Vampifan's Views 36 - Monthly Musings 20

Vampirella displaying her bat wings by John Bolton

This past month my blog celebrated two landmarks. First up, it reached its fourth birthday on March 16th and secondly, I passed the 400 posts mark. The ATZ-FFO batrep that I posted was my 400th post. Yay, me!
March has been another busy month for me. Getting to play ATZ-FFO for the first time this year was an obvious highlight, and how cool it was for Vampifan to recruit Hannah Vaughn and her family.
I have managed to glue all of my model trees to circular MDF bases of varying sizes depending upon the height and diameter of the tree. I am now sourcing my trees from Carl at Grekwood Miniatures (GM). I recently ordered some weeping willow trees and some beech trees. The GM webstore is well worth checking out for trees as Carl offers a wide variety of tree types. My MDF bases came from East Riding Miniatures and were very reasonably priced.
I have almost finished painting my first batch of plastic figures from the Zombicide boardgame. I am busy painting the six survivors and 16 of the zombies (10 Walkers, 4 Runners and 2 Fatties). Next up will be another batch of 16 zombies plus the fearsome zombie abomination. I am painting these so that they will be compatible with my current zombie horde and other contemporary figures. What that means is that they will all have textured bases the same as my other figures. I have seen lots of examples of painted Zombicide figures but I have never seen any that have textured bases. When I get the second batch painted I'll run a review of the figures and a review of the game. I have played a few solo games of it already, with the zombies winning most games. Individually, zombies are easy enough to kill but once they gather in numbers and attack in force they are virtually unstoppable. It's great fun!
Today is the last day of the Zombicide Season 2 Kickstarter pledge and it is an understatement to say that it has been a phenomenal success. As I type this, there are still about 12 hours to go and they are $15,000 short of the $2 million mark. I hope they reach it. Seeing as their original goal was for just $25,000 you can see just how popular this project has been. My final pledge amount was a whopping big $400.00. I have ordered both games (Prison Outbreak and Toxic City Mall), the zombie dogs packs, every survivor they offered, the extra tile sets and some extra tracker tokens. Roll on September when they start shipping.
On the card modelling front I have taken a break from making ground tiles. I have almost completed the Stoelzel's Derelict Building. For most people this would be a very easy model to make, but you ought to know my motto by now - always go the extra mile. What has really slowed me down in making this are the wooden boards over the windows. I am making all of the boards separately to give them a 3D effect and that is very time-consuming. Expect a review some time next month.

Brummie's Burgers - the newest fast food franchise to hit the market.

Carl from Stoelzel's Structures continues to impress me. He recently announced that he was going to design a fast food restaurant and he asked followers of his forum to come up with a name for it. I came up with three options, of which my favourite was "Brummie's Burgers," named in honour of my fellow blogger, Simon aka Brummie. A vote was held to decide which name would be chosen and to my delight, "Brummie's Burgers" came out top. I won a free copy of the model when it was released, but to be honest, having my choice of name chosen was reward enough for me. What is really cool about this model and further proof of just what a hero Carl is, he included a sheet of signs featuring all the names that were suggested in his poll. Thus, everyone who entered was a winner. I thought that was a lovely touch and very generous of Carl. Incidentally, I plan on making this after I finish making the derelict building. What is not shown on the promo photos I've shown above is that the restaurant comes with its own ground tiles that are compatible with those from the Undeveloped Real Estate set. I will be adding them to my restaurant model, although the restaurant will be detachable from the ground tiles to make it easier for storing away.
April is going to be a very exciting month for me. The highlight will be meeting up with fellow blogger Mathyoo who runs his blog here - http://mathyoo28mm.blogspot.co.uk/ He's going to spend a week's holiday with me before he heads down to London for the big Salute convention. As well as showing him around the area, I am hoping to get a few games of ATZ-FFO and Zombicide played with him. It'll be quite strange to have someone else to game with having been a solo gamer for far too many years. But I am looking forward to it immensely. I will, of course, keep you informed of what we get up to, as I'm sure Mathyoo will on his blog.
That's all for this month. Have a very happy Easter!

