Youtube // Strontium Dog - The Good, The Bad and The Mutie

It's happened. I have completed the starter set from Warlord Games. The Good, The Bad and The Mutie is set within the 2000 AD comic series called Strontium Dog and follows one of the saddest tales in the series. The game comes with 8 characters. Three are Strontium Dog agents - Johnny Alpha, The Gronk and Wulf Sternhammer and they face off against five villains of the Max Bubba Gang - Max Bubba, Brute Mosely, Lowdown O'Phee, Skull and Impetigo Jones.

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Comic: Strontium Dog: Traitor to his Kind

Miniature Monday // Lowdown O'Phee

It finally happened. I've finished the whole set! That's right I've completed The Good, The Bad and The Mutie, by Warlord Games. Meaning I can now start moving onto some basic terrain so I can start playing some games. But before any of that happen let's deep dive into the character Lowdown O'Phee.

Real name: Lowdown O'Phee

Affiliation: Max Bubba

Unusual features: No body

Occupation: Gang member

Origin: Mutated by strontium-90

Place of death: Lapland

History

Lowdown McPhee was a mutant born without a body who was a member of Max Bubba's gang. He took part in Bubba's plot to destroy humanity by going back in time to Viking Scandinavia and randomly killing people. Lowdown died after being shot several times in a final confrontation between Bubba and a group led by Johnny Alpha.

Transportation: Electric car; time machine.

Weapons: Blaster.

This was a hard model to paint. It's strange not having the body aspect of a model and the casting on the face was a little misshapen. But I am happy to have him finished and with the set complete The Good, The Bad and The Mutie is now finished. With this opening set complete, I am now ready to continue building up some terrain and attempt some solo games. Wish me luck with this.

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• Photographed on an A5100
• Strontium Dog Rulebook
• Strontium Dog: Search/Destroy Agency Files 01

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Miniature Monday // Strontium Dog: Wulf Sternhammer

Hello, Old Cucumbers! Welcome to another installment of Warlord Games Strontium Dog miniatures. Slowly but surely I am working my way through the full introduction set; The Good, The Bad and The Mutie.

So far I have completed Johnny Alpha, The Gronk, Max Bubba, Brute Mosely, Skull and Impetigo Jones. With Wulf Sternhammer completed I can move onto Lowdown O'Phee and start playing some intro games (excited). After this set is complete I wish to move onto the Mutant General Pack, closely followed by Durham Red. But let's get into Wulf's back story.

Real name: Wulf Sternhammer

Relatives: Olga Sternhammer (mother); Kenton Sternhammer (son)

Place of birth: Scandinavia

Place of death: Smiley's World

History

Wulf Sternhammer is a character in the Starlord and 2000 AD comic strip Strontium Dog. A great flaxen-haired bear of a man, he was a Viking whose life was saved by the mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha, who had travelled back in time to Wulf's era (793 AD) in search of the sadistic criminal Max Bubba and his gang. Wulf was accidentally transported back to 2175 AD (or thereabouts; accounts vary) by the time bomb Johnny used to capture Max. Because Johnny had saved his life so many times Wulf swore lifelong loyalty to him and became his friend and partner.

The two worked together for fifteen years, with Wulf's good-humoured nature and tremendous strength proving invaluable to the formerly lonely Alpha in his harsh existence. Wulf could work hard when necessary but also knew how to enjoy life, so he was constantly ready with a smile and a joke when things got tough. With the creds they got for capturing Xen the Brainwraith on the planet Burrito, the pair retired to Smiley's World and built a cabin on Moondog Mountain. They then rescued Eleanor Keeble's husband and three children from interstellar slavers for no fee after Johnny took pity on her.

Wulf was eventually murdered by Bubba and his gang when they returned to exact revenge on him and on Johnny; Bubba had the pair staked out under a blazing sun, but Wulf broke free only to die in a hail of bullets.

Powers and abilities

Abilities: Proficient fighter and bounty hunter; can repair robots.

Strength level: Wulf has "the strength of ten" (according to Starlord #9). Ten of what is not specified.

Weaknesses: Ale.

Equipment: Anti-grav chute.

Transportation: His longboat Dragonbreath; Morks; spaceships; skipdip (amphibious vehicle used to navigate swamps).

Weapons: Wulf carried an enormous war hammer which he referred to as his 'Happy Stick', and was also proficient with various weapons from Johnny Alpha's era, such as a Vebley custom hand blaster (with infrared night sight) and thermo bombs.

Notes: Curiously, Wulf, who spoke a kind of mangled English, had a habit of referring to people as "old cucumber."

