Gaming Tiles

Over the last couple of weeks I have been playing about with the idea of  doing some gaming tiles for roleplaying and board games. This stems from playing Star Wars: Imperial Assault and Descent as well as looking some of the home made 2.5d dungeon terrain. I like the idea of making the terrain easy-to-use, easy-to-build and interlocking.

Whilst I like the tiles and the figures and even the game of Imperial Assault, I am not going to go out and buy them because I know two people who I game with that have it already and I wouldn't be running it any way. However, I want them to play other games and I really want something I can customise so the commercial stuff doesn't do quite what I want. I did think about cutting stuff to the same shape and size as the FF game but that sounds like more hard work that it's worth.

So I came up with the idea of  creating my own. The first one is a try out of the 2.5d terrain. The original idea was a bit of a stretch but it was an easy fix to make something that works. I am stuff not sure I like the form. The Imperial Assault tile idea works much better and the absence of walls specifically means that the tiles can be closer together.

The prospect of the creation and painting of the dungeon tiles is fun and I like the idea but the printing out of images created elsewhere makes the process a lot quicker and more visually appealing.

Progress, After A Fashion

Today has been another busy day and I am painfully tired. What I need right now is some sleep. The work on the zombies has progressed a fair bit. That said, whilst I have done a fair bit of highlighting, there is still plenty of details to add before I would class them as finished.

The tiredness and the detail was starting to make me go a bit cross-eyed so I stopped the figure painting. Instead, I went to on to work on the bases for the Viking wargame for my Savage Worlds Wargame. All of what is now glued together and covered in sand is now ready to go. Then, there were still some bases that hadn't been glued together. The bases (of the bases) that I had available were not enough for what I needed. I did however have a number of the top half of the bases that hadn't been cut properly. The cuts were deep enough that chopping them down to the size of bases of the bases (look at the pictures if you don't understand) that there were easy enough to cut out. So, although it was a bit of a cobble together, the problems won't actually be noticeable when figures or blanks are put in the slots. Most bases now only need a touch up to the paint and there are about ten that need texturing and painting. There is enough there really to give it a go now.

Then I moved on to gluing up some dungeon tile ideas I tried running off last weekend. These are definitely not going to work in their current form but I will paint them up to see what they look like from an aesthetic point of view.

Woefully Busy Day & Some Fun & Zombies

Whilst I still have a bad back that is causing me a lot of pain and a cold that just won't go away, the world isn't going away either. My other half is ill with the same thing I had although this seems to be the second time she has had it. She was that bad last night that she asked me where her glasses were and she was wearing them, on her face, at the time.

This picture demonstrates why most good painters (or do I mean sensible ones) don't show their work until it's finished.

Zomtober continues. I took this picture yesterday to remind me to keep on track or else The New Cruelty will catch up with me. When I look at it I feel a slightly unpleasant feeling in my stomach. Still, very early days. They are very blocky and pretty hideous. It was for this reason that I wasn't going to post the picture. That said, I have worked on them a bit this evening after going out for a birthday meal, and I am happy to say that they now look a lot better. I realise that the blood looks pretty bright at the moment but when I get down to washing them and painting the clothing, the blood splatter will narrow down a bit and darken down a lot.

So getting a bit better but still don't look bad enough to be zombies

Still pretty far from perfect but they are getting there. There is a fair bit of detailing to do on them and lots and lots of highlighting and what I call "grebbing them up" to make them a little more zombie. This will include a significant amount of Tamiya Clear Red, which is the best blood substitute I have found so far (although I wouldn't recommend it for a transfusion).

There has been a bit of time for playing around with CorelDraw as well. I am working on some terrain ideas. I have had an idea for some roads for ages. For a while now I have been thinking about doing them in laser cut MDF. This might take a while but it is doable. It will take a long time because of the scope of the amount of stuff I am actually wanting.

Blood Bowl Releases

There are still a number of Blood Bowl Figures on the workbench in various stages of completion. Despite being in the throws of Zomtober, I still keep looking at them.  It's Blood Bowl that is really taking up much of the rest of my Birthday list (soon to rechristened the Christmas List). I have a bit of sitting around time so I was looking up what's new in the world of Blood Bowl.

The answer wasn't much...But there is a bit of promise out there. Whilst there is nothing new on the GW there is some stuff on Forgeworld site.

