Preview - Breaker Kids

I've mentioned over my last three posts that I was trying to get my existing Broken Contract miniatures before my next Kickstarter from Breaker Press arrived.  I made it...with a day to spare.

I was excited when I backed the Breaker kids but much like their previous Kickstarter when the product arrived my expectations were exceeded, drastically exceeded this time around.

When Nick started hyping up the Kickstarter one of the things he talked about wanting to do was not having wasteful packaging.  This resulted in the new models (and the add-ons as well) being packaged in MDF shipping containers that can be used as scenery for your games!

I think any modern or sci-fi gamer would agree that those containers are awesome, and are immediately useful.  But they were part of the pitch, and I mentioned that my expectations were exceeded.  Somewhere around the midpoint of the Kickstarter Nick realized he could throw the slats in that were cut from the containers, and some a-frames to build some scatter terrain.  Having just received the package a few hours ago I haven't built anything with mine yet but when I do I'll show those off.

I really just want to emphasize to anybody who's read this far that I've talked about how awesome this product is, and I haven't even talked about the models themselves, all the above is just...the packaging.  I really hope this continues from Breaker Press and in a perfect world I'd love other companies to see this as an idea they should jump on board with.

On to the kids (and the dog) themselves.  The figure set comes with five figures; one male and one female teen, one male and one female pre-teen, and a dog.

The figures themselves are obviously perfect for Broken Contract but could also easily be used for Shadowrun, Cyberpunk or any modern or near future games.  The textured MDF bases are a really nice touch, especially for gamers that want to step their basing game up to the next level.  The detail is nice and crisp on the figures, and they should be a joy to paint (check back in a week or so).  I'm excited to have some genuinely new and different figures in my collection unlike anything else I've already got.

Hopefully in the next week or so I'll be showing off these figures painted as well as some neat add-on accessories I got with this Kickstarter.

Check out Breaker Press at https://breakerpress.storenvy.com/

-Jay

Rick Flag

Recently my friend Kevin painted up Knight Models new Enchantress model and it made me a little bit nostalgic.  A few short years ago I was very excited about Knight Models superhero models for both DC and Marvel and was really enjoying their games, but, due to some really disappointing interactions with both the company's customer service and social media outreach I packed all my stuff up over a year ago and just walked away.

Seeing Kevin's Enchantress reminded me that I never did paint my last two Suicide Squad models; Rick Flag and Enchantress.  I decided to go back and paint them up and it led me to another decision.  But first up here's Rick Flag:

I've decided that instead of painting up more Infinity models to play Last Days next month I'm actually going to build my force out of some Knight Models stuff.  In preparation for playing through the Suicide Squad campaign way back when with Kevin (which sadly never happened) I had purchased some additional law-enforcement/military models that I think would work well for Last Days.  I need to dig those guys out but I think there's some more in the pipeline.

Maybe I'm back in, maybe I'm not.  We'll find out soon enough.

-Jay

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

Is anybody looking for a saviour?

Continuing with my "theme" for The Walking Dead, which at this point is just the 'No-Rick-Grimes-club' I've got three more survivors ready to put a stop to Rick's violent Ricktatorship.

For anyone following my posts but not familiar with the game there are themed factions other than Rick's Group but unfortunately due to the sequence of releases I have a hodge-podge of antagonists without a real theme.

First up I have my new leader (sorry Shane); Negan.

Negan is an absolute beast in close combat and has a leader ability that is fuelled by making an example out of his less worthwhile followers.

Sticking with that I needed to add some low point cost cannon fodder and luckily had two unaligned figures on hand.

Reggie came in the Shane pack.  I don't recall his role in the story but his role in the game will be a low cost figure that I can use to fill out a force.

Andy came in Negan's pack and will fill the same role as Reggie.  Oddly (odd to me anyway) Andy looks a lot like John McClane from the first Die Hard movie.  Unfortunately I didn't realise until I took a picture how pronounced the mold line around his head was.

Happily this gives me a few more options to build around if I play my next game before The Governor is released.

-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

The hobby A.D.D. it never really goes away....

I've referenced Hobby A.D.D. before and although I generally feel like I get quite a lot of stuff done there are periods where my attention span won't stay on one thing and I keep changing gears and starting new projects without finishing old ones.
So with that insight in mind I'd like to share the 5 hobby projects I started over the past 3 days, none of which are completed yet.

Cowboys!

I've been talking for awhile about getting some new cowboys done.  I got my grubby hands on Dracula's America and even though I have a decent amount of stuff done from my recent binge of Warhammer Legends Of The Old West I can't bring myself to play a new game without adding at least some new figures.  These guys are the Earp (or Tombstone I forget the actual name) pack by Black Scorpion.

Orcs!

As part of my recent retro/nostalgia-gaming fix I got some of the Orcs by Antediluvian Miniatures.  These guys immediately take me back to Saturday mornings in the early 80s.  I think my gift to myself when I get all 5 of these projects done will be to get myself another pack or two of Antediluvian Miniatures.

Venger!

