For Sunday, 28 June, I’m thankful for the Tres Amigas!
Left to right they are: Empolvada, Suertuda and Eda.
I can’t remember where I got Empolvada. I thought she might have come from either Great Escape or Knuckleduster, but I can’t find her on either of their sites. I’ve had her for at least a decade, and things do come and go.
Suertuda I’m pretty happy with. She started out as a Malifaux 2nd Edition alternate fig of Perdita Ortega. But, since all of my Mexican bandits have liquor in-hand, I wanted to convert her. As luck would have it, just after I got my Perdita, Warlord released this Christmas Truce pack for Bolt Action. Boccob’s yer uncle!
My other buddy attacked with a cohort of Big Mr Tong’s ’70s Cylons (available through his Patreon). Witness their majesty:
And I brought my Pecking Order, to give them both a beaking they wouldn’t forget:
Sadly, my Gallus Gallus 5/13 just couldn’t land a hit; the dice were unkind. And I learned a thing or two about being out-actioned. I built my six birds to be pretty high-cost. But the other guys’ forces were more evenly balanced. That mattered.
In the end the game came down to Cylons versus zombies:
Good times!
So, did I learn anything from this? Yes I did. Next time, Ten Piece Bucket!:
I’ve always thought they were cool little creatures. And in Mexico City right now, they’re everywhere as part of their World Cup decorations and celebrations.
I was tempted to buy a pinata of one but resisted. I couldn’t figure out how to get it home.
Specifically creators who’ve set about painting each and every figure from the Rogue Trader miniature series RT601. Thus:
I recently discovered there is a subculture of incredibly talented painters who — over the last decade or so — set themselves the goal of painting all of the figs shown in the above ad. Some have expanded their vision to include other White Dwarf listings, such as Bob Olley’s Iron Claw Space Pirates:
Here are three blogs to check out if you haven’t already:
Spend some time on each. Wander around. Rabbit-hole. You’ll be glad you did.
I imagine some of these guys have had a field day with more of THESE LISTS and I just haven’t found their work yet.
These painters and their project remind me of when I learned Res Eve Knife Only is a thing. Some things really can be made better simply by doing them harder, faster or harder and faster.
I backed it. And then I decided to support them for the first while by buying a one-year subscription for the next four issues. They’re all out now and apparently my sub includes an Annual issue as well, so not bad.
All five of these issues include chapters of the ongoing dark fantasy stories Gladiatrix, by John Stanisci …
Also in these first issues I rediscovered Vicente Segrelles’ The Mercenary.
This story recalled something familiar. I was sure I’d seen that character before. And the art style. Long ago. Well it turns out Segrelles has been telling the tale of The Mercenary in Spain since the ’80s. So I must have read some of it somewhere in the deep dark past. This chapter is a well-told moment, beautifully illustrated, that hopefully will lead to more events in later issues.
There’s also an eerie story called Cold Dead War: The Aftermath, by Craig Wilson.
It picks up where the segment in the Heavy Metal movie about the WWII pilot parachuting onto the haunted island leaves off:
Kinda creepy. It wraps in issue 5.
But after all of the above, the big win for me is discovering an ongoing story about a couple of characters I’d never heard of before. Burton & Cyb.
Something I’ve been thinking about is taking the palette of a serialized story from Heavy Metal and using it as the guide for painting a unit or two from my collection for Xenos Rampant. I think Burton & Cyb would make a good place to start for a squad of scavenging scroungers. And Millstone might be a good source for my Black Spiral Dancer Vargr.
I collected it as it was coming out in the 1980s and -90s. It was such a fun read!
About a decade ago I tracked down a few of the compilations and graphic novels. I still pull them out once in a while and flip through my favourite pages. Good stories illustrated with great art.
It’s always baffled me how it never got an animated series, along the lines of Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles. It’s too bad Mainframe didn’t get to produce a show of it. I think it’s better suited to a long-form serial rather than a film. But, hopefully we’ll get at least one or the other eventually.
Now, if you want to game with Force Nomad, fortunately you’re spoiled for choice.
My favourite from this range is the Lord of Xaam. Pretty big title, right? And he is listed as being 28mm scale, but when I got him I discovered — happily — he’s really only about 20mm tall. So a while later I ordered two more because three of them are perfect for The Iks.
