Grimm Lee Chan

Grimm Lee Chan is my first painted Pulp City mini of 2017, and that means I am happy to have made a start right at the beginning of the year. Even better is the fact he has been hanging around the painting queue for a few months and is now done. I actually finished him a week or so ago, but was waiting to be able to spray varnish him.

The jumpsuit is a colour reversal of the classic Bruce Lee outfit as I am planning to do another model from the range in the classic yellow scheme with black arm stripes.

Grimm Lee Chan is one of the many Grimm available, and a Level 1 Brawler. He can also be used in The Way Teams. In The Way he has great synergy with White Tiger as she boosts his basic Attack die pool to 3 dice, which can help trigger his Power that allows reduced cost Follow Up Attacks. The Attack that this works on is Grimm Chucks which has an impressive Damage 2 as basic Effect (FX), itself pretty unusual for a Level 1 Supreme.

Not sure what will be painted next. Maybe Feartigo, although I have my eye on Scarab too, but really I should get White Tiger and/or Grimmsham done as soon as possible for their respective Factions, so time will tell!

Grimm Lee Chan
Hero/Villain, Brawler, Level 1, Nature
30 mm

The Way

Not every Supreme available for The Way, but all that I have painted so far! The Way is a Faction primarily focused on defending Pulp City and especially the Little Asia quarter from the grasp of the Jade Cult, but it is more than that. Its members come from a diverse array of Teams, and under other circumstances would be genuine enemies of one another, but within the ranks of The Way they have shared purpose.

The way is a good extra Team for players as many will have a couple of minis that are members, so definitely worth thinking about, and it definitely offers an eclectic mix of Supremes and a lot of choice.

Back Row:

• Twilight
• Stormblades

Middle:

• Crimson Oni
• Sgt. Bale
• Amok (the huge guy in the centre!)
• Chronin
• Jade Hawk

Front:

• Tanuki
• Chimp Chi

Amok

Amok is the 125th Pulp City mini I have painted for my collection, and it feels like something of a milestone to have done so - the 125th mini needed to be something big, and Amok certainly is big!

Painting Amok was mostly a nice switch of pace after painting some recent Grimm, contrasting in size especially. Amok is a member of The Way, and stands somewhere between 60-65 mm in height (he is mounted on a 50 mm base), so he is a big mini. Doing the flesh was nice and quick, but after that it felt slow to finish, even though I only started it last week; I forgot how hard work I find it to paint bigger models, even one with a simple scheme like Amok. In all, I have painted a fair number of models in the past couple of months over a few ranges, so it is nice to have a decent level of productivity.

One of the greatest benefits of last year's successful Kickstarter was being able to make Powerhouses for the main Factions that did not yet have them. Melvin de Voor did yet another brilliant job with the concept and James Van Schaik turned in a great sculpting job based on that IMHO. As soon as we all saw where Amok was heading we were very pleased!

Amok's massive form is due to his physical body being infested by a spirit of rage. The peaceful man that he was seeks to contain that mystical anger-fuelled power, but it remains ever-present.

In game terms Amok is one of the strongest Powerhouses there is. He also has Dice+ at the lowest end of Powerhouses. However that is mitigated by accumulating Power Up dice and spending them well - if he adds 3 Power Up dice to an attack, he can add 2 more for free! Basically he is designed to be used more aggressively than most other Powerhouses. This is really emphasised by his Power Takedown and Throw combo; Power Takedown can generate a Grab & Throw EFX to allow Amok to use the Target as a missile, adding another Damage 1 to the Target of the Power Takedown as well as whatever Damage is caused to the Target of the Throw!


Amok
Hero, Powerhouse, Level 3, Mystery
50 mm

Tanuki

Outside of the closed ranks of the Jade Cult, Tanuki’s origin is veiled in secrecy, and even within that terrible society few know the truth. One of the Jade Cult's mysterious spirit-oni’s, Tanuki is probably the least loyal of that kind, even if ultimately he is the only one that recognizes that fact.

My third of a planned four Super-November minis, Tanuki has been a long time in coming, although not so long in painting!

