Diana Stanley 'The Reformed Cultist' for Mansions of Madness

Hi All,

As I've been away for the past week I thought I'd get my eye in with a small entry for Sarah's Balloon. Here's Diana Stanley 'The Reformed Cultist' from 'Mansions of Madness'. 

'Reformed Cultist'. Such a great tagline. Really, who wouldn't want that on their CV for 'past work experience'? 

Diana's special ability allows her to tangle with particularly nasty monsters with minimal sanity loss. All this being said, her strength stat is fairly low, so she needs a heavy-hitting spell or a spiffy magic item to really make her tick along. She's best run by an experienced player who knows how to finesse her abilities, otherwise she'll be more of a burden than a benefit to the party.

Not learning from past experience, I just picked her up and started painting without really looking at the character card. The results weren't as bad as before, as I at least got her auburn hair right, and besides, I reason she'll still be pretty distinctive on the tabletop with her long hooded robe and howitzer shell-sized candle. 

Next Up: Sander's Sand Dunes! 

Marie Lambeau 'The Entertainer' from Mansions of Madness

I think I'll take in the sun and the surf at 'Douglas' Shallows' next, so here's my fare for Sarah's Balloon: Marie Lambeau 'The Entertainer' from 'Mansions of Madness'.

Marie is a creole jazz singer, originally from The Big Easy, but now based in Arkham. In the game she benefits from a very solid stat line paired with an awesome special ability, one which allows her to cast a spell at the start of her turn without having to spend an action. This is huge in a game where players are always nibbling their fingernails deciding on how to spend their two actions per turn. Matched with the right spell(s) Marie can be an invaluable addition to the party.

Again, I've tried to follow the art on the character card. For a bit of additional colour I gave her a pair of Dorothy-Red pumps. Oddly, the basing was a bit of a swine this time around, with me having to go through three of the blighters to finally get it right. More a lack of patience on my part than anything else. 

Next up: Douglas' Shallows!

-Curt

Amanda Sharpe 'The Student' from 'Mansions of Madness'

Hi All!

As I need to book balloon fare to Awdry's Atoll, I present to you another resolute heroine from 'Mansions of Madness'.

This is Amanda Sharpe, 'The Student'. 

Amanda's a bit of a miss in MoM as her special ability is focused purely on solving puzzles. This is not bad per se, in fact it can be quite handy at times, but unfortunately it's an activity that only plays a very small part of the game so she often ends up not pulling her weight. 

Like many of the MoM characters, Amanda is also featured in other Cthulhuesque games from Fantasy Flight, and her other renditions are often far more powerful (in 'Elder Sign' she is perhaps one of the most kickass characters in that game). Oh well, you can't be the belle of the ball all the time. 

This all being said, here she is, bespectacled, fresh-faced, in a green jacket and grey skirt. Clutched to her chest is a red-bound book - maybe a university textbook, a novel perchance? But perhaps it is something entirely more significant and sinister...

It can easily be deduced that I am irredeemably slothful as I've not yet traveled a single step on any of the island roads, having taken the balloon for each journey. This is probably for the best, as with Lady Sarah's in-flight stores of champagne I'd be too smashed to attempt to stagger down any of these foreboding paths. :)

-Curt

Trish Scarborough 'The Spy' for Sarah's Balloon

Well, after a short hiatus I'm back to featuring the femme fatales from 'Mansions of Madness'. Sorry folks, but this game is chock full of great pulpy gals so you're just going to have to grin and bear it. 

Okay, so today we have Trish Scarborough, 'The Spy'.

At first glance, Trish Scarborough is simply a middling employee for a nondescript company. Nonetheless, in reality she is a spy for the shadowy organisation, 'The Black Chamber', travelling the world, thwarting occult plots and generally being a heroic badass.

In the game, Trish is a great all-rounder. She has a solid stat line (as long as she keeps away from magic), but her real strong suit is investigating for clues and getting into and out of scrapes.

I had a bit of gaff when working on Trish. I first painted her from memory (ALWAYS a bad idea for me), thinking that her trenchcoat was a classic camel colour. Well, I pulled out the character card to do the pictures and discovered that, no, she actually wears a dark indigo coloured trench. 

F*ck. 

So, it was back to the desk for a quick costume adjustment. Now she is sartorially conforming to MoM canon. A huge sigh of relief from all you viewers, I'm sure.

It's a nicely posed mini, and I kept it fairly simple for the paintjob - dark indigo raincoat (ahem), black turtleneck and brown slacks. The only embellishment I gave her is a nice pearl-handled revolver (really, it compliments her hair).

Trish will serve as my fare for my next journey: to Burch's Bluff!

