Vampifan's Views 30 - Monthly Musings 15

Vampirella in a playful mood by Amanda Connor

Happy Halloween, folks! It's a joyous time of the year when the undead and the creatures of the night can come out to play and not have to worry about the likes of vampire slayers and zombie hunters.
I begin with some good news for Vampifan's World of the Undead. Two days ago it cracked the 250,000 barrier for the number of page visits! Just think - over a quarter of a million hits! I never thought my blog would be so popular when I first started out over three years ago. A huge thank you to you all!
This month I have mainly been getting prepared for my ATZ-FFO campaign. You saw in my last post the work I've done on designing a character record sheet for my cast of heroes, neutrals and villains. I'm still churning out more pre-generated NPCs. I really didn't think that such a project would have attracted the attention it did receive. A big thanks to all who commented and an even bigger thanks to those who requsted blank copies of my CRS.
On the painting and modelling front, I finished painting another 25 Victory Force 28mm scale zombies from their first horde set. just 25 left to paint before I start work on Horde 2. Currently, I am painting 12 Black Cat Bases Hispanic Gangsters (5 males, 5 females and 2 dogs) as well as 3 Reaper children and 3 Reaper prostitutes. I recently bought 8 Acheson Creations 28mm scale zombies and 15 of their Crazies and Cultists. They'll probably jump the queue and get painted next. Iain from Tengu Miniatures sent me a few samples of their new zombie figures (including zombie dogs) and I'm very impressed with them. I'll be ordering the rest of them very soon. My Stoelzel's Structures Warehouse model is nearing completion. I just have the roof to make now, but what was going to be quite a challenge as I wanted it to come off in one piece, won't be quite so difficult. Fortunately, the very helpful Mr. Stoelzel has made life consideribly easier for me by adding a support piece to the model so that the roof can be removed in one piece. This was customer service above and beyond the call of duty! You rock, Carl! Speaking of Stoelzel's Structures, any card modellers out there ought to check out his new Auto Park Playset, which contains three very easy to make buildings - a car wash, a car showroom and a 3-bay garage. But the real beauty of this set, is that it contains 125 pages of vehicles. There are 10 types of vehicles, each with at least 12 different colour schemes. These models are the equal of the card vehicles produced by World Works Games and that is the highest praise I can give them. If you want variety then look no further.
I finished reading two zombie apocalypse novels this month. First up was Meta Horde by Sean T. Page. Keen readers of my blog will know that I am fascinated by the concept of a zombie meta horde. The novel deals with three meta hordes of varying sizes. The smallest, numbering two to three million is stopped outside of York in the UK. The meta horde that receives the most attention is the one in Europe, numbering over ten million. It is about to descend on the walled city of Carcasonne in France. At the end of the novel, the survivors learn of a massive meta horde sweeping through China and destroying everyone in its path. It numbers over one hundred million zombies! Gulp! It's a good novel but not a great novel. Secondly, I read Zone One by Colson Whitehead and this takes place over three days in New York, well after the Outbreak. Humanity has survived and the clear up operation is underway, as a the story focuses on a team of three sweepers, whose job is to eliminate any zombie stragglers missed by the army when they went on the offensive and made New York a relatively safe zone. The novel is rather slow-paced but is worth sticking with as on day three the complacency of the defenders comes crashing down in spectacular fashion. Can you say meta horde? A big thanks to Varangian for recommending both novels to me. I thoroughly enjoyed them both.
I made a couple of forays to the cinema this month and saw two zombie films, which just couldn't be more different. First up was Resident Evil: Retribution, which I was really looking forward to watching. Sadly, I came out of the cinema with a distinct feeling of meh! This was without doubt the weakest film of the franchise. Catch it on DVD if you want but be warned, it's nothing special. Far more entertaining was the animated comedy, ParaNorman. As with a lot of animated cartoons these days, there is as much humour aimed at the parents as there is for the kiddies. For example, Norman, the hero of the film who can talk to the dead, has the theme music to John Carpenter's Halloween film as his mobile phone ring tone. The kids won't get that one but horror fans like me, certainly will. ParaNorman certainly has its scary moments but children nowadays are made of sterner stuff than when I was a wee nipper. I saw the 3D versions of both films.

I was recently contacted by Modiphius to run a review of a Call of the Cthulhu scenario that his firm had just produced. Three Kings was the first in a series of standalone adventure supplements in the globe-spanning Zero Point campaign for Achtung! Cthulhu written by Sarah Newton. In it you can join a band of heroic soldiers, agents, and partisans behind enemy lines on the eve of World War Two, as they discover the unspeakable horrors of Castle Karlstein in occupied Czechoslovakia. The scenario has been written for both Call of the Cthulhu and Savage Worlds. Full details can be found here - http://www.modiphius.com/ Modiphius kindly supplied me a free copy of the scenario and I must admit to being very impressed with it. Production values are very high. I was quite happy to see that zombies feature in the scenario, which is one of the reasons why I was so willing to mention it on my blog. If you are a fan of Call of the Cthulhu and/or Savage Worlds Three Kings is well worth checking out.
Finally, I received another e-mail from one of my newer followers, Cris Shaffer, who sent me some photos of a diorama that he had made and painted. I liked them so much that I promised him that I'd share them on my blog. The zombie bride and groom are converted Citadel 28mm scale plastic zombies. I must admit to not being a fan of this range but full credit to Cris for a doing such a great job on the conversions. Cris has called this diorama "Till Death Us Do Part, My Arse!" That bride is determined to get her man! You wouldn't want to mess with her!