SCRATCHING AN ITCH!

What's ocurrin'.

This lack of motivation seems to be lasting longer than usual! Still no painting done. I thought I'd post a few pics to get peoples opinion on something. This blog is into it's second year and initially was to track the progress of my ATZ gaming journey. The progress has been severely sidetracked by my very slow painting of my Zombicide figures. All three seasons! I justify this by the fact that I will be using them for ATZ, to myself at least, until now.

OK, let's not forget the cultural mission. This time I have another masterpiece from Savagezombie aka Chris Bolton to show you. And it's a cracker! This one is called Singlet Zombie, classy or what? Enjoy!

SINGLET ZOMBIE.

Well, I still want to play ATZ and I'm itching to get a few practice games in. To try and scratch the itch a little, I  tried to set up a playing area. So I guess what I'm after is the answer to the question, is it enough?

I know that a lot of it is unfinished, that will be dealt with eventually. I just really want to walk through a few games to get the hang of the rules, before I spring it on the Wednesday Night Irregulars. Which won't be for sometime yet by the look of things.

So I'll let you check them out and hopefully you can leave your opinion.

VIEW FROM NORTH TO SOUTH.

I do have a couple more questions. How many PEF markers do I need?

ISOMETRIC FROM NORTH WEST CORNER.

How many zombie spawn markers do I need?

ISOMETRIC FROM SOUTH WEST CORNER.

Not too many vehicles at the moment, I've printed out 8 more. They're stuck to card and have been cut out, just need scoring and gluing.

A CLOSE UP OF SOME SHIPPING CONTAINERS.

This card modelling is not as easy as some people make it look! Cough, BRYAN, cough.

CLOSE UP OF WAREHOUSE ENTRANCE.

The ground tiles came courtesy of Sheldon, what a Dude! The darker one is from a DUST tactics set, whilst the lighter one came with his Deadzone stuff.

THE COPS MUST BE DRY CLEANING THEIR UNIFORMS. I GUESS BLOOD IS A STUBBORN STAIN.

So these last couple of weekends I have been really busy watching sport. Weekend before last there was a little thing called the Superbowl, some of you may have heard of it. That same weekend saw the Six Nations rugby championship kick off, well I am Welsh!

VIEW FROM THE WESTSIDE.

This weekend saw a continuation of the Six Nations, so that kind of put paid to that. Got to cheer the boys on, see.

VIEW FOM THE EASTSIDE.

Don't forget The Walking Dead is back from it's mid-season break tonight, woo hoo!

Well I guess that's all I've got for this time dudes and dudettes. So until next time y'all keep walking the right path, following the DUDE'S footsteps and "take her easy".

DE(AD)CEMBER WEEK # 3

What's occurrin'.

The wonderful Mrs. K has made me pack away all my modelling stuff until after the Winter Solstice festivities have finished, so unfortunately I have no painted zombies to show you. Luckily I do have a couple of photo's of some gaming the WNI has been upto. I'm sure your all glad of the rest from the zombies anyway.

More culture to show, another magnificent zombie santa by savage zombie. I really like this dude's style, they are incredibly detailed. The lighting effect, I find superb.Beautiful work! This delightfully festive piece is called Merry Xmas 2011. Enjoy!

MERRY XMAS 2011.

These shots were taken a couple of weeks ago at our usual WNI (Wednesday Night Irregulars) gathering. It's about the fourth time we've played Dead of Winter and we still haven't won a game yet. I think it's because so far we've tried to play it like Zombicide, where killing zombies is the order of the day. Hence the name.

Dead of Winter is much more about resource gathering and management, rather than fighting. One of the main reasons is that it's so easy to die. Every time you travel to a location or fight a zed, you have to roll the exposure dice. With varying results like dead, frostbitten or just bitten, I'm sure there's blank spaces on it too, I just didn't roll any.

A COUPLE OF TURNS IN. MY ARMS AT THE TOP.

At the bottom of the above photo you can see a knife shaped counter, that's the first player token. The large square in the middle is the colony, where your band of survivors start and have to defend from the zombie menace. You'll also notice cards surrounding this with piles of black cards on them. The black cards are the results of your searching, mainly resources but there's also a few surprises including more survivors to join your merry band. They are stacked in the different locations that you have to travel to.

