Argentbadger

I really like your style of painting. I don't have any constructive criticism, or suggestions to improve, or indeed anything useful to day apart from 'carry on with the good work'.

I like them a lot. The first picture is a touch dark, but the individual pictures have plenty of light. My only criticism is that the photos make the bone and armour look quite close to each other in tone, though I am not sure what you might do to improve the contrast. The bases are also very nice. I'd say that the middle one is my favourite.

@Viruk: Thanks, as ever for the kind words and constructive criticism. I've never considered putting a wash over the metallics, as I felt that it would make the overall effect too dark. Based on your recommendation I may now give it a try. This is Kang. There are many like him (at least if you believe the internet, which has a huge love for this guy, though there are relatively few pictures out there), but this one is mine. He is certainly a tremendous bad-ass on the tabletop, dealing out terrific damage and requiring considerable effort to put down. I must admit he’s been in almost all of my Ten Thunders crews since putting the miniature together. Despite this, I feel like I still have a lot to learn with Kang as there are several of his abilities I almost never remember to use (especially Fight With Me!) and others (like his potentially amazing You Can Try… trigger) I haven’t even managed to use at all. So, sadly for my friends, it looks like Kang is here to stay in my crews, at least Jakob Lynch and Mei Feng’s crews. The Hungering Darkness especially likes to make Kang permanently Brilliant on turn 1 with his otherwise superfluous Casting Expert action so he can take wounds for Feast or Famine and potentially leap out of the dying Kang when the other crew finally gets him. I deliberately kept Kang to a simple paint scheme without too much adornment as I felt like he wouldn’t be the sort to wear gaudy colours. I actually had considerable trouble selecting colours that went well with him but eventually selected green for his trousers to stop the overall effect from being too monochromatic. I’m not really satisfied with the final effect on the apron, though of course it’s much more palatable at tabletop distance.

It partly depends on the context of the slow to die action that is causing trouble for you. Bete Noir’s disappearing trick can be hampered by Witchling Stalkers as stated by Ausplosions, and Sonnia Criid’s Advanced Counterspell also puts an end to it. In fact, I might be willing to trade almost any two cards to get rid of a monster like Bete permanently. If the problem is slow to die melee attacks wrecking you, then just fall back on that Guild staple: shooting them to death before they get near enough to matter. And, as various other posters had pointed out, paralyse and kill effects also conveniently get round the entire problem. For a lot of models, you might just have to take it on the chin. I have certainly had games where I could have taken a convoluted route to prevent a slow to die action, but it was more efficient just to kill the target there and then and live with the consequences. Even in the case of a slow to die soulstone user healing up, it is usually worth putting an attack in to force them to use up a soulstone (and risk the black joker).

There doesn't really seem to be a perfect place on the forum for this, so I'll post here. I want to say thank you to Wyrd's customer support team for getting my replacement Masters of the Path box out to me in less than two weeks. Considering that it had to cross the Atlantic and also that (since the box contains toys) it isn't exactly urgent, I am very happy with that delivery time. Good work, whoever you are!

@i_was_like_you: I wish I'd thought of magnetising the skeleton for Jakob Lynch, that's a great idea. Instead I suppose that I'll use for a Claim Jump marker or something. For Marcus, in the fluff he is meant to become super-buff by going to Malifaux, so perhaps his 'urbane professor' mode is more modestly proportioned like Lynch. Sadly, my painting skills are not up to Lord Shaper's standards so these particular miniatures are even less likely to be mistaken for before-and-after shots. @Tokaji, Lord Shaper: In a year, when the 'Marcus is not amused' meme has spread all across the internet, I will be able to say: I was there, man. Here are my painted Rail Workers for my Ten Thunders crews. They come in the Mei Feng box, and unlike the Illuminated from Jakob Lynch’s box, are actually part of the Ten Thunders faction, allowing them to be used by more than just one of my masters. I am not really sure how to use them though, as they are rather ‘jack of all trades and master of none’, being fairly hard to kill (via their Metal on Metal trigger) and fairly dangerous in melee with a choice of nasty options on their mechanical limb. At 5 soulstones each though, they feel a bit steep for what they can do in general. With Mei Feng they really start to shine as they can act as jump points for her Rail Walk spell (or would do, if I actually managed to use it effectively for once) and can also put Burning Tokens on the Rail Golem in early turns to get it ready for the Pain Train ability. At the moment I can’t see myself really wanting to spend 5 soulstones to put them in a crew that wasn’t led by Mei Feng. The Rail Workers were a lot of fun to paint as they have a nice contrast between their skin and the various replacement parts. I couldn’t get a skin recipe that I was really happy with so in the end I just left it at this slightly dusky tone. I painted this chap first, mainly because he has the least inspiring pose. I guess he’s meant to be hefting his mallet, but it looks to me more like he’s wincing at some twinge in his back from too much heavy lifting. This pose is much nicer, looking forward at his soon-to-be-smited foes and generally being a bit beefy. Like the first, I painted this Rail Worker in slightly muted tones as I felt that they were the sort to just do the job without fuss or gaudiness. At this point, I got bored with muted tones and went for bright primary colours instead. Much more fun, even if he does look like a Rail Worker on his way to a pirate themed fancy dress party (and doing an impersonation of Frankie Howerd by the looks of that face).

