X-Com: Enemy Unknown

Well Sa-t-an-ta (I have fogroteen how to spell, I think), wasn't bad to me this year. I got a copy of X-Com Enemy Unknown from my other half who has now lost the use of the remote control (when asked, all I have been able to say is that it is hidden in my secret mountain top lair or behind the sofa). For those of you who have gone back more than a few posts you will probably have picked up on the fact that I like a bit of X-Com. I like it so much that the blog even has a label for X-Com.

It has had a few detractors. Maybe it has lost some of it's re-playability. It doesn't seem to have as long a legs as the original. This could be me being a bit of an old fart. The game is one of my sacred cows and it hasn't done a bad job of it. I read a complaint online that it did not have many environments. It has way more than the original and any of the sequels and having played it through twice I haven't encountered that many duplicate scenarios.

The environments are really gorgeous. All game environments should look this good. I could see me trying to use some of the ideas in my tabletop games. Pity there is no really good zoom function but you can see the terrain disintegrate around you when you and the enemy miss. Having vehicles explode around you is a nice touch which can cause you to move when you really want to stay in cover.

The bad guys are interesting. I was kind of hoping for the old bad guys jazzed up a lot. They have been significantly re-imagined. This is not a bad thing but not always a good thing. Mostly I liked the aliens but the floaters are not what they once were and all have lost their cartoon/anime touches.  They variety of types has also dropped. So there are floaters and hevay floaters but not pilots, navigators, medics, soldiers, commanders etc.I like what was there and wanted the bad guys to but updated and enhanced versions of what they were. They look much more hi tech and the greys do look really evil. There are a few new aliens. They have plenty of twists to catch the unwary off guard.

On balance, better in some respects, not as good in others. I enjoyed playing it. I'll play it again on a harder level which I am sure will give it a much different vibe. I am glad I didn't pay full price for it though. I'd give it an 8 out of 10 which is a shame as I would have loved to have given this a ten. It's worth buying but I doubt that I will be raving about it in a year let alone twenty years.

On the table top front, I can see that there are some good ideas. I look at the environments and think I could use what I have seen here to make a better game. There is a really nice idea for a train/tube station. The aliens have a few nice ideas which might turn into something on the tabletop. If there was anyone interested in making some figures for the old game or the new game, they would have a nice big order.

I am sorry that I haven't been able to do much table top stuff. I have done some but I am currently suffering from a chest infection which is crippling me. Sitting up is proving to be a problem. As soon as I do I start coughing. I was joking about having 72 hour TB that was going around. That was a week ago so not as funny anymore. My next dose of antibiotics are due soon. Still the blog looks like it is doing okay without me. I even had my first visitor from Bolivia today.

Happy Mid Winter Solstice Psychosis

Sorry to go all Charles Dickens on Christmas Eve. I'll be sure to give your regards to Jacob Marley later on. Everyone else has done a nicey nicey Christmas Blog Message so I thought I would just do something to bring the force back into balance. Well I suppose it is keeping the economy going although only just according to the BBC. That's what it seems to be this year, a gauge for how badly the economy is going down the pan.

So happy Kwanza, Mid winter solstice, Christmas, Divali and a belated Happy Chanukah.

Moving onto the Psychosis bit of the title. I have had the somewhat dubious pleasure of doing some last minute Christmas shopping today. This is whilst coughing up a lung. My other half is telling me I have bronchitis. Every time I try to speak I end up in a cough fit. Some would say this is a good thing but only those that know me.

I was in the supermarket earlier on, as I said. It was not particularly busy and I kind of wished I hadn't got the turkey yet as there were some cracking deals on. The staff were really helpful and even friendly. This is odd but then I guess they were all going home in a bit. It was my fellow customers that have put me in a bad mood. Most just looked a bit morose. There were a few however that pushed passed me and others. twice I was looking at something and people just walked in front of me and stopped dead. The Christmas spirit seemed to disappear in the car as well with people driving like they were the headless horseman sat on top of a coach. I remember last year people cutting up an ambulance with it's lights on to advance a few metres towards a town that was nearly ten miles away the week before Christmas. Hell even advent calanders now have an extra day on them.

So if you have made it this far, I wish you well. I hope, that even in this cynically abused time of year, that you get what you want and that the days to come are all that you hoped for and more. This cynic is now off to watch "It's a Wonderful Life."

