Soldiers of Fortune

I've wittered before about the ad hoc way my brain works when selecting what to paint next, and so it should come as no surprise that finally getting round to watch season 1 of Peacemaker would cause me to return to my backlog for the Batman Miniatures Game.

These are Bane's mercenaries and represent a weird crossover between movies, games and comics.

In appearance they are similar to the hired guns who work for Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, but three of them came with the massive comic version of Bane, who generally works alone. However, the game is built around leaders and gangs, so this odd mash up is what we have.

In terms of painting, I've not done anything too special, instead relying more than usual on contrast paints. However, I have taken to doing a final light dry brush at the end with pale grey or ivory to pick out details, something that was necessary on this largely black armoured model.

The three models that came with Bane are actually resin rather the metal that the rest of my BMG collection are cast in, this is because they are from the third edition of the game, which is where I jumped ship.

I should stress, this decision was not about the switch to resin, as these were significantly easier to work with that some of the metal BMG minis I work with. However, I am concerned with the durability of some of the more spindly bits - specifically this sword.

The tomahawks on this chap are also worrying, although it was actually his foot that snapped when I was assembling him, which is why I used the tyre on this resin base to hide the damage.

Initially, I wasn't keen on this sculpt, but I warmed to it as I painted him, although I'm still perplexed by the tomahawks.

Whereas, ice axes are a much more sensible choice.

This sculpt reminded me of lots of the issues I had with Knight Models sculpts when I was heavily into the game. The metal is quite soft and to the ice axes are quite flimsy (although not as worrying as that sword); the right arm is joined at the shoulder and the junction wasn't clean, so there's a bit of a messy gap; although, if you look closely, the arms are different thicknesses.

Mind you, for all their failings, I am also reminded of what I liked about the range. This sculpt has bags of character with his pose and muttonchops giving real redneck hunter vibes.

The hat being red is entirely coincidental.

Here's the whole gang with Bane. Despite my misgivings about how they work together, I am really pleased with the outcome.

Will I play the game again? That feels unlikely, but these five miniatures are actually quite versatile in terms of modern gaming and so could easily get table time in other setting.

Acquired: -73

Painted: 410

Lead Mountain: 362

Lava, Death and Robots

For reasons I won't go into, I needed a bit of a simple and straightforward palette cleanser this weekend, and so I turned to a recent opportunistic purchase that took me back to the mean streets of Pulp City for the first time in a while.

I recently took advantage of Kitbash Games having a sale (with a significant discount) as they moved their production from resin to something else.

This gave me a chance to pick up some models I've been considering for a while and to tide me over until the Pulp City: Full Effect campaign fulfills.

First up is Magman, Powerhouse for the Shadow Axis team of villains that I painted back in 2020. He is one of only a couple of members of that team that I don't have, and as he was in the sale I decided to grab him.

As you can probably guess, he is basically a great big bruiser made of lava, making him a veritable eruption of destruction on the table top. The downside being that, common to all Powerhouses, he is a drain on activation dice, rather than providing them.

I took a fairly simplistic approach to painting him, inspired by, but not exactly the same as, the method I used for my Balrog.

I undercoated the model in red and then gave him a heavy dry brush in black. After this I picked out all the deepest cracks with white and clgave the whole model a wash of Cassandora Yellow, which settle unevenly and gave the orange/yellow effect.

After this, I again dry brushed in black to tidy things up, followed by a light dusting of grey for highlighting.

The base is scratch built from card and aluminium mesh to fit in with the rest of the gang as I didn't have a suitable 50mm resin base.

The remaining two models are technically Omega Drones from the TechNet faction, which I don't own any other models for. However, I shall be using them as proxies for Sentry Bot minions (the cards for which are available from the Pulp City Limits Facebook group)

I'm using them as Sentry Bots as I struggle to field enough minions as I'm allowed to in my Red Republik and A.R.C. factions. Specifically, robots are a better fit than the ninjas I have for the scientific arm of the Ape Revolutionary Committee.

When I said I was looking for something simple to paint, it was the Omega Drones followed a simplistic pattern I've used on several projects. Spray silver, black wash, pick out feature colour.

