Gear Mk. Trithemius

This is my first Gear, and a tester of sorts. I have a couple of these now and will use them to work out my painting approach to the bigger Gears like Goethia, Theurgia and Grimorium. Legacy of Solomon may be different but I am not sure yet, and the Golem Gears such as Hecatondies Sigma Zero will be certainly be approached differently.

Gears come in two flavours so far, and the more common type is considered Technomagical Powered Armour, and that is the class that the Trithemius seems to fall into. Gears are mostly developed from examples of rediscovered technology known as Lost Loggia in the Anima Tactics background. Most of them have Damage Resistance, cannot take Advantage Cards, and many are Immune to Poison.

The Gear Mk. Trithemius is a sort-of Agent type of Gear; it is not an Agent as such, but counts against the limit of Agents, and like Agents has a small menu of options to customise its abilities. Unfortunately, the creators appear to have printed the game card for the unit with an error in its AP recovery rate (the card has it as way too fast for its Level value), although this has not been officially addressed in an Errata or update that I can find. I hope that is rectified fairly soon.

Since I mainly play against Wissenschaft when I play Rob, I hope we get a game in with one or more Gears fairly soon, although countering the decent Armor values prevalent among Gears will take some working out.

I enjoyed painting this and turned it around quite quickly, so the second one may be done before too long. Possibly.

Running Totals
Anima Tactics Units: 163 (added: Gear Mk Trithemius x2; October)
Anima Tactics Units Painted: 59 (55 different models)
Painted Units Percentage: 36.2% (percentage of AT minis owned and painted)
Anima Tactics Range: 152 units (including 2 LE minis;including September as he still is due for presumably imminent release)
Percentage of Whole Range Painted: 36.2%
Year to Date Target: 18 of 24 units (3 per month target; 75%)

Type-020: Verrier

It has been a long lay-off from painting for me (due to working on the recent Pulp City Kickstarter), at least relative to my productivity in 2013. Therefore I am pretty pleased to have painted a few minis over the past few days.

I have managed to paint some Anima Tactics and non-Anima Tactics stuff that I hope will ignite some overall painting momentum, with a view to getting back on track.

This weekend I finished three minis including this one, and in the past few days I have prepped several other Anima Tactics minis: Luther Delacroix; another Al-Djinn; and Freya. While I already had a lot of stuff prepped, I am hoping completing 'some things' right now helps spur me on to getting some serious painting done in the next few weeks and months - time will tell of course, as ever!

This model has been in my pile of blisters for a few months, but having some time off work this week freed up a bit of painting time, so I had a small surge of motivation and assembled and painted this quite quickly by my standards; it effectively 'jumped the painting queue', but having not finished any painting for several weeks I am okay with that. While not my best work, I am happy with the results especially for a quick turnaround.

In game terms, one Type-020: Verrier can be taken per every 150 Levels of a Party. As an Undead unit you cannot attach Advantage Cards to them, so the key choice regarding the Type-020: Verrier is which upgrade to use. I suspect my primary choice will be the Queen until I get to grips with Guidance Points and Controllers; the Queen option allows lower-Level Undead to ignore the Uncontrollable rule. The options allow this unit to be fielded at Levels between 30 and 40. I have another Type-020: Verrier waiting in the wings (pardon the pun!), although not yet assembled, but with this unit finished and the next (to be shown in a few days), my Black Sun force is really growing; I expect to show a new Party picture very soon, and hope to get them on the table in the next few months.

I am also closing in on having a complete collection of the minis. There have been a couple of recent releases which I have yet to pick up (Gear Mk. Trithemius and October), so by my count I need five more minis for the complete set. Getting closer, although the paint total still falls short!

Running Totals
Anima Tactics Minis: 155 (added: Luther Delacroix; Mijhail Mashen’ka; a second Type-020: Verrier; and a second Type-004: Hellhound/ Hellhound)
Anima Tactics Minis Painted: 44 (43 different models)
Painted Minis Percentage: 28.4% (percentage of AT minis owned and painted)
Anima Tactics Range: 150 (including 2 LE minis)
Percentage of Whole Range Painted: 28.7% (this includes the two new releases)

Ignis, Fire Demon

This has been stuck in the dread 'painting queue' for rather a long time. Bits of work were done on it, but very haphazardly from the outset. For example it was initially undercoated in black; then I realised that was a big mistake, so used some yellow spray to re-undercoat  it. Then some of the red base colour got slapped on and I noticed there was some extra gap filling to be done as the red was painted. So it simply got put to one side due to encountering those problems (mostly of my own creation). After very recently painting Maximo Ligori, I had a little bit of renewed motivation, so did a bit of work on Genma (also a very long time in the painting queue - as can be seen from this post here from 20 months ago), but thought to myself, I really had to finish Ignis, Fire Demon.

