Core Space: Run! It's The Purge!

I finished off the base colors on all of my Purge and though I had some concerns at the start, I am very happy with the results!  Behold the glory of the Purge!

For those that aren't familiar with Core Space, the Purge are the AI controlled antagonist/timer in the game.  As the game progresses, more and stronger Purge enter the battlefield, putting more and more pressure on you rag-tag band of traders.  Do you try to get more loot or do you run for your ship to try to escape?  I really like how the mechanic looks and I'm excited to see it in action, but for now let's take a closer look at the minis and how they turned out.

First off are the basic Purge unit, the harvesters.

These beasties just move forward to engage your traders and harvest their organic goodness by punching them in the head.  It really doesn't get any simpler than that.  For their scheme, I decided to stick with something similar to the studio paint scheme.  It almost seems like old bones in coloration and if just felt like a good fit.

The only criticism that I had with these minis as some of the detail seemed a little soft, but Core Space goes for realistic proportions so it makes sense.  In the end, I like how the wash helped to pick out some of the details and I'm happy with the result.  I want to do the eyes on all of them as well, plus add a blue glow to the ports in their chest but I'll come back to that as the urge strikes me.

Next are the harvesters big brothers, the devastaters.

These brutes will also happily beat your head in, but they can also blast you at range so they add something new to fear in the game.  The scheme for these is red with a white head but I decided to paint them the same as the harvesters.  Since the Purge are a computer driven race, I don't really see why they would differentiate the units with different color schemes so the bone color seemed like a good fit to me.

Devastaters are larger than the harvesters and they had much more defined detail on them that made it a bit easier to pick out the separate plates.  As with the harvesters, I plan to come back to them to add some details (eyes, reactor, weapons) but they are good enough to get on the table as they are for now.

Next is the bane of trader captains, the assassin.

Unlike the other Purge that target the closest humanoid, the assassin is specifically designed to hunt down the captain which adds even more pressure to the players to get the heck out of dodge.  The studio paint scheme is done in a very clean white which looks really nice, but personally I struggle with getting good coverage with white.  It also doesn't seem like a good fit thematically either.  The assassin is gleaming white?  Instead, I opted for a dark grey so it would blend more into the background as it hunts its target.

As for the mini, this is the other reason that I wanted its paint scheme to mark it as something different.  While I was looking at the minis before I painted them, I noticed that the silhouette of the assassin is similar to the harvester.  In fact, there were a couple of times that I had to stop and go through the minis to pick out the one with four arms.  By going with the grey, it makes it very distinctive compared to the other Purge minis.  As with the others, I will be going back and picking out some details but it's good enough for gaming right now!

And last but not least is the only "living" Purge creature encountered so far, the Live One.

The arrival of the Live One usually means that shit just got real for the traders.  Brutal in close and ranged combat, they are even worth more experience for the trader that manages to take down the first one in a scenario!

This is my favorite miniature in the Purge line.  It's pose is very dynamic and the appearance is unlike anything that I've seen before.  The frame of the creature itself is very slight but still have enough bulk that they were able to sculpt some definition into its form, and the cloak is amazing looking.  For color, I followed the example of someone that posted on the Core Space FB group and made the robe a nice and strong red, with the scarf-like part done in bone to tie it in with the rest of the Purge.  Originally I had done the collar of the scarf in bone as well but it made me think of Dr. Who a bit too much, so I decided to do that portion black instead to take away the emphasis.  The last bit (though it was the first part I painted) is the skin, which I did in the dark green-grey that they use on the studio scheme.  I like how it contrasts to the other colors and gives the figure a very alien feel.

And there you have the Purge!  Overall a lot more fun to paint than I originally expected (the spindly harvesters had me nervous!) and I'm excited to move on to the rest of the civilians.  I haven't finalized my thoughts on their paint schemes yet, but I think they will probably be similar to the studio schemes in the end.

Of course there is more in the works (zombies and heroclix galore!) but I'll show the progress on those later.  What to get a bit more done first.  Until next time...