Category Archives: Post Apocalypse

Gamer Confessions: Those bloody (Kickstarter) buses…

If you back a Kickstarter you hope its going to be fulfilled. Even better when it’s on time. But I wasn’t prepared for them all arriving at the same blinking time! I’m sure their creators have conspired to have delivery of pledges all to fall in the same space of a few weeks.

Here is the confession – what I’ve received in the course of the last few weeks, why I fell for it in the first place and what I thought of the goodies when they arrived.

Scoring
Summary Verdict:
 High is good.
Guilt Burden: Low is good.

Zombicide: Black Plague
First off a real chunk of gaming-goodness arrived – Zombicide Black Plague in it’s entirety (Base game + expansion and add-ons). In short, nigh on two hundred 28mm miniatures (no, I’m not going to count them).
Summary Verdict: Awesome. I was hopeful for good quality (for plastic) miniatures and was suitably pleased. 9/10
Guilt Burden: Massively intimidating number of miniatures to paint – and that’s just the cool player characters and big monsters. 10/10

Dungeon Forge – In my pocket
At the price point, I couldn’t resist this neat little dungeon crawl set of terrain and miniatures from Spain. Very nice in the flesh. Scales great with 15mm. Already painting it up. Considering returning for more dungeon furnishings. Quite a lot of painting to get it game ready.
Summary Verdict: Awesome. Heroquest in miniature. 9/10
Guilt Burden: Quite a lot of painting to get it game ready, but nothing taxing. 6/10

Heroines in Sensible Shoes
Big fan or Oathsworn so had to jump on this one. Great character sculpts for any number of skirmish game systems. I did resist jumping on to the second Kickstarter more recently due to bouts of leadenitus (guilt derived from amassing too much lead miniatures).
Summary Verdict: Always great miniatures from Oathsworn. 10/10
Guilt Burden: Modest number of 12 miniatures – but they demand a ‘good’ paint job. 6/10 Continue reading Gamer Confessions: Those bloody (Kickstarter) buses…

Rather Special: 15mm Spec Ops from Oddział Ósmy

Back to some 15mm. And sci fi to boot.

I’ve already painted up some miniatures from Oddział Ósmy – namely some 15mm insurgents (sci fi modern) and some rather cool vampires, also modern/sci fi. All from a rather large order from Assault Publishing whilst taking advantage of an attractive special offer a while back.

Below are some of the Special Forces types. Main take-away points;

  • Brilliant sculpting and casting
  • Full of character
  • Scale on the ‘larger’ size but nothing drastic
  • ‘Largish heads’ to body size, but needed to squeeze in that extra character
  • Pewter of a ‘harder’ than normal quality making cleaning a bit more time consuming and blunt-inducing.

Oddział Ósmy Oddzial Osmy 15mm insurgents sci fi modern skirmish Oddział Ósmy Oddzial Osmy 15mm insurgents sci fi modern skirmish

Just finishing off a dozen more of the insurgents. Photos to follow soon.

 

Mini Update: 15mm MiB FBI Martix Hoods from Rebel Minis

Sometimes you pick up an almost random miniature or set of miniatures for no other reason than to paint – no plan or nothing much to report. That’s what the Mini Update will be for. Mostly pictures just to record what I’ve done (for my records, not yours – why the hell would you want a record?).

I’ve made such posts before but thought I would formalise this type of post as I can see from my media library I’ve quite a few images of ‘unrelated’ paint jobs to post about at the moment.

Nuff said. The first official “Mini Update”.

These 15mm guys from Rebel Minis – clearly MiB or FBI agents or Agents from the Matrix or Gangsters from a Tarantino movie. See, just proved how flexible they are for games!

15mm Men in Black MiB from Rebel Minis
Yes, I was tempted to try and paint this guy up as Dirty Harry. But didn’t. If I could sculpt I’d have made that pistol in to a big Magnum. If I come across a swapsie I might change him yet.
15mm Men in Black MiB from Rebel Minis
Reservoir Dogs anyone?

Continue reading Mini Update: 15mm MiB FBI Martix Hoods from Rebel Minis

WW2 US Paratroopers? What’s going on here then?

Quick post (for a change). Aside from Medieval, Dark Age and a smattering of Piratical or Sharpe-like Napoleonic Skirmishing, I’m not really a ‘historical’ wargamer/collector. I did however pick up a squad/platoon? of US Paras off eBay recently – 25 of them for the princely sum of £7.50.

And they were painted to what I would class an above average tabletop standard to boot. I rebased them and went to work on touching them up (stop it!). Some washes, highlight detailing and adding some insignia etc.

Here are a few of them.

15mm Flames of War American Paratroopers WW2 Continue reading WW2 US Paratroopers? What’s going on here then?

Mat procrastination finally pays off. DIY Fantasy and Sci-fi battle mats.

I’ve resisted buying some a gaming mat/battleboard for a good while. There are very fine specimens available on the market (Pworks and Deepcut spring to mind) but because I am an ‘in-active’ player I couldn’t justify the £30+ price tag on them. Plus, being into both fantasy and sci-fi I know I’d just end up ‘collecting’ a whole bunch. Up until now I’ve trundled along printing out my own boards and tiles and being ‘okay’ with the results. But there is a limit to what you can achieve with an A4 colour inkjet, graphic designer or not.

City Town Terrain for Mordheim or Frostgrave fantasy gamesI’ve been humming and hawing over getting some custom mats printed up for some time. I gathered a few quotes from printers and done a bit of online research. But I faltered. Procrastinated. I simply hadn’t ‘seen’ a finished example so I couldn’t be sure of what I would be getting.

Long story short, I joined Sam and Tim the other week in Falkirk for a rare gaming outing (which was great fun btw chaps). Sam tinkers in similar areas to myself and had had a set of vinyl 2’x2′ mats printed for (Advanced) Song of Blades and Heroes. We played on one and I was suitably impressed by the print quality and material. Sam proffered the printers details (see note 1.) and a printed mat (see below). Back at home  I started digging around for various artwork (see note 2.) that I’d been messing around with previously with a view to getting some mats printed myself previously. Continue reading Mat procrastination finally pays off. DIY Fantasy and Sci-fi battle mats.

15mm Zombie Survivors: Frosty Pegg

I can’t believe I forgot to take and post a couple of pics of these guys. I painted them up about the same time as the other zombie hunters from a popular ‘TV show’ here and here.

No doubt great additions to the ‘back-burner’ project to do Zombicide in 15mm. Which reminds me – I’ve not posted anything to do with the hordes of 15mm zombies I’ve painted up…

They are from Rebel Minis, a stalwart source for 15mm goodness.

15mm Shaun of the Dead Simon Pegg and Nick Frost

Just in case you think that red splodge on Shaun’s shirt is an error – it’s not. Just watch the movie if you haven’t already.