Zombie Spawn Points

These two are numbers seven and eight of the eight strong zombie spawn points project.  The rest of the zombie spawn points were posted as Zombies of the Week if you fancy a more in-depth look at any of them.

The remaining two dont really qualify under that tag so I have put them here instead.

A Cerberus marks its territory against barrels of unholy chemical concoctions using cold, dead, bloody dog piss.

This one is similar to many that have gone before, except that this one has a zombie dog instead of a zombie human.  Allowing animals to become zombies opens up a whole can-o-worms, but I am ok with it being cross contagious with a limited number of species.  Kinda like swine or bird flu I suppose. Dog-flu that re-animates corpses I suppose.

Predatory Sewer Dwelling Mutant

Tentacles dont tend to suggest zombies to most people.  The figure is designed more as a Cthulhu thing really I suspect.  Nonetheless I was happy to use a manhole with tentacles coming out of it as a zombie spawn point.  I suppose that it goes back to my zombie grounding in the Resident Evil franchise, where mutant animals…

[comic store guy mode ]

…and not necessarily zombie animals.  There is a difference of sorts…

[ /comic store guy mode... well... reduced to normal levels at least ]

…are reasonably common due to reasons related to the zombie outbreak.

Yesterdays News

The newspaper is an image that I found online a few years ago and held on to.  I printed out a sheet of tiny papers back then but always found them just a little too big to fit on most 28mm figure bases.  I am pleased with how they look on the spawn base above though.

Lastly, here is a silly, tiny shot of all of the spawn points together, along with some of the other zed related stuff that I have painted up recently, just for fun.

Its curtains for Jill Valentine.

The spawn points were a satisfying project: the sort of thing that I regularly talk about, but dont always get around to completing.

Not this time

Dr Braga & Umbrella Security Service NBC Squad / Red Shadows

Umbrella NBC Sergeant & Trooper

I have wanted some NBC troopers for zombie games for a while, but I couldnt decide what way to paint them.  While army greens or khakis may have been apt I figured that I would try to tie them to the Umbrella forces that I have been painting, just to be a little different.

As I plan to get some white-clad HazMat suits at a later date (like the suits at the end of the first Resident Evil movie) I didnt want to go for that.  I decided instead to use the other colours from the palette in the Umbrella logo: red and black.

Umbrella Elite Troops ("Blood for the Baron!")

Painting red is a pain in the ass. Trying to get a shaded yet vibrant red (rather than a brown or orange or pink) is irritatingly difficult.

I went for a bright rubbery red in this case and some liberal application of Tamiya Clear red helped to keep the colour vibrant while still shading it.  I am happy with the rubbery look that the red ended up with (aided by a liberal gloss varnish, which in turn makes the shading hard to see in the photos.  Its there all right).

As I painted the black on to the predominantly red figures I realised how Nazi or James Bond-bad-guy they look.  In particular they remind me of the Red Shadows from the UK Action Force toy range that preceded and was subsequently absorbed into the G.I. Joe franchise.

In response to how cartoony looking the final figures ended up looking, I decided to add a cheesy lightning bolt transfer to the miniatures backs.  I think that it is a GW Space Marine White Scar chapter logo and it was a hell of a lot easier to do than paint an Umbrella logo on a red background.  Plus now it shows them to be some sort of elite squad or something like that.

Dr. Braga and Laser Armed Umbrella NBC Trooper

I painted a Moonfleet scientist miniature at the same time as the NBC guys and christened him Dr Braga, after a Star Trek writter known for his technobabble filled writing.  The doctor fits in well with these elite Umbrella troopers I think but he would be equally at home playing God in a lab or antagonising Xenomorphs in their cage or in any number of other sci-fi toy-soldier-y applications.

Since 2008 I have found myself painting scientist spectacles with 3D glasses style red and blue/green.  It doesnt make a lot of sense, but I like the look and so I keep doing it (Dr Jacoby from Twin Peaks wore a pair, didnt he?  I could be wrong).  It works well on Dr. Braga I think.