Not only are you battling zombies but you are also combating the cold and potential starvation. Every survivor has to be fed as do a few hapless survivors, who are not characters like the survivors you can play as. This is one of the main objectives, just finding enough food to last from turn to turn. On top of this every turn has it's own crisis, a new crisis card is turned over every turn, solved by gathering certain resources like food, medicine or fuel amongst other things.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE ZOMBIES. WE'D ALL GONE FOR A SMOKE BREAK.

The main objective was revealed at the beginning of the game by drawing a card from the scenario deck. This tells you how many turns the colony has to survive for and any other requirements to be met. Another way to lose is have morale hit zero. Your starting morale is also on the scenario card. Morale is affected, usually negatively by things like not completing your crisis needs, not having enough food and people dying.

The zombies also turn up with alarming regularity mind. Every turn zombies appear at the colony, equal to the number of people in the colony including hapless survivors. They also show up at the various locations where survivors are, again equal to the number of survivors, but there's also a chance the noise you made searching has attracted more. A four plus on a d6 results in a zombie appearing.

SHELDON PUTTING ZOMBIES ONTO A LOCATION.

There's also a waste management issue to resolve. Every resource you use to fulfill crises and food issues are put into the trash pile at the end of the turn. If there are ten waste cards in the trash pile at the end phase of the turn you lose one morale. Not good.

Another mechanic in play are the "crossroads" moments. Some of you may have noticed the yellow cards with the black arrows on the back of them. These are the crossroad cards. They represent chances that can change the course of the game, not always good. A crossroads card is given to the player who went first the previous turn or to the first player's right at the start, the first player token is passed to the left at the start of a new turn.

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE BOARD A FEW TURNS LATER.

The crossroad cards can only be played if certain conditions are met, like going to a particular location or by moving the character mentioned on the crossroads card. When they are played the shit can really hit the fan, a good example of one outcome is a mother seeing her zombiefied kids resulting in her burning down the school with her and her kids inside. Oh, happy days!

Everyone starts with two survivors. You roll a number of dice equal to your survivors plus one. These are your action dice and the results let you pay for searching and fighting plus a few other things. So you don't have unlimited actions to resolve everything. Also your survivors can die on one roll of the exposure dice, as happened to me, twice in the first two turns. Awesome!

AN OVERHEAD VIEW OF THE ACTION.

As you can see there are a lot of ways to lose Dead of Winter. We were doing really well on this particular evening, having survived three turns with only two more to endure for the win. When my clumsy ass knocked over an almost full cup of coffee. The resulting coffee tsunami flooded the playing area, taking us the rest of the evening to clean up and try and rescue Sheldon's Dead of Winter. Awkward! We haven't seen Sheldon since.

I'd just like to thank The Tollman for taking the pictures! And take this opportunity to wish all my viewers, followers and commentors a Happy Christmas. That's it for this time dudes and dudettes. So until next time try and be more like the DUDE and "take it easy".

ZEDVEMBER WEEK #1

What's occurrin' then?

An idea that has been percolating for a couple of weeks and a chance remark in a comment I left on Chris Hird's blog. That's Chris's Miniature Woes. Has kind of become the start of something. There seems to be a few events running this month, such as Movember and Dinovember. Well I had such fun in last months Zombtober and I still have lots of zombies to paint, so the idea of continuing this into the next month really appealled. Chris Hird was saying that he had zombies to finish and wanted to extend Zombtober into Zomvember. I said it was a great idea but Zedvember sounded better. A week later, here's my first Zedvember post. Chris already posted his first Zedvember post last Thursday.

To make things nice and simple let's make the guidelines, I prefer to call them guidelines who needs rules man, the same as Zombtober. So that's one completed zombie or survivor a week, posted by the Sunday. To be honest I'm going to paint these zombies anyway, I just thought it was a nice way to keep the momentum going.

Let us not forget the cultural mission. Another great piece from the very talented stayinwonderland. This one is called Zurvival League - Zombie Survival Game Art #1. Another unwieldly title. Enjoy!

ZURVIVAL LEAGUE.

Managed to paint another four zombies this week. All from Zombicide. The crawler sculpts are the final ones from Rue Morgue, I've shown all the different sculpts from that now. The walker is from season one, I was given another load of season one zombies last week. Along with a whole bunch of Berserker zombies and VIPs plus a couple more seekers. These came to me via Sheldon from Paul Kennedy, one of the stalwarts of Crow Valley Crusaders, my local gaming club. Cheers Paul! You may have noticed that I converted him. The Santa is another VIP in a different colour scheme.

