Slapfight

I originally invested in the Batman Miniatures game because I assumed it would be a nice game to play with friends who are new to tabletop gaming. However, when I read the rulebook I realised it was not very friendly to inexperienced players.

I actually liked a lot of the rules; the whole "using dice as allocated counters, then just picking them up and throwing them" thing was clever and elegant. However, there were probably more rules that I didn't like. I still think the movement rules are needlessly messy, for example. I find the ROF rules strangely annoying. Having to track ammo is annoying: no-one should be walking into a dangerous situation with only three bullets in their gun. Also, they use true line-of-sight rules then tell you to "imagine how the model looks if it was standing up straight on it's base"... then release a bunch of sculpts that have models standing on elevation and stuff.

Another thing is that I don't like rolling dice against a single stat for a small model count game like this. It makes sense in large unit-based games like Warhammer, and there is a bit of interaction between different stats here (you roll dice straight against the opponent's defense, but a higher attack stat allows you to make more attacks for example), but it still feels strange that your chance of a single attack landing on an opponent is purely a function of their skill, and your own skill does not come into play.

There's far too many "hidden stats": there is no "movement" stat on the card, all models have a movement stat of 10cm... except the ones that have special rules that change that. Ranged weapons have not ranged state, they all have unlimited range... except the ones that have special rules that change that. They also don't have a to-wound stat, they all use the model's strength stat... except the ones that have a special rule that gives them a different to-wound value.

I just find the mindset behind the rules strange to me; everything is handled by special rules instead of designing the base rules to be flexible. Why add a special rule to change how fast a model can move (that you need to look up and remember to account for) instead of just have a SPD stat on the model itself? Ditto for weapon range etc. I guess PP's clear, modular, well-designed rules have spoiled me.

Anyway, I decided that to play the game I would need to write a simplified version of the rules. So I did. Or rather, I am in the process of doing so. With two small but useable (I think) armies painted and ready, I decided to finally give the game (or my hybrid of it) a go. I ran Ra's Al Ghul and four ninjas, while my friend (let's call him The Watcher) got Batman and four cops.

It... did not go very well.

Pre-Game:

We were playing a simple "kill the other guy" game. We set up the table in a very basic way. Each of us placed a lamp-post.

Deployment:

Round 1:
I won initiative and ran my dudes, climbing on stuff. He was a bit more cagey, not going as far forwards as he could.

Round 2:
We started taking shots at each other, to little effect. I thought I could get into melee this turn, but was a bit short.

Almost there!

He needed a two, got a one. Totally expected.

Round 3:
Finally we had made it into melee. Batman got the drop on Ra's, and promptly whiffed all his attacks.

"So, we meet again, Batman!"

Ah, the age old battle, cop vs ninja...

"Oh no officer, I'm not a ninja, I was just on my way to Comicon."

Aaaaaaand then this happened....

"Fight, you must not! Through peace, the way is!"

"What's that? This is DC, I'm in the wrong universe? Screw that, I'm not a part of your system!"

Yeah, it was late and we had work the next day, so we decided to stop there.


Post-mortem:
Like I said, it wasn't working. It seems that a simplified version of the base rules wasn't enough as so many models depend on special rules to work, and I hadn't had time to work on the special rules or making custom cards for the models to better fit the simplified version we were playing, and as a result the balance seemed to be off; after several rounds only two attacks actually managed to wound, everything was just bouncing off. Unless the actual game is supposed to be like that? I dunno, the lack of objectives didn't help either as once the models made it into melee there wasn't much motivation to do anything other than just stand there and throw dice.

So now I'm not sure whether to stick with the Batman system and try to introduce enough complexity into our games for it to work, or whether to try and use an alternate system (maybe something model-agnostic like Frostgrave) instead. I understand that Knight Models will be releasing some cards allowing the Batman models to be used with their Marvel/DC game system (which I hear is more casual), so maybe that will be an option at some point.

Noctournal Flying Rodent Man

I was putting this guy off until after I had finished most of the rest of the models for the Batman game. I wasn't looking forwards to painting him as I figured just painting tons of greys would be boring, but it actually wasn't.

He was rather challenging to paint as I couldn't rely as much on my existing paint collection; I had to mix up a bunch of new shades for him. And while I was able to use drybrushing to blend the layers on his cloak, there wasn't enough room for than on his body.

I decided this would be a good time to try two-brush blending, but experiments on a test model were abject failures, so I decided to just rely on plain layering to highlight the body. I thinned my paint a fair amount using water and "Phoenix acrylic retard medium" (something that I found in a local shop). The resulting paint was thin enough that it took many layers to build up a solid colour; this actually worked to my advantage as it allowed me to get a blending effect just by shrinking the area I was covering as I built up the layers.