I bought a toy vehicle last week to transport these guys around in their own hi-tech, HazMat truck.  I hope to get to that at a later date, probably at the same time that I get the two humvees for the USS guys finished.

Collecting Samples for the T-Virus Project

Note that since August 18th, 2010 I have retconned these guys to be Umbrella Special Forces Unit Epsilon.  Not that it really matters, but for the sake of accuracy

Resident Evil Licker

L4D Chargers were supposed to be up this week, but I changed my mind. They are coming soon, probably next week (edit: and then I forgot to reschedule the Chargesr post anyway so the whole lot went up.  Ho hum).  I have a Resident Evil Licker to showcase today instead.

Licker

Lickers debuted in the RE franchise towards the end of the last century, way back in RE2.  Their first appearance was a pretty creepy scuttle across the outside of a Racoon City PD window after which they made a lasting impression in the next room, usually by decapitating Leon S. Kennedy with their enormous tongue.

Since those not so humble beginnings, they have become a staple of the franchise, featuring as the big bad in the first RE movie and hunting some S.T.A.R.S. members in the church in the second movie (before being blown to pieces by a motorcycle mounted, twin uzi wielding Alice).  They also regularly show up in most of the RE games.

A Licker as it appears in the Resident Evil games.

A couple of shots of the video game Licker.

Another video game Licker

While not “fast” zombies per se (their first appearance predates the development of that particular zombie sub-group by a few years trivia fans) Lickers are more akin in behaviour to a Jurrasic Park velociraptor that can stick to walls than a shambling zombie.

Bcause of this I chose to use a Horrorclix Tickler figure to convert into my Licker.  I always liked the half scuttling, half galloping dynamic pose of the model.  The tail and head had to go.  I used green stuff to cover up where the tail had been and I used a Heroclix Venom figures head as the basis for the Licker head.  I left the spines on the back of the figure as even though they are not strictly accurate for a Lickers appearance, I thought  that they looked good and were worth keeping as a point of visual interest on the figure.  Mutant variation like that is very in keeping with the whole RE thing anyway.

V-ACT Mutation

Lickers dont have visible eyes or ears and instead have a weirdly distorted brain that bulges out of the whole cranial area.  Making a convincing miniature brain for a Licker figure had been a stumbling block for me up until his model.

I tend to be better at assembling bits and pieces in various ways than I am sculpting things.  The apprentice period required to get to a passable sculpting level put me off trying miniature sculpting in more or less any way until this figure.  I used Green Stuff to make the brain and to add the sinewy looking muscle parts around the Lickers mouth.  I think that the brain worked out better than the sinew but I think that both are passable.

The confidence boost that I got out of the sculpted areas on the Licker has meant that I have started doing a bit more green stuff work on some other figures since (the upcoming L4D Chargers being the most noteworthy).

To top it all off I am also pleased with how the paint job worked out.  I wanted the scheme to suggest that the Licker was in some way flayed (because thats what they look like.  They have no skin) but I didnt want to get bogged down in very fiddly painting of muscle striations or anything very time consuming and Golden Demon-y like that.  I came up with a compromise that I am very happy with.

And so my project to get a tabletop worthy version of one of my favourite villains from one of my favourite franchises turned out to be particularly satisfying.  Go me

Running the Zombie Gauntlet

 

A few weeks ago a MT (a long time gaming buddy) and I decided to try out frequent LAF contributor AKULAs zombie apocalypse rules, AR:SE (available for free HERE). 

The rules are simple and provide for automated movement for the zombies, like computer game “bots”.  This appealed to the two of us because it meant that we could play semi-co-operatively if we wanted, which sums up the whole zombie apocalypse genre really.

 

 

Preamble

We decided that we would place as much non-ruined urban terrain as we could muster on a 6’ x 4’ table.  We then added 80 or so zombies (ten of which were based in two “hordes”), which covered the table sufficiently to give us a run for our money.  The amount of zombies placed was guesswork, as although we had previously read the rules (satisfyingly short at 2 xA4 pages), we didn’t really have a feel for how effective our heroes would be.  I would rather play a game of a heroic defeat than an easy victory so we erred on the side of more zombies rather than less.

