Painted Achilles Ridgerunner

This is an Achilles Ridgerunner, a fast attack choice for my Genestealer Cult army in Warhammer 40,000. It helpfully works just like it looks like it ought to – very fast with one big death cannon strapped on the back. So far we’ve only being playing very small games with this force so it’s proven quite annoying for my friends to bring down; however I think that this will not last when we move up to bigger points values and I’m facing some competent anti-tank weapons. Nonetheless it has been fun kiting away from things and zapping away with the attached mining laser.

I wanted to keep the overall blue and yellow scheme for this force and I’m not sure that it works so well with such a big object. I like it thematically that the Ridgerunner is high visibility since it’s meant to be a utilitarian industrial vehicle rather than a purpose built war machine, but I don’t like the way that it looks like a big yellow brick. I think if I paint another one of these I’ll try to break up the yellow with more blue markings. Otherwise I’m really satisfied with the results here, especially considering that I’ve been deliberately trying to keep to quick and dirty paint jobs on the GSC forces.

Next on the painting table: Kraven the Hunter.

Painted Scarlet Witch

This is Scarlet Witch for Marvel Crisis Protocol. She comes in at a hefty five threat and is quite the offensive powerhouse; she brings long range Mystic type attacks. I most often see and use Scarlet Witch as a sort of long ranged turret where she can sit on a side point and vapourise anyone who comes in to take it off her. Scarlet Witch’s main gimmick is counting Skulls as successes which really messes with the expected results of attacks from and into her. She also has a very helpful card called No More Mutants – it allows her to stop a superpower being used just like Ebony Maw’s Shhh… card. This might seem quite a minor thing but turning off a key power for a turn can be huge when timed well; however my main problem with it is that I never seem to be able to pick a good time to use it.

I tried to paint Scarlet Witch somewhere between her hilarious original comic book outfit and her fractionally less silly film costume. I guess it’s hard not to look at least a bit odd when you’re wearing spandex tights and are surrounded by glowing mystical nonsense. I did really enjoy painting her; even the swirly stuff which I normally find to be a bit of a grind just seemed to work nicely.

Next on the painting table: Achilles Ridgerunner.

Painted Neophyte Hybrids

This is my first batch of Neophyte Hybrids for a Genestealer Cult force in Warhammer 40,000. They’re the cheapest of the cheap infantry but have two main things going for them (apart from low cost, which I guess is an advantage all of its own) – the Seismic Cannon heavy weapons that can be embedded in the squads are really effective, and because of the ease of recursion there is a good chance to get a second round of shooting out of the unit unless the other player is willing to commit enough resource to wipe out the unit in one go. That’s not especially hard to do but since the whole squad is so cheap it can lead to an imbalance of effort put into killing the Neophytes and can sometimes let another more valuable target survive. I’ve generally used the Neophytes in units of twenty with a Cult Icon and four Seismic Cannons – there are builds out there with over one hundred of these little chaps!

Painting the Neophytes has been quite a fun experience. In retrospect, picking a yellow-based colour scheme for a horde army was quite a poor move but I’m in no special hurry to paint them all. I’ve purposefully spent a lot less time per mini here than I usually would; they’re definitely getting a basic tabletop standard paint job as I simply don’t paint quick enough to get through any meaningful force before the heat death of the universe if I do this at my normal speed. The yellow and blue combination has turned out to be quite a striking contrast and so I’ve deliberately left the other colours rather muted so that they can stand out better. I gave the Neophyte’s skin a blue wash to try to emphasise their non-human lineage and while that has worked in a sense I’m not especially happy with the way it actually looks on them. I think that I’ll have to continue to experiment with this. For my own sanity I’ve been painting the Neophytes in groups of five with something to break it up in between, so this lot actually represents two batches of them.

Next on the painting table: Scarlet Witch.

