TL9 Talisman Adventure Ninja (Feb ’87)

Those of you who are regular readers may have noticed I’ve not been posting for a bit. The short version is that after several months of lining up a post every two days, I burnt out on blogging for awhile and needed a break. So anyway, I’ve still been painting, I’m back again, and I’ll attempt to get a post up at least once and ideally twice a week again. During my “time off” I haven’t really been following others’ blogs, either here on WordPress or over on Dakka, excepting the odd WP one that pops in my inbox. I’ll catch up, but I have been finding that just keeping up to date on other people’s work takes a good few hours each week, and when you’re tired anyway it can become quite draining. I’ll catch up guys, just give me some time. 🙂

Anyway, enough of my bitching and on to why people actually visit this page. Models!

Well, one model.

TL9 Talisman Adventure Ninja (Feb '97) Oldhammer

What we have here is the Ninja model from Talisman: Adventure, circa 1986. I picked this model up in the deep dark mists of time alongside several others that never got painted (or finished at least), including the TL9 Talisman Troll, who has also been showcased here a couple of years ago. Let’s face it, I probably got them all off Dave (who I still haven’t managed to track down!)

TL9 Talisman Adventure Ninja (Feb '97) Oldhammer

Nothing especially exciting about the paint scheme here. I’ve gone for black highlighted with blue instead of grey because that’s how blending in at night works, and painted his blade with a couple of dark metal tones from Vallejo. I’ve avoided the “highlight to white” look, because as awesome as it can be on other people’s figures, it’s generally not my own chosen look outside of hard armour edges on Marines, Eldar and such. There’s a sort-of zenithal thing going with more highlighting on his shoulders and hood than his lower half, but unfortunately for these photos, the satin varnish I chose to use on this model – which gives the model a really nice, subtle, look in hand – makes him look like he’s been swimming in gloss varnish in these photos, so these things are much harder to see here.

TL9 Talisman Adventure Ninja (Feb '97) Oldhammer

There’s not much else to add about this guy. He’s a Ninja model from an old edition of a game I’m not likely to spend much time with, because (despite owning almost all of the GW2e and most of the FFG stuff) Talisman is bloody tedious – and more a way to burn away an afternoon talking and such before deciding to pack it away unfinished than a good game, especially by today’s board game standards. With that in mind, it’s pretty much a figure that might be pulled out for the odd RPG or custom miniatures scenario, like that Scooby-Doo 7TV one I’ve had in my head for the past several years. Or… Imperial Assassin, anyone? Still, done is done!

Descent: Journeys in the Dark 1st Edition – Hellhounds

Descent 1.0 Hellhounds

Today’s models come from Descent: Journeys in the Dark 1st Edition. I picked it up secondhand several years ago, when I heard about how great a game it was, blurring the lines between RPG and miniatures boardgame. Shortly afterwards, the Second Edition came out, though I did pick up the official conversion kit, I’ve never gotten around to playing either of the things yet.

A month or so I got the idea to paint the Giant Spiders out of the 1e box. While I was poking around in there, I found these Hellhounds. Figuring that they’d paint up pretty quickly, I ended up putting the Spiders back and working on these instead. They didn’t take too long to get done, and being pretty rough figures I wan’t going to knock myself out over getting the absolute best paintjobs on them, either. Tabletop is good enough!

Descent 1.0 Hellhounds

Descent uses two different “types” of each monster: “White” ones, which are normal, or trooper-types and “Red” ones which are champion-level and tougher. So the sculpts come in two colours of plastic – Red and White (actually, more of a cream, but I digress). In order to be able to identify the two types, I painted the “White” ones with brighter orangey-red and red-to-yellow flame-fur, while the “Red” ones were painted in a slightly deeper, darker red and have yellow-to-black flame-fur. Enough to distinguish them when needed, but close enough that they still work in a pack for other games.

Descent 1.0 Hellhounds

Descent 1.0 Hellhounds

Speaking of other games, I knocked up a multi-base for them so that they can be used as a regiment in Kings of War. They’d be used as Proxy Hellhounds in my Khorne Chaos Daemons army, which in turn will be using the Forces of the Abyss/Hellhounds entry. Which I’ve just noticed while looking it up to write this only come in units of 5. And naturally, this base is made for a nominal unit of 10. Feck. That’s annoying, especially as they’re actual Hellhounds. Though the Mantic models also come on pissy little 25mm bases from Dungeon Saga, so perhaps the more appropriate proxy entry for these models will actually be a regiment of Abyssal Horsemen.