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Argentbadger's Malifaux Miniatures


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I really like some of the skin tones you have going on. Making Jakob dark definitely works well and gets rid of the colonel Sanders look. I have to paint this crew up next so it's good to get a bit of inspiration. I ended up making up some casino floor themed bases which are jewel inlayed white tiles which look kinda cool. I'll post some picks up when I get around to painting them up.

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@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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The Wife Test, nice. I have mixed feelings about his skeletal card dealer, so I've magnetized mine. I leave it on until I've used Mulligan, then poof, it's gone.

The dark skin tone with the cream suit looks quite nice. Although, what it makes me think of is Marcus, earthside as a professor, before becoming the Tarzan master of beasts and chimera magic here in Malifaux.

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The dark skin tone with the cream suit looks quite nice. Although, what it makes me think of is Marcus, earthside as a professor, before becoming the Tarzan master of beasts and chimera magic here in Malifaux.

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Original model/photo of Marcus belongs to Nix

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@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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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Very nice paintjobs on these, clean and with good color choices. My favorite part are the blue jeans of the first rail worker - I think you really nailed it there. The only thing I'd still work on are the metallics as the highlights there look a bit rough. I'd probably go over them with a light wash of black or brown.

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@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.

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Perma-brilliant Kang for the win! He makes a wonderful early game snack for HD, and works well with a Stitched Together's Creepy Fog. Charges out and wreaks havoc on a model that didn't even know it was vulnerable.

You Can Try...is one of the best names for a df trigger. I hold high :rams just for such an occasion. Even the low ones can come in handy against some attacks, especially late in the turn when the opponent no longer has anything worthwhile to cheat in.

The Workers' Champion is another good ability to remember. Also of the same opinion of throwing him into so many 10T lists. In a McCabe vs Hoffman scrap, he took down a Warden, allowing the rest of the nearby models to get extra killy on the other constructs. Then Hoff blew up the resulting scrap, taking down Ototo, reducing Kang to 1 wd, while McCabe just marveled at the fireworks. Next turn, Kang healed back up to 5.

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@i_was_like_you: There is a lot to like about Kang on the table, and I'm particularly enjoying that there is (a bit) more to him than just hitting stuff with a spade. I'm still getting to grips with my Ten Thunders miniatures so every game is a fun learning opportunity.

Mei Feng is the master thematically linked to the Rail Crew, and so far seems to make very good use of the miniatures that come in the box. She is pretty hilarious with a great potential threat range if I manage to get my Rail Walker jump points set up in a useful way. I am still learning to get the best out of her impressive list of abilities (notably, I never remember to cast Overheat) but even just the ‘headline’ actions of Rail Walker into melee with something, triggering the Jackhammer Kick attack from Terminus then bouncing around beating people up with the Tiger’s Fury trigger on her Tiger Claws is both effective and amusing. I find that I am far too aggressive with her and end up basically burning my entire set of soulstones to keep her alive if I don’t win initiative. Still, a recent game of Contain Power against Furycat’s Viktorias crew (not an easy strategy to score on) had me get the full four points for killing both Viks with Mei Feng so that was better than expected. Sadly, Mei Feng was then stabbed to death by a pesky Ronin.

I opted not to use the exploding box that she’s supposed to be based on and just pinned her to a suitable bit of scenery on my resin base to keep that kung fu pose. The skin tone is still not completely satisfactory but after a while I realised that I would have to go to much more significant lengths to get the results I wanted, and decided just to move on to the next project. In theory I might return and rework the skin later, but in practise I doubt it. I have at least been back to tidy up some of the little issues that are apparent in these photos but less obvious in real life.

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How'd I never see this thread before?

Really neat stuff you have in here. I especially like your consistent use of a specific color (that creamy yellow you use for leathers). Reminds me a whole lot of myself and my orange goodness. :P

I especially like the Criid crew at the beginning. Kind of odd that that color is fading from your newer models. *looks at Mei*.

Did you dry brush your metals to achieve that look? Looks pretty interesting.

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@Evilbleachman: Thanks very much for the kind words. The metals are indeed simply silver drybrushed over black. I am going to try putting a black wash over the next set I do based on a suggestion from Viruk as it might smooth the colour a little. Though in some cases I’d say that the rough look is fairly appropriate looking.

