Back From The un-Dead

 Greetings folks, it's been quite a while since I posted anything here. The reason for this is that I lost all interest in the wargaming side of my life and didn't do anything for quite a while. I did actually paint a brigade of 10mm English for the War of Spanish Succession but I never photographed them and never posted anything. I started painting some guns for them and that's where my interest ended.

But things have changed and I've hopped back on the wagon with a decision to look again at the solo zombie game I wrote during covid: Infection Z. I put it to rest for a while but now it is time to look at it again with fresh eyes. So here I am again, back from the dead with some undead.

Having lots of time to think I came up with a new concept. One of the problems I was having with the game was discerning Active zombies from Inactive zombies. This is important to the game because active zombies react differently to inactive ones. The solution I've come up with is really very simple. Inactive zombies are grey. When they meet the criteria to become active they are replaced by a fully painted zombie figure. They might get replaced straight off the mark before the first turn even begins or they may remain inactive for the whole game.

As it is, it's nothing to write home about but the concept has changed a whole raft of rules that were making the game difficult to write up as rules. I understood what I wanted but when trying to write the concepts they seemed convoluted, confusing and overblown. This idea has helped streamline a lot of these issues.

Painting these guys also gave me a very simple little project that I could start and complete in a couple of days (I had to let the black wash dry overnight). This was good as it got me back upstairs and into the hobby room. A couple of weeks back I took a bunch of stuff to a bring & buy. In amongst the stuff I found a bag of unpainted zombies. I pulled them out and put them aside, and that got me thinking. 

There are 36 zeds here. To place them on the table for my game it's a matter of dropping them and where they land is where they start the game. I'm not too precious about plastic zed-heads, even my painted ones live in a box all jumbled together. I do have some metal figures and I do take care of them but these guys are for dropping and standing them up.

I also dug out this mini-supermarket building that I started making a couple of years back. I started and then got bored with it. I've decided to finish it off. It takes a surprising amount of time to make these terrain pieces look nice and then semi-destroy them to make them look derelict. But the results are worth the effort. I've made a few in the past, some MDF models like this one and some from scratch.

The kit is from Sarissa Precision and it comes with a service counter and a couple of small shelves. I made the larger shelves with thick card. There's enough shelving to make it look like a proper mini-mart and to enable easy placement and movement of figures as well as plenty of places to scavenge for potential loot.

Well that's it. Something small to get me back into my hobby. I'll finish off the guns for the 10mm WSS English in the next few days and take some photos.

Bye.

Baby Got Some Bad, Bad Gas...

A change of pace. I've been keen to get back to work on my zombie apocalypse game; Infection Z, for some time now. So I've been reading through the rules and decided to work on some terrain to get me into the mood. I already have plenty of zombies and survivors and don't feel like pianting more of either at the moment. I have about 80+ zombies and 40 odd survivors (although there's really nothing wrong with adding more zed's to the herd!).

As it is I've had a couple of Sarissa Precision buildings constructed and undercoated for a long while and decided to finally get them finished. First up is this little gasoline station:

This is a nice little kit but it was pretty fiddley to paint. That undercover piece and the signage on top was really awkward. As you can see the arrow at the end of "gas" broke off because it was a bit delicate and, despite how it looks now, I painted all the parts with a high level of accuracy. I knew I'd be messing it up but painting it neat and tidy beforehand really makes a difference to the final effect.

I decided to keep that front awning/undercover piece separate and didn't glue it in place. I'm hoping the slots for holding it will be strong enough to keep it in place during a game. Keeping it separate will make storage easier.

The windows are just thin acetate. Nothing special but they give the illusion of glass. The sign on the front is just paper. I made it on photoshop and painted the silly face and skull.

The interior is pretty basic. It only came with a door and a counter. I made the little shelf stack out of thick card. Unfortunately the front door is just etched into the outer wall and doesn't open. 

This will go well with my other terrain. When I finish a couple more buildings I'll have have more than enough to set up a little abandoned, dilapidated town. 

