Ice Ice Baby

 So, another X-Man joints the roster:

If I’m being frank, I actually prefer an Iceman that’s made of… well, ice. I don’t have one of those though (and the last time I stocked up on Heroclix, the store I was buying from didn’t have any either), so here we are. On the other hand, I actually quite enjoyed the series of comics where the original X-Men are brought through time to the modern day (which I really didn’t think I was going to), so maybe this is that time transplanted Iceman, and I can still paint another one at some point in the future…

Also, he’s done before the rest of the team because… well, there wasn’t a lot to paint once I’d gotten his snowy body to a point I was happy with, then his boots were pretty quick to layer up to done!

8 vs 204 = -196

(although I just discovered that the box of Dragoons I bought at Salute is actually missing a couple of sprues, so it’s actually currently 4 different to that)

What’s next? I’m away for work next week, so am planning to take my usual hotel painting kit along with some more X-Men (as their shared colour scheme means I can take fewer paints), so here’s to hoping I’m not so exhausted by the evening that I can’t get any painting done!

Salute 52

Yesterday was our annual pilgrimage into London for Salute! As ever, don’t expect a narrative here, but more me trying to remember what the things I remembered to take pictures of actually were!

This year there were four of us that traveled up together - Clockwise, starting top left: me, man-bun just out of shot; Heroes182, henceforth referred to as chum and companion throughout; Hasvik, a link to the works of which is in the next paragraph; and the fourth member of the team, who I don’t know whether has a pithy internet handle that I should refer to her by and I don’t feel comfortable publishing her name without her permission, so that’s that (I did check everyone was happy me posting their faces though, and give full credit to the handsome man in sunglasses for taking the picture). Edit - she does, it’s magpiecountess!

We pootled in together from Canary Wharf, and made our way to the Excel Centre, although one of us was there as press so disappeared off early rather than hanging out with the rest of us in the massive queue: 

We made surprisingly good time this year, but apparently so did everyone else as there was a solid 2000 people ahead of us when we got there. Also fun was realising that I’d taken a screenshot of my 2024 ticket that morning, as the 2025 ticket email just didn’t come up when I searched for it - luckily I was able to find a screenshot that I’d taken when I originally purchased it, panic over! 

Priorities in order, we marched straight over to the Osprey stand (although not technically straight, as it turned out I’d initially been looking at the map from the wrong angle and so we initially went to the wrong corner of the hall) to try out the new Joseph McCullough game Hairfoot Jousting:

(Yes, the guy running the game is in an inflatable chicken rider suit). We were the second pair to get there, so rather than halflings, we found ourselves playing as goblins. Looking at the rulebook, it seems that it’s actually two games in one, and turning it over and starting from the back you have a separate goblin jousting game! The basic mechanics are the same, but while the crowds in the halfling game cheer at you achieving things, the goblin crowds jeer and give you tokens whenever you get hurt…

This was also very exciting, as we got to see some miniatures that haven’t even been previewed yet as far as I can see (although do let me know in the comments if you recognise them). 

I especially liked the frog:

Porcupine:

And naked mole rat:

Much fun was had, with randomly selected movement templates ensuring that no turn ever went to plan, and a certain amount of time was spent with my valiant goblin jousters launching themselves directly into flaming bonfires:

They would occasionally careen through my opponents jousters too, so it wasn’t all a lost cause. Chaos continued for a while, and we decided to play until first blood to give other people a chance to have a go. We also decided to keep re-rolling on the random events table until something happened (as we’d rolled ‘nothing happens’ every turn previously), and obviously got a result that reset everyone to their starting positions and healed them slightly, only making the game go longer. A cavalier approach to health and safety and animal welfare ensured that we were soon back into the fray, and I was just able to knock out one of my opponents jousters and claim the win. 

My opponent immediately bought a copy of the rulebook from the Osprey stand, and Joseph was near enough and kind enough to sign it for him (I was tempted, but already have a copy pre-ordered at work). He’s been reading through the book, and it looks like we made a few mistakes, but isn’t that always the way.

