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Cheers guys!

@RH: there is quite a lot of Tactical Rockery going on in BMG. The whole of Team Arrow (if I used the comic version) would be carrying around their own masonry, Firefly has a Tactical Chimneystack, but Bats takes the prize with that Tactical Gargoyle of his!

@Zambro: welcome back to the UK! Short answer on the 'how does it play' question: I would say that, hands down, it's the best minis games I've played, period!

Here's a bit more I wrote on it, but I'm more than happy to answer any questions you have about it.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/369662.page#8075033

Really love your arrow. I don't understand why some folk hate the textured Knight bases, you really show how well they can complement such awesome models, especially with Nightwing's pose.

Great work. Arrow looks particularly good. Sauron is coming along nicely and the fallen kings of Numenor look very nice as well.

Yeah the LotR diorama is gonna be sweet.

That Azreal guy... has a sword. Does he do away with Batman's 'I don't kill people because morals' thing? Or does he someone just maul people with his sword without killing them?

Cheers guys! I do like the textured bases as, being typically lazy about basing my own stuff, a basecoat, wash and drybrush can still get them looking decent (need to retouch a couple, though). The only issue is the tab running down the middle, it looks a bit odd at times. The other thing that bugged me slightly was that the ground texture doesn't really say 'city' to me like cobbles or paving would, but I'll trade that for ease of use!

About Azrael, pretty much the former. In the comic arc Knightfall, in which Bane breaks Bruce Wayne's spine, Azrael (Jean-paul Valley) takes over as Batman and is much more brutal, and while he doesn't often outright kill people, he's gets a lot of people killed since he's more about punishing the baddies rather than protecting the innocent. The Arkham-verse version is slightly different



He carries the sword in the minis game, though, and I for one look forward to it! Batman teams can struggle with taking out guys in the long term as most of the damage they deal is (healable) Stun damage. Between Arrow and the upcoming Az, though, they'll at least be capable of dealing some more permanemt hurt, which in pure game terms is undeniably useful.

Thanks for the info, sounds like an interesting character.

Oh, so it's first season Arrow, then Guy went from the punisher to touchy feely in a hurry

Yeah, definitely Season 1 Arrow, more than capable of dropping a body or two. In a game earlier, his first volley put Bane on half health (Batman knocked off the other hits with Batarangs, but by the end of the game all those were recovered) and he spent the rest of the game in a shootout with Deathstroke, who he killed as well (but only just, if DS hadn't missed his last shot things would have been very different, and he'd have taken home the bounty on both Arrow and Batman, almost certainly enough to retire on! )

I'm still temped to write up some rules for boxing glove arrows, though!

Excellent work on Arrow. I wonder if there's any dressed up bodies the Oliver queen head can go on. Oh!!!! I sure Alfred is probably too scrawny, but graven had an extra one he was going to decapitate.

Thanks para! I read the write up you did in that link. Very helpful. I found myself looking through the mini range again this morning. And while I have pretty much planned out what I want to buy over the next few weeks, some of the character models might find their way onto the list next month...

Can you point me to further reading about it? I was going to youtube a game of it, just to see. And google it generally. A little bit of direction would be awesome.

Of course. There are two great blogs that cover a lot of BMG stuff, the first has a whole load of content like beginner's guides and such, while the other posts up a lot of tacticas and 'theory' stuff.
http://pressganger.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/useful-35mm-dc-marvel-and-batman-game.html

http://www.critskillpeople.com

There's a forum with a decent beginner's section:
http://www.critskillpeople.com

And an online roster builder which is great for playing around with crew builds, less good for your wallet! It also lists all the stats/rules, so once you're more familiar with the game you can quickly see what models do.
http://bat-builder.com

There are a few batreps on YouTube, not the best quality but good for getting a view of how the game plays. The rulebook is also available free (well, the last edition but mostly the same), this version is missing the pretty pictures but easier to read.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dmr77pu237bacj9/BMG%20rulebook%201.13.pdf?dl=0

It's certainly a game that you can run as a side project, while the minis are expensive you can build a full crew for as little as £35ish, and the addition of a single model can totally change how a team plays so you don't need to change constantly be buying new stuff (though you might want to! )

Lastly, there is a BMG thread down in misc minis games, more than happy to answer any other questions here or there!
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/660463.page#8117002

Finally caught up on your blog (missed almost a page's worth), and it looks like you've been doing even more great stuff! I especially love the LOTR minis, can't wait to see how your diorama turns out!

