#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)

#ToMB2 The Thunder (Ben Sime) Month 3

A Big Month

In the last blog I spoke about how I had a small month with just Yamaziko, so that I could afford a large month with an extra crew box.

Why another box?

Malifaux's crew boxes are designed to be a good gateway into the game, typically this means you are getting a "bulk discount" as opposed to buying smaller boxes.

With a lot of this year seeing me catch up on painting my other Ten Thunders I decided that it was definitely time to go Outcasts with Misaki and that the more mercenaries the better as let's be honest, I'm an Arcanist at heart.

Month 3 (£15+£18.87) £33.87 :

• Hired Guns - £28.89 from Element Games

Total Spending: £28.89 

Money remaining: £4.98

Even with a new crew box I had basically a fiver extra going into the final month so the future still held a few choices.

Let's keep to the present though.
Hired Guns (which is the Von Schill box) was actually my second choice, initially Hired Swords was where I wanted to go as all bar the Master and Henchman in the box would be useful.
More minions in the Ronin, a better totem and the good old hammer wielding Taelor.

Still that box has seemingly never been in stock when I wanted it, which is a pain so I swapped swords for guns.

Hired Guns

Well I guess while I go through what the box has added to my crew I can start showing the painting which I've completed.

Freikorpsmen 

I may have missed out on Ronin, but Freikorpsmann are a great 5ss minion.

Not as tough as a Railworker trading Hard to Kill for an extra wound, but a lot faster with Wk5 and Unimpeded.

In a fight these guys can be fairly lethal thank to their (0) Reference the Field Guide discarding a card to get the suit allows both their knife and pistol to be powered up for Critical Stike, the Hunting Knife in particular going up to 2/4/5 and possibly 3/5/6 is scary out of such a low cost model.

The other triggers are defensive, either holding ground with some extra Df or pushing away, overall, there is a lot of play in these little guys.

Freikorps Librarian

The Librarian is an interesting model which I have seen on the field plenty of times.
Her stat line is a little weak for a 7ss Enforcer but where I see her aiding the crew is by keeping Misaki alive whilst giving some ranged support.

Furious Casting does allow for the Librarian to go on the offence, three lots of damage which can potentially pick me up some more cards with Surge or blast the enemy to smithereens is very handy and if Misaki is in the thick of it and needs a lifeline then I can always do a couple of Healing Energies.
Not the most efficient needing sevens to cast and only healing 1/2/3, but this can still help, especially for anyone with Hard to Kill.

Freikorps Trapper

For a time this was public enemy number one when it came to "filth choices".

A focused Trapper is able to fire 28" and with the built in positive flip is virtually ignoring cover.

The bullet can be dodged with only a Sh of 5 but this model is fantastic at sniping out those key weaker models early and Critical Strike can allow for that tasty 6 damage which is useful against so many opponents.

Freikorps Specialist

What's not to love about a guy with a flame-thrower, or even cooler the German Flammenwerfer?

8ss is a cost, but the specialist does have a multitude of roles.

The front of it's card has Clear the Area on top of the typical Freikorps bits and a rule for a explosive death, what this does is, with no cards having to be flipped, allow the Specialists to remove all corpse and scrap markers with 4" of it and the end of it's activation.

This in itself can be a headache for many Arcanists, Resurrectionists and more if they have to use two activations for summoning shenanigans.

As well as the knife that all the soldiers seem to be equipped with the Flammenwerfer is the other Attack Action the Specialist has and it is a treat.

Sh6 Rg10 with lots of blasts is tasty, ignoring cover which thematically is obvious is also fairly powerful and then there is a whole host of triggers.

First off you can put Burning onto all the enemies damaged by the attack for each Ram and the weapon has one built in.

Secondly if the extra damage potential of Burning was not immediate enough for you a Tome will cause the damaged enemies to take TN12 Horror Duels allowing for multiple models to become Paralyzed

Finally, arguably the most interesting trigger is Wildfire.

Scheme marker need removing? Well with a crow all of them within 4" of the target are gone. This could be a game changer.

