40K Assassin

 

Rogue Trader era Assassin

Assassins have been part of the WH40K universe since the original “Rogue Trader” edition.

In the numerous background sources produced since then many of the various elements that made up the Assassin as described in that original rulebook were split up into six aspects of the Officio Assassinorum.  This gave rise to six different assassin “temples” or “clades”, each with their own equipment and techniques.  To date corresponding miniatures have been made for four of the six temples.

Before all of that however Jes Goodwin sculpted this more generic assassin figure to fit with the background in Rogue Trader.

It is to my mind a stone cold classic GW figure.  Elements of the design of this model were carried forward to each of the miniatures for the four assassin temples.  While those later assassin models are largely pretty good, none of them have the charm of this figure.

Assassins are pretty much invariably painted black, ninja style.  I have painted a lot of black on miniatures recently so I wanted to steer clear of that on this one.

I came across a photo of the figure painted in a light blue scheme somewhere online (I cant remember where) and while the blue was great, what really caught my eye was the white socks.

Apart from what I have picked up from trash like Power Rangers over the years I know very little about samurai and ninja fashions and styles, but to me the white socks were evocative and pretty cool.  So I loosely copied the colour scheme that I saw online, with a few minor changes that suited me.

Lastly, this figure was painted after a long break in painting which shows in a few places.  When I look at it I vaguely remember a comment about “the lack confidence in the brushstrokes” that I remember an old college tutor making.  I think that that applies to this figure: it would have benefited from more precision painting.

On the plus side, I think that the figure looks cool anyway, even if some of the highlighting is a bit clunky.

I am considering picking up the four figures from each of the various Officio Assassinorum temples and making a team, each painted in a tonally dark but brightly hued colour, Power Rangers style.  It might even happen too, as it would be a pretty quick project plus I have wanted something to serve as Power Rangers in miniature for a while now.

Resident Evil 6

I tend to only post miniatures related stuff here.  Even then its really only miniatures stuff that is directly connected to me: my miniatures in other words, not notes about upcoming releases from X company or reviews of a TV show or whatever.  There is nothing wrong with doing that sort of thing of course, its just not what I want to do here.

So I am making a little bit of an exception with this post.

I have enjoyed video games for my whole life.  Video games have often been a large part of the inspiration for various miniatures related projects.

Of all of those influences the Resident Evil video game series (not the sub-par movies) has probably had the most impact on my toy soldiers, some of which can be seen here.  Of course the majority of my zombie stuff is connected too.

Therefore news that Resident Evil 6 is to be released in November is definitely worthy of note.

The viral marketing campaign site is nohopeleft.  The big release trailer, in all of its cheesy Bruckheimer glory is below.

That this game finally pairs up Leon (a man whose pithy lines are the only thing limper than his fringe) with Chris (the most frequently appearing male meatball character) is cheesy, bromantic, soap-opera gravy.

Leon has been re-based since this shot. He still has nightmares though.

With RE6 out in November, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City out exactly one month from today plus Resident Evil Revelations out on Feb 7th (only on 3DS.  Boo!)  it looks like 2012 will be annus horribilis, for all the right reasons.

Hooray!

Judge Death

Judge Death

Judge Death is the leader of the Dark Judges and the archenemy of Judge Dredd and/or Judge Anderson.

"The crime isss life, the sssentencce is death."

Visible above is Deaths shtick.  As a trans-dimensional, undead super-fiend, Death dishes out his form of justice up close and personal, usually via the plunging of  his semi-ethereal hands into victims chests.  He then “squeeezzessss” with fatal results.

Apparently Judge Death was conceived as a recurring nemesis for Dredd largely because he couldnt be killed.  Dredd tended to bump off his adversaries in short order, so Judge Death sidestepped that problem for the writers by being undead and tricky to capture or hold.

Deaths Pterodactyl Shoulder Pad

Deaths all-life-is-committed-by-the-living-therefore-all-life-is-crime standpoint is even more draconian than Dredds law and order views.  This provides obvious parallels with Dredds own pretty black and white standpoint.  The two-sides-of-the-same-coin thing is particularly apparent for these comic book foes.

