24 March 2011

Spoils of Wargaming: Black Cat Bases - Robots and Ghouls

I've recently picked up a few different miniatures since seeing a recent release from Black Cat Bases featured over on the Post-Apoc Wargames forum - I've had my eye on a number of different miniatures from Black Cat after buying some terrain pieces over a year ago and this release finally made me cave in and buy...
This brilliant little miniature is what made me finally reach for the debit card - billed as a Friendly Robot over on the Black Cat site, this guy is clearly supposed to be Claptrap from the videogame Borderlands. A key feature of the game, Claptrap was a rather annoying series of little robots that had to be rescued and fixed in a number of different locations throughout the game. I bought two of these - one to be the up-and-running version, the other to be an objective marker having been scrapped. Again, lovely little model - the moldlines are a bit annoying but it's a rather odd shape, I wouldn't have liked to have had to cast it...
Another splendid miniature here, again in the robot section over on the Black Cat site but a little different to your standard robot - this is a Brain in jar on tracks - quite a sci-fi and pulp classic and can be found in many different films and comics. My mind springs to one of the protagonists in the Fallout 3 add-on, Point Lookout, and Herman Von Klempt, the Nazi head-in-a-jar from the Hellboy comics. Going to be interesting to paint! 
Another couple of miniatures that I've had my eye on for a while for my zombie project are the Black Cat Ghouls. In the Left 4 Dead series there is a type of "Special Infected" known as a Hunter - basically a human that has been infected but has reacted differently to what has turned the vast majority of the other infected into mindless savage zombies. In the case of the Hunter they are rather stealth-based, able to leap large distances and climb buildings with ease before pouncing upon a survivor, whereupon the survivor is pinned to the ground and attacked savagely. 
As shown in the image, 1 Ghoul crouching is very close to the in-game hunter and I have seen the Black Cat Ghouls used as such a couple of times.
1 Ghoul crawling shows another Ghoul crawling along - the preferred method of movement for a Hunter when they're not leaping. They tend to skulk around and pounce on isolated survivors in order to pin them and not only attack them themselves, but allow other infected to attack too...


All in all, I'm very happy with this order - I'd recommend Black Cat Bases to anyone interested in similar wargaming subjects - they have a large range (massively varied too) of miniatures for a number of different settings. I'm very happy with the casting quality, order arrived rather speedily and everything was present and correct. Each of these miniatures cost £2 - I ordered on the weekend and received them on Tuesday, how's that for fast?

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