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A quick note, as you paint so quickly I cannot keep up, mini jets game looks cool. Jokers minions are dead creepy, especially the big fella. No one wants to be on the end of that homemade bludgeon.

I snagged three copies of the 1st edition dungeon saga at Miniature Market a couple years ago for $25 a pop, I couldn’t pass up the deal, all the terrain bits and plenty of zombie trolls .

AI terrain looking good, good use of the hatches.

Good delve into the bits box there

Wish I'd thought of PVA before using half a pack of GS filling the base on mine!

Some great stuff in here recently, sorry I've not commented in a while, I've been variously unwell since before Christmas, so only just catching up. Love the Clowns!

Good heavens Graven! There's so much here I don't even know what to comment on!

Yorkright wrote: A quick note, as you paint so quickly I cannot keep up, mini jets game looks cool. Jokers minions are dead creepy, especially the big fella. No one wants to be on the end of that homemade bludgeon.

I'm really impressed by Aeronautica, it's stupidly quick to pick up and play. The new Borgon is very, very good. The old version was really slow, and whilst the new is no quicker, he's on a 40mm so he's effectively quicker. I could've gone a whole lot creepier with Rastaclown but honestly referencing a kids' tv show amused me too much not to do.

Theophony wrote:I snagged three copies of the 1st edition dungeon saga at Miniature Market a couple years ago for $25 a pop, I couldn’t pass up the deal, all the terrain bits and plenty of zombie trolls .

AI terrain looking good, good use of the hatches.

Yeah I'm going to continue to keep my eyes open for Mantic Saga stuff, regradless. The old-school hatches were too close to the shape of the existing Ork bunkers to pass up. I'm not sure about the stand-in Imperial one, as essentially the official ones look they're made from an old-school round rhino door hatch, but they look more like silos than bunkers and I want a bit of variety. I've also found some battlewagon bits that should work for the Mek yard, just need to make sure they don't encroach on the table top too much. I'm trying to keep things quite low in terms of height so they don't interfere with the game surface.

Slinky wrote:Good delve into the bits box there

Always worth a rummage.

Paradigm wrote:Wish I'd thought of PVA before using half a pack of GS filling the base on mine!

Some great stuff in here recently, sorry I've not commented in a while, I've been variously unwell since before Christmas, so only just catching up. Love the Clowns!

I did some GS in there too, but pva with a drop of superglue can create interesting effects.

Sorry to hear you've been under the weather - there's been a lot of it about. And cheers!

Gitsplitta wrote:Good heavens Graven! There's so much here I don't even know what to comment on!

Paralysis of choice is my downfall too; )

Another kid-oriented weekend, playdates and whatnot.
Got a game of transformers with the eldest, switched the new Megatron into my tank deck and utterly obliterated his (very decent) Soundwave deck; both decks need fine-tuning, interesting lessons learned on both sides. Also, found a metal set of the Arch-Villains of Mega City One in the wild, with the added bonus of money off for box being bashed. Bonus! The boy also picked up the esy build mounted Nighthaunt special character for himself - he's totally smitten so I'm going to have to cave in and figure out how to play AoS
Still, not much p&m done. However, started on the Daemon team for Dreadball:

Sliced off her arm blades.

I think I need to black line more heavily. Again, go down the "comic" look. I have one more Succubus and then half a dozen lesser daemons to start chopping up.

Plodding along,
Graven

She looks cool. Or hot, maybe? I missed where the model originally came from. Mantic, still?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
She looks cool. Or hot, maybe? I missed where the model originally came from. Mantic, still?

Yeah, Mantic here's what I've got of nasty dungeon Saga plastics:




The bottom two are going to be a pain to convert, but I want variety. We shall see.

Pain... We'll they are a demon team.

Nice work on all the things.

Solar_lion wrote:Pain... Well they are a demon team.

lol too true. I think I'll turn them into prone players, although I do have some spare arms also from the full kit that came in a bits bag. At least one of them is missing his right hand already, but the poses are decent for space-football generally.

