Mould line bonanza

I use grey magic sculp, try to find out where!

I have been looking for good fantasy zombies for quite a while, without much luck, but I never thought of GW, so when I kinda bumped into the vampire count range, I thought 'hey, why not, let's order those'.  I received the box through the local store, and took them home.  The box has 8 sprues, but only 2 different ones, making the choice rather limited, but since I'll be making 10 zombies at the most, that's not too bad.  However, I was quite disappointed with the general quality of the miniatures.  Most arms fit onto the bodies rather poorly, and I spend several hours glueing 5 zombies up, with all the mould line removing, arm pit correction, and shoulder stump reduction that was necessary.  I mixed up a little blob of magic sculp five or six times, in order to make the limb - torso connection a bit more believable. 

When I buy a box like this, which is nowhere near a new design, I expect the models to have matured: sprues with little errors, well fitting limbs and heads (the heads went on rather well in most cases), and a minimum of plastical surgery.  In reality, I felt like a sculptor at times, taking off lots of meat on places, adding putty in several spots, and generally correcting what I can only describe as poor quality miniatures.  I'm very happy these are zombies, so I can get away with the brutal detail, the hands the size of a head, and the irregularly shaped limbs.  But on the whole it's rather disappointing.  Even more so when I found out only one day later that Mantic does zombies as well, with lots more variety, and they sell small boxes.  And they are cheaper.  Still, I've got these now, and with a bit more corrective sculpting when the set is glued, I'll get them to look like a group of half decent, out of proportion zombie monsters!

Some Call of Cthulhu stuff

Leng Spider base, homemade

 I started making a nice big base for my Leng spider.  Used some broken hirst bit, lots of wood glue, and sand and rubble, completed with some bottles and a barrel and a earth cult shield.  Time to basecoat, then paint and add some spider web goo.

Expedition to the outback, RAFM.

I also started painting the outback expedition vehicle.  This is just some rough coating and washing, getting ready for the fine work, but I've sadly enough been starting so much stuff lately, it's hard to finish stuff, and my desk is full-fuller-fullest again.  I have got to finish some stuff pronto, but as it stands I'm also working on a new Open Office Chargen macro, using csv files for the data so that I can simply add races, spells and weapons as needed.  So between painting lots of RuneQuest stuff, the better half of the RAFM Call of Cthulhu range, and this software project that turns out to be just that little bit more complicated at every corner, it's hard to find time for preparing adventures, reading, or just doing good old research.  It's like juggling.

Finished some more cave blocks

Here is the result of 2 castings each (not completely though, some bits went wrong) of all cave moulds.  I used some fieldstone floortiles to put them on, I might give those a whiter brush later to make them look more fitting.  Some parts are glued wrongly in the first batch, so I'll need to have another go to complete some of the double pieces, like the wooden door.  Still, the images clearly illustrate the feel of the blocks, they look great and will work very well for RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu, as well as any other skirmish type game, 28 mm or not.

The rocky caves, mould 81 & 82

The water caves, mould 83 & 84

Entering the water caves.  Using fieldstone floortiles

Baboon raid near Wilmskirk

The Stead on the road to Boldhome

On the road from Quackford to Boldhome, our heroes pass through a small Stead, which seems to be deserted, apart from a herder with some sheep and one cow.  the lone herder is mistrustful when the party approaches, but after some talking the truth comes out: a gang of robbers has been systematically raiding the Stead, stealing all but one cows, and the few warriors of the Stead have left in pursuit of the robber gang.  The party has arrived at the exact moment a gang of baboons is attempting a raid on the weakened Stead, and they decide to take up the defense.  After a drawn out fight, our adventurers get the best of the baboons, and save the day.