Kickstarter backed

As a follower of Wargame News and Terrain, I was very pleased to see they had posted about a kickstarter project called Z-War-One

Any zombie gaming fan should, at the very least, check it out. Unfortunately, I was too late for the early bird pledge, but have gone for the 'Total War' pledge level.

The 'comic book' approach they've gone for is really intriguing ....

6mm City

Waaay back in this post :  not-city-but-building, I posted pictures of the first of the 6mm buildings I made for ATZ: Mass Hysteria.  Well, I made quite a few and got them out to take pics today. In this first one you can see the building from the first post in the centre right of the pic, and in the centre background is one of the 6mm police bases I've done

This next photo shows the police base a lot closer and 28mm zed-me to give an idea of size

Here we have the city as it is right now; I intend to add a few more buildings

 From a different angle

And a close-up of one of the bigger buildings at the back with the police base on the roof

For those who don't have ATZ:MH, it uses 3" square city blocks, which is the standard I've used above. All the buildings above are free from here: http://www.hawkwargames.com/blogs/downloadable-buildings

They are designed for 10mm games, but I printed the A3 pages on A4 which is about 60% - just right for 6mm

Willpower?? What's that?

It's been quite a week since my last post ... during which my willpower to resist new "shinies" seems to have evaporated completely :(

Having read a post ( planning-winter-war ) on Steve Blease's blog, I caved in and have backed the Baker Company Winter War Kickstarter.  This conflict is one that I've long wanted to game, so although slightly guilty about the expense (I've gone for the £120 'Border Assault' pledge) I'm happy to have done it.

(This pledge level will give me Finnish and Soviet Platoons and includes access to all stretch-goals - currently upto 19! - and free limited figures.)

Also, on Saturday just gone, I went to Newcastle to attend my younger sister's 40th birthday do (gawd do I feel old ... my little sister is 40!).  Anyway, I decided to visit Wargames Emporium in Sheffield on my way, so browsed their website to see what they had ...

After discovering their Hydra Miniatures' War Rocket pages, and then reading this detailed review of the game, I decided to shell out for the game and some miniatures. Needless to say, I got carried away and bought too much :(

Apart from increasing my lead & resin mountains, I'm still working on the rebasing of my 6mm zombie game figures. Despite what I said in my last post - 6mm-zombies - I've gone for 5 military or police on a base, 6 civilians and 8 zombies. I'll take some pics soon and post them here ...

6mm Zombies

Well after a delay my 6mm zombie hordes from Exodus Wars finally arrived over the weekend (would provide a link, but their webiste is down ...).  I got 4 packs each of which has 50 zombies in - 20 male and 10 of female, boy and girl zombies ... Exodus' in house painter has published a picture of the painted horde here and I'm looking forward to getting mine done soon.

Meanwhile, I've decided to re-base the military, police and civilians that you can see in this pic, from the last-but-one post. After considerable messing about trying to texture the bases, I decided that they looked too empty, so I'm doing them all again. This time they'll be on 25mm square bases. Instead of 4 figures on each military and police base, and 5 on a civilian base, I'm going to put 5 on a military, 6 on police and 7 or 8 (not sure atm) on the civilian bases.  As to the zeds ... I'll put together some mock-ups and seek advice from the blog-o-sphere soon!

Not a city, but a building ...

Well, I didn't get the 'cityscape' together last night, but I did get out one of the buildings I've made ... I also did a 'proof of concept' on the base finish I intend to use. You can see that on the smaller support base - as well as the top of the building - in the photo to the right. Also there is one of the police bases.

To the left you can see an angled shot of the building with the bases still on the top to give an idea of size. Unfortunately, the building's colour is really washed out in this pic ...

... but this pic - despite it's decidedly pooh quality :( - gives a much better idea of the colour!


I got a lot more painting and first stage basing done last night and hope to get more done tonight, although there's no promise of an update as rapidly as this one appeared!

Finally painted something!

Over the weekend, I managed to get some paint onto some figures! It may not sound like much of an acievement (and the grand scale of things, it really isn't ...), but I'm pleased, as I can't really remember the last time I painted anything ... :(  I've got pics below of what I've painted, and the cars I got from eBay that I mentioned in my last post; however, I've just added a desk lamp which seems to have made the photos to bright :( I suppose it makes a change from too dark though!

Anyway, last week I'd managed to base up all the 6mm figures I'd got from Irregular to use with ATZ-Mass Hysteria, and you can see them in the group pic to the right. Humans in ATZ-MH come in 3 types, Military, Police or Civilians and in the pic, the Military bases are in the green rectangle, Police in the blue, and civvies in the red. As you might be abble to make out, there are 2 types of Military bases: 'normal' and 'support' (the smaller ones at the top).