I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know your thoughts in the comments and as always thank you for stopping by.

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Strontium Dog Rulebook

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Comic Review 122 // Strontium Dog: Search/Destroy Agency Files 02

Wow, this is one big omnibus. I finished reading this one with a day to spare. Meaning I am writing this with barely 24 hours to go before it goes live. I have to say, I am really enjoying the Strontium Dog series so far; it definitely isn't knocking Dredd off the top spot but is definitely up there in my enjoyment lists. As I stated earlier this year, I am getting into the Warlord Games: The Good, The Bad and The mutie, a Strontium game. To ensure I am getting the most out of the game, I am attempting to read a large chunk of the series and paint up figures.

Last week I unsurprisingly started with omnibus one. Once you have had a read that, you can head back here. The original book was a great intro to the leading trio and did a solid job of introducing us to the series. 

Personal Thoughts

I entered this book looking for the lore to be expanded, and I was not disappointed. 

This omnibus opened with Portrait of a Mutant - a deep dive into Johnny Alpha's past, how he was affected by the Strontium 90 and how his father, Nelson Kreelman, was the leader of an anti-mutant group. Through this series, we meet the leaders of the mutant rebellion (who later become Strontium Dogs), discover how and why T-Weapons were created and finally, how Kreelman was overthrown. Great intro to this book, which left me more engaged with the Strontium series than I could have imagined. This was then followed by the emotional - The Gronk Affair. This tale reintroduces the Weerds Brothers (first seen in the Hell series), these low-life Strontium Dogs are looking for revenge on Johnny and Wulf, and in an attempt to lure them into a trap, they aid poachers in an attack on the Gronk's homeworld. Quite a sad tale, showing how dark this series can be, the sight of all the Gronk pelts is rather horrific.

We get what I would call more traditional style stories for Strontium Dogs; the first involves Kid Knee, a down-and-out SD agent, looking for one final score against the criminal known as the Mutator. A good, solid outing. Kid Knee was a fun character, and his ending is more of a warning to the main characters about knowing when to quit. This is followed by the Moses Incident and shows the effect the job can take on Alpha and the lengths he will go to, to right a wrong. A rather dark and emotion-filled story. Then the third story in this trio - The Killing, has Alpha and Sternhammer entering a deadly competition where to win, you have to kill everyone else! Alpha and Sternhammer take on this challenge as nearly all the competition have bounties on their heads. This ended up being a classic gunfight story, and I loved it.

Then to finish up, we had a 23 parter (basically an Epic) called Outlaw. This actually continues the Nelson Kreelman story. With Johnny Alpha's Dad reappearing in disguise to take over the Strontium Dog program. With the aid of the Stix Brother, Kreelman can turn the S/D agent against the S/D agent. Within this chaos, he also manages to get Alpha, Sternhammer and the old leaders of the Mutant Rebellion outlawed. With a sizable reward on their heads, the team flee the Doghouse and attempt to reclaim their freedoms. This was a fantastic story and hit hard on several panels as some of my favourite characters came to an end.

Here is where the omnibus should finish, but there is actually a throwaway bonus tale at the end that is just pure filler and not very good, to be honest. Overall a great, fun read. Stronger in the story than the first omnibus and is really setting up some exciting story arcs. I just hope omnibus volume 3 can continue the upward trend.

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Kindle Edition - Search/Destroy Agency Vol.1

The Game: The Good, The Bad, The Mutie by Warlord Games

Comic Review 121 // Strontium Dog Search/Destroy Agency Files, Vol.1

Birthday Post!! Turning 38 today and what better way to treat me, than with Strontium Dog Comic Review.

Well for those of you who follow my Youtube channel (thank you), I announced in my last vlog, that I was really getting into Warlord Games' Strontium Dog. Now as I long a time fan of 2000 AD I have now again tipped my toes into a Johnny Alpha story, but I have never gone back to the start to discover its roots.

Well time to change that! Welcome everyone to Strontium Month. All of February I will be solely reading Strontium Dogs comics (hopefully without burnout). Now lucky for me 2000 AD has collected them all in an easy way ie. digital like this one (Amazon Link).

Strontium Dogs Search/Destroy Agency Files, Vol.1

by John Wagner, Alan Grant, Carlos Ezquerra (Illustrator), Brendan McCarthy (Illustrator), Ian Gibson (Illustrator), Keith Page (Illustrator).

