Barricades, Scatter Terrain, and Objective Markers

Although I've still got a few miniatures I need to get painted in the next few days I've decided to take a short detour and get some modern/near-future/post-apocalyptic terrain done.  Traditionally I've done most of my gaming away from my home so my terrain collection has been relatively sparse for the amount of gaming I do.  With everything going on in the world right now I've been exploring solo miniature gaming a bit and it's definitely highlighted some shortfalls in my collection.  I'm reasonably well stocked for fantasy terrain but my modern/near-future collection is a little bit one-dimensional. 
The main things I wanted to get done over the next few days were some scatter terrain and one building with a detailed interior.  Today is the scatter terrain.

I've started with two of Mantic's Walking Dead All Out War scenery packs.  These packs are AMAZING and terrific value for money.  I highly recommend them to anyone looking for scatter terrain for any modern or near-future gaming.  The key features of the Walking Dead packs for me are that they are 'generic' real-world styled (so nothing to tie them to a specific game or even genre really) so they should work across every game I want to use them for, and being plastic they take paint well and should be very durable and hold up to regular use.

First up are the barricades.  The Walking Dead barricades are extremely well detailed without being cluttered or difficult to paint.  I also really appreciate that the sculptor put as much work into the backside of every barricade as they did in to the front facing side.

The thing I really liked visually about these barricades is that they have enough different materials and textures to be visually interesting without being too 'busy'.

Next up are the objective markers, which when not being used as objective markers can just be some clutter and window dressing for the tabletop.

The objective markers are nice (I have to come up with a better way to paint garbage bags though), with my one real criticism being that the backpack and the suitcase feel way too big and out of scale with the other pieces as well as the 25-28mm models they are meant to work with.  Having said that, having modeled representations of objectives rather than flat counters is a huge improvement and in my case (with two sets) I would only end up using them in games that required more than six objective markers.

I'm really happy with how all this stuff turned out and it looks good with pretty much any period appropriate models.

Next up is a single small building with some interior details!

And always please remember that The Walking Dead All Out War and many other great miniature games are available from your Friendly Local Game Store.

-Jay

Et tu Albino Rat?

Finished one more rat for Zoe's Animal Adventures game last night.  This time I guess he's a 'boss rat'.

This is another rat from the Malifaux/Through The Breech Brotherhood Of The Rat box set.  Although he's the same size as the other rats he's posed up on his hind legs which I felt made him stand out (no pun intended) more.  I really like the pose on the model and I feel like he'll be a memorable character based largely on that alone.

In addition to the endless parade of rats I also started on some undead for future Animal Adventures outings.

These little guys are one of the extra bits that comes on the Mantic King Of War skeleton sprues.  I thought I had a ton of these but so far have only been able to dig up two.

And please remember that these miniatures and many more are available from your Friendly Local Game Store.

-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

These are the zombies I passed on the road to Woodbury

I got a little swept up in painting Walking Dead models this weekend, I meant to move on to my Wrath Of Kings stuff but while I was waiting for some Teknes models to dry from being cleaned I decided to just start my next batch of 5 zombies.  Somehow "just start" turned into my painting all 5 zombies from the Prelude To Woodbury set in one sitting.

Having added these walkers puts me in a pretty good position for playing Walking Dead.  From what I've seen most (maybe all?) games are played on a 20" by 20" surface so I can't conceive of needing too many more walkers.  Going forward I don't think there will be any more big batches of walkers as for the most part I should be painting single walkers that come in the extra character boosters.

Alright...scenery and/or pig-men next!

-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

"Walking" my way from skirmish to all out war....

Last night/this morning I finished up my remaining 6 zombies from the Walking Dead All Out War box game.

Overall I'm really enjoying these figures.  I know I've referenced this before but when I'm painting batches of models I really like it when they have nice texture detail without being overly busy and these models seem to be a great blend of that.

My next step is going to be splitting my painting between two different sets.  I want to paint the 2 survivors required for the 'learn to play' scenario in the core game set, but I am also going to paint The Governor who comes in his own solo play adventure/add-on.  Once those are done I'm going to get one of the scenery packs painted up and then I should be ready to give the game a try.

Its really rewarding to feel like I'm getting something done from start to finish in a relatively short period of time.

After this its time to hit Wrath Of Kings and start doing more pig-men for a different game.

-Jay

First six walkers for Walking Dead All Out War

A few weeks ago I got a copy of Walking Dead All Out War by Mantic Entertainment.  Before I get to my first batch of models I want to talk about the product itself a bit.

