Vampifan's Views 77 - Monthly Musings 52

A new month and once again I start with a wonderful painting of the gorgeous Vampirella by Joe Jusko. This busy montage shows Vampirella surrounded by some of her allies and enemies from the regular comic series.

On 18th March 2009 I wrote the introduction to this very blog. Seven years later and it is still going as strong as ever. Happy birthday! Back then I only posted once a week. Now I regularly post twice a week. I have enough material to keep on going indefinitely. This seems like a perfect opportunity to tell you of big changes that are afoot. I am seriously thinking of upping the frequency of my posts but will be launching a new blog to run alongside this one. It's all early days yet and is still in the planning stages but I hope it will happen and I'm keen for it to happen. The new blog will be dedicated to all things Chibi and more importantly, will be run as a joint venture with a good friend of mine, Steve Gilbert. I know that some of you don't appreciate the whole Chibi genre whilst others love it. It's kind of a Marmite thing. Anyway, I happen to feel that the Chibi side of my hobby should be kept separate from my normal gaming. Vampifan's World of the Undead will continue in its current format with its emphasis on all things undead, including reviews of books, figures, games and scenery, and of course, batreps. The Chibi blog will initially concentrate on Super Dungeon Explore by Steve and me, Chibi World by Steve and Ninja All Stars by me. My tentative plan is to post the Chibi blog every Monday and my Undead blog on Wednesdays or Thursdays and on Saturdays. Watch this space for further news and launch announcement.

Hobby-wise, March has been another good month for me. In my humble opinion, the best figure I painted and converted this month was a Chibi Vampirella. She is soooooooo cute! She won't be appearing on this blog but will most likely be one of the first things I review on the new Chibi blog. I also managed to paint another 18 Zombicide: Black Plague zombies and I'm well on the way to painting 15 Crossover Miniatures Ninjas as Foot Clan Ninjas to use against the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Also on my painting table are a small bunch of 6 Black Scorpion Tombstone figures for use in my Weird West and Wild West games. My Weird/Wild West project will be ongoing throughout the year but will progress at a more leisurely pace so as to avoid burn out and indeed to avoid spending too much in one go. I'll spend a little bit on it each month as I slowly add to my figures and scenery collections. Getting the Deep Cut Studios mouse-pad steppe terrain mat earlier this month was a big step forward.

I am backing the new Hollywood Havoc Kickstarter project by Studio Miniatures, which runs to Sunday 3rd of April 2016. Thankfully, it's not as costly as some Kickstarters I've backed. I'm in for less than £50 so far. Late add-ons may push that up slightly. We'll see. The Walking Dead Kickstarter by Mantic Games was successfully funded and came to a close at the start of this month. $685,853 of a $50,000 starter goal was raised, making it Mantic's most successful Kickstarter to date. I backed it heavily but the free stretch goals on offer made it extremely attractive financially. I backed it for $205 but for that I'm getting well over $400 worth of product!

Next month will be cops and robbers month. I'll be reviewing lots of 1970's and 1980's style cops and villains miniatures from Crooked Dice Games and Killer B Games. These posts will be the prelude to my début 7TV2e batrep. To get myself in the right frame of mind I have been watching my DVD boxed sets of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, as well as The Sweeney films. Such fun and all the better for being totally politically incorrect! As the great DCI Gene Hunt once said as he prepared to lead his team on a raid, "A word about police brutality. I want lots of it!"