Painting Update - the Mad Titan

Hey everyone,

I hope the long weekend finds you all well. It has been a summer…certainly not as planned, but things could always be worse. I haven’t had any chances to get any gaming in, and anything I had planned  unfortunately had to be pushed to the side. Regardless, I look forward to the next game and am hoping to try 0200 soon.

Anywho, as the title says, this post is all about that maddest of the Mad Titans…Thanos!

For help on this, I took a look at Sorastro’s YouTube channel and watched his Thanos video a few times to help with the process and some of the colour choices. 

The video was super helpful…as always…and the figure was a lot of fun to paint up, although not without its frustrations, lol. I chose to use two bases, one with and the other without Thanos…this gave me something to put in the slot of the Throne terrain piece whenever I did not have Thanos on that piece. It did take me a couple of iterations to get the gold armour just right…and the throne effects themselves took a few tries to get the way that I wanted. 

I did get pretty frustrated at the mid point…and by the time I got to 95% completion, I pushed harder to get the last 5% done. Full disclosure, lol, it took me almost a month off and on to get the piece completed.

With that preamble, hope you enjoy the pics…and for some additional ambiance, I used my Space scene Cigar Box Battle Matt.

Running up that Lead/Plastic Hill...

Painted

1/200             4 

15mm          53    

28mm+        30, +2 (Thanos and second base)

Terrain           1, +1 (Thanos’s Throne)

Fabricated

     

Bought      +36 

Progress   +52

Marvel Crisis Protocol - Battle Report

Howdy one and all,

I hope you are doing well and that summer-mode is engaged or at least about to be. I had the chance a bit ago to get some Marvel characters on the table with a game against Mike and Duncan. As always these figures are alot of fun to get out, and the game proved to be extremely entertaining. 

For my crew, I had Doc Oc (his laser attacks are the best), Deadpool (he looks great on the table), Domino (I haven’t given her a try yet), the Rhino (big rage machine and a lot of fun), and the Hulk (I hadn’t tried him out yet).

For the life of me, I can’t remember the name of Duncan’s figures…except for Malekith…super impressive figure and rage machine. And Mike had an X-Man inspired crew…I remember Colossus and Magneto and that’s about it. Anywho, Duncan had 4 figures in total, and Mike and I each had 5. I can’t remember the scenario specifics, but I do recall having to grab stone shards and holding portals…or some such.

Now the pics…and totally random commentary:

The crew getting ready to rock…Domino and the Hulk are going to push right initially. Deadpool, Rhino, and Doc are going to push left.

Overview of the table. Duncan is coming on mid table on the left; Mike is coming on near the topright portion of the pic, by the sea containers (orange and red). The objectives are red (for the shard) and blue (for the portals) tokens.

Domino moves fast and secures a piece of the stone, and holds one of the portals. The Hulk moves up, having her back…takes him a bit extra to get there (Dom was moving about 2 times as fast as the Hulk).

Mike’s crew starts making their way out of the Construction Yard and edging towards Domino and the Hulk.

On my left, I’m already starting to bump into Duncan’s crew…who I can’t remember, but Malekith and the big damned cat that he is riding is clear to see in the background. Deadpool has one of the shards…and Rhino is working hard to keep up.

Another overview shot…you can see how big the damned cat is…

Doc Oc is making his way to another portal…I think he is actually supporting Deadpool…and his laser attacks are a lot of fun…and if I remember correctly, they don’t take a lot of energy, but are a pretty good attack.

Deadpool runs in and secures the portal. You can see, the Winter Soldier is down for the count, cutdown by Doc’s laser attacks…there you go, I remembered another one of Duncan’s crew…Mr. Bucky Barnes.

The Rhino rushes in to go toe-to-toe with Malekith…and spoiler, doesn’t do well.

The Hulk rushes in to try to help…he does one of his leap attack/moves (I can’t remember which)…to help get there quicker. Domino is holding her own on the right.

