Armoured Bat-fleck

I will be moving in a few weeks, so I had to start packing up my hobby desk.  However before I put everything away I wanted to get one last model done.  Fresh on the heels of Wonder Woman I thought I would paint the final member of my DC Trinity box, Armoured Bat-fleck.

I always thought he was the weakest sculpt of the set.  His arms just seem a little small and ill proportioned.  However, because it is a very simple colour scheme (especially compared to WW) he was a blast to paint.

I used to only like painting at home.  I had my chair, a show in the background and my good lamp.  Over the last year I have tried to get out more to my local shop.  Mainly to play games, but if I had no one to play I would do some painting.  I was able to talk to other painters, ask questions and share ideas.

I started to paint Armoured Bat-fleck last Thursday at Lords of War Games.  I was sitting next to Mr Dai Viet.  One of the best painters I know.  We had a good talk about considering lighting sources when working on a model.  I think I tend not to think of light sources and then over highlight.  He gave me some good ideas to consider.  I tried it out on the armour for Bat-fleck, it is not perfect but it is a lot better than I have been doing.  Your local talent can be a great source of knowledge.      

My local hobby store got in some Scale 75 paints (and for some reason I can never remember the name, I usually call it Sector 75 or something).  I had seen what some of the other regulars had done with them and I wanted to give them a try.

They are a lot of fun.  For the most part the paint has a more flat finish when compared to Games Workshop.  However they do mix well with the GW  paints.  I painted Batman's cape with a mix of Graphene Grey (Scale 75) and Abaddon Black (GW).  The two paints gave it a good dark dull grey finish.

I tried painting the light reflected from his Bat-flecks eyes.  This is the first time I tried to paint a reflected light.  I went a little too solid with the colour, I was hoping to have more of the armour shining through, but I am happy with it.

Kevin  

   

Wonder Woman (queue electronic cello solo)

I took a break from my Scarecrow crew to paint up the second member of my DC Trinity box, Wonder Woman.  I had the sudden urge to paint her after watching the new movie.  Part way through the film I realized I was doing what I used to do when watching the Lord of the Rings in the theater;  figure out a colour palette.  "If I use a Mepheston red then mix it with a evil sun red, then give the whole thing a red wash, it should be close to that red" etc.

I really enjoyed the movie.  It had some great messages but they were not beating you over the head with them.  There was some very funny scenes.  It was basically a "fish out of water" story, but they did not make Wonder Woman goofy or silly about it.  Also the fight choreography was amazing.   The only real down side I found was with the villains.  As a whole, super hero villains are usually very campy, but these guys were so two dimensional.  Luckily the hero and the supporting actors where strong enough to make  up for it.

Wonder Woman will be a good addition to my Justice League team for the DCU game.  She is hard to bring down with her high hit points, "Bracelets of Submission" (+3 to physical and energy def) and the "Indestructible Shield" (pass and agility role and cancel a physical or energy attack).  The "lasso of Truth" can also be great to drop the defense of a tough opponent; so Wonder Woman's allies can bring the pain (Super Punch anyone?).  In most games I expect that she will be up front with Superman dealing the damage, while the rest of my team goes for objectives or runs support.

Here is my current 60 levels of Justice League.  Superman and Wonder are the tanks and attackers.  Green Arrow will lay down some range support and go after objectives.  The Flash and Batgirl are my main objective runners.  That leave Batman to support and be a secondary tank where needed.

I will have to play a few games to see if this team will work.

Kevin (queue electronic cello solo)

Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

I finished up the last member of my initial Scarecrow crew, Scarecrow.  He was a different model to paint when compared to the militia members.  While I went with red and light grey for the Henchmen, Scarecrow is wearing worn out dark brown and black.  He will definitely stand out from his minions.  The red liquid in his tubes and syringes will help to tie him into the crews colour palette though.

I had a hard time with the face, my fine detail brush is starting to split and lose bristles.  Time soon to invest in a new one I guess.  I tried to give him fiery eyes to match the pumpkins on the base.

While I have yet to win a game with my Scarecrow crew, I have enjoyed playing with it.  I think I am getting a little better each time.  It plays very different from my Joker or Batman crew that I am used to playing.  I would probably do better with it if I took more low level henchmen and drop Diablo.