I did a quick bit of dry-brushing and washes on the red body, and set to work on the flames, before some final highlights to the body of the model. The flames have been the most time consuming, and although a bit of a challenge (reversing the usual progression of dark to light to light to dark from recesses to out aspects of the flame does take a little getting used to for me), I am actually reasonably happy with the results, and very happy it is finally done and finished. Not brilliant, but done, and a real change of palette from the recent Black Sun Undead units and Faust Orbatos and Maximo Ligori.

I had originally envisioned having two or three of these, but given how long it has taken me to get around to finishing it, I think I will stick with one. It is quite a tall model, approximately three and half inches from the base to the tip of the flames, so matches the Wrath of Nature in height (but certainly not bulk!).

With finishing this one, I have painted over 25% of the models I have for Anima Tactics. The next one I finish should take me to exactly one quarter of the available range, unless they suddenly release some more in the next few weeks!

Having more Summon options now means I really do need to get some more effective Summoners painted up (specifically Belith, Genma and Covel), and probably at least one more Dark Summon for a little bit of balance. In game terms Ignis, Fire Demon has seen a cost reduction from the 2013 Update. I know from reading the Cipher Studios Forums some players did not view it as a particularity effective unit previously, but there seemed to be some strong points about it that looked good to me (high Damage, base size, its special abilities), so with reduced cost it does look tastier than before. As a summon, there are no Advantage Card issues to plan for, so the primary decision is whether to take the super-cheap lesser form or the slightly more expensive greater form.

Running Totals
Anima Tactics Minis: 147 (added: still not added anything for a while, but that may change soon-ish)
Anima Tactics Minis Painted: 37
Painted Minis Percentage: 25.1% (percentage of minis owned and painted)

Type-005 (blister) (II)

The last of my Type-005's. I think 3 is enough as in order to field more I would be looking at larger games, 400 Levels or more, which I don't see happening any time in the near to medium-term future. In addition, if I wanted to do another, I would want to balance things out with another copy of the Type-005 from the Black Sun Starter Set.

I am fairly please overall with how these and the Type-009 have turned out, and I can attribute my recent productivity with the Black Sun necromantic weapons largely to my Zomtober endeavours. To make a viable Party, I need to get some more options painted up I think, so units I feel I would like to get finished are Promethea, Bridget Setsuna, Deimon, Type-012 Hunter, Type-020 Verrier, and maybe another Type-004: Hellhound, the latter painted in a scheme more in line with my Black Sun units (meaning the first one will be for use mainly as a Summon). That said, I have 7 units for my Black Sun so far, 8 with the Type-004: Hellhound, so the basics are there!

On the wider painting queue, I did a quick count of undercoated or part-painted Anima Tactics minis that I have, and that is 45 or so currently, so I need to start making headway into that pile before long! At my current rate of around 3 per month on average, that is 15 months work, or around 3 years to paint everything I have acquired, so watch this space for progress!

Running Totals
Anima Tactics Minis: 147 (added: nothing!)
Anima Tactics Minis Painted: 34
Painted Minis Percentage: 23.1% (percentage of minis owned and painted)

Type-009

The Type-009, also known as the Deathhead, is another Black Sun Undead foot-soldier. Arguably more dangerous than the Type-005 (also see here), like the other necromantic weapons the Type-009 can also be modified towards a specialist role.

I think I will be fielding the Type-009 with the Type-010: Commander upgrade; that allows Type-005's and 009's to ignore uncontrollable, and gives them an Attack buff. Add in Elite Squadron Advantage Card for the Type-005's and suddenly they look a little more dangerous all around.

Yet again I have opted for a colour scheme intended to tie my undead constructs together as (hopefully!) a cohesive whole. I aim to use the same approach with the Type-020: Verrier and Raziel Archetypum when I eventually get around to those. My key Black Sun colours of black (really: dark grey with washes) and green are in there and will continue as a motif as far as possible on other in the same Organization.

Fielding the various basic Undead cuts down on some decisions: they cannot take Advantage Cards; they usually will have a limited selection of role-focused upgrades so choosing one should be straightforwards. Something they are is undeniably cheap units, so a non-Black Sun enemy should be outnumbered all things considered. as I gather more of these necromantic weapon constructs and their masters in painted form, i am quite looking forwards to fielding them as a Party - hopefully sooner than later!

Running Totals
Anima Tactics Minis: 147 (added: Eve; Griever; and Macbeth)
Anima Tactics Minis Painted: 33
Painted Minis Percentage: 22.4% (percentage of minis owned and painted)

Type-005 (blister)

My second Type-005 (my first is here); Zomtober has really helped spur me on to get a number of minis finished this month (on the day I finished this Type-005, I finished 3 other minis).