MORE ZOMBIES SHUFFLE AND DRAG THEMSELVES TOWARD THE HORDE.

In the surprise package last week was around about 100 zombies including a whole tray's worth of season one, virtually a whole tray of berserkers plus a few season two regular zombies and another shedload of VIPs from both boxes of Very Infected Persons #1 and #2. Looks like the horde is going to be bigger than I thought it would get!

ANYONE FOR A LITTLE BLOOD?

I'm still really enjoying this season's The Walking Dead and hope everyone else is too.

Well I guess that's all I got for this time dudes and dudettes. So until next time try and do as the DUDE and "take her easy".

REAL CRATES AND ZOMBTOBER PREVIEW.

As has become usual we'll be kicking off with a piece of zombie art. This weeks piece is again by the fabulous GRIMBRO.

THE LOVABLE BUB.

I'm sure you'll all recognise the zombie as Bub (played by Howard Sherman) from the 1985 movie Day of the Dead. Again directed by the maestro himself George A. Romero.

Right that's enough culture for now, we have a post to get on with. So crates, real crates this time, you know wooden boxes. Anyway my lovely Stoelzel's disused warehouse needs some contents, bing (lightbulb moment). What would fit a warehouse better than crates, well nothing. Nothing I could think of, anyway.

So with the goal of covering the table for free in mind, search the internet and ye shall find. And find I did. Firstly I found Stones Edge's free samples. Result !

A FINE EXAMPLE OF FREE CRATES.

I had the square wooden crates I was looking for, but they were all the same. At this point some of you might think, Bob you have crates whats the problem, well you lovely people I'm a little more demanding than that. I want variety, so after a little more interwebbery, I came across Daemonfae's Printable Terrain Emporium in a thread on Warseer. Guess what, yes different kinds of crates. Square ones, rectangular ones and even flat crates. More importantly free. Result!

MORE VARIETY BUT STILL FREE.

As you can see I now have my crate issue covered. Stoelzel's warehouse will no longer remain empty.

ALL TOGETHER NOW!

Enough with the terrain already! Let's move on to the second part of this post's title, a Zombtober preview. To be honest, I wasn't even considering joining in, I mean every month here is Zombwhatever. That and I had pretty much run out of zombies to paint. That's when fate threw some in my lap so to speak.

You see, Sheldon had backed Deadzone (by Mantic) on Kickstarter. Well wave 2 has just been dispatched, in wave 2 was zombies, lots of zombies. Sheldon brought a sprue along to show us, the WNI, on Wednesday. What could I do? Well for one I couldn't let him leave with it, so I managed to purloin said sprue.

The zombies you see below are what I made out of that sprue, there were seven bodies but only five sets of legs (I feel conversions coming on),all ready for Zombtober. So it looks like I'm taking part.!?!

FIVE MANTIC DEADZONE ZOMBIES.

That's all I got for now dudes and dudettes. So until next time, follow the DUDE'S example and "take it easy".

MORE TARDINESS AND ZOMBIES

What's occuring then? More reasons for the lateness of my blog! Well no, instead we are having the usual round of back slapping that breaks out on these occasions. This time it has been brought to my notice that we have surpassed six thousand pageviews. On behalf of us all here at BZA, I would like to give you all a huge THANK YOU.

The recent heat has influenced the colour scheme of todays offering, I'm calling it my safari period. Sounds better than biege, at least. This little batch makes it only eight more to go and the tray is finished. Light at the end of the tunnel.

This post has also been delayed by the protracted negotiations that have taken place to secure the services of the BZA official photographer. It only cost me a provisional driving licence this time and 4 days of badgering.

Zombicide has smashed the million dollar mark then, unlocking some nice stretch goals along the way. Not that many optional extra figures yet but it's early days.

Righty Oh then, on with the introductions:

SAFARI CHIC.

Left to Right as is usual by now. First in the spotlight today is Goronwy managing director of local hi-tech company. Next in line is Bronwen she's an architect. Following her is Nissyen, he's a dentist. Lastly for today is Aranrhod she's a liasion officer for the local council.

The wash has worked it's magic again. I have painted the backs of these but because of the slackness of my official photographer, who neglected to take more than one shot of anything, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Time for some guest photo's.
These are courtesy of Sheldon. Our most regular irregular and resident analist. These character traits have lead to him becoming a damn fine painter.

