25mm Mayfair Games Teen Titans

A few weeks back, I posted up some 25mm superheroes from the mid-1980s. I got another box in the mail, this time the Teen Titans. The box came with six heroes and four villains and I managed to get the heroes painted up.

First up are Wonder Girl, Nightwing and Jericho. There are lots of variant costumes available to choose from but I took the earliest ones (which is what the minis were based on).

Overall, the sculpts are nice, if a bit thin and static. The second set included Cyborg, Starfire, and Changeling. I can see why the sculptor would have chosen the flying pose for Starfire but her shooting a bolt of whatever out of her fist would have been a more useful pose. Changling shifting into a lion is a nice effort.

Overall, these are decent enough figures. The omission of Raven and Kid Flash are notable, although at least the Titan box contained a few women. They more or less scale alright with the Justice League figures. Maybe the Titans are a bit thinner but I guess we could write that off as they're not quite fully grown. 

The scale difference between the 25mm Mayfair figures and more modern 28/32mm sculpts (these being heroclix) is quite marked. 

I'm not sure if I'm going to get another post up before I take a summer break. If not, happy summering and I'll see you in September!

25mm Indiana Jones by West End Games

A few weeks back, I posted up some 25mm Indiana Jones figures from 1984 that TSR had produced. I ran across a different range of six figures (from 1994) produced by West End Games and finally got a hold of them.

There were two, three-figure packs produced before the line went out of production and they used slotta bases (hexed, although I swapped in round).

The first pack had Indy, a reporter, and a student. The second included an older professor, Sulla, and a spy. These figures were a bit fine boned, lacked motion, and every hand is clenched into a fist. But, otherwise, they were nice figures. Oddly, no one is holding a gun.

Usually, the assumption we make about scale creep is things get larger over time. Below, you can see the slotta based figures from 1994 against the 1984 figures on washers. The older figures are clearly beefier and bigger (although they were also sold as 25mm).

I suspect that WEG kept using the old armatures they used to sculpt the Star Wars line into the 1990s while TSR had moved onto bigger ones in the mid 1980s. Leia, with a slightly lower base, is a good proxy for the student. On the left is a modern (Pulp Figures) 28mm woman.

We see something similar here with Ben Kenobi and the older professor (who I painted to look like Indy's dad). The modern Einstein is again from Pulp Figures.

I couldn't find a Star Wars proxy for the reporter but the two modern figures illustrate the thinner and shorter nature of the older sculpt.

The WEG figures do fit in well with the 1985 supers I painted recently from Mayfair Games.

Up next: I'm not sure. I'm slowly winding down my painting for the summer and will likely take July and August off from posting.

Mayfair Games 25mm Super Heroes: Justice League

Back in about 1984 or 85, Mayfair Games released a superhero rpg called DC Heroes. For a kid who loved dungeons and dragons and comic books, this was fantastic. They also released a bunch of boxes of 25mm superheroes and villains. 

I recently bought the Justice League box to see what they were like. Straight out of the box, these were hugely disappointing, being very small 25mm figures with very flat and static poses. After some work, though, they started to grow on me. 

The heroes in this box were Batman, Green Lantern, Superman, Hawkman, the Martian Manhunter and Green Arrow. The lack of Wonder Woman is notable, but not as notable as the insane pose they gave Batman (which looked way worse on bare metal).

In the end, I was reasonably happy with the results. There is some nice detail on Hawkman and the rest do well with simple, bold colours and a quick wash.

 

I presume the Bat-wahtuzzi or whatever the hell is happening here is an homage to the campy Batman of the 1960s and 1970s so I painted him in those colours. Th eGreen Arrow sculpt was super dissatisfying but then suddenly came alive with some paint.

I struggled with Sup's chest emblem and finally decided that this the best I can do (you are seeing him at least 2x) and he looks fine on the table. Ditto Green Lantern's emblem.

The backs of the figures are also pretty decent in terms of detail and animation.

