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.
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
Such a corking posting, Kieron. I adored Freedom Force - having played it right through a few times, and these figs really fit the bill too. Cracking paint-jobs on some iconic super-heroes.
ReplyDeleteThe Kitbash range fits the bill really well.
Delete