Hellboy: The Board Game – Bud Waller

Well, if you haven’t heard, things are very cold in the US right now and yesterday we didn’t get above 0 Fahrenheit in Chicago and with wind chills well beneath that (I think I heard -20 F or so) so needless to say, I haven’t been doing a lot outside of late. I’m dreaming of the days where I can take a rattle can outside and do some priming but more on that in a bit!

This week I thought I’d knock out another investigator for Hellboy and this week is Bud Waller. He’s an older member on the team and unfortunately, he’s one of the few I can remember that gets killed in action. I forgot to check his rules so I’m not sure how that affects his gameplay. The mini was fairly straightforward to paint since his uniform is basically identical to other investigators.

One thing that is noteworthy about this mini is his skin tone. I think painting black or African skin tone is a fun and interesting challenge because there are some subtle differences between it and other skin tones. Some people more orangish-brown warm skin tones while others have more of a dark brown with an almost pinkish tone to it that is cooler in color. Games Workshop has wisely come up with some paints to cover the cooler skin tone but I don’t own them and thought I could mix them up myself. I think the results are okay but I didn’t quite nail it. Perhaps I will get their paints in the future to see how I like them. I also look forward to working more on miniatures with different skin tones to see if I can learn and master more of them. Its one of the areas of the hobby where your work is never done. There’s always chances to learn and improve.

Other than that, I have started maybe batch painting something else for Hellboy. I was grumbling and complaining as I did the early basecoating and then some washes so I wouldn’t be surprise if I end up painting them one-by-one instead. Perhaps in the end, I don’t have what it takes to be a great army painter regular visitors Nicolas and Azazel. It seems to be a mental block as I feel rushed trying to juggle multiple miniatures at once and I hate cutting corners on miniatures (unless the sculpt is truly awful). We’ll see how I get on with this task and how many I manage this week.

I might try and squeeze in a game of Hellboy sooner or later. Its been too long since I’ve played. I have also done some investigation into Fallout and I have an idea for what I want to play. I don’t know exactly when it will happen but its probably only a matter of time now.

When I wasn’t painting, I also managed to do some more miniature assembly this week for Anne’s challenge.

First up, we’ve got some elite characters for the Institute. This is another one of my X-mas gifts that was pretty easy to put together. The courser (guy on the left) had some bad mold lines that were hard to clean up without messing up details but otherwise, I think these will look good painted up, once I can prime them, of course.

This is quite a change of pace from the previous miniatures and Brahmin are something I’ve needed for a while. They’re great objectives in games and there is at least one scenario that calls for them specifically. There are two in the box and so you might be asking where is the other? Unfortunately, a leg was snapped off it before I received them as a gift and so I contacted Modiphius and they were kind enough to send me a whole new box of them so hopefully I’ll have that in the nearish future and will get the other one assembled. Of course, this means I will have a bonus Brahmin like the one pictured above as well. Perhaps I can convert that one up a bit later on. We shall see!

So that is all the hobby progress I have. There is more hobby things to discuss though, quite a bit more in fact. First off, there is the mystery miniatures I teased last week. Unfortunately, its mostly bad news as far as these go. The one I was really excited arrived broken.

I had to research this first but in 2021, I purchased a couple of Bushido miniatures. They arrived and were metal which I wasn’t expecting. I was disappointed with them as they weren’t diorama quality in my mind at the time and I think I had trouble even assembling them. Fast forward to now, Bushido miniatures are now 3D printed resin which is quite a bit better in my opinion. I have a pretty straightforward diorama idea for an Oni fighting someone in a forest and the main subject would be the miniature I bought. Unfortunately, Bushido miniatures are in plastic blister packages with no foam or anything to prevent them from rattling around in transit. I’m pretty sure this is how the damage below occurred.

Its a little hard to see in the picture but one horn is about 75% there and the other is completely broken off and in two pieces. One of the bells came off in the back as well. I contacted the place where I purchased it (Noble Knight Games) and I believe they’re kindly sending me another one in the near future. I’m sure they think I’m crazy but I asked them to consider adding some foam or something in the blister so that the miniature can’t rattle around but we’ll see if they’re willing to do that or not. Overall, the sculpt quality of this Oni is very good. It looks extremely paintable and diorama quality even so that’s nice to see. Bushido might want to consider making adjustments to their packaging however as I can see this being a problem for any fragile minis. Of course, Resin is not sturdy like metal is either so extra precautions are needed.

The other miniature I got is a little disappointing, though I’m not at all surprised by it. I took a chance and bought a dwarf sculpt from Scibor and I’m just not happy enough with the quality of it to actually paint it. Some of the details are too soft like the runes on the shield but the main issue is that it has some really tiny details that wouldn’t be fun to paint. I think it would be much better using metallic paints than non-metallic. That isn’t what I was intending to do with the miniature so I probably won’t paint it up. It’s cheap to buy (under $10!) and I don’t regret trying another one after several years have passed just to see if I was missing out on anything. Scibor makes really cool bases and terrain and that is what always draws me in. The miniatures aren’t quite as good and I need to learn my lesson stay away from them.

So pretty deflating results overall! Obviously, I’m hoping that the Bushido replacement does end up arriving undamaged. Otherwise, I will have to turn my eyes towards something else for dioramas. It is a shame that I can’t find someone who makes good fantasy miniatures that fit my taste/interest. I like Games Workshop’s dwarves in The Old World but nothing really stands out as a display piece. The hunt goes on, I suppose!

Lastly, I saw some interesting news from Modiphius. More busts are coming and I like the look of both of them, actually.

These two have more variety in their textures and would be a little less demanding time-wise which is exactly what I would prefer. Perhaps one day I’ll pick one or both up! I wouldn’t mind if we see even more though I imagine Modiphius will want to stick to the most popular characters because if they go fairly obscure, they may not sell well.

Modiphius also shared that they’re coming out with a solo Fallout RPG. The description says you can create your own Vault Survivor and then explore the wasteland with the character. This is intriguing though I admit, I know very little about RPGs and I’ve never played one (which probably puts me in a minority in the blogging community). Has anybody played a solo RPG before? I’d be curious to hear your thoughts/experiences, if so! That would probably help me better decide if this is something I should be on the lookout for or not!