Vampifans Views 104 - Monthly Musings 75

Doesn't time pass quickly when you're enjoying yourself? It hardly seems a month has passed by since my last Monthly Musings. As always, I start with a picture of Vampirella. This is the second of my pieces of artwork by Spanish artist, Manuel Sanjulian, whose paintings graced many a cover of the original Vampirella monthly magazines in the 1970's. I wonder if one of the two panthers behind Vampi aren't her friend and ally, Pantha, in her animal form?

As is usual these days, this has been another very busy month for me, hobby-wise. My enthusiasm for the new Necromunda sci-fi skirmish game is still very high. I recently finished painting the four new Forge World Bounty Hunters and Hive Scum, so I'll be showcasing them soon. I've ordered second boxed sets of the Escher and Goliath gangs as well as two sets of Orlock gangers. I want to expand the size of my gangs. These new plastic figures offer so much customisation. For the Eschers in particular, I wanted to make some more gangers to use the two weapons included in the boxed set that weren't used by the 10 figures I did make.

Forge World Escher Weapons set 2

Just as I was thinking about what to do with the other 8 gangers Forge World announced the release of not one but three blister packs of Escher weapons to arm your gangers with. Talk about overkill! There did seem to be a fair bit of duplication amongst the three sets so I only ordered one of them - set 2 if you're wondering which one (see picture to the right). I liked that set best of all because it offered alternative heads as well as weapons.
I still have lots more of my old Necromunda metal figures to show you and I will get round to it sooner rather than later. A couple of days ago I received my pack of 200 rare earth magnets from China, and so I will be able to magnetise my scratch-built Underhive scenery and get them all painted. I must admit, I'm not looking forward to painting 60 pieces of scenery, but it has to be done. I'm currently painting the barricades and doors that came with the new starter set box.

For my WOIN blog and The Ace of Spades Campaign, I have been digging out some of my old sci-fi figures and rebasing them on MDF bases. I can't wait to show them on my blog but at the same time, I don't want to interrupt what is going on in the Alien Base scenario for my The Ace of Spades Campaign. Playing and writing up this campaign is so much fun. If you are following this scenario, you can see the level of tension mounting as the crew delve deeper into the apparently abandoned alien base. There is a very palatable sense of growing dread.

However, what has been taking up most of my time this past month has been my Wild West project. I have made four new buildings, all made of MDF - a sheriff's office and jail, a land office, an undertaker's and a small double storey building under construction. My town is growing. The sheriff's office and jail were produced by TT Combat and the other three by 4Ground. I am also busy making lots of card furniture items for the interiors of my Wild West buildings. I am getting very close to posting my first Wild West batrep. I have also been painting lots more Wild and Weird West figures, which I plan on showing you very soon. I can tell you that my first batrep will feature the Two Hour Wargames rules, Six Gun Sound. There were two versions of this set of rules. The original set, subtitled Blaze of Glory, were highly detailed, which I certainly approved of. The more recent version was much more streamlined and was designed for fast play. What I have done is to take elements from both sets to come up with my own set of hybrid rules. I also designed my own character record sheets, similar to the ones I designed for All Things Zombie. So far, I have created stats for 48 Grunts and Stars, more than enough to get me started. Six Gun Sound will only feature traditional Wild West scenarios. The Weird West stuff will be covered by either Dracula's America, High Moon or Shadows of Brimstone. I like all three sets of rules. This project has been a long time coming and now, at last, it should come to fruition.

With today being Good Friday I wish you all a very happy Easter.