Lastly the Specialist also has a tasty Tactical action that can remove Slow and Paralayzed from your crew in a 10" pulse. It does deal a damage to them, but one less wound for an extra turn in the game potentially is quite easily worth it.

Unless they would die of course.

Good Deal

I didn't paint Von Schill and admittedly, because it is sought after I sold him with his totem.

I won't include that in the allowance but it is worth noting.

The Freikorpsmann box is around £12 which means the other three models work out at less than £6 each.

That's roughly about what they cost before when in metal so overall a decent deal.

Remember though, if you can get money for the Master and Totem (though typically I would keep them) that is lowering the cost even more, making the three single models around a couple of quid.

Bargain.

Painting and Basing

The theme for the crew was still meant to be infiltration, Misaki and her friends invading a town or the like and even her Hired Guns would be doing the same.

Recently I have been getting my tufts, including these fantastic flowers from War-painter on ebay

I decided that colour coding my flower beds was something that I would be sad enough to do, recently Graves has had his "buttercups" replaced with "lavender" and in the future McCabe and his friends will have a bunches of "roses" nearby.

My idea for the Freikorps would be that they were not even within the city, but creeping through the fields at night, the Trapper laying in the flower beds taking shots at his prey.

Overall the basing is simple but I really like it.

Colour scheme wise, it was faction colour coordination again.
I wanted to include grey to reflect real life Freikorps and other German military and all though arguably blue bits may've made sense the yellow of Outcasts was too obvious for me.

Also, I quite like the "studio" scheme and mine is just a brightened version. Plus hey, they're hiding in fields of yellow flowers.

The red lenses all got a little gloss too to help the models pop on the table.

Overall painting these guys was enjoyable but it was strange to "batch paint" with Malifaux.

Into the Final Month

Month 4 is the final month for this Tale of Malifaux Bloggers.

With around £20 to spend I will be looking through the plastic outcasts to see what I could get.

I'll leave you with a list of models I'm considering, and if you read this and have a suggestion, why not tell me on twitter or the forums.

• Bishop
• Hannah
• Strongarm
• Convict Gunslingers
• Hans
• Lazarus
• Malifaux Child

Killjoy and Johana have already been painted, those two will also feature some point in the future as a bonus extra.

Thanks for reading.

- Ben (@psientologist)

#ToMB2 The Thunder (Ben Sime) Month 2

Why am I doing this to myself?

Month 2 for me is seemingly a very simple and small month.
I have painted one single model. I should rephrase that.
I have painted a single model to count towards my Tale.

During this month I have actually painted several models that I could hire with Misaki.
Toshiro, Chiaki, Killjoy and even some Wastrels.

However these don't fit my plan, or at least the one for the near future.

Plan?

It occurs to me that I may not have put up my cash spending total from Month 1.
Remember the limit was £40 for month 1 and £15 for each following.

Month 1 £40:

• The Thunder - £20.40 from Element Games
• Ama No Zako - £9.35 from Element Games

Total Spending: £29.75

Money remaining: £10.25

The advantage of going with Misaki as she was one of the original plastic boxes it is a little less full but a decent amount cheaper. 

Seeing that her crew box only just cost over half my limit it gave me some ideas.

Here is where I reveal my single model. Keeping to the same restrictions of month 1, being able to be either Outcast or Ten Thunder with Misaki.

Month 2 (£15+£10.25) £25.25 :

• Yamaziko - £6.38 from Element Games

Total Spending: £6.38 

Money remaining: £18.87

Yamaziko is a useful piece in Misaki's arsenal, being a Henchman with all that benefit and a 3" melee range she is a decent model for denial.

Thematically she had to be added really, also being one of the few Last Blossom I can hire her regardless of which direction I go with the crew.

You said "plan"?

Going into month 3 I will have £33.87.
This allows me a lot of options but financially one of the best will be to buy another crew box.
Crew boxes tend to be around the £25-30 mark meaning that I should be able to pick any I fancy either based off of what would add the most to Misaki on the tabletop, the aesthetics or most likely a combination of both.

