As promised, I begin my foray into the mutants of Crisis Protocol.
Naturally, I start with the bad guys.
The Brotherhood of Mutants have always been the antithesis of the X-Men. They seem to have dropped the 'Evil' from their name, which is a shame, as that was a selling point for me.
First on the roster, naturally, is Magneto. A whopping 6-threat who even brings his own piece of terrain to throw around. With a leadership ability that generates power from destroyed terrain, this should leave a seriously-empty battlefield by the end.
This miniature is designed with pieces of twisted metal around him, forming a sort of magnetic 'aura'. I tried these out, but I think they distract from the big man himself, so he's just gesticulating for effect.
Fortunately, I'd just painted a Warhammer Giant, so the prospect of large amounts of skin didn't phase me. The Blob was enjoyable enough to paint, and a classic X-villain too. I don't usually do much with base decorations, but the opportunity for diet soda cans and fast food wrappers was too good to pass up. The latte cup even has his name written on it.
As a sneaky little 2-threat, Toad is apparently a very popular character to include in teams (I heard a rumour his rules are due to be toned-down, which is very in-keeping with my habit of painting characters in time for them to be nerfed).
Notwithstanding, I love his bright 'jester' colours, and hope that prehensile tongue survives the rigor of battle. To reflect his slimy nature, I washed his skin with Athonian Camoshade, rather than the usual Reikland Flesh, which does show a little.
Sabretooth is my first (but almost certainly not last) animalistic clawed mutant with a healing factor. He's a big fella, which made him a nice canvas to work with, and it made me reflect on what makes these MCP characters such fun to paint:
Half the guys in this particular batch feature yellow quite prominently. If this was a 40k squad, I'd find a recipe that worked and go ahead. But they all have different tones - Toad is orange, Sabretooth is brown and Pyro (below) is vivid red. That makes each on its own challenge and, because it's just one model, makes it worth mixing up new colours.
So Sabretooth here started with a Balor Brown base, working up to Averland Sunset, then glazed with Lamenter's Yellow. His darker uniform was a Rhinox Hide base, with 50/50 highlights of Gorthor Brown/Mournfang Brown, and a glaze of Agrax Earthshade.
Australian novelist-turned-mutant terrorist (fair dinkum), Pyro was great fun to paint, as it basically involved trying to get him as vibrant as possible (he also shares the same snide grin as a Bullseye).
The red was Khorne Red, Mephiston Red, Evil Sunz Scarlett and the yellow was Averland Sunset, Yriel Yellow, Lamenter's Yellow.
Rounding out the team is the other leader, Mystique. In the comics, she's a far more interesting character than the blue nudist lizard of the movies, and has a very cool Xavier's School sign as part of her ruined base (she can also explode terrain, so it fits in well).
As a shapeshifter, it's commonplace to paint her mid-transformation, with a kind of Alpha-Legion squiggle to show the change. I was tempted, but I like the character design so much - and how often do you get to try blue skin - that I went for the standard look.
The skin itself was a Thousand Sons Blue base, with a mix of Thunderhawk Blue and Temple Guard Blue for highlights.
There's plenty more in this roster to go - and some of them aren't even evil!
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