Anyway, it's about time we left the Atomic Gas station and it's friendly proprietor to their own business. Y'all come back whenever you want. Drop in and say "Hello," and try not to get your face eaten off.

Infection Z ~ It's Finished

I've written and test-played and re-written (and then done it again and again... And then again). Now I've run out of things to add or edit so I guess I've finished it. Now what?

I intend to publish it on Wargames Vault but I think it needs some other eyes to look at it and give it a go. How do I do this? That's what I'm now trying to sort out. If you're reading this and you're interested in doing some play testing leave me a message.

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I recently replayed the three game mini-campaign that I've been using for play-testing. This time I created a new group of survivors for a different flavour. The new group didn't seem as strong as the group I had been using but they did have some better skills and tricks up their collective sleeves. Surprisingly, for what I thought was a weaker group, they performed better.

After the three games none of the characters died although some came close. The character that came the closest to dying was the best close combat fighter. She didn't go down due to jumping in and trying to kill everything in sight but because she got swarmed by the game mechanic. Only the efforts of the other characters kept her alive and eventually carried off the table. As far as I'm concerned that was a great piece of high adrenaline drama.

Another character (the cheapest option) ended up with a bum leg and a shotgun. He constantly ended up in bad situations and more than once I thought: "Okay, he's finished." But he managed to get out of trouble every time. And, through 3 games he never got a scratch. Not once.

Game 1 is a gauntlet run. 8 turns to get from one end of the road and off the other end. There's a bit of loot to find on the way but time is short.

This is my apex close-combat sword fighting killer (a familiar character, no doubt. This lovely figure is from Hasslefree).

The cultist is part of the scenario. A guy walking around clanging a bell and shouting  about the end of the world being nigh. He attracts Unwanted Attention. I didn't have a better figure so I raided my pulp cultists.

The old guy with a shotgun. There is an pre-generated "Old Timer" character that can be selected but this figure below ended up almost identical to the Old Timer as a result of random generation.

Game 2 is about getting through a gridlocked area of the city. This game goes for 10 turns and follows on directly from Game 1. The idea is that the group is having a bad day getting out of the city center. In this one they start in the top left corner and escape via the empty road in the bottom right.

In the pic below some of the group set off down an alley. Game wise it looked like a clear path but the game also generates random zombies and events popping up. That's what happened here. One zombie turned into four and while it wasn't overwhelming it slowed progress for a few turns.

The figure below in the center is my new Leader. The leader can be the best fighter if you want but I made him the best all-rounder. A good zombie killer but it's the other skills I gave him that make him the strongest character.

The old guy (Harry) in one of his sticky situations. He got charged by a Frenzy Zombie but managed to blow its head off before it got him.

Harry moved on but found the gate being held shut and he was stuck out in the street. This was because I thought he was going to die so I was willing to sacrifice him for the sake of the rest. The photo doesn't show the zombies behind the fence or the others out of sight beneath the camera.

After killing off the zombies at the fence Harry was again in a bad situation. This time I was sure he was going to die. Two Frenzy Zombies. One in front and one behind. I don't remember how he got out of it and I'm sure a lot of it was pure lucky dice rolling.

Part of this scenario is a factory/workshop area where the group can try and scavenge stuff. In the pic above they've been through the building and now they're exiting the back door. In the pic below an armed looter has later shown up to try and pilfer some of their loot.

Game 3 follows on again and sees the group in a park with some police and a TV news crew. They're all surrounded and will have to fight their way out. Each game starts with about a dozen zombies and more arrive as the game progresses. Game 3 starts with a few more zeds but it escalates faster and becomes far more deadly.

Between the games the characters have the chance to roll their Fortitude dice pool. Every success they roll allows them to regain a 1 Life Point. (Average LP is 10. The higher ranked characters have 12LP and the Leader has 15LP.)

Again, the riot police held off the bulk of the zombies and they put up a good fight due to their equipment. But eventually the weight of zombie numbers brought them down (again). And every time one of the cops goes down there's a surge of zed-heads.

