I like the look of that middle one. For some reason it reminds me of the old Flash Gordon movie. There's a pod that looked like a sweet gum ball that they reached their hands into.

Yeah that happens when you chip away the outer layer, it's easy to reproduce but not quite the shape I'm going for. I'm putting a pin in that form for later. I took some bits closer to the smallest carved one shown and attacked them with the hotknife and now they're looking suitably gnarly. I need to work in some wire for supports/tentacles and I think they'll be nearly ready for paint. Just some gobs of hot glue first. If these three trial successfully, then I can make a few more to fill out the building.

I think I'll make two or three of them separate on bases. I know the Cadmus Shasvastii need pods on turn one at the very least, and there could be the odd situation where a seed soldier gets revealed and needs to have a pod on the table in place of a token. May experiment with some spawn-embryos (basically a unrevivable marker that you have to kill to truly kill most shasvastii, in those situations where you need to kill things to win scenarios) but those would mostly be fleshy chunks with tentacles trying to burrow into the ground.

So here's a prototype with wireframe tentacles, both to support it and to probe the environment. The plates will be green and the creases and tentacles will be shasvastii purpink. Or pinkle, whichever you prefer.

I think it will work quite well. Pod people give me the creeps. Are you going to putty up the tentacles or do you have suitable bits lying around for that?

You have a great foam base there but did you think of using a walnut shell or similar wrinkly nut instead? May be a bit too big though.

Hot glue! Doesn't work for everything but its usually one of my first attempts.

I don't like to model with organic stuff, even like shells. Making s mold is one thing, but I don't wanna deal with it rotting out sometime.

Gonna paint this one before I make any more but I'm pretty sold. Gonna need like half a dozen for the building and maybe some more for the army.

Good and gribbley glue.

Think I'm done tinkering with this for now. Gonna go prime it white. White? Ehh it's probably gonna be grey, maybe primer grey then.

I've got some more alien pod things made too, total of six now. Gotta finish the tentacle bits which I may get to do tonight. Anything beyond that is gravy.

I think I'm gonna call the place Taco Mars with a little red planet next to the words wearing a sombrero.

Gonna need a lot of posters and graffiti to do the blankest walls. May even look up a tagging tutorial, I think Cam did one a ways back in his blog.


Kind of having buyers remorse for my Bones3 pledge. There are a couple of small things I'd rather have now and the rest I would probably feed to bills. Anyone have much luck cancelling kickstarters after the fact? I kind of hate to do it to them but at the same time I kind of hate to have 1-200 more models show up next year just as I'm potentially getting a handle on the pile (you can laugh, that was a joke and is probably impossible ).


Oh, if I get some time I'll de-bag and photograph my wave 3 DBX and wave 1 KoW stuff.

Epic looking building. I can think of no finer establishment to fend off a horde of zombies/pod people/angry wives what with all that sugary processed food for the taking mmmmmm reminds me I haven't had takeaway for almost a year now. Damn it.

Looking forward to seeing it painted and Cam definitely does spectacular graffiti in his blog.

Thanks. I'm working myself up to doing *far* too much for the 7th installment of the dakka monthly painting challenge. The theme is 'Never tell me the odds!' so basically one or more models overcoming adversity.

So I'm gonna paint a Nomad or three, as many zombies as possible and... I really would like to shoehorn in that 2x2' project panel full of buildings and scatter terrain... I had to build this from scratch as it is also being entered into the current LoeR terrain competition, but Paradigm's comp is just painting so I can throw in some already built and even primed/basecoated structures that are laying around and have been in need of finishing for some time.

I'd really like to do a small space station/megacity slum constructed from cast off materials, complete with more stalls like a noodle stand, and a couple of other things. Oh yeah a happy-pill micro-factory. Kind of like a tiny building with a vending machine set into the wall and a deposit site for materials. Basically a truck comes by and dumps in materials opposite of mechanical armed trash trucks hereabouts and then the microfactory crafts pills on demand from the interface on the outside. Fun quotes like:
Credits go in, Happiness comes out.
Well adjusted bliss, only a keypad away.
etc etc
Something like Paradigm Pharmaceuticals Wellness Station. I intend to work the names of some Dakkafolk into the graffiti and business names.

I may fail to finish this by the challenge but then I can just put down a deadzone mat and fill whatever portion of it that I can with zombies, terrain, and Nomads.

I may not be programming like I thought I would, but I can still benefit from the use of Agile Development


Getting a moment to myself tonight, playing some music. I have to have fast music, I can't do with anything slow these days. I find myself listening to a lot of J-pop, vocaloid stuff, you name it. Carameldansen always makes me smile:


Judge me if you will, but it's so damn catchy

The pods are an interesting development... I like the building WIP as well.

Thanks Someone complained that there were no entries in the current LoER competition with tentacles so I fished around until an idea clicked.

Some WIPs:



Gonna start on posters soon, and some tagging. Need to airbrush the signs to white and then I'll get started.

Is that some kind of pit trap with a tentacle pod thing at the bottom?

It's a roof access hatch. Instead of one of those quaint little enclosed stairwells, this building just has a hatch for emergency roof access/whatever. It probably should be more aligned with a corner/wall to better imply that a working ladder used to be there but.. meh. There's basically a man-hole cover that goes over it 90% of the time.

The tentacle things down at the bottom are alien seed pods that have been hidden in the building.

Also, it got some paint:

Taco Mars needs a big red spot (maybe one eye poking out under the sombraro)

otherwise the gribbly seed pods are looking great, looks appropriate for the combined army

Taco Mars...excellent. Brings back memories of late 80's WWF Wrestling and Mexican wrestler Tito Santana, basically before Taco Bell Mexican food was the byword for an upset stomach...no idea why I have always loved it.

Lol I like Taco Bell too, but the quality seems to have slipped several notches in recent years.

Had a thought.

I was gonna have zombies (or aliens, but probably zombies) swarming my poor defenders but, what if...

Instead of a bunch of tiny gribblies...

I use the single biggest gribbly I have?

This guy:


Humorously, I went to steal a scale photo from the interwebs and found one of my own on the first page so I guess I can't call it stealing

To do battle with this guy... hell I could throw down the entire breach team and they'd still be screwed.

Seriously considering it now.

Another possibility would be to whip up a bunch of Mars Attacks Martians, giant bugs, stompy robot #2, a saucer or three... and have a few survivors and a handful of soldiers trying to hold out against the onslaught. Honestly more excited about *that* idea than working on the scifi zombies (I dunno why, just don't feel like building anything right now), but Nomads on the other hand could be really fun too. Especially with the Kanjira route as I could paint several of them. Also if I do Mars Attacks I'd want to paint the redbrick battlezones and not scratchbuilt scifi terrain which would mean losing the synergy from already having the Taco place done.

HALP.


WHAT I DO!?

I vote Kanjira.

Put him in front of Tack Mars with a miniature if a chihuahua. It'll be like a flashback of the Godzilla movie commercial for Taco Bell from years ago.

Bwahaha. I think I've decided to do Mars Attacks! Bare minimum goal for the month is to get the core box set done. Having done that I'll have both Mars Attacks and Imperial Assault 'finished' in terms of the core sets. This way, I won't feel so bad when I dive knife first into Dungeon Saga when it shows up in a month or two. Only 16 or so models to the core but the extended pre-DS goal is to hit a fully painted 2x2' MA board before it shows up as well.

But you guys like pictures, so have a look at everything I got from DBX wave 3 and KoW2.0 wave 1. Well, minus the books and ruler/tokens.


Forget what I'm supposed to call them.. but I'm going with Dino-King Blaine and Ronnie the Bard. Blaine is very crisp, as long as the spear straightens in hot water I'll be pleased. I didn't pay anything in particular for the bard so I won't complain too much that his instrument and cap-feather broke off just looking at them funny. Easy fixes.


DBX from here on out. The Rush Tracker and one of the extra/bonus/whatever sponsors. Don't expect me to remember their names, I barely followed the campaign


Here's my Rebs team. I don't think they'll be playing much Dreadball, Xtreme or otherwise. The Soraks would make great sword spawn by just adding blades to their arm guards. The centaurs just need guns or spears. The four armed guys and frogdudes could probably be weaponized too. Downed Soraks make good casualty/objective markers as well. I think every optional team came with it's own dreadball, neat!


Brokkrs! The working caste of the Forge Fathers. Again, I will probably raid bits from my classic forge father models to weaponize these dudes. I may wait on a few till DZ:I hits and I can give them proper rifles/heat hammers too. They'll join the ranks of the other Brokkrs who comprise the cheapest forge father troop type in Deadzone, and often come in big units for warpath.


Left to right... The initial sponsors, The Warden and Blaine. Then two zees and an Yndij ravager (may get stolen for rebs!), then a spinepede or something, nameless bloodsucker, pig-lizard pusk something or another, plant monster, dreadball thrower and blocker robots. I've got two of these sets. My other warden will probably be painted Caucasian and used as a crime Kingpin for Pulp alley (the time period is kind of unsuitable for anything but white dudes being in charge of stuff, sadly).


The giants from DBX. I think you could get more in an expansion I didn't get but oh well. San garr giant shark dude, krastovor giant spider robot monster thing, berserk Chovar thing, Iron Ancestor in dire need of a re-positioned right arm (preferably for a gun ).


Extra DBX sponsors, Shojynn or something (looks like his hand is broken), terraton dude... krato gon maybe? Forge father dude, maybe from the same caste as the helfather. Doctor something or another, handles the mutant team. The last one on the right is another MVP, Eclipse, looks like a werewolf or something.


Lookit all the MVPs! Left to right by memory... Brickbat Vogner, a marauder. Useless Ada lorana mvp as it's not see-through to match, tiny tsudochan mvp (maybe like yoda?), useless crystallan MVP as he doesn't match, excavator forge father MVP/attack robot, leaning on him is uhh.. i forget maybe deadman davitz? Then I think it's lyra the fixer with the hand claw and what appears to be a monkey face? Anchoring the center is the space ogre Grak, with a clipped-wing flying guy (really drawing a blank here, one of the rebs races) and the Nameless sort of sexy she squid lady to the front and right. Next is the koris 8-limbed mvp, then brute force in her loader suit thing. Asylum in his creepy mask (and he'd do well in a lot of settings, just generic enough), then I think the Kalyshi mvp, some kind of odd slug man, and then the werewolf lady again.


This is the robots team though I'm sorely tempted to just claim all the parts for the bitz box. The little 4-wheeled and mono-wheeled units are particularly fun, could mount guns on them or monitors or cameras... or robot torsos I guess. Pneumatic punch arms, chain flails, claws and so on. Neat stuff, maybe too neat for it's own good as it's probably all gonna get ganked for conversions


Plague team. Or I should say 3rd gen plague conversion bits order Got some claw and tentacle arms, big meaty arms, skinny arms, three types of tails for representing plagued Yndij, Spyhr, and Veermyn (looks like), some vestigial wings. Two who would be dreadball guards have chitinous armor like maybe they were even Zzor before being plagued. There are some light weight guys too (strikers) and then some middle weights with yndij tails. I'm gonna mix n match this set with my remaining 3rd gen mutants and use them all as plague.


Tsudochan or something. I wasn't very interested in this team so I'm not sure what their deal is. Psychic dudes I guess? Work out alright as creepy alien masterminds too probably.


The Koris, creepy 8-limbed aliens with a bizarre mastery of portal technology. Basically a general d-bag race that goes around and messes with anyone they feel like. Portal your ship way off course? Yep. Portal nasty aliens into your cargo hold? Why not!


Cool transparent blue crystallans. Will have to do some thinking as to how to paint these guys. I would like to paint the rock/cloth/whatever portions of them as normal, but leave the fancy transparent blue alone for the crystal parts. I guess I could always do it quick and dirty and then scrape the paint away from the obviously crystal bits. We'll see. Not sure what I'd use these guys for other than DBX, or possibly a random alien encounter.


With some light behind him. I think the crystal parts would look a bit better with a dark blue wash.


The Ada Lorana (i think). These are some kind of justice-seeking energy beings who kind of take it upon themselves to police the galaxy, or so I remember. They're especially interested in catching Blaine. I think these dudes could work out just fine as they are as a random alien encounter or what not. They can phase through solid walls and stuff so you may just find them on your ship accusing you of wrong doing you may or may not have committed Like the crystallans, probably a dark blue wash. Maybe some light airbrush work on the circles in their heads and chests, some light drybrushing on the whispy fire parts.

Looks like plenty there to play Dreadball populate a Deadzone with!

Right? That's pretty much all I backed DBX for, to get DZ fodder. I should have gotten the fans though, that was a neat set. Will wait for a retail set.

I may have some teams I don't do anything with to use for DBX... Ada Lorana dudes will work for either without modification.

Did you get any kind of shipping notice? I'm still waiting for my stuff.

None at all. And then it was a DHL van of all things.

I should have been in the *very* first wave of packages, what with having the small KoW pledge + DBX pledge combo, those went out first.

Congrats, I'm still waiting on my KOW2.0 stuff as well, but I only did the$50 pledge. I like the transparent blue dudes, and the robot chop shop parts . Can't wait to see your Mars attack stuff come together. Also did you get the new e passion for imperial assault that came out a couple weeks back?

That is a haul and a half there Grim, so many useful generic sci-fi parts and minis for Deadzone too.

A shame about Ronnie but I always found Mantic metal to be quite soft and oddly malleable. Also weird that the relevant DBX MVPs are not the same translucent blue as the teams.

How have you found the casting quality of the DBX minis?

When does the Mars Attacks project start then?

You're a better man than I, or at least you have a more tolerant wife. I took one look at my untouched wave 1 and 2 DBX stuff, threw in the stuff from wave 3 and sold it at a loss because I know I will never get around to it.

Wow while I typed my mini-rants I had two more posts pop up! Editing this post to reply to those first as they should be shorter questions!

@Thraxas Yeah, I'm really looking forward to having a random miscellaneous scifi horde. Not even sure what I'll do with it, but I'll think of something! The RonnieBard I wasn't even expecting, so I'm not disappointed. I have some plastic feathers I can glue to the cap from old Empire dudes, and I'm pretty sure I can fix the banjo thing. The botched MVPs though, they're useless. I didn't pay to get them separately, but if I were gonna seriously play DBX and with either of those factions... I'd be sad. I'm sure I can repurpose the rockman into some kind of D&D elemental by removing the clothing parts and sculpting more rock parts back in. If I ever bother. The not-blue elemental guy I dunno. I guess he'd make a cool fire elemental for the same purpose, probably. DBX is pretty solid. It's softer than Deadzone restic, harder than mars Attacks Plastic. Still gotta mostly cut the lines instead of scrape them, I think, but you can probably get away with a bit more of that than on the DZ stuff. Pretty decent quality overall.

@Josh We just purchased a fairly large home. I've got my own little idunno 8-10x8-10 ft office with most of my active stuff, and a room off the garage that I've appropriated as my 'game room' for displaying scenery and for playing on the game table if it ever happens. Space isn't too much of a premium so that's not an issue. We've also got our separate bank accounts and beyond cooperating on bills and stuff we spend our money however we like. We make about the same and spend roughly the same on bills so y'know. She tends to like to buy stuff like curtains or new running shoes (and probably saves better than me to be honest) but yeah anyway. As long as I don't leave stuff laying around and what not...
I'm sure I'll have problems getting around to the DBX stuff too. I'll probably cherry pick a bit to get to sooner, but a lot of it will languish for some time.


@Theo:
I have not expanded Imperial Assault. I think the expansion which costs what...googling... $39.99$29.99 for 10 boardgame quality plastic figures and a bunch of cards/tokens/tiles/books/whatever other potentially useless things they decided to cram into it....is not a great deal. When I got 36 models for what, 60 bucks as the Deal of the Day? That wasn't so bad. And I got the game to play. And there's a crapload of scenarios to play in the core set. I've only managed to play 2-3 of them. There are like 30. Until I've played all 30 of those scenarios at least once... the expansion holds little interest to me.

Just rationalizing it, but Imperial Assault is a lot easier to talk myself out of Pokemoning than x-wing is. I'm doing pretty good so far with X-wing too (since the initial 'gotta have em all!'), still haven't caved on the dorky looking assassin droid ship for Scum, bought the imperial raider, or started nabbing wave 7 stuff like it's going out of style. Yet. We'll see. Wave 8 is pretty forgettable too as its all ships from a show I never watched and probably won't. Though I'm sure my inner power/gamer wants the cards.