To this we added two Witches and a possibility of spawned zombies spawning as Tanks.  The likely hood of Tanks showing up increased as the game went on.  Although I have a number of zombie “characters” available, we didn’t want to bog down our first game with too many specials, so we left it at Witches and Tanks.

We also specified that Spawned zombies emerged from the zombie horde closest to any survivors (I have dedicated zombie spawn point markers in the pipeline, but they were not available for this game).

A couple of quick notes about the terrain: my modern stuff is pretty crude but functional.  It was originally made under time constraints for use in Heroclix games, which is why the roofs are marked out with a grid.  That’s what the ugly looking white tile spacers are (I really should get around to painting them black).  Eventually I will get around to making some “proper” modern terrain, but as is often the way with these things, the stuff that I have is functional and so “proper” modern terrain never tends to get to the top of the to-do list.  Still, although lacking aesthetically, they buildings are durable and functional, so I wont make any more excuses for them.

Deployment and Table Set-Up

We set up our forces on the South East corner of the table and placed the car park, replete with potential getaway vehicles at the North West corner.  The Survivors were tasked with getting to a specific crashed vehicle in the middle of the battlefield to pick up the vital briefcase of scientists notes.  From there they have to get to the car park where they can hotwire some of the functional vehicles there to make their escape.

L to R: "Silent" Yoshi, Botan, Suzi

MT chose to chart the exploits of some Yakuza survivors.  L to R “Silent” Yoshi, Botan and Suzi.

L to R: Chris Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy, Ada Wong

In an unlikely alliance that could only brought on by impending, walking corpse filled Armageddon I chose to ally the Yakuza with the forces of the Racoon City Special Tactics and Rescue Service (STARS).  L to R: Chris Redfield, Leon S Kennedy and industrial espionage agent Ada Wong.

The view from the South

A shot of the battlefield from the South.  Note the car park in the top left.  That’s where our heroes are headed for.

The view from the North

A shot of the battlefield from the North.  Note  the zombie horde in the centre, just below the overturned yellow car.  Those guys occasionally move around and are lethal if they come into contact with survivors.  Primarily in our game, they were a mobile spawn point.
If you squint, you might be able to see one of the Witches.  It’s the figure with the square base at 9 o’clock to the overturned yellow car.  Witches react to disturbances nearby by shrieking.  This in turn causes shamblers within range of the sound to head toward the Witch.  This is a bad thing.

Northerly view including the Car Park

Another shot from the North, this time showing a little of the car park objective.

Aerial view from the ZTV news chopper

An aerial shot, taken by the ZTV news chopper.

Gameplay

Heading East

The Survivors start by heading north via the Eastern table edge.  The theory was that they should avoid the large concentration of slackjaws in the middle for as long as possible. The more noise that the Survivors make, the more active the living dead become.

Businesslike and professional rolling up of a flank

Leon brings up the rear while Botan beheads a walking corpse with his katana.  Chris gives covering fire as they head to the junction where they will proceed West towards the car which contains the briefcase.  So far so good.  “This is a snap for a international woman of mystery such as myself” thinks Ada as the survivors make short work of any zombies in their path.

The first casualty

As she rounds the corner Ada is attacked by a corpse that has been drawn by the gunfire.  In a surprising display of incompetence, Ada is caught flat footed, while the zed seems to be at the top of its game.  Ada has her throat ripped out in a gurgling spray of blood.  “NOOOO!” cries Leon.  “I never expected our flirtatious will-they, wont-they relationship from opposite sides of the track to end like this!”.

“At least she is properly dead.  She isn’t coming back from that”. Chris advises Leon using stilted, computer game-y dialogue.  Chris then riddles the offending zed with lead.

