SCATTER!

What's occurrin'?

I've been immersing myself in the fascinating area of our hobby known as scatter terrain. What diversity! Loads of inspirational sites visited but as usual frugality won the day. I found some excellent tutorials on an old scenery forum called Terragenesis. I don't know if any of you are aware of it,  go check it out, a fantastic resource of D.I.Y. scenery. As well as the D.I.Y. stuff I've made another attempt at card modelling using some free to download printouts. Although printer ink is more expensive than champagne, nine times more, hardly frugal. Saying that you can still get a decent amount out of one cartridge.

Before we move on to the meat of the post, let's not forget our usual enrichment. The cultural quest continues this time with another fine example of Savage zombie's work. It's called Zombie Doodle. Wow, if only I could doodle this well! The flies are a lovely touch. Enjoy!

ZOMBIE DOODLE!

So, first of all my tiny collection of vehicles got a "crap" wash. Gives them a real world grime coat and makes them look less like toys.

PRISON SEEMS TO BE LETTING OUT EARLY?

A very important first step in this process is to give them a coat of matt varnish. I used a cheap acrylic brush on varnish from a local discount store. It stops the wash just sliding off. Don't worry about being too tidy at this first stage as any brush marks etc. just add to the effect at the next stage. I didn't even bother to mask the windows, although that might improve the look of a vehicle your band of survivors are going to use regularly.

IS THIS AN ILLEGAL CHOP SHOP?

I then mixed my "crap" wash. Taking an empty paint pot, I put in a little black paint, then added some dark brown emulsion from a tester pot. These were only small amounts of paint, a brushful of black and two of brown. The pot was then filled with water and shaken vigourously for a minute.

SPORTSCAR IN THE APOCALYPSE? REALLY?

Put plenty of newspaper down and slap the "crap" all over the vehicles. Leave to dry. Further coats can be added until you are happy with the desired effect. Although these only got one coat. Because of the matt varnish the "crap" wash covers stickers equally as well as the bodywork!

THAT'S A FUCKING BIG SUV!

Moving on from the vehicles, let's get to the scatter terrain proper. These dumpsters were free to download (of course) from the Combat Storm website. Assembled as instructions. To make them sturdy enough to contend with the rigours of gaming and storage they were stuck to "credit" card plastic bases. Which were then sanded, painted and flocked.

FEATURING COMPULSORY DUMPSTER PORN. LOW RES MIND.

Various details were added. The pallets were made from coffee stirrers and matchsticks, following an excellent tutorial article on Terragenesis (the old site) by Snitchy the Dog. I sculpted the rubbish (trash) bags from greenstuff, they look a lot better now they are painted.

A BLUE DUMPSTER.

The other bits and pieces are from the bottomless "bits" box, mostly 40K stuff. I also used some of the boxes from the stack I had previously downloaded by the amazing papercrafter Tommygun. Posters used were kindly provided by The Tollman.

A PALE DUMPSTER.

This final one was made by cutting the shapes of a dumpster from plain black card, using the downloads as a template. Apart from that, the same process was used to build it. A lot more wear and tear was painted on this one, it was really plain.

A NAUGHTY DUMPSTER.

A few side on shots of the dumpsters to better show the added details!

A ROW OF DETAILED DUMPSTERS.

It's worth mentioning the silver fuel barrel below. Made from paper and wire, again following a superb tutorial found on Terragenesis. This one is by bug_bait. I've made a bit of a production line of them now. Same with the pallets.

MORE DETAIL PORN.

A small barricade, useful for blocking alleys and such. Toy car, old Tamiya fuel drum, cut glue sticks, kitchen roll and some simulated barbed wire.

MAN THE BARRICADES!

More free to download card terrain. Vending machines from Tommygun. I think this is known as "street furniture" by the cool kids.

GRAB AN ICE COLD COKE AND SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Finally, more boxes. Boxes are a bit like zombies, you can never have too many of them. These little ones are really fiddly. A new method using old photo's has vastly improved the performance of these free to download printouts. All by Tommygun again.

BOXES, BOXES EVERYWHERE! FOUSANDS OF 'EM.

I guess that's all I got for this time dudes and dudettes. So until next time, follow in the DUDE'S wake 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".

THE SAGA OF THE SHED CONTINUES AND VISITORS TO THE BUNKER.

What's occurrin' then?

Well to be fair, not that much hobbywise. Last week seemed to fly by in a succession of visits/reunions. Firstly at our weekly WNI (Wednesday Night Irregulars) session, we had a visit from an old team mate and prolific gamer. Let's call him The Baron (named changed to protect the innocent). The Baron  and I, along with Sheldon and Morph all played American Football together, it was for a proper team and everything. It was also a long time ago and I hadn't really seen The Baron since. On Thursday another surprise visitor, Northern Lighter Thief (Again name changed to protect the innocent). NLT from now on. Hadn't seen NLT since the heady days of Morph's Garage and 40K. Several years ago now. Still a tremendous amount of fun was had.

Before we get distracted by all the rose coloured nostalgia, let's get back to the business at hand. That business being the promotion and appreciation of zombie art and artists. Yes, the cultural mission. So again another really nice piece from the extraordinarely talented Bryan Baugh! I know that some of my viewers particularly like his damsels in distress. This one is called Half and Half Horror. Enjoy!