Here is my roster sheet, for an exclusive preview of the rules that will make very little sense without additional context:

Then, we began the usual meandering walk up and down the aisles, which basically takes us until the end of the show and I always seem to see things in other peoples posts and videos that I managed to miss! Plus, where we’re walking and chatting (and encouraging each other to buy things) it’s fairly hit or miss what I actually take pictures of.

First is a company that I’d never heard of before, Pandyman, that made a selection of reasonably priced modern 3d prints (that I didn’t take a picture of) and some figures for a game called Trench Offensive (that I did):

My chum bought a couple of odd figures with separate heads from their bargain bin, so we’ll see how they paint up.

This was a board for Twilight, a game that we look at every year and marvel just how unique the minis are, then comment that they’re so unique they wouldn’t really work with anything we have, and you’d have to go all in on a whole new project of them.

This Atari looking game was cool (and put on by vaguely local to me Maidstone gaming club, I seem to recall). There was a QR code with a link to see how the game was created, which is a similar colour to my new shoes, both visible in this next picture:

This was an impressively large airship:

Inside the goodie bag was a sprue of Quar, and there was a nice little trench board featuring them at the show:

I vaguely remember Quar being the brainchild of the guy at Zombiesmith, who I want to say was based in Australia, making them quite hard to get originally, but with the release of these plastics by Wargames Atlantic they seem to be on the rise again!

At this point, we’d made it about half way round the show, and it was time to stop for a bite to eat (playing that demo game right at the start had eaten quite the chunk of time!). Back int’ day, there used to be a nice little grassy area just outside where you could sit and have a little picnic, but it’s all been built over now. They have built a nice benched area above where that used to be, but then fenced it off, so instead we sat on a bridge with this view:

Scenic.

Anyway, I don’t come to Salute for the aesthetic, I come to look at little men, so we headed back inside and peered at the entries to the painting competition. This entry was so far back in the cabinet, and that combined with the crowds meant I had to take a zoomed picture to actually work out what it was, which I include here for comedy value. 

I’m on a bit of a Warmachine kick at the moment, having picked back up on my original attempt to work my way through every issue of No Quarter and rulebook for the lore, but the new edition has left me somewhat cold (in the same way that AOS does - what is it with companies taking an IP that I like and blowing it up?). Apparently they’ve launched a subscription service, the first month of which is free and would net you stls for these models, which is pretty neat though:

Shame I don’t have a 3d printer though.

Speaking of 3d printers, Alchemist models do some very nice [recognisable but legally distinct from] chocobo riders that would probably work fairly well with new riders if someone were to be in the market for some sort of jousting based game:

This discount only ran until 23:59 the day of the show, so I have no idea why I took a picture of it:

Another thing that we look at every year is Bushido:

They’re lovely models, and I could definitely find a use for the majority of them in my Ronin of Shadow Deep project, but at £14 a mini for basic mooks, it’s a little rich for my blood.

Anyway, at the moment the Ronin project is in its very formative stages, so there’s really no rush. Plus, we suspect the studio paint jobs might be doing some heavy lifting, as some of the blisters I had a look at had some suspiciously soft detail…

Once we’d finished our initial walkabout, we then swung back to revisit some stalls (Black Scorpion, because the crowd was about four people deep when we first got there, and Tangent, because Wayne wasn’t there on my first pass - spoiler warning: he remains one of the nicest people in the hobby).  

On the way round, I spotted some more cool games, including this Mario Kart racing game:

And this whacking great Japanese castle, which I’m assuming was for Bushido or at the very least something Bushido adjacent:

There was also a fantasy reskin of Space Hulk called Crypt Hulk, put on by Ashford Wargames club, although I have no idea whether it was the one in Kent (where I’m working this week) or the one in Middlesex (where I am not working). 

Here’s a closer shot of the info sheet explaining the inspiration behind the game:

We rounded out the show by trying out some paint pens:

They’re kind of cool, basically being a contrast paint in a pen with a brush tip, but I’m probably not going to change the way I paint now thirty years in…

Which brings us to the crux of this post, the loot! Quite the haul this year:

I actually had a list with a breakdown of what I’d bought (for comparison in the Salute group chat after the show) but can I find it now?  