Greyscale "Romero" zombies are so cool. I've seen this done several times now, does that make it a thing?, and I must admit to liking this style very much.

LOOKING LIKE THEY'VE STEPPED STRAIGHT OUT OF "NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD".

Some of Sheldons many survivors. He's got loads now even though he didn't Kickstart seasons 1 or 2. I think he said around 25 in total.

SUPERSTAR SURVIVOR LINE UP.

Left to Right they are Basil Fawlty played by John Cleese, Jason Statham back when he had hair, Sean Connery as John Patrick Mason in "The Rock", Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance from "The Shining", Nicholas Cage as Cameron Poe from CONAIR. Hannibal Lecter played by Anthony Hopkins in "Silence of the Lambs".

Well that's all I got for now dudes and dudettes. So until next time do as the DUDE does and "take it easy".

WELCOMES AND A WARNING.

Before we get to the meat of the post, I'm getting the welcome wagon back out of the shed. Several welcomes so I'm going to put bunting on it as well.
First of all let's give a big BZA welcome to Francis Lee of Angry Lurker fame. WELCOME FRAN.
Next let's give a BZA welcome, just as big to Johnny a.k.a. Lord Siwoc of Brains and Guts fame.
WELCOME JOHNNY.
I feel there should be a trumpet fanfare.
Both these guys run excellent blogs, if you haven't already, check them out.
I seemed to have picked up another one of them ninja types as well.
Thanks for following dudes.

One more thing. After my CABIN FEVER CONSTRUCTION CRISIS post, the very next day Carl Stoelzel left a comment explaining a few things and some tips on fixes for my crisis. What can I say, WOW, awesome customer service especially since I hadn't even paid for it. Thanks Carl.

And now to the meat. There in lies the problem. Since I finished that first tray of zombies I've done very little painting. Yes half term got in the way, but I seem to be loathe to start the next tray. I say start, they've all been basecoated and two lines have been given skin colours. It's just there's so many of them. 32, it doesn't seem that many when you write it down.

In other news, Sheldon is starting to outdo his Dudeness, this Wednesday at the weekly meeting of minds that is the WNI(Wednesday Night Irregulars), he gave me a Fred the Trader set, turns out one of the boys at our FLGG the Crow Valley Crusaders had kickedstarted for two of all the exclusive survivors and promptly gave most of it to Sheldon. As he'd just bought Fred the other week he passed him on to me. Cool or what!

MY VERY OWN SHAUN.

Other zombie entertainment. I feel it is my right as a zombie fan to warn you about "Battle of the Damned" starring Dolph Lundgren. What a pile! It's almost idiot-savant genius in how bad it is. Do yourselves a favour and give it a miss. I really want to be refunded the time I spent watching it, and I didn't even make it to the end.

PILE OF SHITE.

That's all I got for now dudes and dudettes. 'til the next time, you know the DUDE wants you all to "take it easy".

THE HORDE GROWS #2

Things haven't been too clever here at the bunker this last week. We have all had a dose of "Delhi Belly", something must have got into the MRE's. This has resulted in little painting getting accomplished, but I have managed to leave the toilet long enough to take some photos of my slowly growing horde. It now stands at 117 zombies painted.

Without further ado I present to you the horde so far.

THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU BARBARA.

A shot of them all together. They look quite small at the back.

THE ABOMINATION SURROUNDED BY HIS MINIONS.

Close-ups of various parts of the horde.

SOME OF THE ZOMBIES AT THE BACK.

Another close-up of a different part of the horde.

ZOMBIES AT THE FRONT.

BZA's offical photographer said this low angled shot was the new black.

MY VERY OWN DUDE.

Sheldon extended the hand of friendship and gave me Gary the Misfit and his zombivore version, I was a little overcome and almost shed a tear. I then rather ham-fistedly tried to thank him but ended up grabbing the hand of friendship and twisting it behind friendship's back until friendship said uncle. Metaphorically. I'm so good with people.

MY VERY OWN ZOMBIE DUDE.

This massive gesture cannot go unrecognised, Sheldon I'm making you an honorary Dude. Arise your dudeness. It would be remiss of me at this point to omit Vampifan, his gift was also greatly appreciated. Bryan you too have been offically made an honorary Dude. Arise your dudeness.

Hopefully normal service can resume Sunday. That's it for now dudes and dudettes, so until the next time do as the DUDE does and "take it easy".

