Shelldrake's PBB Mini me

Hello,

I've been just whining and complaining for past two weeks and now I've decided it is time to get a grip and start putting things that belong here. So I present you my character for Shelldrake's PBB 2 game. I've started painting this fellow before I left and finished him yesterday. He is not as good as I'd want to, but well, not too bad either, concerning my skills.  Photos are much worse!

I've added two pictures of his front, none is really good. Ian, please tell me if they're too bad, I will take some more today or next weekend.

As for the miniature itself, I've decided for him to represent me as he is a bit shorter and kind of slim. His hair is awfully done, I just can't paint that. He carries G36C assault rifle, which will probably be my imaginary country's main firearms. Just need some eureka germans and more hasslefree, hehe. I've painted his buletproof vest in "olive drab" kind color, but I went with urban uniform. Main reason is, I wanted to get some contrast to him, all green wouldn't work good for me, neither would all black-white, as I will probably do my SWATs in greys, too. Don't like blue too much. So, if we go back to our man, he could be a reserve formations soldier, with limited uniform. This would justify woodland vest and urban uniform beneath it. He has full cammo pants (which I am very satisfied with, as I was somewhat scared to start it) and grey turtleneck, for cold days in urban enviroment. Its based on one color green turtlenecks we got at the army. It is not designed for use without full cammo shirt over it, but well, who has time to obey regulations once the dead walk the earth?

Painting him was a real joy. I love the fingerless gloves. I love the neck guard on the vest. Don't like the vest itslef much, but well, a man can't have everything! I will definitely buy a civil version of him, give him an axe and use him as me for my own zombie slaughtering campaign!

As for the campaign characteristic, he is conveniently armed the same way as the figure I picked from Shelldrake's list of choices. The only difference, thus, is, this one is really mine :P.

Here are the stats:

Grom (it is just an acronym from my first and last name - it means "thunder" or "thunderclap" in slovenian, I am bad to the bone! :D)
Guns 7 (30)
Fists 8 (21)
Guts 11 (18)
=69

Badass zombie slayer (30)
Gunslinger (5)
I would follow him trough the gates of hell (15)
= 50


Gear
The char no. 4, my choice, was armed with an assault rifle, body armour and a pistol.So is this guy. If you're interested, he carries pistol on his left-side ribcage area. Because it all adds over 50 points limit, Grom counts as having:
A body armour (20)
An assault rifle (30)


= 50

I will jump in the game in June, after I come home so people wouldn't wait for me for no reason, and we will see how Shelldrake delivers me, once we get there!




I am glad my wargaming blog is wargaming blog again and will keep it that way

Blast! I've copied stats from forums and now its all weird. Sorry for that, seems I can't fix it -.-




Cheers,

Mathyoo

A letter from Joe!

Hey again guys!


today, when I've came home, a nice little envelope was waiting for me, all the way from US of A! Thanks for the decals Joe. And don't worry, they haven't came a day too late. My private life is crumbling down to the foundations at the moment and it made my day a bit :). I can't wait to get my TAG minies now, I'll jump on SWAT guys right away and will do my best to make sure those decals look as good as possible!

Hobby wise, again, I can't really do too much. I planned on painting mini me for Shelldrake's campaign, but I need to catch some sleep first. Maybe tomorrow, I really planned to have him finished before I come home.


Well, hope you guys are all right, I will probably post some ideas for my campaign settings next week and after I get home, I'll have enough time to double time the project, should start the campaign itself by august (pretty blind shot at this one, I have no idea how long it will take to get everything up and running :P)

Cheers,
Mathyoo

Not even an update post!

Hello,

just dropping by....its a working weekend this week, and I wouldn't even be home if I wouldn't have to rush here and finish some of the work for the faculty. Madam was not satisfied with the work I've put into her little paper, so I had to fix some things. I still, obviously, can't do much, because libaries are closed on the weekends, and I am on a limited time, but well, I hope this time she'll be satisfied enough to let me be.

Otherwise, I got some tan, I got some bruises, I eat shitty food and I won't be sleeping much next week due to night watches...can't remember what is the right word here. Its about 4 people spending the night awake, 2 hours each, to make sure everything is as it should be, and if, say, fires would start, to get the alarm sounding and all. That is nothing special by itself, but we have 8 guys and 7 days. I don't know who is the mastermind behind this, but it  takes from 6-8 hours of sleep away from  each us (depending on 4 or 3 days of duty) this week. That is one night. Ah well, why bother...16 days and Im as free as a bird!

I don't even have time to check the forums, I will be home tomorrow and will try to check those. I will run over the new blog posts to check the pics, you'll have to excuse me for not taking time to go over them properly and comment today!