Cheers ZS!

Not a huge amount to show today, just the last two Bane Thugs (for now, there is one more set but it's not a priority)

This chap is known only as T.N.T. He's wearing a full suit of body armour that makes him tougher than your average street brawler, carries one of the most lethal guns in the game, and can be equipped with Night Vision Goggles in case you feel like being an utter bastard and removing the one factor that limits the capability of said gun, Gotham's typical darkness.





And this rather large gentleman, who is imaginatively named 'Venom Thug' because he's... well, a Thug on Venom (it's this kind of creativity that makes DC comics so exciting and fresh! ). I kind of feel sorry for him being the only Bane-specific model without an actual name or codename, but he makes up for it with some pretty beefy stats, only slightly less hitty than the man himself, Bane. I used both red and green washes on the skin, as I wanted it to look healthy and tough but also a little tinged by the Venom formula.






And this is Bane's crew as it stands right now. Can't actually field all of these guys at once without adding some more to get a higher Funding cap (those nasty Assault Rifles cost a lot!)


Scale shots of the most recent wave as well, since I did say I'd keep them coming. Probably not a lot of crossover potential here, though you might just get away with Arrow as an Ariadna 'Hardcase' in Infinity, I believe he carries a bow for some reason!



That's all for now. I move out on Sunday, so hopefully I can get a couple more updates in before things will slow down for a bit. Got a rather different mini on deck right now and some more Batman in the post that should arrive tomorrow or Wednesday (Red Hood and Azreal), so I should have material for another post or two, I'm also planning to get some better pics of older stuff for my commission portfolio before I head away from my collection, but unless anyone wants to see anything specific in a better setup then that'll just be in my gallery rather than here.

As ever, ta for looking, any thoughts welcome!

The skin on Venom Thug's arms has come out looking fantastic. I love how grimy your stuff looks, dude. Do you give everything a final wash of Agrax or something? I can't put my finger on it but they look very cohesive and gritty.

Overall the posse (?) is looking really impressive!

Cheers!

If you're talking just about the Batman stuff, then almost all of it gets either a Nuln or Agrax wash at some point. I wanted to emulate the look of Batman comics (that can be almost monochrome at times), so everything is very subdued (unlike, say, a Superman or classic Avengers comic where bright primary colours are to be expected). It's also just a case of not taking the highlights as bright as I could for the same reason.

I really must stop looking at the batman stuff, its ruining my resolve. Need the zombicide pledge manager to pop so i have no way of buying any BMG figs.

The skin on the nameless venom thug is indeed very nice with the washes you did

Yeah, as the others have said, the dark grimy tones really work well with those batman models! They look awesome!

That Bane set looks great together, a fantastic set if sculpts that really fit into the setting because of your realistic based painting style.

Good luck with the move, and good luck with Uni. Hope you keep the student debt to a reasonable level

Cheers guys! Glad Venom has gone down well, I wasn't 100% sure I'd pulled off the effect or if the pics actually showed it, but my mind is now at rest!

A thought just occurred to me: this crew are all based around the Arkham Origins game, set on Christmas eve, and Gotham is covered in snow. I'd been thinking about adding something to these guys' bases just to make them a bit more interesting, would the odd bit of snow work, do you think? Follow-up question, does anyone know a good way to do snow?

I found this link:

http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2010/01/details-8-ways-to-base-with-snow.html

very useful when looking into snow baseing.

Nice work on the thugs.