To the left is a close-up of  one of the painted 'normal' military bases. Flesh for hands & faces, leaf green for uniform, umber for boots and dark grey for weapons is the extent of colours used.  With 6mil's the key is to paint in blobs and remember they'll be seen at arm's length!

Here is one of the Police bases. Again a very simple scheme. As this photo and the one before show, I've gone with 4 figures per base for the Military and Police, but five for civilians - none of them painted so no pics!  I've not got any zed bases done yet - figures not arrived! - but when I do them, I'll stick as many on as I can manage for a real horde effect ...

So, as all the military bases were done, I dipped them using Army Painter magic dip, strong tone. This really gives the mini's a great finish, although the pics don't do it justice I'm afraid ...  to the left is a normal base

Here is one of the two types of support base I've done - this is a GPMG

And here is the second type of support base - a mortar team. In Grekwood mini's accesory sale (thanks Carl!) I got some Extra fine ballast that I'm going to use to finish the bases

I trawled back through my photos and found this picture to the right that shows more clearly how the dip finishes the 6mil figs - in this case a Baccus WSS infantry strip (the sames as recently seen in this post on Clint's blog); for before and after dipping pics see this post:
army-painter-quick-shade-aka-magic-dip

On to the cars I purchased from eBay. For the princely sum of £6.17 (with free p&p) I got the bag of painted model cars that you see to the left. Allegedly it contains 100 painted cars, but I haven't counted them ;)

The ebay item description (hope the link works!) describes them as 'N/Z 1:200' scale, but as you can see in the pic to the right they fit almost perfectly with the (supposedly!) 1/300th figures from Irregular - at least IMHO!

And they also seem to fit with the 1/300th vehicles that I got from Irregular at the same time, which are (l-r in pic) a fire engine (which seems very small to me!), Transit Van and Saxon APC

Apart from use as board clutter/decoration, I intend to use them to make the barricades that ATZ-MH allows you to make to slow the onrushing zed horde, and the pic to the right shows a quick mock-up of how that might appear; not entirely sure at present how I'll do it though ...

That's it for this post; next time I'll show the city-scape I've made for the game, and hopefully some more of the figures painted

Two Hour Wargames' 'Not-at-Historicon Sale'

As the title of the post says, Two Hour Wargames are running their "Not-at-Historicon sale" which gives 20% off their titles if you enter 'hist20' as a coupon code when checking out. I've taken advantage of it and got myself '5150 Star Navy', '5150 Fighter Command' and 'All Things Zombie - Mass Hysteria' (ATZ-MH)- all titles that I wanted, but wouldn't otherwise have bought ... so I guess the sale worked in pulling me in!

I've read the first few pages of ATZ-MH and am very much liking what I've seen so far! I think it's far more likely to be acceptable at the club that 'normal' ATZ, and it's got me thinking of 6mm Zombie Wars!

That's it for now - just wanted to publicise this sale for those of you not on the 2HW yahoo list

In other news:

• I am very much looking forward to tonight's game game of IHMN vs Andy, even though I'm not ready for it! I've yet to stat up my Company :(  but believe that I can do that in time - here's hoping anyway!
• Finally got Prof Mek-a'nik's Marvellous Mole Machine ready to use in tonght's game finished to an acceptable level last night - woo-hoo!

about time ...

I posted here! Not much has changed for me, still not getting much done, especially on the hobby front :(

I have recently tried reducing my happy pill allowance - in conjunction with my doctor, I hasten to add! - and it seems not to have worked very well :(  the pit has pulled me back in ...

Enough of my self-pity though!  I recently ordered a set of Colgar6's ATZ event cards - see this post on his blog for details: ATZ Event Cards: Finally! - and they arrived over the weekend, which was a pleasant surprise when I really needed one.

The cards are - IMNSHO - absolutely splendid and should be acquired by anyone who plays ATZ.  I really, really hope that Colgar6 is getting a kickback from ArtsCow for each set purchased as it is thoroughly deserved by him; a lot of work and thought has obviously gone into the cards and he should be rewarded for it.

Anyway, that's it for now; stay well everyone and Irqan, thanks for the Liebster award and I'll post on that soon (ish! ;) )

New Arrivals at my Hovel 01

I'm sure I posted somewhere about these impending arrivals, but can I find where it was now I'm posting about them? can I f**k!

Anyway, back on the 8th October, I stumbled across the Warmacre website (can't remember how!) and browsed their modern miniatures range, as always looking for my mini's for my British zed-a-lypse

Thhe miniatures looked pretty good to me (and the prices even better!), so after an email to Warmacre to check the contents, I ordered the "No-Go-Zone ‘Friday Night’ Miniatures & Rulebook" pack, plus No-Go-Zone Hooligans/Rioters pack. With the ridiculous postage charge (i.e. a flat £1 to the UK!) that totalled £31 for 30 miniatures (each with slotta base & metal scenic top!) plus a rulebook.

