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Imperial Assassins


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Hi folks,

Finally got my paints and things unpacked this weekend and spent an hour priming some miniatures I've been building in front of the TV for the last few nights. These are the plastic Imperial Assassin's from a Games Workshop board game.

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There are four assassins and a Chaos sorcerer for them to attempt to assassinate. The above is the Callidus (lady of disguise) type, the other three below are the Vindicare (boring sniper), Eversor (drug crazed murder skeleton) and Culexus (snuffs out souls by touching people). They're completely mad and I love them - the models capture the insanity of the original metal designs very well but have much better poses.

I left them off the bases for painting access purposes, except for the Callidus whose pose doesn't pose (ha) any problems in that regard.

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Fit was great, cleaning up the mould lines took a while and assembly was fiddly in places because the parts are small (especially the Callidus' head). And I really like the way they've balanced the woman-in-skin-tight-body-suit trope with the fact that the three guys are all wearing similar stuff and showing off everything they've got as a result. Back and front!

Paint scheme is probably going to be black - which is the standard - but I'm wondering about a glossy beetly black-brown to get an Alien feel? Either that or black-green I think.

(NB: Please don't tell me that I'm foolish for buying overpriced tat, even with a 20% discount I feel bad about it but also felt like I wanted a treat after weeks of cardboard boxes and DIY...

Well OK, you can tell me that but I'm not listening. LALALALALAAAAAA :P)

Cheers,

Will

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It's been OK, just a lot of it. I spent several evenings and weekends beforehand refinishing some built-in book cases which now look quite smart, and since then I've been unpacking, arranging visits from various tradespeople, fixing furniture to walls, installing new light fittings etc. etc. But we're getting there now and it's certainly a neat house.

The most annoying thing (which has taken a bit of time to deal with) was that the movers damaged our fridge, washing machine and some pieces of furniture - glad I paid for the insurance on those although it remains to be seen how much of our claim they'll honour. Oddly, the stuff we packed ourselves (basically everything but the furniture) they wouldn't insure at all. None of that was damaged though so I guess we must be good at packing!

Thanks for the interest in the assassins - I shan't be too quick to paint these but it's definitely nice to have something happening again on the modelling front. Gerty really ought to take priority but he's complicated...

Cheers,

Will

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Gerty?

Sounds intriguing... I really need to spend more time on here or at the bench. What's the point of ubercool if you don't get to enjoy it?

I still have to physically restrain myself each time Space Hulk makes an appearance. I so want those minis! But I don't have the time to paint them, so the box would just sit, gathering dust, while I felt guilty every time I looked at it.

Enjoy the assassins Will. I'm really looking forward to seeing your take on them!

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Aye up Will,

I too am guilty of paying for 'over priced tat' from GW. Never feel guilty about it tho! :whistle:

Really looking forward to seeing what you do with the Assassin figures. Did you ever make a start on the Maggoth Lord? Just finished mine and its in RFI.

Regards,

Steve

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Not beyond primer - I'm a bit of a disaster really in terms of getting stuff done! Will go and have a look at yours next.

W

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  • 1 month later...

Slowest of slow (well, no) progress, but I had the Alclad out today and messed around with that and the Hot Metal colours to paint the Eversor's base:

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I had the Alclad out to paint the free Age of Sigmar model from WD:

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Will

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Hey, progress is progress, Will, even small amounts count. How do you find the Alclad to work with? I've been toying with getting some for pistons and such (one bottle would be a lifetime supply, I think!) but the thought of using a lacquer based aerosol spray indoors doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. Do you use a spray booth or just retreat to the shed/garage?

"I'm a bit of a disaster really in terms of getting stuff done!" That makes two of us! I've got a scratch build grinding slowly to a halt, various half finished GW and FW minis on the go and a new video editing setup to get my head around. Add a much needed repair to my son's latop that I haven't got around to yet and my poor, much neglected bike's electrics... good job I've got a couple of weeks off work coming up! :lol:

Oh yeah- "And I really like the way they've balanced the woman-in-skin-tight-body-suit trope with the fact that the three guys are all wearing similar stuff" (Raises eyebrow....) Are you sure that's not the other way around, Will? :devil:

GW's range isn't exactly replete with female nudity. Males, on the other hand, are everywhere. The daemon (sorry), 'Chaos' range in Warhammer Fantasy (sorry), 'Age of Sigmar' is filled with virtually naked male forms. There are a few topless and bikini clad elves (sorry, sorry), 'Aelfs', granted, but you could say the same about the male bodied orcs (oops, sorry), 'Orroks'. Even the elves (oh for goodness sake!), 'Aelfs' male god, Khaine, wanders about with his enormous volcanic bum out! :P

Now if, on the other hand, you'd bought some minis from Kabuki and made a similar discovery... :winkgrin:

One for the floor- has anyone got any idea what this 'Age of Sigmar' is all about? My son pointed me at the GW site last week and it looks like they're reworking the entire fantasy range to look just like the 40K stuff. Good news for kit bashers like me (no need for expensive resin when you can use slightly less expensive plastic) but surely it'll just kill sales from peeps looking for something different to the sci fi range? Or am I missing something?

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Alclad is really easy to spray and given how thin the layers are it's more robust than I expected. But you get loads of overspray (mask carefully!) and the fumes are horrible. Plus you need lacquer thinner to clean up afterwards. I use a pretty good spray booth, I don't think I'd have used Alclad before I got it...

There are plenty of bare-chested chaps in 40K and fantasy but that might be because there are more men generally? Orcs almost always wear trousers (and why are there no female Orcs, Ogres, Goblins, Zombies, etc. etc.)

I reckon about half of GW's female miniatures tend to err on the side of scantily clad - Isabella von Carstein's improbable skirt, Witch Elves in thongs and kinky boots, some similar Dark Eldar, topless Medusas, etc. These are balanced by Sisters of Battle, some other Eldar and Dark Eldar, Sisters of Avelorn who are more practically dressed. It's thankfully not as ridiculous as the situation in e.g. Infinity which is all tight suits and stockings, but GW have inflicted more than a few dental-floss thongs on their female characters over time.

I still think it's cool to see figures which are men and women doing the same job dressed in similar ways, whether heavily armoured like Marines and Sisters, or clad in spandex like the Assassins :)

As to Age of Sigmar, they appear to have blown up the Old World and replaced WHFB with a new streamlined ruleset with the emphasis on brief core rules, and extra stuff added via unit cards. They've also renamed everything (as you're obviously aware!) to make it copyright-able and are releasing a new box set this week. The rumour mill says that at some point there'll be a big rule book again, but it's not clear if that's true or not so for now the box set is it. In a big change, all the rules are now free and you can download the unit cards from their website for the existing range of models.

FWIW the rules seem like a positive change to me, I think losing the Old World is rather a shame. I wasn't sold on the new models until I saw them in the bare plastic at my local shop. I think there's room for one lot of shiny gold cybermen in Fantasy, I hope that future releases still include normal humans, cool gribbly monsters etc. etc.

Dunno if we can expect the same for 40K - maybe not since that makes up most of the company's profit AFAIK. I think they're trying to find a new audience for Fantasy but it does all feel a bit generic right now.

I still like the shiny cyberman that came with the magazine though - nearly finished him now - and I suspect I'll grab the starter and paint some more of the cool angel guys.

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Will

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I think I'll leave the Alclad for now, then. I don't use a spray booth- a decent mask for me and smally needles means that the paint tends to go on the mini, any overspray goes into a box I shoot toward/sit my spray stand in.

Lore wise, in 40K Orcoid species are (presumably asexual) fungal based lifeforms. They reproduce via spores, although the fluff is a bit vague on how many are released or when. No good idea if that relates to Fantasy/AoS in any way. Artistically they've gone with male body types, bringing us back to the huge number of near naked males in GWs range- I take your point about many scantily clad females, but there are now and have always been even more scantily clad male forms. I think we tend to notice the female ones more, much the same way we tend to feel shock and disgust about violence shown to females in film or TV, even in productions where large numbers of males are suffering far worse treatment. Think of the latest Bond film- huge outcry over Bérénice Lim Marlohe's Sévérine being killed, not even an eyebrow raised at the dozens of men killed.

It's much the same with our reaction to female nudes- consider Milo Manara's variant cover to Spider-woman #1. The media backlash had the cover pencilled in as over the top, gratuitous erotica, the kind of thing that would never be done to a male character. None of the critics chose to look into whether that was actually true- it fitted their pre conceived idea of what the cover represented, why question a perfectly understandable knee-jerk reaction? The reality was that Manara was actually paying homage to an earlier Spider-man variant cover- The Amazing Spider-Man #30. The pose was identical- you can actually superimpose one on top of the other. It's exactly what you describe- male and female characters doing the same job, depicted in identical ways. But while the male nude was ignored, the female homage made it into a finger pointing, tut tutting article in Time magazine, amongst a wave of similar disapproval in numerous lesser publications.

