My Last Sunrise - The Vampire Hunters

The only upside of having an elderly Westie with a bad cruciate ligament (although she is on the mend now) is that, because I need to keep an eye on her and carry her around a fair bit, I can spend a lot of time painting.

So, thanks to Maisie's gammy leg, I've managed to finish off the rest of the My Last Sunrise figures. There are six of these in total. First, here are two fighters who place their trust in sharp blades;

Next, a couple of stout fellows who use faith, chemical warfare (a.k.a. holy water) and pointy things to send the Undead to their doom;

Next, courtesy of two fearless females, ranged attacks;

The figure on the left is a witch called Clara on the Bad Squiddo website and she has a small McGuffin that looks like a gold scorpion in her hand. I wanted to give her a more obvious magical attack and decided that a ball of magical fire would work quite nicely. After all, vampires don't really care for that sort of thing, do they?

Anyway, here is the assembled Scooby Gang (Buffy fans will know what I mean);

Now, I have cleared enough space to get some Shieldmaidens prepped for painting.

Anyway, here is Maisie, being totally unfazed by her knee ligament. Her sister Daisy is doing her own thing out in the garden. I expect I'll have to carry Maisie outside fairly soon. Of course, once she's out there, she will make her own way back into the house. I think she's having me on a bit.

My Last Sunrise - The Vampires

As promised, I've been working on the Vampires from the Bad Squiddo "My Last Sunrise" Kickstarter. It is worth mentioning that all these figures are now available from Annie's website, here.

Vampire lore tells us that all vampires are "made" by an existing vampire, the most famous being Bram Stoker's Dracula. Here is the leader of this particular vampire "family", a somewhat dramatic and Byronic-looking figure. He's clearly just nipped out for a bite, but is a bit of a messy eater.

Of course, vampire lords have to have brides, and here is the Count's trio of lovelies. Their arcane powers of seduction have lured many an unsuspecting victim to their doom. Male or female, it doesn't matter to these ladies. They are equal opportunity blood-drinkers.

And here is the Count with his backing singers. They literally knock 'em dead wherever they appear.

The Count has also recruited some muscle. First, a terrifying psychopathic Revenant, who may or may not be a vampire, but who certainly likes a bit of blood-letting. I think she likes her meat very rare.

The Count also has two fearsome ladies of the night whose skills with a blade are legendary. Tangle with these beauties at your peril.

Here are all the Count's bodyguards together. What a delightful trio they are!

My Last Sunrise - finally making a start

Last year, Bad Squiddo launched a small Kickstarter called My Last Sunrise. The theme was vampires and vampire hunters, plus a couple of other rather nice figures. I backed the KS and I've had the figures around for a year now, undercoated but nothing else done. I am currently trying to reduce my lead and plastic mountain, ready to really get into my Swordmaidens, so I decided that now was the time to unleash some Gothic Horrors onto my painting table.

I've blocked in some basic colours on the vampires, which I'll be finishing off next, and I've also completed two figures, a Golem and a Werewolf, who I think will have a dual use as random monsters in Frostgrave.

Anyway, here they are. First a rear view;

And now the front;

I particularly like the Golem. I think he is a rather menacing and characterful model. I wanted to see if I could take the figures off of the slotta bases, of which I am not a fan, and it worked fine for him, but looking at the rest of the range, I realised that some of the figures would need pinning to give them strength on a simple MDF base. Therefore, I cut down the MDF base I'd stuck the golem on and glued him onto a slotta. This has had the effect of making him even taller and more impressive, I think, so not really a problem.

Anyway, I'm thinking that the other figures won't take too long to complete, so hopefully I'll get them out of the way over the next couple of weeks.

Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago - the Postman Rang Once

I've been eagerly awaiting the postman today, because I was really hoping that my Ghost Archipelago Nickstarter would get delivered and, just before noon the doorbell duly rang. I'd had an email on Sunday from Annie at Bad Squiddo to say that it had been packed and sent, so it wasn't really that much of a surprise.

Anyway, what was in the box?

First off, I love the personalised Bad Squiddo postage sticker.

And here is Annie's personalised delivery note, the obligatory Gunny Pets and a complementary fruit tisane teabag. Thanks, Annie! I'll drink it later.

Now, on to the goodies. First, the rule book, the accessory pack and the book of Ghost Archipelago stories (for some bedtime reading!).

Then, there is the box of plastic crew figures, of which more later.

And the crew sheet, which I expect I'll have to scan and print off, so as not to deface the original.

Now, here are the shiny toys. Top left are the four female crew figures, who are lovely castings. Moving anti-clockwise, there is my chosen Heritor and Warden (I went for a female Stormwarden), the Pirate Queen (she is spectacularly good) with her pet giant iguana, who is clearly going to have to be called Iggy Pop, three one-off add-on figures from Northstar, five resin tokens and, in the centre a Bad Squiddo Ghost Archipelago badge. I've not cleaned the figures up, just trimmed off some of the more obvious bits of flash, but overall they are pretty clean castings and have bags of detail that will look brilliant once painted.

Next, here is the contents of the plastic 28mm crew box. Four sprues of bodies, heads, arms, weaponry and whatnots, which is what one would expect from a Frostgrave box. Plenty of opportunity here to create a characterful and hopefully unique crew for your games. There are also two sprues of 25mm diameter bases. There are plenty of weapons options; swords, axes, spears, bows, crossbows, club etc and some small buckler-style shields, plus quivers, pouches and other bits and pieces. I am rather drawn to creating an Arabian Nights styled crew, because that is the look of the metal female crew members too. Plenty of thinking is required here, though.

Almost at the end now, so here is the contents of the accessories box, the game cards and a special Blood Burn die for recording the decreasing health of your Heritor.

Last but not least, here is a sample of the excellent artwork in the rulebook. From an initial flick through, the art is of the usual high standard we have come to expect from Frostgrave.

So, what now? Should I get started on these, finish off my Congo miniatures or make a start on my "My Last Sunrise" Vampire Hunters and Undead and supernatural minis? The lead mountain grows apace .......................