Post Apocalypse Koyote

[Koyote]

Queequeg (Militia Gunsmith) & O'Connell (Regular)

 

[Koyote]

Ishmael (Militiaman) & Tashtego (Militiaman)

Like O'Connell, Ishmael is a Merchant Sailor made by Pulp Miniatures.

Tashtego is from Brigade Games' Post Apocalyptic Minis line. Originally, the model was holding a short barrel shotgun.  I removed everything but the shotgun's stock and added a rifle's action and barrel.

[Koyote]

Doc Hooper (Citizen Medic), Ned Land (Militia Gunsmith), and Abraham (Rogue Psychic)

 

[Koyote]

Reverend Lovecraft (Missionary)

 

[Koyote]

The 'Springtime in the Wasteland' TNT campaign ended before I finished painting the last two members of my Settlers warband.  Here's the last of them.  

[Koyote]

Over the last few months, most of my hobby time has been spent on Mordheim, but I plan to return in earnest to TNT this summer.

One of my TNT hobby-goals has been to paint a mini for each of the 10 types of Freelancers.  I've completed 6 out of 10 thus far.  

Last month I put some paint on my Deadman model (see page 3 of this thread), but I f'd it up, so the model took a bath in Simple Green.  The soak and subsequent scrubbing messed up my GS work, so I pulled it all off and sculpted everything anew.

Since I prefer to paint models in pairs, I got to work on a new Freelancer to paint while I'm working on the Dead(wo)man, a Wasteland Hunter.  This fellow is an Apache model from Black Scorpion Miniatures' Tombstone model line.  The Tombstone line is 32mm, so I knocked the mini down a few millimeters by removing a section from the model's lower legs and reattaching the feet.  I added a big knife and backpack (both are bits made by Anvil Industries) and used GS and various bits to transform the model's original rifle into something a bit more modern looking.  The head under the model's right foot is a GW Genestealer skull.  It's just the right height to fit under his foot and it looks like it could belong to a wasteland critter, so gaming genres be damned, my Wasteland Hunter is doing the ‘Captain Morgan’ on Genestealer’s skull.

[Ish]

The optic is a little far back for a long eye relief scope, but that looks an awful lot like a Steyr Scout. Which would be the perfect weapon for someone wandering the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

[Koyote]

On 1/3/2019 at 11:54 AM, Ish said:

The optic is a little far back for a long eye relief scope, but that looks an awful lot like a Steyr Scout. Which would be the perfect weapon for someone wandering the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Thanks for the input. I'll move the scope forward.  🙂

[Koyote]

Wasteland Hunter and Deadman (woman)

[Koyote]

Below are the last two Freelancers.

Rogue Psychic and Sawbones

 

The Rogue Psychic model is Lady Silk, from Heresy Miniatures' sci-fi gangs miniature line.

The Sawbones is the TNT 2018 Adepticon Wasteland Doc. I replaced the silly briefcase with a satchel and added a pistol that has a bit more character.  

The original version of the model has a long torso and short legs, so using a hobby knife to raise its crotch a few millimeters to change the model's proportions.  

[Koyote]

Two more mutant cultists ready to bring death to the unbelievers.

[Koyote]

The Absolutely Dangerous expansion introduces three new Freelancers, the Mad Roboticist, the Party Bot, and Little Cuties.  The latter are homicidal children's toys.

Below is my take on the Little Cuties.  I used a old Malifaux Outcast Stolen model.  The SMG came from a Reaper Miniatures weapons sprue.

Lil Mae 3000 (Little Cutie)

In the US and Canada, the Lil Mae 3000 was the 'must have' Christmas gift of 2066.  Like most electronic toys, the life sized, robotic porcelain doll was manufactured overseas, but unbeknownst to both consumers and western intelligence agencies, the robots' CPUs were produced by a thrice sanctioned state-owned manufacturer controlled by a hostile foreign power.  On the eve of the End War, ten thousand Lil Maes stole away from the closets, nurseries, and play rooms where they were stored, and under the cover of darkness, made their way to electrical substations and power plants. 

The damage caused to the North American power grid by the  child-sized saboteurs was considerable.  The body count of first-responders and repair crews sent to the damaged facilities was truly horrendous.  After sabotaging or setting fire to the targeted facility, the Lil Maes would lie down and appear to deactivate themselves. When fire personnel or repairmen arrived, the giant dolls looked out of place, but the first-responders had more pressing matters to concern themselves with.... until the Lil Maes sprang to life with stolen kitchen or utility knife in each hand.

Most of the Lil Maes were destroyed by the waves of missiles that laid waste to much of the continental US and Canada.  Those the weren't vaporized in the nuclear cataclysm were compelled by their programming to find a shelter and concealment and then shut down. In the centuries that followed, intact Lil Maes were salvaged and reprogrammed by Preserve groups and robot enclaves to serve and scouts, assassins, and saboteurs.

