FINISH HIM!

 A few more Crooked Dice martial artists finished this week. We have a very humid week ahead of us, so I might not be at my painting bench too much - even in the basement, just sitting there painting, I start getting sweaty and there's no place I can conveniently plug a fan in to keep the air circulating. 

First up, two copies of "End Level Boss A," painted as the characters Scorpion and Sub-Zero from the "Mortal Kombat" video game and expanded media franchise. Both characters used the same model, just palette-swapped, in the original video game, hence using two copies of the same figure! Scorpion is depicted with pupilless white eyes in most media as a nod to him being undead, and I copied that on to my paint job here. 

 

I also finished "Street Fighter A," which I painted as the villainous Chong Li (played by Bolo Yeung) who went up against Van Damme in 1988's BLOODSPORT. 

 These will eventually see action on the table in future games of "A Fistful of Kung Fu."

In other news, my picking up entirely too many plastic zombies from my friend Dave has been delayed by his attending Gen-Con and coming home to find his dryer had given up the ghost, so I'm still in the green! I did pick up a couple of vintage "Clan Wars" samurai figures cheap at one of my local game stores who are still clearing out stock from a previous owner. I was looking at the Reaper paint rack and I think some of those colors were discontinued before I reentered the hobby in 2014...

 

Miniatures Acquired: 186

Miniatures Painted: 195

Terrain Acquired: 2

Terrain Painted: 8

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 10

 

Pop Culture Heroes

 A few more finished figures today, all of them more heroic types based on pop culture from the 1980s and 1990s. Let's run them down from best-recognizable to least, shall we?

First up is "Action Hero B" from Crooked Dice, pretty immediately recognizable as David Hasselhoff in the role of Michael Knight on the TV show Knight Rider. I've never watched the show myself (though I'm generally a fan of the Hoff), so I had to pull up some screenshots for outfit colors.

 Next up, the Muscles from Brussels - a street fighter from a line that Crooked Dice absorbed, which is pretty clearly intended to look like Jean Claude Van Damme. I based the outfit on the one he wears during the dance scene in 1989's KICKBOXER. 

Next, Van Damme returns - this figure, from the same pack as the previous, had a similar look and cut to his outfit as the figure above, so I went for a very different color scheme. Now, we've got Van Damme as Colonel Guile from the 1994 STREET FIGHTER movie. I saw this one in theaters as a kid (which is weird because I was 7 and wasn't a video game player - maybe Dad just wanted to see a Van Damme movie and I was his excuse?) but didn't remember much about it. Watched it last year when the new movie was announced and had a lot of fun with how corny it is.

 

One thing that caught my eye when looking at reference photos for this was that his American flag tattoos are "backwards" from the way they should be facing, which I dutifully recreated here. 

Finally, a Ninja from Reaper's "Chronoscope" line that's been in my project box for years. I opted to paint him as caucasian and wearing a white ninja outfit - thus making him Cole (Franco Nero's character) from the 1981 film ENTER THE NINJA. I might get a second copy and paint him in traditional black with a red belt, to represent Michael Dudikoff's character from the film AMERICAN NINJA.

 So what's the plan for these? Well, I do want to get back to Fistful of Kung Fu one of these days and have actual martial artist miniatures on the table for it. Plus, my local gaming convention Running GAGG has a "Pirates vs. Ninjas" theme announced for next year's show, and I think it'd be fun to put on a demo game there and call my event "Oops, Too Many Ninjas" or something like that. 

 

Miniatures Acquired: 184

Miniatures Painted: 192

Terrain Acquired: 2

Terrain Painted: 8

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 10

 

A Fistful of Kung Fu: Poliziotteschi Style

 My friend Chris recently suggested I give Osprey Games' "A Fistful of Kung Fu" a look; I'd seen the figure range on North Star plenty of times over the years (the game originally released in 2014), but I'd never bothered to check it out; well, now it seems the rulebook is out of print and only sold in e-formats, because I had to go to eBay to get a physical copy. It does not seem like the game made a big splash; I was actually kind of shocked at the scarcity of play reports on the web. I suspect this comes down to it being a game with a modern setting, instead of fantasy or scifi, and one that calls for a terrain-dense table. There's a level of physical investment that's likely more than most people would want to expend on just trying a game.

