ToMB2 - Jonah's Month 1 (A little late and a little under ...)

OK, first up I'm a little late with this as the title suggests.  Only managed to get these done yesterday and they're not based yet as I need to wait to get some basing materials.  I have also managed to get the crew box done rather than the full £40 worth as should have been done this month.  Hopefully the kind souls running ToMB will show lenience on me and let me make it up next month.  Anyway, enough waffle, here are some pictures of the finished Torch and the Blade crew box:

Here it the Witchling Handler that I am converting from TTB stuff.  I had planned to get her converted and painted for this month but ran out of time.  I couldn't make what I really wanted as there were no appropriate swords in the set so I decided to go for something a bit different and make this.  I thought the flaming hands would represent her Aura.  I'm not entirely happy with it and have been told about licensed casters coming with Wave 3 so it might make it as one of them:

Mick's ToMB2 Month 1 challenge complete!

So I finished on time (just), although  no faces as my hands are shaking too much for fine detail this week, but there will be, and tattoos.. oh yes... (a final note- none are as shiny as my crappy photography skills make them appear)

Here's the whole month one purchase:-

Kang and the boys- (named Jason, Lucky and Scum) these will definitely have tattoos, kang's wrist has an obvious join I missed that I can hide behind some ink, and I think the rest would benefit from some yakuza meets work-gang style ink. modelling wise they were fon to build, with some alternate arms (and leg) but very gappy for non-posable plastics, the first time I've had an issue with a wyrd model not fitting flush, but I know these are older moulds so hopefully it'll be my only experience too:)

Next (rather inexplicably) is my wind gamin/Tengu proxy, made from a malifaux raptors wings and my spare Metal gamin, he's running as a metal gamin for now, but I wanted something a bit different in the crew and this seemed to fit:) annoyingly one of his claws fell off at some point between painting and photography, I'm going to blame the cats...

The small guys- Two Metal Gamin (silver and gold) and the Emberling. all pretty straight forward builds, to anyone making the Gamin I would suggest attached the skirt to the front of the larger Gamin before it's arms, as it was a bit tricky after. no real gap issues with the gamin, but I did miss a massive line around the base of the emberlong, which I'll fix at some point, It's so straight it couldn't be hidden easily so watch out for that when you are building your own rail crew. 

The boss- again I missed some obvious gaps when filling (what I get for doing it so late at night) mainly her left shoulder, but I'll add some tats to mask those. I decided that her whilst her wood smashing base was very cool and in character, it wouldn't ft that well with the rest of my M&SU on the quarantine zone industrial rubble bases, so I knocked up a giant exploding cog base instead, mounting mei on a pile of flying debris in the centre, this came out pretty well, even though I cant paint metallics well at all (so why base my entire army on them? who knows...) 

I've played two games with them, a close 8-6 against Jonah's Sonnia (see below) and a not close at all 10-1 against Ben's Proxy Molly crew, in which I conceded turn 3 after making some really REALLY stupid decisions (and he summoned 4 Students of steel in a row against my almost entirely construct crew, to be fair to Ben he built a staggeringly efficient Molly crew with Molly and Toshiro summoning, Phillip and the nanny generating extra cards, one each of the nurse, belle and canine for claiming recon if he didn't summon and Chiaki and the arcane effigy buffing the summons/summoners, it was horrible, and as I'n never even read molly, let alone played her, I bunched up and was quickly taught a lesson in Resser 101). I learnt different lessons from each game- 

Firstly- Mei feng- is not survivable, I can't just throw her into a mob like Ironsides and expect her to walk out again unscathed, nor can I start popping spiders to heal up fast like Ramos, she goes down fast without her trigger, and Molly's crew in particular had so many extra attacks it didn't take them long to put her down at all. she is quite punchy, but not reliably so, in Jonah's game she took 5 attacks to kill a witchling, and in Ben's after three attacks vs Chiaki I caused all of 3 wounds. her ML of 6 is easily neutered by good defense, and my utterly crap hands in both games meant I was unable to get the 13's I needed to hit at all. Her strengths are her speed, her chained attacks against lighter opponents, and her defense trigger, against Ben I should have stoned for the trigger at least once, but I am too shy with SS and still need to improve there. 

Kang is great, very hard to put down, especially if you can save a SS for late game, pretty hitty and very threatening to undead, so threatening in fact, that when I tried to use him as entourage bait vs ben he completely ignored him as he was worried about the damage Kang would inflict... Doh! Imbued defense made him even grittier, and although he needs a bunched up crew to get the best from him, he performed well enough in both games for me to consider him a good henchman for Mei.

Rail workers- slow, low wounds and no ranged attack made me consider these models pretty poor before I fielded them, but with that mental (0) action, and the buff from Kang, they were amazing at killing undead, if they could pass the WP test ever... I like them, but am unsure what role they play, they aren't fast enough to run schemes, or killy enough for reckoning/headhunter, or survivable enough for protect territory, for now they seem a good all rounder, but not specialised enough at anything. 

The Emberling- 3ss for a non-insignificant model that can drop scrap for Mei, set things on fire and be a legit railwalk target itself is awesome. an amusing trick I used against Ben was to hire an Ice golem, Throw the emberling, activate it next to drop scrap and move, and create a nice big chain for Mei very quickly. 

Metal Gamin- enough has been said elsewhere about the amazingness of these ubiquitous models, a great 4ss investment, but I must remember magnetism more, I undervalue it and it could have turned the tide against Ben had I utilised it more against his students of Steel. 