Anyway, The Baron came along to play Zombicide and he brought beer and snacks. Along with the zombie slaying, we managed a few beers and talked about our long gone glory days. Great fun was had by all, except Morph, who had to be home in bed by ten. Lightweight!
So The Baron agreed to join our ragtag band of survivors and become an irregular attendee at WNI. Result!

Thursday, as mentioned a visit from NLT. Upon mentioning gaming the previous night and large amount of fun involved, NLT quickly said that he would call in on a Wednesday in future. Wow, another or should I say returning irregular. I'm not holding my breath on this one though, NLT has been known to be unreliable more often than not. Plus he didn't say which Wednesday.

Friday didn't get any quieter. Just sitting down to dinner, phone call from The Tollman. It was time to pay my toll, he needed a lift to Barry (Home of the comedy Gavin and Stacey) to pick up his new transport. So a few hours on a mission of mercy. Just think of all the karma points man.

In spite of all the merriment taking place at the bunker, I 've managed to progress a little more with the shed. The making of which is turning into a saga all of it's own.

And there I arrive at a problem. Photo's need taking but my official photographer is away visiting a friend. She doesn't get home till the early hours of Tuesday morning. So no photo's on time or photo's and a couple of days late.

So obviously waited until my official photographer had enough "princess" time, before she could take them. Anyway they are done now.

So let the saga continue. Firstly we have a shot of the front. For some strange notion I thought that painting the door seperately was a good idea. It's not.

FRONTAGE AFTER DRYBRUSHING.

I was totally wrong last time, it was basecoated with Chocolate Suede, not Cozy Cocoon. I followed  the basecoat with a heavy brybrush of Cozy Cocoon.Then a lighter drybrush of Oatmeal (Wilko tester pot 75p.). I made up a wash from various dark colours and inks, then heavily diluted, I slapped it all over the building. Inside and out.

LEFT SIDE. VERY BORING.

Maybe some posters will brighten up the big flat surfaces. Or some blood.

RIGHT SIDE. EQUALLY BORING BUT A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT COLOUR IT SEEMS.

 I quite like the irregular staining from the wash, makes it more natural I feel.

A SLIGHTLY MORE INTERESTING BACK VIEW.

The interior was washed with the same mixture. Bringing out some detail and leaving behind some more irregular staining.

INTERIOR SHOT. BACK WALL.

A little blood splash to match similar patterns on the floorboards. More wash.

CLOSE UP OF THE BACK CORNER.

Remember the drag marks, well now they end somewhere, or is it start somewhere.

INTERIOR IN SITU WITH FLOORBOARDS.

Still needs the doors painting and window mesh coloured. Gluing to the base, basing, it goes on. It seems the shed saga will continue for a little while longer.

FRONT ELEVATION.

Bugger, just realised I haven't done the bloody roof yet.

Well, it seems like that's all I got this time dudes and dudettes. So until next time, follow the DUDE'S example and "take it easy".

STOELZEL'S DERELICT COMMERCIAL BUILDING. THE THING CONTINUES.

More card scenery fun again this time dudes and dudettes, but first some art. This is another piece by GRIMBRO, I neglected to mention this last time, my humble apologies.

You may recognise the zombie as the boat owning dick head Steve (played by Ty Burrell) from the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.

Ramping up the skill level this time, by far my biggest project yet is Stoelzel's Structures Derelict Commercial Building. A massive 28 pages including the instructions, but don't let that put you off, this kit is amazing. Up until now I have only built a couple of Microtactix's building and I was impressed with those. Stoelzel's is in a different league, fully detailed interior, it's damn impressive for a free download.

REMEMBER TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS

After reading the instructions several times,(there are three different ways to build it), I decided to use The Sliced House method of assembly, for ease of gaming. Basically each floor is a different box which stack on top of each other.

ISOMETRIC - FRONT AND RIGHT SIDE.

I much prefer this configuration as it takes away the need to get fingers into awkward spaces knocking figures over and such. Although you then need to disguise the cuts between floors, this is easily achieved by painting the exposed foamcore an appropriate colour.

ISOMETRIC - BACK AND LEFT SIDE.

I still haven't tried to cut out the windows or doors yet, that's another skill step for another time. This was a step up in skills as it was, I'm glad I built the display base first to get used to rabbeting, a technique used throughout this build.

CLOSE UP OF SOME OF THE POSTERS.

The outside has been decorated with lots of posters, I don't know exactly where on the internet these came from as they were kindly donated to the cause by WNI regular The Tollman. To be honest the less I know about The Tollman's internet usage the better. He's weird!

WARNING SIGN FOR UNWANTED VISITORS.

The posters cover all kinds of subjects from bands and pop culture to humorous sayings. Like I said they were chosen by The Tollman.

MORE POSTERS COURTESY OF THE TOLLMAN.

The interiors are fully detailed, very nicely too. It was little nerve wracking lining up the exterior and interior print outs, but I think I got the hang of it in the end.

INTERIOR GROUND FLOOR.

The only thing I had any real difficulty with was the stairs. My first staircase, but it turned out OK in the end, I just had to leave off a step as I had stuck mine to foamcore.

INTERIOR FIRST FLOOR.

All in all, I was very pleased with how this kit turned out and would recommend Stoelzel's Derelict Commercial Property to everybody, it's a large building and would make a great base for your survivors.

THE ROOF TOP. (NOTE LADDER ACCESS).

Well that's all I got for this time dudes and dudettes, so until the next time follow the DUDE'S example and "take it easy".

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".