Same with the new Hoth expansion, though it seems a bit meatier--it costs more to show for it. If I got to play Imperial Assault every week, I'd probably be after the new stuff. I may still go after the Han Solo and Chewbacca ally packs just to have them. And I guess C3P0 and R2D2 too, for collection/nostalgia sake. But I'm not really interested in spending time squadbuilding for the skirmish version and have so much of the core game left to explore anyway.

Sorry for the rant lol. There are seemingly dozens of ally packs too, but even Miniaturemarketed paying 7-8 dollars for a single 28mm mini meant for a boardgame is kind of meh. Even though they're cool Iconic star wars figures. Again, if I played more I'd be ok with the inflated price because missions and stuff, like I'm ok with X-wing costs due to the cards/dials/whatnot.

My pledge for KoW was the $50 set too. I got mine sooner because they decided to ship backers with both DBX wave 3 and KoW2.0 wave 1 and certain other criteria together. I think they told me I shouldn't be worried till september hits but then there was the whole Blaine being slowed down and the hardback being a thing that was getting waited on...etc etc. As long as MM doesn't have one on the shelf before you get it right?


Man. Sheesh. I must be cranky or something. I really went off on Imperial assault for almost no reason. Poor game. It's a damn fun game. Probably not as simple as Zombicide or as immersive as a proper D&D, but pretty fun. I'm hoping Dungeon Saga is more or less just like it but fantasy. Hmm... that's another angle to look into as well. While I'm loathe to spend proper hard earned bucks on those things... using my credit card does slowly build up credit with Amazon. I usually blow out that budget on Miniatures. But... Infinity stuff is high there. Most miniature stuff is under represented and therefore high. Sometimes you can do ok with X-wing but meh, can't paint it, well... don't need it. Maybe I'll ply my amazon credit to get those Han/Chewie/whoever packs..even the expansion. If it doesn't drain my bank account to do it, I wouldn't mind painting more of the models. Much like Mars Attacks!, they are simple and easy/fun to paint for it.


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Oh, Mars Attacks thing is going on now. Cleaning models at the moment. Gonna try to get a bunch done for the monthly dakka painting contest.


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Cleaning the Martians is kind of a pain... the way their suits are made, clearing the mold lines is tedious. Not really anyone's fault, it's just like mold lines through hair are usually nasty, but if a model has a full head of hair there isn't much avoiding at least one rough mold line.

Allow me to weign in on Imperial Assault. While each expansion provides a mini, and some missions, the reality is that the base game provides die-cut counters for most of these miniatures, and you have PLENTY of gameplay in the base game.

Really, the expansions are just not needed and, frankly, hard to justify in my eyes, and my wallet.

Nice haul there, Grim!

Thanks EyamRai

@Brian, pretty much where I stand. The core game is too good to *need* the expansions. The token characters are plenty viable if a little boring. And there's just too much there to want to Pokemon the whole set. May pick a few Iconic characters out with spare amazon credit, we'll see.

Your new house keeps getting smaller with the addition of a second little one and now a kickstarter shipment.

We're good. If we have a third kiddo I may lose my current office... But there is still plenty of unused space I could nab in the future.

Nice haul there. I'd like to get the Hoth expansion for IA, and maybe some more characters, but since the value's not amazing or anything, and I haven't even cracked the box yet, I'm managing to hold off... X-Wing might be a little harder, though I haven't played that in forever.

I haven't been playing x-wing either. I'm sure there are a couple of people in town that could be coerced to play but I don't have time.

Imperial assault at least involves minis that *need* paint. Hoth seems meatier expansion wise but it costs more too.

We'll see, I may be tempted. Hell, MM may DotD them too.

Gee, I picked up my first foray into X-Wing today, 3 ships with which to start the greatest smuggling syndicate the galaxy has ever known.

And what has Grim picked up? Enough plastic crack to drown me and my ships for eternity. So envious.

Don't be envious, pity me and my weak will

What did you get, most wanted? That's a good set. I may consider getting a second box if I ever get to playing more steadily.

Gonna spend the day with the Wife though, so probably not much hobbying done. I spent an hour or two airbrushing some stuff for one of my Mom's cakes yesterday, but its not really models nor very impressive

Might pop by a gamestore while we're out doing whatever else, but I'm not really enthusiastic about my chances of finding anything cool. Neither knows what Infinity is. It's been awhile, they could have X-wing but why pay retail for x-wing when Miniature Market is practically close enough to *be* my home store.. Pretty much warmahordes and warhammer stuff at either. I mean they both have all kinds of other stuff but the last half dozen visits between them have left me pretty 'meh'.

One does get Mantic stuff sometimes, though it often hits the clearance shelf. That's my only hope for finding something cool today, clearance shelves, and they're pretty limited. One has a consignment rack of 40k stuff that's still overpriced because its 40k stuff, and the other has a shelf with some interesting stuff sometimes, but usually not my cuppa (as they say). Unless those Abyssal Dwarfs are still there years later

yeah im spoiled by the closeness of MM, and all the other stores around are good for gaming....if i had time. I hear you about the no hobby time today. i played zombicide with the twins this morning, but no painting or modeling happening.

I've been cleaning Martians getting them ready for paint. Its slow and tedious due to the design of their suits, unavoidable regardless of material or process, though they'd be a bit easier to clean in metal or hard plastic. Got two more grunts and I'm clear of the basic box contents. Still have several things I'd like to finish beyond that but ehh. Rushing the whole 2x2' board out in the month is a little much. I may try to work it down a bit to something more reasonable. Still going to prioritize the project.

I need to finish my Gecko too. He's reasonably close, and I hate leaving metal models primed and started without finishing and sealing them for obvious reasons. Wanna dig into the rest of the Nomads too but Mars Attacks has been waiting a long time.

Goals for the year, irrespective to the 365 goal, are to get the core of Mars Attacks and it's permaboard done, to get my Nomads done (we'll see...I want to at least make great strides in that department) to get some other scifi done be it deadzone dbx or what have you, and to get at least a couple more regiments squared away for KoW just because.

Lots of other small and big projects will crop up and out but that's the core of what I wanna work around. Oh and Dungeon Saga. I want to be one of the first people to get the main game box painted, calling it now, considering it a challenge.

The dungeon saga challenge sounds reasonable. I might have to jump in on that. Do we have any better timeframe of when that's shipping? If it's too close to Black Plague then it's taking a far back seat.

One nice thing about the Martian Grunts is that most of the mold lines follow the piping on their suits, so so don't have to be too concerned about scraping them off completely.

I'm looking forward to seeing your paint-take on Dungeon Saga. I'll certainly be no competition to you in getting it done.

What are your numbers like on the 365 right now?

I swear it was to be out this or next month after some slight delays. When black plague drops you'll be up to your eyeballs in zombies lol.

You don't *have* to trim the lines to death, but I tend to..


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Numbers on 365... Till I finish some stuff I think 144?

Black Plague will definitely drown me , but with the supposed December delivery I'm thinking it will most likely be Jan. Then I can have that be my 2016 painting challenge.

Eesh. Gamestore in ofallon was depressing. Clearance section had nothing of interest... Was a box each of Gondor and urukhai dudes from lotr-whatever for close to a dollar s model but I don't need that stuff. No infinity.

X-wing, but why pay nearly $18 with tax when I could get a small ship shipped for closer to twelve bucks.

I guess it's a symptom of online retail being prevalent and me being more cynical about prices.

Humorously enough, age of sigmar was actually one of the better deals to be had

Oh well its for the best, too many things already. Bit depressing though. I'll have to trek to miniature market sometime. At least they have cool deals.

Zombicide was tempting at full price but I abstained for sanitys sake.

What are the total core contents of Dungeon Saga, 50 odd minis? (edit added the question mark). I used to be such a Mantic fan but for some reason they have largely dropped off my radar.

Grim has so much on his plate! Minis from over half a dozen games to keep track of, a new house, and a new baby, once the kid is a toddler, watch out!

MM hasn't had any Infinity out recently...except for an old Sun Tzu. They have had a couple in store promotions which have cleared their shelves pretty well. I have had my eye on one item, and considered changing my painting pledge because of it, but really trying to hold the funds for Black Plague.

@Thraxas the retail version of DS has 26 minis. And some doors/furniture I guess. Fatten that out though with exclusive/bonus heroes and additional monsters though. I'd say 50 or less. I wouldn't mind getting the expansions done too but I may need a break from fantasy stuff if I wind up powering through the set in short order.

@Shas, yeah too much to do lol. Oh well, beats being bored

One item ehh Theo? Interesting.

At least they *carry* Infinity though. At least they know you aren't looking for the Disney stuff you could get at Walmart... eeesh!

Oh yeah, having seen the Tie Punisher and K-wing, I can see why they've got a bumped price from the smaller fighters, they're friggen huge comparatively. The Hounds Tooth is pretty sizable as well though it's on the large base. The khiraxz(whatever) is a little bulkier than an x/e-wing and looks more like an e-wing. It's still pretty sleek and the paint job is nice and dark, possibly my favorite scum ship aesthetically... I'll have to get at least one.


We were going to work on Labor Day but then we found out it's supposed to be 94 that day.... forget it I'll be trying to get some catch-up done this weekend...whatever that may entail.

So I was thinking... the mars attacks thing is cool and all but I could actually make a diorama for these guys. Then I could kind of relax in terms of working on the MA stuff when it was convenient and fun, while also sprinkling in some Infinity stuff to keep boredom at bay. I should be able to knock these guys out pretty quick, the airbrush would make short work of the big beastie and the four dwarfs aren't too bad either. Plus after seeing the winged helmet dwarf with that giant sword.. gotta paint him now I have maybe a couple more dwarf minis from bones (even more in 3, yay!) and a bunch of Mantic Dwarfs, but I think these four should be enough. Couple of fighters and a couple of priests/whatevers. I can see the caption...

Priest closest to monster: I telled ye, highness, we dug too deep in this latest tunnel! We've got to turn back, the odds of us killin this beastie are/
Armored Sword Dwarf: Oversteppin yer bounds priest. I telled ye we was fer diggin this way. And I telled ye never to tell me the odds!


I mean, they'll probably get eaten. Mashaaf is no joke. But what are you gonna do? I could prototype some 3d dungeon scenery by making the tunnel for their fight, including 4 spaces into which their eventual clear acrylic bases could socket. I kind of like the disposition of the dwarfs. The one is trying to be all rational and warn them away from death incarnate, and the other three are like 'Durr, you do realize we're dwarves right? Now hit it with yer hammer!'.

I'd probably have to make a pretty high bit of scenery backing mashaaf, though it could taper down a lot on the dwarf end. Give me a chance to test drive the fully 3d dungeon terrain to see if I like it, but without having to make an overly large or particularly playable piece. I guess... if I were gonna be smart about it... I could pretty easily make Mashaaf removable too, design little plugs to go into the base slots (the very pieces I'd punch out of the cardboard in the first place, durr) and make it so both sides open up and could be made into parts of a larger hallway, or connect two rooms. For the diorama purposes I'd want a piece of black backing behind mashaaf illustrating the darkness beyond, but that could easily come out to make the piece playable.

Hmm... Starting to get a little bigger of a project with these modifications but it's also now attempting to do multiple things that are on my list of stuff I'd like to do eventually anyway.

Thoughts?

Truly spectacular and definitely against the odds. Love the thought of the lead dwarf spitting on the ground and saying to his fellows. Right I will take the ugly one.

Those guys are dead meat...

That Mashaaf beast is awesome. I'm kinda wishing I got him with my Bones II pledge now!

Yeah, AoV, the $12 I paid was a freaking steal compared to 30/22something you gotta pay now. It's a neat monster. Doesn't sit on it's base well, but maybe boiling water will settle that.

Don't count dwarfs out too soon, Eyeamrai...but yeah they probably aren't geared enough to handle that thing without some backup.

Gotta finish my Taco Mars today. Due on the 12th, and I would like to have it done if I'm moving on from space city to other projects for awhile.


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Pinter seems like it may be working again, had to dig it out of a box. Wonder if I can track down my collection of posters now.


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Though, I guess I really need to paint the graffiti on first, and then dip the building and the seed pods. Paper stuff needs to go down last.

Got some work done graffiti wise. I'm gonna leave the front and back less covered since those get used more often and taggers would be less likely to loiter there. Still will be plenty of posters on all four sides. Top is gonna be pretty bland, but I figure not much goes on up there, its an emergency/access hatch and there *is* a ladder outside.


Inspired by one of Cam's previous LoER entries (probably several actually), I hopped online and did some google image searches. I didn't attack this with much of a plan, just found some stuff I liked and started airbrushing. I drew the letters out with the brush, filled them in with the gun, then went back in with the brush to get the fine lines. I'm still too much of an airbrush n00b to do all of anything with one... but I think even the pros tend to use both tools a lot of the time. Pleased with this, it looks like graffiti and it's more freehand than I usually do. Some techniques I need to try out if I do more of this stuff, and surely I need to as my city board grows. The little white lens flare/sparkles come to mind, and more vibrant colors.



This is the name of a group of vigilantes from an older anime (and its newer yet still kind of old by now reboot). Right as the opening track is closing out there's a wall with pretty much identical tagging on it. Always thought it would look good on one of my buildings. Had been planning for an alleyway or something, but I think it works out fine here. Made it look quick and messy with some amateurish drips on the paint.

The rest of the building will be covered with ads, flyers, warnings, and so on.

I remember Knight Sabers ......wait that means I'm old

I like the dwarf standoff. You could always try and have a small bunch of dwarves trying to get a cannon on a broken frame fixed, loaded and turned in time to slay the beast.

That could work too. I may paint these guys as they're ready to go, but I do have mass battles dwarfs and cannons. Everything will come off so I can always change stuff around.

Bought two 8x4' sheets of one inch insulation foam today. I figured I'd get two since it's a pain to go get the box truck every time I want one. Should be plenty even if I make some boards out of it. Got a nice piece of plywood too. Gonna reconfigure my gaming table to have that as the undersurface, since I've got a permanent set up now, no reason not to have an 8x4' table set up. Though, with the sizes of the games I play... will probably just make a 4x4' section for wargaming and put the 3x3' x-wing mat on the other side.

About got Mashaaf cleaned up, but I've got to find a couple of little mandible claw things, forgot about them. And then she'll need a bath but I'll wait till the other two dwarfs are ready to go with her.


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Photoz:

Netflix has it on stream now, I mean the anime where the Knight Sabers is from.

Original run or Tokyo 2040?

That is looking fantastic. Excellent build. Posters etc add a lot and your graffiti is spot on.

As to scatter just a couple of those bee hive type vents would work.

That other project looks spectacular bud.

Thanks Have I commented yet on yours because yours is ridiculous and amazing.

What exactly is a beehive vent? All google is giving me is literal venting for bee hives.

And just in case I don't figure that out...

What else can I add guys, the top needs something desperately. I think I need to make a dumpster for the back, and maybe one of those smaller (usually black) grease dumpster things that they usually have out back at restaurants. Even then, it still needs crap on the top. Trying to think of things small enough to be portable for up there while still being useful. Or should I just go off-kilter and put something like a lounge chair and radio up top?

Can't find my pill sorters either. I had bought a bunch. I guess I may have to grab a few more to finish this.

Not quite sure if it's the same thing Cam is getting at with the bee hive vents. But Google roof ventilation and look through the images for inspiration. Something like a box vent about half the height of a model could work well.

I'll check it out, thanks

Today I'm organizing the piss out of both my hobby room and game room. Once I get things sort of neatly stacked (never?) I'll do some photos of both. Bit ashamed of the amount of models lol.

Still wanna finish the building today but I've got more 'move crap around' energy than I do creative potential.


I got a 4x8' sheet of higher end plywood at the store yesterday. Heavy sucker. I've got that in place on my defunct air hockey table and it's reasonably sturdy. No leaning. But reasonably sturdy for gaming. Not sure what I'll do with the 2x4' sections of MDF. Possibly little tables for my Daughter, or maybe I'll make a gaming/shelf out of them for downstairs.

Trying to get all of my models that need work/storage downstairs, and all of the stuff that's ready for gaming-- finished scenery, models, rulers, dice, and so on-- out in the game room. Need to see if I should make any more shelves out there or if I just need a tad bit more organization.

OK here something like this...

Ahh i see what you mean, and why its called that. Cool.

Lol I got over 10k posts and it says near golden deamon caliber. Bwahahahahahahaha giggle.

So here's some more tagging. Was a long day today and hot so I just crapped out a little work for the sake of it. It's sloppier and has less style, not as smooth. Of course it's all brush work which was maybe the mistake. But even the strokes are too fat and sloppy, just tired tonight. It'll do, maybe that guy isn't as good at tagging.