Painted Star-Lord

This is Star-Lord for Marvel Crisis Protocol. He’s the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy affiliation and has probably arguably been the biggest beneficiary of the AMG errata from last year. Previously both Star-Lord and the Guardians were regarded as hopelessly underpowered, mainly because of Star-Lord’s leadership, but now they’re everywhere and able to run wide or high teams as needed with a focus on dice manipulation to give a very stable attrition output. Star Lord himself plays a lot like you might expect (always a strong point of MCP in my opinion) in that he’s a highly mobile ranged skirmisher with energy-typed attacks that are generally very desirable. I find that he plays quite straightforwardly without a lot of jank but his leadership can really enable other characters by smoothing out the dice variation.

Star-Lord, as for most of my MCP minis, is painted in accordance with the card art so I’ve kept with a slightly more sombre brown coat rather than the redder leather that he sometimes gets. He was a very simple paint and I very much enjoyed working on him. I think if I were to go back to Star-Lord I might spend a bit more time on the smoke trails from his rocket boots but he definitely gets in the ‘good enough’ pile for now.

Next on the painting table: Neophyte Hybrids.

Painted Black Widow Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

This is Black Widow Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. for Marvel Crisis Protocol, otherwise known as Agent Widow to differentiate her from the Black Widow in the Core Box. This version of Black Widow sacrifices some of her speed for considerably improved damage output but more importantly a highly amusing ability to Interrogate dazed enemy characters for a VP. This is surprisingly hard for me to pull off as, even though there are always dazed characters in a game you need to have her in the right spot, with the right amount of power to get it to work. I’ve heard it theorised that A-Force (where she is affiliated) is a good option for this as she gains enough power to do the Interrogate in the first place while being quite far behind She-Hulk in the target priority; however, I’ve yet to actually try this out.

I’m not particularly happy with the way that Black Widow’s costume has come out; the red ‘pops’ less than I had intended and the black part doesn’t really have that shiny look. If I was to go back to her (which, realistically, I’m not going to) I would spend some more time building up to a brighter shade on the red bits to make them stand out a bit better. Additionally, the brown straps and metallic bits on her arms don’t stand out enough from the rest of the costume.  However, I’m quite satisfied with the work on her head and I think that I managed to get her hair looking just the right shade.

Next on the painting table: Star-Lord.

Painted Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme

This is Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme. Don’t confuse him with just boring old normal Doctor Strange, this is a different character in game terms and represents them at different points in their career just like for Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man. Those of you familiar with Warmachine might liken it to the different iterations of their Warcasters. This version of Doctor Strange is much more direct than the other one’s support focus. He has a really sweet set of attacks which feel suitable for almost all occasions, including a very nice area attack as his main spender. Strange can also teleport friends or foes a really long way with his Scalpel of Strange ability and this is the one where I’ve really struggled – not because it’s not good (it’s amazing) but because I always slightly suspect that there is something even cooler that I could be doing with it.

I stuck with the box art for Doctor Strange’s costume, which is a fairly boring black and white. But because of the positioning, for me this mini is all about the head, the cape and the base. I deliberately tried to keep the case the same as the other version of Strange since it’s meant to be literally the same sentient clothing. I spent a lot more time than was really sensible on his face, trying to get the facial hair not to look like a joke shop disguise (mostly successful, I think, apart from maybe the eyebrows) and getting the trademark grey temples to look right. I’m pretty pleased with this. The base is just lovely and the sculpt for it gives this Strange mini an incredible dynamism; I spent quite a lot of effort messing about with the inside of the portal, only to realise that most of it is impossible to see when Strange himself is glued into place. Oh well, at least I know what it looks like! All in all, I’m really happy with my work here and I enjoyed the process too – an absolute favourite.

Next on the painting table: Black Widow, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Painted Juggernaut

Do you know who I am? Yes, this is the Juggernaut mini for Marvel Crisis Protocol. As I’ve remarked before, one of the many strengths of MCP is that the characters play the way you feel they ought to based on their comics. So Juggernaut has a lot of mobility, can push through and destroy terrain and is hard to kill. His damage output is OK but compared to others in his cost bracket I’m definitely not picking him to fight people. I actually think that his main use is on Extraction plays where he can get either the single objective (the Skrull or the Kree Power Core) and be hard to take it off, or even better in the Wakandan Herbs mission where his extraordinary movement tricks can give you a big head start on scoring.