This no only gives me plenty more to add to Misaki's crew but I will still have a little extra going into month 4. 

It's good to have options.

Painting.

Unlike the last month there was no real outside inspiration for how I painted Yamaziko.

The main thing was using a similar palette to the rest of the crew.

As you can see I went for two colours for her clothing.
The colour split is the opposite to Ama No Zako's, not only does this change it up a little but the cloak (which I feel went a little too bright) should be the darker colour to disguise herself, the infiltration theme still in my mind.

Yama like Ama is stepping in from "outside" or gardens into a city, feeling a little less of an "evil" model than the Oni I opted for a lot more flowers on her base.

Her lantern is similar to Ama's though I did not opt to add any stars (maybe I should have).
It is probably the worst part of the model mind you, I'm glad it's behind her.

Weapon wise I aimed for the staff of it to look a little like bamboo, something I have also done on Toshiro (I will endeavour to blog about that painting soon) simply by doing very obvious lines.

Her hair as you can see is white. On the box art she has dark hair and though that could've worked I preferred the idea of white to stress that she is the Kung Fu Grandma but to also reflect the white hair flowing from the back of Ototo's head.

Month 2 done, on to Month 3

Month 3's hand in date will be my Birthday, otherwise known as "Star Wars Day".
May the Fourth.

A crew box is on the cards, but which one?
I will have to decide which way Misaki is really going to go.

Also, painting will be a lot more difficult with Cow Wars 2 on the horizon and wanting to game more than paint.
Still, I managed a crew box+ the first month so I can do it again...

...can't I?

Apologies for the poor photos, they were done quickly on my phone. I hope that next month they will improve.

See ya.

- Ben (@psientologist)

#ToMB2 Bound by Law (Martin) Month 2

ToMB 2 - Month 2

So month 2 of ToMB and I really struggled to decide what to do next for my Lucius crew. The more I look at his options, the more I think I prefer him as a Neverborn Master rather than a Guild one. The problem with that is that, one of the main things I’d like to take with him are The Illuminated and these are currently only available in the Dark Debts crew box (or build your own from the multi part kits). In the end I decided I would continue with Guild this month with a low spend and save the bulk of the money to see how I feel in month 3 and whether to spend out to get The Illuminated or not.

Therefore, after much procrastinating I finally settled on a Guild Guardian (cost £8.10) just so I can test it out with Lucius’s Commanding Presence Ability. I’ll let you know how it goes. This means that, with the £3.56 left over from month 1, I had £18.56 available and spent £8.10, leaving me with £10.46 to add on to my month 3 total (yay)!

Not much else to say really except that I have played 5 games with Lucius now and feel like I’m starting to get to know him a bit better. He’s not much of a front line Master in terms of what he can dish out but he is quite hard to take down when he is in the thick of things. I think he may be at his best in a ‘Ball of Death’ crew, in a similar way to say Hoffman or Nicodem but this is something that will be played out numerous times before I work out the nuances of it.

Hopefully next month I will have more to show and write about. I’m still aiming to take Lucius to a tournament at some point this year, so keep watching this space to find out how he gets on.

- Martin (@MartinWodehouse)

#ToMB2 Bound by Law (Martin) Month 1, Part 2

ToMB2 - Month 1, More Progress

So I’ve painted the crew and even managed to get in a game with them now. I played my good friend Luke Cocksedge (@Shakes1066) in a Guard the Stash game. I’ve promised him I won’t reveal what he was using, as we will both be attending a tournament soon (Gertfaux) and he’s scared that people will get the drop on him! ;0)

Anyway, I lost 9-3. Perhaps not a huge surprise as Luke is a very good player and I was limited by only taking the ToMB2 models I have. I was also quite reckless with my crew, throwing them in to see what happened. It was a good learning curve though and although I can’t do a battle report as such, I can write my thoughts on how the various models in my crew performed.

