Along Came a Spider…

As my Gothic Victoriana project has reached a plateau and the stalwart forces of the Black Museum require a bit of rest and recuperation, it’s time for a brief diversion…elsewhere.

For many of my fellow bloggers, October signifies the rise of the walking dead, as their paint tables are filled with shambling corpses awaiting the touch of a brush – Zomtober 2018 is upon us…

However, I always look forward to October, as it is the time of year when a variety of retailers fill their shelves with macabre accessories, to enable all and sundry to dress their Halloween parties appropriately. For a gamer, this is an ideal opportunity to scour the shops for inexpensive bits to enhance their table.

Such as these:

A string of 10 battery-operated  ‘spider lights’ from Poundland costing, you guessed it, £1.00.

Each platic spider is approximately 45mm long, 45mm wide and about 15mm tall. They are molded in hard green plastic and have a ‘socket’ in their backside, into which the ligbts push. Detail is pretty good for what is effectively a 10p plastic figure, although you may wish to fill the hole in its bum to make it more realistic.

So, how do they compare size-wise to a standard 28mm figure? 

Like so:

One of my intrepid UNIT soldiers faces off against the lime-green menace of a ‘spider from Mars’ (Ziggy Stardust optional).

Of course, they are lights too, so you can use them ‘illuminated’, although they will have wires trailing from their arse.

Now, I made the assumption that the lights were white, with the coloured plastic provding the green glow, but this was an incorrect assumption. The lights are actually green:

My immediate thought on finding this out was “Cool. Maybe I can use them as eyes for a Shoggoth, made from expanding builders foam…”, but now I have another cunning plan…

So, 10 nicely detailed plastic spiders AND a string of 10 batter-operated green lights. For £1.00. Bargain.

The spiders could be used as spider-shaped starships, with the cavity being the engine port, painted up as the monstrous form of a Jorogumo, painted brass as clockwork steampunk automatons or used as arachnid foes for a Starship Troopers game. At £1.00 for ten, you could have a veritable swarm for less than a pint of beer.

Get ’em while you can, as once Halloween is done, they’ll scuttle back off to the warehouse for another year.