Objective acquired

Botan is “in the zone” at this stage and advises a stealthy approach as he has heard the crying of a Witch up ahead.  “What are supposed to use now? Harsh language?” says Leon in a predictably action movie quote style as he holsters his pistol.  Silent Yoshi does not speak.

Botan ignores them both and chops up two more undead with  ninja like stealth before he pins a crawler to the ground as he retrieves the crucial briefcase from the crashed car.

The Plan

At this point viewers at home were treated to some expert commentary about the situation from back at the ZTV station, complete with a play analysis.  The circled vehicle is where the briefcase has been retrieved from and the green path is the direction that the survivors have chosen to take to get to the car park and getaway vehicle.

Turning Eastward again

Chris runs forward and clinically dispatches the Witch in their path before it can react.  He then provides cover as the remaining survivors head past the limo and towards the cinema.

The "Horde" in the foreground starts moving...

 A large zombie mob starts to stumble toward our heroes, forcing them to hurry away from it, perhaps a little rashly…

Zombies approach from all sides

 Despite gunning down a number of zeds as they closed, Suzi and Yoshi are forced into hand to hand.  Leon and Chris are unable to help as they keep the other closing ghouls at bay.

The death of Botan...

Botan bites off more than he can chew.  While he makes good account of himself in terms of eviscerated corpses, he is eventually dragged down to his doom…

...and the birth of a Tank!

With a series of bloody, squelchy sounds the thing that was Botan convulses.  With a roar, all of its hair falls out and tentacles sprout from its rapidly growing body. Witness the birth of a Tank.

(In game terms we had been using the AR:SE rules to determine if downed heroes would come back as zombies.  Ada hadn’t but Botan had.  We had also been incorporating a simple incrementing roll to determine when the next zombie to spawn would be a Tank.  As luck would have it, this happened when Botan shuffled off, so he was the one that came back as a Tank.  And all in front of a poster of the Governator.  “I’ll be back” indeed.  Hooray for narrative!”)

 

Decisive action required

 The Survivors have a small chance to re-kill the Botan Tank if they can get to it while it is transforming.  With that in mind the four remaining survivors attempt to circle the Tank and neutralise with extreme prejudice.  Suzi has to riskily dodge away from her close combat aggressors to help out with the tank, but a well timed cartwheel reminiscent of Xiaoyu in Tekken 3 gets her where she is needed most. 

Our heroes repeatedly plug the Tank and barely manage to re-dead it before it gets a chance to get up.  “If its dead, we can kill it!” cheers Chris, confusingly.

Car park bound

 Almost as if our heroes have overcome the main aggressor in the third act, the sun breaks through the clouds (or the camera flash was too close) giving the survivors the strength to run around the side of the cinema toward the car park and salvation.  Chris cheerfully riddles a few zeds that get too close en route.

Bus stop

The survivors jump over the car park wall and line up beside a bus.  Suzi, familiar with hotwiring her own school bus during the many Battle Royale school trips that she has been on suggests that she get the bus up and running.  Leon whimpers self pityingly about Ada.  Yoshi remains quiet.  “Holy $h1t! Its Michael Jackson!” says Chris and heads for the roof of the bus.

Chamone in peace... again

“THAT’S for “Earth Song!” hollers Chris as he empties a clip into the former Prince of Pop turned cannibalistic reanimated corpse.
“Its too late to look at he man in the mirror now sucker!”  says Chris in a failed attempt to deliver a pithy closing one liner.  Zombie MJ’s head explodes in a shower of gore.

Clang!

The bus shudders to life and Suzi floors the pedal, heading straight through the gates with a clang.

Vehicular extermination

Suzi expertly guides the bus over four zombies as the survivors drive off into to sunset.  Billie Jean plays to fade.

 

 

Conclusions

We had good fun with the scenario and rules.  We had a couple of minor rules decisions to make a call on during the game, but as we are both grown ups with a lot of hours gaming time clocked over the years, they were decided upon quickly.

