WGF Zombies - little conversions

Hello again!

I've been working on my WGF Zombie Horde over the weekend. I've assembled 18 zombies from 3 sprues, leaving two for later. To be honest, even if there is a billion combinations you can build them, no matter how you do it, they just keep looking the same. And I am not in any hurry, anyways, heh.

So, what I did was first some drilling and chopping, then some greenstuffing (if we could say that is an actual word), to modify some of them a bit.

Here we go:

As per Matakishi's advice, I've cut a bits of sprue and attached one arm and some paper clips to make an armature for a future zombie. Heads were glued on but fell of (which is good, they we're restricting my space to work on the armatures).
There are basicly 2 basic things I've learned while trying myself at sculpting. First, it ain't easy - I respect EVERY sculpter from now on. Anything that looks like what it is supposed to look like from far away, is a work worth of admiration. Second, sprue is not wide enough to make figures look wide enough, if glue arms straight on it (as I did), would have to pin them with some free space. I could always just make torso larger on the other side, but legs are on the middle of the sprue, so that woudl look odd.
Here are the pictures of my two armatures:

This is to be a patient in a hospital gown. His "grab" arm will be (if it goes as planned) holding to infusion rod. Don't know what is the word but you know, the rod that has blood / liquid food in it. Or something like that. Notice the feet, I am really happy about how that turned out.

 Here is the second one, a generic zombie or something. I wanted to give him those table signs you put on your body, to inform people the world is at end. Something like this, but minus Homer.

And here they are, bot together. Nothing special, and I will take a break a little, as I need to gather a courage for next level, the real deal, heh.

Back to WGF Zombies themselves:

  I have filled the body - legs joints where I saw needed, and I wont be showing those here, nothing special to see. However, on the pictures above, we got an "I was an adventurer, just like you...but then I took a steel pipe in my chest" (for you, Skyrim fans :P) Zed, nothing special. I think he looks little like Steve Irwin. Next to him is one of the 2 bare chested guys who got repositioned left arm. First one is not on the picture, but its mostly like this one, except for the shirt. Shirt itself is nothing special, now, just giving myself a try. his left arm was glued with plastics glue twice and once with super glue and it keep falling off, so I've pined it. Now it holds. Third guys is a Student Zed, my attempt at being funny. I will paint him as a student in pijamas and a robe (yet another idea partly "stolen" from Matakishi). I was going for a cup of coffee in his hand, but that seemed hard to make, so I've made a cell phone. Obviously poor guy was talking to someone while he gots biten and now just doesn't get it, comprende? Added that fabric belt to his robe and will probably paint his huge feet as if he is wearing slippers.

On this picture you can see my try at sculpting a hand, which took some attempts. I've sculpted my own, because I already got two office workers with chopped leg in their hands and 3 would be justtoo much. I had some ideas that I would chop the hand and then use that leg on some other zombie, which should look like somebody was grabbed by a zombie, if you know what I mean. I decided against it as the leg they hold in their hand is much smaller than other feet. The big boned fellow next to him was my first "conversion", steel pipe in a stomach, but i've sculpted a handle and now we can call it a knife.

I was also informed that my female militia with pistols pack arrive and will probably pick it tomorrow. When I do, I will make another unboxing review. I've decided I will show (all?) my minies first with raw review, talking about the package and sculpts themselves, and then another, more personaled review with some context explanation (something simillar to what i did in this post), once I get them painted.

Thanks for taking your time, and see you soon!

Wargames Factory Zombie horde - unboxing

Hello again!

Today my WGF Zombie horde has finally arrived.

I ordered bag of 24 zombies (so it said) and got a box of 30. This looks like the new size of packs. Here is a picture of the front side of the box:

Nothing special here, the miniatures on the picture are superbly painted.
What I've noticed right aways (total coincidence) was misspelled word on the side of the box "prats" instead of parts. Nothing that would make me refuse to buy this product, but looks kinda funny. The sides are full of text. On one side, there are assembly instructions, on other is a text about what kind of glue to use, pretty good for beginners.

I like the thank-you line they've written on the back of the box:

I couldnt find the point, by the way. Except if by that they mean some circle Wargames santard scale "coin".