Have at least as much fun blogging as I have kilometers to cross walking, and see you next weekend!

Mantic Hasslefree Adventurers unboxing

Hello guys!

On thursday, my package from Wayland games arrived. In it, there were Hasslefree zombie hunters in mantic case (more on that curiosity later) and two "loads", an old couple. Missing was a strip of greenstuff that I've ordered and which I will run out of very soon. This makes me sad, I was really looking forward to it. I was just warming myself up for converting some mantic zeds  and giving them a bit more modern clothes. This does give me an excuse to buy more stuff next time they will have a free shipping thingie, hehe.

 Here is the pic of the things as I got them:

 And old woman, an old man and a huge "carry case". Second pic shows you the other side of the case, if you're interested in some fluff. Let me ask you to pay attention at the lower paragraph on back side "...please do not eat them." So, those are miniature figures, not miniature bacon. Keep that in mind!

When I've ordered the adventurers, I though they are from Hasslefree. Sure it said it comes in a "mantic case", but I didn't think much of it. I even went to check minies I get in the box on the list of hasslefree producs (to avoid any double buying in future :P), and found them all... except "Kenny"  from the case was called "Ken (b)"...or did I? Read on, I'll explain you everything.  However, first thing that came to my mind when I saw the case up close was "wow that ain't painted too well". Don't get me wrong, its nicely painted, above my skill, but still, I've expected something more...artistic? And whole case is much more "meh" from up close.

 After I've opened the case, here's what I saw:

...and it all made sense, looks like Mantic and Hasslefree teamed up. I went to check the Mantic's page and even read how at least one mini in each box (you also have some kids, which I'd like to get and two boxes of females, which are not what I'd want at the moment. At least not the "soldiers" one, they're all the same, hehe).
Included in the box were 4 bases and a "mantic point". Got to find those from the zeds, too. Not sure where I've put them so they wouldnt get lost -.-

Here are all the minies put in a row. Remember, hunters from hasslemantic and old couple from hasslefree. Second mini from left had his barrel broken. I guled it on and my optimism vanished after 3 sec when it fell of and got lost somewhere in all the cuts from cleaning the miniatures. As you can see, Tony guy (the first from left) is huge. And Kev is kinda small. I know he is supposed to be based on the sculptor, Kev White himself, but still, it really is a small mini. So, he has to be perfect to represent me, hah! To be honest, I am 178 cm tall and I call that average (which missus finds funny), but Im skinny enough to look smaller. Unless I find a better miniature, I think civilian version of Kev (with an axe!) will be my alter ego in the campaign. The pose of that mini is just sick...so good. But I am not a katana guy and pistol is "meh"...ah well, more on that once I get him!

I think this picture is good enough so you can play a little game with me! None of the 4 minies is unavailable at Hasslefree's, but they are kind of converted. Spot the differences and post them in the comments below!

What did you say...how do I know they're from mantic? Well, check the slotta tabs, silly! On pic above you can see they all have "hasslefree" written on the tab. And on the other side... :

If you wondered, miniatures came with lots of flash and mould lines. They're awesome sculpts, but crappy molds. Was more of a hasslemuch than hasslefree job, cleaning them up! But I did it once I was done, I had to admire the detail again. Actually, every time I grab them, I just have to watch how cool those minies are. Really awesome. I have much lower standards, to be fair, but it is still nice to have few of the top miniatures.

Here are some more pics of the minies. I will base my old couple once I get a hold of some 20mm bases, as 25mm seem too big for them...well, at least for the lady.

A

I've also took some size comparishon shots and another shot of the redhead from previous post:

Mantic-HF, Mantic zed, Mantic-HF Kev (Looks just like me, doesn't he? :P), WGF Zed, Urban war male, Mantic-HF Ken and Grant, Urban war female

And for the end, some close ups for scale and the "bonus" redhead:

I hope this was helpful at least to the guys who, as myself, were unavare of "Mantic-HF" deals!

And here is a hint for those, interested in an old couple: Click me softly!

Thanks for reading,

Mathyoo

First survivors spotted!

When I bought my Urban war female militia with pistols, I've got one guy instead of girl. I wrote about it to Urban war, and after quite some time (my mail went in their junk, but the guy apologized like 3 times or so :P), I've got it. It was one of my favorites, but isn't any more. When my brother and I played On the road scenario (short report with few findings to follow some other day next month, when I won't have time to do anything but want to keep posting), he was playing with those 3 miniatures. The "lost girl" was his sheeple, because he voted her the ugliest :P.