Death sporting quite a green complexion.

As time went on Deaths origin story was explored.  As often happens when the mysterious or creepy is explained its impact is lessened.  This in addition to a few ill-advised comic turns taken by Judge Death during that era turned him into more of a comical character than the creepy ghoul he had started out as.

There have been efforts to make Judge Death creepy all over again since, some of which have worked quite well to emphasise his otherworldly serial killer-like zealotry.  Regardless I think that for readers of my era for whom Judgement on Gotham was a big deal, Judge Death will always tend to be a little more comical than scary.

As you can see from the various takes on Deaths look shown in this post, the colours used for the various parts of his uniform and his flesh vary from artist to artist. When painting my take on the character I had to pick and choose which colours I thought would work the best on the figure in isolation and also in conjunction with the bright primaries of my Mega City Judges.

Like my other Dark Judges, I found Death to be a stumbling block for my toy soldier painting productivity.  As a result the painting on some areas is far superior to that on other areas as I finally rushed to get the figure finished.

Another Dark Judge next time.

Judge Mortis

Judge Mortis

The Dark Judges are foes of Judge Dredd that hail from “Deadworld”, an Earth like planet located in another dimension.  Like Dredd they are law enforcers but the Dark Judges laws are even more draconian than Mega City Ones famously strict codes: the Dark Judges eradicate all life in order to eradicate all crime.

In order to achieve this goal, the Dark Judges are dead.  Their ectoplasmic forms inhabit corpses.  If the corpses are destroyed their gaseous forms escape until another suitable host is prepared.  ”You cannot killll what doessss not live!” is a pretty common soundbite from these guys.

More agile than one might expect.

So technically the Dark Judges are liches or something, possibly wights.  I am still adding the “zombie” tag to this post though.

"Hol(e)y Judge Mortis Batman!"

There are four Dark Judges (although two other female characters did feature in their ranks for a while, plus another character from comics joined the Dark Judges for a story once, but more on that at a later date).  Each Dark Judge has his own shtick: Mortis here cause decay and putrefaction in anyone or thing that he comes into contact with.

"You cannot killll what doessss not liivvvee!" etc

The Dark Judges robes of office are each a thematically different parody of the Mega City One Judges uniform.  A pretty funny parody in my opinion, with pterodactyls in place of eagles and skulls, bones and body parts featuring heavily.  Fashion restraint is not a desirable quality in a Dark Judge.

Pterodactyl Skeleton Shoulder Pad

Various artistic interpretations of the Dark Judges have coloured different uniform elements in various ways.  I decided to go with a mix of influences from different artists to give each Dark Judge a visual identity while keeping them thematically linked.

Mortis features more bones in his uniform than the other Dark Judges.  Considering that he sports a cows skull for a head and has a bony tail he is pretty easily distinguished from his colleagues.

I did have to represent the bony armour differently to the bony head and tail, which in turn has to be similar but different to the rest of Mortis body, which is covered in stinking meat.

Bovine

I hit a painting slump in mid-August part of the way through painting my Dark Judges.  They have been sitting on my painting table since then in an unfinished state, while I have been unable to get anything else painted.

I finally got the enthusiasm up to do some painting in December and decided that I would finish the Dark Judges one way or another.  As a result I took a few shortcuts and there are a couple of areas on each of these figures that really could have done with some more careful painting.  In the interests of clearing the decks for new projects I decided to grit my teeth and do a basic job on the remaining areas.

Hopefully those areas dont let the miniatures down too badly, as there are still some bits on the Dark Judges that are quite nice in my opinion.

Another Dark Judge up next time.  Comments and criticisms on Mortis are more than welcome.

Mancave Upgrade Complete

I finally got my hobby room tidied up and functional again on Xmas eve.  It was driving me nuts because of the state of it for the last couple of months.

The room now looks like this:

Many if the items on the shelves need to be rearranged a little, into some sort of order but that can wait.  For now at least the room is operational again.

