More Modern Figures

After finishing that unit of White Russians, I needed a palate cleanser so I picked out a few of the modern/zombie apocalypse survivor type figures I've got in my primed box.

First up is "Cobra" from Hasslefree Miniatures, but we know exactly who this is. The iconic Snake Plissken from "Escape From New York," played by Kurt Russell. This is the second figure sculpted in Kurt Russell's likeness I have in my collection, because I also have a "wink wink, *not* Jack Burton" that Hasslefree sells. 

Next up is "Monique," also from Hasslefree - wearing nursing scrubs and reloading a revolver. My wife briefly had to wear scrubs for a front desk medical job she held, and I based the colors on a set she had owned. 

"Rihanna" is another Hasslefree figure, described on the site as having waited out the first few weeks of the zombie apocalypse at an airboat tour office, surrounded by increasingly-less-hungry alligators, seemingly immune to the infection. 

Finally, an unnamed cartel soldier from Brigade Games' "Drug War Z" line. I really like the personality to this line of sculpts, and this guy's cringing posture is great. 

And I just realized I didn't paint anybody's belt buckles. Guess I'm going in to fix that later!

Figures Purchased in 2025: 27

Figures Painted in 2025: 21

Izhevsk Rifle Detachment

 In hopes of distracting myself from how badly I'm missing Atticus, I returned to my hobby desk to finish off what I'd started last week - a pack of White Russian infantrymen from Copplestone Castings. I've painted them with the blue shoulder boards and piping of the Izhevsk Rifle Division, as shown in the color plates of the relevant Osprey book. They served in the far east and eventually settled in Manchuria, making them ideal for my Back of Beyond project. 

I'll probably end up adding an officer and a banner-bearer to this bunch. 

Figures Purchased in 2025: 27

Figures Painted in 2025: 17

RIP Atticus

 Longtime readers of the blog will recall that in 2016, Gina and I adopted a very large, very charismatic black cat, named Atticus. He was already a few years old at that point, and was an amputee - he'd been found living on the streets with an injured and gangrenous tail that required amputation. 

Atticus has brought us a lot of joy in the intervening 8 1/2 years; a sweet and affectionate cat, he greeted me at the door whenever I came in (or at the bedroom door when I emerged in the morning), always wanting to be in my lap or sprawled across my shoulders. Anything we were eating he wanted a share of, and he would have loved it if we'd just put the jar of mayonnaise, or salsa, or whatever else on the floor for him to help himself to. 

As he got older, health issues began to pile up; hyperthyroidism, a heart murmur, arthritis, and most recently, kidney disease. Yesterday when I got up, he seemed lethargic and unsteady on his feet, and we couldn't get him to eat.

Taking him to the emergency vet, they discovered a very large mass in his abdomen; prognosis was not good given his advanced age (he was probably 14-15 years old at this point), and the vet was confident that his lifespan past this point would be measurable in days at best. We made the difficult decision to have him put to sleep, taking cold comfort in the fact that we wouldn't prolong his suffering to try and steal a few more painful days with him. 

We said our goodbyes - told him how much we loved him and would continue to love him for the rest of our lives - and I cradled him in my arms as the drugs were administered. 

In a few days' time I'll get the call to come collect his ashes. In the spring, we'll pick a nice spot in the garden outside and inter him, and plant something nice over him; something that will attract birds. I think he'd like that. 

8 1/2 years doesn't feel like enough time. I keep expecting him to come trotting around the corner to jump in my lap and demand treats. We've been sobbing on and off since the vet let us know about the mass. 

I don't think we'll be catless for long, but right now the grief is very raw and very sharp; I see Gina and I becoming second chancers, giving a home to cats who - due to amputation, like Atticus, or FIV+ status, etc - are considered "less desirable" for adoption. 

Majestic 13: Operation Firestorm

 And we're back with the second AAR of the night, with the Force Discreet feeling confident (cocky, even) after their astonishingly successful first mission. Hot on its heels, they were redeployed - another wilderness mission along a forested stretch of highway. This time they were up against a Helion Beam-Chaser, a lightweight, almost frail creature that generates a field of intense heat around its body and can focus this into blasts of superheated plasma. While the vague description given in the Majestic 13 rules suggests an elemental sort of creature, I pulled a "Mark IA1 Assault Fiend" from the game "Legions of Steel" out to represent it; I got this some years ago when Raybox Games reissued Legions of Steel and unfortunately it looks like Raybox is no longer offering the figures. 

As soon as the Force Discreet arrived at their deployment zone, a torrential storm broke out, reducing all visibility to 12". Which unfortunately meant that if they were close enough to shoot at the Beam-Chaser, they were close enough to be in range of its area-of-effect abilities - and it's powerful blast attacks. 

The team's secondary objective this time was to hit two supply caches hidden in the forest on either side of the highway. The team quickly scrambled towards these objectives while laying fire into the Beam-Chaser as visibility allowed. It returned fire, quickly immolating Emilio and Ortiz.

Javier collected one supply drop, while Pilar managed to grab the other one - despite taking a blast from the Beam-Chaser that left her blinded and down to 1 hit point, and getting stunned by the monster's area-of-effect power. 

Sick of dealing with the Beam-Chaser, Javier called in a drone strike that extinguished the monster's flames for good.

With the monster defeated, we went into the post-battle sequence. While Ortiz recovered just fine from his injuries, Emilio unfortunately received a permanent injury - the loss of one of his arms. The team requisitioned a second suit of ballistic armor (assigned to Javier in recognition of his victory over the Beam-Chaser) as well as a pistol for Emilio. 