Love the BMG minis! The greeny flesh is great. Not helping with my desire to play it And on that front, a friend of a friend is going to bring some minis down tomorrow and give a demo game. Not sure if I'm able to play it, trying to play X-wing, 40k and participate in the organised play for Conquest. But we'll see

Great stuff, that gang looks vicious.

Cheers guys!

@Nev: Thanks, that's very handy! I'll definitely be giving some of those a shot at some point!

@Zambro: Hope you like the look of it, BMG really is a great game and the kind that if you have to play on a tight budget, you really can. I've kind of gone a bit mad, buying into it more/faster than anything other than my initial discovery of 40k all those years ago, but you could easily get a crew going for around £35 or so with the right build. Let me know if you do want to get in on it and want a hand putting together some good starter lists!

They look fantastic! Really inspiring.

Really nice work with the knights model's, I like how Bane and his thugs have turned out. They remind me very much of how they looked in Arkham Origins.

Bane and his crew look great.

How many do you use in an "average" game?

Thanks all!

@Archer: Band size in BMG can be quite varied. For example, the Batman crew I usually run in standard games is just Batman, Robin and Nightwing. Some crews (Joker in particular) can hit a dozen models, but Bane is more middle-of-the-road, A typical list might be:

Bane (Origins)
Deathstroke (Origins)
T.N.T
McGregor (knife dude)
Smash (hammer dude)

You could downgrade Deathstroke to the regular version and throw in another merc, but I don't have the last set of those yet. Conversely, upgrade Bane to his Big version and you'd probably want to drop Deathstroke, maybe throw in Venom.

So yeah, it ranges from 3 (for all-hero crews) to about 12 (for henchmen swarms), but it tends to be in the region of 5-8 models per crew, depending on how cheap your henchmen are or how expensive any Free Agents you take are.

Gee three models sounds rough......

Oh have any tips and tricks for painting a Primarch? I have been roped into painting them for my Brother and I just took delivery of Horus and Robute Guilliman, lets say I am panicking a little bit.

 Archer wrote:
Gee three models sounds rough......

It can be. In Bat-crews you have the advantage of having a Batclaw on just about every model to get around, and you can pad it out with cops or SWAT if you want, but yeah, there have definitely been games where anther model or two would be handy. Batman is awesome, but he can't be everywhere so you do need to think on your feet, pick your battles and plan ahead. Nothing worse than being just out of range to grab an objective or picking the wrong guys to attack while the guys you have to leave alone rack up points.

All that said, I do prefer playing all hero/hero-heavy teams more than anything else, the challenge and the fact these characters play exactly like they should from the comics, games and films is so fun.

Oh have any tips and tricks for painting a Primarch? I have been roped into painting them for my Brother and I just took delivery of Horus and Robute Guilliman, lets say I am panicking a little bit.

Give 'em to me, I'll do it!

Seriously, though, a few tips:

- paint in parts. On models like this you don't want to fiddling around with hard to reach areas just for the sake of speed, you want to take your time on everything. I don't know how Horus or Rob fit together, but I'd definitely say leave off arms, capes and heads if you can, and do the base bits separately as well.

- plan first, and practice on something that didn't cost quite as much. Even if that's just pulling some bits from your spares pile and painting an arm or leg or whatever, make sure you know a) how to paint the style you want and b) what that effect looks like when done. It's easier to strip and redo a test marine than a whole Primarch!

- use artwork as a reference, whether that's from a HH novel cover, one of the Forge World pieces or even other painted examples of a mini. If you like something, copy it and don't be ashamed!

- don't rush, this is the most important. Forget any shortcuts you'd normally take, and accept that this will take as long as it takes. There were times when doing Angron that I thought 'how long have I spent on this now', but the end result is worth it!

Above all, enjoy it! The Primarch models have to be among the best minis ever made, an absolute dream to work on, so this really should be a treat for you!

Gee thanks Para for the tips and taking the time to write them up. Will definitely enjoy them as a diversion from my army plan (yup knew something would derail it eventually).

When the time comes I definitely will try to rip off your angron model as well.....