A knock on effect of this de-cluttering was that some actual miniature painting was completed over my Xmas break.  This was somewhat satisfying as I havent managed to finish painting a figure since last August.

Assuming that I get a half decent chance to take a few photos over the next while I will be able to start regularly posting here again.  The posts are all written, I just need to get the photos sorted.

My Name in Lights

I recently got credit as a playtester in a couple of miniature games rules produced by Ganesha Games.

This was a first for me.  While it isnt a massive deal (I know a guy who works full time writing role-playing game sourcebooks for example), getting a credit in a gaming rulebook is a nice thing to tick off my bucket list.

Image from Ganesha Games

The first ruleset was Flashing Steel written by Andrew at shichitenhakki.  Flashing Steel is a swashbuckling variation on the Ganesha game engine, designed for games featuring dashing, moustache twirling, chandelier swinging, roguish types.

During playtests I played using Star Wars stuff.  It turns out that France in the 1600s bears a lot of similarity to a galaxy far, far away when it comes to the mechanics of tales of derring do.  I had fun testing Flashing Steel out, as the emphasis was squarely on cinematic, story driven action, rather than sterile slaughterfests.

Image from Ganesha Games

The second game that I got a playtest credit for is Mighty Monsters.  Another variant on the Ganesha Games engine, this one is about kaiju (with a little bit of mecha thrown in).

I have a lot of interest in pretty much anything that involves giant monsters or robots hitting each other or blowing things up, so I was glad to be involved a bit in its production, even though I wasnt a very big contributor to it.

Mighty Monsters rather well titled sister game “Samurai Robot Battle Royale” is coming up soon.  I might try to get involved in the development of that if I can squeeze it into my rather spartan gaming schedule.

Mancave Upgrade

My spare time for the last week or so has been occupied with putting up shelves and the like.  When I am finished the place should look pretty decent, but right now it looks like this…

 

Having that room in such a mess means that I haven’t been able to get much actual hobby stuff (rather than hobby related stuff) done.  This state of limbo will likely continue for the next week or two, which is a a pain.

At least it will mean that my major work space will be prepped and ready to go for during my Xmas holidays and into 2012.

Hopefully I will have something more interesting finished and photographed to put up next week.

In The Emperors Name

After playing our game of JDMG (covered last week) MT, PB and I decided to give In the Emperors Name a go on the same terrain set-up.

As a bunch of gamers who have played their fair share of 40k in the past, cant stomach it now but still read some of the fiction and paint the occasional 40k figure, we really wanted this ruleset to work out.

The first hurdle was picking the forces, which was very finicky.  PB had even prepared a spreadsheet to help to make this step as hassle free as possible, but it was still a drudge.  Having to prepare a spreadsheet should have been our first warning I suppose, but as ItEN is a free, fan written set we were prepared to put in a little more effort to get it to work.

I never played orks in 40k but as I have painted up a few over 2011 I decided to go with them for this game.  They proved to play quite differently in comparison with the elite forces that MT and PB chose.

MT painted up his Harlequins a couple of years ago, primarily for use with Space Hulk.  A small elite group of elven ninja cabaret struck him as perfect for use in a 40k skirmish setting.

PB dug out a Librarian and Tactical squad of his “Dark Souls” chapter out of storage.  It was fun to see those guys again as I faced them across many miniature battlefields over the years.

The three forces set up equidistant from a Maguffin (the suspicious looking pink thing on the road in the bottom left of the picture above) and we spent the game converging on that.

As it happened our three forces each engaged both opposing forces in some fashion or another as the game progressed.  This was very much a first game of the system where we tried to get a handle on how the rules work while playing, so some silly oversights and mistakes cropped up, as was expected.

Due to the ineffectiveness of their ranged weaponry the orks ended up in close combat with the Dark Souls a little earlier than I liked.  MT capitalised on this with a well timed psychic attack from his Warlock that put my Boss at a disadvantage.

That allowed the Dark Souls to get an edge in the combat and prolong it for long enough to allow the Harlequins to escape with the objective.