Here is Mei Feng’s totem, the Emberling. It’s meant to arise from the dying ashes of steam engine furnaces (and hence be rather dark) but I like painting bright colours so mine is more like some kind of fire spirit. I’ve been fairly happy with its performance in games so far; mostly using Link to attach itself to either Mei Feng or Kang and pushing them around a bit with Seismic Punch or protecting my crew with Vent Steam. Actually playing with a totem has taken a bit of getting used to as I don’t own any for my Guild masters and the Hungering Darkness, while technically a totem, does not play like one at all. I’m finding it a highly amusing piece, and while I suspect that it has its place and needn’t be taken every game, it has warranted a spot with Mei Feng every time I’ve played her so far.

That is a great idea for a conversion. How much sculpting have you ended up doing?

I really like the cotton wool on Yan Lo's base, it gives just the right feeling to him. The dress on Chiaki looks good to me too. If you're mainly painting to have cool looking crews on the tabletop (i.e. rather than to win awards for your great painting skill) then I would suggest that you to look at her again at tabletop distance and see if you still feel like she needs more work.

@Lewkas: Thanks very much. I hope that the inspiration takes you to paint and that you post pictures on the internet. Feel free to link them here if you wish. I'm interested in the garish carpets idea. I did consider something casino-themed for the bases but decided against it as I wanted something that could link all my Ten Thunders miniatures if I end up mixing and matching crews in games. Here are the final miniatures I own themed for Jakob Lynch‘s crew: Beckoners. They hold the dubious honour of being the first ‘ladies of negotiable affection’ in Malifaux who are not also zombies. To make up for that shocking lapse, they instead are evil sorts whose souls are owned by the Hungering Darkness and do his bidding by the medium of enticing in potential new victims. The internet appears to love them and I can see why as they really provide an excellent amount of board control and can be quite survivable once all their potential assailants have been made Brilliant. I’ve also found that a game with Beckoners on both sides gets silly very fast as everyone is suddenly on double-negative flips to do anything at all. The red Beckoner suffered an unfortunate fate early in her career as a demonic harlot as I crushed her under my knee during a game played on the floor. My attempts to rebuild her were not entirely successful, notably on the shoulder join where I couldn’t get a nice line up of the pieces. Other than that, I find myself wondering whether a different colour for the top and the skirt might have looked better. I prefer the sculpt of the blue Beckoner overall and I feel like this is one of the miniatures which benefitted from Wyrd’s move to plastic as a metal version of this would have ended up with arms like a gorilla instead of the thin limbs here. The braid (which is not part of the back) strikes me as a potential weak point but has impressed me with it’s durability so far.

The skin colour looks really good. What is your recipe? I have not had a lot of success getting a skin tone that looks satisfactory on my Rail Workers.

That Watcher looks very good. But with such a small miniature, and such an impressive base, I feel like the eye is drawn more to the column and less to the Watcher. I second Balestormfire about the posing bringing life to the miniature.

@SpiralngCadavr, Wings: thanks very much. @Viruk: Thanks for the kind words. Playing Malifaux has tempted me to put a bit more work into each miniature (compared to previous times playing large army battles), but I am still very much aiming for tabletop standard. One of my aims in posting these miniatures is to show potential 'converts' to Malifaux that it is not necessary to be an amazing painter to put painted toys on the table. Here is Mr Graves, the mighty bouncer of Jakob Lynch’s Honeypot Casino and birthday present from my geek friends. Unlike most of the other named characters in Malifaux, he doesn’t appear to actually have a first name (either that or his first name is ‘Mr’). He looks like he ought to be a tremendous monster in melee, but in the few games I’ve tried him so far he’s been shot without achieving a great deal. This is mainly due to my poor play. I decided to go for the worlds simplest method of white for his shirt. I painted it white, gave the whole thing a black wash, then drybrushed it heavily again in white. It’s far from amazing up close but it looks surprisingly good at tabletop distance. In fact, so much so that he won an award for best painted miniature at the Bayou Brawl II (though partly this was because most people had already won awards for their painting and hence didn’t put an entry in).