Well, to the miniatures!
Zombies come in 3-4 parts (head, right arm and then body in one or two pieces). There are 2 extra hands and 3 extra heads, I plan to use those to practice a bit of sculpting. Hopefuly it won't stay just at the plan, but when I saw how small this is, I started wondering how I am going to paint that, let alone sculpt!
Each sprue has enough parts for 6 Zed, you get 5 sprues, which gives you 30 of them.
Here are the pics of 1 sprue (again, sprues are all the same):

And turned around:

The only body of the 6 that comes in one piece is the one with coat, which makes all the sense. Keep in mind, it is possible to swap torsos and legs all you wish, but I found out, some fit better than others. I wanted to make a soldier with shirt and "combat legs", but had to swap legs. New legs fit shirt better and "overweight torso" got the "combat legs". You can see first (and only) 6 zeds I've assembled today here:

You can see the details are somewhat missing. I am sorry that I used that bald head on the guy with 3 legs ( wink), because mouth are...missing in a way. Maybe a coat of primer will pop them out. I mean, I am in my twenties, nothing wrong with my eyes, but I hardly see the detail. You can also see how bad some of them fit, but that might be my problem. Will use some greenstuff once I assemble them all and will see what I can fix...and chop...I feel strong urge to cut some of the left arms and reposition them.

Sadly I have to go and can't go in more details. I will make review of them once I get them painted (which I will do once I get the paints, heh). My primary goal of this post was to show you some raw pictures, as I had big problems finding them myself.

They are not the best quality, especially legs are somewhat big. And feet...the one that has no shoes could have flippers painted instead of feet. But then again, that is 30 Zeds for around 15 pounds, which makes it okay. And I think that is best start of a modern zombie horde, if you want modern zombies out of the box. I will also buy mantic zombies and my horde will grow to 60 in no time! but I plan on modernising those, as they were sculpted for Fantasy.

Well, I hope somebody will find that useful in future, now I got to run again. I might just add, that now that I got actual zombies on my blog, I've decided that I fulfill the criteria for zombie blogger and I've finally add the cool picture you can see on the left. Nicely done, Patient Zero!

First house "built"

Hello everyone!

I was thinking a lot about the size of my buildings since I was asking around about it last time. I've checked Vampifans buildings again, and found out that while they look really awesome, they are somewhat large. Then I rechecked the Matakishi's sizes and found those too small. I was drawing some plans and eventually, I've figured it is best to just start building and I will fix things with experience I'll get.

My first building is "typical" suburan house, one story building with attached garage. I've decided to go with 25 cm long, 10 of those being a garage. The house thus measures 15x10. The building itself seems large to me, but when I check the floor plan, and imagine where I'd put interior, it becomes too small. I was wondering how I'd model a living room and a kitchen in the ground floor, and honestly, still didnt came to a conclusion.  Considering I've cut out the french windows (at least I think that is how those big windows are called), I've even figured, I could make it a shop with apartment upstairs. The inner walls should probably be made with thick cardboard, because cork would take too much space. I have drawn lines for windows on back wall of the ground floor, if I decide I'd need them, but didnt cut them in case I settle for a shop. Probably an arms shop, like Vampifan has it, hehe. Can't think of better family business for apocaliptic town, really.
Here is the picture of the building as it is at the moment:

 

The roof on garage can be taken of (I have put the glue on it, but remembered just as I put it on -.-). It is made of carboard and has sand on it. Making shingles would take forever, and I think sand could give me a nice result. And that is when it wraped. I will probably make it out of thicker cardboard or plasticard. I went with cork for basing as DIY store I was about to pick hardboard from, was out of 3mm, of course. I figured 4mm is too big. And honestly, I prefer cork, it is much easier to cut and I don't want to go out in that cold to cut the hardboard with a saw.

On this picture, I've deattached it. This gives me the ability to play inside. I plan to make the opening doors and fill the windows with some plastic (from blisters or similar), but honestly, I rather wouldn't think about it just yet, heh.

Here, I've put a car in a garage and placed the minies inside to give you better sense of scale. The garage should be wider. Which I planned, but I lost that idea somewhere. If whole building would be just 2 cm wider (12 from 10), I think all would simply look better. But this ain't bad at all. Most of the cars shown in previous posts fit inside. The door seemed big at first, but when mini is placed in them, they're perfect. Thanks for scaling guys. I guess they really seem big just because I've made building small.