—————

In the Emperors Name is available for free download here.

ItEN is an unofficial fan made rule set for playing skirmish games set in the Warhammer 40000 universe.   Considering how many people get into the hobby via 40k who enjoy the setting but get disillusioned by the relentlessly poor quality of the official rulesets, I think that there is a lot or room for a system that covers this area.

The rules have obviously been written by players enthusiastic about the setting and miniatures.  This shows in the large number of interesting and sometimes satisfyingly obscure warbands and retinues available.

Unfortunately though, the system didnt appeal to my group once we played it.  It probably deserves another go but with so many possible rulesets vying for my limited gaming time, I cant imagine ItEN getting another tryout.

The rules felt restrictive compared with other sets that we have played recently.  While it is quite possible that we missed some of the subtleties of the system (we did only play one game after all) in many respects ItEN reminded me of the negative elements of playing small games using the official 40k rules.

Basically the game seemed largely preordained.  Manoeuvering wasnt really much of an option and the timing and location of the big dice rolls could be predicted with certainty before the game even started.

A number of factors contributed to this, not least the scenario.  But the predictability is just too severe for our tastes.

We had a couple of other problems too, but I wont bother going into those.  I dont particularly enjoy ripping into a fan based free ruleset, particularly when the guys who put it together have put so much time into it and so obviously have affection for the source material.

Despite early promise it proved to be a damp squib for us

Judge Dredd in the Cursed Earth

PB and MT visited a few weeks back for a gaming weekend.  In addition to the boardgames that we had planned we also wanted to get a game or two of the Judge Dredd Miniatures Game and In the Emperors Name played.

We set up the post apocalyptic shanty town of Standard Falls as shown above.  This was the first game to use most of the scenery shown, as I put the majority of it together earlier this year.   I got a kick out of simply setting it up to be honest.  Standard Falls isnt finished just yet (more stuff in the pipeline) but it is satisfying to have got it even this far.

L to R: Psi Judge Geller, Riot Judge Barrabus, Street Judge Giant, Med Judge Trapper and Rookie Street Judge Lacey

A lot of factions were added in the most recent JDMG update.  I have suitable minatures to field many of them, but as I have most recently been working on Mega City One Judges, I wanted to use some of them again (above).  I was sorely tempted to use a zombie or robot force, but the Judges won out in the end.

As there were three players we decided to keep things simple and go for a game with two sides, rather than three.

Both MT and PB wanted to play using zombie forces so they each chose a force using half the points of the Judge force.  Above is PBs force of sickos led by Patient Zero (the Zombie Master) plus his henchman the horribly mutated Hoo Hoo and five former humans.

MTs force of rather gorier cadavers was led by the kinematically redundant, cybernetic demonoid, Adam.  MT had sunk a chunk of his points into Adams formidable psychic arsenal.

The scenario was set to be the assassination of the opponents leader(s).  Street Judge Giant was the most senior on the Department side.  In turn the judges had to apprehend or failing that execute both Patient Zero and Adam.

The Judge force proceeded Northward while each undead force attempted to flank them.  Which is kind of tough seeing that as yet, the only zombies sighted in Judge Dredds world have been the traditional slow variety.

Patient Zero psychically impels his rotten rogues down the abandoned street.

Riot Judge Barrabus has dealt with the walking dead before (or at least has seen a lot of old Horror tri-vids) and knows that standard projectiles have reduced effect on the living impaired.

Riot Foam on the other hand is just as effective on the dead as on the living.  With a jet from from his foam gun Barrabus locks Hoo Hoo and one of the zombies in place, still gnashing their teeth but completely incapacitated.  Patient Zero starts to get nervous.

The Judge force proceeds with the refused flank (not that difficult against shuffling undead) and concentrates the attack on Patient Zeros forces.  Spotting the danger Adam begins the slow redeployment of his force.