The leather colour comes and goes based on the individual miniature, so it’s more prevalent in some cases. Sonnia (and Samael, since they have the same legs) have a lot of straps and belts so they get a lot of it. Mei Feng, for example, doesn’t have anything that I thought would be appropriate as her belt is more like a cloth sash than a leather belt.

My Guild were painted largely with a consistent colour selection, partly because I wanted to tie them together and partly because I was still in the army-painting mindset when I did them. The Ten Thunders miniatures are so diverse I couldn’t think of a good way to link them with painting so I’ve put consistent bases on them instead. As it turns out, they actually are linked quite nicely on the table top as they are the only ones painted in my style. For the most part, the people I play against fall into one of two camps: either they are amazing painters who outclass my work by a huge margin, or they don’t bother at all and just play with bare metal.

@Viruk: Thanks a lot. I’m really enjoying painting these Wyrd plastics, and the skirmish nature of Malifaux means that I can feel that I am making a lot of progress.

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  • 4 weeks later...

So a little while ago, I bought the Masters of the Path box set as I thought that Yan Lo had some fairly amusing mechanics in-game (after playing a bit, I can confirm that this is the case). When I opened it up, looking forward to sticking the miniatures together, it turned out to actually contain the Relic Hunters sprue and cards. I put this to Wyrd’s mis-pack service and they very promptly sent me out a replacement box but this meant that I had effectively acquired Lucas McCabe’s box for free. It seemed churlish not to make use of this stroke of fortune so I eagerly assembled and painted the Wastrels. They are absolutely lovely miniatures with good sculpts, lots of character and very enjoyable to paint. The obvious Clockwork Orange nod is also a nice touch. In game, they are very mobile but I have to admit that I haven’t really done much other than irritate people into moving to counter them. Not that this is so bad as it gives good board control but it does mean that I haven’t seen the full gamut of their abilities. In addition, I almost never remember to use their cast-offs which may limit their efficacy.

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My love of bright colours got the better of me on this chap as I felt he was too dark without the red neckerchief. The monocle didn’t really come out too well but otherwise I am very happy with the look of this one.

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The pose of the leaning Wastrel is just so characterful that he was a joy to paint. I am not sure what has happened to his face in the photo as that enormous mould line isn’t noticeable in real life. As always I see a few bits to touch up now that I have the photos, which show mistakes that my eyes aren’t good enough to spot. Perhaps that is for the best.

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The final Wastrel is another with almost tangible personality. I love the way his facial expression compliments the aggressive pose.

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Very nice paintjobs on these and some interesting thoughts about their in-game use. The only thing that slightly bothers me here are the mold lines on the bald guy but that's just a small bit ;)

Relic Hunters box is among top 3 items on my "to buy with the next purchase" list :Needle:

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@Viruk: Thanks, as ever. Regarding the mould-lines on the bald one, they aren't too bad at real-world scale, but they show up something chronic when they are magnified by the photos. I highly recommend the Relic Hunters for painting purposes, though to date I haven't gotten the rest of the box set on the table for a game yet.

After a brief foray into the Relic Hunters box to get the Wastrels painted for a tournament, I dove into the Masters of the Path. First up are the Ashigaru, cheap minions who swing alarmingly between ‘surprisingly resilient’ and ‘soft as butter’ without much middle ground. I have mainly been trying them against Furycat and Forkbanger‘s Viks crews, so maybe I shouldn’t be to upset when the Ashigaru explode into powdered bone.

There was a lot of comment on these forums about how hard the plastics have been to assemble which I hadn’t really seen for myself with the boxes I’ve done so far. I have to say that the Masters of the Path turned out to be much more tricky to put together, especially considering how easy the other starter boxes were to work with. I could certainly see someone new coming into the hobby, picking up the Masters of the Path (since it is a ‘starter’ box) and getting discouraged by the thin spears and the awkwardness of Yan Lo’s head (more on him later). Anyway, I don’t find painting characterless undead minions too exciting so there’s not much to see here.