I really like the way that Chiaki's base and clothes go together. It's your selection of colours in the Ashigaru that I think really makes them work well; could you post a picture of them in a group?

I always enjoy when there is a new post in this log, as it is so eclectic that almost any miniaure could pop up. I love your painting stye, and I am in awe of your tremendous throughput.

I think that looks really good. Chiaki's skin seems to lack a bit of depth. Is that the photography, or would a wash/ink help to bring it out more? I'm a particular fan of Yan Lo's robes.

Aramoro, Forkbanger, Furycat and I made the trip out to Livingston for another Malifaux tournament, the Bayou Brawl II. As a brawl, it was clear that this wasn’t going to be too serious since all sort of ludicrous combinations become possible (notably the ‘auto mannequin replacement’ trick for Ramos and Colette), though keeping the game size relatively small (at 30SS) made sure that there were some tricky choices to be made in crew selection. Furycat had only played 3 games of Malifaux ahead of the tournament, all of them against me, so it was going to be an interesting day for him. He was using my Guild forces so I got to try out my Ten Thunders crews; I am still somewhere between the ‘remembering what is says on the card’ and ‘working out how to get anything done’ stage with these guys. Game 1: Ten Thunders (me) vs Neverborn (Joe) Strategy: Master of the Hill Schemes: Ten Thunders: Hold Out, Kill Protegé (the Illuminated), Infiltrate Malifaux Neverborn: Spread the Light, Seeds of Betrayal, Frame for Murder (one of the Beckoners) Crews: Ten Thunders: Jakob Lynch, Hungering Darkness, Mei Feng, Emberling, Kang, 2 Beckoners, 2 Rail Workers Neverborn: Jakob Lynch, Hungering Darkness, Zoraida, 2 Beckoners, 2 Silurids, Illuminated, Insidious Madness I pretty much made the decision before the tournament just to stick with a single crew for all three games as I don’t really know what any of the Ten Thunders miniatures do. Loosely, my thought process went: 1) it’s a brawl, so use two masters 2) Jakob Lynch wants Brilliant miniatures, so take some of them 3) Mei Feng wants constructs, and I only have Rail Workers and 4) Kang is pretty amusing. I took Hold Out as it synergised well with the strategy, and Kill Protegé because the Illuminated is at its best in close combat (where I can kill it). Infiltrate Malifaux was just because I’ve never tried it before and I always figure I might as well have more potential VPs. Joe asked me to choose his schemes for an achievement, so I tried to select ones that I didn’t usually see. Turn 1: We both have Lynch, Hungering Darkness and Beckoners, so this might get confusing. Joe’s Beckoners move each other and the Illuminated around a bit with Come Hither (we forget that they should be on negative flips against each other thanks to Don’t Bite the Hand). I get Mei Feng right in the middle of the pack and put up Vent Steam to stop line of sight to most of my crew, and the Emberling links to Kang and pushes him forward with Seismic Punch. If I ever get into the alcopops business, I will make a drink called Seismic Punch. On the left flank the Silurids are moving around fast, but one of them is brought into my crew by a Beckoner using Come Hither and Kang duly beats it to death. Zoraida summons a Voodoo Doll (of course), conduits to one of my Beckoners and gets it to charge Jakob Lynch for a couple of wounds. When I get it back under control, I reel in the Illuminated with Come Hither and my Hungering Darkness eats it to complete Kill Protegé. Joe wins initiative and his Hungering Darkness charges Mei Feng, soulstones his attack flip out of sight and drops the red joker on the damage flip. Judicious use of soulstone from Mei Feng keeps her clinging onto life even after a Rail Worker is forced to charge her with Heed My Voice. Mei Feng gets revenge by putting down the Hungering Darkness with some help from the Emberling. In some ways it was not ideal to attack a model that had already activated, but I didn’t have any other great targets as most of the rest of the Neverborn were lurking outside my engagement range. Also, I thought I was likely to lose Mei Feng so I decided I might as well get some use out of