Ultracheap mechanical spiders

Some years ago I got into Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars, big time. I love that game. The system is simple, and elegant, and plays really smoothly. Wonderful stuff.

I played Wasatch, mostly - a faction that specialized in mechanical steampunk wonders. Among their unit types were a nasty little unit made up of clockwork tarantulas. Now, I like most of the Deadlands miniatures. But the clockwork tarantulas were...uhm...well I couldn't see myself painting some up.

I was in a local craft store, and came across a package of glow-in-the-dark tiny plastic spiders. I suspect it was around Halloween. A bit of black primer, some silver and gold paint, a couple of washes, and I had these beauties.

A search of the web for "plastic spiders" should net you plenty of cheap options to choose from.

Next to their big brothers (gatling-armed automatons), they look pretty good. And they were only a few cents each. The spiders, or their big brothers if you can still find them, would be a nice addition to any Steampunk army.

Of course, this wouldn't be an appropriate entry for this blog if I didn't point out that these two units were the only ones I actually finished painting for my army. :-)