Math Mathonwy

I always found the flatness of the original teddy rather unnerving - he looks wrong and I thought that was the intended effect.

I don't get it. If I hit my predator and my prey hits my predator, then my prey comes out on top. Add to that the fact that my predator gets points for hitting me thus likely resulting in him retaliating against me more than against my prey (his predator), that seems like a surefire way to give my prey the victory.

But the brilliant thing about them is that they don't need to be healbots that tie you down. I'd pay 5SS for a Reckless, Bayou Two Carding Tossed Slop engine even if they had no healing abilities at all. Try this: make an opposing model Appetizing, Companion Francois, charge and see him pulverize, well, anything. Even Masters die to that sort of thing.

I have done that and it works nicely enough. I mean, it is naturally going to be rather chaotic, but it works in that you can't hit your "prey" too hard or else they can't put pressure on your "predator" and then you're screwed (to use the terms of VTES CCG). It makes for an interesting dynamic and avoids the 2 against 1 situations (or at least makes one player in the alliance the clear benefactor), though it can result in "kingmaking" behaviour if one player gets beaten so badly that they can't win anymore so I wouldn't recommend it for any serious event.

You could always use both! Seriously, Sloppies are amazing enough that having four in a crew wouldn't be silly. Plus, the metal sculpts are some of the very best Gremlin sculpts, IMO. Very characterful and fun. BUT, if you're going for 100% (or close to that) plastic that means that you probably haven't gotten any Gremlins yet, so I would probably wait until the first box is released, check the then-current release schedule and then make an informed decision.

Francois is god. He is one of the most killy models in the game, in fact and a bargain for his cost. He is a bit fragile though actually plenty tough for his cost but once the opponent clues into his destructive potential he tends to seem fragile. Of course Lenny and Dirty Cheater help a lot, as do Slop Haulers. Oh, note that Slop Haulers and Pig Herders are amazing for 5SS. 3 AP, nice defense, nice offense - even forgetting their "real function" (healing and goading pigs) they are worth the 5SS as simple objective runners or fighters. Pigs are brilliant tie-up models, btw. Charge for 1AP and then Defensive Stance - their high Df keeps them around nicely.

Just note that cadwallon.com are recasters and don't own the rights to the minis. Also note that Rackham Goblins are 38mm scale.

Does this mean that you got him already? Pics would absolutely lovely!

She's kinda tiny, though. One, sorta crazy, possibility would be Lady Usher from Smog 1888: She is 48mm scale, though, so rather big, but OTOH the wedding dress kinda makes it work (she could be a monstrous patchwork underneath).

A female steampunk pugilist - pick two qualities and you can find a mini, pick all three and I'm afraid you need to wait for the officialWyrd mini. I know most minis ranges and spent quite a bit of time trying to find suitable ones and I'm pretty convinced that a female steampunk pugilist doesn't exist. The closest you can get is some fantasy football players but I would rather take one of my previous suggestions and accept that Toni is going to be a Tony until Wyrd releases the official mini. Of course you could take a female steampunk mini, clip off the weapons and replace fists with mechanical fists from some other mini.

Also, Youtube is full of minis painting tutorials for varying skill levels.

Have you seen ArcWorlde? They had a succesful Kickstarter campaign and the release of the minis is imminent. The rules will be in open beta this summer. L5R, to be precise.

For minis, how's this one: http://www.taban-miniatures.com/shop2/product_info.php?cPath=48_58&products_id=611 Or maybe this one: http://www.shop.microartstudio.com/archibald-armstrong-p-1029.html Or perhaps even this: http://www.shop.microartstudio.com/ogre-bruiser-p-900.html For Mouse, maybe this: http://www.shop.microartstudio.com/timmy-weasel-oconnor-p-365.html

o_O That's certainly a somewhat bold leap. "Hey Mack, refine these Story Encounters for Malifaux, please." "Sure thing! Here - have an army scale scifi game with dice." Unfortunately GW plastic is still quite a bit cheaper than Malifaux plastic. I mean, economics of scale enter into in a big way, naturally, and in an army scale game you could expect the minis to be cheaper, but they would need to be hugely cheaper for it to really work out. I dunno, I think that getting off a 28mm army scale game is a herculean task. Having said that, I wish Wyrd luck with the project and will be following it with interest for sure.

McCabe's box is kind of a bargain, though, so maybe not a fair comparison. But compared to the Flesh Construct with victim, the Lone Marshall is over double that. I mean, sure, the horse is beefier than the Flesh Construct and the Marshall looks cooler than the victim, but still that is rather a hefty price increase. I have to say that I don't like the comicality of Fuhatsu at all. Doesn't fit in with the look of the game - it's similar humor to the old first edition Flesh Construct. The Monks are boring and a bit weirdly proportioned but kinda OK. I really don't like the Flesh Construct's metal diaper nor Wyrd's love of extra models in the models. As for Teddy, I feel that the face isn't as good as the previous teddies' but maybe it's the render. Also a bit worried about the texture in the back - this is certainly a model that needs to be seen as a model as opposed to a render to fully judge. Finally, Killjoy. I really don't like the original so this is an improvement over that but I'm not all that thrilled with this one, either. He looks a bit boring but OTOH also fiddly. Compared to the two previous release sets, this month is certainly a disappointment but you can't please everyone all the time so no biggie, really.

While we're on the subject - how do I divide the quote into parts in order to answer to specific points? Pressing enter or whatnot in the quote just extends the quote box but doesn't cut it.

