Vampifan's Views 90 - Monthly Musings 64

This month's Vampirella illustration was drawn by comics artist, Jae Lee, and shows Vampirella with Dracula and two of his concubines. Vampirella is not actually present in the room - that is just an image of her that Dracula has conjured, which is why her head is slightly translucent.

Well, once again, I have had an incredibly busy month. I have finished painting the heroes from the first two factions for my Rum and Bones game - the undead Bone Devils and the English pirates, the Wellsport Brotherhood. I hope to review them soon. They were a lot of fun to paint and very different from what I normally paint.

I've been buying some more figures for Shadows of Brimstone - heroes and monsters and I have a bunch of them on my painting desk right now. With me concentrating so heavily on my Judge Dredd Miniatures Game campaign, Shadows of Brimstone has taken a back seat for the moment but it is not totally forgotten about.

Speaking of JDMG, I have finally managed to buy all of the figures for this range that Warlord Games had on general sale. eBay has been a huge help, and I certainly haven't paid over the odds for any of the figures I have bought from there. Indeed, many of them were cheaper than Warlord Games' recommended retail prices. The last set that completed my collection was the boxed set of 5 Judda, which I got for under £20, making it much cheaper than the RRP. It feels really amazing to have such a complete collection. Coupled with my already existing huge collection of sci-fi figures, the sky is the limit for what I can do in my JDMG campaign. A new batrep is in the offing, which will see the introduction of a new member to Judge Scott's team - PSI Judge Justine Devereux. I have had a few requests to add a female PSI Judge to the team, so I hope she'll prove a worthy asset. Judge Scott will be assessing her performance.

One game in particular has really captured my imagination this past month and that is N.E.W. the sci-fi role-playing game by EN Publishing that uses the What's Old Is New rules. I bought it mainly to check out the rules prior to the launch of the Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD Tabletop Adventure Game. But I became so enamoured with N.E.W. that I have decided to start a new sci-fi campaign using many of the player characters from my old and very long-running Space Opera campaign. I have converted the stats for the all female crew of the scout-ship The Ace of Spades and also created some new ones. I have charted out the star system the game will start off in - it's centred around our planet Earth. What I particularly love about this game is that it shares the complexity of GURPS but the rules are much more simplified. It very much focuses on character development, giving each PC a living story that makes them jump off the page. These heroes are far more than a set of numbers and stats. They live, they breathe and they have backstories. I love it! Indeed, I can foresee WOIN becoming my all time favourite role playing game and my "go to" set of rules for any RPG campaign I run in the future.

The game has also had me doing two things I never thought would happen to me. First up, I have actually sculpted some new 28mm scale figures this month. Unbelievable! I thought my sculpting days were long gone, but sometimes you need a certain figure that no-one else sells. Sure, I still do lots of converting, but that is not the same as sculpting a figure from scratch. The figures are finished but not yet painted. I'll review them later.
Secondly, I have started collecting miniature starships to use in small scale ship to ship combats. I have started with the excellent, and very cheap, set of 12 plastic starships sold by EM4 Miniatures. Twelve ships for just £2.55 seemed like a great place to start, and best of all, they're all different. That's them to the right, and I've circled the ship I'm using for The Ace of Spades in red.
For those of you wondering (Simon, I'm particularly thinking of you!) I do not plan on collecting any Star Trek ships, or any Star Wars ships, or rules sets for either franchise. The ship to ship combat rules in N.E.W. are simple enough for my needs and what I especially like about them is that most PCs on a ship has a role to play in the combat.

However, I did succumb to a new Kickstarter that opened earlier this month - Stars Reach pewter starship miniatures by Twilight Game Designs. Here's the link to it -  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/twilightgamedesigns/stars-reach-space-ship-miniatures/description The ships in all three factions, but in particular, the Human Commonwealth ships, greatly appeal to me and fit in well with my plans for my N.E.W. campaign. Check out the pictures below if you don't want to click on the link.

An unexpected bonus for backing this Kickstarter is that Ed, from Two Hours Wargames, is offering a free PDF of the 5150: Star Navy rules to anyone who makes a pledge for all three factions. I did and Ed has already honoured his promise. THW is one of four companies actively supporting this project, although the factions will be renamed for use in 5150. I will actually be renaming the factions for my own upcoming campaign.
I have never played any starship combat games before, so this is something I am very much looking forward to but I suspect in my N.E.W. campaign The Ace of Spades will do more running and hiding than actual fighting. That said, for its size, it is well armed, well armoured and has a cloaking device fitted, which will prove extremely useful in keeping it hidden.
I suspect that May is going to be an even busier month for me. I hope so because I'm feeling incredibly well right now. If I could bottle my mojo I'd make a fortune! Thanks for reading and take care.