Juggernaut is one character where I really struggled to pick a colour scheme. The card art has him in the classic brown suit, which I find quite boring. I’ve seen a lot of people give him the yellow prison suit from Deadpool 2, which is a pretty cool idea but I didn’t really care for it in practice. I searched through some google images and found a costume in shades of red which, admittedly, I also didn’t really love but felt that I could live with. However, when I actually got started applying paint to the big chap I found that I really liked the way that the dark red and light red worked together so I’m more than happy with the result.

I also am very pleased with the way that the traffic light Juggernaut is wielding has turned out.

Next on the painting table: Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme.

Painted Lizard

This is Lizard, one of the classic Spider-Man baddies for Marvel Crisis Protocol. Lizard’s attacks are surprisingly anaemic for someone who is basically a giant bipedal crocodile, but I’m not picking him for his damage output. Instead, Lizard brings the surprisingly rare combination of a medium move and medium base which enables him to make some very cheeky plays taking Extract objectives from the far side of the board. Combined with his considerable toughness and the place-after-being-damaged if I use him in Convocation (which is my current roster of choice) he can often score me a lot of points without even really making more than a trivial number of attacks.

Lizard himself was a joy to paint. His scaly skin came out a treat and I loved the way the dirty lab coat works with the green hide and ragged clothing. I was very nervous about painting his tactical water fountain, as cool as that idea is. I ended up going for a very deep blue on the water, picking out parts in a drab green and then touching the tips of the splashes with white to make them look like foam. I then hit the whole lot with a heavy blue wash to tie it all together. I’m still not convinced that it actually looks good, but it certainly now looks good enough and that’ll do for me.

Next on the painting table: Juggernaut.

Painted Luke Cage

This is Luke Cage for Marvel Crisis Protocol. In my experience, he is mainly played as rather an uncomplicated tank but he has some really cool attacks – a potential for Stagger on a five dice builder is nothing to sniff at consider Cage’s threat value. I think that the main thing keeping him from being a common sight locally is just the sheer number of other three threat characters competing for a spot in any roster; this is doubly true in Avengers (where he is affiliated) as I think that they could have a roster made up entirely of three threats if they so chose.

Painting Luke Cage was very simple as he’s made up almost entirely of just three colours. His yellow t-shirt is so iconic that it’s effectively part of his uniform and I really like the way that the colours work together for the whole miniature. It hardly took me any time at all to paint up Cage but I’m really pleased with how he’s turned out.

Next on the painting table: Lizard.

Painted Clea

This is Clea, who I’ve painted up for my Convocation roster in Marvel Crisis Protocol, though she’s also affiliated in Defenders. Clea seems to be somewhat maligned by the wider MCP community. However, I think that she can be really good if you have a specific role in mind for her, and especially if that role doesn’t involve having to be attacked by anything significant. Clea’s attacks are long ranged so she’s a good candidate for sitting at the back quietly scoring points. She really comes into her own when you need some movement shenanigans as she has both a throw for displacing the other team and a teleport for moving your own team. Clea can even generate extra power just like Red Skull, though crucially since she has only five wounds she can theoretically daze herself with it from uninjured. You’d have to be pretty unlucky to do so, needing to roll five skulls off five dice.

I will admit that I had never heard of Clea before picking up this box but apparently she’s a fairly common fixture in Doctor Strange’s storylines; she also puts in a brief appearance in the new film The Multiverse of Madness. Not having any preconceptions about how she should look I had an easy choice to stick with the box art for her costume, though I made the suit more black than dark purple as I couldn’t get a satisfactory contrast with the lighter purple cape until I did so. I think that her hair is meant to be more like a platinum blonde but I think it looks good in white. I really enjoyed working on Clea.

Next on the painting table: Luke Cage.