Yes, that's right. £31 for 30 28mm miniatures.  Bargain!

The package arrived on the following saturday, IIRC, and here's a pic of the contents:

As I said above, each miniature has a 20mm slottabase plus one of a variety of scenic metal tops. The tops themselves have a tab moulded on the base to fit in the slottabase's slot, and they seem to me to be pretty well sculpted.  Unfortunately, all my mini's are on 2ps or 25mm slotta's so although I won't use the slotta's (I do use 20mm's for kids, small animals, etc, so they won't be wasted), I intend to use the tops on the larger slotta's. As you can see to the left, each top has a hole for the peg that is on each mini's foot.

And speaking of the miniatures, following are front and back pictures of the contents of each pack. First is No-Go-Zone Police 1 which has 5 PCs and a WPC. There is no flash on the figs (the pic is straight from the pack) but mould lines are visible. The sculpts are good, but not excellent.

Next up is No-Go-Zone Police 2. This time, there are 3 PCs, 1 WPC and 2 Paramedics. The same comments for Police 1, above, apply here for flash, mouldlines and sculpts.

Now the No-Go-Zone Chaos pack, which holds 6 criminals, including 2 prostitutes. There is nothing specifically criminal about them to my eyes though, so they'll make great civvies/survivors in the zed-a-lypse. Again, no flash, mouldlines and good sculpts.

The final pack in the 'Friday-Night' set is No-Go-Zone Citizens. I especially like the figure eating crisps and the woman searching in her bag - for zed-repellent perhaps?

Finally, the extra pack that I got, No-Go-Zone Hooligans/Rioters. A nice variety of poses here, obviously designed to be taunting a line of police, and I think they'll do excellently for zed-gaming. The only bit of flash in 30 figs is here, attached to the bottom left mini's index finger.

I am very, very pleased with my purchase, and I would have been had the figures been twice the price I paid for them.  I may not have been flattering about the sculpts but they are very acceptable and a damned sight better than I could manage. The only thing that I haven't done yet is compare them size-wise with other figures, but they 'look' the right size to me.

All-in-all they are very welcome additions to my lead mountain, and the police especially are essential for anyone setting a zed-game (or any other kind) in modern Britain (yes, I'm looking at you m'lud Siwoc!)

PS - this post is number 01 as my Mantic Games parcel arrived yesterday, so will post on that soon!

Update and Something Ordered ...

I made some progress on my Stoelzel's Structures' Local Pub this weekend; all the windows are fully 'glazed' [what a goddamn pain that was! Carl - don't make windows that small again! grrr!  ;) ] and the next step is to do the doors. Once they are done, I'll be ready to assemble the building, and then there will be pictures - honest!

It's nice to see Ironmonk back posting over at his blog - Zed Storm Rising - and his latest post on card vehicles, reminded me of my mention in this post - quick-update on 24 July - about my intent to build a convoy of Ebbles Trucks. I can't remember how far I got with that, but as the drawer unit with them in is still at home and not in storage yet, I'll try and get some photos of what I did make done tonight.

Mantic Ghouls as Ragers ...
not so happy with them now :(

And finally for this update ... I've been 'umming and ahhing'  about whether to order this set from Mantic Games for several months now ... I wanted to get some more 'ragers' (for which I've used Mantic's ghouls) and wanted some zombies that wouldn't look out of place up against my Edwardian Sci-Fi stuff, and IIRC Brummie at Brummies Wargaming Blog, posted on the Mantic zombies saying they were good.  Plus the tombstone markers will help expand my small cemetary terrain piece.  So this morning I bit the bullet and placed the order. More on this when they arrive!

So the 60 undead in that set plus the Studio Miniatures plastic zombies from their kickstarter project that should arrive soon, will give me a plastic mountain to match my lead mountain!

ATZ-FFO now on sale...

Just so you know, I got an email from the Two Hour Wargames yahoo group this morning saying ATZ-FFO is now on sale ...

So yes, I've bought it, no I've not read it yet!

Post 100! and it's a biggie!

Well, despite what I said in my last post - temporary-absence - I have been able to take some piccies to share with you all, and when I realised that this would be the 100th post on this blog, I thought that I'd better make it a big one!  So, below you will find pics of the progress I've made on my Stoelzel's Structures Food Market, what I've done on their Local Pub (not much!), the bits I have ready to build from their M.U.C.K., the first unrealistic attempt at their Storage Unit Building and pics of the hospital beds from Grekwood Mini's that I got recently.

So then, onto the pictures! first up, to the right, is a view of the Food Market as it is at the moment. The structure itself is more or less complete, but as the other photos below will show, the interior and a few more details have yet to be done. As usual, Zombie-Me is in the pics to illustrate the size of the build. This first pic, shows the sign that I created for the build. A clearer view of it is below (somewhere!)

