Zombies Again

I am not running a game on a Monday night at the moment so I have joined a Savage Worlds zombie game run by Andy. I had a lot of fun playing an extremely grumpy US Air Force  Master Sergeant who is especially naffed off that he is not about to enjoy his retirement. It being a zombie game, there were a lot of them, wave after wave. I still have some ammo left but I would really like some more.

I have someone in mind when I am playing my character. Think I might have to tone him down or I'll get lynched.

I am feeling a little better today so I might just get some painting done today. I would hate to miss my objective. That said, I am feeling the urge to touch up some of the zombies I painted years ago ans use them in Andy's zombie game.

I don't know who made all of the minis but a lot of them look like Copplestone to me.

Fallout - The Battle Of The Vault

Well to finnish off the RPG game I've been running I decided to have a final battle to let it go out with a memorable end. Lots of figures and about five hours of gaming. I have begun to believe that one of the characters called Merle is actually Chuck Norris. He charged two of the biggest baddest robots in the game on his own and more or less took one of them out. Legendary in savage worlds is quite a thing.

The club I have been going recently is full of pretty good people. I had a couple of people jump in to help out the bad guys. Thanks to Mark and Andy.

Anyway here are a few pictures of the game. It's nice to see it some of my hard work of the last few years all laid out on a table. I had some nice feedback from the players and few hangers on. If you are reading this, thanks to you for making it all happen. You made the plot and made it work well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swimbo is currently looking at the blog. I have run out of cute kitten videos to distract her with. This may well be my last post. It may well be the last thing I ever do Don't bother with flowers, give money to my favourite charity combat stress.I always like to give them a plug.

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.

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.

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.

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.......................

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.

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.

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.

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.

Operation Prestwich

I haven't play Force on Force much since I got it due to a lack of opponenets. What I have played I have liked a lot. I got an oppoertunity a couple of weeks ago to play / referee a game (and a game of Trafalgar (for another post I think) and really enjoyed it.

I apologise for the quality of the pictures but light was in short supply and the flash did not help but actively hindered.

As I lack any painted figures that would as an enemy force I decided that I would turn it on it's head and run a game with what I have ready. So the army figures became the Texas National Gurad and the opponenets became the Texas State Militia. I have another idea for a series of linked scenarios revolving around a second American Civil war / New World Order setting.

The game starts with two teams of eight militia holding a small container port on the way into a small town. This effectively cuts off the line of advance. One team gets a law and that was about it. Reinforcements would trickle down as soon as the shooting starts. They got lucky and their TQ got moved up from D6 to D8 because of a fog of war card. Morale was D6. They also got a card which created a burning building. The figures were mostly Rebel Minis.

The national guard had two teams of four for the national guard recon and two two man special forces teams. The mission is to get into the container port and get rid of the opposition or if this is not possible find them and fix them so that artillery could do the final f and keep their heads down when the main force drives by. The troops were D8 TQ and a two man special force sniper team and another two man team with a SAW who were D10. Morale was D8 and D10 respectively They got a fog of war card which gave them a two man LAW team to give them a bit more punch. The recon figures were Rebel Minis modern Americans and the special forces were the Seals from Khurasan.

The National Guard were able to dislodge the Militia from their original positions with heavy weapon fire. For my money, the National Guard were a little too cautious in their movement and could have got very close very quickly but concentrating their heavy weapon fire at their primary target.

After three tunes without much happeneing some reinforcements for Militia arrived. They got a fog of war card and basically this blw any chance of them advancing towards the enemy. They spent the rest of the game hading in a building.

With only a few casualties on each side, the Militia were eventually driven out of the buildings and caught in the crossfire.

It was at this point we ran out of time and energy (the curry had kicked in) so we called it and give it as a marginal victory for the national Guard.

Some updated pictures

A friend of mine has a new camera and wanted to show off his new toy. I think it was about 2 K so it must be good. It knocks my simple pictures for six. These were not even done with an ideal lens and at about two feet. It also has a much better depth of field. Cheers mate.

Anyway...

Space demons attack

These are the biohazard troopers from Rebel Minis facing down the Space Demons from Khurasan. The pictures were taken on a 36mp camera and look really good. The blur is a facet of the lens he was using and is supposed to given the impression of movement.

Space demons

 A close up of the space demons.

SAS/biohazard troopers

And finally a close up of the biohazard troopers/SAS.

Mall Cops from Rebel Minis

I got these for an RPG I was running and thought they might come in useful in another game.
Although listed as Mall Cops I thought they had a bit more characater than the regular cops so I got these instead.

 The current plan is to use them for the upcomming 15mm zombie game that I have planned.