I think this side is probably good, not much else would fit without a ladder.

I kind of like the night sabers side left alone, the front is fine... The back wall could maybe use some tagging though it may be a squeeze to fit it in.

Still need rooftop Gubbins and a dumpster if I can. Oh, dumpster is why the back is fine. If I make one.

I think the posters and graffiti looks great. I wouldn't be overly concerned with being super neat, not every graffiti artist is as good as the previous and few have respect not to overlap someone else's work either.

Thanks

I'm not too broken up about the state of the second graffiti, I'll just have to do a bunch more as I go on and I'll get better through practice.

Bought some pill sorters for dumpsters but they're kind of small. May have to scratch build something entirely though I'm bad at shapes. Still wanna make some rooftop stuff too. But I've pretty much got today to get finished and a mounting pile of honey do's and so on (got rained out, but it doesn't take long before the wife and kids decide what to do with my newfound time ).

The back of the Taco Mars signs could be filled with graffiti too, again time may be an issue here.

The two dwarfs and Mashaaf are done having a long soak, I need to rinse them off and prime them some time. I think I mentioned having the foam in hand for their Diorama so that'll happen eventually too. Wanna get this building done today though.


Ooooh yeah, I just ordered sizes 2, 1, and 3/0 of the Windsor and Newton Series 7 brushes. I've gotten fed up with cheapos and am eagerly awaiting having the good stuff back in hand. The 1 and 3/0 should be here soon, it's Prime so probably friday/saturday. The #2 is coming from somewhere else that doesn't offer prime shipping (though its the lowest price I've seen for a #2) and their free shipping boasts October 6-20 as a delivery date. As long as it's a legitimate series 7 #2, I'll be happy when it eventually shows up. That's the one I really needed, though I'm curious to try the 1 and 3/0. I have a 0 which has pretty much quit being consistent, which I used for all but the ultrasupermicrofine details, and the 2 was for everything else. My thinking is the 1 will help relieve some strain from the 2's job of 'doing everything else'. The 3/0 is almost the smallest brush they make, super freaking tiny, so that'll take over for the 0.
And it's trying to send the stuff to the old address... At least this finally got me to clear out the old defunct addresses from Amazon...


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Oh well got that sorted out. Got some other stuff in the works too:


I've also discovered that I'm apparently not allergic to the Warmachine faction Retribution of something or another.

I still don't like the non-hero human sculpts very much, the gunners/halberd/sword guys... but many of the characters are pretty reasonably cool and the war jack things for that faction don't make me retch. Something about the smooth curvature of them... They look dangerous and have almost the same profile as the other warjack things but... something about the eldar-like gems I think I'm seeing and the distinct lack of smokestacks makes me more interested in them

Not saying you'll be seeing me making a warmachine army any time... though... technically if I ever wanted to play a reasonably popular tabletop within driving distance... it would probably be WH.

Holy Moley, over 10k posts, and you joined only two months before me. I salute you sir.

Words of warning about the new brushes-- in case you don't already know, which you probably do. Get some of this for them http://www.amazon.com/General-Pencil-Company-Masters-Preserver/dp/B0009RRT9Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441830584&sr=8-1&keywords=Masters+brush+cleaner and never use metallic paints with them. The metallics will destroy the bristles.

Just paint more graffiti over the stuff you aren't so happy with.

Never use metallics... Even the standard old gw/Vallejo type? Hells bells that could be part of the problem then.

I've been using the masters since I started painting almost. I've even got the W&K 'melts paint of the handle of the brush' cleaner stuff too.

Damn no metallics huh? Gotta remember that.

So, my penchant for using metalkic paint is what's killing my brushes? But I don't want to have to do NMM.

Grim, your building is looking really good. I think those pill containers will still work for dumpsters. Not every dumpster needs to be some huge thing you can fit a car into. I'm digging your little electronic bits there as well. They make nice looking scifi doodads.

Wait, metallics kill brushes? Never heard that before!

I'm gonna have to look into this for reals.

10k posts came up really fast, I guess I'm a chatty Cathy

@Barzam thanks. I think the innards of a computer have a *lot* to offer a scifi gaming table. There's a guy somewhere hereabouts, I think, that's done an entire table out of computer components. His stuff is way cooler, but I'm happy getting by.

Got a 005 micron pen so I can write some bathroom stall style call X for a good time crap behind the Taco Mars signs. Nice to have around too for other stuff. Also nabbed a backup 1 inch punch (still think that sounds like a martial arts move ) in case my primary ever goes out (this one also looks like it may have better luck muscling through that card stuff i've been using).

Have fun with the W&N brushes. I got mine a few months back and adore them. Layers with them go on to smooth and can do the finest detail even with the 2. Don't stress too much about using metallics with them. Yeah it's not good for the bristles but ig you only use the tip and never let it get near the ferrule you're fine and clean with masters more after metallics than usual. Keeps them beautifully

I've had my pair for awhile. I let them both down sooner than I should have but I plan to be more careful with this new set.

So I think I've found some things out about Warmachine and Retribution of Scyrrah (or whatever it is) in particular. I think I know which models I like and vaguely how to piece them together sort of. I think list building is pretty important but I'll crutch on the community here to help me along there as I move forward mostly painting.

All in theory. I just used my Amazon points on paint brushes and I'm not racking up another Miniature Market order so soon. But they may worm their way onto the x-mas list.

Another interesting thing... Warmachine is actually at a good discount on Amazon. Something very similar to what you find on Miniature Market, although a bit more sporadic. But as I gain some points, I may sneak in some Warmachine buys. Especially since I'd rather buy something at a discount with my points than overpay for Infinity, even if the points are *free*.

Never heard it either. It's possible of course, but I'll just replace brushes over not using metallic paints. I can however recommend The Masters Brush Cleaner. It's good stuff.

Aw Grim, you're going down that same slippery slope I did. Once you get one faction, then you'll decide to check out another, and soon you'll own 3/4 of the range and hardly any of what you originally intended to get. First it's elves, then you'll be looking at Menoth and suddenly you'll have full Khador and Skorne armies.

Yeah, Masters is ftw for sure.

@Barzam it's possible. I'm not so sure though, I don't really like the aesthetic of most of the armies. I dunno if I had a sudden change of heart about the Retribution or if I just never saw any of them before. I don't like 'jacks in general though, and most of the infantry for most of the factions are meh. At least from what I remember. Cryx might be ok, but I have such a backlog of fantasy undead I don't need more robot/undead to go with them

If I get a chance I'll try to add to my building a bit tonight, but if not then it's pretty well done already. Mashaaf and the dwarfs are ready, need to get started on those soon.

Well, the elves are definitely one of the coolest looking factions in the game. I love their infantry designs. It's helped by the fact that they have the most advanced tech in the game.

If you don't like the Jacks, check out Hordes.

Nope. I don't like most of the beasts either

Those things skorne has, the elephant/whatevers, nooope.

I'm not as familiar with some of the rest of them. Are there redneck crocodile people? Cause no.

Nature army? Nah.

I'm still somewhat surprised I like Retribution. I do though, fancy stuff.

Besides.

WTF Barzam, why are you trying to get me to buy MORE armies than I already have? Et tu Barzam?

I agree about most of the WM/H stuff, Grim. There are a handful of character minis I'd absolutely love to paint, but the Warjacks just look so toyish and top heavy to me, not threatening or dangerous in the slightest. That could just be the painting on some, but in general 70%-ish of the range I just don't get.

Every so often I take a look through the PP gallery pages, find a couple of great minis, but before that thought process can go any further I'm hit in the face with silly-looking uber-swords, overdone musculature and shoulder pads that would make Calgar cry!


But if you've found a faction you can get on with then go for it! It wasn't until I found the Military Orders that I gave Infinity a second look, and now they're some of my favourite minis ever, so opinions can certainly do 180s rather quick once you find the right way in.

Luckily the style of warmachine is not my favorite or I would have switched long ago.

Grim if you do decide to start warmachine they have a dinged copy of Grind at miniaturemarket for $35. That's a bunch of warjacks. It keeps taunting me every time I go to look.

Ahh. I think I saw it that one time I went up there. No temptation there at all for me. I only like the Retribution Myrmidons (their version of warjacks), and even then only some.


This guy is cool.


This guy too, even if he has ginormous shoulder pads. I played WoW for several years, I'm used to it


Mage hunters really make it for me in terms of Retribution infantry.


Similar but with crossbows and different swords I think.


Some single characters are really neat, Leaning towards this guy for the leader if I ever pull the trigger.


Seems like the kind of lists I'm looking into have at least 1-2 of these guys, they're ok.



Their wizard unit is kind of interesting. It's a caster, he shoots magical missiles, but he can also punch people in the face. hard.

There are some basic infantry that I don't really care for, and some of the solos I don't love.


This guy though, he's pretty cool. There's a unit of grunts like him but apparently it's not very good in the game, though the single hero version is fine.


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It's entirely possible this train of thought will get swept under the rug the same as so many 40k army ideas I had in the past. One thing that's going for it though, is that this stuff is on Amazon at a reasonable discount (comparable to MM though not as consistent) so I may end up getting a few of them here and there instead of using my points to overpay for almost anything else.

Whaaat? No, I would never try to talk someone into buying more minis. No sir. You make it sound like I'm some kind of enabler or something. Why, just ask my brother! I certainly didn't talk him into buying all of those Rackham models. Or those Warzone figures he's been fiddling with. Nope, I haven't done a thing.


Oh yeah, you should totally buy some Morats, too.

As they say, I think...somewhere...surely... feth your couch sir! No morats. Noooooo!

I consider it a tragedy that I may never own a raicho... But it is for the greater good!

That post of pics pretty much sums up how I see WM. Those mage hunters are fething awesome, the dude with the sword is neat and I kind of like the magic power fist guy, but I just can't get behind the Warjacks or the massive-shoulder-tiny-head horse dude! I think that an all-infantry version of the game would appeal to me a lot more...

Morats, on the other hand, are just epic across the board!

I agree with you guys. I really would like to PLAY Warmachine but I don't want to collect any of the minis because the aesthetic is completely lost on me... Which makes playing kind of hard.

Yup, Warmachine is kinda pants looking IMO. Regardless of rule set. If the models don't get my attention then it's not worth my time.

The thing that gets me is I like the artist that owns warmachine (Matt something) work on other things, but these models are just everything that bothers me about GW proportions blown up even further. He did excellent art for Legend of the five rings and Magic the gathering, but the warjacks are rediculous to me.

I tend to agree with you guys. Except for Retribution, I really don't like any of the 'jacks (maybe a couple of the Cryx dudes would be ok). I do like Retribution though. The Myrmidons remind me a lot of some of the Blood Elf constructs from WoW, along the same lines that Warmachine shoulder aesthetics resemble WoW. It's not my favorite look... but when you've logged as many hours at WoW as I have... it's a comfortable groove to fall back into. That the mage hunter dudes are as cool as they are... Also the aesthetic of the other armies doesn't bother me as much if they're on the opposite side of the table from me and I get to scrap/mulch/pulverize them

Honestly, I could almost step back from even more of the range and do a Garrth theme list.

While not my favorite Retribution warcaster aesthetically, Garryth isn't terrible:

Big shoulders, semi awkward pose, questionable dagger..guns? His theme list lets you take a gaggle of the mage hunters and their character assassins, while still taking most of the myrmidons (just none of the character variants other than Moros).

I think I still like the idea of Thyron better. Or if I could get myself to knock out upwards of 5+ of those griffons, I would have a list for which this guy



would be useful. And between the eyepatch, shotgunblade, bitchin steed, and falcon.... epic Vyros just oozes badassery.

All of this talk about warmachine...pfft.

We'll see. The reasonable prices at amazon are the most likely reason I'd pick some up. I could just as easily start picking off the better deals on Imperial Assault boosters too. I may not pokemon the set but Han, Chewie, and certain others would be swell.

Anyway, here's a preview of the completed Taco Mars. May work on some more stuff but I'd really like to get my game and hobby rooms worked out tomorrow... And I need to start my dwarf diorama.

Building is looking very nice! Dumpsters and machine outside
]

That building is really good!

I can't really give any input on the warmachine front as I have only rarely seen the models online and never in real life.

But I can add my voice to the liking of your taco stand. Is it a sealed building or is there interior detail?

And do the tacos taste good?

Because if you are fighting your way across a warzone for a munchies run, they better be worth dying for.

Looks great!

Skorne troll bloods and retribution are the only warmahordes factions I am interested in personally but not enough to buy into it.

Yeah, it's totally possible that I won't buy any either Carlos. I might, especially since they're well discounted where my bonus points live and I'm realizing I kind of almost prefer metal models after working on my Infinity stuff... But it's just as likely I'll use those slush funds to nab new X-wing or notable Imperial Assault personalities.

Thanks for the kind words about Taco Mars guys

I think it's probably like Bog's Burgers... the food is surprisingly good for a dive like it, but you probably don't wanna watch them cook it

The building has no interior though there is an openable roof, so that may happen eventually. For now the roof is just to unveil a surprise objective like the seed pods.

Oi... Been cleaning out boxes. Some packed to move, some that have been around for years. The pile of crap on the table now has to be sorted and stored somewhere. Sigh.

Nowt like a big pile of crap to deal through...

The building looks cool as well, is there any truth in the rumour that the locals have re-named it Taco-Hell?

Haha, probably. This part of the city is pretty well abandoned, I would say. Or at least the honest folk will have left. Ramshackle buildings like Taco Mars will all be tagged and signed to death, but government and military buildings will mostly be unblemished, just grimy. I'll probably get some use out of that sentries active in the area sign.

Pile isn't too bad. Not considering how many boxes it was reduced from... just gotta get it sorted so I can find things later when I need them.


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Also, I hate to add to the pile... but between Theo's zombie escapades and me watching a couple more episodes of the Walking Dead (I can only tolerate 2-3 in a week, if that, gets kind of boring in patches), I'm really kind of keen to order the wargames factory zombies and survivors kits. Probably less than $70 shipped for 60 zombies and 60 survivors. Probably splice in some mantic undead as well.

Don't get me wrong, I like my scifi zombies... but they aren't quite as versatile as they could be. I guess neither are the WGF zombies as they're pretty contemporary (though they'd do alright for older periods if you pick out certain types of clothing/weapons).

But yeah, distant, future purchase. Just an idea rattling around in my head. Between pulp alley and Mars Attacks, I could use a little more contemporary/20s/30s/40s firepower.


Bah, i should stay away from the internet.


Almost got the game room sorted.. though that's pushed some overflow into the office. And really it's just bulk sorting, the display/terrain shelves in the game room need a lot of sorting work still.

I bought into Warmachine back when it came out, because I love the big clunky warjacks. Then I started playing competitively and serious competitive play was all about the all metal infantry models, which I didn't own. Sold off most of my collection and never looked back.

Taco Mars looks great. The GrimDork graphitti tag was a nice inside joke.

I sill love the clear bases, but I can't bring myself to buy them in the bulk I would need them , but I may have found a cheaper alternative. Clear tiddly winks. I ordered some, and I'll let you know how they work out.

Interesting that you need the infantry more than otherwise. Makes sense really, probably less metal and more margin for them. Honestly, I may not even worry about *getting into warmachine* so much as I may just get some of those fantastic mage hunters, mage hunter assassins, and Narn (character MHA). If it ever looks like I could play... get some more. I dunno though, the more I look at the range the more it grows on me. I don't love the chunky WoW aesthetic on everything but on the elves it's neat, as they're usually ridiculously slender and what not.

We'll see. The Wargames factory zombies and survivors appear to be up on amazon at reasonable discount so they may hedge out the warmachine elves. I still want some of the mage hunters though... they'd work well for parties/warbands of elves for D&D. Somewhat unusual/advanced elves, but that works. I've got a wonky subculture like that. My campaign setting doesn't have drow (it's lame, but I gotta be a snowflake *somehow*), there are some creepy elves what keep to themselves though... totally work for the mage hunter dudes.

Still not sure. Doesn't matter. Blew out all my points on brushes anyway


I've got some more photos of Taco Mars but I'm gonna let them do the LoER judging before I post them. For anyone who's just that interested, can be found in the gallery.



Lemme know how the tiddly winks work out. I could blow out all of my 300something bases on scifi models alone I'm sure, if there's a cheaper alternative for fantasy models... I wouldn't mind

Alright, here's a few more photos of the completed Taco Mars building along with some other finished scenery and some minis battling over it all:


Corporation marines emerge from elsewhere in the city, converging on the Taco Mars building where the enemy alien forces have chosen to stand their ground.


Corporate forces are met with harsh resistance.


