on the plastics. I tried contrast paint for the skin, but it didn't sit right, so they've ended up with more cartoonish skin.

As ever, I set about trying include some racial diversity, but that has backfired as well. I need to probably work harder in layering the skin on these guys, but I don't think I care enough about a unit that is going to be used as cannon fodder.

In short, I'm less than proud of how they came out.

The blue accents on all the models are to tie them into the wider Astral Claws theme, but also gives them coherency as a Necromunda gang.

In terms of basing, I've gone for Astrogranite technical paint, drybrushed lighter grey and washed with Drakenhof Nightshade. This gives a generic rubble vibe whilst also giving some colour for the mainly silver Space Marines to contrast with.

There's a reason I originally plumped for the Orlocks in the Necromunda starter box, but it is good to get paint on these guys. I'm not sure I'll personally use them as a gang, but they do mean I have a second basic gang without additional rules to lend out if necessary.

Also, I have these guys ready to bring into my Tyrant's Legion later down the line of the Badab War project. What stats I will use I'm keeping to myself for now.

Acquired: -71

Painted: 295

Lead Mountain: 681

Covert Operations

Over the last couple of weeks, Matt and I have been stealthily evading the rest of our gaming group and enacting our secret plan to try out his relatively new acquisition, 02 Hundred Hours from Grey For Now Games.

The game focuses on covert operations during WW2, with SAS teams launching raids on unsuspecting German targets.

The starter set comes with rules, cards, dice tokens and a good chunk of miniatures (from Wargames Atlantic), giving you everything you need to play, except for the MASSIVE amounts of terrain you need to not only make the games feel immersive, but also prevent the SAS getting spotted and gunned down in short order (something we discovered in the first game).

The rulebook contains a series of scenarios which seem to introduce rules slowly, which is handy because the game is a bit fiddly and it's easy to make mistakes when you are learning.

Activation is decided by drawing tokens out of a bag, special dice are used for skill checks and different types of cards can be used to mix things up.

Over the course of three evening, we've played through the first three scenarios and learned a fair amount along the way.

Mission 1 - Hunted

To keep things simple, I'm this scenario the SAS (Matt) needed to move across a board patrolled by the Germans (Me) without getting half of their squad killed.

The scenarios are all asymmetric as the small units of skilled British elites are pitted against larger numbers of somewhat less elite sentries.

We found out very early on that there was not really enough cover for the British to take advantage of, and so their chances of getting across the board undetected were almost zero.

Games are played at night and so visibility has its own mechanic, which helps. However, the nature of the missions means that ultimately the SAS have to move closer to the Germans and therefore are at a significant risk of being discovered.

In our first game, Matt made pretty good headway initially, especially as the random movement brought about by the roving patrols rules meant that the Germans spent the early turns marching around in circles and clearly shouting at each other to reveal their locations.

However, once the British were spotted, the lack of cover meant that weight of fire won the day as the Germans managed to take out three of the five SAS men.

We did actually play this again taking on different roles, but the outcome was pretty similar.

Mission 2 - Butcher and Bolt

This scenario saw the British attacking a German outpost intent on killing the occupants before reserves could arrive.

Much more terrain was put into plan to give the SAS a fighting chance of actually using stealth.

This game introduced the patrol route rules, which saw the German sentries following a set path with very little chance of them spotting attackers unless they made too much noise or got too close and set off the alarm.

This is an odd phase of the game as there's not a lot the German player can do to influence events, but equally the British player needs to cautiously advance towards their goal before striking.

Fortunately, this phase did not last too long as Matt, being Matt, decided that when a Feldgendarme got curious and came to investigate the area the British were in, he resorted to type and went for a full-blooded attack...

...which failed and raised the alarm.

However, he had got himself into a good position to attack and grenades and gunfire poured into the compound.

However, despite the force of the attack, German reserves arrive faster than expected (partly because some were already in buildings - due to those cards I mentioned) and with pretty much everybody visible (hence the tokens), the game devolved into a more conventional skirmish.

This was a close game in which victory was ultimately claimed by the Germans after a crack shot by a late arriving sentry, taking down the British Sergeant just before he could kill again.

Mission 3 - Sabotage

As hinted at by the name, this scenario saw the British trying to destroy a high value strategic target. In our case, this was a radar station.

It also introduced the rules for demolitions as the British goal was to reach the dish, plant a bomb and get clear before it detonated.

Once again, the Germans were patrolling and Matt made much more use of stealth, although the alarm did get raised again by his first actual attack (which failed again).

We made a bit of a mistake with bringing in the reserves, which meant I was on the back foot quickly.

Ultimately, despite card-based shenanigans, the SAS were able to destroy the radar station, but only secured a minor victory as they failed in their secondary objective to leave the table with more than half their squad intact.