Earth, the late 22nd century. Following the atomic war of 2150, Britain has been devastated by a nuclear holocaust survivors rebuilt their lives, but many were warped by the mutating effects of Strontium 90 fallout. Unable to live or work amongst the 'norms', mutants were forced to grow up in ghettos and take the only job open to them - bounty hunting. These Search/Destroy Agents hunt the criminals too dangerous for the Galactic Crime Commission. One such Strontium Dog is Johnny Alpha, whose eyes emit piercing Alpha rays and enable him to see through solid objects - and into men's minds.

Now in the first volume collecting together all the Strontium Dog adventures from the beginning you can join Johnny, his norm Viking partner Wulf Sternhammer and alien medic The Gronk as they fight their way through a universe of violence and prejudice!

Personal thoughts

Like a lot of 2000 AD stories, it is quirky but hits home with the underlying tones of racism and xenophobia. Strontium Dogs is set in a future where nuclear war has to lead to a widespread mutation. Most mutants are now treated like garbage, unemployable and left to starve in the wasteland. The only way to survive is to join the Search/Destroy Agency - aka Strontium Dogs. This organization chases down criminals from across the galaxy and sometimes time itself and brings them to justice. This job is viewed with distaste by everyone as they believe the agents to be no better than the criminals themselves.

The main characters of the tale are Johnny Alpha, a mutant with pure white eyes that allow him to see through materials and read minds. Wulf Sternhammer, a Viking now stuck in the future following some unknown story that has not yet been revealed and the Gronk, a metal-eating alien with multiple hearts that get scared way too easily.

This first collection starts before 2000 AD and has the stories from Starlord in it. The stories read like sci-fi wild west which is a term I have seen many people describe it as. The stories for the most part are short and action-filled but can be very hit and miss. The writers I feel lacked direction and just had the art to go off and no background. It is only about halfway through that the characters start truly developing. Johnny seems like a robin hood style character, wanting to rescue and protect the downtrodden which I can only imagine will be a problem down the road. Wulf comes across as a loyal friend and all-around nice guy, but when his anger is provoked is a hard man to stop and the Gronk is like the lion from OZ, scared of everything but ultimately the bravest when it comes to protecting his friends.

Overall I enjoyed the book, the Hell series is a standout story. It was truly the first epic for the characters and seems the turning point for the progression of the characters. I loved how it had me guessing who was Satan was early on (even though it was none of them), and actually made me feel for some of the throwaway characters. Great writing and a great story. I enjoy the fact that the writers don't take it too seriously and try to inject humour into what would otherwise be a dark series.

I am excited now to jump into book two and see the characters fleshed out more. Have you read this series? Let me know your thoughts, also this is how I plan to write future omnibus novels going forwards, wanting to review the overall theme of the book rather than a story by story. Let me know if it works or not.

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Kindle Edition - Search/Destroy Agency Vol.1

The Game: The Good, The Bad, The Mutie by Warlord Games

Miniature Monday // Warlord Games - Strontium Dogs - Build A Mutie

New Youtube video today! Tried my hand at unboxing a Warlord Games - Strontium Dogs - Build A Mutie boxset. A fun box full of enough parts to build five mutants with an assortment of weapons. I got through the initial opening and building, and then plan on doing a second video for painting once I have the chance.

The five mutant combinations I went with:

1. Tentacle armed, nose on the forehead with an axe.
2. Vampire/bat head, chainsaw.
3. Two-headed, big nose, horn, tall, pistol and mantis arm.
4. Lumpy head and blaster.
5. Bullhead, pistol and club.

I just need names for them all, got a suggestion. Drop them in the comments.

Have you played the game or built any of the figures? Let me know in the comments. I do appreciate all feedback and comments and if you wish to support the blog hit subscribe or use one of the following links:

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The Gronk

Brute Mosely

Thanks for stopping by!

Miniature Monday // Strontium Dogs - Brute Mosely

It's finally happening I am painting some of my Strontium Dog figures. The first was the Gronk and now I move onto Brute Mosely the bright blue mutant.

Character

The big blue mutant was a member of the criminal gang led by Max Bubba and assisted him in his attempt to destroy human history by going back in time to the Viking era and killing people. His murderous ways eventually caught up with him, but not before he had been complicit in the murder of time-displaced Wulf Sternhammer, earning him the undying enmity of Wulf's friend, Strontium Dog Johnny Alpha, with predictably fatal consequences. He was crushed in a rockfall and abandoned by Bubba and Impetigo Jones as they tried to flee Alpha. Alpha later found Mosely crushed underneath the fallen rock and begging for help. Alpha ignored Mosely's pleas and left him to die. It's later revealed that he bled to death.

Powers and abilities

Abilities: Killing people.

Strength level: Superhuman.

Weaknesses: Rocks.

Paraphernalia: Time machine; skimmer.