Thats the last picture, to show you the floor. Garage could be wider and a bit longer to fit mini inside without crowding, floors are simply too small to give me the ability to model whole aparment inside, but if I don't make it a shop, I could make a living room/kitchen downstairs and a bigger bedroom upstairs. Except I dont know where I'd put start. Thats why I didnt cut anything out yet... So many things to think about, heh.

I will probably only cut the triangles for the roof and then leave the building as it is for now. I'd like to build a smaller retail store now, will just make a box. And then Ill probably have problems with interior again, heh.

Leaving the modeling aside, I am still thinking about setting for my outbreak. I was thinking UK, just so it isnt USA again. And I thought about USA, just because of the availability of the miniatures. Then I talked to Vampifan about placing the outbreak in Slovenia, which would be easier to set and all, because that is the place I know and it could work better. I am a bit reluctant about making it slovenian...it just seems wrong to write "Banka" instead of "Bank" on a building, for example. I can't really explain. The thing is, rules are in english, blog is english...it makes sense to build the buildings english as well. I think I will just think of a name for a city and will place my campaing in totally imaginate country. This also gives me the availability of using the minies I want and the way I want them. It simply gives me more freedom of choice. For example, I can paint more than one people black (I apologize if anyone finds the term offending, it is not meant that way. I could say "african american", but "american" doesn't really fit.), because in Slovenia, you can see about 1 in what, 200 thousand?

Oh, by the way, my zombie horde was dispatched yesterday, I expect them to come by friday the latest and I will come back then with a review.

Ah, I might as well add that my local WGS got great -50% deal on Urban Mammoth miniatures. I've ordered me a pack of female militia with pistols, as those are the only ones that I saw fit for survivor / ganger role. Those with rifles and males not so much.
I also wanted Land pilot (female), but it was out of stock. Thats a shame, its a nice mini.

Bases arrived!

Hello again,

just a minor update for today. As I've said, starting this blog really started a fire for the hobby in me. I got one last exam for this semester in friday and as I can't really study (tired of it all, honestly), I am thinking much about the project.

Last friday, as I've also said before, I ordered a pack of 100 25mm slotta bases on e-bay. I wanted my figures to have the same basing, to make them look nice, so to say. I was thinking those 100 should last me at least a year, but now I started calculating...I'll need around 60 just for mantic and WGF zombies. If I order the packs I plan to order from Offensive miniatures (got some nice rioting mob there), I will pretty much run out of them before the summer, hehe. Ah well, will worry about that later. 

 Here is a picture of bases grouped by 5, when I was counting them. There were actually 101 bases in the pack. Probably a miscount, but a nice touch. Funny how a man can have  his day made by a piece of plastic :P.

and here is the storage I've came up with. Just a candy can. I saved 2 of those whne I was eating the candy a while ago. The other one has sand for basing in it. 
The bases themself are nothing special, but I've found out they are smooth on top, not grainy as the GW ones. Not a problem or anything really, they will (and would) get textured anyways.
What I would like to say is, bases came somewhat fast. As said, I've ordered them on friday, there they are with me on wednesday. That is ordinary shipping time from UK, but I was expecting them next week, because I got email from company, saying shipping should take 14-36 days. So, counting that in, those were really fast, hehe.

My zombies weren't sent yet, unfortunately. Still waiting for the items in my order that were out of stock.


During those days, I was also thinking much about the table and the terrain. I've read trough the campaign for DWA and I got scared by the ammount of terrain I'd have to make to really fit. But just for a little, then I've decided I will go with my plan, step by step and before you know it, I will have a little Mathyoown. Or Mathity, heh.

So, what progress I've made? First, the planning. I am still thinking of having 9 1'x1' tiles, which would provide me the most variety in the bases. I draw 1:10 plan and draw some roads on it. It didn't really work so what I did was this:

 I have cut some paper in roughly 1'x1' squares and I will use that as my "test table". I will probably draw the roads on it, just to see what works and what doesn't. I also went to DIY store and picked up some cork. The prices varied from 12-16 euros for what seemed to me as the same thing in two stores. I picked the cheap one, of course. Got 11 tiles, 3.2mm thick and I should produce some smaller buildings in next few days. I still got to think what I would want to base my buildigns on. Cork seems too thick, cardboard too thin.

