Zombie of the Week #67: Lurlene

Lurlene

Like Lulu and Huey, Lurlene is another Tengu zombie that suits the role of a Special Infected from the Left 4 Dead video game series.  This time its a Spitter.

Glad to see the back of.

Like Boomers, Spitter use their vomit to disrupt survivors, but in a different way which I wont go into here.  Suffice to say that they launch corrosive spew.

In the game the Spitter is quite a lurid colour, almost like her day glo puke which she constantly drools in metre long strings.  Lovely.

Image courtesy of http://left4dead.wikia.com

Short of using flourescent paint, actually painting that sort of colour can be difficult, so I tried something else.  And when that looked good I then used waaay too much Tamiya Clear Green over the top and ended up ruining the effect.  Ho hum.

I am in two minds as to how well or not the figure looks.  Its ok, its finished and it will get the job done (which is important) but I wish that I had been more careful with the drool.  A little less and the figure would look much better and a little less like it was painted by an adolescent, if you know what I mean.  On the other hand it is based on a repulsive monster that does look just as over the top as that figure, so maybe its not so bad.  The paint job probably looks better from behind now, which overall was a disappointing result considering how promising the paint job looked during the early stages.

Finally, an aspect of the figure that isnt properly visible from the photos is the gooey drool on the base.  This actually looks quite good on the table, helping to cement the figures nature as a Spitter.

Running out of Patients Pt 3

A post regarding the authors penultimate batch of patient zombies, where a twentieth century attitude to the wearing of pink garments by men is revealed.

Although I am sure that many real life male patients are forced to wear pink/peach arse-exposing gowns whilst in hospital, I wasnt going to subject any of my male hospital zombies to that.  They have been through enough already.

So as the Mantic zombie and ghoul sprues dont feature any double X chromosome corpses, I mainly used Studio ladies in this lot.  I also added a disproportionate number of gender-neutral-from-the-waist-down (?) Mantic legs with bloody spinal cords, just to increase the amount of figures in this pink batch.

After painting these figures I played the Left 4 Dead “No Mercy” hospital based campaign on Xbox 360.  Then I played the House of the Dead: Overkill “Ballistic Trauma” hospital level on Wii before I went on to the final batch of patients.  Im all about the research.

Zombie of the Week #66: Huey

Huey

Like Lulu last week, Huey is another Tengu zombie that looks like something from L4D, a Boomer.

Back Boobs

I had originally intended to convert ‘clix figures to make Boomers for my games, but then Tengu brought this guy out.

While I would have enjoyed some elements of converting other figures to make my own Boomer, expediency is the watchword at sho3box towers.  I have waaay too many figures and not enough time to paint them all.  Add to that the fact that I still buy more of the freakin’ things virtually every week and you might see the problem.  I have got to at least try to get them all finished and heavy sculpting and modification, while fun and worth doing from time to time. is too time consuming so I tend to avoid it so that I can get more finished.

So I had fun painting this guy, but he looked very pale by the end of the process.  While I appreciate that the figure is supposed to represent a reanimated cadaver and therefore some paleness of complexion is desirable, he didnt look right.  So I took the brave/foolish step of washing the flesh with a thinned ink wash.  As half expected it fixed some problems, but caused some more.

I dont know if showing my paint jobs at double actual size really does me any favours.  Things that are virtually undetectable in hand and thoroughly invisible during play become huge, clumsy, ham-fisted blemishes when displayed as such.  In the interests of full disclosure my figures are displayed warts and all.

But its finished right? Right?  It is finished, isnt it?  Isnt it?

Zombie of the Week #65: Lulu

Lulu

Lulu is a Tengu model painted to look like a Left 4 Dead witch.

Shuffled Off

I painted Lulu while I was painting the patient zombies, but I couldnt resist painting her flesh almost white, seeing as the figure looks so much like an L4D witch (and even though I already have two witches painted).

Incidentally, witches dont normally wear sports socks.  Adding the stripes helped to define the off-white socks in contrast with the off-white skin.

Tengu make nice zombie figures.  Highly recommended.  Some more to come around here too.

