Biomechanical Blitzkreig

Cyberzombie Führer

You cant keep a bad man down.  This amusing figure has lots of potential for games. Since I painted him last week he has seen action attempting to bring about the Fourth Reich in an apocalyptic wasteland and I definitely forsee Hermetic Hitler making an appearance at loggerheads with Hellboy at some stage.  Obviously he is likely to feature in zombie games, spreading his weird war contaminants all over the place.  I love this figure, every time that I look at it it makes me smile.

In case you were wondering, the model seems to be Adolfs head transplanted into a mechanical body.  I dont think that the rest of his body in inside that chassis.  It wouldnt fit anyway: that foreshortened nipple on his left breast is actually a ball mounted machine gun, you just cant see it that well in the shot.

Gaming Weekend

MT's post-apocalyptic rabble.

Four of us got together for a figure/board game weekend on the last weekend in August.   I have been gaming with PB, MT and SOS for years although we rarely manage to get more than two or three of us together at the same time.  As a result these weekends tend to be pizza and booze affairs that start on Friday evening and finish on Sunday afternoon.  That we can get as many games in as possible.  Be there and be square.

The emphasis on the weekend was supposed to be to play the Mutants and Death Ray Guns miniatures game but we ended up only playing one game of that and then a whole load of board games.   Many of the boardgames were quite miniatures heavy so it scratched that itch a little at least.

Below are some snaps of the various games in progress.  I regularly forgot to photograph some of the games enough and completely forgot to photograph the big success of the weekend: Chaos in the Old World.  CitOW is a FFG board game about the Warhammer chaos powers taking over the Warhammer world.   We played it twice and I am looking forward to playing it again: well worth a look.  No photos of us playing it Im afraid.

We started on Friday evening with CitOW and on Saturday we played MDRG.

The start of the four player MDRG game.

Each player in the game had two hidden objectives dealt from a deck of cards.  The objectives were pretty straightforward: kill a particular players leader model, pick up a MacGuffin in the centre of the board and take it back to where you started etc.  The objectives worked pretty well and stopped the game from being simply a case of lining the guys up so that they could simply be knocked back down again.

SOS' Genestealer coven gets to grips with PB's Little Green Men

 

In fact, they pretty much kept at it for the entire game in various different places.

Karloth Valois drops his prize while under pressure from Mean Machine, Cyber-Hitler and Silvernail.

 

Next up was Battlecars.

Battlecars

 PB brought the copy of Battlecars that he picked up on Ebay.  He had played it as a kid at a con and had fond memories of it.  We played it and while a couple of glaring (but easily remedied) issues came up it does look like a solid enough base to get that eighties car fighting buzz from.

Chaos in the Old World got played next, but I didnt take any photos.  Oh well.  Monsters Menace America was up after that.

 

Monsters Menace America...again.

Monsters Menace America is a game that in many respects we probably should hate.  The end game in particular is pretty random but every time that we play it we have enjoyed it.  The cool monster pieces and the even cooler little military elements really help the theme.  The gameplay also encourages a certain amount of screwing over opponents (fun) while not usually forcing players to pursue a vendetta (less fun).  MMA is great and it gets played several times a year, which is more than I can say for most of my games.

It was then time for RoboRally.

H0W-E, Phran 19, FRANK-E and B0B line up for their RoboRally debut.

RoboRally was one of those games that we had all played at different times over the years.  The general consensus was that we didnt like it.  It turns out however that mostly we had played it:

• with people who play games really slowly (or “dicks” as they are also known),
• at conventions where some bright spark figured that a longer game automatically makes for more fun,
• with morons,
• with people who had never played before,
• without a timer

FRANK-E trails behind as Phran gets ready to win.

When the above factors are removed/accounted for we find that RoboRally provides a good couple of hours entertainment, usually with a lot of laughs.  Ideal for later in the evening when a not too taxing mental challenge is required but before we reach Buckaroo levels of cognitive ability.

Speaking of which, the penultimate game that we played on Saturday was this…

Spider-Man vs Doc Ock

Spider-Man Vs Doc Ock (this may not be its actual name, I cant remember) is a roll (or “spin”) and move game aimed at under fives.  I got it as a gift last year from someone who picked it up second hand in pretty battered condition.  Despite the fact that the game was obviously unlikely to scratch any major strategic or tactical itches I neurotically repaired it months ago, just in case we might get some fun out of it at some stage.  The time investment paid off as Spidey vs Doc Ock became the most unintentionally hilarious game of the weekend.  I dont recommend that you rush out and find a copy, but sometimes a daft game like this suits the mood.

This led us nicely to a 15 minute long Buckaroo tournament but I dont have any photos of that: my hands were shaking too much.

Lastly on Sunday we played one more game, four Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel missions.

Three Doomtrooper teams get bogged down by evil minions as the Ezoghoul approaches.

 

The Ezoghoul doing its thing

A Capitol Doomtrooper gets mugged

 

The game is pretty light and as a result can be a little scripted but I enjoyed it all the same. 

It was a pity that we didnt get Cosmic Encounter played over the weekend but all in all the wekend was a success I think.   Hopefully we will get in another four player weeekend in before Xmas.

Rat(tle) Rustlers

I played some more Mutants and Death Ray Guns in early August.  One of the basic scenarios in the game involves some post-apocalyptic cattle rustling.  Although I dont have any two headed calf figures lying around I do have a whole heap of giant rats, quite a few of whom are mutated with extra tails, scales etc.  They seemed like worthy livestock for the rather lethal and very bleak environment that the MDRG folks exist in: just the kind of place where people fight over the right to eat mutant rats.  The photos are a bit shoddy, just snaps taken as the game was underway.