[Koyote]

Even though I know that I'll never use all of the models in game play, it's been fun seeking out and painting a model for each Freelancer in the TNT rules.  The Mad Roboticist is one of the three new Freelancers found in the Absolutely Dangerous expansion.

Eugene (Mad Roboticist)

For my Mad Roboticist, I wanted the model to look eccentric, a bit bedraggled, and not too" techie"  I wanted a model that is identifiable as a post-apoc mechanic or technician, but I also wanted it to look out of place in a Preservers warband.  I chose 'The Doctor' from Brigade Games Miniatures' Post-Apocalyptic model line.  The model's short stature, clothing, top-hat, and ponytail checked off the 'eccentric' and 'bedraggled' boxes. The bag suggests that he's a man who works with tools (it's hard to see from the angles in the photos, but sticking out of the bag is a pair of pliers and a saw), but it's not enough to identify him as a roboticist.  To distinguish him from a post-apoc doc, I replaced the weapon in the model's left hand with a robot's arm.  If you weren't familiar with the Mad Roboticist's fluff, you might not guess his profession, but if you are "in the know" it should be obvious enough to pass muster.

[Koyote]

I finally got around to finishing this post-apoc fisherman model.  I used in our Springtime in the Wasteland campaign as part of my fishermen themed Settlers warband.  It's another model from Lead Adventure's From the Contaminated Seas model line.  

In our campaign he was armed with a speargun and net.  I had two models armed this way, not because either weapons was especially effective, but because I wanted to use particular models and these weapons most closely matched what they models were carrying.

The boat hook symbolizes the spear portion of the speargun, but how did I get from life ring to net, you ask?  Simple.  Seventies cartoons.  In Go Away Ghost Ship, Scooby-Doo and the gang use some old tires to capture Redbeard's "ghost" crew.  They could have just as easily used life rings, and in my opinion, since it was a nautically themed episode, visually, life rings would have been the better choice. 😉

[Koyote]

I've been thinking about what games I want to play when things return to normal, and TNT is near the top of my list. As such, I've been working on my Wasteland Encounter creatures of the wasteland painting projects.

The the grit of the basing material that I used to base my rad dogs, mutant ticks, and rad bear was not fine enough. It made the bases' surface is a bit too rough and it doesn't match the texture of the bases I use for my warbands (see the This is Not a Test Campaign thread in the Bellingham Warhamster forum).  I realized this after painting the first few rad dogs, but rather than correct the problem then and there, I let it go.  In the grand scheme of things it's an insignificant detail that bothers nobody in the world but me.  Nevertheless, it bugs me every time I look at the models, so I finally fixed it.  

I removed all 18 models from their bases and put them on new bases. The removal, painting, and touch up work was quite a chore. While removing the rad bear from its base, I dropped the model and damaged the model's paint, so I stripped the entire model and started from scratch. This wasn't  entirely a bad thing, as it gave me the opportunity to remove the model's integrated base and in doing so I was able to make for it a better base.  It is now posed on a pile of debri that I made from bits found on Green Stuff World's resin Dump Yard Plate and a metal gear from Green Stuff World's gears and cog set.

One of the creatures on TNT's Nuisance Creatures table is the Wild Mutant. I used CP Model's mutated zombie minis to make my first three Wild Mutants.  The mins with the big bellies aren't mutated enough for my liking, so is used GW Chaos bits and greenstuff to give them more obvious mutations.  Wild Mutants aren't zombies, so I painted their skin using my normal recipe for flesh.  I  didn't patch the open wounds.  I figure life in wasteland is very harsh for these feral, half-mad creatures, so open wounds and sores are inevitable.

While we are on the topic of non-zombie zombies, I've struggled to find models that match my vision for rad zombies. Unlike traditional zombies, rad zombies are not reanimated corpses, but rather victims of some bizarre (and implausible) form of radiation sickness, combined perhaps with effects of a pre-Fall bio weapon or disease. They do shamble along and rot a bit overtime, but they aren't the gooey, rotting corpses found in most horror and fantasy miniature lines.  Lead Adventure's Atomic Zombie's are pretty good, but they a still a bit too gooey for me.  

What I settled on are Pig Iron Productions' Infected minis.  These models are dressed in tattered clothing, slightly emaciated, and don't have any guts spilling out of them.  They look like the creatures from the 2007 remake of I am Legend.  

The feature that really sold me on these minis is their baldness.  It is generally known that exposure to large doses of radiation will typically cause hair loss (sometimes permanently), so in my mind, if Rad Zombies are victims of a permanent radiation sickness, they should be bald.

Other TNT critters I am working on include some Gnash Worms, a Greater Mutant Scorpion, and a Mutant Horror.

The worms and the scorpion are made by Heresy Miniatures.  The Mutant Horror is a "Terror Turkey" made by Bears Head Miniatures.  