This is where my fighting lady got hit hard. This pic was taken as she was on her last legs. The intervention of the Leader and Harry the old guy managed to keep her alive but not before she was on the ground and with a high chance of Turning Zed!

Below - Just when it looked like the road was clear and the TV crew and some of the group could make it to safety a mob of rotters came up the road and started biting. It was good to see that the lady TV presenter (unarmed) and just through sheer luck managed to kill a zombie with her bare hands (or maybe her microphone) and escape. But she was the only NPC that did escape off the table.

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Anyhow this wasn't supposed to be a full battle report or anything, just a post to say that everything is written and ready for other people to look at it. All the page setting & formatting is done for a basic first draft. When I read it, it makes sense to me but will it make sense to anyone else? That's what I need to know.

Checkin' Out Some Real Estate

I'm still working on Infection Z. Just when I think it's right I play a test game and come up with something else to add or adjust. As a whole. it's working really well. The combat and shooting mechanics work very nicely and survivor characters have a good chance of surviving the games... But they do have to work at it, and that's good. The leader/hero character has to be heroic and the other big hitters need to do their work too so that the lesser characters can get through.

But more on the game in a later post. Today I've been out looking for some property and I found this delightful little place down by the river. My wife and I will be moving in as soon as we've cleared out the local zombie population.

This is from Sarissa Precision, part of their Retro Americana range. I bought this last year and made it straight away. But it has been waiting for paint for a while.

The bed is made form a piece of balsa wood wrapped in toilet paper and smothered in watered down pva. Easy to make and it looks the part (Thank you DM Scotty. The window awnings apart of the kit but I also gave them the pva/bog-roll works and now they look nice and decayed.

And speaking of the zombies population, here are some of the locals...

These are from the Walking Dead set that I bought a couple of weeks back. Great value and, I expect, a great game. If I wasn't so concerned with getting my own game off the ground I'd be playing it without a doubt.

A Little Bit of Brushwork

Whilst I've been spending a lot of time writing and play test my zombie apocalypse rules Infection Z, I've also kept up painting - even thought IZ has slowed me down a lot.

To start, I've painted up a big flower and a big ogre. Both from Reaper and both Black Bones. These will be used for Rangers of Shadowdeep initially and for other things afterwards.

When I was getting these pics ready with photoshop, I noticed I forgot to paint the edging of the base. I can't believe it. How could I forget that?

I didn't know what to do with his shield. It looked way too neat on the sculpted figure. I decided to give it a coat of dark bronze and then a coat of patina effect with a final dirty dark wash. It came out okay.

One thing I did was to buy Mantic's The Walking Dead game. It looks like a great game but I haven't looked at the rules. The box has a lot of little toys and other stuff that looks interesting, but the reason I bought it was because you get 6 survivor figures and about a dozen really nice zombies all for $50AUD. That's about $2.70 per figure. That's a great deal.

I should play the game some time - I have played in once in the past but I was more interested in getting my own thing happening at the time so I didn't devote a lot of time towards it.

Anyway, the figures are pretty nice and very easy to paint. Here are the six survivors:

Rick and Carl Grimes - The stars of the story and my least favorite of these figures. They're okay but not my favorites. I don't like the way the flesh colour turned out. I'm not sure what I did wrong.

I like these figures much more. Looking at them now, I can see that I forgot to take a photo of one of them. A woman with a knife. A nice figure too.

This guy had no weapons so I decided to give him one. I had a plastic sword hand sitting on the desk so I trimmed the sword into a knife, did a bit of filing. I then amputated his hand and now he has a knife. I like his face.

These last two are from Studio Miniatures. Nice figures but they're small. Noticeably smaller than the Hasslefree figures in my collection and much smaller that these Walking Dead figures.

I like the axe man I tried to make him look like a tooled-up park attendant or something. But I'm not really keen on the last one. They came in a four figure set so that's why I have him.