Giant Mutant Rats: Post Apocalyptic Cattle

 

Post-Apocalyptic Cattle Rustlers A

Post-Apocalyptic Cattle Rustlers B

The game table was set up with four areas of terrain (some radioactive rock piles and some mutant vegetation) plus the cattle compound in the centre.  Both forces ran full tilt towards the compound in the early part of the game.

The rustlers close in on dinner.

 

Leroy and Seamus grab a rat each under direct orders from Dr Fossey. The topmost corner of the pen in the shot is where Leroy zapped the enemy assassin with a Death Ray Gun. All that remained was the echo of her dying shriek and a barbeque smell.

 

Lizzie and Fossey grab two more rats while under fire from the bounty hunter and mutant human shaman.

The game worked aout as a bit of a walkover for side A.  That said, it involved lots of laughs, helped along by the entertainingly ludicrous scenario and background.

Resident Evil Hunters… sort of.

 

These guys came in a terrible boardgame.  They are kinda fun figures so I gave them a quick paint scheme.  I intend to use them as demons or swamp aliens or whatever as the need arises.  The most likely use will be to represent the frog like Hunters from Resident Evil.

Hunters

 

Two strains.

 

The whole pack

Lizardmen

 

Another force painted specifically for Song of Blades and Heroes.  Lizardmen have a long history in sci-fi too so they will probably get used as native aliens or mutants at some stage too.

The paint jobs are straightforward basecoat plus one or two drybrush/highlights.  Certain areas got an ink wash and then the figures were dipped.  At this stage when I dip figures it tends not to be to shade the figure but merely to “black line” it.  Its a whole lot faster then doing that by hand.

Lizardman Hero

 

Hero again.

 

Skink Shaman

 

The shaman again.

 

Saurus Warrior

 

Saurus Warrior

 

Skink Archers

 

Skink Archers rear shot.

 

All of the Lizardmen

Judge Dredd and Mean Machine Angel

Joe Dredd has been a favourite comic character since childhood.  It is a pity that most peoples exposure to him was the diabolical 1995 Stallone movie.

Judge Dredd

I spent a little more time on this figure than I usually do although I still took some shortcuts.  I prefer the proportions and pose on this figure to the later 2000AD Foundry figures (which had a different sculptor).  I like this guy quite a lot

Mean Machine

Mean had less time spent on him than Joe but he still turned out well: no questioning who it is supposed to be.  While hardly his nemesis, Mean is a pretty definitive Dredd villain.  Another figure that I am quite glad to have completed.

Abandoned Military Base Mutant Fight

I tried out a game of Ganesha Games Mutants and Death Ray Guns (MDRG) a couple of weeks ago.  It is a miniatures game set in a cheesy post apocalyptic setting with robots, zombies, the titular mutants etc.  The game is based on the Song of Blades and Heroes rule system which is quite well regarded.  We had good fun with MDRG, enough that we intend to give SoBH a go soon too

 

Exploring the Abandoned Military Complex

 The scenario involves riskily searching for forgotten bits of tech in a ruinous military complex while avoiding being shot in the face by your opponent.  I dug out some very (twenty years) old scenery that I havent used for ages to represent the complex.  The bit in the left foreground needs a little repair work.

 

Ivan the android, Mouldy Mike the zombie, Zsa Zsa the insect mutant lady B1L the 'bot and Garth the plain old human.

 This is the force that I used.  MDRG has quite a random method for generating forces rather than more familar points systems.  As a result we rolled up ten characters (fudging the odd roll to suit the figures themselves) before the game started and then drafted the characters. 

 

Titch the mutant, a giant mutant ratman, Baxter the bug-man mutant, a stealthy cyborg with a chainsaw arm and a human with a laser.

 Above is my opponents force.

 

Zsa Zsa swoops in to help Garth take out the laser armed human. Garth didnt need her help.

 Early on our guys wandered around avoiding once dormant security systems and picking up the occasional weapon.  Eventually the sole human on each team ended up facing off.  Garth had the other guy on the run… for a while.  Check out the small amount of seven foot tall cyborg with chainsaw arm stealthily crouched in the doorway of the building in the foreground right.  This is foreshadowing folks…

 

Garth gets cleft in twain, from groin to face. Baxter just laughs a buzzy laugh.

 

Garth gets charged by said cyborg who scores a “gruesome kill”.  Garth is dead.  Not dead until we roll on the recovery chart.  He is dead, dead.

The game continued in a suitably lethal fashion until most of both sides were either dead, dead dead, or rolling around on the ground saying “Aaargh”.  Although we didnt plan to play using those teams again (MDRG is designed to be played in batches of three to five games of ~30mins each) we wouldnt have been able to anyway due to the huge casualty rate.  Hooray!

Necromunda Zombies

Post Apocalyptic Zombie

 

Sci-Fi Zombie

 

A couple of Necromunda zombies that I painted back in the late ’90s.  A quick scheme, nothing fancy.  I like that the second guy is wearing a watch.

Planet Heck: a study in several parts. #1 – The Sulphur Swamps

The Sulphur Swamps of Heck

 

Lt. Robyn Rocket leads an SPD investigation through the Sulphur Swamps, little knowing that they are being watched from the shadows.

Scott Tyrell and Ivan Kretz

Scott Tyrell - steals from the rich...

Scott Tyrell - ...gives to the poor...

Scott Tyrell - ...but keeps enough to buy green coats.

Ivan Kretz - Mercenary

Ivan Kretz - Cyborg

 

These two characters were put together for a Fantastic Worlds scenario, The Robin Hood of Regallus VII.  they would also be suitable for post apocalyptic games I think, Ivan in particular.