2012. Well, Goodbye. It's The End Of The World. Bloody Mayans

Well it's the end of the world tomorrow, 21/12/2012.  Allegedly. I am not too worried. Today has been a good day so I will go happy. Seriously though, the Mayans know nothing about the end of the world. Any culture that couldn't predict that they would to handful of Spaniards is unlikely to be able to predict the end of the world. The only people that seem to have any real interest in it are the programmers at the Discovery Channel.

The only real bit of post apocalypse I am interested in at the moment is some RPGing. I have agreed to run a Fallout RPG in the new year so I will get on with painting some Rebel Post Apocalyptic gangers over the next couple of days.

Predator - The Camera Never Lies

I like taking pictures of my minis. It kind of makes me take a second look at stuff and use a slightly more critical eye. As the title says, the camera never lies. I spent part of my day yesterday painting this not-predator from Khurasan. I like the model and I really just wanted to start and finish something. I have never really been a completer finisher and I wanted to do something that I could start and finish easily. Short of spraying in with matt varnish I thought I was done.

I had a look at the pictures I took and I realised that not only have I painted outside of the area intended but that there is a bit of run caused by some inks not drying in a timely manner. So when I get back in tomorrow, I'll have to finish him off and maybe put some of the GZG mecha bits together as well. I'll have three of them then, almost enough for a war.

Anyway, the gaming group I am part of are going out for drinkies and a Chinese buffet are due in the pub in half an hour so a better get a wriggle on.

The Sheriff's/Police Station

Way back at the beginning of August I posted that I was working on a Sheriff's Office almost as an afterthought at the bottom of the post. I was hoping to get some buildings together for a zombie game but figured that this would work in my Sci-Fi setting and even full on post-apocalypse.

Working on it has been a bit of a haphazard process with the putting some texture on the roof never seeming to get started at all. I had an idea that I wanted some more buildings and the thought occurred to me to do some work on the Sheriff's Office before I started on the new stuff.

I started with a fairly basic structure which I have tarted up a bit over time. Mostly it's card and foam core. The driveway in front of the garage is styrene sheet molded for the effect and the garage doors are made from corrugated card. There are a few pieces I printed out such as pin boards and the obligatory wanted posters have been printed out but have yet to be glued to the walls. There is a climbing plant (at the back) which is actually a small piece of aquarium plant. There are some odds and sods from Critical Mass which I got back in June. This is just dressing really but anything that breaks up the monotony has to be good.

Toys....Yey!!!

The first money I have spent for a while has been on some miniatures from Ground Zero Games on some more 15mm stuff. GZG have been one of my favorites over the years. One of the things that has been missing from my sci fi tabletop was vehicles. Be it Hummvees or family cars, everywhere and every when has a lot of vehicles in my mind. Streets look empty without them. Apart from shopping centres, most street have moe cars on them than people at any given moment. Sci fi is where it's at for me at the moment so I have got few vehicles to make the tabletop look a bit more interesting and maybe something for the troops to use. It's a big chunk of lead. Most of it looks like it will work well together. The wheels for most of the vehicles are fairly modular and only really vary in scale. Some of the larger APCs could well double as Traveller ATVs. The longest one does look a lot like an old school ATV which is not something I have ever seen before. Whilst they are not contemporary vehicles they don't look all that different from modern vehicles and I guess they have some uses in Force on Force as well as Tomorrow's War. 

 It took a little while to get the vehicles put together but it had to be done. They look like something now do I feel better.There was a little bit of flash but it was not excessive. The bits seem to fit together okay and there are no major gaps when the sections are fitted together. I am feeling the urge to do some painting but I think till I get my new compressor at Christmas. There was a fair bit of other stuff including two new mecha and some infantry and even a few Christmas freebies as well. They look pretty good I think.

I wanted to do something along the lines of Aliens could want to replicate some elements of it in my games. Instead of doing the blasted planet of LV-426 I have been working on the desert terrain. So now I need something to make it look right. Big wheel raised above the ground was the look I was going for. Painted in the right colours I think these Bulldog trucks from GZG (below) should do the trick.

It is gradually taking longer and longer to work my way around blogger. It is one of the reasons I have been posting less. Getting things into place without the format changing itself is becoming a major ordeal. I would have liked to posted this yesterday but I have spent so much time getting the pictures in the right place and not disappearing or duplicating themselves. There should hopefully be a few more posts over the next few days.