FRIDAY NIGHT SPECIAL.

CHUCK, MOMMA'S BOY.

I'd like to take this opportunity to showcase one of the WNI(Wednesday Night Irregulars) stalwarts painting skills. These Zombicide survivors are the work of Sheldon (name changed to protect the innocent?)  One of the most regular irregulars is our Sheldon. The rest of us think he's got some kind of OCD thing going on, he is our resident analist. All that aside he's a damn fine painter.

These, well the not Nick Frost guy came with his survivor pack #3, which he recently purchased from the interweb.

OBVIOUSLY NOT ED.FROM SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

I believe he said that the shirt was Necrotic Flesh and the trousers were Ironhull Grey, both Army Painter colours. I did mention to him about putting Got Wood? on the T-shirt, he said he'd think about it.

FRED THE TRADER.

And this is where his OCD thing kicks in. He said he couldn't play the not Nick Frost figure without the not Simon Pegg figure. Another interweb purchase later and he had him as well. Not 100% but I think he said his trousers were Iron hull Grey as well.

OBVIOUSLY NOT SHAUN. FROM SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

As Sheldon couldn't split them up, neither should I. Both together as I'm sure they will be played.

BACK TOGETHER AGAIN.

Actually, Sheldon test drove Fred the Trader( not Shaun) on Wednesday night, two words, combat monster. I'm pretty sure we will be seeing him in action again soon. We didn't get to give Chuck Momma's Boy( not Ed) a run out, something we'll probably rectify next week.

RIDING OFF INTO THE SUNSET. OUR WORK HERE IS DONE.

I don't know how often this will re-occur, depends on Sheldon's progress I suppose.
That's it for now dudes and dudettes, 'til the next time heed the DUDE and "take it easy".

Cheers Adam.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT IRREGULARS. YET ANOTHER WELCOME.

A little change of pace, instead of four painted zombies, thought I'd post about our little band of hobbynauts. Flavour of the moment is still Zombicide, which is great because I love this game. I'm half a tray of zombies into painting Season 1. The only trouble is that it has diverted my ATZ journey somewhat. Oh well.

Sheldon, our resident analist, got a load of missions online, the first 20 off the guillotine website I think. Had them bound by an e-doc company, BAM instant mission book. Gotta love them analist tendencies.

So out of this mission book, tonight we played mission number 12.
C12 AXES & ALLEYS. A mission by Lucas McDaniel.

"We are getting ready to leave the city, but we are making one last sweep through the neighbourhood looking for any supplies we can bring with us. There are lots of infected here....... I worry about stumbling upon a nest. We have to be careful."

OBJECTIVES.
Take all objective tokens. 5
Food Stocking. Find at least 1 Canned Food, 1 Bag of Rice and 1 Water cards.
Leave Town. Reach the Exit Zone.

SPECIAL RULES.
You've found the nest. One of the five objective tokens is blue, face down, so no one knows which one it is. When the blue token is revealed it's replaced with the blue spawn zone and immediately spawns. THIS IS NOT GOOD!

All five of the irregulars were in attendance.
Before I forget a big BZA WELCOME to Dave VanDam my latest follower, who runs the Round Dave's blog spot. Check out his blog it's very good.

TIME FOR SOME PICTURES!

MID GAME SHOT. WE ARE TRYING TO LURE ABOMINATION INTO A BUILDING

LURING ABOMINATION AWAY FROM THE POLICE CAR

THE TOLLMAN (LEFT) AND MORPH INTENT ON ZOMBIE SLAYING

SHELDON OUR RESIDENT ANALIST CONTEMPLATES HIS NEXT MOVE

HODGINTON-SMYTHE ARSING ABOUT AS USUAL

THAT'S ME THAT IS

WE FOUND THE NEST (BLUE SPAWN ZONE) AND THE BOARD FILLS QUICKLY

ENDGAME.JUST GOT TO GET TO THE EXIT

FACING DOWN THE ABOMINATION

We managed to complete the mission, in 3 hours including smoke breaks, losing THE TOLLMAN'S character early on but we resurrected him as a Zombivor. Everybody took a wound during the game, but 3 of us hit red level (43 kills). We found all the food stores and only lost Sheldon's character right at the end when he sacrificed himself so we could all get out. HERO.

Well I hope you all enjoyed this brief distraction as much as we did playing it.
That's all I got for this time dudes and dudettes, so in the words of the DUDE "take it easy".