Zomvember 2018 part 1 - The Walking Dead Exclusive Figures

Yes, I know that Zomvember is not an actual thing, but seeing as I enjoyed the Zomtober challenge so much, I'm carrying on painting my wave 1 The Walking Dead figures by Mantic Games. I have another 20 figures that were produced for wave 1 of the game on my painting table right now and they should be finished soon. For this post I'm showcasing the four exclusive figures that were stretch goals for those who bought the starter boxed set from Kickstarter.

At the far left is Michonne, wielding her katana. She is a fan favourite in both the comic and TV series, and I love her. A former defence lawyer, she is introduced as a mysterious stranger towing two armless and jawless zombies behind her (they were her ex-boyfriend and his best friend). She joins the group of survivors led by Rick Grimes and quickly proves to be a valuable asset. She is truly remarkable at killing zombies with her katana.
Next up is Abraham Ford. In both mediums Abraham travelled the country with his girlfriend Rosita Espinosa to escort Dr. Eugene Porter to Washington, D.C. where the supposed cure for the outbreak is located, eventually recruiting Rick Grime's group to accompany them. Though tough, and a skilled shooter, Abraham displays aggressive outbursts and has volatile tendencies towards the other group members, but over time he gains a strong sense of respect for Rick and becomes one of his right-hand men. He is also displayed as being emotionally broken from the pain he endured due to his family being killed by zombies. His figure is armed with an AK47 assault rifle and he rests his left foot on the corpse of a zombie crawler.

Bad guy Negan is the leader of a group of roughly 1,000 survivors in the Sanctuary, called the Saviours, a group that oppresses other survivor communities and forces them to pay tribute to him. He is known for his brutality and foul mouth. His favoured weapon is a baseball bat with barbed wire wrapped around it. He calls it Lucille, the name of his dead wife. His figure is armed with his trusty baseball bat, a knife and three hand grenades.
Finally, is Walker Ronnie. I admit I have no idea who Ronnie is. I don't recall seeing him in any of the comics or the TV series. Still, he's not a bad figure, and he has been shot in the chest and his right leg appears to be broken, given how he is dragging his foot behind him.
These figures are currently available on the Mantic Games webstore as part of their Mantic Points offers. You can get Walker Ronnie for 10 Mantic points and the other three cost 15 Mantic Points each.

Vampifans Views 112 - Monthly Musings 82

Halloween greetings to you all. I start with yet another beautiful Vampirella painting by the talented Sanjulian, whom I've been featuring all of this year. It is unusual to see Vampi wearing robes but I do like her look.

So what have I been up to this past month? For the first time ever I entered the Zomtober challenge and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Initially, I decided to paint the 38 figures from the top layer of the Mantic Games Kickstarter wave 1 boxed set of The Walking Dead. Having completed that task in just three weeks I then decided to carry on and finish painting all of the figures from wave 1, which included 8 more zombie figures in the above boxed set, booster packs featuring, Rick on horseback, Morgan and his son Duane, more zombies and the 6 figures from the Prelude to Woodbury starter set, which consisted of Brian "The Governor" Blake and 5 more zombies. I know I should be calling the zombies, "walkers" when referring to The Walking Dead but I much prefer to call them zombies. So far, I have shown 34 of the 38 figures I've finished painting so far. The remaining four will be featured in my next post, followed by all the rest of the wave 1 figures. Zomtober morphs into Zomvember! I'm having so much fun painting these figures that I want to carry on. I have all of the wave 2, 3, 4 and 5 figures and I have pre-ordered the Here's Negan stand alone boxed game, which goes on sale on 19th of November. Just to prove that I have painted all of the figures from the top layer of the Kickstarter wave 1 boxed set, here's a photo of them all. Impressive, huh?