Many marines don't make it home from the ambush.


But a tactical drop by the Rangers clinches the engagement.

More in the gallery, but you get the gist of it. I need to get some more buildings done. One of these days, I'm gonna put out the four deadzone mats and see if I can fill them up or not. Don't think I'm quite there.

A friend is coming by later today, dunno if we'll try any games or not, but that will slow up my hobbying in either case. Hoping to get Mashaaf started this weekend one way or the other though.

The game room is almost totally cleaned out, and the office surfaces are pretty usable... though both need much more organization.

The way the different model ranges blend together is fantastic. I really like when you can get that sort of cross game versatility from your collection.

Terrain works really well. Although I feel for any poor marines that don't make it home from a seedy Taco vendor.....

Agreed. I think it's the bases that help tie them all together. Either way it looks fantastic.

Thanks guys, I like how everything works together too

I think I may draw up some pulp alley league teams to represent some of my scifi dudes, more play-ability for the win.

I think there are extra/optional rules for having superheroes/stuff like 40k characters have extra perks/stats/whatever, but honestly if you just consider all things equal.. it doesn't matter if my detective in a trench coat rolls the same number of dice as a space marine captain, they aren't going to be meeting. So as long as it's just scifi stuff on the table, rolling 4 dice is still what the stronger characters do, don't need to modify the rules in relation to other settings.

I think the pulp alley rules are pretty fast and punchy and would work well with small teams of scifi minis, I also have a boatload more of scifi terrain. You don't get some of the more advanced/tacticool rules like some modern/scifi games have, but you get a pretty neat system where most characters will get fatigued by interacting with multiple enemies in a turn, fighting and shooting are both valid, and the objectives are pretty damned important. Ranges are also realistic, while short range is pretty low, you can more or less shoot across the board (and c'mon, even a 4x4' board is within pistol range if you aren't abstracting greater distances).

Bah, even if you *do* cross genres, it's more amusing to have the punchy detective shooting holes in space marine power armor and getting similarly knocked around... would be boring if one sided

Nice work on Taco Mars. The posters really make it. I also like all the stuff on the roof-- it breaks up the surface without looking too cluttered.

Also: how do you do your Deadzone terrain? I have 8-10 battlezones, but I just can't figure out how to do them quickly while keeping them interesting to look at.

Thanks Josh

I'll do a photo shoot of my battle zones and post them as soon as I get the chance. I'll let you see what you like and don't like from there.

I'm pretty boring with my shapes though. There are some pretty fantastic shots on the internet of some really interestingly shaped b-zone scenery. But I've been meaning to photograph my stuff again anyway.

Taco Mars looks excellent!

Thanks

I'm getting destroyed in the public vote here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/663856.page#8125126
But I never really expected to win, even in a run with fewer competitors. Learning experience. Check out the link guys, there's five entries total (you've seen enough of mine ), and some really neat ideas and execution going on.

So between some lazy time on Sunday and little stolen moments here and there, I managed to run a me/myself/I game of scifi alley with the Shadow Knights facing off with the Galactic Empire. I'm going to do a proper battle report when I get the chance. Got a lot of photos for editing and some records to streamline and spruce up.

I'll give you the gist of it, Vader and company get their butts handed to them. I may have to go back and reevaluate both Vader's abilities and which units he takes with him.

Storm troopers died in droves (they should, but maybe too fast) and nobody on the Empire side really did anything impressive. The marines, on the other hand, pulled some really mean stunts and had some heroics etc. The shadow knights got an early card advantage and two or possibly three storm troopers went down to random unforeseen perils without even getting to shoot. Vader himself got taken out of action by a card keeping him from attempting a health check to recover.

It'll take awhile to get this battle report sorted out, but I think the Empire will need time to recover and possibly redesign. I think the next fight will be Corporation Marines Vs Space Marines, a good old fashioned Marine-off. Or something.

There are some nifty ideas in all those competition entries. I'll have to start following these contests more regularly.

I envy you your gaming time, even if it is solo. My boy likes to play games with my little army men, but he's still to young to do much more that play with them like tiny action figures, with the occasional roll-off to see who dies.

Cool terrain.

D

Thanks

@Josh yeah mine is still too little to trust with anything other than Bones I wouldn't miss. Pulp alley plays fast, I probably only took an hour and some change to get through that while taking photos and notes.

Taco Hell looks good. But if I can make one bit of constructive criticism... the main sign looks really washed out and simple compared to the signs all over the rest of the building, which have strong, rich colours. The main sign of the business should really stand out with strong colours. It might be worth a quick cut and paste/photoshop job to replace it so it has the same style as the rest of the building?

I just made this for you I left space around the edges so you can trim to fit the building sign. if you like it feel free to use it. If not.. well, don't worry about it.

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg143/azazel_f13/Miniatures/Scenery/Taco%20Mars_zpsdk0s9afd.jpg

It's possible. Probably, really. I may get back into fiddling with photoshop/the gimp. Even paintbrush can do better than I did for the signs. So, you are right and I probably should get some signs printed for it sometime. I've been meaning to get some more varied posters and warnings so when I'm feeling it, I'll do so. Good call.

I got all of the battle report photos edited, now I just have to write the report and upload the photos. May be soon, may be the weekend or later.

See my last post-edit!

Ooh lookit that. Thanks . How could I not use it.


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I'll have to find some new posters to populate the sheet with it.

Signs and posters, they do seem to help make the scenery come alive!

Yep, it's good stuff.

So. I'll admit that I have a problem. I keep buying more freaking models people...

Oh well. I haven't filled up the available space yet and hell, this place has an attic

Anyway, I spotted the wargames factory dark futures survivors on amazon for a reasonable price (16-18 monies) and just happened to check my rewards balance and saw it was 28 bucks. So yep, I nabbed both sets and got sixty more miniatures for like.. 6 or 7 dollars. Whoops!

Now I'll be obligated to get the zombies too. Eventually.

I hear they're great kits and come with a boat load of arms to use, plenty of extras supposedly. I figure a few of them will be old fashioned enough for Pulp Alley, and some may do for civilians in more scifi-oriented games. Between all of the Pulp Alley and Mars Attacks stuff I have laying around... I may have to invest some time in making modern/almost contemporary scenery.

Yeah... anyway whoops.

The Wargames Factory Survivors are great models, but the thier zombies are not. I'd buy Zombicide Zombies if you were looking for modern zombies.

Oh, really? I was thinking of getting the zombies too sometime, but they aren't as good, huh? Do you have any specific wisdom as to why they aren't? I've been watching theo tear through those zombies from the board game and though they looked pretty solid. If that's the better route, its fine with me, just curious as to where the WGF zombies fall short.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with those guys! I've still for a bunch of mine unassembled due to lack of ideas, so I'll be poised to steal!

All I'd say is make sure you have some GS on hand, if you want to deviate from the 'standard' poses/setups, the parts across the set aren't quite as compatible as you might believe.

Yeah, I had noticed that. Put me off of them a while back, but if I only get a box of each I dunno if I'll be too worried about stock poses. But I will probably try to snowflake a little so greenstuff may come I to it.

I think it's the lack of positions you can make with them as para said. Also I believe scale is different too. The Zombicide ones are great, I cannot recommend them enough and the game is fantastically fun too. Price is good as well. The thing is if you only get one box you'll see all the same models over and over. The expansion packs have three sculpts in them with 7-8 copies of the same sculpt, so if you don't paint them slightly different you'll get a wall of the same guys. The most noticeable are the fatties who you only get one sculpt of them per season.

Hmm good info. Maybe some hot water bending and a few cuts too..

The detail is kind of soft. All of them end up limp wristed. The ones with the trench coat have the legs attached and are not shambly enough. They are too generic. There is nothing about them that is remarkable. They were some of WGF's early work, and not done by the sculptor that made the survivors.

They all look like they are out for a leisurely stroll. None of them ever look like they are attacking

I had bought 10 packs of them when they were new, and never got through assembling the first pack.

Now compare those piles of mediocrity to the Zombie Vixens, who are more dynamically posed, better sculpted, much more detailed, and actually compatible with the female survivors kit.





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The Zombicide Zombies are available in different types and sculpts.
Walk of the Dead 1 - Walkers, Runners, Fatties, from main Zombicide Box
Walk of the Dead 2 - different sculpts of Walkers, Runners, Fatties, from Prison Break Box
Toxic Crowd - Toxic Walkers, Toxic Runners, Toxic Fatties, with additional sculpts not found in Toxic City Mall Box
Angry Zombies - Beserker Walkers, Beserker Runners, Beserker Fatties, with additional sculpts not found in Prison Break Box
VIP #1 - (Very infected People) Goth, Pimp, Nurse, Butcher, Guy in hotdog costume
VIP #2 - Construction Worker, Sailor, Santa Claus, Punk Rocker, Police
Lost Zombivors - 12 unique sculpts, no duplicates
Murder of Crowz - Zombie Crow Swarms
Zombie Dogz - Beefy Zombie Dogs

There are also Seekers and Skinners, but I think they are only available in the big box sets and Ebay

Thanks for the info! The zombicide stuff especially since I never looked at the kickstarter.

After you said the man zombies sucked I looked into it. Wound up ordering the vixens to go with the survivor boxen. Gonna splice things and throw in mantic zombie bits to have some zombies and survivors now.

Even with the issues that the zom-bros have, I don't think a box of them would look all that bad mixed in with other brands.

One thing I've been curious about would be how difficult it would be to make the male zombies into regular corpses. I know there's some integral bases that would need to be removed, but beyond that, it doesn't seem like it would be too hard.

Hmm. That might be pretty useful, now that you mention it. Gotta be some dead bodies laying around somewhere...

Of course depending on your post apocalypse/zombie setting, the only ones that were on the ground would have to have squished noggins or holes in the head But for general corpses.. might work. I just have the three newer kits coming so I won't be able to say. I think I'll eventually bite the bullet and buy zombicide but not for awhile.

They would probably make excellent corpses. Their lack of dynamic posing would actually be an asset in that application.

Thanks Barzam, I now have a use for the ones still on the sprue.

Durn. May have to pick some up sometime then Later though.

[insert clever segue here]

I haven't been in much of a painting mood lately, but I've been trimming up various minis. The bones stuff probably needs washed to help with that first coat, but there are some things ready to prime. I can always airbrush prime my minis but all this talk of running out of time to prime minis before it gets all cold and stuff has me kind of jumping on the wagon. Plus, the more primed things I have sitting at my desk, the easier it is to get myself to paint. I'll take some photos sometime. I still have a 50something photo battle report to post up too, but there's a fair bit of typing for that one as it will be semi-descriptive too.

I think I played pulp alley a couple of times and took photos but I still haven't done a report or posted them yet either. Hot weather, full hours, hanging out with wife and kids... I'll catch up eventually.

 adamsouza wrote:
They would probably make excellent corpses. Their lack of dynamic posing would actually be an asset in that application.

Thanks Barzam, I now have a use for the ones still on the sprue.

No problem. But, I want to see some pictures when you're done.

I'll bribe you guys with photos for information. What kind of resources do you use for 28mm modern buildings? I wanna scratch build as much as I can, although properly scaled brick pattern plasticard would be welcome. Dumpsters, shipping containers, probably cars, fences etc... I can figure those out. But what do I do to get nice brick buildings. Do I have contemporary alternatives to brick? Most of the stuff downtown locally is brick except for the shiney all glass bank. Looking for urban downtown/ in town mostly, outlaying buildings I can probably figure out well enough.

I know the mars attacks stuff works and i have some. May get more, but I'd like to do a fairly dense 4x4 some day so I'd need more. A largeish factory building, hospital, apartments with a few floors, bank, convenience store.. That kind of stuff. I don't have to have step by step directions but I need some inspiration and examples and my Google fu is weak.

Anyway, here's some recently cleaned minis nearly set for priming, and a couple of test schemes for the Ada Lorana from DBX. Leaning towards the darker one but maybe with a bit more pronounced of a light blue on the glowey spherical bits. They could also be different t colors.

The darker scheme looks good to me. Personally, though, I'd play around with a red or green glow on the eye/chest circles to add some contrast.

Aye, the darker one is nicer it lends the miniature a smokey, more ethereal appearance. A nice big red/orange/yellow circle bit and they are good to go.

I prefer the darker one as well. Is that a black wash ? I was toying with the idea of using a dark blue wash.

As for modern buildings, you could engrave bricks on foamcore. Personally, I glue printed cardstock modern buildings on foamcore. Modern buildings tend to have too many tiny details for em to try to sculpt. Matakishi makes a ton or modern terrain, but he mostly uses corkboard for texture, instead of brick.

I think my minitaire ghost tints aren't labeled correctly. I've got one called midnight blue that comes out black and one called oil discharge t hat comes out really dark blue, like a blue tinted black wash. I think the names are backwards on those two maybe. I used the really dark blue one. Then almost before it was dry i hit it with plasma fluid which is another ghost tint, but much lighter and brighter, it's whats on the second guy.

The engraving thing sounds solid but very tedious. Gluing on the printed texture has a certain appeal so I'll consider it in my musings. Thanks for the thoughts.

So, if you can find 1:48 scale buildings, those work well. This is "O Scale" in the model railroad world. Some companies are starting to make "modern" laser-cut terrain, and modern laser-cut buildings. There are TONS of O Scale modern building kits available, as well as scenery details, etc.

--Brian, your friendly model railroader.

If you want a more 1950s "Main Street" look, check out Plasticville. One of their biggest downsides though is that they have a very toy like look to them and there's no interiors.

The Plasticville O scale buildings are nice, but they aren't cheap when you are trying to fill a table with them.

1/48 and O you say? So noted.

I don't mind spending time , I dint need a table next week, I'd rather not buy *expensive* buildings. But maybe the O scale stuff would form a good reference point for my scratch building.

You'll want to look at Design Preservation Models, aka "DPM". In addition to buildings, they also sell just wall sections.

In the end, eBay is your friend in this, like most niche hobby products.

Ahh interesting, been awhile since I visited the 'bay.

DUST

The kind you got for your zombicide? Are they they economical?

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/ffgdt040.html

Also, you should definitely pick up Zombicide. The game is easy to learn, accessible for non-gaming nerds like wives, girlfriends and kids and the theme is something that non-gaming nerds can get into as well, because zombies. The figures are just like a bonus. Rules are free online, as are tons of the extra characters (just use proxy miniatures).

I'll keep an eye out for Dust crazygonuts sales, doesn't look bad.

I'll get zombicide sometime, its on the list.

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/catalog/product/view/id/23698/s/ffgdt025/

same DUST building, you just get 3 stories per box instead of 2 and you get 2 figures with that for an extra $.25. PLus a rules pamphlet.

Early morning sludge brain...

So what you're saying is that the scenery pack is two stories and 22.50 so 11.25 a story. 3 stories of scenery is 33.75 and cerberus is 34 even, so there's you're quarter. That's what you're saying? My brain dun gon dum brah...

Anyway cool. So I think I've seen your building and it's pretty large but how many scenery bits did you use? I guess knowing the breakdown of cerberus I can look a bit closer now.

Thanks for the info guys

Finally slogged through season 2 of the walking dead and season 3 seems a lot more reasonably paced from the get-go so I may keep watching. Do that, and I'll probably get some survivors and zombies painted, which will bring about scenery.

I'm already sourcing buses, because what post apoc/near future/zombie whatsit isn't more fun without a derelict school bus or two? I found a cool semi truck at walmart too, it's 1:43 but probably just about right, the trailer opens and can be detached as well. Refrained from buying it as the cost is 20 bucks and that's getting really close to model kit territory, though it was nicely sized. Get something like that, my daughter would probably gank it for her collection too =/

I need to get back on the painting horse, been away for too long. Makes me nervous.


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Yeah, just looked at a video about the cerberus. It's pretty sweet. The size looks to be 9x6 inches (with that corner popped in) which is pretty reasonable. And using extra door pieces or making your own, you could do a few single story buildings too, if desired. I think two would be the most fun, but that just means you get 3 for every 2 operation Cerberus you buy.

I could see getting several. The price isn't bad but I'm thinking I may just squirrel away some money and hope that they have sufficient stock during their holiday/black friday sale for me to grab a few.


I also see that Battle Systems is running a kickstarter for contemporary/post apocalyptic scenery. It looks gorgeous but I'm staying away. It's a bit over a hundred bucks (before shipping) to cover a 2x2' section of board so I'd be looking at over 4-500 dollars to do it their way. Plus I wouldn't get to paint anything.


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I just saw a blog that was mixing the DUST buildings with battlezones... not the look I'm going for but it's really neat.