Catch Up Post

Things have been a little crazy over the past month or so. With the new arrival has come four hours of driving everyday and a lot of other responsibilities. Keeping me busy and tired but I am starting to get used to the new regime and not finding the need for an afternoon nap anymore. 


I have been doing some actual gaming since joining a club in Warrington. I really like the people there. No real loons (myself excluded) and a lot of good company. As well as doing some roll playing I have been doing some war gaming which is something I thought I had almost stopped doing. I am really enjoying it despite not having won a game yet.

This was an American Civil War game where I got drubbed. I would like to say it was not really my fault. Bad deployment dice at the beginning of the game meant my opponent got got to the high ground first. There after wave after wave of troops got shot up before they managed to get into position. A couple of corps later I was just about getting into position to take the guns whilst my team mates were taking a beating further on up the line.

Unsurprisingly we lost. We put up a really good fight. I think the initial deployment worked against us and the not so grand dice rolls didn't help our side at all.


I have played a fantasy game and a Very British Civil War game. Both of which I have enjoyed and done pretty well even if the over all result was not so grand/

I have really been enjoying the role playing. It's all been Savage Worlds which is a good thing. Something other than D+D and Shadowrun has been more than welcome. The killing frenzy that started out in a three musketeers with magic has continued through a 28 days later game and I am now playing Rippers.

Painting time has been at a premium and having lost my phone I had lost me camera too so I haven't had too much chance to do much.

I haven't had much time for painting. Since coming back from Spain I have completed ten minis. I have got some more paint over the last few days so I am hoping that this might get my painting mojo going for me again. These are some of them part of the way through. They are a mix of Khurasan and Rebel. I have spent some time working on my back ground project minis which are now just about done. They are modern western insurgents just to give my modern American infantry something to fight whilst I get round to finding some middle eastern opponents. When these are done maybe I will get on a nd run a force on force game. I have been looking at what to do next. I have a couple of vehicle to do and some wheel RPVs to do before I recieve some more vehicles from GZG whch hopefully should arrive in the next few days, Christmas post not with standing.

Rory's Story Cubes

Christmas is coming to the Jackson household but more of that later. I got some of Rory's Story Cubes recently and have been playing with them every day since. I had seen these online somewhere and liked the idea. They cost about £9.00 in one of the gaming shops in Manchester which seemed pricey for only nine dice but I guess you are paying for the idea.   

Speaking of the idea behind the cubes, you roll the dice and you use the images to tell a story based on the face up images on the dice. a fairly simple idea almost like using a tarot deck as a story telling aid. Just just as an illustration I rolled a set of dice and this is what I ended up with. Nine seemingly unrelated images with which to tell a idea.

They are a game in themselves but I wanted to use them as a plot generator mainly for RPG but I have tried them as a scenario generator for miniature games. This is a little harder but still doable.

Once the cubes have been rolled the idea is to sort them into a story arc and tell the story. This is not always that easy and I guess if you are so inclined you could remove a die that does not fit in with the story or even play about with it's facing. So going from left to right the story goes as follows. The PC's come across an unhappy farmer. he was attacked by robbers who shot and killed his son and stole all his sheep.


Unsurprisingly he wants justice for his son and his sheep back. The robbers have fled with the sheep through the woods. The heroes charge of after the robbers into the dark forest and hunt them by torchlight.  On the far side of the forest they face a random choice of a dice rolling opportunity which I took as a battle. During the battle their heroes route back is destroyed so they have to look for another route. They eventually find a bridge that will take them back home but whilst crossing the bridge that have to face some sort of water monster.

Them images are not really tailored to gaming. Fish do not crop up a lot of space in most game backgrounds and in a fantasy background I guess that you would have to take your influences where you find them. I was thinking that they would work well with other game concepts such as the Five Room Dungeon over at Roleplaying Tips which I will probably try out next time I run a game.

Not speaking of Christmas as I was a minute or so ago. The house smells of fresh Christmas tree and laundry which is a nice all round smell. The tree is up (right at least) in the front room with the decorations to be done. It struck me as odd that if I tried to bring a tree into the house at any other time of year I would be in the dog house. Santa is going to be bringing me a compressor for Christmas after I found one on sale. I have some GZG stuff on order which should hopefully be here in a few days and I have some belated birthday presents (wargames magazine subscriptions) to come. Christmas is starting to sound like fun even if the tree is a bit wonky.

