An Unexpected Burst of Painting Enthusiasm

There was a flurry of painting last week and over the weekend. I'm not sure where the motivation came from but I figured I should ride the wave.

I've been digging into my pile of Reaper Bones figures from their first Kickstarter lo those many years ago (I sold off most of them, but still have  50 or 80 or something like that) looking for figures that would be fun to paint, but also to game with.

First up is a pair of figures, their color schemes inspired by The Maxx and Julie Winters:

The Maxx was a comic book in the 90s, which I vaguely recall seeing - at the time it came out, I was in college and spent my money at bars, not comic shops though. However, I did watch the series of shorts that aired on MTV's Oddities at the time.

Here's a grab from one of the comics:

His pointy finger claws are bright yellow - the scene above makes them appear orange, but trust me, they are yellow.

In addition to the first Kickstarter Reaper did, I also purchased select sets when they had their second Kickstarter - specifically I purchased the beastmen. Here are two, with a devil/demon/succubus from the first set (all started and completed over the the last week)

I had originally thought to paint the goat-men like my hero, Black Phillip (from The Witch) but decided to lean into their slight resemblance to the Games Workshop Khorne Bloodletters that I want to pick up eventually - but were it not for my moratorium on figure purchases for the rest of the year.

A victory was achieved in painting these three - I learned how to paint black hair beyond just slapping on black as I am want to do. I watched a YouTube short and used it for ideas.

The basing gave me some fits - all five figures have integral bases that are sculpted to varying degrees. I didn't think the textured base paint would like right with them - I needed something to make a more gentle rise to the figure. In the past I've done this with green stuff, but I'm out.

Finally, I decided to mix a sludge of PVA, old coffee grounds, and two shades of flock and spread the resulting paste on the bases, then re-dip the figure into the mixture to give the ground some depth.

It worked but I think it looks like ground black pepper. Oh well.

With the figures done, I couldn't let them just sit unused, so I broke them out for game of One Page Rules, Age of Fantasy: Skirmish. 

The human faction, led by Maxx and Julie fell far short of my 200pt minimum for the game, and so I filled the points with some friends for them,  painted about eight or so years ago - a Reaper barbarian and some Gripping Beast figures I had purchased when I thought I might try Saga. Although I have never used them for Saga, I have found they make great villagers/low-level NPCs/bandits/etc.

 In any case, they would soon find themselves facing a threat from  their nightmares.

The villagers spot an evil presence emerging from the woods in the distance!

 

The Devil's Daughter has come to collect on a misguided promise from a villager.

Beast-headed men, damned for eternity, chop their way through the village defenders, but Julie has something to say about that.

While Maxx engaged the monstrous brute, Julie unleashed a magical ass-kicking on the Princess of Hell, sending her back to her brimstone keep.

Victory to the good guys!

Not pictured, the barbarian got up from the ground and walloped the goat-men. 

Maxx had managed to drop the brute's hit points and with the Princess defeated, I figured the brute wouldn't stick around. So not quite knocked out, but Maxx was in a better place at the end of turn 4.

Plus by One Page Rules standard, the game ends after four turns. It's a weird rule and I'm inclined to ignore it most times, but most games do seem to be over by then anyway.

The game was a little over 200 points per side - you can have a fun game with low figure count and the One Page Rules. I felt like the magic rules were different than from when I last played, but I may have either been 1)doing it wrong in the past or 2) just don't remember them.