Painted Harlequin Troupe

These happy dancers are a Harlequin Troupe for Warhammer 40,000. In game they appear to be a close combat or very short ranged shooting unit and have a load of abilities to get them there by ignoring intervening terrain and such like. According to the army book I have (which I think is not the current one any more as it includes all the other Eldar and Necrons) there is a vast variety of weapons that they can carry at various costs, some of which are more expensive than the base Harlequin. Presumably these are all good for particular tasks but since I don’t have any experience I just equipped the Troupe with whatever looked nice. In the few games I’ve played we just assumed that the whole Troupe carried the same loadout for convenience.

The miniatures are absolutely beautiful to put together; they look dynamic but are not fiddly to either assemble or paint. Some of GW’s competitors could learn from this, though in general I suppose that I prefer the game balance of those other systems even with the slightly less amazing miniatures. Painting-wise the Harlequin Troupe got more or less the same treatment as the Troupe Master except that I stuck to a slightly more limited palette (avoiding blues for the most part) to link them together as a unit.

I would like to dedicate this post to ‘Junit‘ (i.e. June-unit) as proposed by the excellent Azazel. I always love their hobby blogging challenges even when I don’t take part.

Next on the painting table: Shadowseer.

Painted Harlequin Troupe Master

My son expressed an interest in Warhammer 40,000 over Age of Sigmar, so he got a treat (for good behaviour) in the form of some Necrons. In order to have something to play against him, I dithered over the armies that didn’t even exist properly last time I played the game and eventually picked up a few boxes of Harlequins. I will admit that it was a real retail pleasure to walk into the GW store to pick up a bunch of toys and chat with the redshirts about them. This chap is a Harlequin Troupe Master. Considering that he comes in the box with the regular Harlequins I had assumed that he was the equivalent of a sergeant or champion, but it turns out that Troupe Masters are the ones in charge and take up an HQ slot accordingly.

I had forgotten how easy to assemble and paint GW miniatures are, even a dynamic one like this with plenty of detail. Looking at the ‘Eavy Metal team pictures of Harlequins and many others on the internet clearly demonstrated that me successfully copying the colour scheme was about as likely as running to the moon so I picked a much simpler approach. The ‘lowest’ level of clothes (i.e. those closest to the skin) were black, then white above that, and finally then a bright colour. This chap got red but if we go far enough down this rabbit hole then I might need more Troupe Masters and will give them blue or green coats or something to keep them distinct. I vaguely remembered something about Eldar (of which the Harlequins are a part) using some magic stuff called wraithbone instead of metal so I went with that style for the weapons. Overall, painting the Troupe Master was a real pleasure.

Next on the painting table: Harlequin Troupe.

Painted Onryo

These unhappy looking chaps are Onryo, more Spirits to go in my Malifaux Resurrectionist crews. They’re cheap minions who don’t really do too much exciting except pass on fairly minor conditions when hurt. Still, they pack a surprising punch when needed and more importantly are quite mobile thanks to Incorporeal. I mainly use them as Black Blood bombs with Molly if I need to stack damage onto high defense enemies, or just send them off scheme running. Onryo are cheap enough that I don’t mind too much if they get killed (which will happen if anything actually seriously has a go at them since their defensive stats are terrible).

I hadn’t actually intended to paint the Onryo to match Molly’s colour scheme but now that it has happened I think it looks quite nice. As befits their status I kept a limited palette without any needless flourish. I’ve seen Onryo out there with amazing freehand work on the kimonos but that would be way beyond me even for a master, never mind doing it on a minion.

Next on the painting table: Harlequin Troupe Master.

Painted Molly Squidpiddge

Here is Molly Squidpiddge, another Master for Malifaux this time representing the Resurrectionist faction. She’s a summoner with a side order of crippling enemies. Molly’s way of summoning is quite inventive, bringing in models with a number of wounds equal to the number of nearby enemies when they appear; in addition she grants Black Blood to nearby friendly models with the appropriate keyword. This, combined with the short range on the summoning action, indicates a highly aggressive playstyle that I very much enjoy. In terms of builds, Molly has two competing upgrades which align her either with the Spirit or Horror keywords. When I picked up the Resurrectionists for the first time I was drawn by the entertaining prospect of having ghosts that bleed over the other crew and I was highly gratified that this is an effective approach.

Molly is technically undead, but after my unsatisfactory attempts at zombie flesh painting I decided to do more of a living skin tone instead. I’m quite pleased by the look here as her skin tone works rather nicely with the red and white dress. I sort of feel like she needed to be leaning forward a little more but without some modifications around that ankle (that I wasn’t keen to try considering how slender it is) I couldn’t quite get it to work.

As an aside, I’m delighted that Molly was first introduced to the lore of Malifaux via the highly-talented hand of my friend David.

Next on the painting table: Onryo.