Vampifan's Views 84 - Monthly Musings 58

As we reach the end of another month, I once again present my Monthly Musings. I start, as always, with a painting of the lovely Vampirella. Joe Jusko, my favourite Vampirella artist, has painted her in black and white, which is unusual to see these days. I must admit, it is very effective and it looks like a still from a pre-1960's horror film.

Work continues apace on the three projects I am working on simultaneously - Battle Systems Urban Apocalypse Terrain, Judge Dredd Miniatures Game and Shadows of Brimstone. I have punched out all of my walls, floors, roofs and doors for the many sets I own. Finally, I have started making buildings. You can see the first of my builds in this article I posted on The Gamers Cupboard blog here - http://thegamerscupbard.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/battle-systems-urban-apocalypse-terrain.html
I'll be posting more of my builds there in the next month and beyond. What remains to do is to make all of the furniture and scenery items. That is proving to be very time-consuming. But I keep plugging away and I will get it all made. For me, it is more important to get the buildings done first. I am glueing all of my furniture items and scenery items. I have even glued together some walls (the fire station entrance, for example) that I know I won't be changing. I am also going to keep my buildings intact once I make them. Fortunately, I do have the room to store them, so that won't be a problem. This really is a fun project to work on And will reward me in a number of games.

I am working hard on getting my Judge Dredd Miniatures Game campaign ready to launch. I have been buying a lot of figures for this game from Warlord Games. When I say "a lot" I do mean it. I wasn't planning on buying every mini they make for this game, but it's looking like I will. There are only a few I'm missing now. I would like to give the folks at Warlord Games a big thank you as they have sent me quite a few figures that I hadn't order as freebie extras. For example, I wanted the Orang Utan Gang Boss to lead my Ape Gang. He cost £5.00 to buy. Instead, Warlord Games sent me the complete Ape Gang set - eight figures worth £40.00 in total! What an incredibly generous gesture! I have a lot of JDMG figures on my painting table right now and I'm working my way through them. Thankfully, I have all of my player character Judges completed. My force of Judges has really grown in size. All I have left to paint for them are my Justice Department vehicles - Banshee Interceptor, Judges on Lawmaster bikes and most impressive of all, a Manta Prowl Tank. I have been after one of these ever since it first appeared on the Warlord Games webstore but the price of it kept putting me off. Now that I can afford it I'm really pleased to own one at last.
Speaking of Warlord Games, I was absolutely delighted to see their newest figures that they added to the Judge Dredd range - the ABC Warriors. Now I already had most of the ABC Warriors from the Wargames Foundry range but they never made a figure of Mongrol or Happy Shrapnel. Thankfully, Warlord Games have made figures of both of them. I am a very happy bunny!

In addition to painting figures, I have designed character record cards to use in my campaign. These measure 5" by 3", the same size as my ATZ-FFO character cards, and will prove invaluable when I play my campaign. The campaign should start soon - near the end of next month, hopefully. All is ready for the first scenario apart from the scenery. For that I'll be making some buildings from my Battle Systems Urban Apocalypse Terrain - Shanty Town Set very soon.

The third project that I'm working on - Shadows of Brimstone - came very close to seeing me paint all of the figures I have in my collection. I had exactly 100 figures and more than 80 have been painted so far. The biggest group left to paint, which I was keeping to last, were the 12 zombies. However, I have added a few new sets to my collection this month thanks to finding some cracking bargains on both Amazon UK and eBay. The most outstanding bargain was for this set to the left of here - the Harvesters. These three large multi-part figures cost me just £4.95. RRP should be over £16. The reason the seller was offering them so cheaply was because their box was slightly damaged. To be honest, it was a little crumpled on one side but not badly so. Frankly, I was more interested in the figures and they were just fine. I scored a real bargain with them.

Of the few monster sets I was missing, the one I most wanted to get hold of, was the Swamp Slugs of Jargano set. I'd seen them for sale previously but delayed buying them. Suddenly I found I'd waited too long and no one had any for sale. So, I resigned myself to never getting them. These things happen. Then, right out out of the blue, they reappeared on Amazon UK for the very reasonable price of £13. This time I did not hesitate and I snapped them up. They are going to make trips to the swamp world of Jargano just that bit more dangerous.

Another bargain I got from eBay was this set to the right - the Dark Stone Brutes. Containing three large figures, the Dark Stone Brutes are mutants working for Colonel Scafford and his outlaw gang. Their bodies have grown larger and become fused with rock and shards of Dark Stone. They are very strong but very slow. I was pleased to be able to add to my gang of mutants. Please note, there isn't a tentacle in sight! They remind me of the Thing from Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, only without his intelligence, wit and personality. These are crazed killers.

Finally, I know that Flying Frog make a number of variant Hero figures, including opposite sex versions of the Heroes found in the two core sets, as well as unique archetypes. Typically they are made of resin and are virtually impossible to get hold of in the UK. Ordering them directly from Flying Frog is out of the question due to their extortionate postage charges. So, I was very surprised to see a UK seller on eBay with a few sets of the Drifter Hero sets for sale. I had to have them. They are superb sculpts. Being made of resin they are far more detailed than the normal plastic figures that come with the game. Best of all, the set includes both the male and female versions. I did not think I'd be adding to my collection of eight Heroes but I was wrong. These are so cool!

That's all for this month but I'd just like to mention that if you are a fan of the 2000AD comic, make sure you check in next time when I'll be offering a prize giveaway to celebrate issue #2000 of this great comic. Florix grabundae!