Meet the PC: Hiruma Tokaji, Crab Clan scout

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

 This is another mini from one of my first gaming groups after getting discharged from the Navy, a Legends of the Five Rings game we did on Friday nights. I didn't know much about the setting or game system when I started, which led to my character breaking some egregious taboos (who knew it was a bad thing to tie unconscious ronin to corpses?).

Anyhoo, here's my character:

 This is Hiruma Tokaji. A Crab Clan samurai with few social graces, and fewer qualms doing whatever it took to complete a mission (assassinating enemy leaders, setting fire to an opposing army's food, sowing seeds of rebellion in their servant populations, the aforementioned corpse-tying debacle, etc). A very ends-justify-the-means type of character. He was an exceptionally tough, sneaky scout, so this mini seemed to fit well. Later in the game he ended up getting horribly burned by some fire shugenja, so the bandages across his face and arm ended up being completely appropriate.

~Muninn

Commission: Night Wolves Terminators, continued

Happy New Years all. Hope 2013 treats you well.

Since my last post about these Wolf Guard three weeks ago, I've made quite a bit of progress, but haven't quite wrapped up the last details. Here's how they looked last week.

All that's really left to be done is the weapons, the armor edging & wash, and a few details like the missiles & remaining gems. I'll also be adding a few yellow details here & there. Probably just kneepads, & a few edge triangles on the shoulder pads. After today I've got a four days off, so they'll definitely be done before week's end.

~Muninn

Meet the PC: Ikoma Ryo, Lion Clan Samurai

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. (Apologies, my wife was watching Sound of Music earlier)

Back in 2005, Yorrik & I met Joe, a fellow Wargamer, roleplayer, and GM extraordinaire. Shortly after we hit it off we started our first campaign: Legend of the Five Rings. Joe GMed three of us (myself, yorrik, & his wife) through a spiritworld adventure.

The first miniature I ever painted for this game was for Yorrik's character: Ikoma Ryo, a straight-laced, honorable lion clan samurai. Very by-the-book, very much a stick in the mud, very good guy to have your back.

There's no place in L5R for actual miniatures, but we found they were exceptionally useful to help flesh out battles, where character positioning is essential. This mini is from the old Clan War tabletop wargame. It went defunct years ago, but some of the minis are still in production through Valiant Miniatures. I don't remember what i had to do to get this mini, but I'm glad i did, because I haven't found another like it since.

This is actually the only character mini that I finished during the course of the game, but I did my best to get the details right. His left eye is milky, since the character lost it in a duel with a Tengu master (It's hard to make out in the picture). It still stands out as one of my favorites after all these years.

~Muninn

More Dark Angels from White Dwarf

Here are a few more shots from the January White Dwarf, featuring some better and before unseen shots of Asmodai and some of the First Company veterans.

The shots came from La Taberna De Laurana, and I cleaned them up a bit in photoshop

First, a better shot of the Chaplain, who is likely to be Asmodai. I noticed a detail shot that was described as Asmodai's shoulder pad, and it looked like it belonged to this guy.

 Then We have more Deathwing. I particularly like the Deathwing Apothecary. Makes a lot more sense than a Ravenwing Apothecary in my opinion. That helmet will be a popular conversion piece.

 Another few bits that will be great for conversions are the Knight's maces. I don't know for sure, but they look like they should be full of incense or similar material.

Finally, I kinda liked that there are still Watchers in the Darkness. Not sure if this is a new one or not, but I appreciate that they're still a part of it.

~Muninn

Roleplaying Miniatures

There are as many different reasons and ways to roleplay as there are people. Some are tacticians who work the battlefields, some are social gamers who revel in the interaction , others are storytellers who love interacting with the living tapestry of a narrative in motion.

For lack of a better term, I'm a mini-maker.

I heartily enjoy creating a character and then finding, modeling, & painting the perfect mini for it. Aside from the practical use of having a mini as a visual placeholder in tactical situations I like having a little avatar I can use as a focal point for my roleplay.

Usually during our first session we describe our characters in detail. Then I set to work trying to find the perfect mini for each of us. We'll be roleplaying, and I'll be mentally coming up with lists of possible reapers to pick from. I'm not sure why I enjoy it so much, but I do.

My work schedule is crap for my usual gaming group, so I haven't actually been able to game for a few months now. I was reminded how much I miss it when I sat down and painted this gal on Thursday.

This is an Alaine, Female Paladin from reaper. I've had the mini for almost seven years now, and originally bought it to portray a slightly off-balance fighter from a game led by Yorrik.

