The Deadzone Proxy Project, Part II


In terms of gaming and miniature painting my goal for 2019 is to make substantial inroads into the so-called Deadzone Proxy Project, a two year undertaking I set for myself back in May 2017 in which I collect and paint playable squads for each faction of Deadzone (DZ). I bought my first Raging Heroes miniatures in October 2017, more than a year after discovering them on the Internet and pondering upon whether or not I should buy the little dudes (dudettes?). I suppose that was the seminal moment marks the true beginning of the Project, and as the name suggests I will be using Raging Heroes miniatures to proxy for some of the factions. This is not an absolute restriction. I will also pull from other lines, manufacturers and board games as I see fit.

The GCPS, being represented by the Kurganova range by Raging Heroes. This picture, and all the subsequent ones in this post are 150 point forces.

It is now February 2019, and there is no way that I will be able to complete this project in any substantive fashion by May. I have had many digressions along the way, most notably my foray into painting up my greenskins for Kings of War/The Ninth Age/Warhammer. I've painted almost all my Mansions of Madness miniatures. I've somehow ended up with a mostly painted The Walking Dead collection, and buried deep within my gaming cupboard is a set of US marines taking on aliens in Mars Attacks! The Board Game. I've based and flocked my Dark Angels, and played my first ever games of Warhammer 40K. I've acquired Doom and Rising Sun, with half-baked plans of one day converting the miniatures within into DZ and Kings of War forces respectively. More troubling is that in recent months I've acquired more High Elves, and the nucleus of a brand new Fantasy army, the Skaven.

The Rebels, proxied by the Jailbirds, also from Raging Heroes.

Skaven. WTF.

Mantic's Forge Fathers.

This has got to stop. It's ridiculous. In 2016 Games Workshop killed Warhammer, and I thought they were doing me a favor at the time by putting the final nail in a long dormant hobby of mine. Instead it's galvanized me into digging up my miniatures and getting them shipped to Japan, working on them and painting them up, and scrounging Japan for networks of similarly minded players. It's worse than ever. I even bought a display case for my miniatures. Insanity, I tell you. E-Bay has been the worst discovery for me, because rarely a day goes by when I don't scour its electronic pages for bargains and cool looking miniatures. I'm on the hunt for jezzails and ratling gun teams, as well as warp fire throwers and the like. I want the weird and wacky Skaven models, and this is one obsession that is going to be really hard to shake, especially now that I have a nucleus of an army. I know I won't be happy until I can field a Skaven army one day in one of the Fantasy systems I currently play. The fact that Warhammer is out of print makes it tricky, because listings on E-Bay come and go, and sometimes I feel obliged to snap up a listing because I'm afraid I'll never see it again. My latest purchase has been the 8th edition Warhammer starter set, and I fear that I've undone all the hard work I put into the hobby this year by acquiring MORE SHIT. I was proud of the work I did on the greenskins because I transformed a mass of grey plastic I ALREADY owned into something that looked like an army from a distance. Now I have even more grey plastic, which means my net inroad into my collection is back to what it was at the start of 2017.

The Plague.

Nonetheless in 2019 I am going to TRY to work solely on the Proxy Project and on my sci-fi range. That means working primarily on miniatures, DZ scenery, and plastic furniture for Star Saga. Playing Takatori-San on the weekend reminded me how good DZ can be, and we have an established DZ community in Nerima, as well as a new one in Nishi-Tokorozawa which is just a short bicycle ride away. I don't know what kind of serendipitous event has blessed me with the opening of a gaming store which plays an obscure English game I happen to like in Japan of all places just 20 minutes by bike from my house, but I will take it. This coming Sunday Tsuneda-San is holding a DZ meet at the venue, and I will be there with bells on.

The Enforcers.

My Fantasy armies are going to get a touch up here and there before scheduled meets, but starting today I'm going to stash all my armies in their carry cases and put them on the shelf. Last year I wanted to create a miniature universe in the Warpath world, but I somehow lost sight of that when I found Fantasy again. It's time for a course correction. I will still play Fantasy as I have a life long love for it, but I will spend my painting time working on my sci-fi stuff. It might also mean that I acquire more miniatures to round out my DZ collection, but it won't be on the same scale as a fully fledged Fantasy army. This might seem like more self-delusion on my part, but the distinction is important in my own head. I started the sci-fi project, and I intend to finish it.

Next: The Deadzone Proxy Project, Part III

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