Studio Minis 18 - Limited Edition Freebies

The three Studio Miniatures 28mm scale zombies that I'm reviewing today were part of the stretch goals offered when they ran their Indiegogo project for their plastic zombie sets. I managed to get two of each, thanks to the generosity of Stuart at SM. I gave away one of my Shaun of the Dead zombies to one of my followers (David aka Darkoath) who asked if anyone had a spare copy to donate. The other freebie zombie in the deal was the George Romero zed, and seeing as I already owned him the two that I received went to deserving homes.

At the far left of the trio is the Shaun of the Dead zombie I mentioned above. First Hasslefree, then Studio Minis and currently, Guillotine Games (for their Zombicide Season 2 project) have made zombified versions of Simon Pegg aka Shaun from Shaun of the Dead, Now anyone who has seen this wonderful film will know that Shaun survived and was never turned into a zombie. This makes me wonder why figure companies make zombified Shauns but no one has made a zombified version of Shaun's best mate, Ed (played by Nick Frost) who was turned into a zombie? Anyhow, that's just me idly speculating. This is a very nicely sculpted figure with a decent resemblance to Shaun, if he was zombified. I have given him a neck wound to add to the red that was on his shirt (movie reference alert!). Although he is carrying his cricket bat I would not class him as an armed zombie. He appears to be nothing more than an ordinary zombie who kept a hold of the bat when he died. He drags it along with him because he lacks the intelligence to let go of it. Zombies are dumb like that!

Next up is the first of my two skeletal zombies. These are so old that their skin is stretched tight over their bones, giving them a look that can best be described as skeletal. Their clothes hang in tatters. The flesh has been stripped from the front of his torso, revealing his rib cage. His intestines are spilling from a massive wound to his stomach.
The zombie at the far right of the photos is a conversion of the previous figure. I simply repositioned his arms and gave him a totally different paint scheme so that the two figures look different. He has a darker skin tone, denoting that he is of African/American origin. I have applied far more gore to him than I normally do. It almost looks like he has been showering in blood. He looks delightfully disgusting!
It is at this point that I'd tell you how much these figures cost but none of them are for sale on the SM webstore. Sadly, they were only made available to those who backed the plastic zombies Indiegogo project. I like these limited edition figures, but then I have always been a huge fan of Studio Miniatures' zombie figures.

Reaper Zombies 02

Following on from my last post, here are some more Reaper 28mm scale Chronoscope zombies to look at. This time, all of the zombies are armed with melee weapons. They can be found in set 50066 Urban Zombies (3) and set 50091 Chainsaw Zombie. The first three zombies in my photos remind me of Victorian-era zombies, although there is no reason why they can't be used in contemporary times.
The zombie at the far left of the two photos is holding a mask of a handsome male to hide his ugly face. In his other hand, he holds a blood-stained knife. He sports numerous wounds. Starting from the top and working down is a bite wound to his right cheek, a bite to his right shoulder, a gunshot wound between his shoulder blades and a few bite wounds to his legs.
Standing next to him is a zombie armed with a knife and a meat cleaver. There is something deeply disturbing about his most obvious wound to his stomach. At first, I thought he was wearing an unusual belt buckle, which does stick out a fair bit. Closer inspection revealed it to be a rat's head. It is not a belt buckle at all, but a rat that is burrowing through his stomach to emerge from the front. Now that is just sick, but for a gorehound like me, just way too cool!

The third of the urban zombies carries a large two-handed axe. His coat has been holed in many places, but he doesn't have any major wounds visible. What is disturbing about him is that he has a very cute teddy bear stuffed into the left side pocket of his coat. Does he use that to lure child victims? Possibly.
Finally, is the chainsaw wielding zombie. His chainsaw was made by Stihl, a popular manufacturer of chainsaws. Whenever I paint zombie figures, the last thing I paint on them are the gore effects. Painting the gore on this chap was a lot of fun. I took an old paintbrush with stiff bristles and used my finger to splatter the Tamiya Clear Red onto him and the chainsaw. The effect looks like he is drenched in blood.
I really do like these four figures. There is something inherently evil and disturbing about them. Because they are all wielding weapons and appear to know how to use them, I'm classing them as Smart Zombies, as described in the ATZ supplement I, Zombie.
Two things may put some of you off from purchasing them. First is the fact that they are all armed. I don't mind that as Smart Zombies will become a part of my ATZ-FFO campaign. The second point regards their size. These are definitely heroically scaled. Three of them measure 38mm tall and the zombie with the axe is 42mm tall, although bear in mind he is wearing a top hat. These are all even taller than the last lot of Reaper zombies that I reviewed, so be warned.
The set of three Urban Zombies cost £8.60 and the Chainsaw Zombie cost £4.35 when purchased from the Miniature Heroes webstore.

