The Villains

I decided to finally sort out the lightbox that I purchased last year, now that I've created enough space in my nerd room for a semi-permanent set-up...

I don't think I've ever posted the Jesters (in purple and green) on the blog - they're Future War miniatures from em4 and I picked them up after being inspired by the video game Gotham City Imposters, which featured two gangs of knock-off Batman and Jokers going head to head, and also the Jokerz from the brilliant Batman Beyond animated show. I figure that they'd work as henchmen for a bunch of different villains in my long-planned superhero vs supervillain games. Here they are with Red Death, the anti-hero turned supervillain and Mime, the silent contortionist freak, alongside a vehicle I modified for the Jesters gang.

Comments and suggestions and general praise is most welcome! Thanks for reading!

Bane

Based up and cleaned of flash - this was my first use of cork for the base - I'm converted!

Out of the Nolan Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises is definitely my favourite. I think that may be down to Bane - such a good portrayal of the character! I had wondered just how they'd do it in the more-realistic (compared to the source material, anyway) Nolanverse and the League of Shadows connection worked well!

Spray-undercoated grey, then a thinned basecoat of a grey/brown mix. Base was painted black and then dark brown.

I bought this Knight Miniatures licensed miniature out of my Christmas money - I'd wanted it for a while (along with misc. other characters from the range, especially the Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller-style Batman) but always skipped it due to the cost - a whopping great £14! It's a good while since I've spent anything like that on a single miniature (when this would get me around 8 lovely miniatures from em4). In this case, the single miniature is a pretty big one - that's a 30mm base, to give an idea of scale. I had planned on integrating him into the post-apoc games as a gang leader, but sadly he is far too big - he'd look 9ft tall alongside the rest of my collection. Oh well - he'll make a lovely addition to the miniatures cabinet once he's finished.

Superheros Project - Mime

Say hello to Mime, an acrobatic villain (in the vein of Rag Doll) that uses stealth to close the distance to his enemies before gunning them down, that long-time readers may have seen before. Yep, that original post is from nearly two years ago - about time to get back to the superhero project, don't you think? Step in Clobberin' Time - a lovely looking ruleset that seems like a good place to start!

I've recently invested in more Heroclix to chop up and turn into new characters, plus various Copplestone/em4 miniatures to represent Police, Henchmen and street-level Vigilantes. So far I have Mime and Red Death (the Batman-esque supervillain who influences most of the schemes of the other villains) complete and a bunch more on the painting table. 

Comments? Suggestions? I love how cheap this project is, with only two or three miniatures needed for each faction (although I have got various different factions and henchmen-types planned).

Superheroes Project - Ideas

Superheroes
Now this is a project that I haven't spent a massive amount of time on, with only a couple of miniatures started and a few different ideas and themes buzzing around my head. The setting for my superheroes games will be a universe in which the archetypal "Batman/Bruce Wayne" character is basically a bad guy - actually, the main villain and practically the boss of all the other villains. Now, this is a theme that will be very familiar to comic book readers - just see stuff like Irredeemable (albeit a Superman-analogue rather than Batman, but a similar idea) and Nemesis (which features a Batman-esque villain committing various atrocities). On top of those examples, there's stuff like JLA: Earth 2, where there is a world which is the opposite to the standard DC universe, featuring a Crime League of America featuring all the big names or Wanted (the comic book series, not the terrible film based on it).


In my setting, the "Batman" controls the villains of the world, with the heroes being hunted and attacked at every opportunity. The heroes are fighting a guerrilla war and have been forced to do things that they would have never thought possible - fighting alongside the more vicious villains that refused to bend to the will of the not-Batman, cells being led by what were antiheroes and social pariahs amongst the heroes in the old world (Punisher-types). Expect to see homages to characters that I already enjoy as well as brand new heroes and villains!


If you have any ideas or anything you'd like to add on this subject, feel free to chime in!

Spoils of Wargaming: Black Cat Bases - Robots and Ghouls

I've recently picked up a few different miniatures since seeing a recent release from Black Cat Bases featured over on the Post-Apoc Wargames forum - I've had my eye on a number of different miniatures from Black Cat after buying some terrain pieces over a year ago and this release finally made me cave in and buy...

This brilliant little miniature is what made me finally reach for the debit card - billed as a Friendly Robot over on the Black Cat site, this guy is clearly supposed to be Claptrap from the videogame Borderlands. A key feature of the game, Claptrap was a rather annoying series of little robots that had to be rescued and fixed in a number of different locations throughout the game. I bought two of these - one to be the up-and-running version, the other to be an objective marker having been scrapped. Again, lovely little model - the moldlines are a bit annoying but it's a rather odd shape, I wouldn't have liked to have had to cast it...

Another splendid miniature here, again in the robot section over on the Black Cat site but a little different to your standard robot - this is a Brain in jar on tracks - quite a sci-fi and pulp classic and can be found in many different films and comics. My mind springs to one of the protagonists in the Fallout 3 add-on, Point Lookout, and Herman Von Klempt, the Nazi head-in-a-jar from the Hellboy comics. Going to be interesting to paint! 

Another couple of miniatures that I've had my eye on for a while for my zombie project are the Black Cat Ghouls. In the Left 4 Dead series there is a type of "Special Infected" known as a Hunter - basically a human that has been infected but has reacted differently to what has turned the vast majority of the other infected into mindless savage zombies. In the case of the Hunter they are rather stealth-based, able to leap large distances and climb buildings with ease before pouncing upon a survivor, whereupon the survivor is pinned to the ground and attacked savagely. 
As shown in the image, 1 Ghoul crouching is very close to the in-game hunter and I have seen the Black Cat Ghouls used as such a couple of times.

1 Ghoul crawling shows another Ghoul crawling along - the preferred method of movement for a Hunter when they're not leaping. They tend to skulk around and pounce on isolated survivors in order to pin them and not only attack them themselves, but allow other infected to attack too...


All in all, I'm very happy with this order - I'd recommend Black Cat Bases to anyone interested in similar wargaming subjects - they have a large range (massively varied too) of miniatures for a number of different settings. I'm very happy with the casting quality, order arrived rather speedily and everything was present and correct. Each of these miniatures cost £2 - I ordered on the weekend and received them on Tuesday, how's that for fast?

Some people just want to watch the world burn...

Behold! My first foray into the world of Superheroes and Supervillains. This guy has yet to have a name, but was inspired by reading Nemesis by Mark Millar (of Kick-Ass fame), watching The Cape and generally not wanting to just repaint the Batman Heroclix my flatmate's younger brother gave me as Batman.

Very happy with the conversion, it sprang to mind and I thought it'd look rather cool. The head will be painted as part of the costume, rather than him actually having a messed up head...