I plan to make cards for each of the survivor miniatures that I use as quick reference for the weapons and abilities that they have.  Having played the game, I have more of a handle on how it works now and I will base the stats accordingly.  I plan to bring a very, very simple points system (as in each character is rated as 1, 2, 3, 4) so that James Bond type characters are distinguishable from some survivor with a two by four.

Next time I will incorporate some Hunters and Jockeys into the mix, along with a different scenario.

Resident Evil: Carlos Oliveira – U.B.C.S.

Carlos Oliveira

According to the Resident Evil 3: Nemesis rulebook:

“Though Carlos hails from South America, his exact origins are unknown except that he carries Indian blood”.

“He is a U.B.C.S. soldier, in charage of heavy firearms, security and mission back-up.  He is also responsible for weapons maintenance”.

“At first sight he may appear inexperienced and immature.  He is actually warm-hearted, with a strong sense of right and wrong”.

The Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service (U.B.C.S.) that Carlos is part of when first encountered in RE3, is a different group to the Umbrella Security Service (which I posted about here, here and here).  According to the Resident Evil Wiki “the U.S.S. were specially taught mercenaries with experience in infiltration while U.B.C.S. were just criminals released to fight for Umbrella”.  Who knew?

"I know. You want to ask me out. All the foxy ladies love my accent. It drives them crazy".

Carlos is a a playable character in RE3: Nemesis and he also appeared in two of the movies.  In the game he was unaware of how eeevil the Umbrella Corp was, despite being on their military payroll.  Hence the Umbrella logo on his jacket.

Umbrella Security Service: Infected

When painting up Umbrella SWAT Gamma Team and Sigma Team I also added a few USS members who had come a cropper when deployed.

Ex-Comrades

The figures are from KingZombie.  As has been noted by many they are quite “cartoony”, with large sometimes banana-hands, big deformed heads and a generally pretty large stature.  Despite all of this, I really enjoyed painting them and I think that they look good overall.  I rationalise that the somewhat deformed appearance of some of the guys as simply part of the overall effect of zombification on human biology, just in case any of you were wondering

Their appearance reminds me a little of the heavily deformed and made up zombie/possessed Deadite guys from the Evil Dead movies, which obviously is no bad thing.

The Umbrella Health Plan Wont Cover This...

The guy on the left below isn’t strictly speaking a USS (SWAT) guy, seeing as he has “POLICE” sculpted onto his body armour.  I decided to paint him up with these guys regardless.  He is in mid “action shot”.  His left eye appears to have just become an entry wound and the exit wound is visible as an explosion of gore on the back of his head as shown in the second shot below.

Entry Wound: Targets Left Eye...

The figures are very gory.  Up until now most of my zombie miniatures have had an old and rotting look, whereas these guys on the other hand look pretty fresh.  I enjoyed painting the gore on these guys and so I am going to paint my zombies a whole lot bloodier in the next batch.  I also hope to get around to upping the gore on some of the poorer examples of the zombie paint jobs in my collection in an effort to make them look a little better, but that may not happen for a while.

Exit Wound: Entire Rear of Targets Head

These figures came moulded onto their hexagonal scenic bases.  I wanted to ensure that there would be no ambiguity as to which USS figures were zombified and which were not so I kept all of the Gamma and Sigma team members on my usual circular bases which were flocked as usual.  All of the zombie USS retained their scenic bases which were by and large unflocked.  That, in addition to the large quantities of gore on the figures should keep the dead and the undead clearly defined.

Since I photographed these guys I noticed that they required another quick coat of matt varnish in some areas.  I went back and sorted that out, but didbnt have an opportunity to re-photograph them.

Umbrella Security Service: Sigma Team

I painted up Umbrella SWAT Sigma Team at the same time that I painted up Gamma Team, both for use in modern zombie games.  All members of Sigma Team are helmetless, which makes for an easy way to distinguish the teams on the table if necessary.

