Zombicide strikes again

A late night again resulted in mucho painting getting done.  The medical type I see at the local surgery has put me on yet another tablet to replace the "help you to sleep" tablet that doesn't bloody work.  The bad news is I have to wait for a couple of weeks before I can take the new "Wonder" pill, as in "wonder if it will bloody work".  This means that sleep is something other people get to have will I sit up and mooch about. So on Thursday night I managed 2 hours sleep between 4ish and just after 6. Tina made damn sure that I didn't go to sleep through the day yesterday and I was so knackered last night that I was in bed by 11pm, but still didn't get to sleep until gone 1am.  Then guess who was wide awake at 5am?  So in the last 2 nights I have had 6 hours sleep, but surprisingly I don't feel too bad at the moment. 

The good news is being up until 4am allowed me to get a fair bit of painting done.  Admittedly I also sat and watched a film, played a couple of games and generally wasted a fair bit of time, but I did get some paint on leadplastic.  I didn't paint what I was supposed to paint, instead I painted the 18 Zombicide figures I had to do.  So, for your delectation here they are.

Zombies from the original game box

 First up are 8 assorted zombies from the original, Zombicide box.  Nice enough figures, painted up now ready for Monday night.

Anthony "Achille" Hopkins

 First of the Survivor/Zombivore pairs is Achille the Serial Killer, obviously based on Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs.  A nice figure, the survivor actually has a pistol hidden behind his back as well as the nightstick.

Woody "Ralph" Harrelson

Then we have Ralph the Cowboy, based on Woody Harrelson as "Tallahassee" in Zombieland. Another nice figure, if a bit stationary in the survivor pose.

Nicholas "Mack" Cage

Third is Mack the car salesman with his trusty khukuris!  To be honest I have never ever seen a car salesman with khukuris, but it is a reasonable weapon to find.  I personally know where there are a pair of khukuris on a wall, so if the zombies do appear around here I will be fine.  Anyway, back to the figure.  It is based on Nicholas Cages "Cameron Poe" character in Con-Air, although he seems to be leaning away from danger here.

Bridget "Thaissa" Fonda

Penultimate figures are Thaissa the entrepreneur, apparently based on Bridget Fonda in some film I haven't seen.  I don't know if that is so, but its a reasonable figure.  I am not sure that a floor length ball gown is ideal apparel for fighting zombies but some standards should be kept I suppose. 

Sean "Rob" Connery

 Finally we have my favourite of these figures.  Rob the Security Expert, based on Sean Connery's John Mason role in The Rock.  I really like this figure, it painted up nicely and seems to look more like it's human counterpart than the others.  He also looks ready for anything with his twin SMGs.

Anyway, there they are.  I am off now to do something less interesting so have fun and keep rolling those dice.

Bad start but improves later

This last week had a bad start due to me overdoing it last weekend.  Its my own fault and it will hopefully not happen again...at least not for a while anyway.

Last Mondays wargame was another bout in the ongoing Dux campaign.  Colins and his ever-victorious Saxons came up against my outnumbered Britons.  Unfortunately things did not go entirely to plan.

Initial placement of the objective (a church) was not the best, being only 4' or so up the table.  Then the initial arrivals for the Britons was only 2 groups.

Turn 3 saw the rest of the Britons arrive as the early birds moved around to the right of the church in an effort to prevent a Saxon flank attack.

The British Lord looks on as his levy gather themselves for battle.

Meanwhile the Saxon lord bravely led his men from the rear, although his "champion" is in the front rank.

The forces gather as the Saxons pull their lines and and the Britons gather near their warlord.

I missed taking photos for a turn, but the crux of the matter was the Saxons sent a noble and group into the church to gather loot while the other group faced off against the cream of the British force.  One charge and quick round of combat later saw the Saxon group seen off and the Britons threatening the flank of the main Saxon line.

The view from the British Warlord, now safely positioned behind his shieldwall.



The Saxon line withdrew, while the Britons removed shock and readied themselves for battle.