The Lesser demons (non-succubus) can lob fireballs (which amusingly don't count as bringing Illegal weapons on to the pitch), so I'll need to convert at least a few. I've got 8, so that'll do for 6 players (max for the team) and 2 prone. 2 Succubi strikers, and then suitable models for the guards: I'm not crazy about the suggested models, and they're pricey (well, 17 for 3 basic plastics), so I'll likely find an alternative. Their team captain is supposed to be a winged Incubus but getting a Mantic one is tough, plus they do some really nice Succubus leader models. Maybe some imp cheerleaders too?

Dr H wrote:Nice work on all the things.

Cheers mucker.

So after a bit of a think, I started chopping up Daemons.

The arms have been swapped on a few daemons for some blasting arms; the poses are not fantastic but having variety is good. Couple of head swaps for ones that will be lying prone. Other succubus will get a new head and a new arm. The daemon with 2 chin tusks rather than one has also got two back spikes, so he's going to become the captain, I've decided. Not sure how he's going to get wings though; probably folded, somehow made from scrap. Still to decide how I'm doing the guards, but I'm still leaning towards the Abyssal Guards (essentially just really big versions of the lesser daemons) over the Molochs (huge, fat, cyclopean ones) - apart form anything else, Abyssal Guards will be much, much easier to convert.

I have also been working on Scarecrow

I've removed the weird lumpy crow end of the scythe, and a making a new one. I'm going to add some bats generally.

Oh, speaking of bats, this came.

It's freaking huge!

Looking forward to getting to grips with this... Although want more DCU stuff really

Graven

Excited for Scarecrow and generally happy that you paint up all that amazing DC stuff, so I can look at it but don't have to lift a finger

" Cheers mucker. " Translation into US English, por favor, s'il vous plait?

Also, Devil in a blue dress loincloth. Nice reference.

Viterbi wrote:Excited for Scarecrow and generally happy that you paint up all that amazing DC stuff, so I can look at it but don't have to lift a finger

you're a charmer I'm looking forward to him to, I'm going to stick him in with my Yellow Lantern team for DC

Red Harvest wrote:" Cheers mucker. " Translation into US English, por favor, s'il vous plait?

Also, Devil in a blue dress loincloth. Nice reference.

Mucker= mate, chum, pal. A somewhat old fashioned, rather London bit of slang.
Yes, one of my favourite films, highly significant in history of modern noir blah blah delighted you got the reference!

Hello troops

A bit of work on my Sphyr team, blocking in the red


Hit a bit of a slump, but glad I am sticking to my plan. 5 minutes turned into 30. It's not much, but real progress nonetheless. The colour scheme is working and they're starting to come together.

Sphyr team looking good. Love the color palette.

Demoness's will make for a striking team on the pitch. I think your idea of black lining will really make the model pop.

Solar_lion wrote:Sphyr team looking good. Love the color palette.

Thanks buddy. Hope you like its finalised version also.

Yorkright wrote: Demoness's will make for a striking team on the pitch. I think your idea of black lining will really make the model pop.

Yeah I'm pretty sure it's going to be a necessity. Right now I'm just trying to get my head round the team as a whole. Picked up a couple of Guards off eBay to round them out. I also managed to get a sprue of Asterian Cyphers for starting to make the not-eldar robot team.

Just a quick touching-base - on with the Bloodtide Buccaneers! Here's the test figure:

I'm really pleased with how he's come together.

They're a fun team and the aesthetic seems to have worked well, I think. Hopefully get the rest sorted by the end of the weekend. Going to start working through the Back To Gotham boxset also. First impressions, it's pretty shiny.

Hey ho
Graven

“Does that guy have a tail?”
“Looks that way, but he’s sooooooooo faaaaaaar away, let me get my goggles “
“Seems kind of fishy to me”

Nice work Graven, Bloodtide Buccaneers , excellent name.

Theophony wrote:“Does that guy have a tail?”
“Looks that way, but he’s sooooooooo faaaaaaar away, let me get my goggles “
“Seems kind of fishy to me”

Nice work Graven, Bloodtide Buccaneers , excellent name.

Funny guy yeah a rushed and crappy shot, although still enough to see where there's a bit of brush slip on the right thigh fixed that now, and brought up the red generally with some more VJ Red Gore, more highlights on the bone, and on the light blue also. That's better

What else have I been up to? Fancied making a green Speed Racer for no particular reason:

Early days but still, fun. A mean green racing machine. I also started some Kryptonite themed objective markers for DCU (It's not easy being green).