Sigma Team Trooper and Sniper

Sigma Team was painted in exactly the same fashion (and at exactly the same time as) Gamma Team.  The flesh tones were a bit rushed so they could be better really.  Deciding to paint the flesh areas after midnight on a boozy Saturday evening also contributed to the slipshod look somewhat.  I might go back to the figures and dot in the pupils etc at some stage, but I am just as likely not to bother: they look good enough for my purposes as is.

Officer, Heavy Weapons Specialist and Trooper

Sigma Team has a lot more variety in its weaponry than Gamma Team, which was armed identically with a machine gun of some sort (ID-ing modern armament isn’t my strong point).  Sigma Team weapon highlights include the sniper rifle in the top photo and a very large (M60?) machine gun in the second shot.

Since I photographed these guys I noticed that they required another quick coat of matt varnish in some areas.  I went back and sorted that out, but didbnt have an opportunity to re-photograph them.

Zombie of the Week #6: Graham

 

 

Graham

Graham doesnt know how he got to be this way.  Occasionally he gets flashes in his head that remind him of times when he wasnt always hungry, when he wasnt always cold, when he had hands.  Sometimes those flashes in his head make Graham angry and he squishes things into tiny pieces. 

Sometimes Graham gets a different flash in his head.  These flashes are red and white and shaped in a circle.  He hears voices when he sees these flashes.  The voices dont call him “Graham”.  The voices say things like “Nemesis” and “P-Virus” instead.  When he sees the red and white flashes and hears the voices, Graham feels strong and he knows what to do.  He needs to go where the voices tell him to and squish all of the things there with his feet and his arms and his teeth and his big guns.

Necrotic Bio-Mechanoid

Graham is a weird figure but fun all the same.  A couple of years ago the Dreamblade CMG was released.  I think that it was about fighting in “dreamscapes” or something else slightly odd.  There were a load of figures for it but most of them were a bit too trippy for my games: things like guys in suits with claw hammer heads and the like.

I picked Graham up whwn I bought a few of the more suitable Dreamblade figures on ebay with the intention to use him as a Umbrella/Parasol augmented Tyrant like zombie.  According to the Dreamblade character card, Graham shoots bullets of clotted blood from those huge gun-hands.  Presumably he gets up to something similar with them in the Resident Evil universe.

Graham threatens Rocko

As you can see in the shot above, Graham is huge and quite suitable to be used as a Tank or Tyrant.  The figure was supplied as grey plastic with silver painted on the guns and black on the trousers, shoes and bandana (?!).  I drybrushed the grey areas a bit to give a little more depth to the flesh and I painted in his huge beard (?! again) just to give him a little definition.  I also painted the veins travelling down to his guns, again to give a little more colour and definition. 

I could have spent a lot more time painting Graham but I figured that he was good enough at that point.  Graham is a pretty wacky figure.

Umbrella Security Service: Gamma Team

I have had a couple of packs of Foundry SWAT figures knocking around for a few years.  I figured that they would be fun to use in modern zombie games and so I painted them up recently.  Gamma Team is the first squad. 

Gamma Team Leader (right) and Trooper. Note the Umbrella logo on the trooper.

Rather than paint the figures up as traditional SWAT teams I decided to go with a more zombie themed look.  I based the scheme loosely on the USS team that featured in the first Resident Evil movie.  I always figured that they were basically the same type of unit that featured in the Resident Evil 2 PS1 game, the guys who break in to William Birkins lab in the cut scenes (like the unlockable character “Hunk”).

Gamma Team Grunts

The paint job is simple: spray black followed by a grey drybrush. I gloss varnished some of the details to give a little more visual interest, like the uniform on the guys in the movie.  The Umbrella logos and the green eye details break up the predominantly black figures a little more too. 

Gamma Guys

The figure on the right isn’t Foundry: it is a survivor figure from KingZombie.  His look is similar enough to the rest of the guys that I decided to paint him up at the same time.  It also ties this group of figures to the KingZombie SWAT zombies (to follow) a little better.

Since I photographed these guys I noticed that they required another quick coat of matt varnish in some areas.  I went back and sorted that out, but didnt have an opportunity to re-photograph them.

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