The cloak was painted with the old Citadel Shadow Grey, shaded with Badab Black wash, and highlighted with a mix of Shadow Grey and Blue Horror. The suit was various mixes of Vallejo Black Grey and Citadel Dawnstone, with a watered down wash of Badab Black on top - I added some acrylic retarder again, which was thick enough that the was wasn't too runny, and the extended drying time helped me apply it and avoid patchiness. I think the boots and gauntlets were simply Vallejo Black Grey (or maybe a lighter mix) edge-highlighted with Dawnstone.

The belt was Citadel Lyanden Darksun highlighted with Citadel Sunburst Yellow, then washed with the same Badab Black mix as the body suit. The tiny, tiny eyes were just plain white - I debated not painting them at all since it actually looked fine just darkly shaded there, but decided to try and see how they looked painted, and went with it. I considered trying to paint the ovals in his gauntlets to look like lit-up screens, but decided it would take away from the rest of the mini and just left them.

Prep work wasn't as bad as some of the other Knights Models' minis I've worked with, but he still suffered from stupid-thin bits that I needed to fix/support. The ears were originally very flimsy and not very symmetrical, so I had to bulk them up a lot with greenstuff. The Batarang was also slightly miscast - enough to look bad, so I had to reshape one side to better match the other. There was a bit of gap filling as well, no big deal really, though the gap on the left arm was big enough that I wasn't able to sculpt the join very well, and it's a bit of a poor spot on the final painted figure.

To put that in context, I've had to do a lot of re-sculpting and weapon replacements on the other Knights Models' minis I've assembled so far. It occurs to me that I didn't show any WIP photos in the old posts, so I thought I'd put them up here.

Filling the huge holes in their crappy bases to try to make them look good:

Repairs and sculpting missing detail:

Replacing flimsy misshapen weapons:

Filling quite large gaps:

Anyway, back to Batman. This might sound silly, but I think this is the happiest I've ever been with one of my paintjobs. I look at this guy and can't believe I painted him because I don't believe I can't paint that well. I think he looks great, and it makes me want to paint more superheros and other smooth organic models. Now if only I could drum up the courage to assemble the damned things in the first place...

The Best Villain Name Ever

To lead my generic ninjas into battle, here's Ra's Al Ghul. While the model is nice enough, I didn't really want to spend too much time on him, so he's a bit of a rush job.

I didn't want to just paint him in blacks and greys, so I decided he would be wearing a dark green suit. Well, that was the plan anyway; clearly I should have used a darker highlight colour. Oh well. I settled on purple for the scarf and tie; a royal colour that looks nice with the green. I also give him slightly darker skin than I usually do, to suggest an Arab ancestry to match his name.

I had a bit of trouble when painting him. I tried to use my usual highlight-plus-drybrush technique for the blends, but the green I was using for the highlights doesn't drybrush very well - low opacity I think - so it didn't really work, and I ended up with these really sharp highlights. It doesn't look very good up close, but it's not bad on the table, and the nice colour scheme is quite pleasing to the eye, so overall I'm OK with him.

I think his came out OK considering how fine the detail is on these minis. I used the simplest way I know of painting eyes: white base, black dot, shade with Ogryn Flesh at the same time as shading the face. Even just that was a struggle that had me yelling profanities at the walls, his eyes are so small.

Funnily enough his head is actually a little disproportionately large when compared to some of the other miniatures in the range, but I guess that's fitting for a guy who's first name is "head".

New Card Creator

I designed a new card creator. It was actually quite quick since most of the difficult work had been done for the old one; this one basically just required a bunch of copy-pasta. Here's a sample of the kind of card it can be used for:

In the immortal words of James May: "It's the Rozzers!"

With the whole "MkIII" thing going on, I've been somewhat demotivated when it comes to Warmahordes lately, so I took the opportunity to paint these fellows. I actually think I could have finished them quite quickly if I hadn't been quite so busy with Real Life ^(TM); as it was they took far too long, and I got bogged down with annoying details and stupid mistakes at the end.

I figured these guys would be a good chance to experiment with painting cloth, which I'm not very good at. When painting the ninjas I used simple drybrushes, but I tried a slightly more involved technique for this lot. Basically, I started off by painting the cloth in the shade colour, then drybrushing lightly with the highlight colour, then actually painting the highlight colour directly onto the raised areas that were now easier to see, before finally applying a heavier drybrush with the same highlight colour to soften the transitions. I think the results are pretty decent. The jackets and trousers are Regal Blue highlighted with Enchanted Blue, while the shirts are Enchanted Blue highlighted with Ice Blue.

This is Reginald

Or "Reggie" for short

Named after Reginald VelJohnson

Who played Sgt. Al Powell in Diehard

I actually tried applying a wash of Asurmen Blue to one model ("Reggie" here) before highlighting to further increase the contrast, but I decided that it was too much and did not do it on the other three. I painted Reggie's skin the same way I painted Zeddemore's: Doombull Brown, a wash of Devlan Mud, then a drybrush of Doombull Brown.

Here we have Danny

Named after Danny Trejo

You may not remember this, but Machete was originally a cop

Although I can't image Machete using a tazer...