Fortunately, I've already made that investment with my terrain collection, and while I don't have any modern East Asian figures, I do have a lot of Mafia types, so I figured out a scenario using them in place of Yakuza. Consider this an Italian knockoff of a Hong Kong action film! 

A SWAT team, led by Lt. Lords, had to protect Angela Dellamorte, daughter of the head of the Dellamorte Crime Family, as she prepares to turn over evidence relating to her father's crimes - and his recent involvement in the occult. Papa Dellamorte, it seems, has acquired a copy of the Necronomicon ex Mortiis, and has made a pact with the Powers of Darkness to expand his own influence. 

Opposing them was one of Dellamorte's capos, Joey "The Viper" Marciano, accompanied by his right-hand man, Fat Paulie, and a number of lesser soldiers and a minor summoned demon. He'd been tasked with capturing Angela and bringing her home to her family in as close to one piece as possible for punishment. 

With the SWAT forces stopped at an impromptu barricade, a shot rang out; Mr. Fibbs, a low-level soldier in the Dellamorte Crime Family, had decided that he wasn't on board with trafficking with demons, and had offed the nearest gangster.

Marciano advanced and opened fire, gunning down Officer Rosina and sending Angela barreling into the Smoke Shop to avoid getting hit. 

Lords coolly returned fire, sending Marciano ducking for cover and killing Fat Paulie.

Officer Williams, an ordinary beat cop caught up in the action, took out one of the gang's hitmen as he darted amidst trash piled up next to the pawn shop.

Sgt. Baker spotted the Viper as he circled around the gas station, and ran forward with a shout - and got shot for his troubles, getting knocked down, knocked back and disarmed in the process. Before he could stand up, another hitman on the ramen shop roof sprayed lead downwards, killing him and Officer Taff.

Lt. Lords closed in on Joey the Viper, delivering a shot that knocked him down, stunned him and wounded him. He was quick to get back on his feet and scurry for cover behind a dumpster.

Meanwhile, Officer Beck retreated into the Smoke Shop to guard Angela.

Joey the Viper dashed around the building and shot at Lt. Lords, disarming her. "Well, well, well, little lady," he chuckled. "Looks like I've got you beat."

The hitman atop the Ramen Shop fired at Mr. Fibbs, stunning him; the Dellamorte family would want him alive for more appropriate punishment - letting him just die wasn't anywhere near sufficient.

The demon, finally accomplishing something, swooped through the air and launched itself through the front window of the Smoke Shop to try and seize Angela - only to get immediately blown away by Officer Beck. With a screech, the demon collapsed into ash, banished back to Hell.

Lt. Lords ducked for cover behind a cinderblock wall, and then rolled behind the car parked behind the pawn shop. "Enough of this," she growled, and charge at Marciano, delivering a double-fisted punch to the jaw that knocked him out cold. Officer Williams raced around to cuff the gangster.

Angela Dellamorte was safe and ready to testify, and once he was patched up, Mr. Fibbs would be too. And Joey "The Viper" Marciano was in custody. It was a damned good day for the forces of law and order!

***

So that played out very fast - I think only about 40ish minutes start to finish. I had fun with it though, and I think I got a decent handle on the rules; I didn't do much of anything with interactive terrain (though I did have brick piles on two buildings to throw bricks at each other, plus vehicles that could be hot-wired), and Joey might have gotten shot one more time then he really should have been based on his traits. The activation and reaction mechanism, designed to recreate the frenetic back and forth of a martial arts movie, I feel like I got that down really quick. 

It's definitely a game that focuses on the Protagonists - in this case Lords and Marciano - and everyone else (the Extras) are mooks who are mostly there to get in the way, or fail their activation rolls so that the turn passes to the next player. Here, they accomplished a few things against each other but a lot of them mostly just stood around or only had enough actions available to move once and end their turn. 

Overall, I'm glad I picked it up and looking forward to playing more of it.