Do tell of this Blog you speak of mixing both the battles ones and dust. I got a tiny little bit of zombie action yesterday in the parade in town. One of the floats was for a paintball/laser tag place that has employees chasing you dressed as zombies

Cool zombie paintball place/parade

Its uh http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/
Specifically http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2015/06/dust-tenements-mantic-battlezones.html

Looks like they have a lot of neat stuff there, too bad its like a 4-5-6 hour drive depending on which part of Chicago

I've just met Michone in the Walking Dead. I'll be making a tribute survivor, though I'll probably have to loot/buy a katana for her. Honestly, out of 60 survivors, I'll probably make Walking Dead tribute characters for most/all of the cool ones. Gotta have a Daryl and maybe a T-Dog if I can find one he was kinda cool. Obviously there will be a sheriff but there's 3 cops so I'll probably make a small unit of them to have potential for other set ups. And at least a couple of feds/cia/whatever, I think there are passable male/female bodies and maybe even one of the zombie vixens.

Got about 30 models/scenery Gubbins primed today. The bones stuff adjacent needs washed but will then also be ready for airbrush priming. Gonna paint some mars attacks to get in the groove for survivors who I hope to be building as soon as tomorrow night.

Quite a collection confronting you there. Any particular place you are going to start?

Hmmm. I started painting Deke from Mars Attacks last night and 'finished' Craig too. He was sitting done except for the eyes if you'll believe that, just needs dipped. I'm probably gonna be in a flurry of assembly once those survivors and vixens get here, but I'm probably gonna focus on things that work for modern/post apocalyptic/zombie whatever as that's currently sparking my imagination more than the other stuff.


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Supply drop!

Got a couple of survivors out together. I plan on trying to stick to lighter weapons at least at first. Of course since I'm a snow flake and my models have to be too..

First body is the shirt and tie dude who usually has a two handed swing set for a ball/cricket bat or maybe a golf club. I managed to get the jumpsuit guy's crow bar to look reasonable but the only accompanying left arm around up being the machete. That's OK dual wield ftw. I gave him the glasses though those would work really well for the suit guy as an agent of FBI/CIA/whatever so we'll see. There's a good rich white guy face and a couple others that might work.

Second dude is the tank top guy. He got close to the stock photo as there aren't a lot of bare arms to use but I switched ethnicities with a simple swap of the head.

Then I tried to give the fat lady some different arms off of the men sprue. She's gonna need some greenstuff I think... But I kinda like the pose otherwise.

Thoughts?

Looks good. The fat lady is my favourite. Sort of reminds me of my mum. The dial wielder looks pretty bezerk.

I'm thinking the machete crowbar guy had it rough. Lost his cushy corporate job to downsizing, wife had served him divorce papers and took his sports car. House was foreclosed and he was living off cash in a cheap motel. Then a freaking zombie apocalypse. Just great. He kinda snapped a bit lol.

Those civilians are nicer minis than I imagined. I look forward to seeing them painted up.

Good looking civvies Grimdork .

Thanks for that link, I think the paint job really lets them down, but they look like a good building setup to me.

Nice poses. It can be hard to be too different from the stock poses, largely thanks to a shortage of matching arm types (and a lack of unarmed hands if you ask me... surely not everyone managed to source a military-grade gun come the apocalypse? ) but those are rather well done! I look forward to seeing paint!

Yeah, the level of armament is a bit high. Partly why I got the zomvixens box, at least the women will have some less assault-prefixed weapon options. I mean bare hands, I'll probably arrange one or two as victims to use as plot points or objectives etc.

I don't mind a few survivors with heavy gear, hell I may make a small paramilitary team or something... but on average I prefer the pistols and machetes, and other improvised weapons.

Those are pretty nice models. Haven't seen them before. Stop exposing me to new things and making me buy them!

Muahaha! Inexpensive too!

Fat lady needs greenstuff but I got three total survivors cleaned and built. Got a few specific ideas the rest will be organic randoms.

How do they scale with other lines?

I'll do some comparison photos later but I think my first glance is pretty well.

Ok here you have a comparison shot with what's still down in the hobby dungeon, the painted models got moved clear across the house so those photos will wait for another day. So yeah, relatively tall and slender. Very truescale. Some of the smallest and most realistic weapons I've run across. Gonna have to get my greenstuff on and make some straps for these packs though.






Also a photo of my latest three survivors. In front is a little tribute to Ash from the evil dead series, in his Army of Darkness chainsaw+sawn-off mode. The pose is a bit awkward as there weren't any good bare arms that allowed me to have the shotgun held straight up in the air. I'm gonna do some checking to make sure before there's paint. I think the chainsaw arm works better. I may try the tank-top torso too, and it's standing a bit straighter. Though I was trying to go for the part of a shirt with the left sleeve torn off look. It doesn't have to be an exact Ash anyway, just close enough which it probably is. I just wish the pose was a little stronger overall, the left arm drags it down even if the left hand and shotgun came out well.

You've also got the golf-club-swinging-woman counterpart to the male version I've already done, although just like her predecessor I've opted to replace the two handed swing with some dual wielding action. I need to do one or two with the bats now, get some slightly less proficient looking survivors, so far everyone i've done looks like they're doing this fun

The fat lady's AK47 jammed and I was sure she was zombie food. Was gonna make a zombie out of her with a cleaver, some kind of butcher(ess?), but the cleaver and beer can just worked out and she didn't need to be a zombie to be cool. So I guess she lost her gun and then hacked the zombie up. I'll probably give this one some blood spatter as she's gotta get close to be effective. Will need a dab of greenstuff to make the arms work, they're too thin but most of them are. And the zombie ones were even thinner.

That's enough out of me for the night.

Got some more stuff done. Sorry for sporadic updates. Work, kids, other stuff.

First up, several more survivors. Two of these were from the zombie sprue, but were intact enough to make survivors with arms from the survivor sprues.


So I found that the nurse on the zombie vixen sprue was intact, decided to make a survivor out of her. Golf club is a bit awkward and the pistol arm is missing a sleeve but such things happen in the zombie apocalypse. Lady with the shotgun is the stock arms, I've seen the same head used there before although there's a woman with a vest that also wears it well. Actually three different torsos do the cowboy hat justice. Simple, yet effective. The cop is as stock pose as they get, just opted for the city cop over the texas style or however you want to put it. His brethren will be assembled with the same hat, or possibly one or the other won't have the hat. I'll try to mix it up with pistols for the other two, maybe even give one the grenade launcher for a tear-gas type thing. Not sure exactly what I want to do with them but three cops could be useful for various systems. Next up is the skirt/suit lady. This is her stock pose save possibly the head. I t works very well, though I'll try to get at least one other survivor with different gear. She'll be joining the next two models as 'agents' in their own little theme group. Next up is a business woman zombie who got a second lease on life as an agent of some kind. She's just lost a heel but she's ready to keep fighting. Is that suitcase full of important secret documents, or just bricks? She won't tell. Last is the male agent, pretty much stock.

The next zombies are pretty much all stock too, I'll get creative in a bit. The shopper ended up with two sets of bags because Lolz. She goes BOGOOOOOOZ instead of BRAIINSSSS or whatever.


But so yeah you've got the barely-a-torso crawler, the shopper, the uhh... i duno she's like a runner or maybe in her night clothes, and then the lifeguard. In the back is the knee-less crawler.

So a lot of stock poses lately, they go together the best and some of them are really good poses that I'm happy to have in my collection, I'm not a snowflake to my own detriment

12 survivors and 5 zombies out of a total of 96 models counting the crawlers. I probably won't do all 96 models right away but I think I'd like to use up at least one of each sprue before I move on to another project, so at least 30 people. If that's all, I'm slightly over half way already.

They are looking great so far, zombie shopper for the win .

On another note the Zombicide:Black Plague pledgemanager has opened up. I think you might still be able to late pledge on it. Almost 200 minis at the $150'level and you could use some for dungeons and dragons and still have a fun game to boot.

You dirty temptress! I think I'm more interested in the contemporary version of zombicide honestly. Though black plague did look like an incredible deal even part way through let alone at the end.

Modern Zombicide $60.99 Free shipping, from Target through Ebay

Yeah it's the same thing on Amazon if you're a Prime member. next time I have 30+ dollars in points I may well snap it up.

The black plague is interesting but since I backed Dungeon Saga AND bones 3 now... fantasy models are not an issue.

Good Catch. I'd feel safer ordering from Amazon, and those points do come in handy.

I missed Dungeon Saga, tried to late pledge, but they even though they promised me I could get into the pledge manager, no one on their side followed through, and I got frusterated and gave up. {robably for the best though and I was planning on loading up on undead and Abyssals.

Your survivors are coming along great. I'm sure you make us all proud once you get them painted up.

 adamsouza wrote:
Good Catch. I'd feel safer ordering from Amazon, and those points do come in handy.

I missed Dungeon Saga, tried to late pledge, but they even though they promised me I could get into the pledge manager, no one on their side followed through, and I got frusterated and gave up. {robably for the best though and I was planning on loading up on undead and Abyssals.

Your survivors are coming along great. I'm sure you make us all proud once you get them painted up.

Mantic.....Almost. they really aren't trying to help that nickname disappear are they? THough Mantic, Meh is starting to take traction. Plus I'm still waiting on my KOW2 living legend stuff.

At least Mantic never patched your awesome snowflake class spec into being the default raiding AND PvP spec thus ruining its esoteric charm and forcing you to relearn how to play your class different from everyone else...AGAIN. /blizzard

Ahem. Got a few guys painted lately, several need dipped. It's been a choice between hobbying and taking photos/posting the last few days. Spent 9 hours yesterday helping my mom finish, deliver, and set up a monstrous wedding cake, and the girls were all in a bad mood when I got home so late sigh... And today we had a pile break that drains water out through the basement. Not sure which all toilets, showers, or sinks it serviced but it deployed rancid water into the nicy carpeted basement floor and took a few hours to fix as it broke in more than one section.

Still managed to paint another agent, a woman with blouse, skirt, and pistol--maybe a detective or another agent of some kind, got my benches enforcers lined out for finishing too.

Also broke down myast battle systems layout and am in the process of making another. Wanna get a feel for working with it again as well as try something new.

This is inspired by the new battle systems post apocalypse kickstarter. I wanna keep my toes in Warpath for the 115 early bird I have since you can double up on those in the pledge manager later... But we'll see...I could easily and happily drop $500 on the amazeballs post apocalypse terrain. The die cuts look better, there aren't any angular ramps which means more goodies per cost, and the genre is very versatile. The buildings can very easily stack and come apart for games thanks to a new clip type which allows a nearly unparalleled degree of inside/outside playability. I dint think I have 500 bucks to spend on a stacked 4x4 table, though it sounds like 2-3 blocks ~$120 each may affect to meet that size. Still approaching or over $400. If I did that I'd have to drop out of wp entirely save for a PM dollar.

I'm not sure I can justify spending so much on terrain at all, let alone closing with the end of the year.. But ordering this stuff at retail would be far more expensive, prohibitively so, whereas I can probably get similar deals on the warpath stuff at miniature market or through future mantic army deals.

I've got near to three weeks to figure it out. I'm really taken with the post apocalypse stuff at the moment but I'm gonna try to carefully consider the angles.


Enough ramble. Photos soon.

I feel your pain on that terrain. It's freaking beautiful, but it's priced way above what I'm comfotable spending on terrain.

Still vacillating on the terrain. See I could spend $200 ish on warpath and be happy with what comes in, but that's not enough for battle systems. I'd need at least 300-350 and preferably 400-450 to have a really lush layout.

We'll see...

Here are some WGF survivors (well, cops and agents) and some dudes from mars attacks. E erything needs dipped and based.

Figs are looking great.

Read the title change and forgot that I hadn't posted that the walking dead season 5 just popped up on Netflix. I'll be busy this week when I'm not at the hospital.

I'm still churning through season 3 but I noticed that season five just dropped. Season three has been a vast improvement in tempo and pacing for me. People are still arguing morality but now its properly interspersed with gunfights and zombies.

Plus Michone.

So far season five is a bit of a slow start for me, but after season three/four they need to pace themselves. The script flip I was expecting just happened. Won't spoil it though .

Battlesystems stuff looks great, but for what material it is, that is just too much. I think I would rather get stuff from WorldWorks or FatDragon, for a much more reasonable price. Print it out and mount it on something durable.

I have the scifi stuff. It's really really nice. I'm not sure I'd have similar results printing it out. If I'm gonna make something myself I'll just do some kind of mixed medium. I mean printing bricks may not be a bad idea... but I'm not sure how well printed bricks would do along with proper 3d everything else. I'll just have to find a method of doing bricks that I like. Maybe some kind of large scale pressmold shenanigans once I get something sorted. Dunno. I'm pretty sure I can make little tables and chairs and couches and police barricades and so on, and I'm pretty sure I could duplicate the buildings too, though it will take some time and I don't have the eye for detail or precision they do.

At the very least anything I did could readily incorporate proper transparent 'glass' windows as I've been hoarding clamshell plastic from toy containers for years now.

Here are those 7 models and a bonus 8th mini, a heavy weapon enforcer I forgot to mention. I'd have finished some others but I was out of nails to mount the separate bits on for dipping.

Built three more survivors and got some skin down on a batch of zombie vixens.

Second photo includes Buck Spencer and four of the WGF models, I think they may be his new team.

Also in the background is a big stretchy city bus I grabbed at Kmart for 10 bucks. The doors open and the scale looks very close to on target .

Those survivors scale really well with that Mars Attacks guy.

The bus suits the scale really, really well. Need to have a bus depot or refueling point for a game. You know the classic survivors pull up to refuel their ride and unfortunately for them the horde arrives to chow down on some brains. All manage to survive except the guy who selflessly distracts the Zombies, but the outcast nobody likes got bit and hasn't told anyone yet......

I'm really pleased with how well everyone scales together.

@Archer something like that

I've got some solid progress on the next batch of 5 zombie vixens but back to work so meep.

Oh yeah, whoops. They had these guys up on Miniature Market this morning for $18...


I dunno that I ever plan to get into the game but after spending my points to more or less negating shipping fees, they've come out to about $1.70 per model for metal minis, and I really like the way they look. Use them as an elf kill-team in D&D applications or something. Hell, they may even be generic enough thanks to their goggles to spend some time in scifi crossovers. We'll see.

You lucky, lucky man! That looks like one hell of a deal! Why don't places in the UK have sales like that!?

Survivors look good!

True, MM is great, though there are entire ranges I have little access to due to international shipping like heresy and what not so maybe it evens out? I mean I can order heresy but shipping is high high.

Not sure when I'll work those in but for a bit less than two bucks a head, I didn't wanna pass.

Depending on how you paint the sword blades they could look quite at home in a sci fi setting with their super duper power swords. They are some really nice models from a range whose aesthetic doesn't often gel with me. Could be good as High Elf shadow warriors for warhammer.

GrimDork wrote:True, MM is great, though there are entire ranges I have little access to due to international shipping like heresy and what not so maybe it evens out? I mean I can order heresy but shipping is high high.

True, true. I would raise RedBox games as a counterpoint, but thankfully you can finally get those guys over here now which is awesome! Reaper stuff can be a pig to get hold of except from a couple of online sellers, but yeah, I guess it does all even out!

Archer wrote:Depending on how you paint the sword blades they could look quite at home in a sci fi setting with their super duper power swords. They are some really nice models from a range whose aesthetic doesn't often gel with me. Could be good as High Elf shadow warriors for warhammer.

They do seem very versatile indeed. I'm toying with the idea of getting some to use as Talons for the Court of Owls in Batman, with a few tweaks they'd fit right in. Problem is, I'm never going to need 10 models, half a dozen would be plenty.

I think they're meant to have magic weapons in their native system so I'll probably paint then like power swords.

The survivors look good.
The bus was a great find.
Miniatures Market is top notch.

Succinct.
Thanks.

Looking good mate. Like the bendy bus.

I really wanted a school bus, and will keep looking, but that thing is a ready-built huge piece of 'scatter' terrain and really fun for zombie scenarios. Check the bus, oh crap it's full of zombie passengers! Lock yourself in the bus, distract them and run to the other side to escape! Etc.

I think I'll pull the stickers off as they're making it look a lot like a toy. Also the driver has to come out.

I'm not sure that I want to repaint it, would be hell to mask all the windows up. I may just do the weathering technique where you spray black and brown spray paint at it from several feet away, gives it a nice coating of grime that will fog but not obscure the windows and make it look like it's been around for some time.

Finished five zombie vixens and got them dipped. Will look into sealing tomorrow but its liable to be cold in the morning. Maybe tomorrow afternoon.