Starting with the Scribe: he’s a 2SS totem, so I wasn’t expecting great things. His built in trigger on his Ml attack did force Luke to cheat a couple of times to avoid its effects. I didn’t really get much else out of him though, the conditional removal option for Lucius could be handy, assuming he can keep up with his Master that is!

The Guild Guard were lacklustre. What I feel really let them down was their lowly Sh and Ml values of 4, they just never got to do much for me. Perhaps if they went later in the turn, when my opponent was low on cards, they may have achieved more. I never used their Menace tactical action but could see usefulness for it. The suit requirement does limit it coming into play though.

Guild Lawyers by comparison, were great! Okay, they cost 2SS more than a Guild Guard but I was able to make much better use out of them. One particular highlight was when one of Luke’s models killed a Guild Guard and then died itself due to the Lawyers casting Special Damages on it. I also made use of their Impassioned Defense (0) Action and all of the Abilities on the front of their card.

The Doppelganger was good but not great. The ability to cheat the Initiative flip was rarely used but I still think it’s a very useful ability to have. Mimic is also another very good reason to take the shape shifter but sadly I didn’t have many useful things nearby to copy most of the time. I must remember to keep her near to things that are worth mimicking in the future.

Dashel was resilient and was good at handing out Slow with his Baton but the low damage track meant that he was never really going to be much of a threat. His buffs to nearby Guardsmen were nice but overall I’m not sure I would value him at 9SS (12 if you include the upgrades I gave him)!

Lucius himself was great. Well, when I say great, I mean that he seemed to be quite difficult to get rid of primarily due to his Highest Authority Ability and high Df/Wp (Luke did eventually kill him in Turn 5). Other than that, I didn’t really use him as well as I could have. I did enjoy his (0) Hidden Sniper from the 2SS Secret Assets upgrade but most of his other Abilities and Actions didn’t come in to play.
So, what do I think so far? Well, I think on balance that I’d prefer to play Lucius as a Neverborn Master rather than a Guild one but for now I’m keeping my options open. A couple of things that I’m keen to try out are as follows:

1. Take an Illuminated and give Lucius the Wings of Darkness upgrade. This would allow me to use a Soul Stone to draw 3 cards rather than 2 after drawing my new hand at the start of the turn. I could then use the Devil’s Deal ability to put 3 wounds on the Illuminated and get the Soul Stone back. The Illuminated can then Regenerate 1 wound and Brillshape the other 2 in its activation. If I combine this with the Primordial Magic, I’d effectively be drawing 10 cards and discarding down to 6 at the start of every turn.

2. Take the Doppelganger and 2 Guild Austringers. With Lucius nearby, I can get 4 focussed shots out of this group a turn (1 each from the Austringers, 1 from the Doppelganger Mimicking and another from Lucius’ Commanding Presence walking nearby. With an 18” range at Sh7, ignoring LoS and cover, it should be quite tasty against anyone foolish enough to come too close. Of course, Dashel would make it even more effective but I still think he’s too expensive, so not sure I’d take him.

Anyway, that’s me for now. I’m starting to think seriously about my month 2 purchases, so stay tuned to find out what happens next!

- Martin (@MartinWodehouse)

#ToMB2 The Thunder (Ben Sime) Month 1

What have I done?

That is right I have decided to do possibly my least favourite Master for my Tale of Malifaux Bloggers.

No I don't think she is good. Yes I still love Mei Feng. And No, no way is Misaki as good.

Now that is out of the way...

Why?

To answer this is to delve into the mind of a madman, maybe it's like the quote in Attack on Titan "To rise above monsters, we have to abandon our humanity". In this case the monsters are the "people" who think Misaki is remotely good.

Maybe I plan to take her, play and lose a lot and then report "see, she is well rubs".

To be honest though, none of these are the reasons why.

First of all it's because regardless how poor she is she is still a Ten Thunder, I own all the plastics for the Thunders and outside of the Foundry I have painted none of it.

If I did not do Misaki for my Tale I don't know why I would ever bother to paint her.

