VASA: Major Kali

May was an okay month for painting,  ut a crap month for getting the posts out with what I've been doing. I think I may be stretched a little with the number of blogs I'm trying to cover on top of all the usual life stuff that insists on getting in the way of painting and blogging. May was also the second instalment of the WM/H league at my FLGS. I managed to play two games in total and painted up two minis for that. That aside, I have been distracted some very old minis I dug out for Void.

In part because of the Viridian Wars blog, and in part just because they are beautiful, and yet simple figures, these are what have been taking up my painting time.My post on Kali on that blog can be read here. It goes into different details that just the painting, so go check it out.

I am very happy with the way she has turned out, especially the two brush blending on the purple, and the way her hair is in the same colours, but clearly separate. I was uninspired by the base she is on, so I have prepped another, and will try to re-base her shortly.

Void Miniatures: Viridians

I have been aware of Void since its inception. A game by i-Kore, a Scottish Company, who went through a host of games prior to this, and are still regenerating in a Doctor Who fashion, with new figures and games based on the same property. Now we're onto Urban War and Metropolis (with plans for a 10mm battle game), but I'll go into those in a later post. This post is the first of a few where I go through the minis I brought back from Scotland on my last trip, photographing those who have been painted, and cataloguing what I have to play with and still to paint.

The first minis I bought for Void when it came out back in 2000, were the Viridian Shock Marines. I really liked these minis, much more then the current sculpts. I think the stark lines and lack of complication really appealed to me. Certainly when compared to the GW overkill that was all the rage at the time.

 

The paint scheme here was clearly modelled on the scheme on the front of the book (see picture at top of the post). They are almost finished. For some reason I didn't finish off their belt buckles, only doing one of the four.The transfers on the shields are also from the Void range, although one is missing the number on the bottom of the shield, so I'll go back and add that. Then go over the transfer with some kind of matte agent to dull down the shine. Compared to my other basing at the time, the bases on these is pretty done. There aren't even any holes in the slots that I didn't fill in (like on some of the marines below), so all I'll need to do there is give them a dusting with some snow powder. Maybe a little ink here and there and we're done. Only 14 years after I started them!

The second batch of minis I bought for Void were a box of normal marines. The initial Void 1.0 rules allowed for all four factions to have access to the same basic troops (marines and prisoner troops) with the addition of a few faction specific troops on top. Later, they released faction specific marines, and the prison troops became the sole domain of the Junkers.

Of course, there is no means of camouflaging these guys, I went with bright yellow (obviously inspired by my Escher). The only real touching up that needs done here is to a couple of the based where I didn't fill in the slot. That may mean they all have to be rebased though, as I chucked all my flock rather than bring it on the plane.

With these two units, I was well placed to move on to a Viridian army, however this was not to be, as the bulk of the troops that took my fancy were from the VASA faction. So that was the one I went on to collect. More of them in a future post (however, I never painted them up in any way, so there will be a lot less nice pictures there).

The last Viridian miniature I have from Void, and not any of the later games, is a limited release miniature, Lieutenant Night Shade. A quick search online came up trumps on her rules too (which I thought I had lost. She can be found here.

 

So, the question is, shall I paint her up to match the marines, like the Shock Marines, or like my other Viridians for Urban War? 

For those that are interested, the latest version of the Void ruleset (Void 1.1) can be downloaded from the Scotia Grendel website here, for the princely sum of $0. They also still sell all the minis that were released for Void. There is also all the other game supplements that were released in pdf form. Go check it out. I remember it being fun.

Urban War: Viridians

This was what you could call an exercise in speed painting, this whole squad was painted in less than 3 hours. Somewhat of a record for me. I think even a record in that I have a whole squad of anything painted.

The reason for painting them is as follows. I bought a pot of P3 Battledress Green, with the aim of using it to finish off these guys, but I wanted to see if it dried to a khaki colour, or a darker green. This unit was sitting at the front of the cupboard, all based on their fancy bases,and undercoated ready to go, so I figured, why not? It's a fair enough colour to use for urban camouflage. 2 evenings later, and here we have a fully finished, (tabletop quality) Urban War Strike force.

In answer to my original query, I think it's a little too dark for the khaki colour I was going for, especially as my Infinity minis are undercoated in black (these were in white geso). Back tot he drawing board for that one.

I bought these about 1-2 years ago, along with a box of Syntha, with the intention of being able to run demo games for Urban War. I've been playing the Urban War family of games (including the predecessor Void) for quite a few years. In fact, I used to live around the corner from their bricks and mortar shop, when they had one in Edinburgh (nice way to spend too much money). I have a few painted minis (but not a completed force) sitting in my parents attic back in the old country, which I plan to pick up the next time I'm back over there, thereby having at least 4 basic forces to chose from. At least now one for those forces will be fully painted. That may be enough to attract the odd opponent.

More pics after the cut