Resident Evil 2 Giant Alligator & Giant Spiders

The biggest and most impressive looking model that I got with my Resident Evil 2 Kickstarter set was the Giant Alligator. It is huge! Suffice to say, I wanted to get it painted asap, even though it takes no part in the basic core game. Also, at the same time, I painted the pair of Giant Spiders, which are also an optional expansion set. I have included my figure of Vampifan in these photos to give you a sense of scale of the monsters.

The Giant Alligator is a Boss level creature, meaning it acts differently to normal monsters in the game. It has three special abilities. First up is Relentless. Before drawing a card from the behaviour deck, the Giant Alligator performs a move towards the active character. Second is Scaly Hide. The Giant alligator cannot be damaged by attacks and does not use a health dial. Thirdly is Driven Back. If the Giant Alligator is hit by an attack, reduce its movement from 2 to 1 for the remainder of the activation.

Instead of performing actions, each Boss has a unique behaviour deck which dictates how it moves and attacks. When a character is on the same tile as a Boss, instead of drawing a card from the tension deck, in their Tension Phase, they draw a card from the boss's behaviour deck and resolve the sequence on the card from top to bottom.

The Giant Spiders have a movement rate of 1 and 3 wounds. They have two special abilities. First is Burn It! Damage caused by flames or fire against a Giant Spider is doubled. Second is Poisonous Charge. During Arachnid Charge movement, the Giant spider moves through any square occupied by another character. Any character contacted suffers the Pushed and Poisoned effects.

An Arachnid Charge allows the Giant Spider to move 3 squares towards the active character. They are fast and deadly!
For painting the Alligator I referenced photos of real life alligators on Google Images. On my first visit to Florida, USA, my family and I visited a place called Gator World, which was full of these beasts, I thought they were cool, but my parents were glad to leave the place! To them it was too hot (being outdoors there was no air conditioning), too smelly (yes, they did smell) and they found the alligators too repulsive, whereas I thought they were fascinating. The colour scheme for the two spiders came from their character record cards that came with them. It is very striking! These creatures could appear in many a post apocalypse game, including Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog. I could just imagine the Giant Alligator residing in the Undercity of Mega City One and the spiders living out in the Cursed Earth.

Shadows of Brimstone Void Spiders

I have just the one creature type to review this time but there are a lot of them. These are the Void Spiders from the Shadows of Brimstone core set - City of the Ancients.

Inhabitating the space between the Void and reality, these scurrying beast infest virtually every world their portals open into. With six segmented spiny legs and two large mandible claw arms, Void Spiders can scale any surface and are often found nesting on the walls and ceilings as well as the floor. On the underside of the creature is a large mouth, lined with jagged teeth and articulated jaws within the body of the beast. Void Spiders' primary form of attack is to lunge at their prey and get on top of them, using these under mouths to chomp and tear at their victims. Many Void Spiders secrete a Void Venom, paralysing their target before cocooning them in sticky webs to feed upon slowly.

The first photo shows them from the front, which is where their mandible arms are located. This photo shows them from behind. These figures are one-piece castings and come without bases. I did consider gluing them to bases but then decided they were better left as is. They are roughly 40mm in diameter and are 15mm tall.

Here is a group shot showing all twelve Void Spiders. Their pale grey colouration is great camouflage on the arctic world of Targa. I leave you with this cool piece of artwork taken from the City of the Ancients adventure book.

Castle Ravenloft Rats & Spiders

It's a new month but I still haven't finished reviewing the figures from the Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition board-game, Castle Ravenloft. So, here I present the Rat Swarm and Spiders.

The Rat Swarms come on 25mm diameter bases and I've painted each Swarm differently - from left to right are black rats, dark grey rats and dark brown rats. I painted their ears and tails with Foundry Flesh 5B.
The stats for a Rat Swarm are AC12 and 1HP. Killing one earns a Hero 1 Experience Point.
A Rat Swarm's tactics are -
If the Rat Swarm is within 1 tile of a Hero, it moves to the closest Hero's tile and attacks each hero with a multitude of Bites.
Otherwise, the Rat Swarm moves 1 tile toward the closest Hero.
A Bites attack gives a +7 bonus to hit and causes 1 damage.

I'm not sure why these monsters are described as Spiders instead of Giant Spiders. They are as a big as a human and that's just downright unnatural! Anyway, let's not split hairs - they're still great figures.
The stats for a Spider are AC15 and 1HP. Killing one earns a Hero 2 Experience Points.

A Spider's tactics are -
If the Spider is adjacent to a Hero, it attacks that Hero with a venomous Bite.
If the Spider is within 1 tile of a Hero, it attacks the closest Hero with an acidic Web.
Otherwise, the Spider moves 2 tiles (they're fast!) toward the closest Hero. 
A Bite attack gives a +6 bonus to hit and causes 2 damage if it hits or 1 damage if it misses.
A Web attack gives a whopping big +11 bonus to hit (the highest of any Monster or Villain in the game) and causes 1 damage plus Slowed (a Hero' Speed is reduced to 2). In addition, place the Spider adjacent to the Hero.
The Rat Swarms are great sculpts. They do look very flat, which is why I photographed them from above. They are more a nuisance than a serious threat in the game. The Spiders, however, are fearsome opponents, fast moving, hard to hit and they deal out some nasty damage.