Aiming to Buccaneers done this weekend. Resisted the urge to buy a set of Eavy Bommers this morning, but it was a close thing just cos Grot Bommers are infinitely better. It's a great game but it's the usual gw thing of some totally disparate unit qualities for equivalent points.

Still held up on the priming line; weather is beyond awful. Meanwhile, I'll be taking a look at Back to Gotham! Do y'all just want to see the figs, or thoughts on the game too?
Graven

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Meanwhile, I'll be taking a look at Back to Gotham! Do y'all just want to see the figs, or thoughts on the game too?
Graven

Thoughts on the game would be much appreciated.

That’s some nice highlights on that car!

Can't unsee it now - Is the driver mooning out of the windscreen?

 Slinky wrote:
Can't unsee it now - Is the driver mooning out of the windscreen?

Ahhhhh.. lol

CptJake wrote:Thoughts on the game would be much appreciated.

Very well, see below!

GiraffeX wrote:That’s some nice highlights on that car!

Ditto!

Slinky wrote:Can't unsee it now - Is the driver mooning out of the windscreen?

Solar_lion wrote:

Slinky wrote:Can't unsee it now - Is the driver mooning out of the windscreen?

Ahhhhh.. lol

What he said Buttmobile!

Anyway, here's the finished article:

Just a bit of fun. Enjoyed playing about with ridiculous ott highlights.

My 9 year old had model envy, so started some sigmarites with him:


Picked up some quality hot wheels for scattering around Joker's Funland:


Speaking of which ...
Back to Gotham... Again!
I've spoiler-blocked the rules changes as I imagine that's of less interest to the casual viewer.

So it's finally here, the 3rd edition of Knight Models' Batman Miniature Game, in a vast and glorious starter box.

CORE BOX
RRP £130


It's a big beast of a box, right enough, and can be used as a storage solution also (albeit not with room for scenery once assembled), with extra space for more models, tokens etc.

SCENERY & TOKENS
A huge selling point for me about this set is the funfair scenery that's included. KM's apartment blocks that have come in the 2nd ed sets (Suicide Squad, Dark Knight) were pretty good, but this is on a different level, both in terms of scope and variety. It's enough to satisfyingly scatter across a board fully, as well as adding a variety of heights to the board. Now there are, and have been, funfair sets out there in scale before - Warcradle (formerly our friends DeathZap studios) and Knights of Dice do very respectable MDF affairs, whilst Plascraft.eu do a serviceable, albeit rather flimsy, coloured plastruct version in their Malifaux range. But here you're getting a Ferris wheel, 3 small and 3 large booths, a couple of barriers and some small standees, all as part of the box. The card stock is not as durable as MDF, to be sure, but looks great and of course, for an entry-level product, is ready to go straight away - a huge advantage.
You also get all the tokens and templates required to play. Some of these are the same as previous editions, others are merely similar (for example, suspect tokens that reveal to be a particular objective), and some are entirely new. Crucially, it's all there, and all are sufficiently distinct.

GAME BOOKS
Opening the box, you are faced with two books: a purple START HERE Joker-themed intro campaign, which takes you through all the basic rules adding complexity at each step, and the main rulebook (also available online for free). The mini-campaign is an excellent introduction, and structurally it's very reminiscent of The Walking Dead (you can spot Mark Latham's fingerprints all over this). The back of the intro book includes clear construction guides for the figures and terrain also.

The only niggle - and it's pretty minor - is that Suspect tokens are introduced within the campaign without any explanation of how they work. However, that aside, it's a very effect intro game that a novice or young player can get their head round easily, as well as having actual replay value.
The core rules are noticeably cleaner than previous editions - what I mean by this is that generally, they are both more logical AND more logically laid out.

MINIATURES
One of the big bones of contention online has been the variable bases sizes of leaders. Joker and Gordon come with a choice of giant 60mm display base or regular 40mm base. These have the mechanical effect of meaning your radius of Inspire (leadership, essentially) is bigger on the 60mm but you're less mobile and easier to swarm. The figures are designed to be easy to magnetise, and certainly the display versions will look impressive, though not to everyone's taste as game pieces. Personally, I love them, and will simply be going with the characters on 60mm bases. Not sure whether I prefer Joker's wrecked stage or Gordon's Batsignal base, though.
One of the great things about this set is all of the Joker goons come with 2 heads, a clown mask version or regular thug version - no mechanical difference, but a lot of choice depending on your preference - whilst the cops come with winter hat heads. Harley comes with classic or current heads whilst Mr J also comes with optional hat or gun in hand, plus there's lots of great base scatter - smilex fishes, for example. Sprues are well laid out and the new material, whilst quite flexible, holds detail well and has minimal slippage or mould lines to deal with.

