Living dead girl

Zombie cheerleaders. Yes, well, strippers had no business on the sidelines, so that is all there is. They really do rouse the crowd.

No conversion or anything. The slightly unimpressive level of detail on the skirts make them a little flat, and the faces are quite washed out, but this was not a terribly prolonged paintjob either.

Team colours are for the Odenwald Goolies, languishing in midtable, frustrating their coach and about 65 percent painted.

Willy goblins

Surely this will read to some like the tale of a battered wife who has gone back to her abusive partner yet again. "You moron!" some will shout and point to that post where I talked about the size of Willy's miniatures. Why buy more of those? Why review them here?

1. These were goblins, and I do love goblins dearly.
2. It was a good deal. You got access to an exclusive mini, stretch goals, dice, and a fat discount.
3. Even if these gobbos would turn out to be big, I had use for them.

So... they are kinda big. Not huge, but bigger than the GW ones. I have not got the Meiko team to compare with, but surely these are about that size. They will not work as snotlings, that is for sure, and they may look a bit daunting for your old dwarves to face.

They have grinning faces, mean ones at that, and good, realistic poses for the most part. They look alive.

The trolls are fecking huge. Not my favourites, though the Hungry Saturno is a nice fiend to have, and he looks more evil than the others.

I did not get the secret weapons. I got a ref and a gob in a bear costume and a crowsuit. Why? I liked them, though they may not be very useful as such. They do ooze character though.

All in all... I am okay with tgis purchase.

Book review: Vermintide

I picked up "Vermintide" because I was asked if my collection of Warhammer novels included any with skaven in it. The answer was pretty much no, with there being a bit of skaven in a few of the ones I had, but none that were primarily about skaven, as I have not got the Thanquol and Boneripper-series. Fortunately, there was this book which was by an author unknown to me and not part of a series.

 

I was not technically correct about any of those things, apart from skaven being prominently featured. The author is C. L. Werner, a man with many fans, including a few in my circle of friends. I count myself as a sometimes fan, as I like some of his books (Wulfrik, Palace of the Plague God, Blood for the Blood God), but not all (Forged by Chaos? What a a piece of...). I find that I like his work best when it isn't a fry up of a film, so I have steered clear of the Brunner books so far, but I may dip my toes one day if I hear persuasive arguments in favour. So yeah, Bruno Lee is a pseudonym. I guessed as much when I bought it, but never checked whose.

 

Second of all, the book kinda ties into other works, as it has some characters familiar to veteran Warhammer readers and a few references to other "famous" Warhammer characters who are simply mentioned in passing. Some may find that awesome, either because they like that sorta familiarity, or because they like the sense of an elaborate tapestry where all the books are connected and fit neatly together. They usually don't though, so I suppose one solution is to just have the same four guys write most of them, and that plan is fine, if you've got the right guys.

 

Is Werner the right guy? The plot was good. I won't reveal it, but of course it involves tunnels full of foul ratmen with fiendish schemes, treachery both among human and skaven alike, and some characters that are quite cool, along with some that are... less cool. As usual, Werner has quite a good rogues gallery, and the villains are very villainous indeed, making (most?) of the protagonists seem more generic. The hero, Heiko Geissner for instance? No mental image of him for me, and he came across as quite generic, even if I have come to appreciate older heroes as I slide further and further out of the "intelligent late teens boy"- reader segment. There were some attempts at explaining motives, pitting different morals against one another, etc and I was quite impressed with that in a 250 page novel where stuff all does blow up. It managed to not seem too added on or annoyingly out of place, and the only thing some readers might not like is how Werner has a tendency to kill off quite a few characters, often in a way that's best described as callous or unceremonious, so... brace yourselves for that.

 

Oh yeah, and seeing as how it was the international Women's Day yesterday: There is absolutely no female contribution in this whole book. Well, if there is, it's part of the backstory for a character, and that woman was a whore. So... Yeah. No Xena, no Pippi, no Hillary.

 

I did like this book, primarily because I thought the plot was fairly solid for what it is, and because it made very good use of its 250 pages without there being either a need for more or any point where it dragged on to no use. Like I have said before, some of the longer books have pointless long "A to B"-sequences where your gamemaster would roll dice for a random encounter if this was a night of RPG'ing, but when you're down to 250 pages this is most often avoided, and things don't get too complicated to be resolved with a big fight at the end.

I give this four stars out of five*. This was like a nice warm soup, hearty, but maybe not very filling.

*Maybe three and a half due to the character with the Trainspotting accent who just always pisses me off. 

Fire bad!

Flesh golems... The range these days for an aspiring Prometheus is from the Karloff-monster to fleshy piles of limbs and huge body builder types.

Then there are these two weird ones that I am not even sure I like... They are ripped and muscular, but not gargantuan. They have Iron Maiden-faces with character, and odd limbs, fists in particular. They stand up well, fall down well...

So far, so good with the painting.

Comments welcome. Are they up to snuff?

Forever remain

I have  started converting and painting up zombies for the necromancer team that I inflict upon my friends in our small league...

So far the Odenwald Goolies are not up to much, languishing mid-table, groaning for brains and calling for others to join their ranks. So I have begun work on the skin of those who still have some, ie zombies and glesh golems, as the still living ghouls will most likely be done differently, and the wolfmen are a different story altogether.

So far it is early days, and this is just a teaser.

They'll not play in pinkish red when done.

Sea elves or high elves

Recently persuaded to support further exploration of an otherwise non-canonical blood bowl team I have set sails for Ulthuan, a land where puffy shirts may well be in vogue...

Sea elves are a funny team, and luckily one can cover the high elf list with the same miniatures in terms of positions: 2 throwers, 2 catchers, 4 blitzers and the rest linemen. This meant I did not have to put the knife down and start again or add to my original plan.

These minis are not giants. In a size creepy world such as this, they strike me as refined and elfishly lean in a way that a few wood elf teams that one can purchase are simply not.

Colour suggestions welcome. Don't say white.

Bully boy

This piece is... Well, I would not say that I actually like it, and there are several reasons.

1. It is feckin huge.

2. It has a tail. Yes, I could have fixed that, but it does.

3. It is a 'comission' and will probably murder som of my players in the near future.

So normally this would not be on here. It is not my 'style', and I mostly just cobbled together some bits and bobs and used a truly fugly head to replace one that was actually worse.