Weapons: Guns.

Notes: Brute Mosely may or may not be a descendant of the notorious British fascist and Nazi sympathizer Oswald Mosely. Never explained in the comics but they had a habit of basing characters on real-life people.

This was a weird model to paint especially as I originally tried to go blue and black, but it was way too dark so I brighten the model using red on the trousers. At some point, I want to do another highlight on the blue to pick up some final details and I also want to pick out the leg linings in a pale cream colour, before finally completing the base in grey to match my upcoming city boards.

Miniature Monday // Strontium Dogs - The Gronk

Welcome to an actual Miniature Monday! That's right it is a Monday and I have a painted mini. Not a WIP but an actual painted mini. But the shocks don't stop there I actually have two minis...I guess all I needed was isolation to get some hobby done.

So what did I paint.......THE GRONK.

What is a Gronk? Well here is the official history.

The Gronk is a character from the Starlord and 2000 AD strip Strontium Dog. Gronks are a timid life-form from the planet Blas in the Gallego system. Mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha first encountered and befriended a Gronk, later named as Gloppus, fairly early in his career, on the astro-liner Sondheim. The creature promptly keeled over and died of a heart attack caused by the shock of being hijacked by space pirate Papa Por-Ka. Alpha's partner, Wulf Sternhammer, took the Gronk's pelt to wear, in deference to the traditions of the Gronk's home planet.

Shortly afterwards, on the planet Paprika (a windswept outpost on the far reaches of the galaxy) Alpha and Sternhammer met another Gronk masquerading as a female human fortune teller called Madame Desiré. This Gronk recognized Wulf's pelt as having belonged to his brother. (All Gronks are identical — to the casual non-Gronk observer, anyway — and apparently have no names, although the second Gronk said that his brother had been called Gloppus. A nickname, perhaps?) The Gronk insisted on joining Alpha and Sternhammer in their adventures as their medic, despite the perils of such an occupation and the tendency of Gronks to suffer heart failure at the slightest sign of excitement.

Eventually, when Johnny Alpha's father Nelson Bunker Kreelman took over the Strontium Dog's orbital HQ, the Doghouse, in order to seek revenge on his son, the Gronk suffered several near fatal heart attacks after discovering his plans. He did, however, manage to free Alpha from his father's torture machine. Following this, the Gronk ceased to accompany Alpha and Sternhammer on missions and, indeed, it was assumed by many that he had died.

According to one account which may or may not be true, following the destruction of the Doghouse and Johnny Alpha's apparent death, the Gronk suffered another heart attack which resulted in a hitherto unsuspected aggressive and fearless side to his nature coming to the fore, and he took up Johnny's badge and, alongside the mutant Feral Jackson, travelled to the homeworld of the Lyran sorcerers in order to release Johnny's soul. In an emotional scene, the Gronk seemingly killed his friend again in order to free him from everlasting torment — a fate worse than death — before declaring of the Lyrans that "nobody gets out of here alives", and apparently destroying them all. NB: This story may be apocryphal. Since new information concerning Alpha's fate has since come to light, it's probably best to regard the entire 'savage Gronk' storyline as not canon.

There you have it, The Gronk. Now you know all about him/it/them let us move onto my painted versions.

As mentioned before I have painted two Gronks the first is a very old metal model made by Games Workshop about 1984. This was back in the time when Games Workshop had the rights to 2000ad and even had a Judge Dredd Roleplaying game (how cool was the 80's). What I don't understand is why they made this as they had no rules or a game to play along with unless someone knows different.

This is most likely lead judging by the age of the model. It was also crazy tiny! It is about the size of my wedding ring. It was a very simple paint job, base coated black, then brown, then dry brush grey and finally white. Of the white I did pallid flesh on the skin and then finally Gulliman Flesh Contrast on this. I then attempted to pick out the eyes and clean up some errors. Definitely not super pretty, but great for table top.

Then we move forward to 2019 and the Warlord Games Gronk. Warlord Games (currently my favourite game producers) managed to pick up some licensees from 2000ad and started producing the Strontium Dog figures before moving onto Judge Dredd. The Warlord Games Gronk shows exactly how far miniature design has come, still made from metal but this time user friendly and not lead. He is also carrying a cool little first aid kit. I love the expression as well, it is full of character and life. I painted it exactly the same way as the Games Workshop one.

Between the two minis I spent about 30-40 minutes tops on these from start to finish and they were truly a joy paint. Now I'm itching to paint more. I am eyeing up a Wulf Sternhammer at the moment so watch this space.

As always I hope you enjoyed this and drop me a comment and if possible hit that follow button! Until next time.