Monsters and heroes from Cthulhu: Death may die

The first one is a nun from Shadows of Brimstone. The usual crappy resin and I had to replace the barrels from the shotgun as they were bent and full of bubbles. I painted it just becuase I had these other two on the painting table.

The other two are Luke and Sister Beth from Cthulhu: DmD game. Beth comes from the base box, while Luke is a kickstarter exclusive.

These are ghouls and deep ones from the base box. Real quick paint-jobs on these, to get painted figs on the board (and less figs in the plastic-mountain).

We're playing along with the Cthulhu: Death May Die game, going through the scenarios and playing each a couple of times with different Elder Ones and different characters. Great fun! It's such a good game.

Painters block seem to have been truly gone

The painting low I had this autumn seem to be gone (for good?), as I have cranked out a lot of minis the last month.

First these gangers for use in our club campaign of Street Wars. They are the Black Cobras gang from the same manufacturer, and has seen two battles so far. 

First game. The Black Cobras take on the Mollies, while trying to mug some pesky civilians. 

A Mollie lookout

The uncultured and rather racist Devil Outcasts join the fun. For the Black Cobras this turned into a two-front war, which you usually don't win. 

The cops stop eating donoughts and make an appearance. A Mollie is arrested, to the general merriment of two players.

The first was, ahem, a learning game for the gang (see above), but the second fight showed which gang of the four in that fight was the mightiest (the last roll of the last turn saw the Black Cobras go from a last place to the first. Truly heroic wasting of a knocked out enemy leader…)

Next we have some savages. The first two are Forest tribe women from Heroes of the Dark Age. Fantastic resin-figures but rather small at around 25 mm.

Then we have two taller heroes from Shadows of Brimstone, made of a horrible resin. In the background a portal from the same game, and a 3D-printed Kraken Idol from EC3D.

Last but not least is this rather diverse bunch. A serving woman from Wizkids, then a 3D-printed penguin from EC3D, a centaur (the best on the market in my opinion) from Heresy Miniatures, a 3D-printed zombie (I don’t remember the make, but I’m not too happy with it. Will have a higher resolution next time) and finally two giant rats from Reaper.

That’s it for now. Got a dozen or so Arabs nearly finished and lots more in the queue, both figures and buildings.

Cultists

You can never have too many cultist, right?

I do need more cultists in our games of 7TV, and thought I could make some suitable ones with a sprue of Frostgrave-cultist combined with arms and weapons from a sprue US infantry from Warlord I got for free with a magazine. I also used some spare German arms and weapons I got from a friend (Thanks, Laffe!), also Warlord I think.

Very easy conversions, really, and with them I got some really useful cultist ready for some serious fighting.

The taller figure comes from Shadows of Brimstone, one of a gang of twelve. The other 11, identical to this one, are still unmade. Don’t know if I will ever finish the lot, but the one can always be used in a pulp game or two.

Zombie Wolfs for Zombicide: Black Plague

This is a record for me! 25 minis painted in less than two weeks.

We play quite a lot of Zombicide: Black Death at the club, and, as I had the Wulfsburg expansion in the plastics mountain, I thought it would be a good idea to get those zombie wolves painted so we could get started on these new scenarios.

In the box are 21 zombie wolfs, of three different casts, and one large wolf abomination. There are also four heroes, but I haven’t started on them yet.

I painted the wolfs in my tried and tested winter-wolf scheme, which is fast and looks good enough.

When I was at it, I also finished two wolf zombies from Reaper and a wolf from the Shadows of Brimstone game. The zombies were rather nice but the resin Brimstone wolf really wasn’t. Their resin is crap, unfortunately.

Anyway, I’m really satisfied with how this turned out. Lots of painted minis in a short time and they look all right. What’s not to like?

2018 in the rearview mirror

A game of Dux Britanniarum in full swing. We use Lord of Rings figures and the heroic Free Men are getting squashed (mainly on my flank) in this Xmas-game with Laffe, Thomas and Koen.

Another year gone and even more minis painted.