Things that make you go “Boom” Pt2

Continuing on from a few weeks ago, here is another small post regarding some interactive little bits of scenery for my zombie game project.

Gas Cans

Players of Left 4 Dead or Left 4 Dead 2 will be aware of the various uses of gas cans in the games.  Generally where a “crescendo event” is about to take place the players have a little bit of time to set up the area ready to receive a large wave of infected.  There will usually be a few gas cans in the vicinity that can be arranged in such a way that when shot they will cover an area of advance for the mindless horde.

Good placement of these cans can barbeque a swathe of infected before they even get to the survivors.  They are also a lot of fun to use well, so I definitely wanted to include them in my zombie apocalypse game.

Things that make you go “Boom” Pt1

A small post today, with a rather hastily taken photo too.

When making my Spawn Points recently I took the opportunity to put together a few other smaller terrain/scenario items, all of which fill the roles of the exploding barrel trope (is that the right use of that word?)  popularised in computer games.

Butane tanks (coloured for local distributors rather than the white from L4D) and Fuel drums.

All of the above came from Fenris games and featured in the Zombie Apocalypse game covered over the last few posts here and here.

I was short a handful of gas cans, the sort that feature in L4D that are visible here.  I have ordered a few from Ebay and they will feature in a follow up post.  I bet that you cant wait.

Deadlines: Hostile Corporate Takeover of the Living Dead Pt 2

This report follows on from last Wednesdays post, visible here.

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In advance of the Regenerator the zombies lurched forward, wounding Anderson and Symes with their filthy clawing hands.  With the hissing Regenerator twitching forward on its palsied limbs things are looking bleak for Sigma Squad.

The Regenerator moved suddenly and with a spasm spikes erupted from its body, eviscerating Jerabeck.  With cold efficiency Anderson riddled the body of the Regenerator with rounds from her MP5 killing one of the Regenerators parasites, while weaving between the zombies all around her.

With skills honed by years of training Symes broke right, in the opposite direction to Anderson while putting three rounds into the nearby butane cylinder.  The cylinder burst sending zombie and Regenerator offal flying in all directions.  “Hasta la muerte” she uttered pithily as chunks of bloody, rotten flesh rain down around her.

(When setting up the table for the game some cinematically minded player decided that the best place for a butane cylinder was next to a Spawn Point, and he was probably right.  On this occasion it likely kept the wounded remnants of Sigma Squad in the game).

On the street between the Cinema and the rear of the Police station, USS Squad Gamma crossed paths with USFU Squad Sigma, the first living things that they had encountered since deployment.  Under strict orders to keep their noses out of each others highly sensitive business, a curt nod between fully masked sergeants was the sum of their exchange.  Gamma proceeded North while Sgt White went South.  Squad Epsilons  Ingram climbed the extendable ladder to the roof of the Police station to give covering fire over the vehicle holding the vault keycard.

Squad Gamma proceeded towards the milling throng of confused corpses that was trying to locate its last target, Squad Epsilon.

As Epsilon Sgt White rounds the South side of the police station, Ingram gives cover from the rooftop by detonating a fuel barrel, turning a handful of zeds into sub-human torches.  This cleared the way for Sgt White to get the vault keycard in the blue Porche.

Kaplan pauses from the rhythmic headshots and dismemberments to reload, and is caught unexpectedly.  Although he dies quickly from arterial blood loss, Gamma has no time to grieve as the Squad struggles to keep the mounting horde at bay.

Eerie wailing is heard as a Witch shows up near squad Epsilons keycard objective location.  Luckily, the Witch is inclined to keep itself to itself.  As it spawns a distance away from the main routes travelled by the forces, it remains undisturbed for now.

Squad Gamma, rattled by the loss of Kaplan get some payback on the large mob that has congealed near their objective, the Umbrella Corp local HQ.  After some unnecessary risks, some touch and go hand to hand where they were kept alive only by their kevlar, they get their heads back in the game…

…and tactically withdraw around the rear of their target building.

Meanwhile the wounded Sgt Anderson has procured the incriminating documents.  Now Symes (at the front of the fire truck) has the unenviable task of drawing the zombies away from the Sarge.