her. Indeed a Silurid is next to try and finish her, but I am able to fend off more attacks. Various combinations of Beckoners push / pull each other around the table to minimal effect. My Hungering Darkness mauls one of them, and my Rail Workers put down the other Silurid. I score a VP for the strategy. It’s all getting a bit thin now for the Neverborn in the centre. My Hungering Darkness kills the Insidious Madness, and out comes Joe’s Hungering Darkness. Mine isn’t able to finish off his, so his Hungering Darkness moves over and kills off my Jakob Lynch. Dang it. So my Hungering Darkness is removed from play too, despite having taken no wounds. He then casts Heed My Voice on Kang who beats up a Rail Worker rather severely. My Beckoner puts down his surviving Beckoner to reduce the number of Brilliant models that Joe’s Hungering Darkness could come out of if I can kill it again. Zoraida summons a fresh Voodoo Doll (which conduits my Rail Worker) but somehow fails to Obey him to do anything. Kang puts the Hungering Darkness down again by throwing hot coals at the monster, and I score another VP for Master of the Hill. The game is about to end due to timing so I mostly just cluster my models down under the cover of Vent Steam from Mei Feng and the Emberling. Zoraida and Jakob Lynch make a run for my deployment zone (to deny me Hold Out) but are stopped by the clock. I end up taking a 9 – 0 victory, getting full points for my schemes and 3 of a possible 4 for the strategy. Game 2: Ten Thunders (me) vs Neverborn (Barry) Strategy: Supply Wagon Schemes: Ten Thunders: Bodyguard (Jakob Lynch), Stake a Claim, Save Face Neverborn: A Mother’s Love, Steal Relic, Frame for Murder (Beckoner) Crews: Ten Thunders: Jakob Lynch, Hungering Darkness, Mei Feng, Emberling, Kang, 2 Beckoners, 2 Rail Workers Neverborn: Lilith, Nekima, Beckoner, Cherub, 6 Terror Tots Once again, I took Bodyguard and Stake a Claim because I find them fairly easy to score on. I’m still trying to get the best out of Save Face but it seemed unlikely that this game would be anything other than an unholy blood bath in the middle so I thought the strategy might end up being ignored for most of the time. Like Joe, Barry asked me to choose his schemes for an achievement, apparently I wasn’t paying attention on the Frame for Murder scheme. Nekima does something to the Terror Tots which will apparently turbo charge them, then flies really far forward. Far enough, in fact, for a Beckoner to bring her into attack range with Come Hither. Barry does a great job protecting Nekima with an Illusionary Forest from Lilith, but I am still able to get Mei Feng into her with a bit of Rail Walking and a Jackhammer kick. After I had done this, I realised that I was really reliant on winning the initiative for turn 2 as otherwise Mei Feng was trapped away from the rest of my crew with a raging murder machine. Sadly, I don’t win initiative, and Nekima unleashes her full fury upon Mei Feng. I use soulstones like they’re going out of date and Mei Feng somehow survives on a couple of hit points (note: Barry remembered some additional ability after the turn that might have been enough to finish the job so perhaps I just just lucky here). Mei Feng then turns Nekima into a fine red mist and Rail Walks back to my lines looking rather battered and bruised. As in the first game, I was using this activation to play for activation control and force the Neverborn to come into my engagement range. Lilith and a Young Nephilim charge into the Hungering Darkness but leave it on a single wound. The Cherub then goes for a very long shot to Transposition Lilith out of danger but it doens’t come off. I use a Beckoner to move Hungering Darkness out of melee with Lilith so he doesn’t get killed off by Black Blood (actually, as he’s dual faction Neverborn I think he would have been immune anyway…). A Rail Worker then drops two outrageous hits on Lilith with Implacable Assault, red joker-ing the second to kill her off in highly improbable style. Barry tries a cheeky move getting a sacrificial Tot near to Mei Feng so that the nearby Young Nephilim can move into Black Blood range due to brood as I inevitably kill the little chap. Kang swats him out of melee with a spade, but Mei Feng is using