Liebster Award

Hey, my blog won an award. Thanks to the members of the Academy, my mother and father, Swimbo, my sister and mostly Mathyoo over at 28 Millimeters Later. Mathyoo has been a good friend to my blog since in started so thank you. It's nice to know that someone cares and it kind of made my day. Mathyoo is a good bloke and more people should go and look at his blog. It's noice to get some praise. I know it's just another internet meme but as far as they go, I kind of like this one.

So as I understand the deal is as follows.

1. Copy and paste the award on your blog linking it to the blogger who has given it you.

2. Pass the award to your top 5 favourite blogs with less than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of there posts to notify them that they have won the award and listing them on your own blog.

3. Sit back and bask in the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing you have made someone's day!

4. There is no obligation to pass this onto someone else but its nice if you take the time to do so.

To those I nominate, I apologise in advance for forwarding an internet meme.

Paint it Pink

This blogs belongs to some I used to go airsofting with and she is a good gamer too. She has a good take on gaming and her blog is well worth a read.

Future War Stories

Not really a gaming blog but a great site for getting ideas for sci-fi games. William takes ideas from a wide range of sources and turns it into a good read.

Fjodin's 15mm World

A nice blog with a lot of good pictures. Fjodin seems like a good bloke and you should go an have a look. The man has some great skills.

Felonmarming

Anyone who would use Rab C Nesbit as an avatar must deserve a mention. His painting is pretty good too. He has a few other blogs that are worth a look as well.

MattBlackgod's World

A good blog from a prolific painter. I like post apocalypse games and this is what the world is about. Whilst mainly in 28mm he is being tempted to join the only true figure scale.

Well that about wraps this up. Hope it put a smile on afew faces.

Post Apocalyptic Horses (Waiting For Riders)

It's been a while since my last post. Life has gotten interesting.

Whilst in Spain I lost my phone which was also my camera. And thanks to various (software induced) technicalities it is is proving difficult to get another one. I have also become a foster parent which is proving to be fun. The lucky young person in question is keeping me and my other half very busy so I have hardly had a chance to pick up a paint brush (well once) in the last month. All sorts of changes have been going on at the Jackson house in the last few weeks.

These have been sat on the table for a little while waiting for the riders. These were just about finished before I went to Spain.

Painting horses has never been my favourite task but as my skills have improved I have looked more and more at  pictures of horses so that I get the colours right. Given that I haven't got round to the riders yet I thought I would take some pictures and put them up here.

I wasn't too unhappy with the end result. The ink makes some of the textures show up a little bit better. The camera I am using in tmy HD video camera with a stills option. The pics are pretty good.I'll get round to the riders eventually. I like the new mounted figure from TheScene and the Khurasan riders look pretty good too so they may have some opposition in the not too distant future.

Happy Halloween And 10,000 Hits

Happy Halloween. Home the zombie don't bite too hard.

I have also managed to get to 10,000 page views somewhere along the line. I think this is pretty good for a blog in six months and that is even with me being of the boil this month.

Walking Dead Season 3 Again

I realise that I am not doing a lot of gaming posts this week but I am in Spain and a long way from my brushes so I apologise. But it's zombies. You really have to love zombies. There will be some minis and buildings at the end of next week when I get back to what looks like the sunnier climbs of England (serious;y it's warmer and dryer in Edinburgh than it is here).

I have managed to see the first episode of WD 3 last night on a very small screen. Despite the size of the screen the story was big enough that I was impressed by what I saw. Some time has passed since the last episode. They look a lot more like survivors now. All of the characters look like they could use a goof meal and they were on the border of eating some dog food the group found (not quite there yet but they son't seem too far off that). They have picked up some kit (including home made silencers) and there is some beard growth going on. The eventually decided to go back to the prison hinted at during the last episode of WD 2.

As with the comic, the lines between good guys and bad guys gets a bit blurred. Rick and family are on the edge. Daryl seems to be stepping up to be the man of the hour.

Should be another great series.

Walking Dead Season 3

Well it's out in the states and I am hoping to get a chance to watch it tomorrow but as I am in Spain I am not holding out too much help. It has got my zombie gaming mojo going.

I have just finished reading Rise of the governor and I am going through the comics again.  I have been doing a zombie RPG during the week and I am now really in the mood for it.