Secondly, the model is all right. I still think Misaki looks good, though it's more the crew box, however I don't rate any single part of it I still think the models are great and deserve a decent paint job, or at least a paint job I can do.

Lastly. It's funny isn't it, to watch me suffer. Right?

What's the plan?

The Thunder box is the start I will have, being an older plastic box it actually leaves me with a bit more cash to spend than most others.

At this point I am not completely decided on whether I will actually do Misaki as Thunders or go for Outcasts.

Thunders Pros:

• I already own a lot of Thunders
• After this project they can be used with other masters I own
• Ninjas are cool
• Ten Thunders are one of my favourite factions
• Lots of plastics

Outcasts Pros:

• Lots of cool new plastics
• Mercenaries are good for the future
• Some things are dual faction
• Puts me more in the role of what ToMB is about
• I own a couple of Outcasts already

Due to the fact I am so uncertain as to going Thunders or Outcasts I have a few options to go with:

• Yamaziko
• Oiran
• Ama No Zako

These three are available for hire by Misaki regardless of faction at no extra cost, this means either way I decide to go painting them isn't completely pointless.

We will return to my decision in a bit.

Time for some painting.

Get some paint on it.

So with the Thunder box built, something not quite as difficult as people make out but not a "beginner friendly" box to say the least.

Starting with the Torakage I had to decide what style I wanted to go for.

I was not up for the classic Yellow but I did want to implement orange as the faction colour somewhere on the model.

However Ninja's should not wear Orange suits in my opinion and as a side note I do not like Naruto for those who care.

As always I look at video games for theme ideas. Really I wanted to stay dark like a ninja "should" be.

So I went to Ninja Gaiden for inspiration.

The original Xbox game of this was one my favourite games (probably in my top 5 for that console) and it always springs to mind.

What Ryu Hayabusa the protagonist wears in this game though, black and metallic may look cool but I wasn't feeling it, especially for painting.

This meant I leaned on what Ryu once wore, in "Shadow Warriors" over here.

Blue.

I would use blue but keep it dark, looking at blue I did start also considering Strider another fantastic video game and character, but maybe another day for him.

Hayabusa (he's also in the Dead or Alive games) has even worn the blue costume as an alternative.

Even Yaiba from the recent (not very good) game wears blue.

This was more like it, I could keep the blue dark, and have patches of black, it would dark and stealthy but not impossible to see.

I took some "artistic license" in the fact I didn't want the red or to have it on the arms and the orange implementation would be the masks.

I will also admit to taking a lot of inspiration from Mako's Thunder crew, check it here.

Ototo would follow this colour scheme too, however his hair was something I deliberated over for a while white felt striking and would tie into some other ideas I had.

You may notice only two Torakage have been painted, am I cheating, skipping on the third.

No, as I have done with other sets of three in the past the third I had decided to play around with doing another scheme, another Video Game ninja.

Shinobi.

More specifically "Revenge of Shinobi" the classic Mega Drive game was my inspiration.

White and red, not particularly stealthy but a striking colour scheme

Looking through images of the original sprites and some images from the newer games I figured I'd do red arms, red scarf (like the PS2 game) and yellow for the mask, mimicking gold ( like Shinobi on the 3DS).

This lead me into Misaki.

I will admit I did enjoy painting parts of this model, but I am not keen on the pose whatsoever.

For Misaki I wanted her to stand out amongst the crowd and having the plan for her totem in mind and just painting the Shinobi Torakage I knew what I wanted to do.

Oops, I still need to sort out that foot. Awkward.

White costume, orange bits and the blue on anywhere else that needed a third colour.
I think she came out fine in the end but she may be the one I am least happy with.
I just hate her I guess.

Lastly, the worst totem in the game?
Shang. Clearly a Kitsune from Japanese folklore is a very cool model, the nine-tail fox would make you suspect me to lean on Pokemon.

Not this time, I have gone for an all time favourite of mine.
Amaterasu of the PS2 game; Okami.