I've bought some Mantic stuff in the past and I've seen a bunch of their stuff that I hadn't personally purchased by way of my friends.  Based on my experience I had actually decided to pass on Walking Dead because I had not been satisfied with the models I had previously purchased.  When I saw Walking Dead in the shop the core game had a window in the front of the box showing  6 of the figures, which was a great choice because the models were fantastic and MUCH better than I expected.  At every turn as I went through the box (and 3 more subsequent boxes) I've gotten more and more impressed.  The game has solo play rules, which I thought was great.  In addition I didn't realise until I opened my fourth box that every zombie figure is unique, there are no duplicates in any box I've opened or from one box to the next.  So so far I have 19 unique zombie figures to add my collection!  Last (and probably least) someone at  Mantic decided that the figures integral bases should be the same diameter and thickness as a traditional 25mm slotta-base, its a bonus because it means they will blend in with my existing zombie and survivor models.

So far tonight I've managed to paint 6 zombies.

If I'm successful in not falling asleep in the next few minutes then I will hopefully finish another half dozen zombies tonight and then I can hopefully get my first three survivors done tomorrow.

-Jay

And now my watch begins

In researching fantasy figures both for Frostgrave and D&D I came across Darksword Miniatures.  I'm a bit surprised I had never seen these before as they have a ton of figures inspired by the artwork of a lot of the old-school TSR artists.  Their other offer is a line of figures for the various characters from George R.R. Martin's Song Of Fire And Ice series.

I only recently started watching Game Of Thrones but I've been really enjoying it so I decided to order a few models to use where I could.  They seem like they will fit great with Frostgrave and should make good models for D&D.  I'm planning on running a Ravenloft game next month and the men of the Night's Watch in particular seemed like they would make good fits.

I decided to start with one of my favourite characters from the show Samwell Tarley.  Sam is the son of a minor noble who's father has always hated him for being fat and weak and not much good at any fighting skills.  Within 5 minutes of Sam's introduction on the show he has confessed to his new companions that he is a coward after taking a one-sided beating during a fight with practise swords.  What's great about Sam though is that he's smart and loyal and when the pressure is on he finds out he's not really a coward at all.

What I really like about this figure is that he's different from most traditional fantasy figures.  He's obviously overweight and doesn't cut a particularly dashing figure, but having said that he's not catoonishly obese of comical looking.  It's always great when you can find figures that look like 'real' people and not just high fantasy artwork.

I took a few liberties with my colour choices on Samwell.  When a man joins the Night's Watch it is traditionally referred to as "taking the black" as the Night's Watch dresses head to toe in black.  I've had a lot of experience lately with how washed out and incomplete that looks so  I decided to paint his tunic and breeches a flat green and then give them multiple thin black washes so that his clothes are almost black but still show some colour.  His dagger is also a shard of Dragonglass (obsidian) but once again I didn't want the figure to be be 100% glass so I painted it a bit more like traditional glass.

In addition to Sam a couple of days ago I finished a Mantic Zombie Troll for Frostgrave.

This unfriendly looking guy will be used for the next scenario for Thaw Of The Lichlord and then may also make an appearance in a D&D game at some point in the near future.

That's it for now.  A few more baddies for Frostgrave coming soon and I need to get started on my models for our Ravenloft game.

-Jay

Project Plans For The Next 3 Weeks

Honestly I should probably stop stating my plans because every time I do I end up not entirely following through.  Having said that I have an event coming up that I want to use as a deadline to get some more stuff done so here's my plan for what that looks like.

FROSTGRAVE
I should be able to play Frostgrave one more time before I have to hit the road for work.  For the next scenario from Thaw Of The Lich Lord I will need 4 pillars/columns which will be some cake pillars I'll be painting up and then adding to my scatter terrain as well.  In addition I need 6 Armoured Skeletons which will be represented by Mantic Undead Revenants.   Once I get a few more of those done they will also be joining my Age Of Sigmar Vampire Counts.  That's all I need but I suspect I will try to do a few odds and ends to add to my wandering monsters as well.

Also at the end of the month Lords Of War here in Oakville is hosting a Wizard & Apprentice painting contest.  Speaking honestly I never expect to do that well in painting contests but they are a great way to push yourself to get some stuff done by a fixed date.  The plan is to get the Soothsayer and Apprentice done before the end of the month.

BATMAN
On February 6th my local FLGS will be hosting their 1 year anniversary and is running some mini-games for people to participate in.  For the Batman event each participant is invited to bring in a single character up to 150 points.  I just picked up The Wonderland Gang so even though he's only 75 points I'm going to get the Mad Hatter done up to play with.

