Vampifan's Views 66 - Monthly Musings 44

Miss Vampirella July 2015 - LeeAnna Vamp

This month's Vampirella model is the intriguingly named, LeeAnna Vamp. LeeAnna is an actress and professional cosplayer who has appeared as many super-heroines and villains. The picture I chose of her for my July calendar girl came from a photo shoot she made for Playboy. You can see a making of video of her Playboy debut here - https://youtu.be/CIIXchP_Hiw?list=LLprdr49Gj5eb0Px0xPa8EwA
Have no fear, folks, it is perfectly safe to view despite the Playboy connection: there is no nudity. I like LeeAnna and her depiction of Vampirella is spot on. Her costume is excellent, although her boots are too long, but that really is a very minor criticism. LeeAnna is a very friendly person, who likes meeting her fans at the many conventions she attends. Watching her all too brief appearance on that Playboy video gave me a good sense of how Vampirella would move in real life. As you know I am totally in love Vampirella but I do wonder how practical her costume would be in a real fight? Boob spillage would seem to be a very obvious drawback and yet it has never occurred in any of her stories. In GURPS Supers it was posited that female supers wearing skimpy costumes never suffer a costume malfunction because their costumes are made of a highly advanced material that always clings to the body. It's as good an explanation as any I've seen.

Moving on to my hobby news, it was a real treat meeting fellow blogger Mathyoo from Slovenia again, even though it was only for one day. He wanted to play Super Dungeon Explore with me. We played two games and he easily won the first but lost the second by the narrowest of margins. Balance was maintained but more importantly, we both had a great time.

Speaking of SDE, I have spent quite a bit of money on the game in these past few weeks. One of the biggest criticisms of the original SDE game was its lack of gaming tiles. It came with five double-sided boards. Now that The Forgotten King expansion set has been released, Soda Pop Miniatures (SPM) have addressed this problem in a big way. TFK contains six double-sided gaming tiles. I have just bought two more sets of six double-sided tiles. Shown above is  the set I most wanted - Von Drakk's Ghost House set, which contains six ghost house tiles and on the reverse of them, six graveyard tiles. In addition, the set comes with 12 Rattle-bone Skeleton figures. I also bought the set shown to the right - the Dungeons of Crystalia set, which contains six double-sided dungeon tiles and 12 figures of slime monsters. This gives me more than enough gaming tiles to play on and oodles of choice.

I also bought two Warband sets - the Mistmourn Coast Warband and the Stilt Town Zombies. Perpetually locked in an unnatural fog, the Mistmourn Coast is home to fickle and cruel faeries who make sport from tormenting trespassers. Trolls are some of the few mortal creatures who call the Mistmourn Coast home, and even they have been deeply affected by its magic. This set contains 1 Hero, 2 Spawning Points and 16 Monster figures with associated cards. Stilt Town Zombies adds the Survivor Marie-Claude Hero and Mr. Bitey the Zombie Bunny pet along with Gruesome George Mini-Boss, 2 spawning points, and 11 zombies with associated cards. I have been patiently waiting for SPM to add zombies to the game ever since I first saw the Von Drakk Manor expansion set. Now my prayer has been answered.

Finally, I bought some new Hero figures and a new Mini-Boss villain. One of my favourite SDE Heroes is Candy and her pet familiar, Cola. Candy is the narrator of the SDE rulebooks and often adds hints and tips on how to play the game. I was lucky enough to get the original metal figure of Candy and Cola (both on the same base). She is now out of production and incredibly rare. With the release of TFK, a new version of Candy and Cola were made - Brave-Mode Candy and Never Lost Cola - two incredibly cute figures.

Another Hero whom I considered a "must have" purchase was the Tabbybrook Mage. She is from a race of cat-like beings known as the Freyjans. Mages are a rarity in Freyjan society, which makes her something very special. She is a good all-rounder with healing skills as well as fire and ice spells. Being a cat lover, I have a great fondness for feline races in games and as soon as I saw the Tabbybrook Mage, I knew that I had to have her. The most noticeable thing about this figure is how tall she is. She stands 38mm tall from the bottom of her feet to the tips of her ears.

Finally, to redress the balance in the Consul's favour, I bought this figure of Ser Snapjaw, a   Kobold Mini-Boss. Ser Snapjaw is the greatest Wyrm Claw Exemplar in an age. Legendary among lesser Kobolds, they rally to Ser Snapjaw with zeal, his cunning leadership allowing them to fight with discipline that matches the mightiest armies. I just think he's a cool figure and I like him a lot. Some of my purchases came from Amazon.UK, whilst others came from eBay, courtesy of user-friendly sellers offering the "Buy Now" option.


My current interest in Zombicide remains undiminished. I have managed to play a few games of it, although none that I recorded. However, I do have Zombicide batrep planned very shortly. I took a short break from painting my Berserker Zombies (I'm two thirds of the way through them) to paint a load of Zombie Crows from the Murder of Crowz expansion set. As soon as I photograph them I'll review them on my blog. Grouped together they look damned impressive. The next few blog posts will be featuring some stuff that will most probably surprise you, but I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Oh, I almost forgot the biggest news I have to tell you. My collection of painted 28mm scale zombie figures has now broken through the 1,000 barrier. As of this post I have 1,010 fully painted and unique zombie figures. Now that is what you call a horde! I must take some photos of the assembled horde. Does this mean I'll now stop buying zombie figures? Don't be silly! Of course not. I'll keep on collecting as long as possible. Addicted, moi? Hell, yes!!!!!!!!!!