It's dead, but not quite

So, one of the updates this week was a batch of 16 skeletons of varying types for use in Warhammer Quest, Dungeon Saga and the various 7TV games. The first 13 are standard builds from the Vampire Count skeleton kit. They are very nice models, but rather bulky when compared to the other human models. There is no way one of these would fit inside the Empire state trooper models though.

The last three were built a couple of years back after a trip to GW HQ for a sculpting masterclass, but I never got around to painting them for one reason or another, so thanks to Curt for running the challenge to hep clear the backlog! The figures use parts from the Vampire skeleton kit, some Empire Greatsword bits and some greenstuff. These three will be higher level skeletons... be it sergeants, wights or something... else.

The Sculpting masterclass was run by some real legends... Aly Morrison, Trish Carden and Aragorn Marks. Aly and Trish are GW mainstays and should be familiar to many, Aragorn's name might not be so well known, but some of his models should be. Before joining GW he worked for Rackham, sculpting their Dirz line as well as freelancing for the likes of Sodapop and Privateer Press. It was a very entertaining day that taught us some useful skills. I really fail though as I've not really tried sculpting anything since. One day...

On the day we were given a built skeleton built in a similar manner to the ones I did above. We were then taught how to do cloth, fur, chainmail, scalemail and chains

The year before we'd done a masterclass with the 'Eavy Metal team. This is my model from that day. In both cases I can't bring myself to do anything else to the models for fear of messing them up. Plus they are good memories in their own right

New 7TV source books

Crooked Dice have done it again. Today saw the release of at least one new source book for 7TV players

First up we have a free programme guide called Agents of A.C.E, which was written by Mike Jackson for his casts. While this is an unofficial guide, it's been given the full CD treatment and made available for free download : http://www.crooked-dice.co.uk/misc/PG-ACE.pdf

The other release that looks like it is supposed to be available (but currently isn't due to a Gumtree issue) is another fan written tome of goodness called Beyond the Seven Seas, which adds pirates and all sorts of piratical adventure options to your games.

"Repulse Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean, thwart treason, explore fantastic civilizations in the New World or confront exotic customs in the mysterious orient. Beyond the Seven Seas has it all.

So will you take to the High Seas as a brave swashbuckling captain or a renaissance genius? Or maybe play a cruel marauding pirate or greedy governor, as you set sail into the age of discovery?"

Hopefully the link will be fixed later...

Myths and legends

One of the Analogue sub-challenges was entitled Myth. A lot of my other entries have been a bit unimpressive compared to all the others, so I decided to have a dig through the figure box and see what I had that wasn't a greek warrior. I'd almost given up hope until I came across the Forgeworld Skin Wolf that was only available at events a few years ago.

The myth of werewolves goes back to ancient greek literature and covers most cultures across the world, from American tribes to various Asian cultures where the wolf is replaced with tigers or leopards. The actual transformation process can be triggered by many things and can take many forms.

Some myths tell of the slow transformation of man to beast, with bones reforming and skin stretching... painful to be sure. But not as painful as the beast bloodily ripping itself from within the man, leaving ragged tatters of flesh clinging to his fur. You can see why TV programs shy away from this version of the transformation.

One thing I've decided to do, now that I've got my lightbox setup working more effectively, is to provide extra photos in my posts, so it's not just a repeat of the Challenge blog photos.

The police aren't very lucky at the moment. First they were taken by the weeping angels, now they are about to be savaged by the towering monster...

I feel like I could take on...

This is a bit of a last minute entry this week, after the massive upload of WotR figures earlier, but I couldn't resist trying to squeeze them in as well.

Shadows of Brimstone comes with 6 tentacles in each box and, as I got both boxes, this week I present the first six... carefully themed after one of my favourite games ever. Take a guess ;)

And as there are only so many ways you can take photos of tentacles, here are a couple of shots of them savaging some mythos explorers from last year's entries to the painting challenge. These last two also give you some sense of scale on these things.

Thankfully what you can't seein the photos are some of the overly soft details around the edges, where the poor sprue layout caused some of the suckers to merge into weird blobby messes and for others to become MASSIVE lumps that are easy to mistake for rocks... Like plenty of other people, I took a scalpel to these and tried to clean them up as best I could, but there's only so much you can do to rescue the suckers without cutting them off completely and making new ones... which is probably what I'll do to tentacles 13-24 when they arrive later in the year.

They aren't on bases as they come with them built in and I didn't really see the point in adding clear bases to something that could already stand up!

Mon(7)TV Python

The Crooked Dice guys and gals have put together a pdf providing new cards and rules for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It even includes stats for the rabbit and the infamous Beast of Aaarrrggh. It's yours for the grant total of... free: http://www.crooked-dice.co.uk/misc/HolyGrail.pdf