General breakdown:

• A bunch of Perry plastics this year, including both the new Spanish Napoleonic sets, both for the Alamo project and the inevitable Napoleonics as I’m evidently wading into middle age. I was tempted to get a third box of the Spanish to get the free mounted Commander, but it’s probably for the best (both for the Tally and my wallet!) that I didn’t. I also grabbed a box of ACW artillery, again for Alamo purposes, and a box of Dragoons that I can combine with heads from last year’s cavalry purchase to hopefully make some serviceable Mexican cavalry (remember kids, do your research before you go to the show, and look at more than just the fancy hat matching!)
• A box of Frostgrave cultists, because I’ve been meaning to grab a box for a while and Caliver books do a deal where you get an e tea discount if you buy three boxes of figures from them.
• A bevy of bits from Crooked Dice, because even though we’re not caught up with Doctor Who, one day we will be, and on that day I’ll have all the minis I need to strongarm my kids into playing games with me. I also bought a nice abombination that used to be released by Harwood Hobbies (fun fact - I was once googling to try and find this mini that I vaguely remembered, and the top result was a forum post by myself that I didn’t remember making many years before recommending the same model). And a little mechanical owl, which I have no real need for, but couldn’t resist going aback for when he caught my eye as I was waiting for my companion to finish paying.
• A burly Mandalorian type from Diehard miniatures, because May the Fourth is coming up soon, and while I could paint a mini that I already own, 
• A Dragonborn fighter type from one of the endless 3d printing stands, as zi need something similar further down the line in the family D&D game
• A handful of board game minis for my kids to paint, and a monster from Mammoth’s gumball machine (after remembering at 11 the night before that I’d forgotten to get any pound coins, I was able to scrounge together a handful thanks to my wife and daughter, only for there to be only a single ball left in the machine by the time I got there!)
• Some Perry Spanish guerrillas - in case you haven’t guessed, I’ve been reading Sharpe’s adventures in Spain in Portugal, as well as the book Rifles, so have a hankering to put together a British and Spanish force a la Sharpe’s Havoc (with additional guerrillas, so I guess part havoc, part Rifles?)
• A mini from Bad Squiddo that looks suspiciously like a Spanish Guerrilla leader (and also a free bunny wearing a saddle, which was a nice surprise!)
• Sharpe and Harper from Tangent, although I also came away with some additional Chosen Men 
• Some Foundry Wild West townsfolk, because several Legends of the Old West scenarios need about a dozen non-combatants
• The usual freebies in the goodie bag - the aforementioned sprue of Quar, a resin dwarf, and the show figure, a rather lovely Napoleonic chap that will definitely see use in the Silver Bayonet and potentially in actual (gasp) historical Napoleonics.
• Other than that, it was some resin barricades, some grass tufts, and the usual haul of flyers, stickers and tiny rifle sets. Also some d20s from gumball machines for my family.

Which all in comes to 180 miniatures added to the Tally (counting mounted figures as one, and artillery pieces as one too), leaving the year so far looking like this:

7 vs 204 = -197

I should probably get some painting done…

Although this morning my youngest wanted to paint a miniature, so we did:

She really gets in your head…

So, the joke in the title only really works if you’ve seen the most recent Deadpool movie, this miniature being what I immediately dug out and started prepping when I got home from the cinema after seeing:

It then took me months to actually get her finished despite being basically three colours, but inspiration strikes where inspiration strikes I guess. 

She’s teeny tiny, and so zoomed in like this the paint job looks extra scrappy, but on the tabletop she’s perfectly adequate, I assure you. Considering going back and giving the X on the front of the Cerebro helmet some more love, but on the other hand done is done…

Like Danger she’s a mini that isn’t really needed at the moment (that being a couple of teams of archetypical X-men and X-foes to get started), but being keen to not have even more half painted miniatures knocking around she got finished regardless. It’s been so long since I read Grant Morrison’s X-Men run that I can’t even think who else I’d need to paint to accompany her to make a thematic Super Mission Force Team…

Either way, the Tally now stands at:

7 vs 24 = -17

Do you know what happens when a Toad gets hit by lightning?