MALIFAUX
As part of the same celebration at Lord Of War on February 6th they will also be hosting an Enforcer Brawl.  This is basically a free-for-all where everyone fields a single Enforcer model.  I've got a bunch of Enforcers done but again this is a great push to get something new done.  I'm planning on painting up a Mature Nephilim that I will be needing for a Through The Breach campaign this year.

Well that's the plan.  Will I get it all done (for a change)?  I hope so.

-Jay

Somebody hasn't been updating their blog lately.....

It's been one of those odd breaks again.  The truth is I've been doing a reasonable amount of 'hobbying' but I haven't been blogging much lately.  Same old same old, still struggling with photography issues and clearing workspace....some day...some day....

Lately I've been focusing on getting stuff done for three games; Age Of Sigmar, Frostgrave and Malifaux/Through The Breach.  I'll show you what's gotten done in the last week and then we'll talk about what's next.

First up; NECROMANCERS!

Painting Necromancers is nothing new for me, having many different undead and horror themed armies for different games.  What was different this time out is that these figures were assembled and painted for Frostgrave but made it to the table in 2 Age Of Sigmar games before I finally circled back around to Frostgrave.  Both figs are made out of the Empire Wizard kit with a bretonnian archer head thrown in to make the apprentice appear hooded.  These figures are fairly basic but I'm really happy with how they turned out and so far they have been HUGE contributors in the three games they've played in.

Next up: Bretonnians.....I mean Frostgrave soldiers....

I picked up some bretonnian men-at-arms a while back with the intention of using them for Warmachine or Iron Kingdom roleplaying, once I really saw how they scaled with Privateer Press miniatures I abandoned that idea.  I will be using some more of these figs for an upcoming RPG but in the meantime they made great troopers for Frostgrave.  Having painted a bunch of them now though I can't help but wondering if my Vampire Counts should have some men from Mousillon working for them as well........

Last but not least; Nythera campaign for Malifaux

I had to paint up a henchman to lead my forces in the Nythera campaign for Malifaux and having just picked up Seamus' box I decided on Sybelle.  While I was at it I also added the Dead Rider to give me a decent beat-stick for my Resurrectionists.  The bases on these models will be the basing for my Malifaux stuff going forward, now the question is just what to re-base......

That's got me up-to-date on games I've been wanting to play.  My next three projects are:
1.  Nythera Through The Breach.  This is pretty straight forward, I'm committed to running the first scenario for the campaign in 10 days, I need to get a bunch of stuff done by then.  Model selection and deadline is bascially non-negotiable.
2.  Batman.  I've got a bunch of the Batman stuff from Knight Models and I want to get it done and start playing.  The good news is I really only need to paint 5-6 figs so as soon as my current Nythera stuff is done I should be able to crank it out.
3.   A Red And Pleasant Land.  I need to get some fairly odd miniatures done for my next D&D game set is Zak Smith's Red And Pleasant Land.  I'll leave it at that until I start working on stuff but if you think Alice In Wonderland meets Dracula you won't be too far off.

-Jay

Frostgrave - The adventure begins!

I'm going to be talking about two new games and a new D&D campaign this week so I'll be diverging a bit from "look what I finished" and spending most of the week on "look what I'm working on".

Today's new game is Frostgrave by Osprey Games.  Frostgrave is a game I had recently heard a lot of buzz about and to be quite honest at first I really didn't care.  Historically one of the problems I have had with jumping on board in the early days of a new game system is that I hear a lot of enthusiasm from people and then six months later none of my gaming friends have painted their models and I've spent time and money on a bunch of stuff collecting dust in a corner.
That being my issue going in there were two things about Frostgrave that dispelled that concern instantly.  First up the game is set in a classic medieval fantasy setting with characters who fit generic fantasy tropes.  What this means in practical terms is that anyone who has a collection of; D&D or Warhammer or Mordheim or whatever game make a force out of figures they already own.  My second issue is that typically skirmish games that feature a campaign or warband experience mechanic get old very quickly for me, in Frostgrave every campaign is meant to end, so it doesn't go on forever.

The book itself is fantastic.  Hardcover, 128 pages with terrific art and miniature photography throughout and a simple intuitive game system that seems to offer reasonable depth without becoming bogged down in endless rules.  All this for a price between $25 (US) and $32 (Canadian).

The only requirement for a starting warband in Frostgrave is that it must have a wizard.  There are 10 different schools of magic to theme your wizard around but me being me I'm starting off with a Necromancer.  You also have the option (which the rules directly and highly recommend) to hire an apprentice for your wizard.  There are a lot of neat mechanics around the apprentice, he is statistically similar but slightly inferior to your actual wizard and knows all the same spells but at a slightly lower level of proficiency.   One of the mechanics that should strike an immediate chord with campaign players is that after a certain amount of levelling up your apprentice can take over the warband (becoming a wizard themselves) if the actual wizard is ever killed.  For my wizard and necromancer I build them from the Games Workshop Empire Wizard two-pack, the only extra piece is that the apprentice has a head lifted from a Bretonian archer.  The Empire Wizard pack is GREAT for Frostgrave because a number of the pieces in the package work towards the schools of magic in the game.

