Relic Knights (Pt.1, robots & girls)

Long time ago (quite long!), even before I started this blog, I was feeling quite fed up of the modern Warhammer way. I had all kind of variants of Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, overdozed grumpy Orks, oversized armies of the Imperial Guard... I was no more playing the latest versions of the game (I believe my last 'living edition' game was most probably 5th, which I played once or twice. I clearly was in need of a change. So then is more or less when I decided to turn back to the origins and how I remembered games to be fun. But most importantly, I needed to change subject, I needed just not to paint Space Marines for a while. I was looking for something totally different... and it appeared. My friend Rodrigo got me embarked into the Relic Knights kickstarter, my first KS at all.

OK, it looked nice. Manga style pin-ups and sci-fi robots and stuff. Why not? I put my money on those. After all, I'll have some different stuff to paint in just a few moths, what could possibly go wrong?

Ahem.

About more than two years later (!!!) I finally got the minis. Two. Years. We could debate now about the nature of KS projects and what can we expect from them, but I don't see the point right now. Enough to say that back in the day that was totally new to me and I thought it could be a nice change from the GW stuff I was used to.

Since then, a lot of things happened. I turned proper oldskool, I started a blog, I began to play hundreds of different wargames and specially boardgames... So the urge I felt then had totally disappeared by the time the Relic Knights minis finally arrived. They even don't look so appealing to me after all this story. Anyway, I've finally decided to get myself to work on them.

This skirmish game involves six different factions. I chose the Cerci Speed Circuit:

 

A change indeed from anything you've seen before on this blog

 

This faction is made up of people from a leisure planet full of gambling on racing tracks and any other vice you may imagine. So expect robots and hoverbikes.

First decision I made was that I was not going on the pink approach. No way. I thought of a multicoloured bunch of minis, splatting greens and yellows and blues. That could work, but then they all would look quite dissimilar. I tried a different idea, painting them all following a dominant white colour pattern, giving a sense of coherence to the cadre.

The first mini I painted was the Pacer, a minion bot:

 

Maybe my favourite mini from the starter pack

I have used the white and orange pattern before, maybe a couple of times, and I think it works fine. So the decision was made!

The cadre is set around a Relic Knight, with some Questing Knights, Unique units and Minions. Knights also are accompanied by a cypher, a familiar enhancing their powers. This is the case of the next mini. Questing Knight Marie-Claude is obviously a tribute to cosplay model Marie-Claude Bourbonnais (How cool is to say that a company made your own mini?)

 

If you google her name you'll see the mini is not exaggerated at all

Finally, a couple of minions, pit crew, as racers need a good crew behind.

 

I'd like to see the size of the... The nuts they have to tighten with those wrenches. That's it.

Well, so you can see what is this all about... Manga pin-ups in a sci-fi setting. What I've shown above is among the best of the starter pack. I'm afraid that some of the minis are not top quality. There are some flat faces that make it difficult to paint any detail, for example. But anyway, there is no going back! I'll keep on updating these!