up a lot of soulstones just staying alive. One of the Young Nephilim charges Mei Feng but still can’t quite seal the deal, while the other one kills off the Hungering Darkness. Kang kills off a convenient Brilliant Terror Tot and Hungering Darkness pops right back into the game, scaring a few Nephilim for good measure. A Terror Tot does eventually kill the Hungering Darkness again, but by the end of the turn I’ve finished off the last of the Nephilim. Of note is my forgetting about Frame for Murder and getting Mei Feng to kill the Beckoner as part of spree where she also took out two Terror Tots. We run through the activations for the rest of the game and I get a 9 – 2 victory. Game 3: Ten Thunders (me) vs Outcasts (Jonny) Strategy: Land Grab Schemes: Ten Thunders: Alternate Route, Breakthrough, Frame for Murder (Hungering Darkness) Neverborn: Assassinate (Mei Feng), Grudge (Kang), Eye For An Eye () Crews: Ten Thunders: Jakob Lynch, Hungering Darkness, Mei Feng, Emberling, Kang, 2 Beckoners, 2 Rail Workers Outcasts: Hamelin, Leveticus, Nix, Obedient Wretch, 2 stolen, 3 canine remains With 6 of the possible schemes already used up, I was way outside my comfort zone here, and pretty much just chose whatever seemed amusing. Alternate Route is always entertaining as you build a little railway across the board, and I thought that Breakthrough went fairly well with it. As for Frame for Murder, I figured that since both Hamelin and Leveticus are so powerful there was a decent chance that they would put the final blow on Hungering Darkness. Various members of Jonny’s crew attack each other or are sacrificed to turn into Rats, Waifs of just generally into corpse counters for later use. My Rail Workers get started on my Alternate Route Scheme. This turn is where I make a lot of big mistakes. Leveticus uses up a lot of soulstones on Mei Feng, who is forced to use a lot of her own to stay alive. My Hungering Darkness charges Nix but achieves very little due to Nix’s aura of negative flips. I then spend most of the turn trying to put Nix down with no effect as he mauls my crew and then is Obedienced by Hamelin to do it all again (I hate Obedience, as it is like Obey but with all the restrictions removed). In the end, Mei Feng and Hungering Darkness are both down. I should have just left Nix alone and concentrated on getting some points for my schemes, or moved up for position next turn. A Stolen sacrifices Levi since he forgot to die. Turn 3, Nix attempts to charge Kang but gets held up on a Rail Worker’s disengaging strike, so Hamelin just casts Obedience until he gets away and kills Kang. Jakob Lynch finally shoots Nix to death while my Rail Workers put down more Alternate Route Markers. Hamelin casts Obedience on my Rail Workers to attack each other and move them out of position to put down the last Alternate Route marker but they don’t die quickly enough to stop me from achieving it. Levi kills one one of them, who finishes off the last Canine Remains with his Slow to Die action. I get desperate and make a Rat Brilliant with a Beckoner and then kill it to bring out Hungering Darkness on a single wound. Embarrassingly, a rat then kills the big beastie. In turn 5, Leveticus finishes off the last Rail Worker and smites Jakob Lynch with a couple of Unnatural Wastings. Time is called but with only two Beckoners against an almost untouched crew, it is all over anyway. Jonny takes the win 5 – 2. I had a great time but I didn’t really put up the fight I was hoping for as I was fixated on getting Nix and he just mangled me. It didn’t help that I lost initiative in every turn, allowing Nix to get his negative flip aura running before I could attack him. The scores are in and I come in third behind Jonny and Gareth who made a great foray into the world of Malifaux. As a group, we made out pretty well as I also got best painted single for Mr Graves (who I haven’t yet taken a photo for) and Forkbanger took best painted crew and an award for getting the most achievements from a list. So all in all a good day of playing with toy soldiers with three fun, close run games and plenty of hilarity all round. Thanks to Joe, Barry and Jonny for three great games and to David KS for doing all the work to organise the whole thing.

