Vampifan's Views 93 - Monthly Musings 66

This has probably been the busiest month of the year for me so far. More on that later, but first here is a delightful painting of Vampirella done by Mike Mignola, whom comic fans will know as the artist and writer of the Hellboy series of comics. He also wrote the screenplays for the two recent Hellboy films. He has a very distinctive style that makes his work instantly recognisable. I have to say, I am a fan of his. As far as I know, this is the only artwork he has done of Vampirella. To date, Hellboy and Vampirella have not teamed up, but who knows what might happen in the future?

The project that has really dominated my time this month has, of course, been the Forgotten Heroes 2017 Challenge. You can see my final entry in my previous post, as I managed to make and convert all six heroes from The Bug Hunters comic strip. It took a lot of time and effort on my part to accomplish this huge task I had set myself, but I succeeded and from the comments I've received so far, it was more than worth it. It is fair to say, this challenge took up a large chunk of my time but it wasn't the only work I've been doing this month.

I mentioned in my last Monthly Musings that I had bought the Exterminate!, Davros and Missy Bundle from Warlord Games. It worked out cheaper buying all three boxed sets together than individually. I am delighted to say that I have made and painted all of the figures from these three sets - that's Davros and 24 plastic Daleks, Missy, 24 plastic Cybermen and 28 plastic Cybermats. Fortunately for me, these were very easy to make and they didn't take long to paint. I plan on posting a batrep between these two forces soon, although I won't be using all of them and more importantly, I'm not going to be using the rules or cards that come with the Exterminate! game. Instead, I'll be using the rules for the N.E.W. sci-fi RPG. Intriguingly, this game does provide stats for Cybermen and Daleks, but they aren't called as such. The Cybermen are known as Assimilators and the Daleks as Exterminators. I've made a few minor tweaks to their stats to make them even closer to their Doctor Who counterparts. I'm very intrigued to see how the game goes with these rules. Reviews of the figures should be posted soon and the batrep shortly after.

Do you remember that on Tuesday 16th of May, I posted an article celebrating this blog's one million views? I also ran a simple competition at the time, with first prize being £50 and two second prizes of £25 each. Well, it is time to announce the winners. First prize went to Roger Webb, and Clint and Luis bagged the second prizes. Roger and Luis have already received their prizes and interestingly, both turned down the offer of a free Tweak and/or Judge Heston figure made by Dave Stone of Wargames Terrain Workshop. Clint has been notified and I'm just waiting to hear back from him on how he wants the money and whether he wants either or both of the bonus figures. Anyway, thanks to all of you who took part and many congratulations to the three winners. I hope you have fun spending the money.

I don't have much else to report this month. Next month should see lots of sci-fi related posts.