I started this just after the launch of this shared challenge with Rob, and the bulk has been painted in the past few days. I found it quite an enjoyable mini to paint, with nice areas and textures to work on. That said, with my new job (I say new; been in post two months), I do not get much day-time to paint in, so Tanuki has mostly been painted at night, which has played havoc with the dark greens, so if anything looks a bit ropy, I blame the lighting! Ahem...

This is the first Pulp City mini for my own collection for quite some time. In game-play Tanuki is very much a Support Supreme, there to help his Team-mates through his unique Actions; he certainly has his own little niche, and is quite unlike any of the other Jade Cult.

With the Terror Cotta Warriors and Green Emperor on the horizon Jade Cult is near to be able to field a sizable Team.

I do think this is a really fun mini, and one I probably enjoyed painting and that I am happier with than any other this year.

I have veered away from my usual Villain colour motif (good old purple!), but hey, the Team is called the Jade Cult after all!

Next up for Super-November? Well that would be telling...

Crimson Oni

Wow. I have painted a new mini; it has been a while has it not?

For me this has been a long gestation period. Even before having the mini in hand, I have been 'working' with Crimson Oni for what seems like a long time - 20-21 months ago working from the brief I was given, Crimson Oni took shape in rules terms; and took further shape, and changed again, and again and again. And that is all part of the process I guess.

Anyone remember the 'mysterious stranger in red' from Christmas Madness 2010? Part of Crimson Oni's play-testing!

It has been weird and enjoyable  taking a concept that was sketched out by someone else, but then putting what is inevitably my own stamp on things. While by the end it is not a single voice that creates the rules for these guys - Maciej, Devon and me will all argue things in different ways to make things as good as we can - I will take the rap for anything you are not happy with with Crimson Oni.

In game terms he is a beast in melee; he does not necessarily have the best close combat Traits and Skills, but he has some potent Actions meaning he can deliver a lot of punch, and yes, Five Point Exploding Heart Technique was always intended to be particularly deadly. He can mix it with the best of them so enemies should approach with caution.

I know some may think that the Little Asia guys have come out of nowhere- basically the Jade Cult and Crimson Oni and Foxxy Blade - but the seeds have been around throughout the history of the game's fluff; Chronin faced and killed an earlier incarnation of Shadow Mask in her fluff, and Green Emperor is mentioned there; there has been mention of the Green Army (the original name for what is now Jade Cult) going back that far; in the Guide p. 103 has a couple of paragraphs hinting at what was (and still is!) to come, as well as showing the Crimson Oni and Foxxy Blade concepts.

The coolest thing about Pulp City for me is that the potential is pretty much limitless, and that is in a game with lost of Sub-factions as well as playing from mixed Teams.

Back onto the mini, when I thought I had finished it the other day I realised after taking photographs I had forgotten to paint his lower teeth - that has since been rectified.

Hopefully I will be able to feature him in a new Battle Report soon.

Stormblades, Libra Sensei

Master Caste - Libra: Monastic order of martial arts specialists.

A true master of the art of combat, Stormblades, Libra Sensei is another of the Ulthar minis. Although not yet on general release, some were available at Gencon in the US in August, and the web store had some available as well.

Stormblades, Libra Sensei is a Level 2 Supreme, and like most of the Ulthar so far is Nature origin, which adds a new dimension to Team-building as so few Nature Supremes were available, relatively speaking.

Observant readers may notice that the colour palettes of both Stormblades and Dr. Tenebrous are very similar, which was due to painting them roughly concurrently, although Stormblades was finished first. I'll be using the same skin colour across most of my Ulthar, except maybe Virgo (sine she is a renegade it will help differentiate her). And the purple and red motif will be used on my other Ulthar minis as it has been here and on Gemini X and Gemini Y, but likely not non-Ulthar species within the Ulthar Sub-faction (for example the Taurus model).

With his mix of Skills and Exclusive Actions, Stormblades is not only pretty mobile, but he has various options to close on his enemies as will as dish out some major Damage in Base to Base.

Jade Hawk

A voice whispers in the darkness….. “Armed robbery sounds like my kind of scene.” A dark figure leaps from the rooftop and into the shadows. The hunter has begun stalking its prey.

Okay, so it has been two weeks since I last posted a painted mini. This was the 51st completed mini of my Pulp City Painting Challenge, and Jade Hawk is one of the ones I enjoyed tackling the most. That enjoyment was and is tinged with some sadness, however.

