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I got four of these guys in that same undead sampler pack I mentioned in my post about the Damned Company. It contained a few different parts, so there was room for a decent amount of customization (there's a ton more parts I didn't even use...into the bits box they go!). For the sake of variety, I ended up using some zombie heads (from the same sampler pack) on two of these guys. So...they can read as zombies or ghouls on the table. I go back and forth on whether or not I like the various spikes they have shoved through their bodies. Overall, I guess it looks okay. I do wish they were made of a *slightly* softer plastic...I'm super-worried about those fingers snapping off at some point. Anyway, I kept the paint jobs fairly basic on the clothing for easy identification during play ("blue guy," "brown guy," and so forth). Blue guy: I think the blue guy is my favorite. They knocked it out of the park when sculpting that particular head. Brown guy: I didn't realize until I'd started basecoating that this guy had half of his face ripped off right down to the bone. Another very cool head sculpt. Green guy: I struggled to get decent pictures of this guy. The camera doesn't seem to like that hunched over pose. Dark Gray guy: Nothing much to say about this guy. He's a guy...he's wearing dark gray...he really needs to see to that exposed brain in the back of his head. Comments and criticism welcomed.

If there's one thing I love painting, it's skeletons! I think these designs by Mantic Games are probably my favorite: they have a great deal of character, (for skeletons), the sculpted details are pretty crisp for the most part, and they offer a fair amount of customizability. These all came off of one sprue that I got in a sort of "undead sampler" pack. I know there's at least one other skeleton sprue out there...I may have to track it down at some point. I went for a very dark, desaturated look throughout the squad. I wanted them to look like they've just emerged from the muddy earth onto a rain-soaked battlefield (this also informed my decision to go heavy with the rust effects). Anyway, these guys really came to life as characters while I was painting them. I couldn't resist making up some little bios (to be honest, I got a little carried away). Enjoy! A formidable squad of mercenaries in life, the Damned Company's relentless love of carnage and war led them to develop many powerful enemies. One such enemy was a fiendish wizard skilled in the dark arts. This wizard placed a powerful curse on the Company...a curse which has condemned them to continue fighting other people's wars even centuries after the members of the Damned Company shuffled off this mortal coil. Now, the Company's skills can be purchased by any necromancer brave enough to call them forth. Anyone looking to "hire" the Damned Company should be aware that they still require payment for their services. But they no longer crave gold. The form of payment that the Damned Company now demands is truly enough to chill a man to his very soul... Captain Roderick: Commander Captain Roderick is the proud commander of the Damned Company. He possesses the three most important qualities of leadership: 1) a mind for military strategy, 2) the ability to inspire his troops, and 3) a helmet with a really fancy feather sticking out of it. Contessa: Contessa is the lone female member of the Damned Company. In life, she would often use her beauty to lure opponents into a false sense of security before she butchered them with her sickle. As a skeleton, she tends to skip right to the sickle violence. Marcus: Once a proud soldier serving a noble king, a series of misfortunes and bad decisions led Marcus to the less-illustrious life of fighting in a mercenary band. He resented his role in the Damned Company in life...being stuck with them for an eternity in death hasn't done much to improve his outlook. Louis: Easily the most blood-thirsty member of the Damned Company, Louis is always ready to enthusiastically skewer opponents with his spear. It's usually best to just point him toward the enemy and let him do what he does best. Christoph: Nicknamed "The Screaming Star" in life, Christoph is certainly a fearsome fighter who has earned his role as the Company's second-in-command. However, his fighting prowess is equalled by his ambition and tendency toward treachery. Christoph is always on the lookout for an opportunity to wrestle away command of the Damned Company for himself. Howard: Howard is the jokester of the group...always pushing the boundaries of humor. Unfortunately for him, his "axe in the head" routine was never as much of a hit with his fellow mercenaries as he thought it would be. George: George's preference for solitude led to many nights of guard duty in life. His alleged preference for sleeping while on guard duty probably led to many of the Damned Company becoming skeletons earlier than planned. Change is often slow to come, however. Even in death, George still pulls more than his fair share of guard duty. Stanley: Stanley is a capable soldier with the annoying habit of shouting "hammer time" after each vanquished opponent. In life, he also had an odd preference for wearing extremely oversized pants. No one understood it then, and no one understands it now. Karl: Karl is the lumbering powerhouse of the group - always willing to confidently wade head-first into battle. He was also the first member of the Company to actually be killed in battle. There's probably some sort of lesson to be learned from that... Horace: Despite being well-liked by the rest of the group, Horace is often regarded as the forgotten member of the Damned Company (on the rare occasions when anyone bothers to regard him at all). Sandoval: Sandoval is an accomplished soldier. However, he is also chronically late. Whenever the Damned Company is called forth from the depths of hell, it's not uncommon for Sandoval to be absent at first. No worries, though...he always shows up eventually (usually at the most opportune time). Lobo: In life, Lobo served as the team's scout and mascot. He has much the same role in death. But, for obvious reasons, he's now less-enthusiastic about chewing on bones.