In order to introduce some contrast I used Vallejo Model Colour Black highlighted with Codex Grey and Vallejo Model Colour Black Grey highlighted with Fortress Grey on different materials. On Reggie and Danny I then washed the blacks and greys with Badab Black, but didn't on the other two. Not really sure which I prefer here. Danny's skin was just Dwarf Flesh washed with Ogryn Flesh. The yellow on his tazer is Iyanden Darksun washed with Gryphonne Sepia (I think) then highlighted with Sunburst Yellow.

Meet Kelly

Named after Kelly Hu

Who played an awesome Kung-Fu cop in Martial Law

Kelly's hair was painted with Vallejo Model Colour Black Grey and highlighted with Shadow Grey (which is somewhat bluish-grey) then Blue Horror; I hoped the blue tones would help her hair stand out from her hat, but I don't think it worked quite as well as I had hoped. Her skin is just standard Elf Flesh washed with Ogryn Flesh. Her lips were Elf Flesh mixed with Scab Red (although it seems I accidentally painted Elf Flesh back over the top lip without noticing, I might have to go back and fix that some day). I had initially tried lighter shades of red but once mixed with enough Elf Flesh to start to blend in with the skin in it would get too light, using Scab Red gave me a decent red/skin colour.

And last but not least is Bruce

Named after Bruce Willis

Who has of course played more cops having a bad day than I can count

Here I was specifically thinking of Detective Jack Mosley from 16 Blocks

Bruce's skin is the same Elf Flesh/Ogryn Flesh combo. As you can see in the photos, I tend to have trouble getting Elf Flesh to look smooth. I like the colour though, at least in conjunction with Ogryn Flesh. I might have to try different paints in similar colours; maybe the new GW version will be smoother, or perhaps I should see what PP has (I've never tried their "liquid pigment" paints, I really should). I think his hair was Iyanden Darksun highlighted with Sunburst Yellow, but I don't really remember. I should have done something to increase the contrast further as it looks a bit flat right now, but I wasn't sure what to do and just gave up in the end.

The bases were Doombull Brown with a generous wash of Devlan Mud, same as before. Badges were just Gehenna's Gold over Doombull Brown, highlighted with Auric Armour Gold. I tried Winsor & Newton Galeria Acrylic Gloss Varnish since I've been having trouble with Citadel's Gloss Varnish and the Winsor & Newton is available locally; it went on fine, though I'm not sure how it compares in terms of protection given. Eyes were painted white with a simple black dot, done before skin was washed. While this looked fine on Reggie, the lack of a strong outline didn't look as good on Kelly and Bruce (Danny didn't get eyes as the model was basically squinting); they kind of look as if they haven't been getting enough sleep or something.

I had considered laying down a black or dark brown layer first, then painting the eyes on top to leave a stronger outline, but decided against it because a) it would have taken a lot more work (when working on eyes it takes a lot of back-and-forth between colours to get the shape right; adding another colour into the mix adds a LOT of work), and b) I was afraid I would not be able to get a fine enough line at this scale and it would end up looking bad.

Speaking of the eyes, I found their eyes harder to do than usual. Often when painting miniatures you can get the model to do much of the work by allowing the brush to glide gently along seams and edges and things. When painting these four's faces however, I found problems with the casts (or maybe with the sculpts) meant that the model was working against me instead; the underlying topography did not match what I wanted the eyes to look like. It was very frustrating.

That wasn't the only casting issue I had. While I typically like Knight Model's sculpts, so far I have been quite disappointed with their casts. I've never has as much trouble simply assembling metal Games Workshop or Privateer Press models as I have with these simple grunts. There was a lot of cleanup needed, and quite a bit of reconstruction; separate pieces such as arms often don't really meet very cleanly and need a lot of gap-filling (more than I'm used to).

Take Reggie for example: even though his left arm was not seperate from his body, his left shoulder was such a mess that I had to cut off a lot of extra material and try to sculpt a decent looking shoulder area myself. His original nightstick was of course a hopeless lost cause (why do Knight Models keep sculpting these tiny weapons that they must know won't last five minutes of casual handling, much less actual gameplay?) and had to be cut off and replaced by a length of paperclip, of course the same was true for Kelly's. And by the time I had finished cleaning the mold lines off his head, he no longer had a right ear. I'm not sure if it was actually there or not to begin with, but I don't remember seeing anything except a nasty mold line. I had to sculpt him a new right ear, which didn't really match his left in the end. Oh well, I guess he just got a cauliflower ear from boxing or something.


Overall they just took more work than I expected them to. Well, I guess they look pretty good in the end, at least for grunts. I'm fairly happy with the cloth considering this is quite a low-skill technique, and I expect I shall be using it on most clothing moving forwards. Funnily enough I actually haven't painted a model from my either of my current Warmachine factions all year so far; I should probably do something about that. Meh, I'll think about it.