Sunday 27 May 2012

West Wind Biker Gang 02

Just over a year ago I reviewed the West Wind Biker Gang of 10 figures on motorbikes from their Road Kill range. (See here if you want a reminder). I'd have liked to have seen dismounted versions of these figures but sadly, West Wind don't make them. However, whilst looking round some of West Wind's other ranges I found these - set GHB0005 Biker Gang, hidden in the Gothic Horror range, Bad Moon Over Memphis.
This bunch of hard asses are tooled up for close combat. It does appear that none of them are armed with a firearm but that's not true. See if you can spot who has a concealed pistol before I reveal the answer below.
West Wind have not named any of the figures in this set, but I have, so I'll use my names to identify them. At the far left of my two photos is Slash. He is armed with a broken bottle, not the best of melee weapons but if he jabbed you in the eye with it you'd know about it! He wears a denim waistcoat and flared denim trousers, capturing the spirit of the 1970's. All of these bikers are wearing sunglasses but Slash has decided to look cool by wearing mirror-shades.
Next in line is Rupe and, yes, it is short for Rupert, but no one calls him by his full name... at least not if they want to keep their teeth! He is wielding a tyre iron in his right hand. He has a scowl on him that would do Judge Dredd proud! However, despite his bulging muscles and bad ass attitude, I couldn't help but think when I first saw him, is he auditioning for the Village People? I think it's the cap that makes him look so gay. I'm not sure if there is a band called "Hair of the Dog". It's just something I made up. I'll explain why below.
Jethro is the figure that I've nominated as the leader of this gang. He has a pair of brass knuckle-dusters on his hands, making him a dangerous opponent to take on in a fist fight. Congratulations if you spotted the pistol sticking out of the back of his jeans. You can just see the brown handle of it in the rear view photo. Have you noticed that each figure is more muscular than the last one, which is why I arranged them this way.
Which nicely brings us to the final figure in the group, the very aptly named Tank. Tank is a force of nature! If you need a door breaking down, he's your man. In fact, he could probably run through brick walls! He carries a short length of bike chain in his right hand, which he uses to lethal effect in close combat. He has his hair braided into a ponytail but who's going to be brave enough to tell him it's not a good look?! It's bad enough he has a ponytail, but a braided ponytail? Come on!
I have to say that I am very impressed with this set of figures. I like the fact that they aren't a bunch of gun-toting bikers. What has got me thinking about this set is that because they are part of the Bad Moon Over Memphis range, which mainly features werewolves, perhaps these are all werewolves as well, only they have been depicted in human form. It's just a thought. So for that reason I wanted one of them to be wearing a T-shirt bearing the name of a band that could also be werewolves. Thus I came up with the name, "Hair of the Dog", hinting at a werewolf connection. Alternatively, they could all be human, including Hair of the Dog, but at least I now have options.
This set of four 28mm scale figures sells for a very reasonable £6.00 from the West Wind webstore. They really are a worthy addition to any biker gang you might have. Here's another thought. Notice that all of them are holding nothing in their left hands. I'm discounting Jethro's knuckle-duster here. Those hands could be gripping a bike's handlebar. If you buy the mounted biker gang you could convert these four to mounted bikers by cutting them in half at the waist and gluing them to a set of mounted biker's legs. The left arms will need a bit of tweaking to grip a bike's handlebar but that shouldn't be too difficult (he says confidently!). I'm very tempted to give this conversion a go, as I have been thinking of buying a second set of West Wind's mounted biker gang to use for conversions.

27 comments:

  1. Werewolf in human form? What a nice idea!

    Love the t-shirt Hair of the Dogs, and as usual all the background!

    Really inspiring!

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    1. Thanks, Zerloon. You have to remember that most werewolves are only such creatures during the time of a full moon. For the rest of the month, they're human. So there's no reason why these guys couldn't be werewolves as well.

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  2. Those are great. West Wind does make some great minis. And your paintjobs really show them off to advantage. With the hundreds (thousands?) of minis you have, how do you keep of all the names and backstories for them? Do you keep records of them?

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    1. I am a big fan of West Wind's figures, Joe. Keeping track of my figures names is very easy. I glue a thin piece of card under their bases and write their names on that. Backstories for some come from RPG record sheets that I may have done for them, or in the case of these, I just make them up on the spur of the moment. Being a games master for most of my life you get plenty of practice at that.

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  3. They're a great bunch of figures, particularly as they're not toting vast amounts of weaponary. It goes to show that looking through the less obvious ranges can pay benefits too.

    Your piantjob is, of course, up to the usual boringly superb standard.

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    1. It is true, Joe, it does pay to look around. I did have to laugh at your description of my paint jobs - "boringly suberb standard!" I do know exactly what you mean, so no offence taken.

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  4. A nice crew of bikers that I hadn't heard of. An we all know that biker gangers are a staple of the zombie apocalypse gaming.
    I definitely got the same Village People vibe from Rupe as well.

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    1. Somehow biker gangs seen so at home in a zombie apocalypse, Adam.

      I'm glad I'm not the only one questioning Rupe's masculinity!

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  5. Great figures Bryan, the second biker looks like the bloke out of Village People!!!

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  6. Neat figures B. Bring on the SOA. Hmm a Village People themed survivor group, interesting, fighting to get in or out o the YMCA. Tjere's a thought!

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    1. A Village People themed survivor group?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      That's just so wrong, Irqan! I'd be rooting for the zombies in that encounter!

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  7. I love biker and you've done these great. I quite like Tank out of this group I bet he could pound some Zombie skulls

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    1. Tank's awesome, isn't he? Yeah, he could crush a lotta zombie skulls!

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  8. These came out pretty good! Well done.

    My favorite is Tank! There is just something special about him.

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    1. Tank looks to be wider than he is tall. I described him as a "force of nature" in my review - like a hurricane, huh?

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    2. Wrecking ball!

      Actually... THE WRECKING CREW could be a good name for them....

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    3. That would be a great name, Johnny. Sigh, if only Marvel Comics hadn't used that name for one of their teams of supervillains and copyrighted it. Still, I won't tell if you don't!

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  9. Great looking figures and some great facial hair...excellent!

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    1. You're right, Fran. Jethro and Tank have lush beards but, man, their moustaches are most impressive!

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  10. nice looking minis vampifan, they painted up real nice.

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    1. I have to admit that I'm very happy with the figures and my paint jobs, TE.

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  11. http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/26/11899538-report-miami-police-shoot-naked-man-chewing-on-victims-face#comments

    I am sure you will make good story of that one. weird and so Day One of any ATZ campaign.

    In a nutshell, a police officer shot (several shots) dead a man who was eating the face of another man...

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    1. Nose and eyes.... Seemingly he was under some drugcraze...

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    2. I saw that story on the TMP Horror forum. I reckon we have found Patient Zero! The Apocalypse has begun!!!!!

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