Mantic Zombie Horde from the King of War – Mhorgoth Rising box :

So I picked this up today and it's so much more than I expected. Nice touch with the organizer. I'll be able to store my wizards tower set in it too. I'm not working on these for a while, but I thought I'd post pictures etc of the whole thing as a before. 3x barracks, bar 2x library, tables & chairs, 1x blacksmith/stables, throne room, horse & cart

Continuing on with the Febuary challenge goals I set myself, (painting at least one of each from the following categories: Reaper Bones, Oathsworn, All Quiet of the Martian Front, Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40.000, Kings of War, Deadzone, DreadBall, Mars Attacks, Shadows of Brimstone, Sedition Wars, Drake, Grendel Productions something or other, and to finish something that currently stands around half-done on the shelf of shame), I have done a few minis over the weekend, As per the resolutionary painting challenge guidelines, I will post them here, and link in my post in the challenge thread. Here goes for DreadBall: This is a DreadBall Extreme free agent known as the Avaran Treebeast, or not-Groot it you like. It is certainly not-Treebeard either. The picture does not properly reflect the many shades of colour on this one. I will have to look into making a better lighting set up for photos. I did the base in the same style as my DreadBall original, that is black with no texture. I am debating myself on whether to texture the base or not, if anything to cover those gawdawful gaps / filler marks that are evident on every single Dreadball mini. Seeing as the Restic shrinks in production somewhat and makes the disk that fits into the hole in the base too small, leaving unsightly gaps and whatnot. Because of the mini itself sticking out of it I usually have a hard time sanding the filler, and it is near impossible to get the base proper smooth as they should be. At any rate, I am not really satisfied with the look of the bases as of now. Maybe a layer of black, unhighlighted sand will be best? Ah, and the coloured /green edging on the base is to denote that this figure is a ...Jack. Oh. I have coloured it as a Striker. It is supposed to be yellow for Jack, Green is Striker (and red is Guard, like traffic lights). And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth! I will need to redo that then. The front shows the three threat zones, and the back is for me the player to see what position it plays as without having to turn it around all the time to see what it is.

In February, I started work on painting up my next Dreadball Team. This time it was the Kalyashi team from Dreadball Extreme and the Warden. They turned out pretty well. These models were rough. Most were missing ears one was missing an eye. (Hence the one having an eye patch.) A lot of the armor details did not carry over from one side of the model to the other. This was especially true on the legs. You would start painting a piece of armor only to find that it disappeared on the other side. Overall it made it really frustrating to work on and I found myself just trying to get a decent tabletop quality. I tried the best that I could to make them look manageable. Not my best work. I will say that with all of my experience with Mantic, these models are a rare bad batch and not indicative of the quality that I normally see from them. Group Shot Injured Player Injured Player Jack Jack Striker Striker Warden