I had a goal that the tin- and plastics-mountain would actually be smaller at the end of the year, so let’s see how that turned out (for an explanation on the idea and how I count see here)

A shoot-out with  the Fistful of Lead-rules at the Club.

The year in summary:

Bought

Well, my fingers sort of slipped on a couple of Kickstarters this year; Uboot (8 minis, as 1/72 figures counts as ½ a mini), Cthulhu – Death must Die (84 minis) and Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon (38). Minis from these do count, as I count models when they are actually bought. On top of that a box of 40 farmyard animals, a couple of tanks in different scales, a few airplanes, 44 Vikings and a handful of other minis.

234 models bought, far more than expected.

Being swamped at Zombicide: Black Death

Sold

I have really excavated the tin- and plastics-mountain this year. Stuff I know won’t be painted have been sold off or put in the For Sale-box at the club. With another hundred hitting the sales-box in December I’ve reached 285 minis.

Painted

All of the Mesozoic critters.

It’s been a modest year of painting, as I have just finished 139 minis. You’ve seen most of them here already. The year ended with the final dinosaurs from Tamiya’s excellent Mesozoic Creatures boxes (I got two) and a couple of random 28mm figures.

Finished in December: A Prospector from Brimstone and The Major from SMOG: Rise of Moloch (and I painted another 5 zombies for SMOG also, but no pics of those)

Terrain-wise it has been much better, with lots of different terrain finished, much of it 3D-printed.

A game of D&D in the printed dungeons.

So my goal was reached! I actually sold more minis than I bought and with the models painted I reached -190 models. Not bad at all.

3D-printer

I finally bought a new 3D-printer this fall, a Prusa i3 Mk3. It’s been printing mainly dungeon-pieces for my Dungeons & Dragons campaign, but also some scatter terrain and a couple of houses. You’ll see more on the dungeon soon.

One of the demo-games of What A Tanker we staged at Smashcon.

Well, I think that neatly sums up 2018. A good year in many respects, even though it was rather weak on painted minis.

So, what about 2019?

I will try to shrink the tin- and plastics-mountain even more, that’s for sure. Otherwise, I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.

I wish you all a very good 2019. Hope to see you all in this and other blogs, and maybe meet some of you in the flesh.

Brimstone – Targa Plateau Guardian and Jargono Swamp Raptor

A couple of huge monsters for the Shadows of Brimstone boardgame.

The Guardian is some sort of metal construct, walking around on the Targa Plateau, an Otherworld that the heroes can reach through portals in the mines of Brimstone.

It was easy enough to finish, essentially just metallic paints, washes and some drybrushing. Coloured vision-slits and power pack to get some life into it.

The Jargono Swamp Raptor comes from another Otherworld, surprisingly the Swamps of Jargono.

It needed quite a lot of greenstuffing to be presentable, but the end result looks good enough. 

I think it might end up in my soon to start Paleo Diet solo-campaign. Poor cave-women… they will probably need to fight something much easier to start with.

James, a nurse and September Tally

The final two minis finished during September were James from Zombicide: Black Plague and a nurse from Shadows of Brimstone.

James in the art does look a lot like Sean Connery from The Name of the Rose, and that might explain his name.

The nurse is a hero specializing in healing and taking samples from monsters and whatnot, hence her green bottle.

A summary of September:

Painted:

Total: 19

Bought:

2 pulp characters from Bad Squiddo Games and a 1/48 car-kit.

Total: 3

2018:

Bought:         194

Painted:         -116

Sold:              -180

Total:            - 102

Brimstone –Harvesters

 

Here’s a new set of enemies for Shadows of Brimstone – Harvesters.

They are creatures that have built heavy suits to protect them from hostile environments and hostile locals in those environments, making them immune to environment effect and some attacks also.

They have a mission, and that is to harvest Dark Stone, the crystals that power the ‘magical’ properties of the setting and also corrupts both people and creatures, causing mutations. They are rather good at it, and might nick your Dark Stone in a fight.

Anyway, they will be fun to see on the gaming table.

