Halloween Roundup- Giant skulls, bats and insects, giant cobras and more!

[Tacgnol]

October is pretty much harvest time for the gamer, if cheap monsters and spooky scenery are your bag. This Halloween season I'm going to be scoping out cheap seasonal tat with gaming potential and tipping you all off on it! First up, giant skulls from Sainsbury's and giant insects/giant bats from Wilkinsons.

First up, Sainsbury's plastic skulls. £1.95 for a pack of 8. Uses ranging from mysterious huge crystal skulls deep in the jungles, to conveniently skull shaped island cliffs for gaming with little ships, to standard urban architecture in WH40K. Hard plastic.



Now the quality Wilkinsons' products. Pack of ten insects for a Poundland-defying 65p, this pack contains four flies, two centipedes (not pictured but they're 2.5" long and look exactly as you'd expect them to), two ants and two scorpions. They're reasonable stiff but the fly's legs are pretty floppy.









For the same price comes a set of five bats. These aren't especially detailed. The only facial feature they have sculpted is what I think is meant to be the snout and even this is pretty poor. Quick go at some rudimentary "flying basing" to show what it looks like in flight here.





Wilkos also has a pack of rats that are ideally sized for giant rats on the tabletop, but I didn't pick any up today.

I hope this is of interest to some of you guys. Feel free to add any useful Halloween stuff you see here!

[Diplomatist]

Thanks for the pointers - off to Sainsbury's tomorrow! 

[fastolfrus]

Are the Wilko ones hard or soft plastic?

[Tacgnol]

Hard but with a bit of give due to how thin some of the sculpts are, and the legs of the flies are very floppy indeed. The bat, ant, scorpion and millipede/centipede are all reasonably rigid. They're easily felt through the packaging too.

[Overlord]

Poundland also have lots of similar tat for wargamers 

They currently have a pack containing 25 ants, 25 spiders and a couple of larger bugs in very soft/rubbery plastic. 
I bought some last year for my "It came from the desert" game.  They are fine when based (on 1p coins)



http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=47304.0
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=47689.0

[Diplomatist]

Now the quality Wilkinsons' products. Pack of ten insects for a Poundland-defying 65p, this pack contains four flies, two centipedes (not pictured but they're 2.5" long and look exactly as you'd expect them to), two ants and two scorpions. They're reasonable stiff but the fly's legs are pretty floppy.

As well as the mixed insects, bats and rats you mention they also have a similar pack of cockroaches.  All these 65p packets are two for £1.00, which makes them even better!

If you go to their toy section their 'small dinosaurs' (ideal for 28mm I'd say) are £1.00 each.

And then there's fish-tank vegitation...

[Tacgnol]

I didn't see the roaches at my local branch, good to know!

Both Poundland and Asda are stocking brain jelly moulds- I got this one today for my wife, who makes a mean vodka jelly. I guess it could be used for a giant brain that controls an organic spaceship, or maybe for some Innerspace fun with 28mm divers or minisubs?

Goes for a quid at both outlets. Hard plastic

[Diplomatist]

I didn't see the roaches at my local branch, good to know!

The roaches were a mixed bag with spiders (five of each).  There are some poor pics of these and the Wikos dinosaurs at http://diplomatist2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/pulp-loves-halloween.html.  I'm sorry I missed the brain moulds.

Overlord,
Looking at the Poundland website, I see this package - are they the ones you got?

[fastolfrus]

Is anyone doing "small bat confetti" this year?

Thinking of some large bat swarms....

[Tacgnol]

I've not seen any small bat confetti, but I'll keep my eyes peeled!

[fastolfrus]

Anyone seen these?

http://www.beadsunlimited.co.uk/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BOO+New+Halloween+beads+in+stock&utm_content=BOO+New+Halloween+beads+in+stock+CID_28a125ecc00b12664c0085e87c2f8967&utm_source=Mailshot&utm_term=Beads%20Unlimited

[fastolfrus]

Found Halloween confetti in a 99p store.
8 assorted packs on a card. Unfortunately includes orange pumpkins, white skulls, metallic witches, and metallic writing.
There are some small white plastic ghosts, might see if anything can be done with those, also metallic spiders and bats, but there are plenty of small flat plastic bats to make up a swarm.

They also had a bag of small plastic "rings", orange or black, random mix of bats, skulls and spiders. Bats have a 45mm wingspan, spiders are 40mm long 25mm wide.
Skulls are useless, look a bit Edvard Munch.
But you get a lot of bits in a 99p bag, and in a week or two they'll all be half price as they try to clear the shelves.

[Tacgnol]

More stuff!

Home Bargains are carrying cheap packs of eight plastic skulls.



Up close they don't look entirely human which makes them either eerie or crappy depending on your tastes. 75p.



Poundland have these packs of three cobras. Hard plastic with really good detail. Possible downside- they're very long.

[Tacgnol]

Wilkinsons are liquidating their Halloween stock now with 75% off everything- so the packs of creatures are down to somewhere in the region of 16p.

Also I didn't notice these things until today. Push-in teeth for pumpkins that would make pretty good rock formations, and some of them would make great tusks for big mutant gribblies.