In other news, the Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD Kickstarter came to a close a few days ago and was phenomenally successful. 2,004 backers pledged £148,802 of the £7,500 needed to fund it. Within a few hours of the project closing I had received PDF copies of the rulebook, The Robot Wars supplement, the Games Master's screen and the counter tokens to use in place of miniature figures. Physical copies of these products are due to be shipped in January 2019, which isn't too long to wait. I'll do a full review of them after I receive them. I must admit that after browsing through the PDFs I am extremely impressed by the high quality and production values of these items. I have read the character generation rules for creating Judges and I have just finished designing my own character record sheet to use for the many Judges, Perps and Citizens I'll be creating. This was based on my own designs for my N.E.W. and N.O.W. character record sheets with just a bit of tweaking. I am in the process of transferring the stats of the four pre-generated Judges found at the back of the rulebook to my CRS's. Then I'll start work on creating my own Judge characters to use in the campaign that I'll start playing early next year.
EN Publishing have announced plans for some of the next products that will be appearing from this range next year. These include two supplements for Judge Dredd - Luna-1 and The Cursed Earth. Rogue Trooper and Strontium Dogs will be the next two rulebooks but note that these will only cover the characters, careers, equipment and settings for these stories. For the basic gameplay rules you will need the Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD rulebook. Morrus, the head honcho of EN Publishing, has announced that he already has a full manuscript for one more product and is half way through another, both of which should be released in 2019, so exciting times!
Comparing this version of the Judge Dredd role-playing game to others from the past I can definitely say that it beats all others hands down. It is just a brilliant product and I am mega excited about getting back to playing Judge Dredd again.

For my WOIN blog, I have been busy painting more sci-fi figures and I have increased my cast of St. Trinian's staff and schoolgirls. I am still working on creating Character Record Sheets for them all - there are about 40 in total, so it's a big cast and each one is unique. I have also been painting scenery items and furniture to use in my next The Ace of Spades Campaign scenario and my first St. Trinian's Campaign scenario, which will be my first game using the N.O.W. rules.

It's Halloween night tonight and I love Halloween. I'm stocked up on treats for the kids and I'm looking forward to seeing their costumes. Last year I had 15 trick or treaters and they all put a lot of effort into their costumes. I'm hoping this year will be just as good. Happy Halloween everyone.

The trick or treater I most want to meet tonight! It looks like she's trying to smuggle a couple of pumpkins out under her dress!

Zomtober 2018 part 5 - The Walking Dead Survivors

Here are another seven assorted survivors and gangers from the wave 1 boxed set of The Walking Dead skirmish game by Mantic Games. As usual, these are hard plastic 32mm scale figures.

 I start off with the Harrison sisters, Amy and Andrea at the far left. These were part of the group of Atlanta survivors that Lori and Carl Grimes joined when the zombie apocalypse kicked off. Amy, who is unarmed, did not survive long as she got bitten by a zombie that was part of a horde that attacked their camp. Andrea had to kill her once Amy reanimated as a zombie.
Andrea then went on to be a superb sniper and was one of the longest lasting survivors in the comic series. Inexplicably, she was killed off at the end of series 3 of the TV series, a decision that rankled a lot of fans, including me. This pose of Andrea has her firing a 9mm pistol, which she sensibly holds in a two-handed grip. I should mention that Andrea is my favourite character in the comic series.

Two more of the Atlanta group of survivors are Carol Peletier and her daughter, Sophia. In the comic series, Carol becomes increasingly unstable and eventually commits suicide. However, in the TV series, she becomes a hardened survivor and to date, she is still going strong. She is shown here armed with a knife.
As for Sophia, she would appear to have victim written all over her. She becomes close friends with Rick's son, Carl, and in the comic series, when Carol dies, she is looked after by Maggie and Glenn. She is the longest surviving female member of the comic series. In the TV series, Sophia gets separated from the rest of the group in series 2 and is killed by a wandering zombie. Note that Mantic's game is based on the comic series, not the TV series, so the events portrayed within them should be regarded as canon.

Moving on, at the far left is Deputy Sheriff Shane Walsh, who was the partner of Rick Grimes, before Rick was shot and hospitalised. Believing Rick to be dead, Shane and Lori begin a romantic relationship, resulting in Lori becoming pregnant. When Rick showed up, there was much friction between the two cops and when Shane attempted to murder Rick it was Rick who prevailed and he killed the psychotic Shane. The figure of Shane is armed with a 9mm pistol.

