Monday, March 13, 2017

Random Links - Manga, Claymore, Sisters of Battle and Shieldmaidens

Have you ever read or watch something that reminds you of something else, which in turn reminds you of something else, which in turn gives you an idea for something else entirely? I get that a lot. And over the weekend it happen again, starting with a manga One-Shot.

An One-Shot manga is a comic that either tries to tells a stand-alone short story or tries to raise interest in a new series that author wants to write. I know some of my favorite manga series started as an One-Shot like Berserk and Seven Deadly Sins. In both of these cases the One-Shot was not connect to the series but was very similar to what ended up being the first chapter of the series. I've recently read Arcadia of the Moonlight One-Shot and it seems to me to be more of the pleading its case to be a new series kind of One-Shot. Its a science fiction boy meets princess and decides to help her story. Cliche but manage to perk my interest so I would like to find out more. The plot was rushed but then again you don't have a lot of time in an One-Shot. I don't read a lot of manga anymore. The only reason I read Arcadia of the Moonlight was because it was by Norihiro Yagi. He wrote one of my favorite manga comics in Claymore.

Claymore is a dark fantasy series about its heroine, Clare out to get revenge on a powerful enemy. Clare is a Claymore, a term used by citizens of the country to refer to a supernatural warrior from the organization. Thought to be half-human, half demons these warriors are expert sword masters with supernatural strength, speed and a range of other powers. They earn their name from the fact each wields a large Claymore sword. The warriors of the organization are also all female. Their uniform is pretty simple with a grey/off white/silver color (I found a wiki that says the uniforms are grey but they look closer to an off white or silver to me). Yet it works for them. Reminiscing about my love for Claymore, I was suddenly reminded of another all-female organization.

Phil has been trying to drag me kicking and screaming back into the 40k universe. I hear a lot about the state of the 40k from him and what's new with his 40k armies. As much as I love Eldar and Blood Angels, it wasn't enough to bring me back to the game I started the hobby in. However Sisters of Battle is a different story. Getting to play Sisters of Battle again is probably the one way I consider going back to 40k. Phil knows this and has giving me all the rules I need to have to play them. Phil has also mention to me kill-team rules which is a way to play without having a full army. I still have what little of Sisters of Battle I own before I quit though none of it was ever completely painted. A compelling reason to at least look into kill teams is that I would have 20 to 30 models I can work on before I would need to spend money on 40k again. I started with a red and purple color scheme but since I never finished painting a single model, I could easily go with something different. Related to thinking about if and what to paint my Sisters as, I've also been thinking about colors for my fantasy Sisters like army in the Shieldmaidens. I need to paint the Cloud Giant in my New Year's purchase soon and I hadn't settle on the Shieldmaidens' color. I was leading towards a light green and purple but I wasn't really happy with that.

With Claymore, Sisters of Battle and Shieldmaidens all on my mind, it occurred to me that I could borrow Claymore's colors to solve my problems. 'Light green and silver' or 'purple and silver' looks better in my mind than 'green and purple'. I also solved a problem I hadn't gotten to yet with how I was going to handle rank and/or unit specialization (by unit specialization I'm talking about things like the Dominion Squad and Seraphim Squad in Sisters of Battle). I knew I was going to have one character with red in her outfit and she was going to be some type of officer. The red would be unique to her so how would I distinguish other officers? If I'm going to have special units or military branches within the Shieldmaidens, how will I distinguish them as well? The answer is to paint the entire army two colors with one being silver. The other color will depend on rank and special units. Silver will be the main color with the second color as highlights except for officers whom this will be reverse. Higher the rank, the less silver on their uniform. Sadly I only have two models to try this on and they both most likely officer characters. My Sisters of Battle models would be a good place to try out this color scheme on the average warrior.

I still have a lot to work on with my Shieldmaidens. I haven't decided whether to mirror them on an existing army or makeup my own force and fit something into it later. And of course there is the issue of finding models for them. Nevertheless some aspects of the Shieldmaidens are now resolved because I read a random One-Shot and my mind went into overdrive. Its funny how that works. Thanks for reading about the inter working of my thoughts. Until next time!

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