The other problem is scale. I got absolutely no idea how big should I make those buildings. I want to add some limited interior, but don't want to make them too big. So I will have to find some nice measurments that make the building look good and playable. I can't have building for 1 family higher and bigger than row of tenements (Matakishi's plans) or even a factory halls. Any ideas here?

While I had camera running, I took few pictures of the dwarf you see on the top picture. That was made with no effort at all, I grabed a paper to make a white background, put macro mode on and got all the light from out of the window. Those are 2 of best pics. The first shows me the camera is obviously good enough, but I will have to turn on the desk lamp for some light.

That is it for today, will post again when I got either some buildings built or zombie horde arrives!

1/43ish cars

Hello again guys!


Firstly, I would like to thank everybody who took the time to check the blog and especially to those, who decided to follow my blog and commment it.
I decided yesterday, that I should take one step further in preparations of my zombie scene. I was thinking about posting my plans for table layouts, but that can wait, I found something better!

Two days back, I saw what it means to be a zombie gamer, my girl and I went in some 3 - 4 different stores to buy some grocery and the like. I, as a grown man, have made sure I went to check on the toys. I have found this GREAT yellow US school bus, but I am not ready to spend 15 euros on one just yet. I also foudn even better bus, but that one cost 20. I can't remember the term, but it had that flexible middle. Some city buses are so long, it would be impossible to drive them on the streets, if they wouldn't be made of 2 parts, connected by "accordion". I also found out most of the cars cost from 3-5 euros per piece, so I really hope I can find something juicy in the poundland when I'll visit the London next month. Which reminds me, any native knows a must-see for a first timer? I have dungeons, Tower and probably a London eye on the list + various museums.

I drifted away again...however, today, I figured I surely have some aprox 1/50 scale cars at home, I was young once after all. And so were my 2 brothers and a sister, heh. So, what I did was I made a quick search around the house and I found those 15 cars that might be useful:

 I have put them in 3 rows. Bottom two are 1/43 scale (has it written on the bottom of the car), and on top row, Land rover defender (which happened to be my dream car until I understood the meaning of the price for it and the oil it burns, hehe) has written that it is 1/47 scale, which, I think is what 28mm are. The rest 4 have no written scale, but they seem to fit.  I  have some beastmen, a dwarf and a goblin for scale. Sorry guys, can't do better until I get my WGF Zombies :).


So, what do we have?
There is clio from "Pošta Slovenije" (Slovenian post) - clio is built in Slovenia, so they're pretty common here. Next to it is Lamborghini Diablo, my "wow" car when I was a kid. Plus it was purple, which I like, my most-used car in the pile. Third is Peugeot 205 turbo16 (so it says, I am not a car expert), which, obviously felt as a victim of my moddeling inspiration, whne I was a kid. Its grainy texture is still good enough for a burnt wrecks, I guess. I hope to find the time and interest in painting them all, which, I imagine, would fit the cars better in the hand painted scenery. Next to it are Ford escort RS and Jeep CJ 7 (missing a tire), again, both in pretty bad condition. But the ford could still be great if it gets a nice paint job. I probably wont use the jeep. In second row we have Fiat cinquecento, which would definately be "my car" in a campaign. I drive old citroen AX, and that is as close as it gets.  Then, in the same row we got ford focus, another ford escort RS (this time with a broken windshield which just calls for a victim),  Porche 959 and yet another Ford escort RS. When I was taking a picture, I haven't noticed I got 3 of the same. The problem I see with this cars is, that most of them are pretty sporty. Surely I see a ferrarri or lamborghini on the roads now and then, but Diablo and Porche, at the same time? Somewhat rare. Well, anyways...in the top row there is Land rover Defender, I've mentioned before. I think I will paint him blue for my "SWAT" teams. Next is some police car, missing the lights, old VW Beetle. I think it used to be a fire brigade's car, with a blue light on top. In one of my other attacks of creativity I've painted it with edigs and filled the hole with some paper. 14 indicates its racing number by my brithday, 14th of march. Then we got towing vehicle with "POLICE" labels, which is kinda funny, and an UNIMOG truck. Both of them could find a place on table as the service vehicles. Not sure what the UNIMG's role would be, it looks like a winter vehicle (for sprinkling the sand or salt on the roads), but oh well, if dead can walk again, why can't a man drive winter vehicle in the summer, right?