The next classification of models in the game are soldiers.  Soldiers refer to any figures hired into the warband that are not the wizard or his apprentice.  For my first three soldiers I assembled some characters from the Games Workshop Bretonian Men-At-Arms box (more of these figures will be featuring in a different game next month!).  They are from left to right; an Infantry Man, a Man-At-Arms and an Apothecary.  There are 15 types of soldiers in the basic game book and they represent most of the character options for D&D and other classic fantasy RPGs so you have quite a lot of options for customisation and modelling.

Last but not least I have a Warhound.  The warhound is from a dwarf sprue from Mantic Miniatures, I'm actually not sure what unit box it comes in because I got this particular sprue from a Dwarf Kings Hold game box.  The warhound is just another type of soldier, but I had the model and was trying as much as possible to keep my warband all plastic so I thought I'd give him a go.

So that's where I'm at so far.  The plan is to start painting this stuff (I'll still need to add another model or two) this week and hopefully get done in time to play a game by next Friday (8 days from now).

That's it for Frostgrave until something gets done, up next Batman!

-Jay

Project Vampire: 2 Units Of Zombies started

Tonight I got my first 2 (small) units of zombies started for my eventual Warhammer/Kings Of War armies.

All these figures are of the Strahd Zombies from the D&D pre-painted miniature line.  The plan is to mix these in with 3 other variants of zombie figures I have and am presently re-basing to finish up with 2 units of 20 zombies each.

The next 8 are almost done, so only 6 more after that.  Once those are done I will have 3 core units for a Warhammer Vampire Counts army and/or 2 units for a Kings Of War army done.  Not a bad start and so far it's just re-cycling.

-Jay

Project Vampire: A New Beginning

Yesterday I alluded to the fact that I was going to be starting a new project (really should finish Scrapheap first....) and today marks my first entry.

As I started getting away from doing the undead for RPGs I found I had accumulated a ridiculous amount of models for roleplaying, more than I'd ever be able to use in an encounter that would fit on my kitchen table.  So I've decided to do some chopping and swapping with the goal of turning those models into a mass combat army for games like Warhammer and Kings Of War.

My first project was to rebase and touch up a couple more wolves who will be joining the 5 wolves I did a few months ago.  On one hand this is great as it either gives me the start of a second unit or it allows me to bulk out my original unit to 10 models.  The downside of using blind-pack pre-painted models for something like this is that I don't know when or if I'll be able to find 3 more wolves to complete this.

The bulk of what will be getting painted for Project Vampire will be some D&D pre-painted Zombies & Ghouls getting touched-up and re-based for mass combat as well as a pile of Mantic Skeletons finally getting some much needed paint.

-Jay

Mhorgoth The Faceless

Today's addition to my growing legions of the night is Mhorogth The Faceless from Mantic Games.
Mhorgoth is the powerful necromancer depicted in all of Mantic's undead artwork leading the armies of the dead.  One of the things I really liked about this model is that it creates a very different image of a powerful wizard, instead of the wizened old mage who has a frail body Mhorgoth looks like he is both mystically and physically powerful.  He puts me in mind of alot of the evil wizards from the old Fighting Fantasy novels of days gone by.

Mhorgoth will definitely be a fixture in my Vampire Counts army, I have yet to decide what role (if any) he will play in my upcoming Pathfinder game.

-Jay

Ready for battle!

 

And now for something not entirely different....

Well I've decided to take a break from painting my never ending collection of modern day zombies to paint some fantasy zombies...okay, ultimately this project won't be all about zombies and will actually be me painting fantasy figures for my Pathfinder game....zombies just seemed like the natural starting point.

I've decided to build most of my man-sized monsters for my upcoming Pathfinder game out of miniatures from Mantic Games.  The two big drivers for this are that I really like the Mantic figures and this is a good excuse to get some paint onto some of them and as I'm sure many of you will guess by the 20mm square bases it's also a push to get an updated Vampire Counts army done.

The paint job on these zombies was super quick and easy as I started by undercoating them with Army Painter's 'Barbarian Flesh' spray coat.  This is neither here nor there in terms of painting 5 figures for an RPG but when I want 50-100 of these for my Vampire Counts army it will be a huge time saver.

-Jay

I can see the darkness is already creeping in...