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.

Dredd 3D

I want to see this during the week. I used to like Dredd as a kid but the previous film with Stallone really put me. It wasn't the plot it was Sy trying to be the big man himself.

I was impressed by Karl Urban who managed the carry off the quiet (if homicidal) dignity of Dredd. I guess it must be hard to act when you are prohibited from actually looking at anyone eyeball to eyeball but Urban manages it. It's difficult to explain it but whatever Dredd had, Urban has it too.



Olivia Thirlby was also a good choice for Judge Anderson. I haven't seen her in anything other than The Darkest Hour but she has been in a fair few chick flicks. She carried the role off and manages to be pretty cute throughout.

The images of mega city one are quite striking. Some could have come out of the comic and some remind me of the urban decay of the inner cities today. The state of urban decay is more sci-fi that post apocalypse but could give you a fairy nice world to model. Sadly you don't get to see a lot of the city but if you wanted to know what a City Block looked like then you will be able to see one now.
It feels very claustrophobic and dark which is what you would expect from a mega city with a population roughly twice that one modern day America.

Overall I was pretty impressed. Very dark and much darker than the original film. It has more of the flavour of Dredd that anything other than the comics. It'd not going to make it into my top ten all time films but may end up somewhere around eighty five.

Rebel US Modern Policemen

I spent  most of yesterday's painting time working on these. I do a lot of  modern RPG and I got these primarily for that. Now I am thinking zombies. Zombies.....Ahhhhh. I suddenly feel relaxed.

My long running game takes place in Washington D.C. and from some limited web research this looks like the uniform. This is only half the pack so I'm thinking something from Virginia or Maryland. Boston maybe. It will probably be more of the same with white shirts.

Some zombies next. Give them something for target practice.

Another Bits And Pieces Post

Well I didn't get much feedback about the colour scheme so I plodded on with it anyway. The plan was that this would end up looking like WW2 US marine camo. If I can't have what I want then I get something tenuously close to what I want. I am really not sure that I have got the colour balance right on the pictures. Hopefully it is sandy enough that it won't stick out like a sore thumb on the table top.

So these are four of the twenty not colonial marines.  I am hoping to use them for tomorrow's war and maybe some RPG game stuff. i was thinking that they could be a moderate tech post apocalyptic force.

Whilst waiting for inks to dry on the marines I have had a play about with some x29 blockhead suits from Critical Mass Games. Nice figures and look like beefier cousins ti  the jeager robot from Khurasan. Unlike the marines, I want these to stand out and be seen. there seemed to be a lot of robots in Fallout so maybe these would work for PA too.
 
Now for a taste of what is coming next. Te two police figures on either side are zombies and all four are from Rebel Minis. The next thing on my mind is the zombies. i want the uniforms of the police officers to match their dead colleagues so I thought that I would start here. Most of the RPG stuff I run in modern America I run in Washington D.C. because I have a fair bit of background stuff for it so I wa planning on using D.C. uniform colours, powder blue shirts and black trousers. I might paint some more figures in a different uniform colour. Just a thought if anyone is reading this, it would be good to be able to get some figures that look like state troopers..

Colonial Marines

I got some of the not colonial marines from Khurasan a while back. Who can resist them. I like the movies a lot so it's hardly a surprise.

I haven't got all the figures I need yet and I haven't made up my mind about a paint job. This was an attempt. I am not sure if I like it but I will see if it grows on me. What do you think. It's a similar technique to the US infantry but different colour scheme. I don't want to use the scheme from the films because it will clash with my terrain. I want something a bit sandier and I am not sure this goes far enough but then I am not sure about MRT or multicam for desert either. This is very much a work in progress and a long way from finished.

I looked at the colonial marine manual for the TOE they use in there but the Platoons are really small so I would need two of them. Additionally they have not integral support. This would be fine  if I was planning to fight only aliens.