To show you what I mean, here are two pictures of my (first!) 3 survivors:

They don't have the names yet, but when we played they were named Tanya, Sonya and Alex(andra). There is no extensive thinking behind the pickings. We wanted to name them for the laughs and my brother figured the first one (so Tanya) looks like a russian (no offense here ;) ) so they were all Eastern Europeans. From left to right:
Tanya wears red and black combination and is my hands-down favorite from those three. I've tried to give her latex boots an imitation of gloss, but failed. Did gloss varnished her, tho, so half work done there! I hope you can see she has a patch over her eye. It looks uber cool to me, and no, it wasn't planned. I made a lifetime mistake of trying to paint the girl's eyes. My hand shook and I blew half of her face. So I just made her a patch, problem solved. She has the best face for it, from the 3, so I can call myself pretty lucky. As most of the figures, she is dressed in short skirt, to confuse the living and some kind of lether jacket.
Sonya, in the middle has black and red combination as well, but I've gave her green skirt and blonde hair. We don't want them all to look identical now, do we? Nothing else special, you can see the grey dots at the eyes, I am not trying to fix that anymore! I could do more work on her belt, but the thing is, I was working for 3 days on those 3, because I lack the time (lots to do by the end of the week :( ).
Alex is the one that came late. You can see she is quite muscular, which isn't weird, considering she carries this huge pistol. I wanted to get more constrast between her top and pants, but kind of failed. I did gave her red all star converse shoes, which are quite a lovely touch!

Let that be all for today. I am surprisingly brief, but honestly, I've been typing for 3 days now about IAEA and intelligence's role on countering terrorism, so I hate my keyboard a bit at the moment, hehe.

I could also tell you I got drafted a little "thinking post" for my campaign...as said I will post it some day next month and it will include few short ideas and a to-do list (very shortened, I may add) before I start my campaign. Currently, I am searching the net for suitable miniatures for the heroes to-be.




Cheers,
Mathyoo

Altering Mantic zombies

Well, Mantic's zombies are okay. They're cheap, plastic, come in big boxes and nicely detailed. I, to be honest, prefer Wargames factory zombies, because they're modern and not as big (mantic's are heroic, probably to fit with GW's style). But WGF's are not nearly as nice.

As you can read in my review, you get 10 (or in my case, 11) sprues, 3 (or 4) zeds per sprue. That surely allows you for MILLIONS of combinations, with different arm (yes, only one), torso, legs, head, different angles etc etc. But the cruel reality is, they still look all the same. Rougly one third has arms stretched out, chasing things, 1/3 has one arm lift up, pointing left, like signalising, 33.3% are bowed forward like they're puking or at least saying hello to Japan. You can make some crawlers, but those are all the same, too. And making a crawler leaves you with torsoless legs, which isn't too zombific. I mean, no brains = no walking dead. And what you get there is a walking spine. I made one and won't do it anymore. I did more crawlers, which leaves me with spare legs.  Again, keep in mind I like mantic and keep in mind that even as I prefer WGF zombies, story is the same. Plastic zeds are anyways more or less meant for bulking the horde and if you are a beginner, as myself, buy 1 box of each, add a box of mantic ghouls and youre at 80 zombies or more, all for, what...a bit over 50 pounds? It is a good way to get you started. That was my point.
   So, to cut the chatter, and show some pic, what have I done so far?

I went by the book (NMRIH) and I've decided to make some special zombies that I could use in my game. Ladies (any ladies out there? At all?) and gents, I present you....


The howler:

The howler is a zombie that...well, howls, and was actually made by mistake. I was sick of my zombies being bent forward, so I cut the torso on two pieces. Then I picked the smaller piece and reversed it (front is at back). I glued on the rest and Bob is someone's uncle :P. I filled the little gaps that appeared with some green stuff. I even put his head in this position totally unawared. So, he will be played as zed, as rager, or, if I, master of his soul, decide that way, a howler.

The tongue guy:

The tongue is a zed that grabs you with a tongue and beats you up...or something. I haven't played the game (Left for dead, if Im correct?), so this was a new kind of zombie to me, but as it was a question of cutting his lower jaw, putting a wire in his mouth, coating it in putty and shaping the cut jaw ( I saved his original one but lost it before I managed to finish the tongue. Plus I think I wouldn't use it as it would end up awkward. Thats all what it is to this zombie. So, few minutes of work and voila, you got yourself a special zed!

The shambler:

The shambler isn't a special zed by himself...but the thing is, all Mantic zeds look way too...hmm...active? So, what I did was I took the both-hands-in-the-air zed and I've cut them. Yes, sir, just chopped'em right off! I cut them so they could be positioned at different angle, and here he is, a sad zed. I even put his head looking down...it is a hard life with no friends around :(.