A World Aflame

I like to be nice about most games and minis.

I purchased A World Aflame from Osprey recently. I am a bit of a Spanish Civil War bore and kind of like the idea of doing some Very British Civil War too, so it seemed like a good idea at the time.

There basically seemed to be two schools of thought when in comes to wargames rules which are reality or fun. I have always liked the concept of realism rather than abstract. Fun and slaughter are not natural bed fellows and anyone who thinks like this should take a long hard look at why they game. Accurate ranges are an important part of realism for me. This put me off flames of war.

One of the first things in the rules is about table scale, distance and time basically saying that there isn't one. This means that it would be impossible to have them because the rules will fall down if you have one. The rules also talk about fun in the game referring to a few comedy shows set in that era. This is an era marked by bloody civil wars where indiscriminate atrocities were common place. Injecting a note of fun into this doesn't really do it for me. If you want fun play a zombie game or 40k.

One of the flaws of many games designers is that they have no idea about range and weapon performance. Not that I am particularly anal about it but anyone can look up basic details on wikipedia. A sniper rifle has a range of thirty inches in the rules and a flame thrower has a range eight inches. I'll use the sniper rifle as the basis for comparing weapons ranges. A sniper rifle of the period probably had an effective rage of around 600-800m. So for the sake of an argument lets call in 600m. A flame thrower at best had a range of about 40m but realistically hitting anything more than 20m away was a lucky shot. So being generous we will call the range of a flame thrower 40m which is about a 1/15 the distance. So that gives the flame thrower a massive range bonus. The flame thrower should have a relative range of about 1-2”. HMGs are more accurate than sniper rifles. Given that at long range they would be relying on gravity to plunge the round onto a target I am not sure but don't think that would work even if it was an area of effect weapon

You can throw a grenade about 20-25m in the real world which is about an inch on table. Soldiers in A World Aflame can throw a grenade up to six inches up to 150m. It has a lethal blast area of 75m which is about 25% likely to hit the thrower.

Shotguns have a range of 10” or about a third of that of a sniper rifle. I have shot a fair bit with shotguns and would have said hitting anything at more than about 30m was a good shot. The books give them a range of about 40m. I believe that you can hit with a solid slug at about double the range. 10” is about 200m or about five time what you would hit with a shotgun.

I could go on as all the weapon ranges seem wrong but why bother. It's broken.

The game uses something like fog of war cards. There aren't many and many are just not very good. I think this idea was probably pushed onto the system and they are not a patch on the ones in Force on Force.

Infantry can move (if they are lucky) up to 16” or roughly 320m) almost as fast as the fastest tanks can drive at full pelt (21” or rough 420m). Moving (not charging) cavalry move at no more than 15” or a little slower than a tank. Charging cavalry manage up to 19”.

Whichever bit of the rules I look at I find flaws. So many that I just can't be bothered listing any more.

I got the rules because I wanted to play them. I like the era particularly. I might give them a try but to be honest I think there are better rules out there. If you want a “fun” game rather than something approaching a simulation you might be okay but to me this is a big stretch.

Red Dwarf The Verdict

I have waited for a few years for this. The level of anticipation in the Jackson Household was high. For the first few minutes I thought it was just going to be a replay of old episode on new sets. Which to be honest

would not have that bad. The old archetypes were there. After about five minutes of settling in, the first episode got better. It was novel enough and the same enough to keep the old Dwarfers happy.

The last mini series had some nice ideas but some how lacked that essential zest. RD X did not. It#'s funny. It's got it' head around the old and made them new again. The cast are starting to show their age (something to do with drugs or doing too many shows about the industrial revolution).

If my other half is reading this, the Blueray will be out just in time for Christmas.

Geeky Moment

Found this and thought I'd share. Forget finding Wall:E just try and name all the robots.

I can get about 80% of them. Hell it's even got Scutters.

The Zombie Horde Marches On (Again)

I hate Rebel Minis. They keep making stuff I want to paint. Zombies, you have to love zombies. I think it's now law in several southern states in America. The ever present fear of zombies is one of the main reasons the NRA is doing so well. I am told by a completely unreliable source. Mostly they a Rebel Minis but there is a GZG child mini in there somewhere.