So I had another look at the book and thought...nah. So what then? Well I'll start with the basic building block the squad which is oddly identical to the standard American squad. So I guess that it would probably be similar to the standard US with some updates for the sake of the future.  I thought that the basic platoon was a good place to start. In addition to the standard nine man squad there is a driver. There is a pilot and a co pilot but i doubt that they would see the table top. so what else to add? Well there is an officer and a android in the TOE. I guess that there would be a sergeant and a medic. There would also probably be a radio operator and a forward air controller as well. I thought that there should be an additional squad in line with current operational dogma. it follows that there would be some sort of weapons squad. So looking at what minis were there there are a couple of rocket launcher, two plasma gunners and a sniper in one pack, the other pack has a couple of smart gunners as well as medics and a casualty.

so assuming there is another nine man squad that means four two man team, two four man teams, maybe some three man teams. I thought that you could add a sniper and a spotter as one pair, two teams of three men with plasma guns and rifles plus a sergeant. but what to do with the missile launchers and extra smart gunners. Clearly you need another weapon company

I went to a fancy dress party over the weekend. Kicking and screaming as I recall. This is me getting ready to be Robert Smith from The Cure. I will have to make my mind up about posting some pics of the finished article.

Replaying Stargrunt II

A few months ago I thought I'd try out Stargrunt II GZG's grand daddy of a Sci-Fi combat game. I had a few hours to spare as SWiMBO was away riding a horse. I have a copy and it has been out of print for a long time but I think I am right in saying that it is still available for download for free on GZG's web site. Given the economic climate, it seems like a good idea to do stuff for free especially when it's something I once paid twenty pounds for.

So I set up a dummy game. Quickly so there were really no time for frills. The marines were going in to check why contact had been lost with a village (any similarities between this and AVP: Requiem are purely coincidental). The marine have no vehicles because they know that the road through the village is blocked.

The Marines Arrive

The Marines arrive and take up a commanding position at the corner of town. Another team is going down the main road. A third team are going to sweep round the far side of the village. A forth team gets up on the roof of a building to get a better view of the situation. Whilst this is going on, the 2nd Lt and the Sergeant keep in an over watch position on the hill with the third team between them and the errr, action. At this point they have no idea what is going on so they are adopting a better safe than sorry approach.

The aliens have four teams of six that are going to try and get the Marines. In addition to this, they have three bio booby traps that they have placed on the village. 

Sneaky Sneaky

On the left hand side of the picture above, out of sight of the soldiers, a small swarm of aliens creep up on them ready for a flank attack.

In the picture below, the soldiers move on with their recon they trigger one of the booby traps. Thanks to some goof/bad luck two of the marines die instantly and another get injured. The screening squad move round the outside of the village in an attempt to outflank anything that might be in the heart of the village. The aliens continue sneaking around. They stop just short of revealing themselves to the marines and make ready to charge towards them an attack.

And The Battle Starts

The marines attempting the flank advance past another booby trap. This did not go so well for the aliens. It explodes and does no damage at all. I can only imagine the looks on their faces. Then they get jumped by six aliens. The aliens perhaps jumped a little early but I thought they would capitalise on the shock on the explosion. They don't get all the way there so the marines get a chance to fire killing two of the aliens and injuring another. The marines are still facing a closer assault  which would be bad for them. The aliens are almost certain to kill them if they get into hand to hand with the marines.

The lone survivor from the team in the centre of town retreats towards his last position and sees the aliens waiting to pounce.

"Poop"

Thinking better than waiting around for the aliens to charge, the marines use discretion and run away firing. They get lucky and manage to kill the injured one, injure another and kill a third. Meanwhile the aliens sneaking around start their attack. It takes them a turn to get up the wall so they have to wait around. Sadly this is bad news for the survivor of the team that got hit by the booby trap earlier and he gets munched by two of the aliens. Meanwhile the marines on the roof get an opportunity to hose the aliens below injuring one of them.

"Our Father...."

The Marines on the flank finish off the remaining alien with the help of the platoon leader and sergeant and continue their redeployment to their platoon HQ. The aliens get on the roof but but only some get into hand to hand combat. The marines fire at them knocking them off the walls. Both sides take a couple of casualties.