As for the other models, Harley also has a display base - because everyone loves Harley, apparently - and the Batman design is the iconic Todd MacFarlane spiky-spawn cape version, which is nice for variety if nothing else. Deadshot likewise has head choices and scenic base, just to keep you happy. The cops are good, but the icing on the cake - or rather donut - is a proper Bullock figure, at last.

CHARACTER CARDS
There are a number of card decks, some familiar, some less so, in the new version of the game. First of all, the character card layout has been refined once again - taking hints from other card-driven miniature games. I know several people who've often been put off by the layout of both 1st and 2nd ed cards, whereas now the layout is clear and clean, with all the special rules on the back (as was seen in the later iterations of 2nd ed), and all cards and models also being fully compatible in either direction. The major functional difference is that movement is now in inches, with your total movement (including from abilities) is printed on the card, which is a great improvement; for older cards, you simply add 4 to their listed movement stat. As an aside, Willpower is now used against Stun, Endurance against Injury (formerly Blood damage). One thing I really, really like is that your characters can make an "Effort" - take Stun damage to improve rolls (max. 3)

GAME DECKS
You also get two sets (one per player) of the new Objective deck. Firstly, I like the simple fact that you get two copies of this, it just makes sense - but so many games would sell this separately, or just give you one. You shuffle together your faction specific objectives with your choice of generics, to make a 20 card deck, and draw 4 - and these are how you win the game. I love that everyone's now got their own way to win, and you never quite know what your opponent is up to. Not only that, but they can instead be spent as a Resource - burned for a temporary advantage instead (but you can only do this for 3 "points" of Resource total in the game) - trading off long term for short term gain. The Suspect tokens, mentioned earlier, are clues, loot etc that interact with these, and are typically specified on the cards: they may, for example, reveal to be Loot or Ammo, and getting this may - or may not - be part of your overall Objectives. You also have 4 cards from the Plot deck - which both players draw from - which represent grand villain schemes. Above all, you can always keep them guessing... Between these two deck types, the game feels much more dynamic and cinematic, less of a slug-fest and more of, well, a Batman Comic!

Combined with these there are Encounter and Event decks. The Encounter deck allows you to pick or randomly determine a scenario and setup, whilst the Event deck is random, ongoing effects such as heavy rain, or Gotham in Flames. All of the cards are illustrated with comic art (and every era is covered, not just post-New 52 - love that there's a Carrie Kelley art card for the bat crew), of decent stock, and with clearly differentiated card backs.

So that's an overview of the game box as it stands. There's no denying that it is a big investment, but it's an absolute ton of stuff. I think for what it is, it's decent, especially compared, say, to the mess of Monolith's attempt.

Hey ho
Graven

Excellent work graven! Cool work on the car.

Gitsplitta wrote:Excellent work graven! Cool work on the car.

Thanks, it was a fun ride

So, the remaining 11 of the Sphyr team finished.

"Time and tide wait for no man."
"That's very poetic Elmer."
"Thanks Dodds, I read it off the back of a cereal packet."
"Squid-os! Nutritious AND educational."




The Sphyr MVP is in there, in a reversed version of the colour scheme. Different enough to distinguish him, similar enough to run as regular guard. Loved these squamous little blighters. And with the big guy too they're a regular Sharknado!


And build the two Abyssal Guards as, well, Guards

Lesser infernal for scale. Blood sacrifice from carving off weapon hafts not shown.

So that's another 11 under the belt, which to my surprise means February has outpaced January. Did not expect that. Might to to get 2 more done, as I don't cope well with anything other than whole numbers
Graven

For spending so much time underwater, you are on fire. As usual, I guess. Love the Sphyr.

Close-up of C'thilla please!

I love that scarecrow sculpt and dumbledore gives me serious Charleton Heston moses vibes

Picking up those hot wheels for Joker's Funland was a stroke of genius!