Here is a better picture of 1/47 and 1/43 car side by side. Land rover fits perfectly with a beastmen I think is the best representation of a standard human (30mm from base to end of the head).  1/43 cars seem a bit off, but I think those are way easier to obtain, so this will work.


Let that be it for today, in few days I will probably write another post about planned purchases for populating the unlucky city, which I will later use as a reference or a shopping list.

So it begins...

Hello,

I have introduced myself on the Board of the Living Lead, but to make it all on once place, I can just as well do it again. I am a senior student of Defense studies in Ljubljana, Slovenia. I am 22 years old (but I will be having my birthday next month, if anyone feels like sending me a gift :P), which makes me somewhat young in the zombie blogging genre. I would like to say that as English is not my native language, feel free to fix my grammar and spelling from time to time (don't over do it, thought heh). Additionally, I think I should apologize now for all the words I will probably copy from other blogs, but hey, need to enrich my vocabulary, heh.

Ending the formalities, what is my blog about?
This blog will be used (according to the plan, at least!) for me to share my work regarding playing zombie apocalypse wargames. I would like to share the building of the unfortunate city where my gaming would take place, populating the city with painted miniatures and, of course, the gaming reports. My ultimate goal is to run an ATZ zombie outbreak campaign. But, of course, that will take time. And I think nothing will keep me going more than posting the progress here.

I talked to Bryan (Vampifan from Vampifan's World of the Undead ) about starting my Blog after I would get me something to show you, but I just couldn't wait, heh. Also, I would like to thank you, Bryan, once again firstly for the inspiration and information I found on your Blog and, secondly, for the kind words and all the other information you are giving me via the chat.

So, back to the zombie wargaming. I have seriously limited experiance in it. All I've played is some games of Zombie Plague with 1/72 german and US WWII miniatures. I figured I would start with the basics. Other than that, I have about a year of gaming experience with 15mm miniatures game, FOW. I figured I'd want to play something else, so, I ended up here, amongst the living lead (I looooove the change of dead for the lead, by the way, makes me giggle every time I visit the forums :P). Whats different? Well, scale. From 15 to 28mm. Company, I can play most of the zombie games myself. "Climate", so to say. From historical to "modern", but I plan on letting my imagination flow in. I really like how I can make this game totally "mine".

For starters, I will use the Dead walk again free rules, you can download from here . I will target my terrain modeling and miniatures purchase towards the campaign available for the game. Just so, that I won't be building things all over, but that I can have a clear goals.

The buildings will be built from cork, using the tips from Matakishi's Tea house. As mentioned, I am a student, so money is a bigger problem than time. Plus, I always wanted to build my own board. Sure, I lack the skill but well, practice could only help.
Don't get me wrong, printed terrain some of other blogers use looks awesome. It really does. It just isn't for me, I guess.

The other problem is the board itself. I was thinking of using aprox. 1x1 feet tiles, which would let me build modular tables with pre-marked sectors. I said aproximately because cork tiles come in form of precut 30x30 cm square, which is half centimetre shorter than 1x1 feet.

And lastly, the miniatures. I have ordered a pack of wargames factory zombies just yesterday. Also ordered something for FOW, which was out of stock, so it will take a while for me to get them. Plus I've ordered 100 25mm slottabases on E-bay, which will take 2 weeks + to arrive. I want to base all of my miniatures on the same bases, and 100 of them should be enough for a year or two, I believe. I choose WGF zombie horde to get me something somewhat cheap to learn to paint 28mm miniatures and to try myself at sculpting. I saw matakishi using extra arms and heads to sculpt extra zombies, and I wanted to do just that. My secret wish is a sculpt of myself. I dont dare to try do my girlfriend, god help me if I make her too skinny or too fat, hehe.

Oh, one last thing...about the Blog. The design is still in "the making", as I forgot how to deal with it, will add some perks eventually. Could anyone help me with the hit counter?