Nuclear Launch Detected (Part 1)

A little bit of history:

When I went to Gencon in 2010, there was this booth on my way to go to the Malifaux booth: the Mercs booth.

My fellow Gencon raider and friend Eric absolutely wanted to stop by and so we did.

A nice collection of minis with a gameplay using the cards for the models to move them...Interesting but I bought none at the time because I was on a limited budget and wanted to spend on Malifaux first. (On the other hand, my friend Eric bought their special deal and got all factions.)

Couple months later, the books for the game is released and we receive it at our local game store, being a curious one I picked it up...And was totally sold on FCC.

Played a ''quickstart'' game...And was really disappointed by how basic it was.
Played a game using all the rules...And was disappointed by how strong ''suppressing fire'' was.

And that was the end of Mercs for me.

Keiza Waza, a faction I eagerly was waiting for couple of months before, came out in 2011. You could see the unpainted models at Gencon 2011. But I had no more interest in Mercs.

Flash forward to early 2012: Yaum from  Club Chaos  is painting his KemVar and Tonio (also from Club Chaos) is painting his Yellow Jackets CCC at one of the Oldie's Painting Night at our local game store...

Listening to Paul, Yaum and Tonio talk about mercs wet my appetite, they were also telling me that apparently I misinterpreted the rules on suppressing fire and badly played against it...Seeing the incredible paintjobs was the spark needed to rekindle the flame of Mercs in my heart.

And when I learned a certain faction could launch a Nuke in-game...

Keiza Waza it was!!!

So you can find all the background needed for Keiza Waza: here or in their book 2 (not released yet but I know there will be one with it).

For those too lazy to click a link or too cheap to support a company and buy their book let me just tell you that Keiza Waza is a mega-corporation based in eastern Asia (Japan, Australia, New-Zealand), that they use nuclear-powered armors and that if 3 specific models are alive and can accomplish certain things in-game, they can...  launch a tactical nuke !!!! Awesome right?!?!

So in less time needed than to say ''my wallet is bleeding'' I bought 5 out of the 6 guys out for that faction (in that game you can only play with 5 guys max anyways) and decided to have a fully painted Mercs Keiza Waza army so I could play and say the Stacraft 1-2 ''Nuclear Launch Detected'' during my games.

Here's part 1 on my ''Nuclear Launch Detected Team'', painted with my favorite color of 2011-2012: Trollblood base (and Trollblood highlight for the beige).

The Keiza Waza Pathfinder

The Painting:

As you can see, this is tabletop level. I initially wanted to try and go to a more professional skill level but lacked the time and patience to do so.
Hazard stripes were a pain to paint and I'm still undecided whether I leave them there or erase them.

Overall I was extremely pleased with how enjoyable this painting experience was...Armour plates made it easy to paint and the size and just the right amount of details made it funnier to paint than infinity.

For the color scheme I wanted something ''military urban'' and something close to a starcraft 2 terran, although I didn't go full blue I got to use my favorite color of 2011: trollblood base.

The Model rule-wise:
The pathfinder has a weak armor, a really good movement and what seems to be a very decent shooting ability...He's one of the three models required to launch a Tactical Nuke and uses his laser-pointer to mark the target.

That's it for the pathfinder...This article was part 1 so you can expect a part 2 to follow soon as my pathfinder will be joined by the Satellite Observer.