I’ve finished another mini for the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, to accompany Blob that I previously painted, Toad:

He’s another early Heroclix sculpt, so some of the details are kind of rough, but honestly I think that they have so much charm that I love them regardless.

For all my claims of rough sculpting though, look at that surprisingly defined musculature:

I can only assume that as well as eating flies Toad has a particularly structured workout regimen.

This brings my total of finished Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to three of the four needed for a regular sized game of Super Mission Force (including the Scarlet Witch that I painted way back when), although my initial plan is to paint up a couple of alternate groups - one being more ‘mooks’ like Blob and Toad, and another being ‘Magneto and his children’, with other key characters that can be swapped in as needed before then spiralling off into weirder foes as they take my fancy. 

This is probably why this project is taking so long though, I should maybe have painted individual minis in isolation as they took my fancy (as I generally have with the rest of my superhero stuff), but I can’t help getting carried away with something like this…

Finishing him brings the Tally to:

6 vs 24 = -18

Next - more!

Danger…

 … Will Robinson? Wait, wrong robot, it’s actually this robot called Danger that I’ve painted:

I think my first exposure to the character was actually pulling this mini out of a heroclix booster (as I ended up buying a bunch for cheap from the Works when the game first went away) and my first thought was that… she looked a bit dumb. Then many years later, I read more comics and my X-Men fandom increased, and I thought… well, that she was still pretty dumb, to be fair. It’s the danger room, but walking around in a robot body? Then I read X-Club by Simon Spurrier, and honestly Danger’s still kind of dumb but in a way that I’m actually also fairly fond of…

She’s generally portrayed as being a metal frame around some glowy internal bits, like this:

So I went at her with the only pot of contrast paint that I own, to sort of sink into the recesses, and also make a quick and easy glow effect. This was fairly quick and effective, and is the main reason that she is the first ‘goodie’ that I’ve finished for my X-Men project rather than one of the more iconic characters!

As well as finishing her, I also nipped into GW with my wife to grab the new mini of the month:

As a Death Korps Engineer can definitely find a home in an inq28 warband!

So, no great change to the Tally, which now stands at: 

5 vs 24 = -19

With six days to go until Salute…

Do you think Blob…

 …chose his own Codename? Or is Magneto just really blunt?

So, I’ve recently had a reorganise of my painting tile and stripped back the amount of half-painted miniatures on it in the hopes of reducing option paralysis, so it’s mostly the X-men minis I prepped a while back at the moment, which has allowed me to get Blob to a finished state.

The aim is to get four X-men and four Brotherhood of Evil Mutants characters painted so that they can start getting used in Super Mission Force, so that’s one down, three to go (and there’s still another five possible options on my painting tile).

Just for fun, here’s the piece of art that someone posted on Facebook while I was mid paint job that reminded me that Blob sometimes has a yellow belt:

Poor Rogue…

Finishing him brings the Tally to:

4 vs 23 = -19

Next: more mutants! Although I really want to start on some Alamo miniatures. And am fighting the urge to start a Napoleonic project, damn you Richard Sharpe…

I is for…

 …Intellect Devourers!

I forget why I painted these, as I don’t think I have a pressing need for them in the family D&D campaign, but it may well be because the scene in the D&D movies where the NPC warns the party that intellect devourers will attack whoever is smartest, only for them to then completely ignore the party, is classic D&D humour (and yet another reason it’s such a shame that we’re unlikely to see a sequel to that film).

You might not be able to tell from the picture, but these are absolutely tiny - that’s a 20mm base they’re on! Add some prominent mould lines, and me having to repaint the brain after I went too heavy handed highlighting it and it ended up far too light, to give a paint job that was surprisingly taxing considering it’s so small, but done is better than perfect, as I think the saying goes…

This brings the Monstrous Alphabet project up to:

A is for
B is for Bullywug
C is for Carrion Crawler
D is for
E is for Elemental (More than one)
F is for Flameskull
G is for Goblin
H is for
I is for Intellect Devourer
J is for
K is for
L is for Lich
M is for Mind Flayer, Myconid, Mummy, Manticore
N is for
O is for Owlbear, Ooze
P is for Purple Worm
Q is for
R is for Rust Monster
S is for Shambling Mound, Scarecrow, Skeleton
T is for Thri-Kreen
U is for
V is for
W is for Wraith
X is for
Y is for
Z is for Zombie

Although they’ve released a new Monster Manual since I started this project, which may affect some of the letters (I’m fairly certain I have twice as many options for ‘Q’ if I update it to the new MM, for example).