This tremendous sculpt is from the hands of the extremely talented James van Schaik, and there is a sad story attached to it. Jade Hawk was a winning entry into one of the (fairly) regular Supreme Genesis contests, and its creator was Matt Randy, a Pulp City Herald and one of the guys that had been working to help develop the game towards its eventual upcoming edition. Matt took his own life earlier this year, and in doing so left a hole in a the gaming community where he had been before that.

He will be missed.

I'd like to quote the words of Maciej Żylewicz (quoted from the Pulp City Forum):

"I just can't sit here and do nothing, so I thought you may want to remember Matt the way he was: funny, totally dedicated guy.

I loved the Jade Hawk idea - mind I read the entries blind not to get distracted by the author's name. There was only one problem - Hawk was initially male and I wanted a female character to accompany my other favorite, Skyline.

Matt, like an expert lobbyist, dropped me an email saying: you know, we reinvent her gender!

We started working on Jade Hawk, and he had a clear vision. A couple of concepts were scraped, Matt labeled them "Jade Parrot" and "Jade Owl".

Finally, his concept got finished by Melvin and it ended up in James van Schaik's workshop. I was so happy to send the pics to Matt, he was sending me one "Where's the Jade Hawk?" email a week.

The last email I ever got and will get from Matt said:

She does look good. I can't wait to see her in pewter in my own hands.

Should have known something was bugging him because Matt I knew would send me a long list of likes and dislikes. Matt, I hope you really like her."

Twilight

Less is known about the origins of Twilight than any other Pulp City Supreme, and not much more is known about the group she represents. Twilight is a mistress of avoiding detection and cheating death.

One of the first minis released for Pulp City, I only finished Twilight last month. Overall, I am fairly pleased with the results - not a perfect paint-job, but then I am not a 'perfect painter'; instead I aim for what I think of as a 'pleasing tabletop style'. When I say pleasing, that is all relative and it is on a very-much personal level as to what I feel is pleasing. I don't have the talent, skill or time to try and paint to a better level, so I accept my painting for what it is - mostly - imperfections and all, and ultimately intended to be used in games since at heart I am a gamer first.

Twilight was ultimately fairly nice to paint as a model; more so than I initially anticipated. Nonetheless I had put off painting Twilight for quite some time as I hadn't wanted to go with the colour scheme I used. However since I could think of no other, it was the one I used, despite the similarity to the 'official' scheme. I like the colour combo - it is reminiscent of that used for a favourite character of mine from Malibu Comics' Ultraverse (Solitaire) - I just wanted to do something more original. Oh well, maybe if they ever re-do the mini I'll get the chance.

In game terms, Twilight is best used for harassment, stealth and hit and run attacks. I look forwards to using her in a future game.

Sgt. Bale

Bale is a stone cold supernatural hunter. Not only he sets the otherworldly freaks on fire with his burning fist and flaming bullets, but also makes sure they stay dead.

Not Sgt. Bale Extreme of course (that remains a future painting project), but I finished Sgt. Bale this week. A very cool mini in my view, I have mixed feelings about the final paint-job - while not totally enamoured of it, I feel better about the outcome a few days after finishing the model.

On the field of battle Sgt. Bale is pretty devastating, and even has the potential to become more powerful during the game if he successfully takes out a designated target.

Chimp Chi

Chimp Chi is a member of Ape Revolution Committee (ARC). He is possibly the sneakiest character in Pulp City and capable of dealing some serious hurt.

The sculpt comes from Jarek Smolka, and was a mini painted quickly, in just a few hours (off and on - spread over a couple of days). I wanted something 'done quickly' because it helps me feel my painting is moving along.

There are times I feel bogged down by painting, so I find it satisfying to try to do something quickly that hopefully looks reasonably effective. To that end I chose a vaguely ninja-esque look for the colour scheme, with some red and brown to break up the dark grey-'black' costume. I am still working on my NMM, so the blade didn't quite work as well as hoped. Time and persistence will hopefully improve that particular skill.


Being a Hero/Villain, Chimp Chi can be used by either side since at present there are only two sides (factions) in the Pulp City games - heroes and Villains. Each of these comprises smaller sub-factions (allegiances), and ARC is just one of those.