Vampifan's Views 28 - Monthly Musings 13

Vampirella by Greg Hildebrandt

In my last post, I reviewed two WWG construction vehicles, a digger and a grabber. I was extremely embarrassed to discover that I had stuck the bucket of the digger on back to front. Thanks to Johnny and Mathyoo for pointing this out to me. I corrected my mistake and I took a new set of photos, which I have used to replace the original ones in my review. Check them out if you want to see what the digger should look like. I also took that opportunity to reposition the arms of the grabber so that the claw attachment is now raised off the ground. I posted a couple of pics of the two vehicles on the WWG forum and from the following comment it might appear that I didn't get it wrong with the placement of the bucket - "The bucket on an excavator is made to be removed, and some models have made this an 'on the fly' operation with a locking system that can be disengaged to swap buckets or to mount other tools (like a grab or a steel roller for tamping soil to the right hardness). I have seen operators use this to swap the bucket placement back and forth, from the classic 'curled back pulling toward the operator' position to the 'scooping away from the operator' position yours is in above. That can be really handy when they are digging around previously buried pipes and foundations.
Alexio
(I'm an archaeologist, part of the job is watching trenching and excavations)"
That made me feel less like a klutz. Even so, I do think the change was necessary.

 Once again, I have a story to tell you about the kindness of others and the generosity of my fellow bloggers. I recently received an e-mail from Phil Hynes asking if I'd be interested in a green of a tar zombie that he had sculpted and painted? Phil did point out that the figure was slightly larger than 28mm scale, but that certainly didn't bother me. Within two days of confirmining that I was very interested, I received a small package that not only contained the aforementioned  tar zombie but also a fridge magnet of a zombiefied head of Elvis Presley. I'm sorry I don't have a photo of the fridge magnet. The two photos to the left show Phil's tar zombie. For those who don't know what a tar zombie is, they first appeared in the film, Return of the Living Dead. They were kept stuffed and locked away in large metal drums and they got their name from the thick fluid that was used to preserve them. No, it is not tar, but the name stuck. Mayhem ensued when one of the barrels was accidentally opened.

Not only is Phil's sculpting spot on but so is his paint job. I stuck the figure onto a circular slottabase and added the sand and gravel. The only painting I did was on the base to tie it in with the rest of my zombie horde. I am absolutely delighted with this figure, especially knowing that it is a one off. Once again, many thanks, Phil!

In other news, I have seen four films at the cinema this month, which is very good going for me. They were The Amazing Spiderman (not bad but I wasn't wholly convinced by the make-up/CGI of the Lizardman), Batman - The Dark Knight Rises (very good but I'd rate it no more than 4 stars), Ted (rude, crude and very funny) and finally, The Expendables 2 (mindless action that is just so over the top it made me smile!) All four were entertaining in their own ways. I'm looking forward to seeing Dredd 3D, Cockneys vs Zombies, and The Sweeney next month.

I have to admit that these past couple of weeks my figure painting and card modelling have almost come to a standstill. I do have a very good excuse, however. I was chosen by Ed Teixeira of Two Hours Wargames to be a play-tester of the new ATZ rulebook - Final Fade Out (FFO). This has been a dream come true for me. Let me tell you that FFO is a very different set of rules to BDTZ. In my somewhat biased opinion I think that they will be the best set of zombie skirmish rules on the market. BDTZ certainly had its faults but FFO is such a vast improvement. It is undoubtedly ATZ, but not as you know it. It is leaner, meaner and more streamlined.
In my last Monthly Musings, I said was a bit uncertain about continuing my current ATZ campaign or should I start a new campaign? I also said I'd make my mind up after I'd read FFO. Well, not only have I read it, I have also play-tested a lot of the rules. I am now more convinced than ever that I want to start a new campaign. Vampifan will still be the Star and team leader. His team will consist of Gap, Big Sil and Angie. Yes, I'm bringing back Angie but this time she and Big Sil are going to be a married couple.
I could have continued my current campaign but after carefully weighing up all of the pros and cons, I decided it would be best to start again.
I'm sorry to say that I made a lot of mistakes in my BDTZ campaign. I never rolled to see if any of the team left at the end of a month. I ignored the use of resources, especially food and fuel. When I started using the PEF rules from I, Zombie I didn't realise that they should be used in addition to the initial zombie placement rules. I used them instead of initial zombie placement, so my encounters should have had a lot more zombies in them. There were a few other minor points that I got wrong. As a result, I view this campaign as a practice session. It was fun but it was also flawed.
With my experience from that campaign and a better set of rules, the FFO campaign should be very different. FFO is part skirmish game but with more of a role-playing element thrown in, albeit role-playing lite. FFO has so many changes from BDTZ that it will feel like a totally new game. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to playing it for real.