I was catching up on older WAYWO podcasts, and a while back, maybe epidsode 14 or 15 (so, Spring of '08), Scott mentions that they're playtesting a third edition of SuperSystem. I look forward to that. The SuperFigs site also notes some new miniature releases soon. May be time to renew my Old Glory Army subscription...

Got around to finishing my Reaper Chronoscape Ape-X, Super Villain figure I talked about before. He really is a very cool figure, and I like how he turned out.

So, some of you may have realized that I like super apes. I was tooling around the Reaper site today, and saw that they produce a new super ape, Ape-X, Super Villian, in their new Chronoscape line. Naturally, I ran out and bought one. It's not evident from the picture, but Ape-X includes four separate hands-- the fist and chain gun shown, plus a wrecking ball/mace and a drill. Now, this excited me because I have been looking for a chance to do some swappable bits with rare earth magnets, which is all the rage lately...

So, I get him based and all cleaned up, and spend most of the night drilling 1/8" holes into his arms and hands. The bit is too big to fit in a pin vise, and the metal is too strong for me to drill by hand, so I used a full-size power drill and carefully made the holes. The hands are especially fiddly work, but eventually, I get everything drilled well enough and ready to go. I epoxy all the magnets in, keeping very sure to maintain the proper orientation of the stack of rare earth magnets on every single element, and gluing them firmly in with 5 minute epoxy. The problem is, if you really stop and think about it, by not changing the orientation of the stack of magnets, I guaranteed that the "top" side was exposed everywhere. I now have the perfect screw up-- not a single hand sticks to any arm!!! Frell me dead!!. I don't know what I'm going to do or how I'm going to get these gorram magnets out after epoxying them, and making sure some of this firm epoxy slopped over the front, just to make an extra strong bond. I will probably just glue some hands on, as neodynmium magnets are toxic once the shiny covering is off, and my prying at it with pliers and X-Acto blades is taking it right off...

Mik pointed out the other day that I hadn't posted pictures of my Barrel of Monkeys Superbot. Created and piloted by a super-intelligent group mind made up of cute, tiny gibbons, the Barrel of Monkeys can often be found teaming up with Harangutan and the Super Simians.

It's a wooden craft barrel, styrene arms and very tiny HO scale RR monkeys.

I intended to do some separate bases of groups of individual monkeys and run them as a single figure of multiple bases, but wasn't sure how that would work in the rules and never got around to, but I still have extra monkeys!

Naturally, they are most fond of Elastiape.

More pictures. I just really need to set the light tent up permanently and use it to take pictures, I'm having a hard time taking decent pictures. It is not anything that has ever been easy for me!

Trying to get some better pictures of the Dwarf Hammerers up for trade.

Silver Age Sentinals Robot Army (Iron Walkers):

And the latest 40mm Sash & Saber Indians.

Note that one Indian is Caucasian. From White Devil by Brumwell, "...that most feared and loathed product of the colonial American frontier-- the 'white Indian' who treated his countrymen worse than did the 'savages' themselves."

Some pictures of what I've been painting lately.

First, the rest of my 40mm Sash and Saber FIW Indians. That's my 10 figures for the month. Make sure and check out Mik's Minis, where I'm sure he'll be posting pictures of his ten S&S Indians, which are no doubt painted by now! ;-)

A Reaper Eye Beast, probably to be sold off on TMP soon. He turned out a lot nicer than I expected!

Old Glory Army's latest figure, Poncho. Will probably go in trade.

The Iron Duke from Silver Age Sentinels. He might go, but I like him a lot, I may keep him.

Okay, here is a batch of stuff that I've finished lately and finally got around to photographing. They're a tad underexposed, but not too bad.

My 40mm AWI Grenadiers from Trident/MSC. These are really nice figures. I should go back and touch up a few of the eyes, but I'm pretty pleased with these. I'm looking forward to doing the rest of my militiamen, although I might wait until after I get the spare hands packs, just to see what I can do with that.

Zeppelin Troops from Bob Murch's Pulp Figures. I've had these and the US Rocketmen for about a year or so, but the .45 Adventures rules got me excited about them again. Plus, you can get started playing with just a few figures.

