Lockdown has been in effect in the UK for around 15 weeks and it has been both a blessing and a curse for my hobby time. The time, secluded from distractions like friends and family, has left me lots more time to paint, however it also left me with restricted access to my miniatures collection.
My collection is split between my flat and parent house and so with only access to the miniatures here I have been working through what I can. So I've been painting a lot of Zombicide and Descent, but when I burned out on board games I found myself lacking much pewter to put my brushes on, that was when I remembered Pulp City.
Pulp City is a Super Hero game of resource management as you spend action points to perform feats of superhuman endurance. It can be played as a simple skirmish beat em up, or you can try different scenarios like Capture the Flag or Area Control.
I set myself a lockdown target to go from 68 completed PC minis all the way up to 100, or roughly 2/5th of my current collection. I started out with the minions. These are smaller characters that can be taken by heroes and villains alike to add support and maybe act as a distraction. While some of the original minions were more or less human, ninjas, corrupt cops etc, I decided to focus on the more anthropomorphic characters, the Mutant Mobsters, the Anklebiters and my favourite the Hover Cats.
Lots of opportunities here for experimentation, different colours and patterns. Lots of fun to be had.
With the minions done I turned my attention to the team I was closest to finishing. Although Pulp City can be played with any miniatures from the range, there are several factions which when fielded together form a synergy. The team I decided to finish were the Grimm. Loosely based on Gremlins, this faction lives below an abandoned movie studio and has a weird fascination with popular culture. To close out the faction I needed to paint their Leader, John Grimmsham, two level 1 supremes, Hooligrim and The Big Grimmoski, their Powerhouse, Grimm Bun-Bun and finally their minions, the Grimminions.
With the Grimm finished I was finally on the road to 100, I didn't want to limit myself to a single faction so instead I began to cherry pick some of my favourite minis from the range as well as taking some suggestions from my Facebook followers.
Some of the highlights for me included Boreas, the wind demon who feeds on the essence of humans. Francis Gator, an obvious ode to Killer Croc. Blood Rose, a geisha inspired miniature that could have been plucked from the pages of TMNT and Seabolt, a surfer dude with more than a passing resemblance to Iceman from the X-men.
Finally the Road to 100 concluded with Dark Solar. Normally when I paint what I would consider a milestone miniature I do something big and bold, like a dragon or a large alien but with Pulp City I wanted to paint something more significant. Solar was the first Pulp City miniature I ever painted and Dark Solar was a reissued version with an improved sculpt, so I thought it would bookend my journey nicely to both start and end the first 100 painted minis with same character.
And there we have it, you can view all of my Pulp City minis over in the gallery. Next week we'll be taking a look at some of the Zombicide Invader minis I've painted during lockdown. Until then, stay safe and keep painting.
The Duke
If he had to pick a favourite super hero movie, The Duke would probably say Spiderman Far From Home, or Into the Spiderverse... and Deadpool was pretty great, and not to forget Civil War... Wait does the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles count...?