There’s a pretty good furball going on between Deadpool, Doc, Hulk, Malekith, and Duncan’s other characters.

Malekith has some demon spin actions that let him move very quickly…so he changes facings and is now behind Deadpool taking him to task.

Colossus makes his way over as well, and gets into the Hulks personal space. 

And Malekith is there to cause more trouble.

and Domino has been pretty content holding onto her shard and portal.

By the end of the game, Duncan and I are both down a couple of figures…Mike is in the lead with points for holding shards and portals. But there’s always time for a group shot.

Painting Update - Sam Wilson, Captain America

Howdy folks,

I thought I’d do up a quick post just to give some proof of life that I have actually been painting something other than Flames of War, and that yes…Marvel Crisis Protocol is still alive and well on my side of the internets. Admittedly, this one had been sitting partially completed on the work table for much longer than he should have. I had originally started off on both War Machine and Cap, but I was not happy with how War Machine went together…I had some considerable assembly issues with parts not lining up and not seating into each other.

Which is what probably soured the Captain America figure…even though I had completed the base and the base coat…it nonetheless had to sit through some considerable uncertainty. I did not follow through with the War Machine figure as its dysfunction was painfully obvious and no amount of paint was going to save him. I do have to say, good customer service, I explained my issue with Atomic Mass Games and their Canadian supplier and while they could not supply me with a new War Machine, they did provide me with a box of my choice that was roughly the same cost…so I did appreciate their assist there.

Now onto Captain Sam Wilson America…great looking figure, very dynamic pose and the explosion on the base was a lot of fun to paint up. Once I got my head settled, he did not take that long to finish painting…I actually think he’s been done and in the display case for almost 4-6 months. I did refer back to Sorastro’s awesome guide for Captain Steve Rogers America to help keep me close in colour pallet.

Anywho, please enjoy the pics.

Journey up Lead/Plastic Mountain

Painted

15mm         131

28mm+       44, +1 (Cap)

Fabricated

Terrain        2

Bought        8

Progress   +169

Battle Report - Marvel Crisis Protocol

Howdy folk,

Here's hoping that the New Year vibes are still treating you well. 

Well, first game of the year, and sure enough it was Duncan and I taking some more Marvel Crisis Protocol to the table. Unfortunately Mike was unavailable, so it would be only two teams of heroes and villains. We took the opportunity to go with a "full meal deal" of MCP, and that included all objectives and special markers (can't remember what they're called in game).

So we selected the mission type, the general table layout, and then objectives...in this case we pulled the mission 'Spider infected civilians', whom we dubbed spider-babies immediately and forever after. As well there were 3 portals on the table...I wish I had remembered that they were portals then, but, such is gaming life.

So, that leaves us with game setup of 5 x spider-babies to rescue, and 3 x portals/rifts to take control of. In the case of the babies, they could move the character holding them distance S if the right (or wrong, depending on your perspective) roll was made. And the portals had a nifty feature that left any characters with the 'incinerate' condition if they were within distance 1. Oh, and our threat level on the card was 17 or 19, but given that I had not brought enough, we went with max value for the figs I had...so our threat value was 14.

Team setup: Duncan had the Soviet Avengers...Winter League, Red Guards...maybe Winter Guard...I honestly can't remember. I just googled it, they're the Winter Guard. He had Soviet Ironman (gawd I gotta google this...)...

...okay, he had Crimson Dynamo, Darkstar, Ursa Major (big ole bear), and the Red Guardian...I was calling him Captain Russia and Soviet Captain America in the game...my comic-fu is a little lacking here. Anywho, to counter this red horde, the Guardians of the Galaxy...Peter Quill, Rocket, Groot, Gamora, and Nebula - all of them are worth 3 points each except for Nebula who is a cool 2 points.