I did a post about a Minotaur big guy which is now out along with the counters for a chaos team. Then I found that there is a chaos team with all the bits in one box.  Chaos was always one of my fave teams so I guess I will take a punt when I next get the urge. I am not sure that I would buy the tokens at £8 when a whole team is £20 but they look pretty good.

On the downside, the elves are coming. I hate elves. A mate of mine, Martin, loves them and all his characters were either elves or behaved like elves if the game didn't have them in it. This may be why I hate them. Uppity, smug, arrogant and annoying. Yes Martin, I am talking about the elves.

Now I am a completist so I will get round to buying them. This is not a big ask as the figures are really, really nice.

If I can make them look this good, I might actually have to play a game with them. the only time I have used the elves I have is to practice against them. The Christmas list will just have to get bigger.

The Walking Dead & The Irony Of The Industry

I think I said yesterday that I had gotten hold of a copy of the Kickstarter box set. I have been after this for a while mainly because it has a few miniatures in it that are difficult to get hold of without Mantic points. The TV show and the comics are stuff I just love and to my mind are amongst the best in their respective genres.

At the time it came out I wasn't so sure that I was going to be interested in it so I didn't back it. Too much rigmarole I thought at the time. Whilst I am very happy with my purchase and the others I have made lately, especially as they were cheap, Mantic's latest releases have taken the edge off.

As you can see I was so happy to get this that I had
removed some figures for priming before I took some pictures

The kickstarter boxes are back on sale on their store. Admittedly seconds and more money than I paid for it. I suspect the guy who has a boxed set on eBay for £330 will be disappointed. What is naffing me off is there is a collectors edition set. This has three exclusive figures and three more that it says that are also exclusives (which I already have and have paid through the teeth for).  If I sat down what I have already paid for the bits in it, I would have been much better off buying this set and I would have got the three exclusive miniatures (really not available anywhere else unlike the kickstarter exclusives). As I really don't need all the duplicates (a third copy of the starter set might be too much and there is only one Governor and how many Lee and Clementine figures can I actually use (and the zombie with these two is great but is a bit distinctive)) I am not going to spend the money. I will wait to see if the exclusive come up on the web as all the other "exclusives" have done eventually.

To be honest, I shouldn't really complain, it makes me sound like a bit of a fan boy (and that hurts :) ). I keep buying the figures purely for the love of them.

Zombies Take Charge

Of my work bench at least...

Primed and ready to go

The eBay purchase of an All Out War Kickstarter box and Miles Behind Us arrived this morning. The day has been pretty much been all about that. I have prepped some stuff for Zomtober. The plan is to go through some of the box sets starting with The Road To Woodbury and moving on from there. I have done a few basing details on what I have started so far and made a fairly good attempt at the Brian Blake figure.

Zomtober

The zombies are coming. Well Zomtober is coming at least. I haven’t done Zomtober for a few years. It was a pleasure when I did and this year I am really looking forward to it. This may explain my sudden purchasing of large numbers of The Walking Dead: All Out War.

"To be a part of this you just need to paint one or more Zombies or Survivors each week, in any scale you like, posting it to your blog by that week's Sunday (we use Sunday's as the end of each Zomtober week). So that means posting one or more newly painted Zombie or Survivor minis each week on or before the 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th of October 2017. This year has a very tight start and there is nothing stopping bloggers starting that first mini early in readiness for the Sunday!"

Anyone commenting on THIS POST will get added to the blog list (and on mine too if you ask). Feel free to do something similar on your own blogs - as the word spreads, more and more bloggers can be involved!.

Eclectic Gentleman Tabletop Gamer - Pulp Citizen
Four Colour Super Minis - Rob
Fantorical - Blaxkleric
Mike's Random Wargaming Meanderings - Mike C
Saturday Mornings - Ivor Evans
28mm Victorian Warfare - Michael Awdry
Miniature Mayhem - Terry Silverthorn
ANYTHING BUT A 1! - Clint
Cheaphammer!!! - Kieron
The Wargame Addict - Wargame Addict
Lead Reckoning - Fred Jackson
da Gobbo's Grotto - Wargaming blog - da Gobbo Grotto
Never Mind The Jankers - Roy Williamson
Paintbrush and Superglue - Matt

It will be a giggle.

My plan is for six miniatures a week for a total of thirty. There will be a mix of survivors and zombies (should I say walkers or would that be sacrilege?)