Back to the GW set- I like the minis, and just like you I especially like the way all the assassins have been treated the same way. Hopefully, that's a sign of GWs future intentions. Although if your cyberman is anything to go by, I think the whole range is in danger of morphing into the W40K style. I hope I'm wrong- I like quirky and odd minis, I'm not looking forward to a uniform look across both ranges...

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I think that Spidey #30 cover is a good counterexample, but there are so very very many examples of female superheroes in ridiculous costumes and back-breaking "show bottom and breasts at the same time" poses that I think there is a real trend there which is not counterbalanced by a small number of sexy male poses.

But this probably isn't the place for this particular debate, however friendly! I also really hope you're wrong about GW turning fantasy into 40K - there were some terrific fantasy releases during the End Times so I don't think they're lacking for talent, but I suspect the next few things are going to be adding to the Sigmarines rather than the other races...

My chap is nearly done now, just painting the base so hopefully I can take pictures tonight.

Cheers,

Will

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And he's done, now back to BSK models (Wingnut Roland and IBG Diamond T) - will restart the Assassins after those unless I need a break earlier...

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Looking forward to the box set as well now - I want to paint the angel-winged shiny guys.

Will

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Fantastic result Will. The base looks great and nice blood splatters on the hammer.

Didn't know you were doing a Wingnut kit, bit of a jump up from the Tiger Moth! All that rigging, I'd be terrified.

Andy

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I'm scared too, but the Roland is relatively simple to rig thankfully. And a lot bigger than the Tiggie. I might've said this alreadty, but I really want to finish that - except when I went to find it after the move one of the threads has snapped and I need to either re-glue it or drill it out and fit a new one :(

Will

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Looks good Will- the leaves are a really nice touch. I've had a notion for building a rigger for a while now, but I'm with Andy, it's a scary proposition- if the strings are wrong the model's ruined. Good luck with it mate- and I'm sure the repair to the Tiger Moth won't tax you!

If you want a referance shot of some rigging, this isn't a Roland, the colour balance is way out, but the resolution is fine:

Swordfish.jpg

(Someday I'll build one... )

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For the Tiggie I used nylon invisible mending thread, but I think I should really get some EZ Line or similar since it would be much easier. The nylon did add strength, but I'm told that even the elastic thread can do that and the Roland feels like it's going to be much less fragile!

I re-worked the base of the Eternal a bit since I thought it was too bland and airbrushey, despite mostly being brush painted. I picked out some of the grit in light colours, and added some washes of a dark brown to define the edges and undercuts a little.

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I also did a little messing around since I finally have enough minis to make some kind of small scene:

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Fun!

Will

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Cracking metal work on that figure, I struggle to get those results on 1/48 and 1/32 aircraft, let alone something so small!!

Have you chaps looked at the AK Exteme metal paints as a less smelly alternative to Alclad? It's still enamel based but might be a bit more friendly than the cellulose base of the alclad!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks, in some ways the figures are easier because the detail and sharp curves mask imperfections that'd be easy to see on something smooth like an aircraft.

I think Andy Moore has tried the AK paints on his R2-D2? He might be able to tell you more.

I ended up buying the box set of Age of Sigmar so I'm even more distracted from all the other things I'm trying to do. It's a bit cold for airbrushing but I can paint figures in front of the telly, mostly. Which is in the warm :)

This is one of the rank-and-file Chaos troops, who are vaguely gimpy Viking-like tribesmen with angry axes:

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There are twenty to get through, I've built and primed ten, started painting five, but ended up getting caught up in one and finishing him first - always a bad move since it's easy to stop at that point and do something else. Must focus!

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Looking forward to warmer days, and lower heating bills...

Will

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Slightly less over-contrasty pic of the finished figures lit by daylight rather than fluorescent light:

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The other four are coming along, I've got all the base colours blocked in now. Assassins are waiting for some more airbrush-friendly weather too since I wanted to try some Angel Giraldez-style glossy effects on the suits. Maybe I should just brush paint them?

Will

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