At this point the unmistakable howl of a Hunter is heard not far from the Police Station and the Umbrella building…

… and the pressure builds as a Licker shows up even closer to both buildings than the Hunter, next to the still crying Witch.

That doesnt bother Anderson and Symes of Sigma Squad. After reaching the chopper Anderson covers Symes sprint from where she had been heroically drawing the cannibal corpses away from the access point.

With a whine the helicopter begins to lift off, which is enough to agitate the Witch into action.  It also satisfies Sigma Squads mission objective.

Meanwhile Squad Gamma has procured Dr Braga and the vital information that he has.  The hordes are getting nearer however and the extraction chopper has to execute some fancy manoeuvring to get close enough for them to board (the Hunter can be seen approaching on the right, next to the game card).

At this point disaster struck.  Pvt Ocampo had been delayed while punching a couple of zeds tickets at ground level, where she has already seen the approach of the Hunter and Licker plus the large encroaching horde. “Get out of here!” she cried, “Don’t wait for me!”

As the chopper delayed the vital extra seconds for Pvt Rain Ocampo to get up the ladder, the brain dead hordes struggled out of the stairwell onto the roof, dragging the pilot and Pvt Symes of Squad Sigma from the vehicle.

The helicopter tilts, rotors spinning in slow motion, Michael Bay sty-lee.  Across the slow motion image of the chopper crashing into the roof the Hunter leaps screaming onto Pvt Symes, who is subsequently torn apart  while his limbs are used to beat the pilot to a mushy pulp.

The only survivor of Squads Sigma and Gamma is Rain Ocampo, and she is surrounded by zombies on a rooftop with her back to a flaming helicopter wreck.

Sgt White, the lone survivor of squad Epsilon has fought his way through the hordes to his objective, despite losing two good men en route, the last of them only moments ago.  Shoving the final zombies in his path aside he uses the key card to enter the bank and to lock himself into the vault.  There he must locate “the package” in the pitch dark before being extracted.  The vault lights dim and the power cut out.  An inhuman voice screams in the room that Sgt White is locked into behind inches of steel.

Credits roll.

———————————————-

I was very pleased with how the game worked out.  The revised elements of the system functioned better than I could have hoped.  While a handful of minor issues were quickly recorded during the game for inclusion in future drafts the game trundled along quickly and cinematically.  Importantly the other players were able to work out the rules and mechanics of the game from the cards and rules document without the author (me) having to translate.  I have hopes that this system will regularly get played at Sho3box Castle.  Which will help me to justify my compulsion to paint even more zombies.

Deadlines: Hostile Corporate Takeover of the Living Dead Pt 1

Preamble

After last weeks diatribe regarding the build up and preparatory work for the zombie apocalypse segment of a recent gaming weekend, the report of the game itself follows as promised.

For info regarding the terrain and why it looks the way it does check out the previous zombie game report as I want to avoid repeating all of that stuff here.  All of the Survivors, Special Infected and Spawn Points plus many of the individual zombies themselves are pictured throughout this blog.  Use the tags to the right of the post if you want to see something in particular close up.

Objectives and Deployment

“Day 9.  Infection has not progressed further than 8km beyond the original release site, due to Umbrella containment at principal choke points.  Manipulation of political, media and other information sources has provided enough time for the virus to be tested in non-laboratory conditions and without interference from the authorities.

Final data must be gathered before Governmental intrusion becomes inevitable.  Your squad will be deployed directly into the hot zone.  Objective is priority.  All other considerations are secondary.  As a result all non Umbrella personnel are to be terminated with extreme prejudice.  Any contact with other Umbrella personnel is prohibited without express permission from your CO, due to the sensitivity of individual objectives.

Squad size is reduced to three to accommodate easy extraction and to minimise disruption to the test site”.

MT, PB and I picked a small force of Umbrella Security Service or Umbrella Special Forces Unit each.  PB picked USFU Squad Epsilon while MT and I each picked three members of USS Squads Sigma and Gamma respectively.