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Very nice paintjobs on these and some interesting thoughts about their in-game use. The only thing that slightly bothers me here are the mold lines on the bald guy but that's just a small bit ;)

Relic Hunters box is among top 3 items on my "to buy with the next purchase" list :Needle:

I thought you meant the one with the mold lines in his face. :P

Mold lines are a touchie and often hard to see until it is too late. It hapopens to me often enough. Sometimes you even get a model that has such nasty mold lines that you cannot really do anything against it, or probably ruin the sculpt in some way.

In the end it all comes down to what you are content with. I go for good tabletop quality and this a mold line here or there wont bother me, since you wont see it from 4 feet away. :P

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@Evilbleachman: I share your view. Although I take these photos at giant size, in reality I see these miniatures on a gaming table from several feet away for the most part.

@Viruk: Thanks. The bones are just cream paint with a wash of a mix of yellow and brown ink I made up about 20 years ago. Sadly, it's running out a bit now.

Chiaki, the Niece is the first of Yan Lo’s Ancestor miniatures to see the business end of my paint brush. In game she appears to be highly variable in performance, as some games she can have a massive effect by clearing slow, Brilliance, burning tokens and such off your own guys. Against other crews who don’t rely on these sort of ongoing effects she isn’t much more than a 5 point objective sitter. I definitely need to get a few more games in with Chiaki to get a feel for when to put her in the crew and when to leave her in the tray; the fact that I can only use her with Yan Lo is reducing the number of outings she has compared to proper dual faction or Ten Thunders miniatures who can get on the board with any of the masters. She was a bit tricky to assemble as most of the pieces are really thin. The pipe in particular is very fine work. For some reason, presumably to do with the mould casting, the bow on the back of her head is a separate piece which made it rather fiddly to get into place. Still, I enjoyed painting her once the glue was dry. I quite like that Malifaux has some miniatures that aren’t raging murder machines, and Chiaki actually looks like she could be Harmless, unlike Yin, the Penangalan.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here is my painted Soul Porter, the totem for Yan Lo. In classic Malifaux it was pretty handy at pushing other, scarier miniatures into places of maximum awkwardness. Of course, in Malifaux version 2, who knows what the little chap will be able to do. I deliberately used muted browns for the clothing and grey for the skin to try and emphasise the lanterns a bit more, though I couldn’t resist a cheeky splash of red on the bandanna.

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I tried to make the lanterns appear to glow a little bit. Once the actual lantern was in a satisfactory shade of orange, I filled in the little slits with white, then edged them with yellow. Simple, but effective (at least at tabletop distance).

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He looks really good with base dark brown colors and bright lanterns. The glowing parts could have been better if you had watered down the paints and applied more layers but as you said, for a tabletop standard it's a very solid paintjob.

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@Viruk: You're very kind, as usual.

This is Yan Lo, the Master of the Masters of the Path box. He’s pretty amusing to play as he ‘powers up’ during the game from deaths around him, and it was my first taste of the Ressurectionist play style of bringing dead minions back into the game. For whatever reason Yan Lo isn’t in the first part of the beta testing currently ongoing for Malifaux second edition so it’ll be a while before I find out what happens to his rules.

Assembling Yan Lo was a colossal pain as he comes in a remarkable number of pieces, and unbelievably, his beard is a separate part from the rest of his head. Just getting that attached took a bit work. However, I’m not a sculptor so perhaps there is a good reason for this design, but whatever it is, ease of assembly by the final user didn’t seem to feature in the process. Luckily once Yan Lo is put together he’s a fairly sturdy piece, at least when compared to the flimsy arms of his Ashigaru retainers. I chose not to add the rising skeleton to his base and eventually I might find some use for the parts; for now they are in my bits box. Overall I am fairly happy with the effect, with the exception of the visible brush strokes on the white under-robes. Fortunately this isn’t a problem as they’re not so obvious at table top distance, and in any case the eye isn’t really drawn to that part of the paint job.

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Hmm.

First, I really love your Soul Porter. Well done! Orange! <3

On Yan Lo... I personally think there may be too much blue in a way. It just flat out pokes its head into your eyes. I can imagine it standing in the midst of the rest of your models and nabbing all of that attention. Which is good in a way, since it is your master model.

But I believe it may not be popping out for the 'right' reasons. It is just a huge contrast to the rest of your models. I may just be uber biased due to the whole 'I gotta have stuff uniform in a way'. lol

Ignore me. :1_Exhausted_Puppet:

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