Vampifans Views 107 - Monthly Musings 77

Greetings to all my followers and lurkers. I have had a very busy month hobby wise, which I'll tell you about shortly. But first we have another picture of Vampirella painted by Miguel Sanjulian. I can't fault the painting, which is quite spectacular but somehow this picture doesn't excite me as much as most of his other work. I think it's because I can't see Vampi's face that puts me off it. Your mileage may differ.

So, what I have been up to this past month? Painting and modelling. I built some more 4Ground Wild West buildings and added interior detail to them and a few other buildings in my growing collection. Nearly all of the figures I painted this month were for my Wild West campaigns. This included my 10 Reaper miniatures Wild West characters (5 males and 5 females), whom I will show very soon, 7 undead outlaws from Shadows of Brimstone, a couple of Knuckleduster Gunfighters Ball figures, and a lot of Black Scorpion Tombstone figures. I love the Tombstone figures so much that they are my favourite Wild West figures. I have been buying a lot of figures from this range and next month I'll order the remaining sets I need to give me a complete collection of their range. Amongst the figures I've been painting from this range are mounted and foot figures of the same character, a concept that I wholly approve of. Now I have about a dozen mounted and foot matching figures.
One thing that surprised me with the Knuckleduster figures I ordered (6 good guys and 6 bad guys) is that they come with MDF slottabases, something I'd never seen before. These really blew me away. I think they're fantastic. Unfortunately they don't sell the bases separately. However, a company called Warbases, who appropriately enough specialise in all kinds of bases for wargamers did sell them. I ordered 10 sets of packs, which each contained 15 MDF slottabases and used most of them to base my collection of Black Scorpion Tombstone figures.
I was hoping to post my first Wild West batrep this month but it didn't happen. Boo! However, I have good news for you waiting to see it. It will appear in my next post and here a few teaser photos to show you my town set up and the main protagonists of the scenario.

This is Stillwater in New Mexico, not far from the border with Mexico. The main street runs north and south and the side street runs east and west. The residential buildings have the pale brown roofs and all the business buildings have black roofs.

A view of the southern half of the main street. The Sheriff's office and jail is the only building not produced by 4Ground. It was produced by TT Combat and comes unpainted. I stuck fine grade sandpaper to the roof, which works extremely well. The back half holds the cells and was an optional expansion set, which I thought was an essential purchase.

This is a view up the side street. The background pictures came from the New Modeller's Shop (http://www.newmodellersshop.co.uk/backscenes.htm ) who specialise in model railway products. If you scroll down the page in the link you'll see the desert background set that I bought. This shows a desert scene that is 15" tall and 120" (10 feet) long. It comes rolled up in two 5 feet sections, which I cut in half and stuck onto four pieces of foam-board. I think they are excellent and look very effective in my photographs.

The scenario will be a Gunfight encounter from the Two Hour Wargames Six Gun Sound rulebook. I'm using the much more detailed first edition rules, with a few additions from the second edition. This is the Quick Draw version of the Confrontation encounter with two Rep:5 Bandidas taking on four Rep:4 Outlaws. The two females are called Maria Alvarez (in the red dress) and Sara Sandoval. These were the heroines of a Western film that I thoroughly enjoyed and I admit to falling in love with both of them. They were played by Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek respectively. Does anyone know the name of the film I'm taking about and have you seen it? I'll give the answer in my next post. Because the film is not very well known I'm sure some of you will do a Google or Wikipedia search for it. I'd rather you didn't but there's nothing I can do to stop you.
I have played the scenario and I'm busy editing my photos and typing up the batrep. In the Six Gun Sound rule book the author states that Quick Draw Confrontations are "quick and deadly." He wasn't wrong!

Finally, June 1st is the start date of the Forgotten Heroes challenge and once again I will be taking part. However, my output this year will be considerably less than the last two years when I entered four figures then upped my game and produced six figures last year. This year I'm only entering one figure, whom I'll reveal in a near future post. Best of luck to anyone else who is entering this fun contest.