While Diablo is a cool looking model and fits into my theme, he has yet to prove his worth.  He is actually more of a liability for me.  In my last game with him, there were several moments early in the game that his spray template attack would have been great.  However I continually passed the willpower check for "Regrets" (start of activation make a Willpower check, if Diablo passes he can not attack, if he fails he can attack as normal).  In fact I did not fail it until the last turn (the game was long lost by that point).

He does have some limited uses when he passes his willpower.  You can put him into base to base with an opponent to give another model the out number bonus (-1 defense).  Alternatively you could just have him run objectives.  However with a Move characteristic of 2 with no movement bonus he is an average speed.  He also cost 50 rep and $200 funding, so he is not cheap.  A few Arkham inmates would do it better.

There is another seedier option to improve his abilities.  You could keep him near Scarecrow (or one of the models Scarecrow can use to release his fear gas).  You purposefully gas Diablo, hoping to fail the willpower check.  If he fails the test by 3-7 points he will gain "Terror 1,2, or 3".  This will lower his willpower by the Terror level.  This would then increase the likelihood of him failing his "Regrets" rule when you activate him, allowing him to attack more reliably.

However, the down side is that when his Willpower drops, so does his action counters.  Less action counters means less effect or options when he activates (hopefully he would still have two to set something on fire).  Also if you fail the "Inspire Fear" test by 8 or more, the model is removed as a casualty...

In the end I "regret" hiring him into my campaign crew.  

I watch the Wonder Woman movie this week, so now I am taking a small break from the militia to paint the Amazonian warrior for my DC Justice League team.

Kevin

The Brute

I played another couple of games this week and finished up the Brute for my Scarecrow crew.  The Brute has been a fun model to play with...except for the last game where he walked around a corner on the second turn and proceeded to get shot in the face by Harley.

He does add a lot of punch to the Scarecrow force.  He has an above average endurance of 6 and the Light Armour trait (opponents are -1 to wound him).  He also has Cybernetic, which gives him +1 to his block and recovery rolls.  When combined with the Sturdy trait (loose 1 action counter for every 3 wounds, instead of 2), he is "usually" tough to bring down.  His main downside is his defense of 2.

His Long Electrical Batons are very nice as well.  They have Handy (re-roll to hit), Mechanical (wound on 3+) and Reach (can target opponents 3cm away).  With 4 attacks (perhaps up to 6 if the Commander and Scarecrow are close by) and dealing 2 stun damage with each wound, the Brute can lay down a world of hurt.  

He also has a Gas Mask (immunity to anything that has Gas trait) which works well with how I am currently playing Scarecrow.  I like to take the Secret Laboratory upgrade for Scarecrow.  I explained how this upgrade works in a previous post.  One of the henchmen that I like to choose to release Scarecrow's fear toxin from is the Brute.  He is already geared to be up close and personal.  I can get him close to bludgeon enemies with his stun batons then release the fear gas on every model within 10cm.  With his Gas Mask he will be immune to the effects.

One more model left to go with the campaigns starting crew, Scarecrow.  

Militia Commander

I finished up the third henchman for my Scarecrow crew, the Militia Commander.  I tweaked a few details with the camo and armour on this one.  The crew is starting to come together.

One of the aspects of the Batman Miniature Game that has gotten me in trouble is the amount of traits characters have.  Most henchmen only have one or two special traits, not to bad to remember what they do.  When you get to leaders, sidekicks and free agents you might be looking at half a dozen (or more) each.  What I have been finding in my last few games is that I have forgotten to use part of some of these traits.

For instance the Mastermind trait.  I have been using it to roll two dice when solving riddle markers.  However I forgot about the second part of the rule, adding an additional "Take the Lead" counter to my side.  If I remembered to do this, it would increase the odds of me going first in a key round.

So i decided to make a one page quick reference sheet for my Scarecrow crew.  I wrote down all the traits my crew has in detail along with the book and page number.