Kate Winthrop 'The Scientist' from 'Mansions of Madness' - Entry #6 to AHPCX

Continuing on my riff of heroines from 'Mansions of Madness' I present to you Kate Winthrop, 'The Scientist'.

In the game's background, Kate witnessed one of her fellow scientists being ripped apart by a strange being from anther dimension. From that horrific experience she was determined to create a device to combat these terrible creatures - thus the 'Flux Stabilizer' was born. In game terms, this allows her to disrupt the placement and movement of monsters on the board, which can come in very, very handy.

This being said, Kate's a bit of a hot-n-cold character. In monster-heavy scenarios her Flux Stabilizer can be an absolute game winner, but if the setting is more investigative then her special ability will not be as on-point and she may struggle a bit.  

A somewhat rough and quick paintjob, I found the figure for Kate to be a little soft in detail, so I tried to amp it up by layering in some high contrast on her lab coat and giving her a touch of vibrant blue as a counterpoint. 

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Next destination for me: Piper's Peak!

Agnes Baker - Entry #2 to AHPCX

Hi All!

As I need to traverse Challenge Island for a future entry I've prepared this lass as my transit fee on Sarah's Balloon. 

This is Agnes Baker, one of our favourite characters in Fantasy Flight Games' series of Cthulhu-themed games. As a backdrop I've included Agnes' character card from 'Mansions of Madness', but she is also featured in 'Eldritch Horror', 'Arkham Horror', 'Elder Sign' and the 'Arkham Horror - The Card Game' (Yes, I am a bit of a Cthulhu fanboi, er, cultist).

To many, Agnes is just a simple waitress, working shifts at Thelma's Diner in Arkham, but little do they know that behind that placid demeanour Agnes is in fact a powerful reincarnated witch from ancient times. In the game Agnes is quite kick-ass, using all sorts of nasty arcane magic, and with the right 'build' can be quite the combat monster.

This figure is from the 'Mansions of Madness' boxed set, which produces its characters and monsters in a semi-soft plastic. They can be a little hit-or-miss in definition and mold quality, but Anges is one of the better ones. I painted her to resemble the art on her character card and chose to use a fairly punchy colour palette to help players spot her on the tabletop.

I have few other ladies from Arkham waiting in the painting queue, but I'll need to be judicious in doling them out for my anticipated air travel (sort of like AirMiles).

Where will I be going for this balloon journey? Hmm, I think 'Bromley's Butte' looks quite interesting and is reportedly supposed to have great views of the Island - I'll have to do a... reconnaissance. See you when I land!

-Curt

Entry #2 to AHPC VIII: Four Heroes from 'Mansions of Madness'

Just a small entry (sorry, still no Ortona yet). This time it's four investigator/heroes from 'Mansions of Madness'. 

The 2nd edition of Fantasy Flight Games' 'Mansions of Madness' has become a well-enjoyed staple within our group since it was released almost two years ago. The first edition used a One-Against-Many game mechanic, where one player played the nasties of the 'Mansion', while the rest of the players worked cooperatively to uncover the mysteries and survive. This mechanism has worked well with many other FFG games (Descent, Imperial Assault, etc.) but its implementation was flawed in MoM to the extent that whoever played the 'Mansion' could quite easily overwhelm the investigators in fairly quick order. 

The publishers, to their credit, addressed this with their 2nd edition by using an app to run the Mansion, thereby allowing the players to work together as a cohesive team. It's been an unqualified success with our group, with us being able to enjoy not only all the old expansions, but the new content as well. I've even used it at work as a team building exercise (nothing like avoiding being eaten by a Shoggoth to bring a group of people together)!

The base game comes with a load of plastic miniatures to represent both the investigators and the various eldritch horrors they encounter. The minis are roughly 28mm in scale and for the most part are rendered quite well. My main criticism is with the quality of the plastic  itself, as the early releases were a somewhat soft, making them an absolute swine to remove mold lines and clean-up flash. Thankfully, the more recent models use a harder plastic which is much easier to work with.

Anyway, until now I've been using other miniatures from my collection to represent the heroes, but thought it'd be fun I'd try to get a bunch of the stock ones done-up during the Challenge. So, here are four heroes from the core set: Mandy Thompson, Ashcan Pete  and his K9 companion 'Duke' and Gloria Goldberg. 

Fairly basic paintjobs on the whole. I tried to keep the colours punchy and as close to the game art as possible. After the hassle of preparing the figures they were actually pretty fun to paint.

I trimmed away the original plastic bases and replaced them with clear acrylic ones. I quite like the look of them, especially with tile-based games. 

I'll see if I can get a few more done over the Challenge and perhaps I'll try to do-up one or two of the beasties as well. 

Thanks for dropping in folks. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Curt