Painted Oiran

Here is a single Oiran to run with my Malifaux Ten Thunders crews (or other crews since Oiran are mercenaries).  They actually come in packs of three but Aramoro theorised that (being Showgirls) they would work well with his Colette du Bois crew so we split the box.  As is a common theme in Malifaux Oiran are ‘ladies of negotiable affection’ though amazingly they aren’t dead, demonic or anything else horrible to go with it.  In general I’ve found the Oiran to be pretty handy supporting my own crew’s willpower and occasionally Luring someone in to be beaten to death, preferably after they’ve activated for the turn.

Painting-wise I don’t think that the photos are doing this one much justice as there are a few highlights which are washed out by the pictures.  Still, blowing up to huge size does show I’ve been particularly sloppy with line matching on the front of the sash.  It’s not a bad miniature, but I’m not likely to go back for one of the cheapest minions in my collection.

Next on the painting table: Luna.

Painted Sidir Alchibal

This is Sidir Alchibal (and not Captain Nemo from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as you might have thought initially), sidekick / bodyguard for Lucas McCabe. I only ended up using him once in Malifaux Classic edition (where he was shot to death by Perdita Ortega without achieving much) and his rules aren’t even in open testing for the second edition of Malifaux yet.

This is probably the most testing amount of white I’ve tried on a miniature because Sidir is a remarkably big chap (that’s a 40 mm base he’s sitting on) and I’m very happy with it.  Even in the somewhat unforgiving medium of close up photography it still looks decent, and on the tabletop it’s very pleasing.  I thought that the bright red turban and robes really set off the white, and then chose to make the rest of him (beard, weapons, accessories) darker to pop the white as much as possible.  I declare myself satisfied.  Now, when can I get him back to the gaming table…

Next on the painting table: Oiran.

Painted Yin, the Penangalan

This is Yin, the Penangalan, another of my Ten Thunders miniatures.  Unlike some of them, Yin is actually a proper Ten Thunders choice rather than being restricted to a single Master like Beckoners.  Her main thing is to be supremely annoying to everyone, which she achieves by being hard to get rid of (negative flips to attack) and having the Anathema rule so she’s even scary to robots.  I’ve found that Yin really hates it when people bring paired weapons, or remember that they can focus attacks to get round the negative flip on the attack duel. It all gets even more hilarious when enemy pieces can have their Willpower reduced, such as with Lucas McCabe’s Braying of the Hounds spell.  Of course, this is all outdated information due to the new Malifaux rules, so who knows what will happen to the poor Penangalan with the update.

I painted most of her mass of organs in various colours then slathered purple ink liberally across the lot which appears to have had the desired effect of looking slightly nasty.  To add to the scary look, I left out the pupils from her eyes which works well enough, though she doesn’t need much help looking scary.

Next on the painting table: Sidir Alchibal.

Painted Yan Lo

This is Yan Lo, the Master of the Masters of the Path box.  He’s pretty amusing to play as he ‘powers up’ during the game from deaths around him, and it was my first taste of the Ressurectionist play style of bringing dead minions back into the game.  For whatever reason Yan Lo isn’t in the first part of the beta testing currently ongoing for Malifaux second edition so it’ll be a while before I find out what happens to his rules.

Assembling Yan Lo was a colossal pain as he comes in a remarkable number of pieces, and unbelievably, his beard is a separate part from the rest of his head.  Just getting that attached took a bit work.  However, I’m not a sculptor so perhaps there is a good reason for this design, but whatever it is, ease of assembly by the final user didn’t seem to feature in the process.   Luckily once Yan Lo is put together he’s a fairly sturdy piece, at least when compared to the flimsy arms of his Ashigaru retainers.  I chose not to add the rising skeleton to his base and eventually I might find some use for the parts; for now they are in my bits box.  Overall I am fairly happy with the effect, with the exception of the visible brush strokes on the white under-robes.  Fortunately this isn’t a problem as they’re not so obvious at table top distance, and in any case the eye isn’t really drawn to that part of the paint job.

Next on the painting table: Yin, the Penangalan.

Painted Soul Porter

Here is my painted Soul Porter, the totem for Yan Lo. In classic Malifaux it was pretty handy at pushing other, scarier miniatures into places of maximum awkwardness. Of course, in Malifaux version 2, who knows what the little chap will be able to do. I deliberately used muted browns for the clothing and grey for the skin to try and emphasise the lanterns a bit more, though I couldn’t resist a cheeky splash of red on the bandanna.

I tried to make the lanterns appear to glow a little bit. Once the actual lantern was in a satisfactory shade of orange, I filled in the little slits with white, then edged them with yellow. Simple, but effective (at least at tabletop distance).

Next on the painting table: Yan Lo.