All in all I think we've both enjoyed this game and we are starting to appreciate the tactical nuances as we get to grips with the rules. For example, due to marginally different stats, Feldgendarmes make better reserves than Sentries, who make better...well...erm...sentries.

We are still making mistakes, but that's not really due to complexity of the rules, but more to do with the fact that lots of the mechanics are fairly similar, but not the same.

If Matt hadn't already got everything we need to play, I'd probably be considering picking this up. If you are remotely interested in WW2 gaming but are daunted by building a full army, you should probably have a closer look.

Powered Rangers

After playing my way through Fallout 3, it became apparent that one of the things missing from my growing collection of miniatures was some robots. Specifically I wanted to add some Protectrons to the range of threats that can be found wandering the wastes.

These are a set of 3d printed models I picked up from Twisted Pinnacle Games' Etsy store for the princely sum of...well, go and see for yourself. However, it's safe to say that you could get a fair number of them for the same price as one of the Modiphius boxes.

Why did I not get the officially Modiphius models? Well, cost is one thing; the Modiphius Protectrons are significantly more expensive.

The other issue is that the basic Protectrons are in a box with Assaultrons, which I didn't want. The Protectron Workers don't have this issue, but I actually didn't know they existed until Id already bought the 3d prints.

There is a question around supporting a company by buying their products, however, I don't think I'd ever actually get round to buying the Protectrons direct, I'd more likely spend on adding to my four factions forces.

Also, I've handed over a good chunk of cash to Modiphius in the last month, so I feel I'm doing my bit.

The sculpts of these five models are a bit static, but as the clunky robots there are, I don't see this as a problem. They are also not as detailed as the official models I've painted, but they are detailed enough for me.

There were a bit of a problem to clip off their slotta tabs, which actually led to a couple of legs snapping. However, resin is incredibly easy to fix. On the other hand, I didn't spend enough time cleaning the support points off the models, so they are a bit rough and ready in place.

For painting, I went with an undercoat of Grey Seer with a suitable contrast paint base coat, except for the Army Protectron, which got a base coat and wash. The Police and Construction Protectrons later got a a base coat added as the contrast was patchy.

The metallic parts were painted, black bits were done with Black Templar and then both were washed in Agrax Earthshade to make them look grubby.

After that, the details specific to each robot were done one at a time, usually these details were raised enough to pick out easily, but the army star is a transfer.

Before basing, the paintwork was sponged with silver to provide chipping, and glass parts were given a coat of gloss varnish.

All in all I'm really quite pleased with them and when I actually get round to playing games they will add some welcome colour (both literally and figuratively) to my tabletop.

In other news, I've reclaimed a few Space Marines I'd given away ready for my Badab War project. This sounds like odd behaviour, but I'd given them to Matt without him asking, and he had no plans to use them (I checked). 

Acquired: -71
Painted: 284
Lead Mountain: 692

The Horned Rat Helps Those Who Run Fastest

"I am Grey Seer Thanquol. I am the chosen representative of their malevolent majesties, the Lords of Decay, the Council of Thirteen of holy Skavenblight and the living claws of his most vengeful divinity the Horned Rat. I am the eyes, nose and ears of Skavenblight. I am their judge and their dagger! Know me and tremble, spleenless-mouse, and beg my indulgence for your impiety"

- Grey Seer Thanquol 

As you can see, I've pivoted back painting old Skaven models for potential use in the new edition of Age of Sigmar, and this time I've focused on the first of two leaders included in the soon to be released Spearhead force, a Grey Seer.

But not just any Grey Seer. No-no. The greatest and most powerful Grey Seer to ever scurry through the Under Empire, with the most cunning and devious plan-schemes in creation. Grey Seer Thanquol.

I've had this miniature for a long time, and originally bought him and the first Boneripper (yes, he'll be popping along soon) to add a wizard and a Rat Ogre to my Skaven Bloodbowl team. 

However, unlike Boneripper, he never got painted, and I think this was due to me feeling a bit intimidated by the model, something which time, practice and the existence of contrast paint seems to have abated.

I'm learning that Skaven, especially old metal Skaven, respond fantastically to contrast paints, and it makes painting them much less daunting and time-consuming than I found in the past.

I'm absolutely delighted how Thanquol has turned out, and he's really enthused me to crack on with this project.

"Forward to inevitable victory! Die-die, man-things!"

In other less exciting news, I've painted up the last five plastic Giant Rats.

I've still not fully decided how to use them, but I'm leaning towards using them as a kitbashed Vermintide endless spell, partly because that's a game feature that is unique to Age of Sigmar and it would be interesting to try it out, but also I think putting together a scenic base for them could be fun.

Next up are three Rat Ogres (see, I told you Boneripper was coming), but I need to get hold of some 50mm bases first, and I also need work out what I'm going to do to represent the Clawlord on Gnaw-Beast model to complete my cobbled-together Spearhead force.

Acquired: -82

Painted: 284

Lead Mountain: 686