Painted some zombies for my Rangers of Shadowdeep games, they were quick and fun to paint

These last few weeks have been very busy IRL so very little has been painted. I did however manage to whip this up the other day. The little vampire. aka Vampire Halfling from Kings of War: Vanguard's Undead Warband Booster, by Mantic Games. Off to count some blood sausages. Or maybe slurp some black pudding. Oh, how he longs to again be able to have some hot cross buns...but they burn his mouth so... For some reason my camera did not want to focus properly on the face. Printlines?! Printlines!? What is it with "premium" resin minis and what looks suspiciously like printlines? Has someone failed at the clean-up-of-the-master-print-stage or is it something else that makes such lines a thing? Has someone rushed and cut corners? Why would you release a premium resin model like this? You can say a lot about Mantic starting out with cheap, "no brand" minis, but that is simply no longer true. Single, normal size resin models clock in at the €10-15 range retail price, the four model booster is a £30 / €40 / $45 box. That is premium pricing. Well, maybe at the lower end of premium but still, premium pricing. When they charge a premium price, I expect a premium product. Print lines = sloppy quality control. = not premium. Apart from the print lines on the cape, it is a good mini. I cannot abide the square bases they use for Vanguard, so I printed a 25mm round for it. Sneaking up on a beefy snack This mini was finished May 25th 2020. Vampire Halfling from the Undead Warband Booster for Kings of War: Vanguard Mantic Games, 2020 unknown sculptor Made in resin 25mm base. available from manticgames

Fe fi fo fum, here come the Giants! Ignore the bases, they are temporary until the Sons of Behemat codex releases and I know what I can proxy them as. First up we have Devin Townsend...er, the Kings of War Giant. Then the former Otherworld Giant, now produced by Crooked Dice Games. And a very iconic piece of loot:

This is one of Mantic's earliest metal minis, the "limited editon" Orc Shaman from 2011. It was AFAIK not available by itself, but added to army boxes, deals and so forth and I believe I got this from the first Kings of War kickstarter in 2012. Or an army box with orcs. Today, it is on their website and can be had by redeeming 25 mantic points through their points scheme. It was known for a while as "Wip the Half-Caste" but now is back to "Orc shaman" I suspect the "Wip the half-caste" name is some sort of internal Mantic joke. I must admit I have always found this model to be rather busy and difficult to read. There seems to be so much going on. more pics and stuff below

On my quest for a Legions of the Dead full painted army for Saga : Age of Magic, I just finished : - a Behemoth (Colossal Skeleton from Reaper) - 2 flying creatures (skeleton demon from Ral Partha) - 2 quadrupede creatures (Skeletal War Dog and Handler from Ral Partha with Giant Skeleton Rats from Mantic) Next... Bowmen ?

Hi Everyone, I'm new here, been an off and on lurker over the years, and wanted to share some pictures most recently finished models. Before I began, I was looking for ideas on how to decorate the models and a lot of the pictures that I found of these models I didn't think did them justice. So I looked at other treemen models. What I liked the most was using foliage and turf material to create "real" foliage instead of going with just painted metal. I really enjoyed working on the models, it was a lot of firsts for me. The biggest one being water, I have seen a lot of videos about making water scenes and what not. Seeing the model with cattails on it I had to have it coming out of the water. I tried going for a wet dripping algae look. For a first attempt I think it did turned out pretty good. As far as the models go, I wasn't really thrilled with the appearance of the metal vines. So I created my own vines as well, which is another first. Quite fun but tedious and pleased with the look. Cattails were made from parts of floral wheat and tacky glue. Adding foliage to miniatures in general is a first for me as well, all the foliage was self made with colored sawdust and furniture foam. The only thing not made was static grass. The water is Woodland Scenics Realistic Water and their Water Effects. I liked how easy it was and relatively mess free compared to the typical 2 part epoxy that I've seen. After doing these minis I thought of something I am going to attempt on my other 6. I'm going to ditch the metal arms entirely and use floral wire as a support so I can then pose the vines however I want. Lastly, these are going to be a part of my Elven Army and perhaps a start of a Forces of Nature Army for Kings Of War. So these aren't my first models. Just the ones I'm most satisfied with. If you have any suggestions, critiques, or questions let me know.

