Captain Link Hogthrob reporting for duty!

Time to trek back to Swineland, a Swinetrek if you will.

After an extended time away from This Is Not A Test three things happened that got me stoked to return once again:
1.  Both of my regular opponents are excited to play once again.
2.  World's End publishing released a new supplement for This Is Not A Test.
3.  Since our last campaign ended Interloper Miniatures has released a super-cool pack of sci-fi Pig-People.

Today I started painting those new Interloper figs with the goal of the three of them forming the core of my new mutant warband.  This is a bit of a break from tradition for me as I actually painted my warband leader first, normally I paint up a pile of regular troopers first.

Our new fearless leader (no disrespect to Gallus Prime) is Link Hogthrob.  Link is basically a cross between Zap Brannigan, James T Kirk and a side of bacon.

This is yet another amazingly executed figure design by Interloper Miniatures.  Link's environment suit has a lot of well sculpted elements and really captures a unique look and feel.

I'm looking forward to getting my next two characters done (hopefully tomorrow) and getting back to the table for some This Is Not A Test next week!

-Jay

Every good cop needs a partner

Now that I've finished my two larger boxes I've got 6 of the boosters for Walking Dead All Out War to work my way through.

Initially I just got a bunch of characters I either thought were cool (looking at you Ezekiel) or I picked packs that I thought would work well in multiple games.  Now that I'm getting ready to play it turns out I have a lot of Rick's group, which I don't really need for my next batch of games.  Having said that I did get one pack which  would be immediately useful and that's Rick's best buddy Shane.

Shane is an unaligned figure so he can be used with every faction, he's also got a leader skill so he can form the core of your group, and again he's just a cool survivor model overall.  One of the other things I really liked about the Shane pack is that although all the boosters come with 1 more zombie, Shane's pack actually comes with Zombie-Shane which is perfect.  In The Walking Dead when a character is killed they can come back as a zombie, so it's nice to have this figure.

In addition to painting Shane and his zombie version I went back and touched up two of the figures I had previously painted.  Somehow on my first pass through I completely missed painting Rick's badge on his jacket.  I also didn't like where I placed the blood and gore on Patrick's bat so I went back and added some.

I think my next Walking Dead paint plan will be to pull the zombies from all my other boosters and paint them all in one batch so I have enough zombies for when we step our games up to 300+ points.

-Jay

Woodbury cage fighters

After playing our first couple of games of Walking Dead All Out War yesterday my buddy Ash and I decided to go paint some more stuff and try some bigger themed scenarios when we get together next.

Ash is doing Rick's group and my original plan was to do The Governor and his men but given the current shortage of figure for that faction I may end up doing The Governor-and-others-who hate-Rick.  Having said that Ash did hook me up with two of the new members of the Woodbury faction; Eugene and Harold.

My recollection of the Woodbury period in the comics is vague but Eugene and Harold are two cage fighters who are less than friendly with each other (that's the spoiler-free version).  They'll give me some muscle and then maybe I can round my group out with Rick's disgruntled former partner Shane.

As part of their post apocalyptic cage fighting gear both of these guys have slapped on some crude armour made of old sports gear.  Eugene has some football pads on, while Harold has put on most of a baseball catcher's gear.

I really like the look and feel of these figures (especially Harold) as I feel they would fit as scavengers or raiders in almost any post apocalyptic setting.

-Jay

I'm not saying these guys are red-shirts, but.....

I've wrapped up the figures from the initial Walking Dead starter box.

The funny thing about the way the game is structured is that because you and your opponent will be playing two separate groups of survivors you'll need a fair number of  'filler' characters.  That is to say for every memorable character like Rick or Negan you'll need a bunch of John Doe's to fill out your force.

Every character in the game is based on a character from the comic but to be honest it's been so long since I read the comics that my knowledge of characters who don't also feature on the TV show is pretty poor.

Having said that one of the things I really like about these lesser known characters is that they will feel more at home in other games than someone as recognisable as Rick.

Today's additions are Derek and Liam.

So between my starter game and Road To Woodbury I now have 17 zombies and 7 survivors done.  That feels like a good start.

-Jay

Take your child to work day - APOCALYPSE EDITION!!

When Walking Dead All Out War came out I was super stoked about it and painted up the Road To Woodbury set right away so I could play the solo version of the game right away.

Fast forward to a year-plus later and I'm finally getting ready to play against a live opponent.  During my initial rush I painted a pile of zombies but the only survivor I needed was Brian Blake so I painted him and then kind of forgot about the rest of the survivors while I merrily went on adding zombies to my collection.

For my games this week I needed to get at least 4 more survivors done but if I get motivated to do some late night painting I might add a few of the survivors from the boosters as well (I'm thinking Shane and Andrea first).

This morning I painted Rick and son Carl.  The funny thing is as key as they are to the story and as good as they are in the game I initially felt no pressure to get them done because even if I wanted to use them in a game I have my Studio Miniatures versions already painted.

These figures continue to highlight what a great job Mantic did not only with the sculpting but the casting on these figures.  The Walking Dead figures are cast in a medium that seems to be somewhere between hard plastic and soft vinyl.  It's a bit soft but holds a high level of detail.  I really like all the figures I've gotten so far in The Walking Dead line and even if I don't play the game a lot I'm sure their figures will find their way into other games I'm playing as well.

-Jay

Played D&D early 90s style today

I played my first game of D&D around an actual physical table in awhile today and had a blast.
I ran a short 1 session game with three of the guys I used to play with a lot in the early to mid-90s so the whole experience had the added fun of feeling like getting the band back together again.

I wanted to buck some expectations from my group so I had 3 goals/themes in mind:
1.  No undead
2.  The whole adventure would happen outside during daylight hours
3.  None of the "bad guys" would actually be evil

The group was charged by the Chief of a small village to investigate recent animal attacks around their village.  The took a local hunter with them and headed off to find the source of the disturbances and hopefully track down the village's missing Shaman.  Their first day's exploration brought them into contact with an Owlbear who nearly decimated the party.  If not for their NPC's luck with his magic bow it could have been a TPK in the first encounter!
After surviving the Owlbear encounter they were set upon twice by small animated treemen who they were very successful in sending off without too much difficulty.
The final encounter was the discovery that the village's Shaman was basically an eco-terrorist who was also in league with the hunter who had led them to his cottage.  Two of the three PCs were killed in the final encounter but a good time seemed to have been had by all.

For this adventure I recycled 2 existing models, using my Darksword Owlbear for the initial terrifying foray into the woods as well as a Frostgrave Necromancer apprentice as the village Shaman Yunel.

In addition I painted 6 new figs for today's adventure.

First up Ragnar the Ranger and his Owl animal companion Herne.

Ragnar and Herne turned out to be two of the antagonists of the story but although the player's had been suspicious the whole game they weren't sure until the final encounter.

I also painted 4 Games Workshop Dryads to use as 'forest spirits'.

I slightly modified the Twig Blight stats from the monster manual to make them a bit beefier and more threatening but due to my bad luck with the die rolls for these particular monsters the PCs walked all over them anyway.

At the conclusion of the adventure the players had levelled up twice and were able to affect a somewhat dodgy resurrection that should lead them through a magic mirror to A Red And Pleasant Land for their next adventure.

-Jay