It has helped alot,  I found that some of the traits that I seldom used did not do what I though that they did.  The militia commander that I just finished has a trait called "Kill Them!" (Henchmen withing 10cm of this character gain an addition attack counter, which can bring this above that models usual maximum).  I was confusing this with "Lets go!", which allows you to activate another model on a 4+ right after you finish with one.

If I had payed more attention to the Kill Them! trait, I would have kept him near the Brute.  Who does not want a 5 attack, mechanical, 2 stun damage Brute with Reach!

Kevin

More Militia

I finished up the second Militia henchman this weekend.  I am much more satisfied with how this one turned out when compared to his predecessor.  I started with painting the black parts of the pants.  Then I picked out the red areas but left part of the black separating the pants and the armour plates.  This helped break up the red and focus the eye.  I still have some fine tuning for the next one.

We have started a map based Batman campaign at Lord of War this past weekend.  I was able to get in a game using my Scarecrow vs the Gotham City Sirens.  It was a good game, I was not able to snatch victory in the end, but my crew performed much better this time.  

One of the MVPs for the game was the Militia 1 model that I had just painted.  The carbine that he carries (Damage: 1Blood, ROF: 5, Ammo: 2, Firearm, M. range, Assault 3) is great.  The assault allows him to shoot 3 times after moving.  However it was this model's personal traits that excelled; Veteran and Shooter.  Veteran allows the player to move 2 of this model's action counters when he is activated.  So I can put some counters in defense or special at first, then move them up to attack with the carbine.  Shooter was also very useful in this game.  It allows the player to choose to ignore one Ping! role when attacking with a ranged weapon.

This came came in handy twice.  My opponent set up one of Poison Ivy's plant with a range attack in a very great location.  It was on the corner of a building, giving it good lines of sight but also giving it a Ping! role if it was shot at.  I was able to get in close with the carbine wielding militia, chose to ignore the Ping! from the buildings ledge, and kill the plant in a single round (however not before the plant did some serious damage to Diablo).  The second time Shooter came in handy was when Ivy mind-controlled the Militia captain to stand between the carbine and her.  I ignored the Ping! from my own model and peeled off a wound or two from Ivy.

Scarecrow was also very very effective this game.  Especially with some of the new upgrades in the Arkham Knight Campaign book.  The "Secret Laboratory" is incredible.  It has several functions.  First it gives Scarecrow "Scientific" (increase Special to 4, but worth an extra victory point if killed).  It allows Scarecrow to choose which counters are lost due to fear (instead of the controlling player).  It also imposes a +2 penalty on your opponent willpower role when Scarecrow uses his "Inspire Fear" ability.  My favorite benefit is you choose two henchmen at the start of the game, use them to measure range when Scarecrow uses "Inspire Fear" as if Scarecrow was standing where that model is.  This allows you to keep Scarecrow relatively safe while sending a cheap henchmen into the thick of things to gas multiple opponents.  

My crew for the Campaign

On the other hand, I did find out it hurts when your opponent mind-controls your Brute with 4 attack counter.  Poor Diablo never knew what hit him.

Kevin

Scarecrow's Militia

I was finally able to finish up the first model of Scarecrow's militia today.  This was the first time I tried to paint a camo pattern on a model (well, since I was 15 years old or so).  While I am not entirely happy with the result, I don't hate it as much as I initially did.

I tried something new and it just did not pan out as I though.  I though it was going to be easy, and I was wrong.  I think one of the main problem was that I started with painting the model red.  In the end there was just to much camo.  This is one one of those situations where "less is more".  On the next henchman I started with painting the black, then adding select sections with the red camo.  We will soon see if it makes a difference.

I had a bit of a gap between Calandar Man and this first henchman.  I was not idle during that time, I was just working on a different project.  I picked up a pack of Blue Stuff from LoWG a few weeks back.  For those of you who do not know what Blue Stuff is, it is a reusable mold medium.  I decided to give it a try by casting up a few more jack-o-lantern counters to go with my Scarecrow crew.  I was very happy with how easy it was to use and the quality in the end.

The one in the middle is the original

The new Arkham Knight book is out now, and I am very excited about the new equipment lists for all the crews.  Cant wait to try some of them out during the Gotham City Map campaign at LoWG next weekend!

Kevin