Supervillain: Momento Murray and her Mercenaries

Momento Murray, born Morgan Murray, is a feared mercenary commander known for carrying out attacks and heists across six continents. She is styled as La Condottiera of a famous PMC, the Free Company, which traces its lineage all the way back to an Italian mercenary band of the 1300s. Her subordinates, often identified by their purple balaclavas, are top-tier operators.

Momento's figure comes from the Project Z Female Survivors, though the head is swapped out for one from a Stargrave sprue. Even in grey plastic, this one looked like someone out of a comic book, and I think the end result turned out very well. The purple is Vallejo Game Color Extra Opaque Heavy Violet (72.142) with a wash of (possibly unnecessary) Vallejo Violet Wash (73.209). Basalt Grey (70.869) and a smidge of Stonewall Grey (72.049) set off some of the black. The two henchmercenaries are entirely from the Project Z Modern Military sprue, and are painted black, drybrushed with Heavy Charcoal and a few spots of Luftwaffe Uniform WWII. Otherwise, the colors carry over from Momento.

The road texture is Heavy Charcoal, then stippled Luftwaffe Uniform WWII, then stippled Basalt Grey. It gives it a more varied and interesting look than the flat color I've been using lately. I found that by painting the street lines first, then laying down a very thin strip of painting tape (then painting one more layer of the street line color), I could paint the rest of the road while maintaining a really smooth line.

Supervillain: Braincase

With an oversized skull mask and a regular-sized chainsaw, Braincase is a fairly run-of-the-mill villain. Inspired by famous slasher movies and villains, this madman attempts to recreate the on-screen evil in the "real" world. Presumably, the heroes stop him before it goes too far.

The name, "braincase," just means the skull, but it's close enough to "headcase," which is defined as a "mentally unbalanced, unpredictable person, especially one who displays aggressive behavior." This is, in the broadest sense, a pun, or play on words.

One of the reasons Braincase isn't a top-tier villain is that he's not particularly distinctive. He's got a red hoodie, a skull mask, some nice sneakers, and that's pretty much it. He's probably more of an ambush hunter than an actual fighter, too.

The model is built primarily from the Male Survivor sprue of the Project Z game, but the normal head options were ignored, replaced for a skull from the Citadel Skulls box (much like the Devil Mayfair). Not much else to say here. I didn't have an orange I liked for the chainsaw, so I mixed (far too much) Vallejo Bloody Red and Sun Yellow to get the right shade.

Urban Terrain: Pizzapocalypse

My fair city has gained another fast food option with the addition of Pizzapocalypse. This single-story building, shown with Mr. Whisper for scale, sits on an 8x8 "double" lot.

The building was 3D printed in two main pieces, with the roof (and top three layers of bricks) as a separate piece that attaches to the bottom with magnets. The sign, door frames, and window frames are also separate pieces. The window frames are each split into two halves, with "window glass" of transparent acetate (overhead projector sheets) sandwiched between them. The current sign design is a stand-in until I can design more appropriate signage.

This puts our fair city to a total of 12.5 lots out of the 14 needed to fill the board:

• Biggut's Fish (Fast food restaurant): 1 lot
• Urban Residence: 1 lot
• Urban Shop: 1 lot
• Bank: 3.5 lots
• Bus Stop: 1 lot
• Subway Station: 1 lot
• Pool Hall: 2 lots
  
• Pizzapocalypse: 2 lots

Using three of my 2-inch (half lot) alleys would be enough to make up the missing spaces. This means the basic urban table is practically done!

Aka-Oni Irregulars: Longbow

After the frenzied pace of painting of January, February has been absolutely silent on the painting front. In order to avoid an entire month of no progress, I finished off this battlemech to join the Aka-Oni Irregulars. It's a Longbow, providing heavy long range missile fire in the form of 50 long range missiles launched per round. That's some hefty sandpaper.

• Longbow (85 tons, BV 1618)

Total mechs: 28
Total tons: 1,615
Total battle value: 31,476

Game Report: Cthulhu: Death May Die - "Top of the Mourning"

The layout on my two foot by four foot table.

I don't normally do game reports on the blog, but with this month's flurry of Cthulhu: Death May Die painting, I thought it appropriate to make a brief mention of how playing the game for the first time actually went.

I solo-played the first episode that was included, Season 3 - Episode 1: "Top of the Mourning." In it, cultists are using a witch's ghost to bring an elder god to Earth. Specifically, they're bringing it to somewhere in Massachusetts because witches. Since the game lets you mix-and-match episodes with elder gods, I picked The Black Goat of the Woods (shown off in the last post). You can see the starting layout in the first picture. This setup required quite a bit of space, two and a half feet deep by almost three feet wide, so I needed to skew it to fit on my little folding table. The board and other bits took a long time to set up, not even including all of the cardboard-token-punching, card sleeving, and organization that I did before.

The All-American, outnumbered in a burning room!

Mr. Whisper deals the killing blow!

My chosen investigators were two of my painted mystery men: Mr. Whisper and the All-American. (In the game, they're the much less intimidating Saito and Steve.) Mr. Whisper got the "Impulsive Aggression" psychosis, which hurt him if he went a little crazy when there were no enemies in his space, and the All-American got Bloodlust, which required him to get at least two kills between psychotic breaks or he'd take stress. As it worked out, Steve only ever benefited from his bloodlust, since he always had at least two kills when it came up.

I was playing on a bit of an easy mode by having each character get one relic, but things went relatively smoothly. There are a bunch of rules to keep track of, but things started moving pretty quickly after I caught on. I managed to complete the ritual to make the Black Goat of the Woods spawn in while vulnerable, and despite a few close calls, I worked through the three stages of its health and Mr. Whisper managed to cut it down. Despite the many physical pieces and lengthy setup, the game was fun and felt pretty balanced. Playing with nice miniatures always feels good, too.

★★★★☆