In the first pic, you saw the left and front of the build and this second pic shows the right side, with Zombie-Me on the roof. The roof that I've used is not the roof from the Food Market - this one comes from the M.U.C.K.  The roof in the Food Market has some stuff printed on it that I didn't want to use, so I opted for this one instead. Although I've 'glazed' the building, I haven't yet put the doors on ...

... as you can clearly see in this pic. Also, the fire escape needs adding - that's it next to the build in the pic to the right. Along with the fire escape will be a ladder that I've not done yet. I'll also add a ladder to the roof, so it can be accessed by combatants.

In this next pic, the roof has been removed showing the interior of the first floor. I was surprised that there would be a room with no windows, but I guess it's a storage room. I'm going to furnish the windowed room as an office, and try and fit a small toilet at the end of the corridor where the window is. I'm really not sure that there will be enough room though ...

The pic to the right shows the first floor after it's been removed along with Zombie-Me in the front room. Once more I've used 2mm thick card for the vertical walls, as it gives plenty of strength while being narrower than the exterior walls, as I think the interior walls should be. Although - IIRC - all of Stoelzel's Structures have this lift-out interior floor design, this is the first one that I've built in this manner. Unfortunately, I don't really like it, so my future builds will have stacking floors, each level having the exterior walls attached to the floor.

Onto the staircase. This is at the rear of the building and, as you can see in the pic to the left, is sandwiched between the exterior wall and an interior wall. It is quite narrow, and the 2 floor walls on each side make it quite difficult to get to.  However, as you can't actually see the stairs from the front, this did allow me to not bother with the vertical parts of the steps themselves.

Not having them present also enables a figure's base to be held in place on the stairs as you can see with Zombie-Me to the right. This is quite helpful, and I think I may use this again on future builds.

Onto the ground floor. The pic to the left shows how little furniture I've put together so far. In fact the shelf units that you can see are required to hold up the first floor, so they had to be there! The shelf units are actually double sided, but these ones are glued to the walls to keep the first floor in position. I do intend to make furniture, just not sure when ...

And here is a 'ground-level' view looking through the (absent!) front door. I think the shelving works pretty well and Carl's done a good job with them!

As promised way back at the start, here's a pic of the sign that I created for the shop. Hopefully some of you might recognise the name and the nature of the offered delivery service, but I don't think many from the far side of the pond will!

The model actually comes with a canopy for the front of the store and, although I made it (as you can see to the right), I decided not to attach it as a) I thought it would be a real pain to do as it had bowed :( and b) it would be a liability when storing the building.  I may revisit this at a later date though ....

That's it for the Food Market. In conclusion, it's a nice building that I'm glad I built - not that I've finished it yet!  If I were to build it again, I would certainly have made seperate floors, but that is my personal preference. When I originally built it, I didn't cut the windows out, but this made the ground floor interior so dark I felt I had to cut the windows out - which was a real pain when all the walls had been glued together!


Now then ... the Local Pub from Stoelzel's is next. I've not built it as yet, but I have made a start ... although that's only gluing the exteriors and main floor onto foamboard!  This pic to the left has the ground floor itself with exterior walls

This final pic of the pub shows its exterior upper floor walls

Here we have the main parts of the first building from Stoelzel's M.U.C.K that I intend to assemble. I'm not sure if I'm going to use the recessed entrance for it or not ....

Another M.U.C.K. building awaiting assembly ... although this one is about twice as deep as the first, it is narrower

And the last of the M.U.C.K. buildings I've assembled parts for; this will be quite a bit bigger than the other two.

And now onto Stoelzel's Storage Unit Buildings. I mentioned in my last post that renting some storage space for myself, gave me some ideas for this build. Unfortunately, I didn't realise how impractical they were until I'd actually started making it. To the left you can see the ground floor that I put together. That's an A1 sheet of black foamboard that I used for it, and none of the piece has actually been cut away ...  It was only once I had this done, and, as you can see, started on the walls, that I realised 2 things:

1. Where the hell would I store it?
2. What interest would a storage building of that size actually be in a game?

So since these pics were taken, I've revisited my plan and will now make the building (more-or-less!) the same size as Carl's design, although it will have 2 floors.

To the right is the modified main entrance that I put together for the building, complete with opening doors!

And to the left is the first floor that I started on before I came to my senses ... again this will be considerably smaller when finished.

And - at last! - the final group of photos in this post - the hospital beds from Grekwood. I got the mega-bundle of all the beds they do, and to the left is a group shot of them all after I'd finally got around to gluing the 'undercarriage' to the beds themselves.

I do have a question though ... these next 2 photos both have beds that have vertical panels at their sides. Of the 16 beds that I got, only these 2 have the panels.  Are they supposed to be like that? or is this flash of some sort?

 

So that's it for this post, not sure when I'll be able to post again ...