Finally are a pair of gangers who are part of the crew led by Derek, whom I showed in a previous post. Mantic Games have called them Craig and Reggie respectively, but I added their surnames. Craig Gehring is a thug armed with a knife, not the best weapon to use when fighting zombies but better than nothing.
Reggie Sobel is much better armed, carrying a pump-action shotgun, making him, by far, the most dangerous member of Derek's gang.

Zomtober 2018 part 4 - The Walking Dead Zombies

Here are another eight 32mm scale zombie figures from the wave 1 boxed starter set of The Walking Dead by Mantic Games that I painted up for the Zomtober 2018 challenge.

First up is the zombie crawler that Rick Grimes encountered in episode #1 of series #1 of the TV series. This zombie has been ripped in half and has lost the flesh from the left half of his body.
Next in line is the zombie version of Deputy Sheriff Shane Walsh, the former partner of Rick Grimes. The two had a major falling out which resulted in Rick killing Shane by stabbing him in the stomach. When Shane came back to life as a zombie, Carl Grimes shot him in the head, finally laying him to rest. Shane was a major arsehole and deserved to die.

The third zombie in line closely resembles Reggie, one of the gangers from Atlanta. I don't know if this was intentional or not by Mantic Games, but I painted him in the same colour scheme as Reggie, whom I'll show in my next post. Zombie Reggie has a massive stomach wound from which his intestines are spilling out.
Last in line is a female zombie who has fed recently as her hands and chin are coated in fresh blood. Tamiya Clear Red is the perfect paint for fresh blood.

At the far left of this next group is a former business woman wearing a two-piece suit and shirt. She has suffered numerous cuts and bullet wounds.
The guy standing next to her has long dreadlocks, so I painted his skin tones darker to suggest he was from Jamaica, where Rastafarianism is popular. I didn't want him to have a plain coloured T-shirt, so I painted the Smiley face on it, which I copied from a photo I'd seen. His left arm has been torn off and his right foot is only just attached to his leg by a few slivers of flesh and muscle.

The male zombie, second from the right has been shot in the right side of his chest and the bullet has left a huge exit wound in the centre of his back.
Finally is an elderly gentleman who has been shot repeatedly in the body and legs.
I had so much fun painting these and I'm pleased to announce that I completed my mission to paint all of the figures from the top tray of the starter boxed set of The Walking Dead. That's 38 figures painted in just over three weeks! I'm very pleased with that result. I'll show the rest of the figures in my next few posts.

Zomtober 2018 part 3 - The Grimes Family

For week 3 of the Zomtober 2018 challenge I present the heroes of The Walking Dead stories in both the comics and the TV series - the Grimes family. Here are three more 32mm scale survivor figures from The Walking Dead skirmish game wave 1 starter boxed set, produced by Mantic Games.

At the far left is Rick Grimes, a deputy sheriff who, at the start of the story, is shot whilst attempting to arrest a fleeing criminal. He wakes up from a coma to find a world very different to what he remembered. The zombie apocalypse has begun and nothing will ever be the same again. He seeks out his wife and son and finds them with a group  of other survivors on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia. His figure is armed with a hand axe and a police issue 9mm pistol. He can be used as either a Marksman or a Tactician in the game and he is the leader of any group he is in.

In the centre of the group is Rick's wife, Lori, who was forced to flee when the zombie outbreak began, believing her husband to be lost or dead. Lori is not armed and is classed as a Support member of any group she is in.
At the far right is Rick and Lori's son, Carl. Although his figure is shown armed with a 9mm pistol, he is also classed as a Support member of his group.
As the story progressed new figures for Rick, Lori and Carl were introduced but these are the three figures starting players of the game will use the most, especially Rick. As with all of this range, they are superbly well sculpted, full of detail and an absolute joy to paint.