One of the things I was really looking forward to buying with my Old Glory Army discount was some Cobalt 1 Palansi. I love these guys! Well, of course West Wind discontinued the line right before I got my membership. I still managed to find some seriously discounted at Historicon last year.

SWAT teams. I got 20 painted up, 10 West Wind and 10 Wargames Foundry. They're both nice, although god forbid the US starts arming their SWAT teams with SAWs!

These have turned out to be some of my favorite figures of all time, my Genestealer Cult. I've had these figures for ages, and in fact, I remember starting the Ogryn hybrid at a place I haven't lived at for ten years, so it counts and the figure it has taken me the longest to complete! The robot is a TALOS unit from Kryomek. I tried to make him very weathered and rusty. The effect didn't really turn out that well, the rust looks like some sort of camo pattern to me, but he still looks good in general.

Superfigs! I got almost all of these at Historicon last year (although there's a power armor girl in there from VOID). I love these figures, really nice, lots of character.

I also recently bought the SuperSystem 2007 Annual. It's definitely worth a measly $2.50 if you play the game. It has 19 pages, 10 characters, 4 powers, 1 rule (super club breakage), 3 scenaros, 1 linked "role-playing" scenario (2 scenarios, 3 characters), a fast play sheet and lava templates to cut out. Not bad at all for $2.50!! All of which reminds me, I still need to buy the Mecha Gor. Oooo, and look, new figures! Heh. I believe I'm entering what is traditionally referred to as "the manic phase."

Or rather, a Rooftop Rumble! My Rooftop Rumble is structurally complete, I just need to finish painting some of the buildings. Plus, I finished my Zero Foundation figures (Zero Device, Jump Monkey, Battering Ram, Steel Razor, Ape Austin and Boomerang Kid), so I might swap the mish-mash bad guy team for them.

The setup. Zoya has grabbed the window washer's platform and is carrying it to the building gap for a bridge. Gibbon Glider has picked up Harangutan and is flying for the newspaper building.

The baddies about to make their move-- Dr. Simian leads the Bot, Zoya, Adder and Blackbird.

Here come the Super Simians!

The end of turn three. Elastiape was the first to the roof of the Weekly Globe, and slingshoted the Alien Artifact back over to the rest of the team. Dr. Simian's minions get ready to brawl while Blackbird sprints for the Artifact.

Goradiator chucks a gargoyle at the Bot and misses, sending it crashing into the far building!

Blackbird is slowed by Harangutan's flares, while the Bot gets ready to knock Goradiator back to the other building.

Elastiape prepares to slingshot the Weekly Globe's globe; however, upon realizing he is not strong enough to do that, he meekly replaces it and returns to where he was.

Down to the wire! Adder tries to tie up Gibbon Glider and Goradiator to give Blackbird a chance to get the Artifact, but Harangutan won't stop flashing her! I mean, FLARING her!

Meanwhile, Elastiape snatches the side of the Weekly Globe after being smacked around by the Bot, and the fearless leader Dr. Simian super leaps into the alley. Again.

Gibbon Glider breaks free, but can't stop Blackbird! She swoops in and slashes Harangutan good-- but to no avail! His aerobics pay off as Harangutan hangs on to the Alien Artifact.

Adder tries to make her move, and Goradiator finally connects, sending her through the far wall.

I've been getting my Superfigs together for a rooftop rumble game. I'm getting pretty close to finishing! I made the two big roofs a couple of years back but never got around to using them.

I bought a bunch of Superfigs at Historicon. I painted up the Super Simians (I'll get closeups later) as well as the Glockroach. That's enough to get this game going, so I stopped there, but I also (accidentally, it turns out) bought most of the Zero Foundation, so they're next in line (missing Cranium/Microbot, which I'll probably get, and Serpent, which I probably won't) as well as some selected backlog.

The tan boxes are unpainted A/C units, just $1 paper mache boxes at Michael I glued some geegaws on. The central building will be the Newspaper building, complete with throwable globe and gargoyles. I also made a removable billboard that Super Strong characters can rip off and use as a bridge.