Those Orcs need a boss, right?  I might be one of the few people of my generation who could never really embrace Optimus Prime as a noble hero because every time he opens his mouth to speak I hear Venger's voice.  Venger was the chief villain of the animated D&D series in the 80s and still holds up really well as a cool fantasy evil villain.

Frostgrave!

I'm planning a long overdue return to Felstad and much like the cowboys I probably don't need to paint new figures but I just wouldn't be me if I rolled up with the same-old-same-old.  The actual driver for starting these was digging through my unpainted fantasy figures looking for a knight with two-handed sword to try the free print-and-play intro rules for Relic Blade with my newly painted pigmen.

Survivors!

Almost a year ago I ordered a bunch of packs of modern/near-future survivor models with the intention of using them for This Is Not A Test as well as Last Days.  Unfortunately my experience in purchasing these models was not 'free of hassles' and when they finally arrived I had lost any and all enthusiasm I had for them.  (This was one of the customer service things I was up on a soapbox about earlier this year.)  It has literally taken me an entire year to even look at these miniatures again but once I picked them up I decided I really did want to get paint on them.  Oddly enough it wasn't until I looked at them up close I even realised who they were supposed to be.  I had ordered them thinking they would make good pseudo Division-style trained survivors but then when I cleaned and primed them I realised they are actually the two leads from Stargate SG-1.

Well there you have it.  Nothing done, but a bunch of projects that are each one sit-down away from completion.

-Jay

Walking Dead Survivors - The Governor, Sandra & Patrick

(apologies up front for the dodgy lighting)

After getting my first 12 zombies done for Walking Dead All Out War I finally started on my survivors last night.  Like most conventional miniature games survivors are grouped in factions that determine who sides with who, I actually ignored this and prioritised the 3 figures that are used in the solo play scenarios first.  So this batch of survivors doesn't include anyone from Rick Grimes' Ricktatorship.

First up; The Governor.  The Governor is also the first Walking Dead figure I've painted that does not come in the core game set.  There is an expansion called Prelude To Woodbury that includes The Governor and 5 more walker figures.  I wanted to get him done first because the Prelude To Woodbury set is designed for solo play and that means I can give the game a try some day after work this week.

The Governor is one of the figures that really anchors this game as being based on the comics rather than the TV show.  The figure is a picture perfect representation of The Governor from the comics but literally looks nothing like his TV counter-part.  I really like this model as he once again has some nice textures and has an extremely well sculpted and cast pistol.

Next up; Sandra & Patrick.  To be honest I don't really remember some of the stories from the early comics so the characters that come in the main box who aren't Rick & Carl I don't really remember at all.  Having  said that these are again some great 'generic' survivor miniatures and are the two figures used in the early 'how to play' scenarios.

Walking Dead All Out War uses a points system for choosing forces and like a lot of resources based force selection systems there will always be a place for lightly equipped B-list characters to round out forces after players have chosen their big flashy models.  I also suspect that for some of my other post-apocalypse campaign games figures like this will be ideal for when I go on a losing streak and need some cheap replacements for lost warband members.

It looks like after 3 days of painting I'm ready to play some games!

-Jay

First civilian models/counters for Pulp City!

Greetings citizens!

I'm gearing up for my second Pulp City game this weekend with the cold war forces.  I'm looking forward to how a game plays when I've actually read up on what my models can do.

One of the bits of collateral missing from our last game was civilians.  In Pulp City civilians serve a number of purposes and function as objectives in many scenarios.  Pulp Monsters offers silhouette standees for citizens but I always thought proper models would blend better with the scenery and look cooler.

Years ago I bought a ton of Heroclix models with the intention of repainting them and using them for other games.  For more than 5 years that box has been a great source of figures for  a lot of games I've played and once more I'm diving back in for some civies.  Much like Les Impes I've actually already done this project once before on different bases but I enjoy doing them so doing a second batch is no big deal

My first batch of 8 are mostly re-paints although a couple were more touch ups on existing paint jobs.  What's kind of neat about these figures is that Heroclix doesn't actually have a use for "civilians" per se so 5 of these 8 figures are actually meant to be various superheroes in their secret identities.  Feel free to make guesses in the comments below.  I'll honour Silver Age tradition by acknowledging "no-prizes" for successful guesses.

In addition to the 8 above I have 2 more done that I photographed separately because I'm involved in some hobby challenges where I track "painted" figures and it would be a huge stretch  to claim I painted these.  Both were crisp enough out of the packages that I just re-based them and re-did the eyes.

So that means I have 10 civilians done so far for Pulp City.  In a perfect world I'll get 10 more done next week.

-Jay

Gotta get back on that horse...

One of the things I've found about painting miniatures is that as much as I love doing it once I take a break for a few days sometimes those days drag on and I take more of a break than I was planning on.

This week I was travelling for work most of the week so I had 3-4 days I couldn't paint...but then I added on 2 more days that I really just didn't paint.  When this happens sometimes I have to look past what I "want" to do and just pick  something that I can get done so I can get the momentum tolling again.