After another devastating display of Justice Department riot foam drill, Barrabus tops the zombies forces “Most Wanted” list.  Anticipating this, Med Judge Trapper moves close enough to administer stimm packs when Barrabus is dropped by a psychic assault.  Giant and Geller provide Hi-Ex covering fire.

Barrabus backs around the corner to regain his breath while Trappers selfless heroism is rewarded with a psychic blast that causes his brains to run out of his nose.

Giant remains close enough to tempt the zombie masters into stalling their retreat.

The view from the Southern edge.  Note the Rookie (bottom right) who has been helping to hold Adams forces in indecision on the West side of the large building.

With the sort of efficiency that one would expect from a totalitarian police state, the zombie rising of 2143 is crushed in its early stages.

—————————–

Not a particularly tactical game, but I enjoyed it.  I did get to thoroughly lambaste two gaming buddies simultaneously with my newly painted miniatures over my newly built and painted terrain though, so that helped.

What was interesting was that some of the rules that were used had been modified since our previous JDMG session, in part due to feedback that we supplied on the Mongose forum.  Power to the people indeed.  Dredd would crush that sort of feedback under his reinforced heel.

JDMG is proving to be one of my favourite miniature gaming systems yet.  I am not sure exactly what it is about the system that I like (although I have a number of  theories that I wont blather on about here) but the whole seems to be greater than the sum of its parts.  Its pretty “clean” as systems go too, which is important.

And of course the fact that a system that is working as well as this for our group is officially based in the Judge Dredd licence is completely fantastic as far as I am concerned.

We also played a game of In the Emperors Name on the same terrain following this game.  I will report on that soon.

2011 So Far

I have been preoccupied with a number of non-toy soldier related issues for the last couple of months.  Some of the distractions have been dull real life things but others (like a holiday in the US and various Xbox things) have been very pleasant.  The downside of course is that the hobby stuff suffers.

In response to this and in the hope that it will get my juices flowing I decided to do a round up of the hobby things that I have done in 2011 so far, in roughly chronological order.  Click on the pictures to go to the relevant posts for further details.

Things got off to a rocky start (sorry) with the quick bits of terrain above.  Goofy and more than a little crude I have got good use out of them and they are eminently practical.

Next up were some more Left 4 Dead inspired zombie characters.  Nice Tengu miniatures with paint jobs that vary from “adequate” to “quite nice really”.

One of the most successful projects that I finished this year involved these guys.  I got a lot of positive reaction to them and while they became a bit of a drudge by the end, I am very happy with the finished batch.

One of the bigger sub projects that I got stuck into this year was the fort shown above.  That is exactly one quarter of it actually, the thing is massive.

There are a few things that I would do differently if I did it all over but largely I am pleased to have finished it.

Or at least, nearly finished it.  I ordered some suitable bits and pieces to cover the cruciform windows recently, so a minor update to this will happen soon, probably early in the new year.

Keeping with the post apocalyptic theme I retouched and varnished my giant mutant rats in May or so.  I also added some creepy crawlies and a few tents.

…plus some post apocalyptic objective markers.

Running concurrently with the rats, the fort and some other things was the Gorkamorka project.  Lots of orks in other words. No group shot yet though.

Painted alongside the orks were some post apocalyptic vehicles for them to ride around in.

The post apocalyptic stuff kept on coming, with development of my PA shanty town, “Standard Falls”.

The photo above doesnt really do the buildings justice: they look quite nice on the table together.

These vultures got finished while I threw together the signpost above.  The signpost helped to pull the Standard Falls stuff into the Judge Dredd setting, ideal for my most recent project…

The most recent of these is one of the first Mega City One specific perps, the Jimp

So thats what I have managed to get done so far this year.  Its a pretty respectable amount I think, amounting to ~100 miniatures and ~45 terrain items.

Considering that I have done nothing since early August (plus have to go to work and sleep and all of those other boring things) its a pretty decent chunck of geek stuff.

I have a lot more projects and sub-projects in the pipeline as usual but I dont know what will get done next.   Going through the last ten months output for this post has been satisfying though

Its a Judge Dredd game set in the Cursed Earth up for posting next week.