I've got five survivors ready for paint which leaves just three of my initial 17 to paint after those. Also just 3 mars attacks survivors away from having the set of 9 or so done. After those I may push to finish a dozen or so martians as that would finish the mars attacks base game. Well, and scenery. I'd like to get that done before Dungeon Saga comes as I still want to knock that out quickly as a kind of a 'one of the first painted base games' challenge.

We'll see if my focus holds. Still have a lot of Infinity to do but when I get into one of these semi-batch-painting spells its best to stay away from those.

Will have the killer ninja elves soon too, probably this week. May try to work those in just because. I find random hobby purchases much more justifiable if I paint them quickly

I think I'm giving up on battle systems. Too expensive, and there's going to be too much I want from warpath, mark my words. Not a lot right now, but if they drop some nice hard plastic GCPS troops I'll probably snap up several. And the vehicles are neat.

Speaking of which... Local hobby lobby has some clearance, just got marked down again. They've got a couple of something something thunderstick 2s for $8(1/3rd price) 1:48 sce fighters but theyre level 2 revel kits and I don't really like my models to be challenging to assemble (I got s similar helicopter kit to crash, opened up the box, and slapped the lid tigh back on..too many parts...).

I did get their last shade tank for $4. 1:48 tanks for $10 rrp. Not crazy detailed but good enough. Got three now. I guess they're patterned off the patton tank. Which is , holy crap, 55 years young and still in use today by some armies. Well, if I paint one green it would go great on a mars attacks board. I thought about giving them some space marine guns too and using them as discounted army surplus vehicles for rebs, marauders, and so on.

You may not think it is all that detailed. But for $10 in that scale its great. If you have three maybe gut one and detail the interior as a burned out wreck (not that you probably need anymore terrain what with the excellent stuff you have posted previously).

Yeah they're neat little tanks. A bit old school to use with my mantic stuff though... Almost would work with 40k. Like I said may give a couple space lasers...

Here are those zombie vixens, not a great shot. Still need their bases.

The Zombie shopper....not even death can stop her

Yep Instead of Braaaainz it's BUY ONE GET ONE HALF OFFFFFFF.....

I also like the shark attacked lifeguard. I think I'll have to paint the next version of the other walker in pink more like a runner, that's more obviously a sports bra than sleeping clothes like I was originally thinking.

Up next will be the country girl, disenfranchised middle class dude, street smart whoever gone survivor, the boy with a rifle, and the fat lady with a cleaver. These have been pretty fun to paint so far.

Nice work on the lady zombies. I guess that sale was "to die for"

Muahaha ha the thought had crossed my mind..

You should enter that picture in the yearly Thewarstore.com picture contest for black friday (I think thats when it is) with a photoshop of these prices are to die for on it.

Nice score on the elves, Grim. It's a neat looking set. Almost got it myself. I got suckered by FRP's clearance again though. You're getting a lot more progress on the survivors than I did on mine. I only made a few cops and agents. They were what made that box for me.

@theo I was thinking of some kind of ad involving the super shopper anyway so maybe.

@barzam I like the cops and agents too. I like the generic survivors a lot as well but the cops and agents have the most cross system viability IMO.

If you are going to doctor up some ad copy with the shopping zombie, you could print out scale posters for your next terrain project.

Shop Z-Mart! Our prices are to die for!

^Entirely possible

I'm gonna get these zombie gals onto some clear bases and then think about painting those other 5 models. They also dropped some new pledge levels for Warpath so I'll probably be getting more heavily involved there than I had planned. Le Sigh.

Great work on those Zombies and survivors, and the bus looks amazing. I don't have a lot of empathy for any of you when it comes to shipping prices, though.

Yeah I feel terrible for you poor bastards. You've got to deal with terrible shipping rates AND cane toads...

Hey GrimDork, any particular site you get the clear bases from? I have seen a few sites with them but they seem REALLY pricey for a round piece of clear acrylic.

I get them from Litko. I think it's just litko.com. They're not remarkably cheap though. Something like $15/100 25mm rounds at the 1.5mm thickness. They're more expensive at the 3mm/gw-equivalent thickness. Larger sizes get pricier *quick*.

I still find it worth it, but I won't tout them as inexpensive.

I know you have some of the D&D figures from the box game, do you have temple of elemental evil? If so are the figs decent? MM had a box for 1/2 price because the edge was smashed, but I haven't seen the models out of the box to judge for myself.

Thanks man! I found them. (litko.net) $15/100 is WAY cheaper than what I was finding when I first looked. If I remember correctly it was closer to $50/100.

Remember that for the thinner bases, the thicker ones are considerably pricier. I prefer the thin ones cause they disappear easier, though some want to more closely match traditional 3mm bases.

@theo I don't have any D&D minis. Someone was painting them recently but I can't remember who now.

Got my ninja elves. Misplaced them. Whatever. I'm sure they'll turn up eventually #warningsignsofalzheimers?

Put together some more survivors over the last couple of days while watching TV. Now I've got some poor woman with no shoes but two pistols, a little girl with a scoped hunting magnum (or similar large caliber revolver), hoody guy with ak-47, sporty lady with a bow (not the default body for the bow, but she pulls it off nicely), and today I put together the duster/trench coat/whatever guy as a priest with a bible in one hand and a pistol in the other. Yelling face which seemed appropriate. He may hang out with that revolver-armed nun at some point. Got the jeans done on a few survivors but I haven't had a chance to really dig into the current batch yet.

Probably gonna do some house work this weekend too, gotta patch the rolled-roof (or whatever you call the flat ones that look like they're rolled out, not shingles) over the back porch and fix a teeny spot on the main roof where a wee bit of water can leak into the attic...before either of those things starts the wood a-rotting and ruins my day a few years down the road =/ Shouldn't take long.

Progress will likely be further hindered when the wife goes back to work next weekend. I can more or less guarantee that I won't be getting feth all done when I have the baby and 3 year old at the same time for the whole night. I'll be lucky to sleep enough so as to not inadvertently pilot my zero turn into a lake or traffic or something.

But yeah I should get a few more things done before that. Maybe.

yep, rolled roofing.

post apocalypse clergy sound great. If they couldn't choose a side in life, the zombies surely couldn't choose a side in death.

 Theophony wrote:
I know you have some of the D&D figures from the box game, do you have temple of elemental evil? If so are the figs decent? MM had a box for 1/2 price because the edge was smashed, but I haven't seen the models out of the box to judge for myself.

Grim doesn't have any of the boxes, but I do! I've not got ToEE but I do have the previous one and the minis are mostly decent, there are a few duds and a few very nice ones, overall they look fine with a lick of paint.

But really, it's the game itself you want, the system is great fun and excellent for getting non-gamers involved (I ran a game with 6 players yesterday, only two had previous gaming experience and after a turn or two everyone had picked up the mechanics). The Tokens and tiles are all good quality, and I think ToEE adds a very basic experience system as well.

At half price, you'd be mad not to get a copy!

It was Red Harvest that's been painting them more recently, check out the last few pages of his blog.

Sorry for the OT chatter, Grim, looking forward to the next round of Zombies and Survivors!

Yeah, I knew one of you guys had been painting them lately, Red it was.

@Paradigm, cheers mate. I knew Grimdork had been discussing his D&D gaming and all the bones figures, plus Red is synonymous with terrain to me so I skipped over his thread ( multitalented people)

Bwahaha, yeah he doesn't paint a *lot*, but it's nice stuff when he does!

Thanks Grimdork.

Theo, the game is a lot of fun. ToEE has some very nice minis, and a few bad ones, and a few in-between. At half price, I would get it. The minis are of that soft plastic like Reaper Bones.

Somehow the idea of a Zombie shopper is a bit too realistic. I can say that I've seen a few in the stores. <shudder> That city bus looks perfect too. Kmart, you say? I'll have look the next time I'm near one. The local Toys-r-Us, which you would think would have such things, has diddly.

It's tricky finding the right scale. Walmart here has almost nothing, save for one $20 semi truck complete with functional trailer that can be unhitched. $20 isn't as good as the $10 sterch bus even if its a little bigger, its on the back burner list for someday maybe. So far the bus has been my only success at Kmart.

I think for civilian cars 1:43 may be ideal, if s bit expensive. May source some from amazon or something eventually.

Every once in a while you can just luck into some generic brand 6 pack of 1:43 cars at Toyrus/Walmart/Kmart. The holiday season is actually the best time of year for this, with them stocking generic gift sets for Christmas.

Huh, thanks for that Adam. Now that you've mentioned it I'll keep an eye out. I did notice Kmart had a pack of appropriately sized (fits within a credit card) cars but they were of poor designs and looked far too much like toys. But I'll keep an eye out for similar sets. Good call.

I got a whole bunch of them from Aldi late last year. Most of them were a bit too sporty, but still, I picked up a bunch. We've pretty much used them as the cop cars and pimpmobiles in Zombicide so far, but hey!

Yeah sometimes Aldis has some fairly useful stuff in their not-food section. Never lasts very long though, but sometimes they get ahold of something pretty good and really cheap.

Prop cars for that battle table that looks realistic!

Scale is the biggy, GW have so squewed our perspective its very difficult.

However, there are possibilities...



And always keep meaning to do something with these campers!


I looked into the wholesale side of buying a box of these type of things, they work out about £2 each, but 50 or 100 of the same vehicle is a bit much, unless I share!!

Yeah you've done some great stuff with such vehicles . I just need a couple of cars for scatter, myself.

Got in a game of pulp alley and x-wing last night.

Buck Spencer along with his best agents and some local backup took on Da Boss but failed to secure the secret documents and will be on the wrong foot for the next mission. Both agents had an ability to draw extra fortune cards instead of shooting/fighting secondary buffs of the other two agents and the healthy pool of tricks had my opponent on the ropes at first..but luck turned against me. I ended up with the two more defensively aggressive objectives though it was little impediment, it did eat up some cards though. I had a large card advantage early on, but I chewed them up really fast to turn it into a tabletop advantage. I had the momentum but a couple of bum rolls and clever cardwork from my opponent left me losing by two points. Not too bad, fun game overall. I like the new agents just fine though the follower level help could use some tweaking. I think I spent one or two extra good cards a turn or two too early, and accidentally kept one of his allies from getting up instead of saving the card for his much tougher sidekick on the next turn (in my defense they're gorillas in gangster suits with tommy guns, if not the same sculpt, they're very similar and I've just got to memorize that Mr Yellow is the damn sidekick lol..). Good times. May do some scenery for the next game, may not. I'm having an idea...

We had a bit of time after that so we played a game of x-wing that ended up being not as quick. He had a mix of ties and interceptors and since I couldn't find all of my scum dials I went with Dash and Coran. First time I brought that duo but I'm suitably impressed. Horn's ability to flop between extreme offense and potent defense is fancy and the maneuverability of the yt2400 coupled with the nasty heavy laser cannon is fun to fly. Basically flew around in circles and wore the ties down. Dash was down to two hull left when my opponent conceded with just the one banged up tie fighter left on the board. Dash never took a hit.


So Warpath has taken off a bit. On kickstarter now, I'm sure all of you are already aware so I'm not gonna advertise it here but for now I'm locked into one of the bigger pledge levels and will either be keeping it or dropping out to a buck to just cherry pick deadzone goodies. I want the vehicles, so as long as my finances check out before the campaign ends (should), I'll probably keep my pledge in. So I'm working on getting some of my deadzone/dbx/whatever stuff worked out in the meantime to prove to myself that I even need the more models Got 9 enforcers primed since we last spoke, looking at doing some Asterians now maybe.


I'm also thinking of doing a 4x4' run-down farm board. For some reason. It would work for a lot of systems and it would be eligible for the LoER comp this month (Got Wood? Build something out of wood or to look like wood) as a bonus. I figure I could do the board first, add some natural hills and other wavy/curvy stuff, and get that all textured initially. Then, I could move on to adding scenic elements. I want to do a wooden/wire fence row, probably pretty overgrown. Maybe down/repaired in a few places. Not necessarily across the whole board but fairly long. I'm considering doing a barn or farmhouse. Farmhouse would give nigh limitless modeling potential but could become a massive time sink and demoralize me. Barn would have less problems along those lines but I'm still no architect. At the very least, I want some wooden out buildings. And probably a water feature. Just a small pond or something, I've wanted to do one for a good while. May end up forgetting this idea too, hard to say

Well back to it, just some thoughts.

I am so very tempted by a big Warpath pledge but am terrible at delayed gratification and waiting nearly a year to get anything. I am also reticent pay for things when I am not sure what the final product will be. But, as you know, the space Dwarfs are calling me.

Yeah, they got their hooks into me too, and I'm not typically a fan of dwarfs. I mean, I appreciate them, but they're not usually my 'thing'. Kind of like salt on food, they make the overall thing better, but I wouldn't want them just on their own. But the Forge Fathers... tempting. And so many vehicles. So many.

So yeah been awhile... Ok more like five days lol. Seems like awhile. Skipped out on the warpath pledge, at a buck, will likely get a smattering of what looks like the best priced add-ons, possibly combined with a smaller pledge. Shipping was gonna be a lot on top of an already massive pledge level and I just need to beat myself out of the 'get all the things!' mentality. Will probably still get a bunch of cool stuff down the road but only when I can try everything out on the pledge manager to see how it affects shipping and all that. Informed choices and all that.

However that does leave me with a theoretical wad of cash in my wallet that's otherwise just sitting around... what's that internet? You know where I could spend my money? What do you mean I already know what you're talking about? Oh battle systems? You don't say.... and the shipping is actually a lot more reasonable than I was first thinking? I guess you're right. Hmmm....

So yeah, considering that again. It's expensive but it looks superb, they've even added a shanty town variant that would be great for lots of post apoc settlements, really poor areas, rebuilt cities, etc... both contemporary and in the near/far-future. So, considering it.

Beyond that, dunno just bee floating around. Wife went back to work on the weekend leaving me and the kids to suffer through eachother's company friday-sunday. The baby seems to like her momma better than me lol, poor thing is fussier than her sister ever was. And of course the older one doesn't like the attention that has to go to the new baby. Oi. So little has gotten done. I got some more minis assembled and primed through heroic and concentrated efforts during the especially rare double nap time and what not. I'll show them off later if I get some paint on them maybe.

The primed pile is growing, for sure, but I could really plow through it in pretty short order if I could just get some quality hobby time. Unlikely.

We'll see!

I still think that farm board would be fun but after this last weekend I'm gonna stick to smaller projects, even theoretical ones.

Double nap time? That borders on miraculous! Did you buy a lottery ticket that day?

I ended up sticking with the $115 pledge to get an Asterian battlegroup. That will pretty much max out my Mantic SF collection pretty much forever. The battlesystems stuff looks nice, but I haven't even opened my rewards from their first KS. That makes it pretty easy to resist.

Ahh true. I opened mine up and got stuck in, although I hit some snags. Should have ordered more wall clips to go with my add-ons. I can cut the necessary spare clips out of the card sheet frames that the other bits came on, but it'll be a bit tedious.

I think the new stuff is a couple of generations better than the first wave and it just looks stupid fun to play with.

We'll see, it's still pretty expensive. Though when you compare it to that stuff Theo was talking about... you could get 3.7 sets of operation cerberus or basically three and a half 6x9" buildings that are 9 inches tall but have a funky corner out of one side (would get old past the second building) and you can break them down a bit more than that to have a bit more but shorter buildings. Not bad, really.

BS-PA comes out to like 5 buildings that are 8x8" and are uhh lemme think. You get 5 floors and some partial floors for collapsed roofs. So that makes, I dunno, 3-4 single high buildings and one can be a bit taller, or two two stories with three singles, or what have you, and don't forget all the play area the collapsed roofs give you. Plus you get a 2x2' rubber/mouse pad style game mat that looks to be really well detailed. That's 20 bucks discounted retail right there.

I think the plastic stuff gives you more square footage but I'm not sure it's a crazy amount more, plus the BS-PA estimates are without the extras and there look to be a lot of those (and a gak load of scatter terrain!).

Anyway not trying to compare apples and oranges I'm just really thinking if it you can cover a table much cheaper (without spending hours and hours hand crafting stuff, I know I could fill a 4x8' table for little more than the cost of glue and paint, but who's got the time?) than the BS stuff and what not. I mean there's model train stuff but that tends to get expensive quick and who knows if it'll all scale together between manufacturers etc. Well it should but still.

Besides the *possible* penning and some super glue reinforcement for the parts I use the most, this stuff should be pretty ready to go from the box and infinitely modular. Battlezones are a lot harder to take a part, model train stuff doesn't do it at all. The Dust stuff can come apart but it only makes one shape to my knowledge.