Speaking of the family D&D game, we’ve managed to continue playing intermittently. Highlights include learning that encounter balance is tricky, like thinking siccing a second Shambling Mound on three level fours sounds like a good idea only for my wife (and main damage dealer in the party) to then suddenly fail to hit anything, ever, leading to some scary times:

Luckily their new friend that is a manticore was there to take some of the heat, otherwise we’d have been starting fb a whole new campaign…

Unpainted Dreamblade minis stood in for Ankhegs in the next session, where the party found out getting grappled and covered in acid sucks, but they were much better equipped to visit murder on these bugs than the Shambling Mounds:

Given the amount of time that has passed since my last blogpost, despite the fact that it’s almost Salute and I usually save my spending money for that, I’ve had a couple of deliveries. First of all, a package from Northstar:

While I may not have been painting much, I’ve been thinking about projects a lot, and I’m keen to make some headway on my Alamo miniatures. As I got a nice Mexican Command Group sent over from the States by my brother in law for Christmas, I thought I’d prep them and paint the alongside the conversions I’d made from Perry plastics. The banner bearer needed a pole, so I dutifully ordered some brass spears (and I’m looking forward to trying out making a flag from tomato purse packaging), and while I was there also treated myself to a discounted Wargames Illustrated (because it came with a free sprite of greatcoat wearing French, which will get converted into Mexicans most likely), and also an ACW miniature from the Giants in Miniature range that was also on sale, because logically seeing as the Alamo led into the Mexican American War and then the American Civil War it’s surely only a matter of time before I start a project like that too.

The other parcel that turned up is nothing to do with any current projects:

As occasionally happens, I was reminiscing on how good the Warmachine lore is, and trying to work out how far I’d got on reading my way through it. I dug out some books, and had an idle search on eBay looking for the Retribution book (which I should have bought when it was £3 on eBay rather than putting it off!), and ended up stumbling on this lot - the pics were blurry (and occasionally of the seller’s floor) but I saw some gun mages (which I already have, but are always cool) and a storm tower type thing that I didn’t own, so figured I’d stick a couple of quid on just on the off chance, and ended up winning. I was even more pleased when they turned up, as it looks like the Warjack in the lot is actually the Character Jack Thorn, owned by Lieutenant Haley, who has been in my painting queue for quite some time!

All in all, the Tally now stands at:

3 vs 23 = -20

So already slipping further into the red, and with Salute just around the corner! I suspect it’s going to get worse before it gets better, as the Perrys have previewed two boxes of plastic Napoleonic Spanish, and between currently reading Sharpe’s Eagle and the Alamo project I can see myself getting a couple of boxes…

Number Five, I presume

I know, I know, it’s been a while, I blame Cyberpunk 2077. My desire to paint miniatures hasn’t abated though, I potentially have more ideas for projects on the go than ever before…

That aside, I’ve actually managed to finish a miniature for the first time this year:

It’s Five, another miniature for the Umbrella Academy board game. Honestly, 99% of this paint job was completed last year, but I managed to get it over the finish line and then set about reducing the number of half painted minis I currently have piled on my painting tile…

The back is a lot more straightforward than the front, I’ll give you that.

And here’s how the game looks so far:

As well as finishing this miniature, there have also been a couple of Mini of the Months to drag the Tally in the opposite direction though:

A Striking Scorpion, in case I ever get round to doing an Eldar Inq28 warband

And a couple of Skaven, which can be sprinkled in with my existing rats to give a little more visual variety. 

Which takes the Tally to:

1 vs 3 = -2

So admittedly not the strongest start to the year (if you can call March the start of the year), but there’s still time to claw it back; until Salute that is, where the Tally will likely take a hit or two. Or the postman arrives, whichever comes first…