Horde.

Given that some people had expressed an interest in seeing the Horde I thought I could be lazy and not finish painting anything just this once. These two pictures are the same figures in the same positions (I did say it was a lazy Blog day). The top one has been cropped while the bottom one shows all the horde. Many people have a larger zombie Horde, but as a relatively new zombie wrangler this one , for the moment, is big enough for my needs. I do have two more Wargames Factory Zombie Sprues so I do anticipate the horde growing, possibly with a box of Vixens just for variety. In addition I do have a couple, only a very limited number, of special zombies. At the start of the campaign special zombies will not be encountered, indeed it is possible at this stage that they will not come into being as it will depend on the actions (or inaction's) of players in the pre campaign. This is not the time to talk about that though.

Back to the horde. As you can see everything painted in grey tomes. I was inspired by the Left 4 Dead computer game in my colour choice. I could so easily have drenched them in blood but have decided against that approach for now at least. I could add some brown (dried blood) or red (fresh blood later if I choose, but I have grown to like the very simple colours. None of them are painted well, if I am honest it takes me as long to assemble and undercoat them as it does to actually paint them. This lack of painting time is mostly because when I needed to get them done I had only 12 days to knock out 45, which I did. Since then I have actually grown to appreciate the hap hazard paint jobs, they have an atmosphere all of their own.

The background was the result of a quick goggle Image search using the words "Empty Street" and then scrolling down until I found one I felt suitable. I Did not want it so terribly dark, nor did I want many (if any) lights on. I am not suggesting people will worry about turning the lights of in a zombie apocalypse, I for one will have better things t do. But maybe power generation will be restricted!

 

The SELWG show is in two days time and I shall be going with the Posties Rejects thanks to Rays very kind offer. As I would normally post on this blog on that Sunday I shall most likely miss a post and post again on Tuesday. There are a number of items I want at the show, but no new projects and the haul of swag is most likely to be very uninspiring.

 

With that note I shall finish for today, thank you for reading (or looking at the pictures) wish you a very good weekend and post again on Tuesday. All the best Clint.

Zombies

Here are a few more for the horde. I don't spend any time painting zombies, as they are not really the stars of the game. You will also no doubt remember that I  paint them in Black and White (monochrome). I only use four shades of grey, straight from the pot. I don't feel they need any more they are after all a horde. I will be adding to the horde of zombies in the next few weeks (unless I get sidetracked), but with such a limited colour palette they can be churned out in next to no time.

These last two are Mantic Ghouls. I just got the two from eBay and again went with the usual colour palette. But with these I added some bright green eye dots (GW Scorpion Green). I am though relying on the poses to show they are "Rage Zombies". As with all the zombies I have added a tuft to every other one, this allows me to have two different activations for zombies, those with tufts and those without. The reason for this is that in some games once the zombies had moved certain players were exploiting this to make sure they could not be attacked in the following turn. This is diminished using this method, but does not totally eliminate the problem. But it does help to make the games less predictable, which does help to make the game less predictable and therefore more tense.

 

As mentioned previously I want to start a zombie campaign, it's still in the planning but has at least started to be jotted down. I have roughed out the map, It will get detailed and populated later possibly with the help of other bloggers and the ZBA (Zombie Bloggers Association). When the campaign starts it will be "In Media Res" by which I mean I shall skip the first days of the out break and later run them as "Flash back" scenarios. This is because none of us are actors and table-top play is very very different from real life. It will allow a realistic detachment and stop the players having to do things like shoot family members which in real life would be for most of us very difficult but all to easy on the tabletop.

 

If I can manage it I will run the "Outbreak" of the zombie campaign as an on line discussion with different bloggers and followers taking different roles like Police Chief, Mayor, Hospital CEO, etc, but this is a way off yet. I see the benefit of running it this way as being that it will generate the "History" for the players taking some of the control from both them and me. It will also (I hope) create certain areas of the city and surroundings reputations. Time will tell if I can pull this off but it is in the planning as I type this.

 

Thanks for Reading, all the best Clint.

 

PBI US Attack.

I played another PBI game at the club yesterday. To the right is a picture of my initial deployment. My force was 2 platoons of U.S. Infantry (only one arrived in time to actually fight), a support platoon (3 light mortars and 2 HMGs) and 4 M10 tank Destroyers. As it turned out my opponent had no armour, but did have 2 pak 40's so all the points on the Tank destroyers was pretty much wasted All I could use was the speed and machine guns they had. Still at least they got an outing and it did scare my opponent. I was attacking the dug in Germans and the terrain generated was so tight that there were very few clear fields of fire. The fields of fire were easy for me to identify though as they had an anti tank gun in heavy cover at the end of them. The game started well for me and I reached one objective in my first turn. My light mortars did a brilliant job and managed to drop rounds on the German Company head quarters and actually killed the company commander. What a brilliant start I thought. (It was not to last.)

Given that I seriously out numbered the Germans in the first turn it was hard for them to shoot back but when they did they made it count. I must admit I was concerned about the German Flame thrower in the HQ section but it never got to fire in the whole game. It was my number one bullet magnet. To the right is the centre objective surrounded by dense terrain. I grabbed it in the first turn, as mentioned above, but my primary objective was on my left flank as far as I was concerned this was a bonus, but not what I was actually after. My infantry platoon which were my only real attacking asset, the tanks were struggling with the terrain and support platoon is just that a support platoon, were taking quite a beating but still pressing forward.

The tank destroyers had no choice but to try to take the Pak out head on. The main guns just could not hit it but after 5 bursts from the tank MGs I did put it down which opened up the objective. This is where I made the big mistake! The major mistake in the game was that I took a turn to prepare instead of biting the bullet and pushing on. I took my foot of the Gas. Not all my force the German sniper had pinned my closet troops to the objective. But still I should have been more decisive. The result of the delay was that the German reinforcements started to arrive with more Light Machine Guns than anything else. Facing a hail of lead my infantry platoon was reduced to half strength and was in danger of withdrawing. At this stage it was pretty much game over for the attack. I could have used the support platoon to try to take the position but with only heavy weapons they were never going to melee well. So All in all I conceded the game, being unable to force the objectives. Oh well next time....

 

Other news: No one has objected to any of the three proposed show games. So I have the go ahead to get them started. Mentioning no names, but you know who you are, one club members face lit up when I suggested a Zombies Attacking Gypsy's show game. The role play guys from Friday night also want to play this game, as long as they can be Zombies for a change. But We shall now do a WW1 game, I shall start on it soon (after SELWG) and it will be blogged so you will get to see all the work involved.

 

That's it for today, thanks for reading and take care. Next post Wednesday. Cheers Clint

 

 

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