Anyway I'm blathering on. Still deciding but I'm a lot more favorable than I was last time, especially considering I probably won't spend as much on Warpath. I've got no prospects for opponents for a 28mm mass battles or even 30-50 man sized game, so best to just get the coolest bits.

Bah. Too tired to paint, I think. Color scheme isn't jumping out at me but I'm thinking something green.

It is a chore for me to get any hobby time with no children so how you do it with 2 young children I will never know!

I dropped out on Warpath too, just too long a wait and I was unsure of what would come out any good.

Have you got any quick and easy minis in the primed pile so that you can get rolling again?

Yeah I just knocked out a color scheme. Blocked it out I mean. Gonna probably have to completely finish and dip this one model before I'm sure I like it enough to do the rest of his team. I think I will. I mean, if it gets to the point that I dip him there's almost zero chance that I'll strip the model and I'll want them to match... But I need to get all of the basecoats as smooth as I get them (just one coat of everything atm so it's pretty spotty) and maybe choose a different color for the gun, think I may go back to black with grey/white highlights like I use for mars attacks and so on instead of the grey I tend to use in Infinity.

And no I'm not saying what they are. I'm embarrassed by the impulse purchase so I'm trying to knock them out so as to justify it

Not much progress. I'll have more moments when the bs-pa KS ends tomorrow. More moments but less monies.... They added a set for residential homes. Crazy awesome. I need at least some of everything. Glad I held back on warpath and looked at BS again.

So all I've got done lately is to mess around with a super simple set of game mechanics for when I'm lining models up for story time but I want some rolls involved to help inspire random chance to make interesting story telling opportunity.

More on that as I figure it out.

Having seen some of the issues that people are having with KOW2 and the 2 month and counting Dungeon Saga delay I am glad that I held off on Warpath too.

How much did you spend on Battle systems this time round?

Nothing yet. The main pledge is 78 pounds with 10 pounds to ship so nearly $135 per. I would like a couple, then the shanty town that's the same size and cost. They just added suburban houses and I'd love a mat full of those at roughly the same price as the other three things...and at least another hundred bucks in addons..... I haven't spent a dime yet as we're 11 hours to close but I wouldn't mind throwing 5-600 at this. Not sure I will, gonna go over finances here in a bit and reason with myself lol.

That seems like a pretty fair shipping cost given the weight that I assume the Battle Systems stuff comes in at.

5-600 pounds or dollars? Either way hold that trigger finger partner!

Dollars. And I dunno it'll be hard. Will add incrementally, some up front and more during PM. Maybe more after that in a last chance PM if they do it again. We'll see. It's expensive but would be so much fun to paint.

Got a mini painted, no time for photos though.

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/mgma55.html

Really hard for me to pass this up, but as I haven't gotten the basic set I think I'll pass. Your Mars attack Martians could use the reinforcements though.

I dunno that's too many IMO. Possibly more than I have in total. I already have two big stompys and a few saucers. If I was gonna make a full wargames army maybe...

Besides battle systems needs all that money

Intrigued by your idea for random chance in your narrative photos. Would like to see it in action sometime soon.

Yeah it's not quite as quick once I start playing it like it's a game with AI but... still relatively quick, my recorded notes were taken from 9-10pm. I took the rules so far out for a spin as twelve survivors try to cross past a small town-ish area outside of a military base. Most of them made it, but it got really dicey at the end I'm gonna get the photos on my machine tonight. I'd like to do a report but it may be too much, we'll see.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Got them into the gallery but I'm spent. Will see what I can do this week but it's sleep or doom.

Alright so this is a playtest of the initial scenario in the theoretical campaign, you basically start out with somewhere between 10-15 survivors (probably closer to 10) and try to get to safety with as many as possible. All the people that survived in a particular block/neighborhood/what have you. First mission is trying to get them out of danger, then they'll serve as your roster to use for making teams down the road. Will uploading in chunks incase I get interrupted.


Eva the cop with a shotgun, Agent Saddler with a pistol and briefcase full of bricks, Vasquez with a scoped rifle, Scotty (practically a liability), and Ashley with her little SMG. They quickly move up to the abandoned government building and dispatch the single crawling zombie they found inside.


As yet unnamed shotgun guy, Agent Crask, O'Hara, Troy with a crossbow, Deke with his army surplus m16, and another policeman with a shotgun. This half of the survivors were tasked with looting the cargo containers to find some useful gear and supplies before the group got out of the area. Unfortunately Crask found a shipping container full of zombies! Can our beleaguered survivors thin the herd before they're overcome?


Since they were spawned before the zombie phase of the game these walkers will get to act on this turn meaning that Crask and our shotgun toting friend are in line to get mauled!


In an act of desperation (hmm.. let's just call him Chuck eh?) Chuck uses the rapid fire option to fire twice this turn. At such close range he managed to shatter two zombies but rapid fire depletes your ammunition.



Officer Stevens moves up and unloads all of his rounds into the approaching pack also dropping two thanks to his close range shotgun. (I'm still working out if rapid fire should be a full round or if you can do it and still move, since it runs you out of ammo I'm leaning towards the second option).


Troy and O'hara did their best to finish the remaining zombies but failed to connect in a meaningful way, maybe they don't know to shoot for the head yet? Unfortunately Chuck was unable to fight off the single remaining hazmat suited walker and got mauled to death.


Thanks to all of the gunfire the threat level has increased and the buildings and table have started spawning a higher number of zombies. The noise from the guns has alerted those walkers and crawlers nearby to a potential feast! Each building will continue to potentially spawn more zombies until it's been checked out by a survivor (and that action is liable to show several zombies inside the building still!), and the map itself will continue to spawn indefinitely (though the threat level can vary). Here, the crawler has moved forward a bit and two more zombies have wandered out looking for a snack.


Mad at himself for failing to kill the zombie and save Chuck, Troy takes careful aim and puts the creature down at the next opportunity. The rest of the survivors decide it's best to get a move on now that shots have been fired and more zombies are coming than expected. It's just too dangerous to loot those containers with more zombies already around!


Did I forget to introduce Craig? Whoops. Here he can be seen dropping another zombie as it rounds the corner of Taco Mars, Craig had been trying to loot the supply crate in the previous round but now those walkers are getting too close for comfort!


Saddler, Vasquez, and Ashley fire down range in hopes of thinning out the growing mob so they can clear out the Taco Mars and move on towards the far end of the map.



Taco Mars proves to have been a very happening spot as more zombies continue to pour from it's broken doors.


Craig had better scram or his looting days will be over, those former soldier zombies have body armor on and are a fair bit tougher to kill!


The way forward is anything but clear!


Our diminished group of survivors trying to clear the unsafe container yard.


A lot of fire goes downfield at the armored soldier zombie.


The former denizens of Taco Mars are met with much lead resistance!


Unfortunately Eva has run out of ammunition.


But agent Saddler is keeping the heat on the approaching monsters.


More zombies pour out of Taco Mars and the outskirts of the map, that dog in particular looks to be quite dangerous!





Eva and Saddler lead their group around the bus to escape the growing hordes and link up with the rest of the group.


With their fellow survivors close at hand the second group downs the soldier zombie and moves to meet up.


Even more zombies pour out of Taco Mars and the ravenous hound nearly closes the distance to the first group of survivors!


While more zombies start to follow in the wake of all this violence, this place is really getting unsafe!


Even more zombies start to wander in from the edges of the map, more than one in the path of our survivors as they try to escape!


Craig fires at close range to put that menacing beast down.


The survivors meet up and commiserate the loss of Chuck while they make plans to escape.


Distraught at the growing numbers of zombies beginning to surround them, the two groups of survivors link up just pas the bus/tank wreck. Agent Crask puts down a zombie coming in past the cargo containers, and a couple more zombies are taken out of the path of escape by other survivors.


The previously spawned zombies lumber after the survivors and the dangerous zombie dog is put down before it can drag them down (zombie dogs can move just as fast as a survivor running flat out, twice as fast as a normal zombie, and can really ruin your plans of escape!).


Even as the survivors glob into one larger group, more zombies continue to close in on them.



As the number of walkers gets to be less manageable and the survivors start running out of ammo, they make a cautious advance through whatever is in their way.


Several zombies are put down and won't be following our survivors anymore, but was this a wise use of their remaining ammunition, what might lay before them?


The survivors are beset on all sides, every building near them seems to be teeming with zombies and the walkers are coming out of the woodwork. Another frighteningly quick reanimated hound puts the group in great peril as more walkers close in from the container yard.


Evidence of just how surrounded these poor survivors are looking to get (I start spawning zombies at the very edges of the table, but to keep the action up I tend to crop the effective size of the battlefield as the survivors cross it to keep fresh spawns closer and more relevant).


There isn't much further to go but the survivors have got to get within walking distance of the edge of the map, running off the map could be suicidal if there were any theoretical zombies out there! More tough solider zombies keep spawning as well which poses a real problem for our low-on-bullets survivors!


Desperate to thin out the horde troy moves forward to clear the small building but finds that it's got two more zombies in it!


The zombie dog is put down as the survivors who still have guns (and the two or three weapons they looted back in the container yard are starting to run dry too!) desperately try to thin out the advancing hordes.


The desperate survivors herd up with the weak and unarmed towards the center. One of the waste-shed zombies is destroyed but many more are closing as yet another weapon runs out of bullets!


In the end Troy is overpowered by the crawler he unearthed, nobody could get it down in time!


Things are starting to look truly desperate!


Officer Stevens makes a bold move to push forward and clear out the soldier zombie who is now blocking the best path out of the area, but he not only fails to kill the monster but runs out of shells in the process!


Three of the unarmed women work together to drag the mangled troy away from the walker who has been shot down by O'Hara, while the others press forward towards the exit. Deke's backup reserves of ammo really help out as he's able to finish off a soldier zombie who's nearly caught up to the gang.


Menaced from all sides, it's time to get out of there NOW.


And things look even worse after the zombie phase with more spawns and further shambling encroachment.


So many biters closing in!


Everyone keeps pressing for the exit, Ashley and Eva dragging troy while Stevens brings up the rear trying to keep them safe. Saddler finally runs out of bullets trying to thin the herd keeping pace.


Their backs are really to the wall now! Multiple zombies are in striking distance for next turn and Officer Stevens has run afoul of the third zombie dog spawned in this scenario, brutal, and there's no time for anyone to go back after him!


Stevens! Noooo! Tat tat tat!




One final pot shot from fleeing survivors puts down the zombie dog but these guys have *got* to get out of there.


The nearest walkers close on Stevens buying the survivors a few seconds to get well clear so they can start trotting away.


Wow, what a swarm there at the end.


Here's our remaining group. They managed to loot some medicine and tried to stabilize troy but he didn't make it in the end.



This played pretty quick though taking notes makes it take longer. I've also decided to take notes by hand as they're more accurate than using my voice recorder each round, and I can match the pictures up a bit better. I've got another one like this to upload at some point, and will probably do more as I keep moving on. I'll probably post rules for feed back soon too, but I'd like to get them a bit more organized and type them up (just in my notebooks atm).

Painted a scarecrow dude too (avatar) and a little more work here or there, but not getting a whole lot done lately.

I've got to get used to that new avatar. The game looks like it was pretty fun. What ruleset were you using? Pulp Alley? Did you use 4 Deadzone mats for this? That looks like it covers a huge area. I don't think I even have a space large enough to do 2 mats,.

I also recognize most of the figures, but where does Chuck come from? I don't recognize him.

Good stuff, more than happy to give you some feedback on the rules when you post them. They look very fun!

Thanks.

Barzam this was the first test of a set of technically generic but currently specific to zombie survival rules I'm playing with . As simple as possible all action is decided with one or two d6s and there is some usage of scatter dice, and other dice types for stuff like loot tables and building spawn amounts by size.

I used four deadzone mats on my 4x8 plywood-over-cheap-air-hockey-table semi permanent board. Chuck is one of the novas vira from mars attacks. I'll be raiding my WGF survivors sprues to get my other two copies to have different gear.

I think I may break out my 6x paper mars attacks mats sometime and try to flatten them out. I wonder if there is any way to press roll them onto some kind of stiff backing to help them be flat and crisp...

Thanks Para, I wanna refine them some more, a lot of it is disjointed scribblings and notes. ATM the core mechanic is very simple but there's s wide range of actions. I'll need to do some extensive olaytesting too. At the moment I've had groups pretty successfully completing scenarios with no casualties and while I want that to be possible I don't want it to be automatic. Think roguelike/ftl/Oregon trail... I want players to be able to win a campaign, but you probably won't be able to get everyone to safety by the end.

Campaign stuff will form the bulk of the rules as I want to have a different run every time with bandit raids, possible negotiations turned into shoot outs and so on.

So is the plan to have this adaptable for other settings, like a handful of survivors attempting to escape a Tyranid horde or a band of adventurers stumbling across an army of orcs and letting fly with swords, spells and arrows? Or is it just Zombies?

Ah, he's Novas Vira. I totally forgot about those guys.

Have you looked into 2 Hour Wargames' stuff? It sounds like you have a few similar ideas. The zombie spawning in particular sounds similar to the mechanic from Red Ops 5 the way gunfire was attracting the undead.

Red Ops 5 is based on All Things Zombie, which is the Grand daddy of Zombie Miniatures games. Honestly it's an enjoyable game, and the zombie AI and spawn mechanic were pioneering at the time, but it's kind of dated, and a bit clunky.

Grim, I didn't catch what rules you are using. Is it something homebrewed, or are you just adapting something else ?

Awesome BatRep BTW

I have not looked into two hour wargames, something to bookmark for the future perhaps .

Homebrew which is why I'll probably rely on some of you guys to proofread and talk me out of stupid mechanics

I'm reworking how I take notes during games, trying out pen and paper for the next few. They play so quickly I may consider doing a video report some time but I doubt I have the sound and light setup to make it a good one. Another game is in the queue and I've gone over at least half a dozen other runs. Takes well under an hour to run a scenario, with notes it may be an hour, maybe. I've gotta test and balance *everything* though lol.

Making the post now, filling the report up in the next few minutes if I don't get interrupted. This is the second game I've run through using the rules, I've done several since but haven't been doing a report a piece as it takes a lot longer, these are better for findings or whatever, not the testing itself.

So our group from the first scenario has made it to a relatively safe place but they're going to need supplies if they want to stay alive. A group of four volunteers is plumbing the depths of the trashed army base and it's surrounding small town and environs. The objectives here are to loot at least 4 usable items -- be it more weapons or things like durable superior clothing, food, water, medicine, and so on -- (each may have additional campaign uses but right now it's basically VP, some of which may be useful guns), to explore at least one building, and to reach at least halfway up the map (or it wouldn't be much of a scouting/exploration run now would it?). Let's see if Craig, Crask, Vasquez, and Eva can complete their mission, eh?


The field, a small collection of offices and facilities outside one of the entrances to the Scott Air Force base. This map is 2x4' and has four buildings capable of spawning zombies, as well as a spawn for the map itself (which may or may not have a balance tweak in the future).


The placement of our heroes.


Craig-'I hope this goes smoother than our heroic escape yesterday...', Crask-'You and me both pal, you and me both.'


Eva and Vasquez chose to be a bit more stoic and simply scout out their surroundings.


Crask decided to take charge of his wing of the group, he advised Craig "Alright kid get set to cover that building over there, but wait till we're set up before we knock the door in". Craig grunted an affirmative and took stock of his remaining shells. Vasquez reported to Eva, "I'm gonna cover you guys from up in that tower, try not to let me get surrounded by those... things" to which Eva replied "Right, I'm gonna check this container. Something comes up behind us you let us know." Eva then unlatched the shipping container and rummaged around until she found a crowbar and some sturdy army uniforms.


As the wary survivors got set up for their next move an armored soldier walker stumbled out from the entrance of the military complex. Another zombie wandered outside of the nearby administration building.


(Round 2) Crask checked out the yellow machine shop, "Looks like we're clear this time kid, see what you can find".


Craig obliged him by quickly overturning containers boxes and so on, but "Sorry boss, but there isn't much of use in this crap heap".


Vasquez motioned to Eva to alert her of the walkers latest on the scene, and Eva moved up to guard the tower's ladder. No new walkers came onto the field this time around.



