Painted Metal Gamin

Many months ago, I put in an order for the Misaki box from a local store. Three months after that, I went in to remind them in person that it still hadn’t been received, and the chap was so mortified about the delay that he gave me a box of Metal Gamin to keep me sweet. Fair enough, though I might add that after another couple of months I still haven’t got Misaki et al. Oh well, it’s not like I’m short on dollies. I gave one of these unexpected bonuses to Aramoro and set about painting the other two.

With my Ten Thunders Malifaux crews I can only take Metal Gamin with Mei Feng as they’re actually Arcanists (she can Infiltrate them due to the Foundry keyword), so the number of possible interactions is pretty slim. Metal Gamin are cheap non-Insignificant Minions, and they’re hard to put down relative to the cost. That alone makes them worth some consideration for me. They’re also Constructs and therefore potential Rail Walk points of Mei Feng. They do have a couple of other tricks, but so far I have to admit that I’m taking them mainly to score or drop scheme markers; hoping that they’ll actually kill anything seems unduly optimistic. Putting Protection of Metal on something with a low defense seems like it should be a good option but in practice it is far to easy to end up with the two parties too far apart for it to work. Unless the movement is critical, the best option appears to be to take a pair and put Protection of Metal on each other as they’ll always be within range of a friendly Metal Gamin (i.e. themselves).

The painting was really simple. In the fluff they’re made of metal, so I painted one silver with bronze details and the other bronze with silver details. It’s hardly the most imaginative colour scheme but it works nicely on the table.

Next on the painting table: Feora, Priestess of the Flame.

Painted Yamaziko

This is Yamaziko, another Henchman in the Ten Thunders faction. She’s thematically linked to Misaki, who I don’t own (yet… there’s a bit of a story about that), but thanks to the less ludicrous hiring restrictions in Ten Thunders now she can appear in any crew. I haven’t played as many games with Yamaziko as I’d like, but my general experience is that she’s not too hard to dispatch for anyone so inclined, and therefore I try to keep her slightly back from the front lines. She feels like a good option in Squatter’s Rights where she can support my fightier models with her Brace Yari action covering two of the markers. Yamaziko’s melee range is huge too, so her survivability can be improved slightly by engaging enemies with shorter melee ranges and forcing them to spend an extra action moving rather than killing her. As a Henchman, she can of course use Soulstones to last a bit longer but since I usually only take the minimum number of stones anyway this isn’t that helpful. In cases where I do take a lot of stones, it is usually because I have a more detailed plan for them than keeping an old lady fighting. A final use of her is to cheaply carry the Smoke and Shadows upgrade so Torakage do their tricks; this would be particularly useful when playing Stake a Claim.

Despite much use of Milliput I still couldn’t quite hide the massive gap in the right arm of Yamaziko’s robes. I chose a fairly drab green for the main colour with the hope that the lantern she’s carrying around for some reason would brighten up the overall appearance. But I didn’t really note that the lantern is only visible from the rear, so it doesn’t really make much difference. I did enjoy painting Yamaziko as the robe in particular does have some nice texture to it. This is a strange contrast to the face, which I found rather soft and devoid of much detail.

Next on the painting table: Metal Gamin.