Urban War: Triad Retainers

The third batch of minis from the list I have made myself is now complete.

I've recently finished off two 'units' of Urban War Triad Retainers. I hesitate to call them units, as in Urban War all figures are individuals, but the paint scheme certainly splits them into two definite groups, as do the paint jobs. The first, the red and white, were initially painted in 2004 (with the details being finished recently), and the second group, the green and orange, being painted in 2016.

These miniatures were originally released in 2004/5 (I know because it said so on the tabs, not because I could actually recall when I bought them) by Urban Mammoth, and are now available from Scotia Grendel. I bought these guys from Urban Mammoth's brick and mortar store in Edinburgh, and they finally made the trip over here a couple of years ago.

As you can see, the shading technique I used on the first batch was very rudimentary. The 2016 group has some quick and dirty 2 brush blending, so looks a bit smoother, I think.

The bases are the ones that I spoke of earlier, with the last two that I painted in this batch being put aside for the Triad Boss and a Kabuki doll, both of whom have languished in a half painted state for about as long as these guys.

As much as I would like to use these guys in a game of Urban War, it is more likely that these will go with the Viridians I have also finally put some finishing touches to (i.e. based) to be played with in some of the SciFi games I am trying to get set up.

Void Miniatures: Viridians

I have been aware of Void since its inception. A game by i-Kore, a Scottish Company, who went through a host of games prior to this, and are still regenerating in a Doctor Who fashion, with new figures and games based on the same property. Now we're onto Urban War and Metropolis (with plans for a 10mm battle game), but I'll go into those in a later post. This post is the first of a few where I go through the minis I brought back from Scotland on my last trip, photographing those who have been painted, and cataloguing what I have to play with and still to paint.

The first minis I bought for Void when it came out back in 2000, were the Viridian Shock Marines. I really liked these minis, much more then the current sculpts. I think the stark lines and lack of complication really appealed to me. Certainly when compared to the GW overkill that was all the rage at the time.

 

The paint scheme here was clearly modelled on the scheme on the front of the book (see picture at top of the post). They are almost finished. For some reason I didn't finish off their belt buckles, only doing one of the four.The transfers on the shields are also from the Void range, although one is missing the number on the bottom of the shield, so I'll go back and add that. Then go over the transfer with some kind of matte agent to dull down the shine. Compared to my other basing at the time, the bases on these is pretty done. There aren't even any holes in the slots that I didn't fill in (like on some of the marines below), so all I'll need to do there is give them a dusting with some snow powder. Maybe a little ink here and there and we're done. Only 14 years after I started them!

The second batch of minis I bought for Void were a box of normal marines. The initial Void 1.0 rules allowed for all four factions to have access to the same basic troops (marines and prisoner troops) with the addition of a few faction specific troops on top. Later, they released faction specific marines, and the prison troops became the sole domain of the Junkers.

Of course, there is no means of camouflaging these guys, I went with bright yellow (obviously inspired by my Escher). The only real touching up that needs done here is to a couple of the based where I didn't fill in the slot. That may mean they all have to be rebased though, as I chucked all my flock rather than bring it on the plane.

With these two units, I was well placed to move on to a Viridian army, however this was not to be, as the bulk of the troops that took my fancy were from the VASA faction. So that was the one I went on to collect. More of them in a future post (however, I never painted them up in any way, so there will be a lot less nice pictures there).

The last Viridian miniature I have from Void, and not any of the later games, is a limited release miniature, Lieutenant Night Shade. A quick search online came up trumps on her rules too (which I thought I had lost. She can be found here.

 

So, the question is, shall I paint her up to match the marines, like the Shock Marines, or like my other Viridians for Urban War? 

For those that are interested, the latest version of the Void ruleset (Void 1.1) can be downloaded from the Scotia Grendel website here, for the princely sum of $0. They also still sell all the minis that were released for Void. There is also all the other game supplements that were released in pdf form. Go check it out. I remember it being fun.