There should be 28 of them and I can't figure out where the other one went when I was taking the picture. I need to greb them up a bit with some layer paints to make them look shabby and painted the bases gray to match the others. Having told someone recently that I wanted the Romero look I painted a few in a very pale flesh colour (from a twenty year old original GW paint pot. The last time I was in workshop I joked with one of the staff that I owned paint older than them. He had no sense of humour).

I got some rebel mini rioters. I wanted some guys with base ball bats but you can have too much of a good thing. I ended up with a few too many for what I wanted so I thought that I could use them as zombies. In 28mm there are a lot of medical themed zombies but I can't think of any in 15mm. I suppose the Khurasan Federal Scientists would do at a pinch. So I converted (took a craft knife to) one of the rioters. I cut the peak of the cap off and the belt off the back. Et voilà.

 Continuing the medical theme, This is a late patient in scrubs. No conversion. Like the ribs. Anyone fancy a zombie barbecue?

 Another rioter. A minor chop job on what was in one of the hands and a bit or arm bending. I could see this one as a hunter in a left for dead style game.

A chubby female zombie. She would certainly scare me. I look at this one and can't help but think about the women who died without a name who turned into a zombie. Sadly the picture isn't up to the look of the mini. She hasn't quite got the look of a bloater from left for dead but could do at a pinch.

Zombie hooker anyone? They eyes on this one look really wild. I could see her as the poster child of the apocalypse,

Another rioter. I have played dead rising endlessly and I recall some C.U.R.E. protesters with placards. I tried to write on the placard but think I will leave it until I have sprayed them with varnish.

GZG Humanoid Robots

Robots. Who doesn't need more robots and Jon at GZG managed to produce some more. They fit in quite nicely with the not Traveller stuff from RAFM that I love so much. 

These big fellas would make nice opponents or intimidating allies. Nice time I have need of some robots for sale all I will need is a handful of Jawas.

These are female humanoid miniatures. Like a lot of manufacturers they had enhanced female qualities if you get my meaning. this almost put me off buying them. I guess the "sizing" says a lot about gamers? Anyone up for a flame war? The 25mm minis were much the same. I did some selective editing with a knife and now they look a little Kryten-esque.

The male robots looking like a smaller version of Gort. Nice minis with no enhanced characteristics.

Savage Lhurgg Tribesmen

I put off doing some more zombie for another day. I have ten Lhurrg tribesmen that are crying out to be painted. these were hard work. Wherever I put the paint it just seemed wrong. Even with a couple of highlights and an ink wash I am still not sure I have it right. This is probably because I picked the wrong colour as the base for the figure. They have the look of a goat so I wanted them to look vaguely goat like. Their faces are unusually alien. I could almost see a fish with jaws and a tongue sticking out. I like the huge sword as a melee weapon (They don't like it up em springs to mind. This will lose a lot in translation if you are not British so I apologise).

Ten in a pack isn't pad for the money as they are quite tall miniatures. Just to give you an idea here is a size comparison with some stuff I have painted recently.

Left to right: FOW, GZG, Rebel Minis, Khurasan, CMG RAFM and Khurasan again. Just a quick look shows that they are fairly tall. They are alien so I guess that just makes them a big species. Their size and huge swords mean (not they are over compensating and this wouldn't be a surprise as the minis are anatomically correct) that they would be fairly imposing in close quarter combat. Klingons with swords and hooves.

I don't think these will go down as my finest hour but the end result will look okay on the table.

The next batch of zombies is on the cards. Almost thirty if them. Mostly they are Rebel zombies but there are a few conversions of Rebel Minis Rioters and they odd figure from random places. 

Background Project

I never manage to concentrate on much for long. For those moments when I get distracted or have too much paint on my brush I always like to have a background project on the go. This is something that I usually think would be a nice idea but don't really want to spend a significant amount of interest on. Maybe it's a figure, maybe it's dozens of them.

This is what the work bench looks like right now. With (at least) sixteen partly completed projects on the table you might ask why I need to have a background project? Why? Well I don't know. I have never been a completer finisher but getting projects up and running, that's my thang. I need a reason to finish stuff off not to mention my pathological hatred of basing figures.

So I dragged the project out whilst waiting for some ink to dry.

This is just a few of them. There are over thirty on the painting table at the moment. I can see them taking a while to finish off. Still very much a work in progress but hey it's progress.