I really like the style of these reports.

I can't help you on the specifics of the match up, or on the detailed uses of the minis you have, but I can provide you with more direct advice: play more games. There are two tournaments on this weekend (16th and 17th March 2013) in Scotland so if you can get to one or the other it'll give you 3 games against people who are very friendly and helpful. That way you can find out what works for you. You can look in the events subforum, or get in touch with DavidKerrSmith for the tournament on Saturday in Livingston or Grumhelden (Barry) for the one on Sunday in Glasgow.

Welcome to Malifaux. A Sonnia box goes for around £20 depending on your choice of retailer, so it's up to you whether the extra money is worth it for an exquisite paint job. Sonnia is a lot of fun to play and Witchling Stalkers are hilarious so it would be a good starting point for the game.

I am somewhat behind the times, but that Kaeris is excellent. Great painting!

@Viruk: Thanks very much; that is high praise coming from a painter of your talents. Regarding the plastics, I think that they probably affect the middle ground painters most. Those who are very skilled (yourself, for example) can work around the lack of depth. Meanwhile, painters who only do so to 'put a painted crew on the table' (with a comparatively low skill, like me) don't feel the difference so much anyway. However, those who try very hard to get the best quality paint job, but don't quite have the skill to get it, will find the frustration most. Meanwhile, here is the final member of the Dark Debts boxed set, Mr Jakob Lynch. He is the owner of the Honey Pot casino in Malifaux and general pawn of the Hungering Darkness. His crew is themed around the Brilliance mechanic, but he doesn’t have anyway of handing it out himself, nor can he get it (thanks to his Never Touch The Stuff rule). In practice, I don’t find that he does a great deal apart from hide at the back and try not to die so that the Hungering Darkness doesn’t disappear at an awkward time. A local player (who is much better at the game than me) seems to have considerable success using him to interact with markers in strategies like A Line in the Sand or Destroy the Evidence, so perhaps that is the route I should take. He is meant to have some sort of weird magic skeleton thing coming out of the palm of his hand, conjuring trick-style. But that looked weird so I resorted to the Wife Test, which showed that it looked better with the open hand. Overall, I think that this is the miniature where I am most happy with the painting job. It is still somewhat lacklustre compared to other local talents of course. I decided early on that I wanted him to wear a cream coloured suit, and after a bit of thinking about it, I realised that the dark brown skin tone would be the perfect complement. Sadly, it does make his weakly-sculpted facial hair even more difficult to pick out, but in practice I only see the back of him on the table top.

I think that the answer here is going to be the ‘one you have the most experience with’. The Guild masters all have lots of little tricks to get the most out of, and you’ll get a lot more mileage if you know them well rather than picking the master that a bunch of strangers on the Internet say is the best. For my part, I would (and did) choose Sonnia Criid as she has answers to a lot of problems in the game between blasts, Advanced Counterspell, magic weapons, healing tricks, card discard tricks, creation of new models, creating cover etc. If you’re interested in my experience, it can be found here. Part of my rationale for that choice was that I know Sonnia much better than any of the other Masters. Overall, I think that a case could be made for any of the six options.

Come on, East-of-Scotland Malifools! Come out and play! I’m looking forward to trying out my new Ten Thunders stuff, and to playing in my first ever brawls (unless I actually practice in this format, of course). Have the strategies been decided upon yet?

@ Lord Shaper, Bobzilla and Viruk: Thanks very much. I have no compaints about the other entries to the marker competition being voted higher than mine, as they were better both in execution and theme than mine. On the other hand, I've already used my treasure hunt marker again, which I think will be rare for Valentine-themed, master-specific tokens in general. Here are my versions of the Illuminated. In the fluff they’re souls who’ve been corrupted / subsumed / addicted to the Brilliance, the game effect / addiction metaphor purveyed by the Hungering Darkness. I find them a trifle pricy for what they do at 6SS, but I think it’s because you’re paying for a tool box of abilities, not all of which are going to be useful in every game. I certainly enjoy using them, but I don’t see that I would care to put all three in many crews. This crouching chap had a choice of left arms, either a claw to match the right arm or these tentacles. I opted for the tentacles to show the chaotic mutation he’s undergoing, rather than the symmetrical option of two claws. I chose to paint the hardened Brilliance (i.e. the mutated bits) in a very non-naturalistic style, which hopefully emphasises the difference from the normal skin. Also, and more importantly, I like painting brightly coloured miniatures. The second Illuminated is being eaten by, or possibly vomited on by, a miniature version of the Hungering Darkness. He’s floating up with only his tiptoes on the ground, which of course made him a total pain to pin onto his base. Like the real Hungering Darkness, this one had outrageous gaps which required copious Milliput to fill. I painted it the same colour as the big one to link them in my mind. The final Illuminated is normal apart from having tentacles instead of a face. This is also the ‘alternative’ head, the other one having a distended maw which I didn’t think looked very good to paint. This model really shows up how smooth the Malifaux plastics are – I didn’t really manage to achieve much depth on the skin in particular. My first attempt had the bodice in yellow but it didn’t look right so I went over it with red; a much easier colour to work with.