Vampifans Views 122 - Monthly Musings 92

As usual I have had a very busy month hobby-wise with a lot of painting and modelling done. But first I start with a picture of my favourite vampire with this illustration of Vampirella. Whoever is wielding that cross is quickly going to find out that it doesn't work against Vampirella. She is not like other vampires in that garlic, holy items or sunlight do not affect her. However, if he is wise, he should run now and hope that Vampi takes time to fix her costume which has suffered a serious wardrobe malfunction. By the way did you know that this is Vampi's 50th anniversary from when her first comic was launched in 1969? She hasn't aged a bit in all that time! 😊 I salute her and I'm pleased to see that Dynamite comics are giving her the recognition she so richly deserves.

So, onto my gaming news. The biggest event of the month was I received a huge parcel containing all of my Zombicide: Invader Kickstarter orders. The reason why the box was so big (and heavy!) was that I just about ordered one of everything. Unfortunately, the timing of its arrival was not good. It'll be  awhile before I paint any of the figures as my two priorities right now are to finish painting my Core Space figures (just 12 left to paint) and to concentrate on my slowly increasing Bolt Action collection.

I have purchased more figures and a few vehicles. I have mainly been concentrating on my US 101st (Screaming Eagles) Airborne force. They featured in the excellent TV series, Band of Brothers. To the right of here is a picture of a 10 man squad of them. These are all metal figures with a mix of SMGs, Rifles and an LMG team. In addition to them I have made and painted a second 10 man squad, a 3 man MMG team and 2 squads of Pathfinders made up of six men per squad. These were all multi-part plastic figures. The vehicles I have bought for them are Oddball's M4 Sherman tank, an M3A1 half track transport and a "Deuce" two and a half ton truck. I haven't made any of these yet. For the moment I want to concentrate on building up my infantry squads.

For my German forces I bought two Hanomag Ausf.D half-track transports and an Opel Blitz truck as another transport vehicle. All of these plastic kits came with a free sprue of plastic Panzer Grenadiers, which was a much appreciated bonus. As a counter to Oddball's Sherman tank I bought this Panzer IV Ausf. H tank. The kit provides parts for three variants - the Ausf. F, Ausf. G and Ausf. H. I do like the Ausf. H version best of all, with its distinctive Schirzen side armour.

I have also been building up my collection of scenery items such as roads, hills, wheat fields, stone walls, craters and ruined buildings. You get a ruined farmhouse kit in the Band of Brothers starter set but I bought a second one plus a wrecked house, both from eBay.

Both eBay and Wayland Games have been helpful in offering certain items I wanted at a much cheaper rate than Warlord Games. The roads and hills came from eBay. My wheat fields came from a doormat that I ordered from Amazon UK then cut it up into mixed sizes - simple but effective. My Panzer IV came from Wayland games along with the Konflict 47 rulebook and its supplement - Resurgence. I am busy reading through Konflict 47 right now and I can tell it is a game I will very much enjoy playing. My Secrets of the Third Reich German Infantry figures will fit in just splendidly, although I haven't found any stats for vampires yet, and I know that Warlord Games have a vampire in this range. Perhaps his stats will appear in one of the supplements.

Thanks for reading my Monthly Musings. I imagine that September will be very similar to this month. Hopefully I'll finish painting my three Trader crews for Core Space. My main focus will still be Bolt Action. I plan on making and painting enough of my plastic Panzer Grenadiers to play my first Bolt Action encounter.