The only modern comparator I could find in a matching pose is Green Arrow, with a heroclix on the left. He'd probably about 32mm and you can really see the effects of scale creep over the 25mm 1980s standard.

The box also contained four "super" villains.

Sinestero is an okay pose, I guess, and the Joker is fine enough (again, evoking the 1960s and 1970s renderings).

Brainiac is a pretty nice sculpt that I struggled to paint up with the detail of the comics. Darkseid, a villain I have always hated, is just an awful figure and three tries (with different colour palettes) and this was the best effect I could get (the sculpt is just terrible, terrible work, even by 1980s standards).

Overall, I had a fun time with these guys and, if I see the other boxes for a decent price (especially the Titans and the Outsiders), I will definitely pick them up.

More 25mm Indiana Jones

I finished off the box of 25mm Indiana Jones figures that I started last week. These figures represent the baddies from the first two films.

Below we have Chatter Lal, Mola Rama and a Thuggee from, I think, Temple of Doom.

From the first film (I think), we have Deitrich, Belloq, Toht, and a mine guard (so maybe he is from Temple? I initially took him to be the dude with the scimitar that Indy shoots in the square--whatever).

For 40-year-old sculpts, the detail is pretty good (note the scar on Toht's hand). I've no idea what Deitrich is leaning so far forward.

25mm Indiana Jones

Back when I was a kid (1984), there was an Indiana Jones rpg released by TSR along with a set of minis. I finally found a box of them for a reasonable price and bought it.

There were 12 miniatures in the box, representing key characters from the first two films. The figures are described as 25mm and have bases that are both very thick (stupidly so, really) and very small. After some dithering and messing with slotta bases, I stuck them to some washers and used sand and glue to try to smooth them out (meh).

There were five "good" guys, including Indy and that's what I finished this week. Short Round was probably the most fun to paint. I used movie stills where I could to get the colours right. I did give him a brighter ball cap and I decided against trying the checked pattern on his sweater.

The other Temple of Doom alum is Willie. I haven;'t seem Temple since it was in theatres (1983?). The mini mostly matches the pictures I could find. Indiana is a pretty good likeness,

The two sidekicks from the original movie are Marion  (note the monkey on her shoulder) and Sallah and both are pretty accurate sculpts. I painted them pretty much as they were in the film even though the embroidery on Marion's short doesn't really translate into paint.

In terms of scale, although these are listed as 25mm and from 1984, they fit in pretty well with contemporary 28mm figures. Interestingly, a different set of 25mm figures from the same era (Mayfair's DC Heroes from 1985) are clearly smaller (see partially painted Superman below). 

Up next: The baddies.

More bunkers

This is the second batch of bunkers that I got from Scott last year. These had been primed but otherwise were untouched. Based on the undercuts, I think these are 3-D prints.

These are roughly 20mm scale and could work for 15mm or 25mm or even 28mm in a pinch. Here I have them set with some old 25mm West End Games Star Wars figures (which happened to be at hand).

The roofs lift off and they have rudimentary interiors. I just did a grey spray, dry brush, wash, dull coat and then some scenic texturing to match my stuff.

In addition to the two large bunkers, there are four smaller ones plus a giant gas tank. These are slightly bigger than the bunkers from last week (compare below) but are close enough that they'd work together. 

I'd say I have enough here to put together an Imperial or Cylon outpost for a game of Fistful of Lead, which might be my next project. In terms of painting, I have some long-waiting fantasy to get finished up.

15mm tanks and 25mm Star Wars

A bit of a mixed lot today.  First up are some 15mm storage tanks. These were part of a job lot that I bought from Scott. They came painted and I just added a bit of grit and some highlights.

The good news is that they work for anything from 15mm to 28mm, which is super useful.

Dave printed some 25mm taun-taun riders for me a while back from some files I bought. He scaled these to 25mm scale so they fit in with the Battle of Hoth figures I have plus my old West End Games Star Wars guys.

 

My goal here was to give the rebels another unit type in the board game to match the AT-STs I added for the Imperials. I'll probably play these as the analog to the Empire's probe droids.