This Type-005 follows the same colour scheme as the preceding one, and the third I am working on along with a Type-009 which will have a matching scheme too. Hopefully they will be a fearsome-looking selection of units when finished.

There are two Type-005 bodies, with a selection of two left arms, two right arms and three heads. I plan to stop at three of these units, as with the Type-009 upgraded, I expect the four models will weigh in at 85 Levels as they benefit from a Black Sun Organization Advantage which awards levels for upgrades. In a 300 Level game that leaves 215 levels plus 5 upgrade Levels for another Undead unit, which should mean around 4-6 additional models, or 8-10 for a 300 Level Party as a whole. Given that a 300 Level Party would typically be 6-7 units, that is quite a potential numerical advantage. I will need to work on a few more units to get there though.

I have started work on both the remaining Type-005 and the Type-009, so hopefully they will be finished while I still have some painting momentum. Let's see how that works out...

Running Totals
Anima Tactics Minis: 144 (added: another Type-012 Hunter)
Anima Tactics Minis Painted: 32
Painted Minis Percentage: 22.2% (percentage of minis owned and painted)

Type-005 (Starter Set)

I am pretty pleased with how this model has turned out. It has been assembled for quite some time, and was something I planned to get around to eventually, but with Zomtober underway on one way of my other blogs (click for link), I was inspired to do some Undead painting for Anima Tactics; to that end I made a start on my first two Type-005's (I have three; you can take one per 100 Party Levels allowed). This is the first, and I would like to finish the second before the end of October, motivation permitting.

With a really limited palette, this was actually quite quick to finish: the different areas of colour are skin; metal; black cloth; green cloth; leather straps; blank dead eyes. I chose to use my usual Zombie skin recipe rather than the Anima Tactics 'studio' Type-005/Type-009 skin hue which is a kind of magenta. That does look cool, but I know what I like for my Undead!

Type-005's seem to have taken time to improve in perceived value in the game. At first glance they are quite cheap units with a degree of customization available (more on that with the next Type-005 post). However as Undead they cannot take Advantage Cards, which means that mitigating their inherent limited accuracy (Attack 4; no special Attack or Charge that adds Attack or Damage) is a key issue. Initially their biggest inherent advantage could be that after being taken out, the essentially explode at the start of the next Action Phase. However if your Black Sun Party takes Elite Squadron (Plot Card) and has a Type-009 upgraded to Type-010: Commander, then suddenly taking a few Type-005's means that you can have Attack 6 and Damage 6 units at just 25 Levels cost apiece (Type-005A: Assault). Add to that they have a 12 inch range Attack and the possibility of some annoying spam is unleashed.

Time to start thinking of playing a Black Sun Party methinks! And time to get painting the other two Type-005's and my Type-009...

Running Totals
Anima Tactics Minis: 143 (added: still nothing since the last painted mini!)
Anima Tactics Minis Painted: 31
Painted Minis Percentage: 21.7% (percentage of minis owned and painted)

Wrath of Nature

My first Summon!

Not that I have painted up a worthwhile Summoner yet (I do not see Sarah Reindhold as a useful Summoner at this stage of my understanding of the game), but hey, it is a start...

The blurb for Wrath of Nature describes them as 'an incarnation of the unleashed power of Gaia'.

Summons are non-unique, meaning a Party can include more than one of each type subject to the Levels limit. Summons do not start in play, but are brought to the battle-field by the Summoner they are attached to. Summoning has an Action Point cost according to the Summon's rules. In addition, most Summons have a choice of Level cost which they can be bought for, with a lesser and more powerful version available. That difference may be in characteristics, or Innate Abilities or Special Actions. The Level cost of Summons is accordingly lower than perhaps an equivalent model with the same abilities (if there was such a thing), and this is reflected in their Atman rating, which is their relative worth. In addition they can be used within an Organization Party without taking up the Wanderer slot.

The Wrath of Nature is a bit of a lumbering beast with a lot of Life Points and Armor, but not too mobile. The fact that it is huge should be evident from the third photograph alongside Sarah Reindhold.

I would like to get at least one more Summon and a decent Summoner painted up before my planned games later this month.

In the mean time the painting queue changes randomly as ever, and Yuki had some work done today: not even a Summoner! So whether I get done what I want is anyone's guess...


Running Totals
Anima Tactics Minis: 89 (added a lot since the last update: Kerberos; Veronica; Deadmoon; Jerome; Justine; Cordelia Rosalind; Damaris; and Momiji)
Anima Tactics Minis Painted: 12
Painted Minis Percentage: 14.6% (yep, it has gone down! That splurge has dented my progress, so time to get splashing those hairy sticks onto minis!)