Reaper Zombies 01

It has been well over a month since I last reviewed any figures, so it's about time I looked at some more zombie miniatures, starting with this bunch from the Reaper 28mm scale Chronoscope range. They are sets 50038 Urban Zombies (3), 50222 Charlie the Zombie and 50223 Linus the Zombie.

At the far left is a zombie cop. His injuries don't appear to be too severe. He is dragging his right foot, so he may have twisted his ankle. There are a couple of holes in his uniform, which could be caused by gunshots. He is bleeding from the head and both hands are smeared with blood, which is probably from a victim.
The female zombie was either a streetwalker or a night-clubber prior to becoming one of the undead. She has small bite wounds to her left shoulder and the back of her lower left leg. The blood around her neck could be her own from a bite wound or that of a victim she has been feeding on. I was going to paint her with blonde hair but one day when I was shopping in Newcastle, I saw a young woman with black hair with a blonde streak running down the middle. That was so unusual that it stuck in my mind. I had to replicate it on a miniature and this female zombie was the perfect choice. Art imitates real life!
In the centre of the group is an elderly male who has suffered appalling injuries. His entire stomach and lower back has been thoroughly ravaged. He has intestines hanging out of the front and back. He also has bite wounds to both legs and he has lost his left sock and shoe. Finally, there is a long gash down the right side of his face.

Next up are the two named zombies, Linus and Charlie. It is unusual for zombies to be given names. Linus is the more static of the two. He has wrapped his jumper/coat around his waist. His tongue is prominently sticking out of his mouth. He has a cut to his forehead and a large wound to his neck. His right arm has been savaged. The bone of his elbow is visible.
Charlie is in a more animated pose, shown walking or shambling. There was a hole in the back of his shirt, which I took to be from a bullet wound. His left knee is badly bloodied and he appears to have scraped both elbows. As zombies go, he is quite intact.
These aren't as well sculpted as the Reaper Zombie Strippers that I reviewed last year but I still like them. The old man is my favourite out of the bunch, purely because of his wounds. Yes, I am a gore-hound!
The three urban zombies are close to 35mm in height, whilst Charlie and Linus are slightly smaller at about 32mm. No way can any of these be described as 28mm scale. This does not bother me but it may be a concern for some of you. I always purchase my Reaper figures from Miniature Heroes and they are selling these at £7.60 for the set of three Urban Zombies and £4.35 each for Charlie and Linus.

Black Cat Bases Fly Tipping Pile

A few months ago my friend Roger, who runs the Rogzombie blog-site, posted a review of the Black Cat Bases 28mm scale Fly Tipping Pile. You can read it here - http://rogzombie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/black-cat-bases-fly-tipping-pile-scenery.html 
It impressed me so much that I knew I had to get one for my ATZ-FFO campaign. And so here is mine, admittedly heavily influenced by Roger's excellent colour scheme. Notice how well it blends in with my new Stoelzel's urban ground tiles. It's a very good colour match.

This piece of resin scenery measures 5.5" across (14cm) by 3" wide (7.5cm). At the front are a toppled over wheelie bin, spilling its contents out, and two tied up black bin liners, both full of rubbish.

Behind them are three dirty matresses, three more bin liners, all full, a battered sofa and a rusty old fridge. As resin scenery pieces go, this is very detailed and was a lot of fun to paint. It will fit in well in Mayhem City during the zombie apocalypse and for me, symbolises the decay that has suddenly blighted the city. Or am I reading too much into it?  :)
This piece costs £3.50 from the Black Cat Bases website, which I considered to be quite a bargain.