We had access to many more survivor figures, often with more esoteric equipment and or characteristics.  As this was a playtest game we deliberately choose not to use those and to each field very similar three man teams.  This was deliberate and intended to keep our focus a little more on the basic game mechanics.

Shade, Kaplan and Ocampo of USS Gamma Squad deployed on the roof of the bank…

…with orders to locate and evacuate Dr Braga from the roof of the Umbrella local HQ building.  The information that Dr Braga holds regarding the development of his ZG620 (zombie repellent) formula is of incalculable value.

White, Ingram and Hoffman of USFU Squad Epsilon are deployed on the roof of a local retail outlet (“Strangerous Liaisons”, a sex shop).  From this point Squad Epsilon must acquire the code key from the corpse of a deep cover Umbrella agent…

…in his blue porche (lovingly offset here by the wandering flesh eating remains of Michael Jackson).  The Umbrella agent used to work undercover in the bank where he concealed a sensitive package in the vault before being dismembered by Whiskey Deltas.  After acquiring the code from the car Epsilon has to progress to the bank vault to secure the package without destroying it (even if it bites).  Once there they need only wait for extraction.

Anderson, Symes and Jerabeck of Squad Sigma were airlifted to the Police Station roof in a locally acquired helo.

Similarly to the Gamma mission, Squad Sigma must reacquire potentially incriminating documents from the police vehicle shown (again being modelled by Michael Jackson) and return to the extraction vehicle.

Resistance is factored at Level Orange (that’s eighty zeds plonked down at random plus nine reinforcements per turn, plus a handful of randomly determined Special Infected showing up throughout the game, on a 6 x 4’ table, in case you were wondering).

The centre of the target area, just before the action begins

The Action

Squad Gamma proceeds with covering fire, by the numbers.  They encounter a still armoured ex-USS colleague.  The Sergeant puts a shotgun round through its head without a second thought.  “If necessary I expect each one of you to do the same for me” he rasps through internal comms (tough guys always rasp, they never just “say”).

Squad Sigma proceeds slowly and efficiently, clearing a path through the dispersed undead.

In stark, bloody contrast to the advance of the other Umbrella units, the overconfident Hoffman of Squad Epsilon gets too close to a mob of ex-police as he rounds the first corner.  Although he takes a few shamblers with him, he is torn limb from limb in moments, his screams of agony being heard through each Epsilon earpiece.

Squad Epsilon continued to advance.  The longer they stayed the more biters were going to be drawn to the area, so they grimly pressed on.

(This was an alarmingly sudden and early demise for one third of PBs forces, much to our amusement.  Despite being 100% lethal upon contact with Survivors, Zombie mobs move rarely and are very unlikely to move rapidly in succession before Survivors get to react.  At least that’s what Hoffman thought anyway.  This unpredictability is part of the appeal of card driven miniature games for me, even if this is an extreme example of things going not so well for a player.  Don’t feel sorry for Hoffman (or PB): they knew the odds)

Squad Sigma rounded the abandoned cinema, taking out the closest threats all the while.  Their gunfire had drawn zombies in the area towards them however and their firepower was not proving to be sufficient to clear a path…

Squad Gamma gave the horde nearby a wide berth, but still ran into to some opponents that could not be dropped at range.  Kaplan and Ocampo dealt with their targets, while the Sergeant dropped a zombie with the butt of his shotgun and blew its brain remnants out on the ground.  Having become separated from his squad by a small distance by a number of hostiles he confirmed rendezvous at the far side of the park.

Even while Hoffmans remains were being devoured Epsilon came under more pressure from the encroaching dead.

After a struggle that was touch and go for a while they blasted their way through the throng and proceeded towards their objective.

Sigma was finally making some headway when the first of the less common undead threats appeared alarmingly close to them.  While not especially fast, the Regenerator (square base, standing next to Spawn Point) is very dangerous up close and very resistant to gunfire, as the combination of T-virus and Las Plagas parasites work to knit its dead flesh beck together after trauma.

Will the Regenerator tear squad Sigma limb from limb?

Will Dr Braga be rescued?

Who will live?

Who will die?