(round 3)
Having spotted Vasquez up on the tower both zombies have been heading steadily for her position since they came onto the scene. Craig doubled checked the building but there just wasn't anything to be found, "Damn it, this isn't going too well boss." Hoping to lure the zombies back a bit further and handle things quietly, Crask moved back closer to Craig and told him "Just get ready kid, we need to take these things out quiet like so we can keep looking". Eva also faded back a bit but only enough to keep the walker interested in her and unaware of her friends. Vasquez nervously checked her aim on both walkers but held her shot, knowing from the last encounter with these things that more will come running once the bullets start to fly. Since things were still quiet, no new zombies have shown up yet.


(bad orientation, sorry, round 4) (here we see a new rule being tested, distract). Following the procedure the four had hashed out while walking to the site, Eva held her ground a bit while Craig moved up to the deceased hazmat worker and whistled, catcalled and otherwise made an ass of himself in it's general direction "Hey, ugly! Yeah that's right you don't want that skinny cop chick you want some grade A beef right here don'cha?". The walker spun around in mid stride almost toppling and began to hiss and growl and gurgle at Craig as it reached out for him, desperately hungry. Eva used it's distracted state to collapse it's skull with the butt of her shotgun, just as planned. "Good work, Craig. Let's keep this up so we can get back in one piece. Hey Crask keep an eye on that one he's getting close!". And Eva wasn't wrong, though Crask had been keeping an eye out just fine and wasn't caught aware as the undead soldier approached.


"Bit close for comfort guys! Let's put this thing down before I lose my cool and start shootin!" Crask quickly stated, clearly getting more than a bit nervous so close to the armored soldier zombie. So far so good though, this was the only zombie in the area that they knew about.


(round 5) With the other zombie down Eva moved to support Crask, rushing behind the trooper zombie and cat calling it. It almost ignored her but at the last minute it switched gears to come after her. Crask wasted no time rushing up behind it and breaking it's neck with a loose board that was laying around.


"Good work guys!" softy called Vasquez, still diligently checking the field for more walkers. Craig didn't waste any time, once he knew the others had the trooper under control he ran up to the next building in line, hand on the doorknob but waiting for everyone to get set back up. Vasquez finally spotted another walker creeping out of the storage shack up the way and whispered word to her companions.


(round 6)
Craig quietly opened the door to the admin building with a white-knuckled grip on the stock of his shotgun. "gak! Oh gak guys there's at least four of them in there!" Craig cried out as he fumbled to fire his weapon into the closest of the approaching cluster. He managed to down the legless ex-woman who crawled out first but another crawler was advancing on him right in front of two more walkers, one with the same armor as the last zombie the group had killed. Crask took careful aim and put one right below the helmet of the trooper, putting it down, but leaving two more to menace Craig, and they were nearly on top of him! Vasquez too careful aim but the thing in her sights lurched unexpectedly and the shot went too high. Desperate not to lose another companion Eva sprung out from behind the road block and unloaded her shotgun at close range. She'd been carefully conserving her ammo but with Craig's life on the line she fired shell after shell into the approaching zombies, barely managing to stop them before they could reach him. Eva succeded, but ran out of shells in the process. "gak! gak gak gak! Craig, are you alright man?!" To which Craig responded breathlessly "Jesus feth! Thank's Eva, those sonsabitches were almost on top of me!"


Vasquez called down "Better hurry guys, I've got a feeling we're gonna have a pack of trouble in a few minutes...". She wasn't making idle banter either, no less than four zombies stumbled out into the burning daylight in response to the gunfire. (the typical default low-level/quiet spawn rate for the map and buildings is threat level 1, which is a d6-5, or only new zombies on a six. The gunfire this round shifted it to level two which is a d6-3, so from 16%/1 zombie up to 50% chance for one or more. Eventually level three rolls a d3 or 100% every round but no faster than level 2, just guaranteed. I haven't even tried out a potential level 4 at 1d6 per point per round, but it would have to be a mostly running away type of scenario or something, that's a loooot of zombies!).


(round 7)
Things are really heating up as four zombies have come out of hiding to mob the survivors. Craig ransacked the building and came out with a crate with food, another crowbar, and some drinking water. "Hey guy's, this one wasn't so ba... Oh gak!" Craig cried out as another hazmat suited walker lunged after him with a stiff-legged gait.


Crack'ooom! "I've got you covered Craig" Vasquez called out as she planted that very same walker with her rifle. Eva trotted past Craig and snagged the crowbar out of his crate, putting it to use on the cargo crates just outside the admin building, desperate for any weapon. "Well I'll be damned. The Lord provides people, so sayeth these shells!" Eva waxed evangelical as she found more shells for her shotgun, what are the odds?


Crask focused on the matter at hand taking careful aim at the trooper zombie missing a leg limping his way, but he didn't manage to put it down.


(round 8)
The sustained gunfire lured more monsters to the area, including a dangerous zombie hound.


Eva quickly reloaded her weapon and put a pack of holes in the approaching soldier zombie. Crask fired diligently at the approaching zombies but his gun ran dry, "Crap guys, I'm out!". Vasquez took careful aim and silenced the zombie dog threatening her friends.


Craig ambled out of the building with a load of cold weather coats on hangers in his arms "Hey guys I know it's a bit early but I thought we coul...gak! Where do they keep coming from, we gotta get outa here!". More walkers approached and things were indeed getting a fair bit harrier.


(round 9)
Vasquez aimed and fired again but to no avail this time. Eva fires her newly found shells and downs another approaching zombie, gotcha!


Craig put his shotgun to use for the first time since he started looting but fires his last shell to no outcome, "Crap!". With a nod from Crask (also out of bullets) Craig catcalled the zombie to keep it attentive of him and the agent sneaked behind and brained the super shopper zombie. As will sometimes happen, this zombie had some personal items that turned out to be useful, after a quick frisk Crask found himself a sexy little accessory pistol in her purse, re armed baby! He would come to need the bullets, five more zombies lurched onto the field at this point!


(round 10)
Crask called out "We've gotta move people, I'm gonna run up and get the lay of the land and we are out of here!".


Crask quickly ran to the center line to confirm the lay of the land though the prevalence of walkers had kind of already ruled this zone out as an escape route. Vasquez continued to have poor luck with her rifle, perhaps unnerved by the walkers piling up below her near the tower's ladder. Eva managed to put down another zombie with her shotgun and Craig went about looting the stack of crates by the admin building. No guns, but he did manage to loot some quality foodstuffs. Not less than SIX more zombies ambled into the area at this point, nuts!


(round 11)
Vasquez got proactive about downing zombies encroaching on her position.


Eva moved up and finished clearing the ladder.


Craig tried looting one last time but had no luck, he moved to catch up with Eva and was passed by Crask fleeing the approaching swarm.


And I meant swarm, a couple more zombies arrived here, but the ones already around were bad enough!


(round 12)
Eva plugged one more zombie as everyone prepared to leave the field. Only a couple more zombies wandered in and they're behind the rest, get in line people!


(round 13)
Everyone spent their time clearing the field, and look at what's trailing them!


Everyone alive and with fairly bulging bags to boot!


The team just wasn't ready for these numbers, but at least they were only trying to scout the area and get some gear.


Overrun!

And there's the second scenario. More to come. Watching both kids as I type this so I'll add some more thoughts when I get the chance!

That batrep was fun and inspirational. I wish I could go back five years and go with clear bases instead of the plastic bases I use-- they look really good on the DZ mats. Also, weren't you going to post more photos of Battlezones for me to copy?

10 or 15 more photos and a few more rounds still coming.

Thanks Josh, I really do like the clear bases What were you looking for in specific, stuff from my collection or some of the neater shapes I've found on the internet? I've been trying to stick with painted terrain but I can make an effort to photo and post the rest of my stuff (sorry, I barely get a chance to get down here and am pretty forgetful =/).

Cool Batrep.

Thanks. Sadly takes probably as long to edit and post (if not longer) than it does to play May have to try the video thing, then you can all be annoyed by my voice muahaha.

Got a couple of survivors nearly done, may wait to finish them till their batch is caught up though.. do the eyes all at once and dip them at the same time. I need to find a good place to store the mobile paint station upstairs so I can sneak moments of painting goodness in more often.

That's an amazing looking pair of games you've written up there. Looks like a hell of a lot of fun, and visually it looks amazing as well. I reckon your MA scenery would work there very well with the survivors having a real "moderns" look to them

Thanks
Yeah, that would be Ideal, I just don't have enough of it done yet. I've put in for two 'city blocks' worth of post apoc battle systems terrain and may well double that between add-ons and residential homes before it's all said and done so expect reports this time next year to have a phenomenal increase in architecture aesthetic

Mars attacks terrain is on my back burner though, need to bring it forward.

I really need to scrape together a team of deadzone-derived survivors to play around with, as they fit the scenery and spikey zombies better.

 GrimDork wrote:
10 or 15 more photos and a few more rounds still coming.

Thanks Josh, I really do like the clear bases What were you looking for in specific, stuff from my collection or some of the neater shapes I've found on the internet? I've been trying to stick with painted terrain but I can make an effort to photo and post the rest of my stuff (sorry, I barely get a chance to get down here and am pretty forgetful =/).

I would be happy with either. I'm already planning to steal that tower design.

I need half a dozen more scifi buildings if I'm gonna have a decent 4x4 spread without leaning heavily on vehicles/transports/wide open spots... so I should start on those kinda soon. If I see anything else while I'm perusing the internet I'll be sure to share it here as well.

Just for you here's a neat little tank trap kind of thing I saw on the table of the guys who did a couple of Warpath bat reps during the kickstarter. Just three little triangle pieces but pretty neat.

That's pretty cool. Those come in the landing pad kit, right? I only ever got one, so I may not be able to build any of these, but I may be able to crank something out using scrap plasticard.

That's nice and simple. Looks great, although it's enormous.

Loved the report, really entertaining. All the terrain and models make for a spectacular report. Really interested in more, although it must have taken hours to play, collate, edit and type. You bless us with your effort.

I'm not entirely sure if I love the use of triangles on this thing myself, as you can do some really neat things to the buildings by injecting the new angles... but one is probably worth having. It *is* fairly large as a tank trap, what with being as large as a tank. I figure they plop one of these down in a 6" space between two buildings (wide road width relatively) and now big vehicles can't get past. Probably injected it with some kind of space/future concrete otherwise the tank could just blow past the building panels.

Thanks Archer. Just wait till I get the scenery and figures matching up, some space/future minis to go with the current terrain, and some more contemporary buildings to fit the modern survivors.

Great battle reports there! Pics really capture the action and storytelling. Some intense moments there. Look forward to more!

Thanks, more in the works. To help out, I've just finished six more survivors with a bit more of a focus on close combat. Need to get some more zombies done though there are a couple of other things I'm eager to get to soon as well so we'll see.

You can never have enough zombies.

Unless of course you intend on painting them all. Then I guess there are some practical limits.

Yeah that's a truth. I've got a lot of stuff built and primed so going back and building more seems backwards with so much ready... But I do need moar zombies..

Oh yeah got those survivors totally done.

The survivors look good.

I gave up painting all my zombies when I started buying them 100 at a time. After about 50 of them, everything that makes it to the table is just gray.

Thanks. I'm not sure how many you need for zombicide but I'm sure if I ever get to play I'll want to paint enough for everything that spawns. The little game I've been working out isn't going to need that many, I don't think.

Dude, I love those survivors. Apart from Mars Attacks, I have nothing like that. You have corrupted, er, inspired me to fill a gap in my collection.

On the bright side a box of 30 weighs in at less that a dollar a mini full retail. I think I got both the male and female survivor boxes for 15 or 16 dollars each on amazon.

The main downside of the kits is that you get three survivor sprues and one extra weapon/gear sprue per box. Now, some of those poses are very adaptable. There's a body with a long cost that can receive a lot of arms and work as a leather coat, duster, trench, or lab coat. You can make him a priest, cowboy, neo, and so on. The fat lady with the rocket launcher default is very hard to repurpose. So you may get 30 people but some of them will look a tad samey next to one another.

Minor complaint though. The only other thing is that some of the arms don't fit certain bodies well but minimal greenstuff skills sorts that problem right out.

I took a quick look on Amazon.co.jp last night, and WGF survivors are ￥7000 per box. I think I can wait until my next visit to the US...

~70 bucks? Ooouch. No thanks.

Yeah, that's Japan prices for you. When the yen was a little stronger against the dollar, It was cheaper to pay for international shipping through The Warstore than to buy from inside Japan.

Always harder to get stuff when zombies overrun the place you are "shopping" at.

Yeah it's kind of a race to loot useful stuff before you screw up and bring the hammer down on yourselves.

Survivors are looking great, I really need to set aside some time to read through the battle reports. But because of your Mars Attacks fun I will be busy with three sets of the core box later this week .
ACK ACK AkkaACKhttp://www.damncoolteez.com/products/square/1144834.png I'm thinking they might just wind up in bill the cat orange and the civies might come from Bloom County.

Yeah you went in heavy on core sets but its a fun game and excellent value for what you paid. I need to finish my martians and try out my game rules with a different kind of AI enemy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've gotten 6-9 zombies done recently with more bits prepped. Working withantic fantasy and sci-fi zombies and I'm gonna mix in some vixens and probably zimbify some of the less versatile male/female survivors between the fantasy and vixens kits.

By the time I eventually get zombicide I'm hoping to have a pretty fat like if zombies already painted up.

That kid survivor is great. I think I prefer the male group. It is really refreshing to see some different sized models in a range too. Not everyone can be mr universe can they?

Yeah I like most everyone in both sets but I do have my favorites. Gonna put up photos of dungeon saga black fortress tileset in a bit.

No time here's photos:




Used every tile and all of the furniture and doors save one (daughter stole it!)

Looks good. Wait till she gets older and then more things disappear, like your bank account because she figured out your password on the iPhone and downloaded $200+ worth of games . Luckily we got those reversed.

Yeah I'll have to make sure to beef up the passwords on stuff like that when she gets bigger.

The black fortress set is OK. There is texture on both sides but its identical. Apparently the core set IS dual sided with different textures so its not a total wash... My best guess is that they skimped on paying for a second texture because A.) They never promised it and B.) This is a product that may not reach retail.

That's my theory. If it were gonna hit retail why not make it a stronger product. But if they're just making a limited run for backers why bother.

And it IS good enough. A little repetitive but it works.

Bodies all over the damn place too, the artist took queues from diablo games I think. Almost every single tile bit has a corpse on it. Guess it's ed the black fortress for a reason.

The main set contains scenarios where the tiles flip.

I didn't want to spoil that surprise in the KS thread, but I'll blab here.

Ahh that's awesome. Glad they thought it out. Kinda reinforces my theory of black fortress is just gonna be for backers.

Those tiles don't interlock, it looks like. Not good if someone bumps the table. The 3d stuff looks nice enough.

 Red Harvest wrote:
Those tiles don't interlock, it looks like. Not good if someone bumps the table. The 3d stuff looks nice enough.

Nope- all held together with plastic clips.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
I took a quick look on Amazon.co.jp last night, and WGF survivors are ￥7000 per box. I think I can wait until my next visit to the US...

Josh. Go for UK retailers. Free worldwide shipping over 30 quid.

http://www.firestormgames.co.uk/wargames-miniatures/wargames-factory

I'll comment on Grim's stuff tomorrow. Just got to do something real quick before bed now.

 Azazelx wrote:

 JoshInJapan wrote:
I took a quick look on Amazon.co.jp last night, and WGF survivors are ￥7000 per box. I think I can wait until my next visit to the US...

Josh. Go for UK retailers. Free worldwide shipping over 30 quid.

http://www.firestormgames.co.uk/wargames-miniatures/wargames-factory

I'll comment on Grim's stuff tomorrow. Just got to do something real quick before bed now.

Thanks to Abenomics, the yen is frighteningly weak against pretty much any currency, making it difficult to justify buying anything from anywhere. I have a few unpainted minis lying around, though, so I can tough it out a while longer.

 GrimDork wrote:
Oh yeah got those survivors totally done.

These survivors have come up really well, Grim. You totally have to get hold of Zombicide.

Yeah it's on the list. Either for X-mas, or from x-mas derived funds, or from amazon shortly thereafter once the points have built up.

I gotta say so far my least favorite thing between the three WGF kits is how much bigger the zombie vixens' heads are compared to their bodies. They all have relatively poofy hair for some reason and really narrow shoulders so it looks a tad silly in some cases. Doing what I can.

'80's Hair? They should have enormous shoulders for that. XD

Yeah I'm not really sure what was going on in the design process... they heads aren't necessarily too big but they look like it, kind of sort of offputting.

Oh well, eventually they'll be mixed in with a horde of zombicide zombies and when there's over a hundred of them I doubt people are going to stop to comment on one's big hair

Oh here are some zombies will and built.