The plan was to have a "state militia" or post apocalyptic force. I had in my mind to do something like a new world order game. I was going to get a force which could be used in force on force whatever they became. Whatever happens they end up as they will be useful for something in an RPG. Post apocalypse or zombie maybe?

Still a long way to go.......................

Zombie Horde Marches On

Well I have been busy painting. To the left is a close up picture of one of them. After day one it was clear that zombies need a lot of colour so a lot of changing of paint and washes brushes makes for a slow process so after five hours I had just about managed to get most of the basic coverage done. I still needed to go back and finish off accessories, hair and shoes before moving onto the next stage of the process. It was hard work but I guess the bulk of the work was done. This involved a little fine detail work like marking out the M on the restaurant staff and even the strings on bikinis. Still I feel like I have broken the back of the seventy zombies that I have to paint Just the detailing left.

Detailing can be a pain in the backside but with dozens of different colours I was expecting day two to be really hard work. I had originally set out to do about twenty five minis. As I started painting on day one with twenty five figures. I soon decided that I would do the zombie cheerleaders, firemen and restaurant staff in appropriate team colours so this ended up with fifty figures. I normally plan to pain about twenty figures in a batch so this seemed like a lot to do.

This is the more or less finished product. I am sure I will keep detailing them as I always do. There are about another dozen of them but I couldn't get a decent piccture of all of them. Spray them with varnish put them on washers and do some detailing on the base. Then another thirty and then another hundred or so and I should be done with zombies.

Well I guess that this batch is done now. I re-read some of Ambush Z last night and feel the urge to do a game of that. Think I might move on to something else. I wouldn't want to get bored.

Got A Little Distracted

I spent most of the day yesterday working on zombies. A bit of a labour of love but still not finished. I have taken some pics which will get posted in the next few days. I was browsing at the pics I have taken already and I found a few I hadn't posted. I was working on Traveller stuff a while back and didn't get round to posting these.

I love this old stuff. It was the old GW traveller minis that first got me thinking about 15mm gaming. When Rafm got the rights to make them I was made up. I probably have more figures in vac suits than I need (about 30) but I am sure that they will get used. I will have to work them into a scenario. 

Back to the zombies.....

Zombies Are Coming

WARNING - RANT HEAVY BLOG POST - WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARN....

Some of the zombie lovers out there will known that The Walking Dead is about to come back for a third series. (There is a frisson on excitement in the Jackson household. Anticipation is a wonderful thing.) I have been playing all sorts of online zombie games just to get me in the mood.

The plan is to paint the zombies in a Romero-esque kind of way. It was dawn and day of the dead (the original ones that is, the remake of dawn was okay but I have no idea what they were thinking when they decided on the script for the remake of day of the dead.) so that means pale green, powder blue and the odd pale flesh coloured one.

I spent most of yesterday painting some modern US police (US is an interesting acronym in the army). This included a couple of zombie police officers. I wanted the uniforms to be fairly close to it made sense to paint them at the same time. The models are not quite the same but are close enough that no one but me will notice the difference.

These were some I started painting a while back. Still a long way from finished. these are zombie dogs and zombie ragers again from Rebel. I fancied having some mobs of dogs. I think this is down to the original resident evil game. Someone out there still needs to do some doberman zombie dogs. To add to what I have I'll buy some Peter Pig dogs which should give me twenty.

This is the first half of the main batch. I kind of cheated and got the The Modern Zombie Horde HOTT Army. This gave me more than fifty zombies six more zombie dogs and a necromancer which I liked the look of but was the only figure in the pack I liked.

They have another zombie pack which has some soldiers and some crawlers as well as brides and clowns (What is it with Americans and clowns? I remember Charlie Caroli as a kid and was quite funny and I remember being gutted when he died. I saw him in Warrington when I was a kid. Damn it America clowns are funny not sinister. Rant off). I am not sure I need to many clowns or brides but the others should be okay. I'll probably get another pack of ragers. Then it will me moving on to Khurasan for their zombies and survivors which are not based on The Walking Dead at all. I'd like a few special types. I have some 28mm zombies which would work as tanks. I have a few mutant zombie from tengu and was thinking that maybe some of the Only The Dead Are Left minis from Studio Miniatures would also make an impact on the table.

I spoke to one of my mates who is into zombie games. He might yet talk me back into 28mm and maybe then I could be accepted into the regular zombie blogging fold.