Another monstrous growth by the Plague of the Warpath universe: The Aberration. This is what happens when the Plague's forced mutation/growth of the victim goes wrong...a blood-crazed, unthinking juggernaught killing machine results. You know the drill: You are moving slowy down the darkened spacebase corridor, flickering lights illuminating splashes here and there, wisps of smoke drifting through the processed atmosphere. Everything is quiet, calm but ominous music wafts from somewhere in the background. Cold sweat dripping down your neck, out there in the darkness....something awaits. Suddenly, a loud crash and tearing sound howls through the darkness, the lights go crazy in time with the sudden djent-metal music that inexplicably pounds in your ears as an inhuman roar resounds all around! Straight out of nowhere the massive monster lunges at you as your twitching, honed reflexes barely let you get out of the way in time as the demonic beast barrels past. You fire your shotgun dry, then you pull out the chainsaw... more pics beneath the clicks:

Howdy, His bite is worse than his bark... Kev!

EDIT: link to the live kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/hellboy-the-board-game/description The Hellboy board game will be a co-operative experience in which players face off against some of the comic’s most famous foes. Up to four people take control of iconic BRPD members, such as Hellboy, Abe Sapien and Roger the Homunculus, before exploring gothic locations and uncovering ancient artifacts. Set to make its Kickstarter debut in April 2018, the Hellboy board game will feature stunning, pre-assembled plastic miniatures that accurately capture the look and feel of Mike Mignola’s world famous comic series. “Hellboy has a great cast of characters, diverse locations and legendary monsters from the pages of folklore and myth,” said Ronnie Renton, Mantic CEO. “The comics provide a fantastic foundation on which to build an immersive, fun and fast-paced co-operative board game that will let players experience some of their favorite moments from the series.”

So, with the fact that the kickstarter thread will eventually get closed, I'm starting this thread to bring the discussion over here. Current topics of discussion: 1. How awesome is this freaking giant?! 2. Holy crap these resins are NIIIIICE! 3. What the heck is up with the different stats on the Empire of Dust and regular Undead skeletons even though they have the same point cost?

I've been speed painting through a bunch of tavern scenery for an upcoming session. Mostly from the Mantic Tavern set. Here's a few of my favorites so far. I would seriously put a life sized version of the following in my home.

Here is another Mantic mini. This one a Necromancer. I’ll use him someday probably as a villain, but would love to use him as a PC if I get the chance. BTW, my 7-year old came up with the color scheme. Here is my color sketch I made while she was describing the colors.

Here is High Priest Borosos from Mantic’s Kings of War game. He will serve as my cleric in our current 1st ed. D&D game.

If you go down to the woods today... For my Kings of War Forces of Nature army, The Children of the Forest I have a smattering of miniatures for the Forces of Nature, including a starter army from the November 2014 Kings of War 2nd ed kickstarter, delivered second half of 2015. In addition to the second edition rulebook, they also funded a few polystyrene plastic troop miniatures, and a bunch of secondary metal minis in this KS. Most of these have been lying about in a box since then. But for some reason I had taken out just these Forest Shamblers, prepped and built them ages ago and they were standing pround in one of the Drawers of Doom™ when I was rummaging around after something to paint the other day. These minis are each made in four parts, main body, head, both arms. Ball and socket-joints permit a bit of poseability. Easy to assemble (easy for being metal ... as in I needed to drill and pin all the parts just like all heavy metal bits need...), and also good on the details. These are some of the better minis Mantic have made. Probably why I chose to prep them and very few of the others back when I received them. The metal castings I recieved were of higher quality than earlier metal minis I have from Mantic. They might simply be early runs in the mould, but it might also be that Mantic managed to up their quality control on the metals a bit, which they sorely need(ed) to do. So here they are, all spruced up. Forest Shamblers Forces of Nature faction Kings of War Mantic, 2015 Metal 40mm bases

