STALKER7

With ‘Nightmares’ releasing soon – March in the UK, April in the US – I figured it would be appropriate to discuss ways to populate your supernatural horror investigations. After all, WNC is a table top wargame, so cool miniatures are essential.

Modern toy soldiers tend to be, well, soldiers. Which is great, and I have plenty of them. Thing is, the monster hunters in When Nightmares Come are civilians. They are vigilante investigators who operate without official sanction, without access to mil-spec gear, and who definitely need to stay under the radar of local law enforcement. (Crazy is bad; up-gunned crazy is worse.)

You may choose to set your Nightmares in a different time period or a certain mythos that has an existing range of figures. You’re a step ahead, in that case. For example, there are some genuinely excellent Pulp miniatures if you plan to visit remote, early 20th century, seaside towns in New England.

However, those of you who reference more contemporary settings, the challenge becomes locating suitable miniatures to represent the game’s three main character classes: the ranged or melee oriented Warden, the spell slinging Weaver, and the support specialist Wright.

I confess I get a charge out of hunting down, mixing, matching, and modifying figs from different companies. And I’ll keep at it until someone comes up with a dedicated range of modern, lightly armed paranormal investigators. But that takes time and effort, and not everyone can do that. So here’s an assortment of ready-to-go minis I’ve found from various sellers on eBay.

DARK SPAWN

Those of you familiar with my games know the adversaries come in three tiers, or castes, each more dangerous than the other. Depending on the type of enemy you want – ghosts? eldritch horrors? werewolves? vampires? demons? – the models for each type will vary according to theme.

Rats, dogs, wolves, even bat swarms are easy enough to swap over from standard fantasy games. Want zombies? Another easy fix, especially if you own a certain board game and it’s myriad expansions. Demonic, hell gate types are simple enough too. Those miniatures tend to have a timeless malevolence that can fit in most modern settings.

But what about other kinds?

I’ve had good luck with board game miniatures, particularly Deep Madness, Bloodborne, and The Others. That’s not to detract from those games: I’m simply saying the monster miniatures are extremely useful for other things too.

Then there are WizKids D&D prepaints. Search out the generic creatures, re-base, touch up, and you’ve got a conga line of phantoms, gribblies, and ghouls ready to spawn out of the nearest portal and devour your investigators.

In both cases, eBay is a great source for inexpensive duplicates of various miniatures and board game parts.

That’s all for now. Drop a comment if you’ve got other sources or ideas. Or if you have specific questions about WNC.

Thanks and good hunting.