Vampifans Views 116 - Monthly Musings 86

February has been a very good month for me on the hobby front. I'll get round to that soon, but first I present another portrait of my favourite vampire, Vampirella, as painted by Manuel Sanjulian. It is a very beautiful portrait that I like a lot. Vampirella just oozes sex appeal here.

I have been painting and am continuing to paint a lot of 35mm scale Doctor Who miniatures from Warlord Games. I just recently finished painting the 9th and 11th Doctor and their companions sets. On my painting desk right now are the 4th Doctor and his companions, the five figure Master set and Kahler-Tek the Gunfighter (a free figure if you spend £75 or more, which was so easy to do). With quite a backlog of Doctor Who figures to paint I did not want it grow any bigger, which is why I have been doing my best to reduce it. They are a lot of fun to paint so it certainly isn't a chore.
I also still have loads of 32mm scale Black Scorpion Tombstone figures to paint, so I have also been making inroads into getting more of them finished. Black Scorpion is my favourite manufacturer of Wild West and Weird West figures, so painting them is a real pleasure. I am currently painting a group of skeletons and zombies which I hope to showcase soon.

On the gaming front, I finished playing the basic Resident Evil 2 campaign from the starter set. My heroes survived and completed it successfully. I look forward to trying out some of the expansion sets. I have almost completed the campaign provided with the Here's Negan board-game, which has been a lot of fun. No survivor deaths so far, so fingers crossed I can successfully finish the 12 scenarios that make up the campaign. Also, I completed the first scenario of my St. Trinian's campaign using the N.O.W. rulebook. You can read it on my WOIN blog. It was an incredible amount of fun.

Just last week, I bought a brand new game called Judge Dredd - The Cursed Earth, a card game by Osprey Games. The premise of the game is that a group of three Judges (Dredd, Giant and PSI Judge Anderson) are searching the Cursed Earth for Max Normal who has fled Mega City One. Also on his tail are a group of perps led by Mean Machine Angel. The Judges must find Max before the perps do. Gameplay is very simple and it does not take too long to play a game. You can play as a solo player (always a big plus for me) or as a team either co-operatively or competitively with Judges verses Perps. Playing as the Judges is the default mode. Also, there are three difficulty levels for the game - Cadet (beginners level), Judge (standard level) and Chief Judge (difficult level). Each investigation is split into two day parts beginning at Dawn and Dusk. In each part, six Encounter cards are laid out in a row and must be played in order from left to right. In the Dawn phase, the player chooses three cards from his hand of six to play and the top three cards from the deck to form a row of six cards which are arranged in numerical order from low to high. At Dusk, the player places his remaining three cards from his hand plus the top three cards from the deck but each card placed can be placed to the left or right of the row. Once they have all been resolved the player draws six more Encounter cards to add to his hand. A new day begins at Dawn.

The encounter cards show their numerical value at the bottom left corner. The boxes at the top of the cards are split into three codes - yellow boxes are compulsory and must be played; red boxes are choices (you choose one red box to play and ignore the other red boxes); blue boxes are optional - you can decide whether to play them or not. The symbols in the boxes must be resolved in order from left to right. They can be good, granting you resources or allowing you to progress through the Cursed Earth, or bad by removing your valuable resources, wounding you or allowing the Perps to advance. A symbol in a circle is bad, a symbol not in a circle is good.

Here is an example of the end of a game. The black meeple on the Max Normal card at the right of the row of location cards shows that the Judges have won. The grey meeple on the Great Dust Bowl card in the same row represents the Perps. My thoughts on this game are very favourable. The cards are large tarot card-sized with beautiful and evocative artwork. It is a very difficult game to win, which is not meant as a criticism. I played Cadet level first and won first time, by the skin of my teeth, admittedly. Afterwards, I played eight Judge level games and only won once, again by the skin of my teeth. I have not attempted to play Chief Judge level. My only criticisms are that the tokens are made of thin card; I'd have preferred they be made of much thicker card. Also, I do not like the two meeples used to represent the Judges and the Perps. In my opinion, they cheapen the look of the game. I use a 28mm scale figure of Judge Dredd and Mean Machine Angel to replace them.
If you are a fan of Judge Dredd I can highly recommend this game. It costs £24.99 from the Osprey Games webstore. However, I bought my copy from Amazon UK for just £21.23.

Warlord Games 11th Doctor and his Companions

In this post I'm reviewing the figures from the 11th Doctor and Companions set from the Doctor Who range of 35mm scale pewter figures by Warlord Games.