These are four objective markers form Mantic's Kings of War: Vanguard Kickstarter. The models are ok. On a couple of the pieces, you can see the 3d print lines from the master model. They will work fine for simple terrain pieces. Overall I am happy with how they turned out.

A really quick and dirty set of scenery using mantics library mini crate. All told I have maybe 2 hours into the set. I think it came out pretty well. I wanted to see what these looked like and the could double for additional scenery on my Saga game. Air brushes brown primer, followed by a drybrush of woodland brown and then a bunch of colors for the actual books Hope you like what you see...

So I'm painting up the Mantic Giant. I'm calling him James, because the head I'm using is very much a James Hetfield head. Say hi, James. I started off by priming with a sample of Badger's Stynylrez that I got with last year's RCon swag bag and my Badger Patriot 105 airbrush. I'm pretty sure the primer is their olive green. I used the olive green because I couldn't find the sample bottle of the more off-white/yellow Stynylrez primer that I got from the swag bag two years ago. Then I found it after I finished priming and started trying to mix up a flesh tone. Go figure. I didn't take any pictures of the primed pieces, because all they were was olive green all over. When mixing up my skin tone, I wanted something tanned looking, but darker and more bronzed than Reaper's tanned skin. I wanted it to look more like how the skin of someone who works outside all summer long tends to look, with that almost leather look that they tend to get. After all, a giant like this guy isn't going to be spending a lot of time indoors, especially not if he's part of an army. So I started with Vallejo bronze fleshtone and leather brown in roughly equal parts. Which ended up too orange. So I upped the leather brown, and it was still too orange. So I added in Reaper Tanned Shadow, and I almost got it where I wanted. The final touch was some Reaper tanned skin, and I got it to be good enough. Don't ask me proportions, because after the first mix I have no idea. I just threw some color in, stuck it to the vortex mixer for a few seconds, and then looked again to see if I liked it. I finished it off by making it airbrush-ready with some Createx 4012 reducer. In this picture, it's the unlabeled bottle in the middle. The other bottles are the paints I mixed together to get it. Now, armed with my skintone, I decided that I wanted to try a different airbrush. So I broke out my Badger Renegade Krome for the very first time and started applying. The difference between the Krome and the Patriot is night and day because of one simple, but amazing, feature - an adjustable trigger stop. It's freaking sweet. No worries about over spraying massive amounts of paint accidentally, and you have so much more control over your lines because of it. And the skin is where I stopped for the night.

The gold armor tone is a bit flat on this guy. I should have used a slightly yellower shade for the midtone I think. Oh well. He’lol do for my purposes. Also, I thought the shield would tilt tilt the other way when attached to his arm, so the shading is opposite what i think it should be.

Kickstarter is Live and has reached the initial funding level: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/star-saga-the-sci-fi-dungeon-crawler?ref=nav_search From the Mantic Newsletter: "Star Saga: The Eiras Contract will see players guide a team of space mercenaries on a mission to retrieve stolen data plans from a research facility orbiting a far-off alien world. Players will take on platoons of minions, powerful alien bosses and be forced to make difficult choices as the story takes unexpected twists and turns. The spiritual sequel to Dungeon Saga, Star Saga introduces newly improved and stronger rulesets, 'learn as you go' rules for new players and, more detailed, advanced mechanics for seasoned gamers." If it wasn't for Mantics long history of fulfilment issues/delays/changes I'd be tempted by this. It sounds like the game I've been waiting for. Instead I'll likely just keep an eye on the Kickstarter and consider buying at retail.