I opted for glowing blue on these guys as I felt that red would look a bit too Terminator, whilst green might suggest Necron too much.

Although they were simple to paint, I'm pleased that I been able to get something done this weekend and keep myself occupied.

Acquired: -73

Painted: 403

Lead Mountain: 369

Strange Days

I don't know why or how my motivation strikes to bring me round to projects that have remained untouched for a long time.

Perhaps I should see a psychiatrist...

Enter Dr Strange...no, not that one!

Dr Hugo Strange, the cutting edge psychiatrist who, according to various versions of the Batman story, uncovers the truth behind the mask and uses that information for leverage and power.

This miniature comes from the Batman Miniatures Game, something I haven't played in many years and I think he's ended up getting painted today because he's quite a simple model to get done.

Does this mean I'm about to start playing the Batman Miniatures Game again?

Probably not.

Does this herald a run of Batman related content on this page?

Who knows?

All I know is he was a relatively easy win.

Acquired: -61
Painted: 380
Lead Mountain: 632

Freedom Force: In Full Effect

I'm aware that I bounce around my many different projects with little rhyme or reason, often leaving things unfinished only to return to them at a later date when motivation strikes again.

Such is the case with this post where external events (to be discussed later) have brought me back around to my Freedom Force project to (almost) finish off my existing backlog.

The latest surge of miniatures for this project came from a Kitbash Games Supers Unlimited Kickstarter releasing a new team called the Glory Guard, which are heavily influenced by the Freedom Force game and I've chosen to lean into with my painting and modeling choices.

I now only have a single miniature from the Glory Guard Kickstarter to paint: Enigmiss. Unfortunately, the member of Freedom Force that she looks like is Alche-Miss, who I've already converted, so I'm considering alternative uses for her.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. The latest models to get paint on them are a somewhat contrasting affair, and not only because they have largely been done with contrast paints.

We have the monochromatic Tombstone and the eminently more vibrant Quetzalcoatl, both of who are characters which turn up in the time-travelling sequel, Freedom Force Vs the Third Reich.

Quetzalcoatl is a character which plays on the superhero trope of ancient gods bestowing power on a suitable mortal in the manner of Thor (the original comics version) or Shazam. In this case it's an Aztec god who imbues Jonny Azotl with a range of powers appropriate to a giant flying snake.

This model was the most fragile of the set and in fact I managed to snap his ankle whilst cleaning the model. However, it's also probably the most detailed and took the contrast paints and washes really well leaving me really happy with the outcome.

On the other hand, there's Tombstone. The vengeful spirit of a man executed for a crime he didn't commit who no stalks the guilty, bringing them to justice. Deadman meets the Shadow, if you will.

When it came to painting this one I have arguably relied too much on contrast paints and the initial reference picture I used made it clear that his colours are black, grey and silver.

However, the reference material varies and, as you can see, there were options for a more colourful approach. Adding in the fact that the Basilicanum Grey paint has left him looking quite dirty means that overall I'm not very pleased with the outcome.

I think I'm found to revisit him and highlight the black with purple and clean up the grey to see if I can get an outcome I'm happier with.

As the Glory Guard came with stat cards for both Super Mission Force and Pulp City, I can now field a version of Freedom Force in both games along with 7TV, where I've been using custom profiles.

However, it's Pulp City that provided the motivation for me to get back to these two models, and this is the reason...

Kitbash Games are currently running another campaign, Pulp City: Full Effect, this time on Gamefound to fund the first additions to the main Pulp City setting in a long time (this was originally due in 2020, but 'stuff' happened, if you remember). It's also the first time that the rulebook has been available since the company changed hands, so it marks a real relaunch of the game.

The campaign can be found HERE.

I have somehow now amassed five teams and a motley selection of independent heroes for Pulp City, and so I'm looking to pick up any members of Red Republik or the A.R.C. (such as Simian Jones above) that turn up in the campaign, and with more stretch goals (based on both funding and backers) I'm checking back daily to see what else to add.

