Getting ready for; Last Days!

We're about a month away from the release of my friend Ash's first game from Osprey Games; Last Days.

I'm gearing up to play some games ahead of release so I'll save a review until actual release week but I thought I'd just touch on a few things as I dust off a lot of the models I was painting back when I started this blog.

First up Last Days like all Osprey Games I'm familiar with is miniatures-neutral which means you can play it with any models you already have in your collections, or you can go out and cherry-pick all the coolest stuff.  This means for anybody already playing a zombie miniature game you already have everything you need, if you're one of those collectors like me who just buys cool models hoping to one day have rules to use them with you're all set as well.

Back during Ash's first pass at the game the forces were themed (cops, survivors, bikers, etc) so I tended to collect and group my figs that way.  Now you can mix and match as each model represents a trope rather than part of a traditional 'force' of soldiers.

In addition to each player's chosen force you will need a small collection of zombie models.  For anyone who's been into the genre previously this will be a non-issue but for newer gamers there are a ton of options for easy cost-effective zombies to fill out your ranks.  Walking Dead zombies are easily available and great durable figures, Warlord Games produces the old Wargames Factory zombies, even board games have some decent quality zombie figures these days, I've personally used a bunch of zombies from Last Night On Earth.

If there's one piece of advice I would give a new modeller collecting together different zombie and survivor figures it would simply be to base them the same (or at least similarly) so they take on the appearance of one coherent collection.

This is my trip through one old figure case, I plan on painting a few new figs up this week to add in, and hopefully you'll all see a full game review in 3-4 weeks.

-Jay

Resident Evil!

This morning I finished touching up my Resident Evil miniatures from Recreational Conflict with a couple of figures from Tactical Miniatures thrown in to round out the S.T.A.R.S. team members.

The Resident Evil series of video games (Resident Evil 2 in particular) are what drew me into the survival horror genre of gaming and films in the first place so my appreciation for them tends to hold through thick and thin and even when I take a break from the series I always seem to find my way back.

Also in this post I'd like to ask all of you for a little help.  I've done fairly well assembling a collection of miniatures to game Resident Evil with but there are 3 characters from the series I've never found suitable models for:
-Enrico Marini (STARS Bravo team leader from Resident Evil & Resident Evil 0)
-Claire Redfield (from Resident Evil 2 & Resident Evil Code Veronica)
-Billy Cohen (from Resident Evil 0)
If any of you could suggest some figures for these 3 characters I would really appreciate it.

Thanks for visiting

-Jay

Primary characters from the original Resident Evil video game.

 

Brad Vickers, Kenneth Sullivan, Joseph Frost

(Spoiler warning: I don't think these guys are going to make it!)

 

Leon Kennedy & Carlos Olivera (video game Carlos, not movie Carlos)

 

 

 

 

Odds and ends

One of the things I have found that happens when you're bouncing back and forth between hobby projects is that you come across things that have been "half-done" for a long time.  Every once in a while it's nice to finish those things off because they don't take much time and they make you feel like you accomplished something.

Today I had 3 half-dones that I decided to finish.
The first was another Hasslefree Survivor, this one is a cop with mini riot shield and baton.  Unfortunatley the pictures didn't turn out at all so I'm all tell and no show on this one.
The second model was my not-Leon Kennedy from Recreational Conflict.  The funny thing about Leon is that this is the figure that convinced me I needed to do an order with Recreational Conflict 3 or so years ago but somehow he was the one figure from the entire order I never got around to finishing.
And lastly I have 2 more zombies from Studio Miniatures that didn't get finished with my last batch.

Thanks for visiting

-Jay

The first character I ever played in a Resident Evil video game and still my favourite.

 

Two more zombettes.

 

 

Often times I draw inspiration for gaming from movies, comics, video games, etc.  During one of those Google searches someone like me does after walking out of a movie theatre and thinking they want to game a scene they just saw I came across a company called Recreational Conflict that makes some really cool miniatures.

After a few touch-ups and some work on my new back drop you should be seeing the Resident Evil inspired miniatures I bought from them but in the meantime I wanted to share some of their zombie miniatures with you.

-Jay

Group shot.  If I re-call correctly this is the contents of 2 of their generic zombie packs (they also do themed packs)

 

Three of the cooler more interesting zombie sculpts from Recreational Conflict.  The one in the center actually comes with a surf-board with a huge chunk bitten out of it but it didn't fit with my basing scheme so I left it off.

 

Three more excellent Recreational Conflict zombies.  I think it's great when a batch of figures really go together and create back-story simply by being together in a collection.