#ToMB2 The Thunder (Ben Sime) Month 4

The Final

Coming into this fourth and final month I had an extra fiver to spend and as I said at the end of the last blog a few things in mind that I wanted to grab.

Let's get straight into where all the "allowance" went.

Over the four months I've had a total of £85 to spend, which now as I type makes me think this should have gone five months for the full £100.

Still, remember the first month was £40 followed by £15 for the next three.

All prices are from Element Games

• The Thunder - £20.40 
• Ama No Zako - £9.35 
• Yamaziko - £6.38
• Hired Guns - £28.89
• Bishop - £6.38
• Conflict Gunslingers - £9.34

Total Spending: £80.74

As you can see in fact I spent just over eighty quid!

Hired Swords was and still is a box I'd like to add to this list and if you are looking at building a similar collection I would advise hunting one down.

Still I have painted up something extra which is just over a tenner and I'll show it at the end.
Also, remember you could always do as I did and get a few pennies for the plastic Von Schill and Steam Trunk if you were insane enough to want to rely on Misaki.

The Chain Gang

As you can see from the list I went with Bishop and Conflict Gunslingers.

If I'm honest the reason for picking these was pretty much entirely on wanting to paint the extremely cool looking miniatures.

However, these guys can add a couple of dimensions to the crew. Bishop is a good alternative (let's be honest replacement) to Ototo as combat punch. The tag team of him and Misaki should kill quite literally anything.

The concept of running Bishop with Recalled Training also sounds like a laugh, as, as you should note all options are Mercenaries again.

The other pair of mercs the Gunslingers add some ranged attack to the crew, along with last months Freikorpsmen and even the Librarian this could create a more defensive gunline style crew where Misaki could stalk around and go on the hunt.

Alright painting, that's what this Tale is really about.

Obsession

As regular readers of this blog you know that I love video games and I always do things where I copy colour schemes for my models.

This crew is no exception with the Okami totem and the Shinobi and Ninja Gaiden references.

Well here is another:

This chap for those who do not know is Cody.

He was originally in Final Fight but also stars in Street Fighter, originally Alpha but also in the current version of 4.

When I chose to do the Conflict Gunslingers I started to think about this guy.

My Rail Workers have orange trousers and orange jump suits could've been where I went but the blue and white stripes just seemed much more interesting.

Yes, I do realise Cody is a fighter, he uses a knife and these guys don't even have Ml attack but hey...

...OK I've got nothing.

I went for blonde beard and hair for one Gunslinger to be a bit like an unkempt Cody.
I'm actually super pleased how the skin came out on him.

The other, well it's Danny Trejo isn't it? Look at him, look at the art, so I went for dark hair and a more bronze-tanned flesh tone. Also his clothes are a little cleaner.

Another Facet of Geekdom

 As well as video games I am also quite partial to comics.

I've always been a Marvel guy, a combination of the fantastic 90's cartoons and reading Sonic the Comic from a young age meant I got right into them when I had a little money.

Due probably to the great cartoons Spider-man and the X Men are my favourites (also the Batman cartoon was the bomb) which these days is a little unfortunate considering they're amongst the worst films.

I digress. What has this got to do with Malifaux? Oh right.
Bishop.

Hold on, this is not the cage fighter of Malifaux, this is the time travelling mutant of Marvel.
Well (Lucas) Bishop doesn't really share much in common with the man similar name of Malifaux but hey, why not use inspiration.

The X Men colours include yellow and my Outcasts were the same, also I had a few darker blues in my crew already so the combination wasn't far from what I had already done.

For any X Men fans, it is true I could go for one of the District X era colour schemes or even the more recent which is mostly black but, for me, that isn't any where near as inspirational and lacks the nostalgia.

The M tattoo was a must. One of, if not the defining feature of Bishop from the comics.

Also, I appreciate that Lucas is a black guy, I did consider for a second having faux Bishop also be of the same race but his facial features and hair simply do not match.

Plus in the end, the M tattoo would show up a lot easier for me painting wise against pale skin so, laziness prevails.

I had almost called this model done but Lucas' red scarf was bugging me. Looking at more 90's X Men stuff I realised that spot of red was kind of important.
Then it dawned on me, the big blank space on his back, even I could do a free hand logo there.

So I did.

Quick bit of basing

As you can see, there are some random green stuff balls on the bases here.

Originally it was just Bishop, I wanted the pose to be more dynamic and now he is almost doing a weaponised version of the "superman punch".

The others, well I had made too much green stuff if I'm honest.

As with the Freikorps the "chain gang" would be sneaking through the fields.

"Cody" stepping into the flowery field.

And BOOM!

Kill Joy, a model I had admittedly painted but not used for the Tale had joined the gang in the field.

He has chains for days so is an official member.

Finally here is a group shot of the entire Tale:

The major thing that I am not happy with is the change of flowers, I would be tempted to go back to the older models and change the tufts.

However, colour scheme wise I am happy.

The crew started with a lot of orange and blue with white as the spot bar Misaki (and Shinobi) which used it as their main to stand out.

Yamaziko continued this trend but it was changed with the mercs from last month.

However, the yellow and blue of Bishop ties the two schemes together.

Same as the blue and white stripes.

Also Kill Joy will no blue, orange or yellow could look out of place, but he is simply the fourth "special" model with white as his main.

End of the Second Tale

I did it. Tale number two is done and I painted a whole load of models that I would not have done otherwise and I'm also pretty happy with them.

What's next?

Well I think keeping #ToMB to the much more manageable four month life span is the way forwards and makes me think a "season three" will definitely be on the cards.

As far as this project goes. I am still going to add to the Outcasts where I can. 

I had already done Johana who also matches the colour scheme but in general getting another faction to play with is tempting.

Once Hired Swords is back in stock I will most likely purchase that and add it to the collection, plus hey, also there is Hannah who has my favourite thing.

Arcane Reservoir (and a big robot).

Thanks to everyone who has been reading this, taking part and playing along.

Until next time.

- Ben (@psientologist)