A second upgrade to the base was also successfully requisitioned; enhanced point defenses, which will come in handy in a few games when the Force Discreet have their first Special Mission and face an enemy strike team. 

Figures Purchased in 2025: 27

Figures Painted in 2025: 7

Majestic 13: Operation Shockwave

 Greetings readers! I had today off work for Martin Luther King Jr Day and it was too cold to want to venture outside - the wind chill put us at -7 Fahrenheit, or a breathtaking -22 C! So I got the table cleared off and set up for a game of Snarling Badger's "Majestic 13." As a reminder, this is a solo/co-op game where squads of 5 agents belonging to various secretive organizations attempt to take down a single much larger, much more destructive alien monster, a la the video game X-COM. I realized after my last game that I'd goofed and given my original team, Keel's Killers, entirely too much gear. Rather than reboot the Killers, I decided I'd start a fresh team, using the Foundry "Mercenary Fire Team" I painted earlier this month. And thus the brutally efficient "Force Discreet," founded and funded by the armaments manufacturers of the world, were statted up and set to work. This is a short battle report because the game went very quickly - and I am very tired, having had a bout of insomnia last night. 

I bought the "Battlefield in a Box" escarpments you see next to the road yesterday,
and was eager to see them on the table.

Their first battlefield would be amidst forested hills along an isolated stretch of highway, near a long-abandoned cabin that was once fortified as a survivalist's compound. Their secondary objective was to collect some fragments of the drop-pod that had been used to deliver the monster, for study and reverse-engineering. And as for that monster...they'd be fighting a Yvenian Shocker, a creature that can absorb and channel electricity, delivering destructive blasts of energy that can blind its targets.

3D printed figure from MarketMagiqueMinis on Etsy.

The team quickly spread out, with Javier drawing the monster's fire early on, being struck by electricity and temporarily blinded. The team's commander, Anna-Maria, and her second-in-command Ortiz poured fire into the creature with a rocket launcher and heavy machine gun, respectively. The other team members - Javier, Emilio and Pilar - did their best, sniping at the Shocker with automatic rifle fire and Pilar's grenade launcher. The old cabin collapsed in on itself, though fortunately no one was caught in the destruction.

the blood splatter on the porch denotes this was "Dangerous Terrain" even before it collapsed.

Ortiz and Anna-Maria successfully collected the samples of alien tech, fulfilling their secondary objective, and the whole team continued to fire on the monster, killing it on turn 4.

In the aftermath, the team successfully requisitioned one suit of ballistic armor (given to Ortiz), and added a Weapons Depot to their base, adding +1 to all weapon damage going forward.

But wait, there's more!

Because the game went so quickly, I had time to reset the table and roll up a second mission. Keep your eyes peeled for a second AAR tonight...

Figures Purchased in 2025: 27

Figures Painted in 2025: 7

New Arrivals and White Russian progress

 A package arrived on my doorstep from Brigade Games today - a weighty one! Inside were my reinforcements for the White Russians and Warlord Chinese that have been languishing in my leadpile since 2022. 

After work, I spent some time at the hobby bench; I primed my original batch of White Russian infantry with brush-on primer, since it's far too cold to prime outside, and I cleaned the mold lines on the new pack of Cossacks, getting them ready to go alongside the pack I'd bought a few years back. 

I should maybe get a command pack to add to these, as well as to the second unit of infantry; I've got an order out for more bases that I'm waiting on before I start work on any more. 

Figures Purchased in 2025: 27

Figures Painted in 2025: 7

First Finished Figures of 2025

 I've managed to finish up my first handful of figures for 2025:

First up, we have a five-figure "Mercenary Fire Team" from Wargames Foundry's "Street Violence" range. I went for a simple color scheme with these - olive drab trousers, black T-shirts, red berets. These were slightly frustrating along the way - no matter how many times I went over them, I kept finding little bits of excess metal from the molding process. It was like they kept sprouting new bits! 

Secondly, I delved into a container of figures I'd primed...years...ago and pulled out a pair of Pulp Figures "Sinister Spies." On the website, Bob lists these as "Mr. M" and "Jasper Gutworth," and they're pretty plainly inspired by Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, respectively. 

These painted up fast and easy - from touching up the primer to being finished with basing applied in only about 2 1/2 hours or so. And you can't get away with painting Mr. Lorre without painting his famous eyes, so I committed myself to trying to paint the eyes on both of them, and I think it worked out well. 

I'm anticipating these two shady characters turning up in various Interwar-set games.

Speaking of...

I placed an order yesterday for more Copplestone Castings "Back of Beyond" figures - enough to round out a pair of small forces for the White Russians and Warlord Chinese, expanding on figures already in my leadpile. In my defense, Brigade Games is having a "Winter Blahs" sale, and I didn't need *that* many figures to get myself to 4 units apiece. The White Russians will be two units of infantry, a small cadre of Cossack horsemen, and a crewed field gun. Meanwhile, the Chinese will be two units of infantry, a Maxim gun team and a "Sutton Skunk" - an armored tractor that mercenary Frank "One-Armed Sutton" designed as a mobile mortar platform with plans to sell to the warlords. There's no evidence it ever got past the prototype stage, but Company B offers a Skunk model and it's too much fun not to include. Both of these will get expanded later, but this gives me a solid starting point. Once these are painted I'll start buying Bolsheviks, British, etc. 

Figures Purchased in 2025: 27

Figures Painted in 2025: 7