Brimstone – Custodians of Targa and Targa Plateau Pylons

Some Shadows of Brimstone stuff I’ve finished. I’m sort of concentrating on stuff for Targa and Jargono, as I’ve already got some monsters from these. That is not to say I won’t paint anything else, you know me…

These models are from the Custodians of Targa Enemy Pack.

The ususal 28mm figure to get a sense of size.

The Custodians are interesting figures and easy to paint. I can see them used in a pulp setting, too. 

The pylons were as easy and will replace the cardboard pieces you got in the starter box.

I'm sensing a game of Shadows of Brimstone coming up soon.

Dogs and more birds

I’ve been on vacation in the Stockholm Archipelago and without much of an internet connection. Back now in front of the computer, so it’s time for some regular posting.

First of is a bunch of animals that were finished just before we left for the summer place.

The two leftmost dogs are from Reaper and the right one is a Faithful Dog from Shadows of Brimstone.

The birds are a falcon from Reaper, owl from Otherworld (my favourite of the bunch), another Reaper falcon and a crow from Otherworld.

They will come in handy as background creatures, helpers or maybe “monsters”.

Brimstone – Swamp Slugs of Jargono

Another Enemy Pack for Shadows of Brimstone, this time the Swamp Slugs of Jargono. As I mention in the previous post on Hell Vermin, I’ve got these two packs that are not a part of the Kickstarter a while ago.

I was a bit sceptical about these first, as they needed quite a bit of green-stuff to be presentable, but when that was done… I really like them. The ick-factor is great with these carnivorous slugs.

In my mind they are ambush-predators, lying in wait, submerged and with only the eyestalks visible. When an unsuspecting prey comes close they rear up and attack. Also, as they have teeth and fangs I think that they are far more than slugs, so I gave them a pink-red fleshy underside and mouth.

I do believe they came out really well, and look forward to see them on the gaming table (possibly in tonight’s game)

Paints used:

Skin: Vallejo 887 Brown Violet, drybrushed 978 Dark Yellow and 954 Yellow Green. Washed with Army Painter Strong Tone Ink.

“Head”: 978 Dark Yellow, drybrushed 954 Yellow Green. Washed with Army Painter Strong Tone Ink.

Flesh: 944 Old Rose, wetbrushed 835 Salmon Rose, washed with Citadel Washes Baal Red

Fangs and teeth: 52 Bone White and AP Strong Tone.

Everything coated with Vallejo Gloss Varnish.

Brimstone – Hell Vermin

I’m waiting for the second and last shipment from the Shadows of Brimstone kickstarter and as we’re playing and enjoying the game I decided to buy the two enemy packs that has been released and are not part of the kickstarter – Hell Vermin and Swamp Slugs of Jargono.

The Hell Vermins are the first to be finished and you’ll see the slugs soonish.

In each pack you’ll get:

- Three vermins on 40mm bases (I used transparent bases from Sally 4th).

- A reference sheet and a rules sheet/painting guide

- Threat cards for the game

Each vermin is in two parts on a sprue, essentially left and right sides. A bit of cleaning, but easy to do. No problem gluing them together but there will be a gap that at least I found it necessary to fill with green stuff.  

The problem is the lack of details on these minis. What is supposed to be fur is rather flat, teeth has no structure at all etc. These are simply not very good sculpts, unfortunately, but they seem to be good monsters to have in the game.

Painting (Vallejo paints unless otherwise noted)

Well, first off, I totally ignored the painting guide as I simply didn’t find it at all interesting

Skin – 859 Black Red, drybrushed 985 Hull Red and finally 804 Beige Red

Tail – as skin + drybrushed 944 Old Rose

Fur – as skin + thin stripes painted with 981 Orange Brown

Mouth, ears and wounds – 944 Old Rose. Army Painter Dark Tone wash on inner parts och mouth to simulate depth.

Spines, teeth and claws – 825 German Camo Pale Brown and teeth individually painted with 034 Bone White

Eyes – 953 Flat Yellow and pupils by black pen.

They won’t win any prizes but I think they will look okay on the game-tiles.