Ultron, Fashion Icon

At last, a model worthy of James Spader's voiceover!

Another upgrade in the Earth's Mightiest Core Set is Ultron, who picked up a blast effect, a few pals, and a magnificent cape!

One of the problems I have, narratively speaking, with Ultron in MCP is that, even by villain standards, he's such an anti-social jerk. In the original Secret Wars, when the worst of Marvel's evildoers were thrown together as a team, their first action was to get rid of Ultron who simply wouldn't cooperate.

That problem is solved in this version of Ultron, Metal Tyrant - now he's brought along his own friends in the form of some grunts. It was also quite canny to include a model with grunts in the core box, so newcomers can get familiar with this mechanic.

Now, whenever Ultron is fielded as part of team (he's only in the Cabal affiliation - who else would have him?), my head canon can assume he's just there doing his own thing with his minions, rather than learning to get along.

He wasn't too much trouble to paint, although I did so many sub-assemblies, it was one step away from painting him on the sprue. Both Ultron and the drones were sprayed Leadbelcher, then washed with Nuln Oil and drybrushed Leadbelcher. 

The red insides were picked out with Blood Angels Red contrast, then layered with Wild Rider Red and Yriel Yellow, with a wash of Cassandora Yellow.

The red cape held no mysteries after painting so many Asgardians: Khorne Red, Mephiston Red, Evil Sunz Scarlett and Wild Rider Red.

The drones were also sub assemblies, just because it would have been easier than painting in one cluster. As grunts go, they're not very mission-orientated and very much focussed on destruction (like their boss).

One of the cool things about grunts in Crisis Protocol is that each one has a different way of respawning - these ones appear from destroyed terrain, so would work well with auto-destroyers, like Juggernaut, Rhino or Sentinel MK4; or ones that can fling terrain cheaply, like Magneto or Cable.

I wonder if painting up all of them counts as a squad?