**So we googled while we were playing...Duncan had just bought the new core box, I had the original set...and we saw that there were a varied number of tweaks to abilities and point values between releases, so we're just going to pretend that I'm on the up n up**

Anywho, the Guardians of the Galaxy...

We even broke out Tactics Cards for this as well...admittedly the only cards I recall are the 2 specifically related to Rocket and Groot...I do remember that StarLord had a narly leadership skill which could be doled out to 1 Guardian per turn that allowed up to 3 re-rolls of defensive or attacks dice...at anytime...so kinda handy

In the interest of being fully transparent, as soon as the game was over, I started forgetting details...FAASTT...so this is much less a report and play by play, than random rememberings and thoughts on the game.

Duncan did beat me to the punch and his report is here.

So, here we go...gametime...hope you enjoy the pics!

Table setup, Winter Guard at top of frame, Guardians de Galaxy on the bottom. Terrain was various building and such. Card layout had 5 x red tokens for spider babies, 3 x blue for portals/rifts.

The Winter Guard...Ursa, Red Guardian, Darkstar, Red Dynamo (l to r)

First few turns had the Winter Guards moving up to the Daily Bugle, taking a few spider-babies and controlling 2 x portals. The Guardians moved up and StarLord took a portal, I think Groot grabbed a baby, and the sisters Lady Gamora and Nebula came up from the right.

Rocket and Groot moving fairly close together...their tactic cards have some nice features...Groot is a tank and can absorb damage, and if they're together, Groot can activate Rocket to carry out 3 x plasma rifle attacks up to range 5, but they have to be on 3 different targets. So I just kinda kept them close together...Groot moves S, and Rocket cruises at M.

For the most part, the Red Guardian kept behind the action holding onto the intial portal. Ursa Major who is not only a bit of a tank, is also a real f'ing bear...has some really good damage abilities.

Duncan was making some amazing die rolls...like I was getting a few hits on him, but he really blocked almost all damage I was dealing. The big thing with the Guardians de Galaxy, they generate power on successful hits and damage , so that was a nice bonus...but Duncan's rolls kept that minimized.

Nebula and Gamora are also pretty slick...they have melee weapons, but they are able to do some jazzy range 2-3 attacks that let them end next to their target or keep at range depending on the ability. But, boy can they move, they both move at L and while Nebula cannot contest an objective or hold an object, she is a wicked assassin...

The pic above, the Red Guardian finally comes up from the back...StarLord keeps taking a bit of a beating and will eventually get tossed behind the Daily Bugle and get pummeled in the dark alley.

At this point, the Bugle keeps being hot! and Crimson Stark starts to head off Rocket and Groot. You can see StarLord in behind getting hits from all the other Winter Guards...he takes one for the team and just takes the hits.

At this point, both Nebula and Gamorra have enough and start getting aggressive on the Bugle. Nebula gets tossed to the alley and Gamora keeps charging in.

Nebula makes it back on top of the Bugle...Ursa Major gets knocked off (I think...) and Nebula takes it to Darkstar...getting some wicked ninja assassin hits in on her and knocking Darkstar out of the game...I think Quill is already gone by this point.

Now, Ursa jumps back into the fray, he really likes the Bugle rooftop...and both Gamora and Nebula lay down a beating on him

of note, any red tokens that you see laying on the table are spider-babies that have been dropped by our heroes and villains after they are injured and/or taken out of the game. I think at one point I had 3 of the Guardians de Galaxy get injured at the same time...

The ladies get control of the Bugle rooftop, sending Ursa Major back to Mockba Zoo!!

A few frenzied plays and we're both trying to scoop up spider-babies...

The last roll for me of the game, and I solidly knock Crimson Dynamo out of action...

And with that, we had a game. The extra elements were cool, but definitely took more care on my part to play the characters to their maximum. The game was a lot of fun, and happy to have this start of the year's action. Oh, lol…I forgot to say, Duncan and the Winter Guard for the win…but I think I was within 2-3 points of him…good game regardless!

Take care.