Flame War

After getting side-tracked by superheroes for a bit, I'm returning to the task of finishing off the contents of my Start Collecting: Daemons of Tzeentch box. This time I've focused on what passes for the long ranged threat of my burgeoning army: Flamers and an Exalted Flamer.

 I will admit to the fact that one of the reasons for my Daemon hiatus was not really knowing how to approach painting these models. All the painting guides I looked at seemed to focus on air-brushing or wet blending, neither of which are my bag.

I settled on going for a simple Drakenhof Nightshade wash (twice) over a white undercoat, highligted with Blue Horror, using a combination of Nihilakh Oxide and a green wash on the 'hands' rather than the more usual purple (because I didn't have a purple wash). The flames were done with Tesseract glow as usual.

I'm not entirely happy with the Flamers because they're so indistinct. The faces (there are many of them) all merge into each other and so make it hard to give the models any personality. Admittedly, this fits with the fluff of the daemon, which is meant to be constantly changing, but you've probably noticed that I like clean, neat colours on my models - hence the preference for painting cartoon characters. 

I much prefer the Exalted Flamer due to the more defined features giving a clear focus to what you are looking at. If I have a gripe about this one, it's the flames being unnaturally linear, which is a side effect of them being cast on a sprue. This is minimised a bit by flames coming from the arms widening the plane of the flames. I'm also a bit concerned that the base is a bit empty, so I might add a scenic rock or two in time.

I've only got the Screamers left to do from the Start Collecting box, so I'm feeling a bit vindicated that I've almost got the whole box done, as it was a bit of an impulse buy. With any luck, I'll get them all done by the time I'm actually allowed to play a game with somebody.

Acquired: 34

Painted: 52

New Avengers: Breakout, Issue #4

Having recently painted up some Velociraptors, I now had everything I needed to continue my ongoing New Avengers campaign, based on the Breakout event from Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.

I made the decision to continue with the characters as they appear in the comics, and so Daredevil would leave the team to deal with his personal issues - Kingpin attacking everybody he cared about (I might explore this in a future adventure).

The other decision I made was to switch gaming systems. Not because I have any issues with Super Mission Force, but more because I have been putting together my own fast play superhero rules and wanted to give them a proper test.

The game makes use of Dicemasters dice and the core concept that the game is a single issue of a comic book. I had to make an adjustment to the rules in play, but otherwise the game worked out well and only took about an hour to play. Here's an example of the game cards.

There will be more about these rules in the future, but for now, let's get on with the game.

...

Following the mass escape from the Raft super prison, the newly reformed Avengers: Captain America, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman and Spider-Man, determine that the breakout was perpetrated by Electro to free Karl Lykos, Sauron. Therefore, in order to recapture the escapee, the team head to Antarctica and the Savage Land...

Although they had driven off their assailants, two of the Avengers had been severely injured and the quintet had been wrecked. The only thing for it was to continue the search for Karl Lykos, and then hope to find a way to get him back to prison.

Needless to say, there is more action to come and the Avengers are walking into trouble. I will need to source a few Savage Land Mutates to throw at them before that can happen.

Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey

I hadn't intended to veer away from Superheroes towards Doctor Who, but it's happened. I can't do anything to change it, as buying those Weeping Angels is now a fixed point in time.

This is still sort of a Superhero post, as I'll explain later.

Anyway, here's the Doctor, some companions and some Velociraptors...which makes perfect sense.

Contrary to appearances, I'm not actually a massive Doctor Who fan, or 'Whovian', as those who take these things too seriously have it.

I do watch, and like, the show, and in recent years Cheaphammer Junior has got herself into it in a big way. Therefore, I've probably ended up paying it more attention than I otherwise would have.

However, Doctor Who is a fantastic fit for 7TV (it's clearly one of the key influences in the original game) and my collection of Doctor Who related miniatures has steadily grown, often accidentally, which is true of some of today's offerings.

The period when I did watch the show fairly intently was when David Tennant played the 10th Doctor. Without putting it too bluntly, his performances were brilliant.

Therefore, I was delighted when a certain gentleman, who goes by the name Wayne, kindly offered to send several people who asked nicely spare copies of some not-Doctor Who miniatures he'd found in one of his many sheds.

Despite already having a Matt Smith Doctor, I requested the model above and duly recieved it around Christmas. The miniature is an OOP model from Heresy Miniatures. It was removed from sale around the time that Warlord released their Exterminate game, which is sad, because this unofficial not-Doctor looks far more like David Tennant than the official model.

There is really nothing special about how I've painted it, but I am really pleased about how he's turned out.

Another model that disappeared in the 'extermination' of the not-Doctor Who models, is this definitely not Rose Tyler from Crooked Dice, which is a shame as it's really just a civilian miniature (of which there are too few of in the world) with nothing overtly Billie Piper about it to upset the lawyers.

I was very kindly sent this by Karl from Crooked Dice for taking part in the 7TV Facebook group Secret Santa. It came with the coolest Christmas Card ever (done in the art style of 7TV first edition, which I love). Having a Rose is what prompted me to take up Wayne's kind offer about the Doctor.

The face was a bit of a struggle to paint, as the features are quite soft and less cartoony than the Heresy Doctor. The rest of the paint job was very straightforward.

K-9 isn't officially a companion for the tenth Doctor, although he does show up in the episode 'School Reunion', which is enough for him to count in my book.

Also from Heresy Miniatures, and still on sale (if you look closely), I actually bought this model on purpose during a sale a few years back. It comes with optional heads, tails and buttons (not all of which are shown on the webstore) which allow you to put together a close approximation of the infamous tin dog.

Again, the paint job is extremely simple, but I am quite pleased with the free hand lettering. It's not quite central, but I'm not redoing it at the risk of it ending up worse.

The Velociraptors are not actually for my Doctor Who games, although they could be, which is one of the reasons Doctor Who works so well for 7TV. You can explain anything.

In fact, they are covering a lot of bases for different project I have on the go. They were bought for a Marvel Savage Land scenario, easily fit with 7TV Pulp and have been painted to match some of the Raptors in the Freedom Force game.

See, I told you this was a Superhero post.

The models are from Nolzur's Marvellous Miniatures, an as such are cheap, cheerful and made of bendy plastic. They're not great miniatures, and I probably should have spent more time cleaning them up. However, this wouldn't have altered the fact that they're not great, especially around the claws. This is the reason I've not done anything fancy with painting them.

Personally, I consider Nolzur's Marvellous Miniatures in the same category as Reaper Bones (although slightly better). They are kind to the wallet and get better as the miniatures get larger, but I'd avoid them for anything on the smaller side with anything detailed about it. I only use them for monsters and creatures, and these Velociraptors are the smallest models I'll buy from them.

It's nice to be picking up pace and clearing some models that have been in my queue for a while (the dinosaurs). I do have a few more Doctor Who miniatures to paint, and I'm in the zone, but who knows (see what I did there?) where my moods will take me.

Acquired: 34

Painted: 48