They are maybe a touch too big (my fault--I should have asked for 20mm prints) but the sliding scale of Battle of Hoth figures is so elastic that it isn't a big deal. The prints turned out super well.

Up next: Probably more 15mm sci-fi terrain.

More Battle of Hoth figures

At Christmas, I ran across a discounted copy of the Battle of Hoth and picked it up for the extra figures and so that I could play the giant-sized scenario (that requires two sets). I spent one of the cold snap in January painting these guys up.

Having painted this set once, I was able to knock out a duplicate a lot faster.

To help me keep the sets straight, I went with a plain white base instead of the light blue base I did on the first set.

I found some AT-ST minis that are roughly in scale with the AT-ATs and will paint those up shortly to add a unit type for the Imperials. I am hopeful that the success of this game will mean future release for, say, the Battle of Endor.

 Up next: Probably some 15mm sci-fi terrain.

Star Wars Risk (really)

Last fall, I bought a copy of the 2015 game Star Wars Risk entirely because it had a tonne of tiny space ships. I was just going to cage them for painting and toss the game but I read the rules first and it is actually pretty decent (and good for a Risk variant) so I added a few more minis and have been running a few games.

The game board is shaped like Darth Vader's tie-fighter silhouette, has three play spaces (left, right and centre), and lets you fight out the Battle Endor. Action is card driven, which lends a bit of interest and fog of war. Basically, the Space Vietcong have to destroy the Death Star before the Space Americans/Nazis wipe out the Rebel fleet.

The central area sees fighters contest for control of space around the fully operational Death Star while they wait for the ground forces to fight it out and lower the shields (I added minis for the larger ships and the DS). This shot is at the end of a game where the forces are pretty severely depleted and the Empire has managed to wipe out the Rebel fleet before the Death Star was destroyed. In each of the five games I've played, the game came down to the wire so it is well balanced and I don't see any killer strategies you could employ..

The ground game (above) sees the Rebel commandos move closer to the shield generators, slowed but not stopped by the Empire. The game comes with cardboard counters but I had some 15mm troops that I painted and added for colour. The tension here is how many cards does the Empire waste to slow the Rebels? Once the shields are down, the Death Star is very vulnerable.

On the other side of the board is a throne-room duel between Luke, Vader and the Emperor. Again, cardboard counters were replaced with some extra 25mm WEG metals from the 1980s. This duel is very much a sideshow and is less integrated into game play than the shield generator track. It has some nice colour (do you redeem Vader or just kill him--depends on your cards and your planning).

Overall, for a game that is designed for 10-year-olds (and requires no reading to play), it was a hoot. You can easily learn the game and play twice in an hour if you are an experienced gamer. I wouldn't want to play this very often but, as something to have around to haul out and play with non-gamers who like Star Wars, this was way better than expected.

Battle of Hoth Campaign 1

In late November, Bruce and I gave the first mini-campaign for the Battle of Hoth a go. This is one of two programmed tree campaigns that the game comes with. Including a brief instruction, we managed to get through three games in 70 minutes and had a dramatic finale (I suspect the campaign likely goes on one or two more steps but three games in a row was lots for one day).

Game one (above) was basically an encounter and introduction to unit types. The rebels won this one handily thanks to incredibly lucky dice.

Game 2 went to the imperials who quickly killed a rebel laser cannon and grabbed the key victory location.

Game 3 saw the rebels defending shield generators. The Imperials could win if they took out both generators. The rebels could win through attriting the attacker. 

Bruce thrust up the left flank and quickly destroyed the first generator and I figured the game was over. The Rebels were able to successfully defend the second generator long enough to attrit the Imperials. There was quite a lot of drama, much like you'd expect.

Overall, we thought this was a fun, light game that was more like the simplicity of Battle Cry than the more chromed up later CCA variants we've played. The campaign included primary and secondary victory conditions and just enough carry over effects to incentivize the players. Overall, this was good fun and emphasized movement and tactics. Super happy with this game.