What will explode?

Tune in next week for the thrilling (well somewhat amusing and entertaining in a well-you-had-to-be-there kind of way) conclusion of…

Deadlines: Hostile Corporate Takeover of the Living Dead!

Zombie of the Week #32: Bud

Bud

The Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal programme developed an”unexpected” hitch.  A bunch of Cannibalistic, Humanoid, Underground Dweller shaped hitches.  Heads will roll, figuratively and literally.

A Bloody "Accident"

I have never seen C.H.U.D. (although the DVDs are en route as I type).  I am however familiar with the cover of the VHS which I could never get anyone else to rent with me as a child.  I figure that this Black Cat Bases manhole-with-hoodie figure was inspired by it.

(Edit: since I drafted this post I have seen C.H.U.D. While far from the likes of Citizen Kane, it was better than I expected.  Unintentionally hilarious in places but actually trying to be a grown up movie about monsters in others: it could have been much worse. C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the Chud however lasted less than ten minutes in the DVD player.  It looked like it was going to be a Weekend at Bernies type affair.  Ugh.)

The warning barriers come from some cheap Pound shop toys that I bought years ago.  I hopefully applied enough ink washes to them to remove most of the toy look from them.  Those things look so plastic-y in real life that I wasnt sure how far to go.

Naturally I then ladled gore all over them too.

As I have already painted up a pair of hoodies as Left 4 Dead Hunters I followed the same routine while painting Bud.

L4D Chargers

Chargers

More Left 4 Dead “special” infected, this time Chargers from L4D2.

Chargers as they appear in L4D2 are strangely mutated infected, even amongst the odd special infected that appear in the franchise.  Their dominant feature is one hideously overgrown arm with a correspondingly massive diametrically opposed leg.  The remaining limbs have atrophied almost entirely: it looks to me from the reference pictures almost as if they have been chemically burnt away.

A Charger as it appears in L4D2

I was tempted to paint the wasted limbs in a similar way, but i was afraid that they might just end up looking a bit unfinished or confusing in the context of the other huge scaly arms, so I left the smaller limbs painted as the rest of the “normal” flesh as is.

This weird mutation gives the Charger the ability to charge bull-like into survivors knocking them far enough away from the group to almost ensure their death.  According to Wikipedia they can also use their honking huge arm to pick up survivors and slam them against the ground (I have only played a boozy hour or two of L4D in a friends house, so I am relying on the internet for the details).

Another L4D2 Charger. This one seems to be mutated to a greater degree than the first one.

Like the other L4D special infected that I have put together/painted I wanted to go for an immediately recognisable look, but I didnt want to feel that I had to copy the concept exactly.  Like the hoodies on the Hunters I thought that the hillbilly dungarees would help to suggest “Charger” so when I spotted the Cold Wars zombie in dungarees I figured that that sculpt would be good for use as the “chassis” for the figures.

Huge Honkin' Arm.

The right arms are made from a GW Chaos Mutation sprue arm and an Ork arm respectively.  Both of those have had a lot of green stuff work done to them to blend them in, to bulk up the shoulders and add the scales.  I had never used Green Stuff to do anything other than fill holes before these two figures and so I am pleased that they came out as well as they did.

The Charger on the right also had a head swap with a West Wind zombie.

The Hasslefree “Mutant Grant” figure is the obvious not-Charger figure available (but it isnt out until Salute in a few weeks I think).

I am a very big fan of Hasslefree figures but I must admit that Mutant Grant isnt really as Charger-y as I would like.  Grant obviously has a huge deformed arm but for whatever reason Mr. Hasslefresian decided to sculpt Grant with two normal legs.  That is of course up to him but it surprised me really.

The diagonal contrast of deformed big versus deformed small is one of the things that I like about the L4D Charger design.  As a result I chopped off one of each of my Chargers feet and replaced them with feet from Heroclix figures (Wendigo and M&M Beast to be exact).  Not that I am favourably comparing my very amateur sculpting and converting to anything from Hasslefree you understand, its just that I thought that it was a pity that Mutant Grant didnt have the one-big-foot look that I like.