Now I will admit I am not the first person to have done this. Good friend of mine Chris Tomlin of The Black Sun Podcast has done the exact same thing for his Nippon army project.

Check out Chris' and many other awesome Warhammer projects here.

Simply, paint Shang White, keep the recesses extremely black to emulate Okami's sumi-e ink painting style.
Then try to copy the red markings.

I did hope to make Amaterasu's weapon, but nothing I made myself really fit the bill.

The "Little" Extra

Going back to my choice of additional box to purchase, my decision was actually made fairly quick.

Oiran I think are mostly poor and I didn't know really if I'd have the time to paint three extra models.

Yamaziko, I like this model a lot, in game I feel she has some uses but after painting The Thunder I didn't feel this would be interesting enough for me to see it through.

This left me Ama No Zako.

When delving into Ama I searched the Internet as I usually do for inspiration, nothing really popped out to me and I was pretty sure I wanted orange or yellow on the model again.

In my head I bounced around ideas for Orange skin rather than the red most do.

However when researching the Amanozako from Japanese mythology, I never saw a real reason why she would be red.

Also reading that one translation was "Tengu Deity" made me consider that Ama's skin would be something I'd consider painting the feathery Tengu models whenever they were released.

As is the case with a lot of models, I just got out my brushes and paints and went at it.

In the end the darker Blue (though lighter in this case) would be Ama's secondary colour and I ended up going for a grey flesh.

Once mostly finished I realised that the colour scheme I had done on Ama was very similar to a popular Anime series main protagonists outfit.

This did help me decide Ama's hair should just be black all though I was told by Aaron to go for Super Saiyan hair.

Even though in this form Goku would have normal eyes I wanted to do the glowy effect which I had first tried on my Rogue Necromancy on Ama.

Although Dragon Ball fans may have said to do it teal like the eyes of SSJ2 Goku (that's like a level 2 power up for non-fans) I went for yellow. I wanted the Outcast colour somewhere.

As seen here on Kid Goku, a lot of the time Goku has some Kanji on him, as do many other characters.

Sometimes it's on the back but I wanted to do a chest logo and gave it a go.

The Kanji I went for was "Oni". Amanozako is three characters so this felt the most appropriate.

The final touch was Ama's lantern, which I've not glued down as I'm still unsure she looks better with it, for this, I made it resemble a Dragon Ball itself.

The first two stars I painted I felt came out well, the third, bottom left, came out a bit chubby.

All about That Base

For basing I decided to keep away from the traditional, "let's make Thunders have really Oriental basing".

After all, these lot are infiltrating Malifaux, not earthside in the Three Kingdoms.

On top of this, it wouldn't be best going with extremely Oriental basing if I was doing Outcasts necessarily.

In the end I made my own bases.
This was my first attempt at doing bricks/ paved bases simply using green stuff, a modelling knife to make the pattern and then, just paint it.

I could add to these, maybe a some tufts, but I have had something I haven't used for years begging to go on some bases.

Fallen leaves. Element do have these but are out of stock. 

Mine I have had for almost a decade so I cannot begin to remember where I got them from.

Probably off of Mike Asquith (@moustache_rides) to be honest.

This would be the equivalent to how you may place tufts or clumps of static grass.

Simply it breaks up areas, but makes a lot more sense on a street that grass growth (not that that could not happen).

Overall the leaves would big in small patches but also drift onto curbs as they do.

You may have noticed in the end I didn't simply just keep the basing just paved, I also went for near by "gardens" or "parks" to give that real feel of the ninjas sneaking in.

That's Month 1

Well I hope it was worth my pain painting the worst master in the game and possibly the weakest starter box.

Overall I'm happy with the models however so I am happy this Tale has gotten me to do so.

Strangely, it's re-lit my painting fire and I've done the entire Dark Debts box I should've done during the original #ToMB, so if you enjoyed this I shall be posting them up soon too.

Also please note, if some of this blog seems disorganised or the pictures and text are different that is simply because I started this before finishing the painting (stupid I know).

Byeee

- Ben (@psientologist)