Here is another pic, so you can see he really is sad...or confused. It depends on level of your humanity:

The crawlers:

You are correct! The crawlers crawl. I build one with repositioned arm and showed him few posts back. Hes nothing special so I haven't included him here. This one is different. I was thinking...I don't want him to hold head nor hand, so I chopped his hand. Then I figured, he's a crawler, he had to get thorn apart, no? So I've chopped his jaw (tongue test!) and added some extra guts. The tongue would probably get ripped off, but it looks cooler that way, hehe.

The second guy is a WIP and a more complicated. The idea was, I'd sculpt him legs, so we could say he got hit by a car or fell from the roof or something, and broken them. I used miliput to see how it is like and I am not satisfied. Miliput gets dusty, kinda like DAS putty, while greenstuff is more stretchy. I had it mixed so I've made the basis for extra work from it. I will use the rest to sculpt some random scenery. As you can, hopefuly, see from the pic, it's a failed concept. And idea that got smashed by my skills, etc etc. His torso was so highly angled, it actually looks weird. his legs came out short. I made him a bit..."heavier" and after few layers of GS, I hope he will look a bit more decent, because I really liked the idea, lol. Well, more sculpting practice!

I also went on and tried to sculpt a T-shirt on one of mantic zeds, to get him dressed up, too many chest showing around. But well...I am not sure I will do that too many, and will jsut keep them fantasy-styled. Maybe called them patients :D




As it goes for other "special" zeds, I am missing (out of top of my head), a brute, a fat zombie and a smart one. First two will probably come from Tengu's models, but I will probably give it a try at sculpting, too. Brute is just bulkied zed and fatty is my extra legs I was talking about + blob of putty. Sounds easy, just like the crawler from the last pic :P.  I still have no plans for making the smart zed, but might do it when I get struck by an idea. 

Well, thanks again for looking, thanks for 2 thousand views and feel free to comment.

Playing the game!

Hello, after I had my roads built, I obviously had to play the game!

First, I picked supply run scenario, set it all up and quit playing it quite soon, way too complicated for my tired brains, lol. Then I went for "defend" scenario. Pretty basic, zombies came close to your stronghold, you have to kill them. Seems easy. I rolled to see how many zeds will attack the stronghold. Got 37 (no new would be generated), counted my zombies = 25. Yikes! I need to build more...badly. I just played with 25 then. I rolled random weapons for survivors, had a sniper, a rifle and two large caliber (Bad ass, whatever you want to call them) pistols.

Here is their last stand:
You can see surivors on top of the store and behind silver car on the parking lot:

 "Snipers" view...undead! So many! Oh my...

 Zacks closing in. You can see them clustering on the right, under the "rifle" girl...poor lost souls, unable to reach our heroes!

 Zombies reaching two survivors taking cover behind a car:

The horde, stretching arms towards some fresh braaaaains:

 

 The group two - only 1 zombie made it to the melee, sniper on the rooftop was of great assistance:

Got no more pictures, but the group on the ground ran around behind the store, climbed on truck and helped group on the rooftop kill the rest of the zeds - Mathyoo survived and won, yay!

I am slowly getting used to rules, acutally really simple once you get in. I need more survivors, here I rolled for weapons because all pistols becomes boring fast. REALLY need more zombies. So bad, I've ran and assembled some just after I've finished the game. And I need peace. I played on our dining table, which mean family members kept coming here mocking me about being a child...unaware of the fact, I am just training for the future, lol!

I will also leave my 6 zeds sculpts aside for now and will try to sculpt a fat and a strong guy from Mantic "left overs" (when you make a crawler you're left with legs and spine, which is much "meh", so I can use legs to build something else. Or something, considering my skills lol.

And I have to check Shelldrake's home rules again, twist them a bit and start using them to make zeds act as I think they should, being relentless and dumb....oh and attracted by gunfire, thats just too good to pass :P

Oh, talking about Shelldrake (I've written upper part of the post before I left this week)  - I found out I got unfollowed on your blog again...I am not sure what's the point, but I am following again now, lol.

I've also been to Vienna on "school trip" - I don't know how to call it to sound more mature, but we went to UN HQ Vienna and OSCE HQ...so that was all professional. Those were both okay, but the trip has payed itself back as I went checking the surroundings of hotel and found GK (or something) shop - I was hoping for some cheap cars (saw none...no cars at all), but I did got myself a shinny nice, big-potted X-27, or, the holy Tamiya Clear red. This big pot should last me for a while, so I've only picked one. Got to fix my zombie sextet tomorrow and should've paint moooooar! :D