Showing posts with label Infiltration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Infiltration. Show all posts

Tuesday, 22 April 2014

Shinobi

Ninja! Essentially Wanderer ninjas, Shinobi are non-unique units for Anima Tactics, described as elite assassins said to come from the Eastern island of Varja. I like ninjas (I have painted 8 so far for Pulp City!), and so eventually I would like to paint a few of these (more on why in a moment), and I do currently have another available in the mound of blisters.

Shinobi can be taken once per 150 Party Levels, so usually one or two in a typical Party. Unlike other Agents (so far!), they can be included in Organization or Faction Parties (currently, other Agents may only be used in Organization Parties - not in Light or Dark Parties). However, there is also an interesting wrinkle with Kagemaru when used as an Optional Leader; then his Master Shinobi and Elite Shinobi abilities allow you to field a ninja squadron - he allows up to two additional Shinobi, with all Shinobi having a reduced cost! Use them in an Azur Party with the Shadow Lords Organizational Advantage and suddenly you can have Kagemaru (as Optional Leader) and 4 Shinobi with maximum enhancements, all for 155 Levels versus the usual cost of 200 Levels (basically a 'free' extra unit). Add more Prowlers such as Dagger, Harod, Kyler or Kirsten, and the cost break continues. Assassin force!

All that aside, I would rather have another Shinobi sculpt before investing in a third and fourth. Right  now however, there is no sign of another sculpt appearing but I will remain hopeful as other Agents have had two variants.

On the colour scheme, I had started painting the whole uniform dark blue, but I did not like it, so I dropped the mini into the stripping bath (Dettol; works a treat, and best stuff I have used so far). I re-started using 'black' (dark grey) as the base for most of the mini, and keeping the dark blue to add some contrast, which was a motif I started with Kagemaru. I will keep this colour scheme going forward for other Shinobi, but altering the position of the dark blue to break up the uniformity a little. Most importantly, my 2014 painting target is almost  back on track across all lines after losing a month in February (I want to manage four minis per month, plus another couple somewhere across the year), and for Anima Tactics I want to paint around three minis per month on average; so far for this year I have painted ten Anima Tactics minis, so I am down by two.

Running Totals
Anima Tactics Units: 156 (added: nothing, but currently several mins are on order...)
Anima Tactics Units Painted: 52 (50 different models; technically as September has not yet been released, that is one-third of every mini I have, and one-third of those actually available!)
Painted Units Percentage: 33.3% (percentage of AT minis owned and painted)
Anima Tactics Range: 151 units (including 2 LE minis; added September as he is due for imminent release)
Percentage of Whole Range Painted: 33.1%
Year to Date Target: 11 of 12 units (3 per month target; 91.7%)

Sunday, 16 March 2014

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)

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