First of all, I really didn't mean to downplay the advice you gave - I felt it was useful and good. It's just that often that article is linked to in lieu of advice like yours since (it seems) many posters seem to consider that article so comprehensive that they simply have nothing left to add since, on the surface of it, the article is extremely in depth (though it isn't). But good as your advice was, it lacked pictures and those are, at least to me, super important in painting advice on such a grand scale like "painting skin" (an enormous topic). In small things like, I dunno, "how should I shade gold?", a simple textual answer (use black, then green or purple, then highlight in silver and finally tone it down with a rich brown wash) is sufficient but in big topics like this I'm personally unable to glean enough from just text. Though I freely admit that it may be a personal failing of mine but that's why actual tutorial articles are so valuable to me. I do agree with your assessment that non-white minis were very seldom seen even a decade back and maybe that is still affecting the dearth of tutorials but OTOH things like OSL or painting flames or sheer fabric or whatever were really seldom seen before yet nowadays you can find a dozen tutorials for those subjects. Finally, for the light highlights on dark skin - I must say that I've never seen a really top job on a mini that didn't do that (meaning that all that didn't do it would've benefited from doing it, IMO), but I am willing to be proved wrong. Of course I believe that there are far more "objective" facts to painting than is probably usual - most likely due to my rather extensive background on studying human vision, colour reproduction and how it is experienced by people (my Master's touched on those topics quite a bit). So with that in mind, I'm very willing to agree to disagree on this and note for the guys following this at home that Mako is a far, far better painter than me so my opinion should probably be taken with a grain of salt

Note that I edited my post a couple of times to explain my opinion in more depth (and posted another link to a good tutorial). But really, at one point I searched several painting forums for good tutorials on black skin and every single thread had links to that article (often several times in the same thread, even) and to no others. Jinn's article I found when I got desperate enough to comb French forums (and I don't even know French(!)) since I thought that maybe they had a tutorial other than that one super-annoying article. So yeah, it's colour swatches, but when someone asks for help, they get that and nothing else in 99% of the cases I've seen (as far as links to tutorials go, some threads naturally have posts with some advice on them like yours did). And to top it off, the colour swatches aren't all that good and certainly not practical. As for highlighting to light on all skin types - it really goes that way in real life: https://www.google.fi/search?q=black+skin&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=lKELU5rHEcThywPPuoK4Aw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1680&bih=925&dpr=1 Even extremely dark skinned people have extremely light highlights on their skin. Now, I can be persuaded that there is always an exception to every rule but I think that in this case that exception is extremely rare. Edit: also, I really need a more jovial avatar - I'm afraid that everything I say is coloured by that scowling zombie face. I need to paint a happy Malifaux mini...

I hate that tutorial so much! Seriously, it doesn't really tell you anything and it always, always gets linked to. Seriously, I've never seen a "how do I paint black skin" type of thread without a link to that blasted tutorial. I mean, on the surface it looks really in depth and well researched but it really doesn't tell you anything except give you color swatches from random pics (some with weird lighting screwing up the "recipe"). A useful skin recipe article would mention stuff like giving the skin enough variance and subtle shading through the use of purples and blues and reds or that you should always highlight skin up to very light to give it lustre. And so on and so forth. This one is a vastly superior tutorial for example: http://jinn.fr/tutoriaux-peinture-figurines/peau-bamaka-en-tabletop/ Light brown, Fenris Grey, Hormagaunt Purple, Purple and Black washes and Bronzed Flesh. Edit: sorry about the harshness but I'm just so fed up with that CMON skin tutorial since it seems that most people somehow think that it "solved" the problem of painting skin when that is one of the hardest things to paint well (since human eye is extremely good at discerning the realism of skin). That tutorial gives no practical advice but has seemingly made it so that getting good tutorials on the subject isn't easy since that has saturated the market, so to speak. Also, the photograph references are weird. The pic of the Japanese lady is extremely overexposed but the writer of the article slavishly follows the tones given by Photoshop. Not to even mention the "Romanian". Second, the paint suggestions are somewhat archaic. Vallejo is all good, sure, but suggesting seven different model colours for a single skin tone is silly. If I want to paint good I don't take seven shades of brown. I take three and then two other colours (like blue and red or something and then I mix. I understand a different approach, naturally, but just that there is scope for stuff other than that article. And there isn't a single picture of a model painted with those colours. Here's a second good tutorial on painting black skin that is actually helpful: http://studiomcvey.blogspot.ie/2009/09/seraphine-skin-tutorial.html

Minis games that I have played and own a force (for almost all I own several with some being really big) for in no particular order: Space Marine 2nd Edition, Titan Legions, and Epic: Armageddon WHFB 4th to 8th 40k 3rd to 6th Confrontation 2nd to 3.5, also Ragnarok and Nemesis Blood Bowl 2nd to 6th (the current one) Warmaster Infinity Alkemy Hell Dorado Necromunda Mordheim Eden Carnevale Malifaux 1st to 2nd Bubbling under (have a force/waiting for a KS to resolve but haven't yet played (a baby made hobby time become less)) are 1650 (amazing, amazing minis - the best there is, really) Pulp City Arcworlde Dreadball Sedition Wars Guildball (maybe) Smog 1888 ... I may have a problem.

They are recasts - in other words, illegal. Confrontation is currently out of production though Cool Mini or Not owns that rights for tabletop games and has been developing a new version. I wouldn't recommend Confrontation goblins, though, since they are way bigger scale. Rackham made their dwarves and goblins in something like 38mm scale.

That's a giant so probably can't be used as a Silent One proxy. It is a lovely model, though.

I like her but I can see why people would've liked a bit robust quality for her. Something like this, perhaps:

These are what I use (well, will use, once I get to Nicodem - did buy the box already however). 10 unique sculpts that work really well for Malifaux and the price is amazing. They are slightly smaller than Malifaux minis but for zombies that doesn't matter. The difference is really small.