An Interlude with a Prelude

The Blood Brotherhood of the Wastes

When I came home from Historicon last week, I had a “problem” I hadn’t experienced in quite awhile. I wasn’t sure what to paint next! I pretty much had everything I needed for Ghost Archipelago (except for the four chimps I bought at the convention). I didn’t feel like continuing working on the Fox army for my fantasy miniatures battle rules (a completely separate project involving the Splintered Light Miniatures animals, but on multi-figure “unit” bases). Hmm...what to paint, what to paint...?

One of the three types of poses in Sgt. Major Miniatures Cultists line that I bought

At Historicon, my friend Jason had brought along his choice of post-Apocalyptic miniatures rules - Across the Dead Earth. I read them and liked them - more so than another set I had borrowed to read, This is Not a Test. I always imagine post-Apocalyptic as the Mad Max movies - not the weirdo, magical mutations of the old Gamma World role playing games. No psionic abilities, no lobster-clawed humanoids. Just desperate, punk rockers meet motorcycle gangs type action.

Back of the three Waste Cultist pose

Last year, I picked up a couple dozen or more 28mm Foundry figures for a buck each from a guy who bought out a store going out of business. They were a mix of street gangs, modern military types, and armed civilians. I sorted through his collection looking for figures that would work for a post-Apocalyptic world. They were to supplement the packs I had been slowly picking up from Sgt. Major Miniatures at the conventions. They have an amazing post-Apocalyptic line, though they seem to have stopped coming to shows. Their website says they’re closed and up for sale, so hopefully someone will buy them and revive the line.

Two of the Waste Cultists wearing gas masks

So, I decided to begin painting post-Apocalyptic figures. Yes, yes, I am still running Ghost Archipelago. This is - as the title I’d this blog entry says - a Prelude to future games (no pun intended). Before they closed, I had purchase two “gangs” - how Across the Dead Earth organizes a player’s forces. One of these were Chaos Cultists, which could also easily work for my Pulp games.

These hooded guys with sub machine guns could also easily be used in my Pulp games

There were three main varieties of poses. A pack of three sub machine gun-toting hooded and robed figures (think KKK-looking). The other pack had five robed and hooded guys with ninja-style face masks. Two wore gas masks instead and had full backpacks. The other three had the upper half of their face visible. All five carried a black powder looking weapon. These would be my first gang -perhaps the Blood Broetherhood of the Wastes?

I chose to give them iron red robes with tan trim. White would make them look way too KKK-ish, and might draw some objections from players (and in this current political climate, myself included). I painted the robes and hoods a craft paint color called Iron Red - which is just a slight bit brighter than a red-brown. I dry brushed them with Howard Hues Middle Eastern Flesh, which gives it a nice orangish cast. I really like how the robes turned out.


As for the accessories, I painted them with a leather, tan, or olive drab look to show they scavenged their equipment Andy were not uniformly equipped. I also made them multiracial with the majority Caucasian, along with a couple black and a couple intended to be Hispanic/Middle Eastern or Asian. It’s interesting that when doing painting the periods that I have, it is not something I have had to do much. My gladiators were multi-racial, too, but the other periods I’ve painted were not as diverse as I envision the near future.

Finally, I needed to fit their base flocking scheme to the imagined wasteland of the future. I went back to gluing large rocks onto their bases first. I washed the boulders brown to make them blend in more. Next, I added Woodland Scenics Fine Brown Ballast. I used some greenish-brown tufts and a tiny dab of grass to give it some color. Finally, I sealed it out withmix of white glue and water.

I really like how they turned out, and look forward to doing another batch!