One of the things that really sold me on this miniature is its name -Terror Turkey.  The idea of a giant, mutant turkey that has turned the (dinner) table on mankind is too good to not include in my post-apoc world.  The original version of the model (see below) has an extended tail that ends in a fan of feathers.  I suspect that what the artist was going for was a Cenozoic era Terror Bird with the tail of a Mesozoic microraptor.  Neither the model's head or tail reminds me of a wild turkey, so to make it a bit more turkey-like in appearance, I cut off the tail and attached the fan of feathers directly to the model's rear.

Original "Terror Turkey":

 

[Ish]

24 minutes ago, Koyote said:

Original "Terror Turkey":

Fixed it for you.

[Koyote]

While that turkey is terrifying and certainly predates Bear Heads Miniatures' Terror Turkey, it's not the foul fowl I was referring to.

While we are on the subject of post-apoc mutant poultry, the anthropomorphized turkey in your GIF reminds me of the classic Gamma World module, Famine in Far-Go and all of the wonderful illustrations of the Chicken Processing Plant's mutant, gun toting chicken men.  Ah, memories. 

 

 

 

[Ish]

I will assume that a fine connoisseur of the Post-Apocalypse such as yourself, you’re no doubt familiar with RIFTS?

Like many of us gamers in the Eighties and Nineties, I bought RIFTS books by the box load... But almost never played the game and when I did play, we usually treated it as a gag. For most of my life, whenever I've played RIFTS, it was a purely munchkin affair, we'd all pour over the books for several hours fueled by too much caffine, sleep deprevation, and egging each other on to make the stupidest, most over the top monstrosities we could. Then we'd nuke dinosaur-demons for a few hours and call it good.

Then we met Josh.

Josh loved RIFTS. I mean, really and truly, loved RIFTS. In a totally sincecere and non-ironic way. The guy had the RIFTS logo tattoo'd on his leg. Josh is the only person I have ever met who not only knew all the rules to RIFTS backwards and forwards, but he could actually navigate the rulebooks and find you where things were located... He also knew how to run a long term RIFTS campaign. We played Josh's RIFTS game for over two years of weekly games, which was an incredibly long campaign for my group in any system. Let alone RIFTS.

The first campaign Josh ran for us saw me make one of the only two RIFTS Player Characters that I have ever made that lasted longer than a single one-shot adventure. The second was also made for a Josh campaign.)

His name was Ondori-Shisho.

Actually, this wasn’t his name. He had no real name, only a title: Ondori-Shisho, Master Chicken.

Ondori-Shisho was created with my usual "It's RIFTS, make the character a joke, who cares!?" attitude. Using the Mutant Animal random charts from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness and an O.C.C. from RIFTS Japan. So I made a three and a half foot tall chicken, running around with a pair of magic swords, who for no logical reason whatsoever found himself in rural Arkansas, meet up with some equally strange characters, and soon found himself dueling with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, carving out my own mutant animal kingdom in Ethiopia, and eventually retiring to life as a secluded hermit on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro... 

[Koyote]

The heyday of RIFTS was a little after my time.  RIFTS came out in 1990.  I did most of my role playing between 1982 and 1990.  So while I'm familiar with it, I never played.

My favorite things about your chicken character is that he was only three and a half feet tall.  LOL.

I wonder if Heroforge will ever have a chickenfolk race. If so, you could create your own custom mini.  🙂

 

 

 

 

[Ish]

Mutant animals in TMNT started out at the size of a mundane member of their animal species. You had to pay (from a limited pool) points of “BIO-E” or “bio energy” to buy mutations like bipedal stance, partially or fully useable hands, and so forth. The BIO-E pool was (nominally) balanced by how powerful a baseline animal was, so a Tiger or an Elephant got far fewer points than a Chicken.

Baseline height and weight for Chicken was something like 12” and 10 lbs., but they were fully bipedal by default. It took something like half my points to make him 3’6” and give him human hands... But other useful mutations included being able to see in the Ultraviolet spectrum and a prescient Sixth-Sense psionic power. Combined with my magic katana and super-special-snowflake martial arts training, Ondori was ridiculously hard to ambush.

He had like zero effectiveness in ranged combat though. Only armed with mundane bow and arrow in a world of mecha, giant mecha, giant-er mecha, and every street-rat and gutterpunk armed with a mega-damage laser pistol. Plus a mystical oath that meant he wouldn’t use anything but archaic weapons... That’s when we figured out that an alien antigravity belt didn’t technically violate my code of honor, made me immune to G-Forces, and so we installed a saddle on the back of the Robotech pilot’s Valkyrie for me. Nothing quite like riding into a sword fight at Mach 12... 

[Ish]

God that game was stupid... but so much fun.

[Koyote]

Ish, you need a mutant chicken warband in your life.

Interloper Miniatures

 

 

[Ish]

24 minutes ago, Koyote said:

Ish, you need a mutant chicken warband in your life.

Interloper Miniatures

Cue the music.

[Koyote]

Too bad this one is 75mm. I’d make a great addition to your Warband.

[Ish]

Too bad the Albedo Combat Patrol miniatures game only has mammalian species in it...