It also reminded me of just how many of these I've painted over the years. So I've decided to make it a weekly thing. Starting Monday, and every Monday thereafter, I'll start posting some of the RPG minis I've painted. I figure I'll start with the PC's, the minis that I or my friends have actually played, and move on from there. Yorrik might even get in on it too, since he also does this.

Hope you enjoy.

~Muninn

Dark Angels leaks in January White Dwarf

Some exciting pictures from this month's White Dwarf courtesy of the irreplaceable Naftka over at Faeit 212.

Here there are shots you can find there including the cover of the new Dark Angels codex!

The look is very in keeping with the Chaos Space Marines Codex from earlier this year. Very dynamic and features a single character.

The cover of the White Dwarf features the new Dark Angel unit: Deathwing Knights.

There are even better shots inside, including the new Belial miniature. As far as the box goes, it's clear that it's another 2-in-1 kit with bits to make one unit or the other. My question is how the hooded heads will look on Tactical marines. If they look good front to back, you can bet these will be go-to bits for conversions.

 

 It's hard to mention the Deathwing without bringing up their faster little brothers, the Ravenwing, and they make an appearance as well. Truthfully, I've never been keen on bikers. I don't like painting them, so they've never featured significantly in my lists. I like the look of these though, particularly the Apothecary, if for no other reason than the image of someone performing surgery while riding a motorcycle.

 The poorest picture of the batch is that of a likely interrogator chaplain. It looks like it took a few notes from the Dark Vengeance box, such as the smoke coming from the backpack. I'd like to see a better version of this shot.

Perhaps the most tantalizing new offering comes from the Dark Angels vehicles. Here we see two new Speeder variants, and a new flier. The first is clearly labeled as the "Land Speeder Vengeance" while the other is unnamed in the photos (It's rumored to have some shrouding ability, as seen in the BL books). No clue about the flier or its variant build.

~Muninn

If Literature were Chapters

Warhammer & Warhammer 40k are rife with puns, homages, and word play. There are plenty of overt references to literature in the universe, such as the Primarch of the Night Lords, Konrad Curze, (which refers to Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness) and Inquisitor Karamazov (Dostoyevsky's the Brother's Karamazov). Another subtler one is the invocation of the Flesh Tearer's Chapter: "For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my battle-brother eternal."  Which is a slightly tweaked line from Shakespeare's Henry V.  

With such a huge field of source material to pull from I thought I'd try my hand at creating a few. Mind you, I haven't necessarily read these, or agree with them (see Atlas Shrugged), but when has being ill-informed ever stopped me?

There's just so much source material for this I might have to do another literature chapters group, but for this post I'm going with some bad-boy Chapters. Now with Chaos! 

White Boars:
Literature reference: Major, the pig from George Orwell's "Animal Farm"
Colors: White with Pink trim
Concept: Once an upstanding chapter, the army was thrown into discord by the passing of their Chapter Master. An unworthy heir, Captain Napoleon took command, and over the course many years, his subtle tyranny led his battle brothers into the embrace of Slaanesh.

Atlas Marines:
Literature: Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"
Colors: Gold with Red & Black accents
Concept: Originally sent to guard against Ork incursion in the galactic north, these marines have all but pulled away from the auspices of the Imperium. Chapter Master Rearden Steele felt the bureaucratic nonsense of the Imperium limited their operations, and now pursue their duty while the missives from Terra go unanswered.   

Oracles of Wrath:
Literature: Alexandre Dumas' "Count of Monte Cristo"
Colors: Dark blue & Copper
Concept: Once allies of the Bel-Shammon Craftworld, their second company was betrayed during a desperate fight against the Dark Eldar. The Oracles of Wrath have since taken it upon themselves to destroy the Bel-Shammon, and have extended their rage to all Eldar, using the prescient abilities of their Chief Librarian Dantes to suss out locations of Eldar activity.

Bargainers:
Literature:  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "Faust"
Colors: Blue & White
Concept: Created to combat the influence of Khorne cults around the Eye of Terror. They turned to the master of hidden knowledge, Tzeentch, for the power to find and destroy all the followers of Khorne. It is notable however, that for every demolished cult of the blood god, Tzeentch followers seems to take it's place.

Prometheans:
Literature: Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"
Colors: Purple with White lightning
Concept: Created during the 13th founding, for an unknown purpose, little is known about this chapter.  They are rarely seen, but they appear to have a particular distaste for the Adeptus Mechanicus, and are known for raids against outposts tasked with creation, testing, and development of gene-seeds. They are almost never seen without their armor, but those who have speak of horrifying visages of skin that appears to be wrought of many bodies.