Quite a while back I asked the question "Do I play this game?" with regards to Infinity.  At this point I'm pretty sure the answer is "no, I do not" but I still buy their figures to use for other games.  Primarily I've had an eye on figures that would make good modern/near-future survivors.  I purchased the figure below around the time The Division came out because I felt he fit the feel of that setting fairly well and could see myself gaming it at some point.   To circle back to where I started about just wanting to get something done he was a fairly good choice because he's well textured but doesn't have a ton of fiddly detail.

I've got everything set I need (I think, better double check) for my Ravenloft game Monday night so assuming I'm right about that I'm going to try to get some Raiders done for  a solo play of This Is Not A Test on Sunday.

-Jay

Neuroshima Tactics, you're my latest 'why didn't I love you more when you were here?'

In addition to buying a bunch of  cool new figures for This Is Not A Test I've been digging through my backlog looking for denizens of the post apocalyptic wasteland.  Meanwhile there have been two figures sitting on the corner of my desk for close to 3 years now that never quite got to the top of my painting pile that are perfect for games of This Is Not A Test.

Neuroshima Hex had been a popular euro-style board game for years and a few years ago they decided to venture into the realm of tabletop miniature games.  The miniatures are AMAZING but for some reason they never caught on and were never widely available.  The game quickly (very quickly it seemed) went out of production and died a quiet undeserved death.

I was only able to get two Neuroshima Tactics figures before my retailer's supply chain dried up but they are going to be great for tons of different games.

Both figures are very nice but the one with the drum magazine on his weapon is absolutely covered in pouches, accessories and survival gear.

I feel like finding more of these awesome figures will be my white-whale for the next few years.  I know they're out there (somewhere) and I desperately want more.

As an aside with the rise in popularity of post-apocalyptic gaming I'm surprised no one has bought the production rights and molds and put these back into production under a different imprint.

-Jay

Gas Mask Girl

During my lunch today I finished my last Worlds End Publishing model (until September I think); Gas Mask Girl for This Is Not A Test.

Thus far Gas Mask Girl has been the unofficial mascot/pin-up for This Is Not A Test and I've got to say I think they did a great job on the model execution.  She has a few extra bits and pieces (pistol holster, duffel bag, goggles, gas mask) but she isn't overly cluttered with unnecessary clutter.

I still need to get a few weird animal-mutants done but Gas Mask Girl will also represent me starting to go off in a different direction and do some more realistic or grounded post-apoc miniatures.

-Jay

Grimes family reunion

During my lunch break today I managed to crank out Lorrie and Carl Grimes to join Rick on his post-apocalyptic adventures!

I honestly didn't spend too much time on these but went with a less-is-more approach.

Tomorrow should be a real hobby day so if I can find some primer I should have some exciting stuff going on!

-Jay

Iron Painter Round 2 - The End Of The World As We Know It

I stayed up last night until about 2am finishing my entry for round 2 of the Iron Painter.  But I've got to be honest, when I got up this morning and discovered the deadline was NEXT Sunday I kind of wished I had gone to bed earlier.....

The theme for Round 2 of the Iron Painter is 'The End Of The World As We Know It'.  I didn't have a Michael Stipe miniature so I decided to go for something post apocalyptic.  I've had Mad Max on the brain for a few weeks but I didn't have any unpainted Mad Max miniatures so I went back the zombie apocalypse once more.  It was a bit weird for me to dig through my zombies and zombie survivor miniatures looking for one I wanted to paint because when I started this blog three-ish years ago it seemed like that was my bread and butter but I haven't painted anything along those lines in quite a while.

I settled on Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead (comic, not movie).

Rick is from a Studio Miniatures pack called "The Family" which also includes Carl and Lorrie, who I will probably paint this week just to have them done as well.  When I started the blog I had stuff from Studio Miniatures up here regularly and circling back to them it was really easy to remember what I liked so much about them.  They do great versions of action and horror movie heroes and have some fantastic themed zombie sets.

That's it for today but the protoculture factory has been hard at work churning out mecha so expect a run on those soon.

-Jay

Dogmeat

Miss me?

Wow, I definitely think 6 weeks is the longest I've gone without a blog entry since I started this.  I have been travelling a bit for work lately but for the most part I just lost my hobby drive for a while there.  I won't bore everyone with the details but after a somewhat draining and somewhat distracting spell in the real world I am back on the hobby-train.

My first baby-step back is to show the fig that I had already been planning on doing 6 weeks ago and honestly took my all of an hour to do once I sat back down to my desk; Dogmeat!  For fans of Fallout 3 Dogmeat is the Lone Wanderers loyal canine companion.  The figure also works great as Max Rockatansky's unnamed dog from The Road Warrior.

This is another Reaper Bones mini that came as part of an animal/familiar pack along with a few other animals who might be showing up here in the next few weeks.

The next batch of blog entries will (hopefully) focus on mine and Zoe's planned entries in Strategies Games & Hobbies big annual painting competition.  Zoe is breaking with tradition and painting a cybernetically-enhanced-super-gorilla for the large model category and we are both doing some female zombies.

Good to be back!

-Jay