I'm also toying with the idea of starting another team, Settlers Green, simply as an excuse to buy the somewhat intimidating Tri-Bal model. There are three members of the team currently available in the add-ons section at the bottom of the page with more that have been teased.

Alternatively, there is a brand new team, Discord, available as a multi-buy, new versions of older characters and with Pulp City's mechanic of being able to build teams in multiple different ways, you could just grab the models you like and go from there.

Am I shilling for the company?

Well, yes. Leon is a friend and I'd like to see him get the game back to where it was. Partly because I want him to do well, but also because it's a really good game that I'd like to play more.

Acquired: -61

Painted: 360

Lead Mountain: 652

Law & Order

"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories."

Well, not quite.

In Patriot City, in the world of Freedom Force, Law and Order are not separate, but rather are two faces of the same hero.

An honest cop and a lawyer who was blinded by a mob hit, Law and Order were hit with Energy X whilst in witness protection and were fused so that only one of them can be active at a time.

In my play through of the original game, I've fought alongside Order as an NPC in one of the scenarios involving the gangster Pinstripe, and the two are available to recruit, but I've not gotten around to spending my prestige points on them yet.

These models are again from the Kitbash Games Glory Guard Kickstarter and are sold under the names Truth and Justice.

Law

Mild-mannered Sarah (no last name) was blinded in a mob hit on the Judge she worked for, and later almost killed in witness protection.

As Law, despite wielding a blade with deadly accuracy, she is primarily a protective hero, able to heal, shield and remove conditions for her ally.

Painting wise, yellow and white was never going to be a walk in the park, but I'm quite happy with how she turned out. I had several goes at the white, using washes, drybrushing and contrast paint until I got to a place I was happy with.

Conversely, the Averland Sunset I used for the yellow was a bit watery and ended up working quite well over a Grey Seer undercoat. A happy little accident.

All in all I'm really happy with how she came out. I didn't do the scales on her to nic because I'm not a masochist and they are also represented on her belt buckle.

Order

Officer Samson had been tipped off by corrupt cops to leave Sarah to her fate, but stayed to protect her despite his misgiving. 

As Order he is a classic 'brick' superhero, a heavy hitter with massive strength and toughness, but prone to flying into a berserk rage.

Although quite straightforward, I'm less pleased with my painting of Order. It might be to do with the darker palette, or it could be because of all the models from the set, this had most work to do on mould lines and filling bubbles.

I ended up finding him a bit of a chore. His skin is Mournfang Brown washed in Nuln Oil, whilst the tunic is highlighted Kantor Blue.

I probably need to put more work in to make the details pop, but I found the sculpt a bit of a paint to work around.

He's fine, but my least favourite to paint so far.

With Law and Order finished, I've now completed all of the heroes I own from the original game and have now put together almost the entire team. I still have a couple of characters from the sequel, Freedom Force Vs the 3rd Reich, along with an alternate version of Alche-Miss.

The notable characters I'm missing are El Diablo, Man-O-War and Bullet l, who are actually some of the characters that I use most when playing and I'm keen to include them. Finally there are the optional recruits of Blackbird, Iron Ox and Super Collider, who I'm less fussed about.

When I started this project, I never really thought that I'd get more than a handful of the team done given how specific the brief was. However, the fact that I now can field several different team lineups is largely due to Kitbash Games.

I also have several villainous groups to put against the heroes of Patriot City: Nuclear Winter's frozen forces; Pinstripe's gang of goons; Shadow's dark minions; and dinosaurs propelled through time.

I'm going to wait until I've played it before moving on to characters from Freedom Force Vs the 3rd Reich, however, I might put a bit of effort into the villains that I haven't yet put together: Mr Mechanical, Pan, Deja Vu and the Dominion.

In other news, I've picked up another couple of units for my Badab War project, and so I've gone backwards on the progress. I'm thinking that I might need some honest conversations about whether I'm going to keep some of the backlog that I don't look like getting to.

Acquired: -70
Painted: 300
Lead Mountain: 683

Anty-Hero

To help inspire me to get my Kitbash Games Glory Guard miniatures painted up as Freedom Force, I've actually been playing through the original game from 2002.