The Marines Say Goodbye

The aliens get shot before they get a chance to move on the marines. This is where it all ends. The marines don't have much of a chance of completing their mission until reinforcements arrive. The humans have a casualty left behind so they might want to go and retrieve him assuming the aliens don't stop for a snack first.

Even More Modern US Infantry

The main reason for the Rebel Minis order was to get some zombies and some more US infantry. I wanted these for Force on Force. I keep reading the rules but haven't had much chance to play them. When I looked at the book there should be plenty but when I look at other TOEs I think I might need some more.

US Modern Infantry Command Pack from Rebel Minis - Nice

here are not quite as many this time. I need fewer of the figures and there are a couple of extra M240 teams and some AT launchers. They need to be inked and of course based(?) and I'll show a few more pictures as they are done.

Get Your Geek On - Red Dwarf X

It's just over a month away.

I am giddy with anticipation.

Where will you be on October 4th?

More Painting Time - Rebel Minis Armed Cabras

Another post so quickly?

I am not sure why I purchased these figures. I think it's just because I wanted some. I can see a use in a horror game. There is a kind of Lovecraft vibe to them. I think I am hedging against the day that I will start a fantasy collection to go with the modern and Sci-Fi stuff. i could see a post apocalypse race arriving if I could get someone to play in the game.

This is a group of eight figures (still need basing properly...sigh). The paint job was a quick one GW shadow grey topped off with some asurmen blue wash and a little highlighting. The blue was a bit of an experiment. It seemed to work on the police so I thought it was worth a try.

A few close ups of the figures. They are difficult to not like. They have a certain gargoyle quality (got some of them to paint too). The cabras are not quite those of the Mexican legend but make nice monsters.

Game On?

I moved to Warrington last year, miles away from any gaming group that I know of. It's the town where my father was born and I know at least a little about. It's also a lot cheaper to live here than Manchester. On the downside I am finding it difficult to get a game. Having searched the web a few times I am still drawing up a blank. If I am feeling the urge to pick up a paintbrush I am feeling the urge to pick up some dice and a tape measure even more. I have even been feeling the urge to play a bit of Blood Bowl.

I have looked around and there is a role playing club
that isn't open to new members and doesn't answer
it's e-mails anyway. there is also a war games club
who i was about to e-mail when their web page
rolled over and got suspended. There is a club in Runcorn but firstly it's in Runcorn and secondly it seems like they only play GW stuff and other than Blood Bowl I am not really interested. I was thinking I should change the exclamation mark into the picture to a question mark and take my ball home. I was hoping that life would actually be getting a little easier.

If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

Painting Time Again

I have had the impulse to pick up a paint brush again which is one of the reasons I haven't posted much in the last weeks. To paint some actual figures.  I got some stuff from Rebel Minis last week and I think that was the impetus I needed. Funnily enough it wasn't their minis that I picked up first. I had started some Khurasan "Police or Security Guards." I like these minis and have some immediate use for them unlike the fifty or so zombies that arrived.

There are two sets of five miniatures that have been painted up. I have varnished them but then realised that I still need to ink the faces and of course the bases still need to be flocked.

Nice miniatures. They have a kind of cyberpunk look (Cyberpunk? Remember that? It's like Shadowrun without the stupidity and a bit more plausible) which I kind of like. Now that I look at them again I can also see a hint of Rebel Troopers from the opening scene of Star wars although that may be wish fulfilment on my part. I figured that they would do for starship crew who were repelling pirates for Traveller as well.

Rebel Minis - Great Customer Service

I have had some dealings with Rebel Minis recently. I have purchased their stuff before and quite like what they do.  Amongst other things they make great modern, fantasy and sci-fi stuff not to mention having more zombies than anyone else.

Without going into too many details, these dealings have shown me what a great company to deal with that Rebel are. I cannot praise them enough without sounding like a bit of a fanboy.