Youthful in appearance, but centuries old, the 11th Doctor (as played by Matt Smith) loved life but had little time for those who did him wrong. A fondness for hats and Jammie Dodgers, he was adventurous and unpredictable. His main companions included feisty Scot, Amy Pond (as played by Karen Gillen), her husband Rory Williams (as played by Arthur Darvill) and the mysterious Clara Oswald, aka the Impossible Girl (as played by Jenna-Louise Coleman). He also frequently appeared alongside Professor River Song (as played by Alex Kingston), a fellow time traveller, with whom he shared a romantic storyline which resulted in them marrying.

From left to right the figures are the 11th Doctor, River Song, Clara Oswald, Amy Pond and Rory Williams. Note that the figure of Clara is the second to be made by Warlord Games in this range, with the first appearing in the 12th Doctor and Companions set. This makes me very happy as Clara is my favourite companion from all of the series. She had star appeal in abundance! I liked Matt Smith a lot and I was very fond of all of these companions. They were all worthy allies of the Doctor who put in many fine performances.
This boxed set of five figures also includes 12 cards to use in the Exterminate! skirmish game. It costs £22.00 form the Warlord Games webstore.

Warlord Games 9th Doctor and his Companions

I recently bought some more boxed sets of Warlord Games Doctor Who miniatures, which included the 4th Doctor (as played by Tom Baker), the 9th Doctor (as played by Christopher Eccleston), the 11th Doctor (as played by Matt Smith) and their companions. In this post I'm focussing on the 9th Doctor and his four companions.

Battle-scarred, but with a great love of life and adventure, the 9th Doctor invited 19 year old shopgirl Rose Tyler (as played by Billie Piper) aboard the TARDIS for a trip of a lifetime. Later joined by time traveller Captain Jack Harkness from the 51st Century (as played by John Barrowman), and occasionally assisted by Rose's boyfriend, Mickey Smith (as played by Noel Clarke) and Rose's mother, Jackie (as  played by Camille Coduri), their adventures took them from Victorian Cardiff to the end of the world, fighting enemies old and new, including Autons, Daleks and the Slitheen.

From left to right are the 9th Doctor, Captain Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, Rose Tyler and Jackie Tyler. Note that this is the second figure of Rose that Warlord Games has made. She also appears in the 10th Doctor and his Companions set. The sculpts are all excellent, and have faithfully captured the likenesses of the five characters. They are statically posed but I have no problem with that. The four companions would make excellent generic civilians in any contemporary game. I rather liked Christopher Eccleston's performance as the 9th Doctor but after it was announced that he was leaving after just one series, it came as no surprise to me. I never expected him to be a long serving Doctor. As for his companions, I liked them all immensely, especially Rose and Jackie.
This boxed set of five 35mm scale figures also includes 12 cards to use in the Exterminate! skirmish game. It costs £22.00 form the Warlord Games webstore.

Black Scorpion Hillbilly Boys

Here I present the four 32mm scale Hillbilly Boys figures from the Black Scorpion Tombstone range. I haven't named any of them yet but will do when I use them in my Six Gun Sound campaign.

At the far left is "Junior" who is armed with a pitchfork and a .44 Colt Army Revolver. "Junior" is clearly not the sharpest tool in the box. Note his buck teeth.
Next up is an old timer armed with a Double-Barrelled Shotgun and wearing dungarees and a big hat.

Second from the right is the leader of the group, sporting a mightily impressive white beard and moustache. He is also armed with a Double-Barrelled Shotgun.
It wouldn't be a proper Hillbilly gang without at least one moon-shiner. At the far right is the old timer in charge of the moon-shine still. He has a bottle of hooch in his right hand, a .44 Colt Army Revolver in his left hand and a banjo slung over his back.
These resin cast miniatures are very well detailed and so full of character. They'll be a great addition to my growing Wild West collection. This set costs £9.60 for the four figures from the Black Scorpion webstore.

Warlord Games Time Lords

Here are three more figures from the Warlord Games' Doctor Who range of 35mm scale figures - the Time Lords.

Gallifrey, the home planet of the Time Lords, stands in the constellation of Kasterborous. The Time Lords invented space and time travel machines known as TARDISes but closely monitored their use to ensure time was neither abused nor history changed. They had a strict policy of non-interference in other planets and their cultures. Thought destroyed in the Last Great Time War, the Doctor's home planet was actually frozen in time and shifted into another parallel dimension. In the Citadel, a giant structure enclosed within a glass dome in the main city, Lord President Rassilon and the Time Lord Council watch over their home world.

From left to right are a Time Lord General, President Rassilon and a Time Lord Councillor. These are very statically posed, which is appropriate for their characters. I'm not sure how much use I'll get out of these figures but I still like them. This set of three figures, which includes six cards for the Exterminate! skirmish game, costs £13.00.