Despite being a little buggy initially, I've made it through the initial quests dealing with Nuclear Winter, battled dinosaurs in the streets and things have got a bit buggy again as I am dealing with an infestation of Giant Ants led by the diminutive figure of The Ant.

Having played the game before, I'm fully aware that whilst initially appearing as an ant-agonist, The Ant is a hero at heart and has been mind-controlled by a villain called The Shadow, who I painted last year.

Pleasingly, getting both The Ant and The Shadow painted means that I can feasibly use this combination, along with Darkman and Giant Ants to create a recently large villainous cast to oppose the rest of the team.

The Ant is a character which seems to combine the major beats of both Ant-Man (shrinking and ant-control) and Spider-Man (awkward nerdy teenager, wall-crawling), and this is fairly evident in the costume.

The Kitbash Games sculpt of Microbug is different enough from the Ant, but is close enough to make painting easy and obvious.

I did an undercoat of Grey Seer and then a base coat of Fleshtearer's Red contrast paint. I picked out the brown parts of the costume in Mournfang Brown and then washed the whole model in Agrax Earthshade.

I later highlighted in Mournfang Brown and Mephiston Red before picking out the belt in black and the goggles in silver before doing the lenses white and giving them a was of Cassandora Yellow.

One nice touch from Kitbash Games is that Microbug comes with an additional smaller version for when he has shrunk in games.

I'm not sure how relevant this will be in 7TV, other than for aesthetics, but in Pulp City (which Microbug has rules for) exchanging models for shape and size changers is a well-defined mechanic.

I still have several more heroes to go, but I might wait until they show up in the game before getting them done.

Acquired: -83
Painted: 298
Lead Mountain: 672

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

Cold Warriors

Long time readers of this blog will know that I have the slowest of slow-burn niche nostalgia projects constantly running in the background in the form of slowly collecting and painting versions of the characters from Freedom Force, a superhero tactical RPG from 2002.

Things had been quiet on this front for a while until Crooked Dice released their Cold Warriors pack, generic Soviet era soldier primarily aimed at Cold War Spy-Fi.

You might spot that I've not exactly gone for era appropriate uniform colours.

This is because these models have more than a passing resemblance to the goons of one of the key villains of the game: Nuclear Winter.

The Frost Warriors and Ice Troopers show up when a Soviet agent gives ice-themed powers, Nuclear Winter, freezes part of Patriot City to get hold of a nuclear submarine.

Our heroes, the eponymous Freedom Force, have to battle through a veritable legion of these freeze-ray-armed henchmen to get to the big bad and save the day 

As you can see from my Ice Troopers, the Cold Warrior models are not an exact match for the game models, but they are a close fit, and I particularly liked the piping on their coats.

Rather than attempt to give them goggles, which I'm sure wouldn't be too difficult, I've opted for giving them ice blue eyes. I didn't attempt any gun modification either, instead choosing to just paint their AK-47s blue.

All in all, the are close enough, which has been the core ethos of this project.

The Frost Warriors are a little bit tougher in game and I'm actually torn on whether I like what I've done with this model.

On the down side, the coat being longer means there's no grey trousers to prevent the red with white piping giving somewhat of a Commie-Santa vibe - he comes down the chimney and shares the presents out equally.

The grey beard and the snow aren't helping.

However, I am deeply amused by the fact that with a grey beard he looks more than a little like Jeremy Corbyn, the teensy-bit left wing former leader of the Labour party.

This now gives me a usable Nuclear Winter cast for games of 7TV. I'm not sure if I'd get to 30 ratings yet (a star, a co-star and 4 henchmen), but I can always add in my more generic thugs, who are found working for Nuclear Winter before he transforms.

There are a couple more henchmen to pick up for this bad guy: Shurales (yeti-type monsters) and Snow Men (you can guess what they are), which should bulk out the cast appropriately if I can lay my hands on suitable models.

I'm due a bit of an influx of minis usable in Freedom Force minis from a Kickstarter I back a while ago, and so it's good to get moving on this project again.

Acquired: -100

Painted: 267

Lead Mountain: 683