Painted Asura Roten

This is Asura Roten, a henchman for the Malifaux Resurrectionists. Asura’s main trick is to create Mindless Zombies and let them (and other nearby Undead) use her actions rather than their own terrible attacks. I’ve found it quite hard to decide how much work she can get done, since a lot of the benefit she brings is filtered through other pieces. Still, she has generally made the cut if I’m looking to bring the Maniacal Laugh upgrade on my master (which summons even more Mindless Zombies) so I guess I must be getting some use out of her. In practice this means that she’s mainly been useful for Kirai, as I can use the Mindless Zombies as wound pools to summon other, more effective, Spirits out of. My experience with Reva is limited at this point, but she certainly does appreciate more corpse markers on the board so Asura is definitely still on the list for consideration.

I kept the painting simple, with at least slightly realistic colours on Asura. I switch between painting and not painting the pupils of miniatures’ eyes, but in this case it was a deliberate choice to suggest her magic powers over the undead. The kits comes with a pair of zombies flanking Asura but they got left off and will eventually appear as Mindless Zombies in their own right.

Next on the painting table: The Hanged.

Painted Philip and the Nanny

Here is (or are?) Philip and the Nanny for my Resurrectionists in Malifaux; they are part of the thematic Molly crew. For those not following the game, Philip is the surprisingly talkative disembodied head who now has the indignity to be pushed about the streets of Malifaux by a zombie Nanny. The pair seem to be a highly popular inclusion in Ressurectionist crews I see, and I can certainly agree that they have a lot going for them. Of note, Philip can discard a nearby scheme marker to draw two cards and discard one which is obviously an excellent card engine. While some top players get a lot of mileage from this approach I find it quite dull to have Philip (and whatever I’m using for the scheme markers) just messing about in my own deployment zone for much of the game and have moved on to more aggressive pieces. Philip can also activate Chatty which is situationally superb and has surprisingly good defenses for a head in a pram. They do have both the Spirit and Horror keywords which give them some interesting utility with Molly and Kirai; indeed I’ve had most success using them with Kirai as she’s more defensive than Molly and is a good way to get the Take Back The Night upgrade into an otherwise Horror-less crew.

I picked a deliberately muted colour scheme here with mostly blacks and whites; this is the look that the miniature immediately suggested when I assembled it. The zombie flesh was not a success as I had hoped though. I wanted to have a slightly greying, green-tinged look to their skin but I just couldn’t seem to get the colour balance right and grey has dominated far more than I had intended.  More work is needed there I think, though I have hope as I’m finally starting to feel satisfied by the more healthy skin tone I’ve achieved for other miniatures lately.

I don’t think that Philip is supposed to have a giant head, so I assume that this is another of Wyrd’s famous scale inconsistencies (in this case it does make the painting a bit more straightforward).

Next on the painting table: Asura Roten.

Painted Daemonettes

Following from the Seekers I posted last time, here are the accompanying Daemonettes from Games Workshop’s Chaos Daemons range. Like the Seekers, the miniatures went together very easily and painted up nicely without too much effort.

I deliberately chose garish colours since that was part of the fluff for Slaaneshi units back when I last actually read any of it (i.e. in Slaves To Darkness) and found it a nice change from trying at least slightly naturalistic colour choices for some of the Malifaux I’ve worked on (though admittedly some of that stuff is also somewhat bright). In the end, despite how easily they painted up I did find it a bit of a chore completing ten almost identical miniatures; I guess that this means that I shouldn’t go too deeply into any horde armies for any systems. Indeed, this is one of many appeals of skirmish systems.

Next on the painting table: Philip and the Nanny.

Painted Seekers

These are Seekers from Games Workshop. As part of my ongoing attempts to either encourage my children to follow my geeky path, or possibly to tone down their enthusiasm to the point where we ever talk about something not related to toy soldiers, we each picked up a Start Collecting box for the (new to me) Age of Sigmar game. Interest in actually playing Age of Sigmar seems to have waned in favour of Warhammer 40,000 (magic space guns > just magic, at least as far as I can tell) but I have tremendously enjoyed the process of painting my way through the Daemons of Slaanesh box.  I’m aware that I could notionally play them in Warhammer 40,000 as well, but I’m looking into more ‘space-y’ armies to fit my perception of the aesthetic better and in any case a friend seems to have a potential use for the Daemons.

I will admit to having some issues with Games Workshop over the last decade or so. In summary, I love their miniatures and consider them to be pretty much the best manufacturer still. But the balance of their games (except Blood Bowl, which seems to have been a community effort) is almost universally terrible and this leads to unsatisfying games when played between adults of comparable skill levels. So it was with some trepidation that I jumped back down that particular rabbit-hole. Still, I suppose that if I’m mainly playing against my own kids then the balance is not really important as I can just modify things myself as needed.

I painted the Seekers, or as I recall them, Daemonettes on Steeds of Slaanesh, in two parts. I had already decided on a bright pink and purple scheme for the riders so I felt that something more muted would be suitable for the riders and eventually went for black hide and white underbelly. The assembly and ease of painting is significantly better compared to Wyrd miniatures and it is probably this that is at least in part leading to the dominance of Games Workshop in the industry.  I found this lot even harder to take decent photographs of than usual as they’re big enough that my lack of skill with the camera shows up the short focus compared to the depth of shot I would need.

Next on the painting table: Daemonettes.

Painted Hannah

Here is Hannah, Chief Freikorps Archivist for Malifaux. She’s strictly part of the Outcast faction and I originally bought her when I was playing them, but as a Mercenary can appear in any crew. I really enjoy playing Hannah. She brings Arcane Reservoir to the crew which is pretty much always awesome, and also has a huge base and melee range. Her main trick is being able to Make A New Entry to copy Cast actions from nearby miniatures which opens up all sorts of entertaining options. In Neverborn she can partner up with Lazarus to copy the latter’s Assimilate action which itself can be then used to make Collodi take a sixth (!) AP with My Will. In practice, I never really got much value out of that approach (too costly in terms of cards and positioning) but it is funny. In Resurrectionists I’ve been having fun using Hannah with her sister, Anna Lovelace, who brings two excellent Cast actions in addition to being wonderful in her own right. Presumably this means that Hannah’s surname is also Lovelace though that isn’t explicit that I’ve ever seen.

I painted Hannah in the same colour scheme of grey with pink trimmings that decked the rest of my Freikorps crew. My brushwork looks even less adequate on these large curved surfaces than normal, but nonetheless I did enjoy finishing her off after a long delay. This particular version of Hannah is not the standard release; I actually spent extra money to source the limited edition Through The Breach kickstarter version. I’m not normally bothered with limited editions, but this miniature is so much better then the normal version that I considered it worthwhile.

I’m a bit late to the party but I would dedicate this miniature to both Leadballoony‘s Fembruary and Azazel‘s “Finish a neglected model” month. Both are truly excellent blogs and you should check them out. I think that I started painting Hannah sometime in autumn of 2016, so she definitely counts as a neglected model. I was also rather inspired by reading about Ann‘s own journey to completing these internet challenges. I hope that she enjoys her internet cookie or whatever one gets for this endeavour.

As a final aside, Hannah is the name of my younger child. She doesn’t wear a giant robot suit though… yet.

Next on the painting table: Seekers (for real this time).