In a change of plan the Saxons threw themselves at the smaller, but better quality, British shieldwall.  A couple of rounds of battle saw the results seesaw from one side to the other, before excess shock drove back the British.

Luckily for the Britons though, the Saxons were also suffering a bit from shock.  Unfortunately the Saxons in the church then rushed out into the rear of the Britons disordered units, killing enough to rout one unit and force the British to leave the field.  I nearly had him, but the flank charge won the game and the Saxons won by 3.  Buggeration. 

The other half of the table had Panjo's British facing off against Zob's Saxons again.  Zob ended up charging at a formed shieldwall that was uphill of him and, despite his best dice, he was forced back and conceded the table. 

So Panjo's village was saved and Zob is still winless.

Panjo did do a good impression of "The Claw", not sure how it helped his force but he won anyway.

Zob did not look impressed with "The Claw" though.






Here are the "Chuckle Brothers" having a good time as Colin tries to focus on the action.

Painting wise, this week was a bit of a wash out due to feeling crap until Wednesday.  Since then I have managed to paint some German armour, with 5 Plastic Soldier Company Pzkpfw IVs and 6 Battlefront Stugs getting layered with paint.  These have all been bought by Stumpy to join his ever expanding German army.  It makes a change from Tigers though, which is nice.

He wanted foliage on them all as well, which I have tended to avoid on anything with a turret.  Hopefully these look ok though and the bush bits don't stop the turrets from being moved.

Well, not too much anyway.

All the Stugs are from the Open Fire box, but these 3 have had replacement barrels as they were bought put together on ebay and the muzzlebrakes were on backwards.  Luckily I had a couple of spare 75s and a 105 barrel in the bit box, so here they are.

Final news is about Fathers Day and what a cracking day it has been.  First off the kids (and my wife) all clubbed together and got me a Kindle Fire HD, which is rather nice.  Then my wife and I went off and watched After Earth in Exeter, which was also nice.  So all in all a good day. 

Chain of Command at Devon Wargames Group

Overlord Game

Yesterdays meeting of the Devon Wargames Group saw three games put on.  JJ put on a nice WW2 game in 15mm using the new Battlegroup Overlord rules.  He has done a decent write up of his view of the rules as well.  The only downside was Nathan's "Happy Dance".

Nathan starts his "Happy Dance"

Black Powder Game

Meanwhile the other end of the room saw a Black Powder game, I think set up by Chas.  It looked good and from the players comments it seemed to play well too.  I am a bit concerned about Vince's concentration on the Jaffa Cakes though.

Vince eyes the Jaffa Cakes

Paras in the village

The third game was Chain of Command, put on by myself and Gus.  Ollie had asked us to put on the game after seeing it at Legionary, so he handed Gus his latest defeat in an ever extending run of defeats.  This time we had US Paras (again, I really need to get another Allied force) against German Grenadiers.  Ollie had the yanks, leaving Gus with the Germans.  Both took an extra squad as their support, with Gus also gaining a senior leader as well.

Germans on the hedgeline

Paras on the other hedge

Left flank attack

As the game went on Gus split his force into two, each with 2 squads and a senior leader.  This looked good initially, especially when a squad on overwatch managed to catch a US rifle team as it ran down the road, killing 3 of the 8 men in one volley.  In the end the extra senior leaders in the US force meant they could remove shock more easily than the Germans, plus the concentrated fire of 2 squads decimated Gus' right flank force, causing his morale to go.  The game was, as usual, enjoyed by both players and brought up a few new ideas and minor issues with the rules and forces.  But that is what playtesting is supposed to do, so it's all good.

This afternoon No2 son and I went to watch the latest Star Trek film.  I enjoyed the first one and was hoping for a similar reaction to this one.  Well, I was not disappointed.  I know some people have issues with the re-launch of Star Trek, but the new, dirtier look to the Federation seems more realistic than the "too good to be true" Federation of the older series.  Don't take me wrong, I liked the original Star Trek series, although I struggled a bit with Next Gen.  DS9 was good and Voyager was ok, but the less said about Enterprise the better. 

So I hope your all having fun, keep rolling those dice.