Next months purchases are a bit of an issue, I already own a fair bit of the M&SU and arcanists (I have my custom Rail Golem, Willie, Union miners, Ramos crew, Ironsides crew, some half built coryphee, molemen, Rasly box, Marcus box and a range of other bits) So to pick up new models I am thinkingI may have to go Mercenary:- Silent one or Friekorps librarian for some healing, an Arcane effigy for some condition removal outside Johanna, and maybe a friekorps trapper or Hans so snipers don't ruin me quite as much as they do now, any thoughts?

Finished at last!

Here's a selection of Photographs of the finished table at it's new home in Firestorm games, shortly before I found out that I really do suck at Malifaux! (more on that later;)

The clock above the warehouse is made from the innards of the pocketwatch I use as a soulstone marker, it does tell the time.. ish... the varnish and the hour hand have occasional issues..

the East side entrance, the smallest of the doors it does face the long quay, and so deserves it's own sign. 

The interior of the factory, complete with treadmill and chemical vats, as well as some crates and other bits and bobs of scatter terrain.

The doors onto the main street, you can just see the skeletal form of an airship through the window, the name Halifax came from the word my friend and I always got when we typed Malifaux into our phones, we had arranged a game of Halifax so often I decided to do something about it.

As well as the usual wanted posters for Malifaux's denizens, the posters contain adverts for the Guild Guard, the Star Theatre and various mercenaries services, the board inside also has shift patterns for factory workers. (many of the wanted posters feature members of my gaming group)

The view across the bridge, you can see the Toll prices from here, as well as small map of the quarantine zones and some weaponry restrictions whilst on the bridge.

a few general pictures of the boats and crane- as you can see an extra platform has been added to the base of the crane since the original photos were taken, this adds a lot more playability to the watery section and the ladders add an extra detail. the extra walkways and jetty can be moved around to change the playing surface, and there is a lot of scatter terrain around to give even more cover. 

The inspiration came from one of Toulouse Lautrec's Moulin Rouge posters for the advertisement for the star theatre, with the dancer swapped for a Coryphee, extra stars and of course a change to the wording. I use freehand rather than printing as I find it easier to blend the colours in with the rest of the board. 

Some better views of the front, the doors looked less wonky in person, ah well, can't have everything:) these doors are massive, they really are, the smaller door fits a 35mm tall model through no issues, and even my Rail Golem could skip through without bumping it's head!

I am happy to say that the feedback from the players has been pretty positive overall, even those players who initially thought it would be unplayable found it made for a good game with interesting movement possibilities, (although Dom did manage to get a grem in an almost unassailable position which I had to put measures in to prevent happening again) no crew found itself particularly favoured or hampered by the table, so all in all a good project that I really enjoyed putting together that looks great in it's new home!

Here kitty kitty..

As you can see, I'm doing well with M&SU still... here's a Sabretooth Cerberus for Marcus and co, with a Blue/White paint scheme inspired by Denis Graziano and his insane rattler, which i will be copying... oh yes...

I have also had a mad weekend painting height 1 models, including some Molemen to fit with the blue theme:

I reposed the one on the right, now he's asking for directions, bugs bunny style:) I also painted a raptor:

not a lot to talk about there, but done he is...

A mobile toolkit that really was made to accidentally resemble a minion- seriously, I didnt even notice it till I finished and my wife pointed it out....

the story behind this little fella us that I bought an additional M&SU at a Bring & Buy for a tenner, including everything except Joss, I wanted a mobile toolkit to chop up every now and then for scrap (it's 1ss less than an arachnid) so built it using plasticard for the legs, an arachnid body, and bits of Joss for the claws, with some scrap plastic for the top and a brass etched steam gauge on the front. I painted it yellow as that seemed industrial and bingo- Minion... I then used him in a game and realised toolkits are freakin awesome! They can give positive flips to a constructs damage as a 0 action, making Lazarus shooting pretty nifty, and Howard Langston a melee monster. so maybe he isn't for the chop as much as I thought. My last height 1 was the awesome wendigo- posed by my friend Neil leaping into the fight, I think he's ace and he will be (with better photos) one of my entries into the A Wyrd Place November challenge:)

Gorilla warfare and Guerilla warfare

The Bushido stuff is still in progress, but largely thanks to the fact it's already built and mostly base coated I'm speeding through my new Arcanists (well, speeding for me...) here is a much needed Acolyte of December to counter those pesky snipers with some dirty sneaking around of my own, as well as the beastly Cojo, The bases need cogs and gears (and tufts in Cojo's case) but as I had the camera out today it seemed a good idea to do it now.

The acolyte I wanted to look like December, not just snowy, and when I asked my wife what she thought of when she thought of December, she said- dark nights. so as well as the statutory fur collar, I chose a very dark blue/green scheme and tried to blend the robes to suggest the darkness of winter, I'm pretty happy how it turned out.

Cojo (this is me attempting to stick to M&SU, can't you tell?) was painted purely because he was in the box and my brain went MONKEY! PAINT THE MONKEY! (I know gorilla's aren't monkeys, but my subconscious doesn't care) I went for a silverback gorilla style, with some glowing shards piercing his flesh in places. I added a blue undertone to all the paint on the model to tie it together, and really tried to create visible fur effect on the model, which lacks texture a little for me. the OSL isn't great, but it does what it is supposed to, and as usual for me, looks much worse in photos...)

What next? well I think I'll try and paint something for A Wyrd Place November challenge, but what it will be I do not know...