Savage Schoolgirls!

Just the briefest of posts this morning to showcase the new additions my St. Trinians mob for '7ombieTV'.  Yes, I know they have nothing to do with 'Witchfinder General' nor for that matter Victorian warfare, but what can I say, I am that easily distracted!  In my defence, I had started these ahead of my visit to see Mike, the Dark Templar, Reynolds and our day of zombie shenanigans, but they didn't quite make it in time.  Not that it mattered as we ended up just playing Zombicide anyway.

Hugely entertaining sculpts from 'Cooked Dice' themselves, they owe more than passing resemblance to characters from the rebooted versions of the films and of course Violet Elizabeth Bott, from the Just William stories, immortalised by Bonnie Langford; craftily renamed 'Violent' Elizabeth it would appear that her special talent is to “thcweam and thcweam”!

So a fun distraction, these feral Fourth Formers join the ranks of survivors ready to take on the undead, perhaps they could even make up a Zombicide squad!

Ready for a Field Trip?

Maidens of St Trinian's, gird your armour on.

Grab the nearest weapon; never mind which one.

The battle's to the strongest; might is always right.

Trample on the weakest; glory in their plight.

St Trinian's! St Trinian's! Our battle cry.

St Trinian's! St Trinian's! Will never die.

Stride towards your fortune boldly on your way,

Never once forgetting there's one born every day.

Let our motto be broadcast: "get your blow in first!"

She who draws the sword last always comes off worst.

Fabled Realms Buildings

We it's been a quiet week here at 'Awdry Towers' on the hobby front, for every time that I sit down to start something, I am seemingly instantly disturbed!  This is clearly not as bad as I am making out and I have managed to cross off a couple of important jobs from the 'Saintly Mrs. Awdry's' summer chores list, but I must make amends from Monday.

That said a couple of miniatures were painted and I hope to showcase them early next week, but in the interim I thought I would share a couple of new buildings that arrived from '4ground'.  I first spied these at Salute 2014 and knew immediately that I would have to have some for my 'Witchfinder General' project.  They mark a foray into the Fabled Realms for '4Ground' and are timely addition to their range with all things Piratical on the horizon.  

Their slightly quirky look makes them perfect for fantasy gaming, but they have such a quality about them that I hope they might work for 17th Century England.  I plumped for two in the end, the grand, two story High Street House and the more modest Backstreet Hovel.  As with my previous purchases from '4Ground' these were a joy to put together, in fact I would suggest that is much of their appeal, particularly for a chap who loved putting Airfix model planes together as a boy; there is something intrinsically satisfying about following a set of instructions through to the completion of the project and then holding aloft your creation and saying, "I made that!"

Removable roofs as standard!

Working trapdoor to the cellar or smugglers' tunnel.

Patience and rubber bands are required, but such is the quality of the design that it all comes together superbly well, even the new fangled panelling. 

Paint Table Saturday#38

Meanwhile the paintable is still being patrolled by the hell hounds that have seen little progress apart from their bases and I have managed to unearth the damaged dry stone wall sections, so I hope to have those done over the coming week - we'll see!  

Finally, please remember that you can see many more 'Paint Tables' by popping over to Sophie fabulous weblog here, or by going in the fun at the Google+ community here.

Zombicide Day

Saturday the journey up to the mighty metropolis that is Ashford to seek out the 'Dark Templar' and introduce him to the intricacies of Zombicide.  Having survived the storm of the previous night there was a pang of guilt as I waved farewell to the ‘Saintly Mrs. Awdry’ surrounded, as she was, with buckets of water and soaked towels*, but this soon dissipated as today was a games day!

 *it would appear ‘Awdry Towers’ had sprung a leak!

With the requisite parts of the original Zombicide, along with the Toxic Mall extension, all carefully packed off I went in search of a game or two.  Mike was the perfect host and after a quick sneak peak of the new man cave and armed with a cup of tea we settled down to a quick tutorial.  It is important to stress that I am still relatively new to this game and that I am not a Zombicide purist, insomuch that I have a tendency to mix things together and interpret the rules for the benefit of the games as opposed to the letter of the law – so to speak.  This was to become evident as the day progressed, but with our first tentative steps it was very much the blind leading the blind!  After  successfully completing what seemed like a suspiciously easy scenario, due to the fact that I had completely overlooked the rule about movement when faced with a zombie, we went for a more advanced set up.

'City Blocks', ranked as a Hard scenario saw us required to collect all the objective tokens along with at least one Canned Food card, one Rice card and at least one Water card before one member of the team, equipped with said provisions, escapes off the edge of the board.

For the uninitiated, I should point out that Zombicide is a collaborative game where the players have to work together in order to achieve their goals.  All seemed straight forward enough, buoyed as we were with our earlier success, but fate has a habit of dealing you a duff card, or two!  My first room search had left Wanda, fearlessly brandishing two frying pans, surely things would get better?

Well the answer to my question was a resounding 'No!' with the arrival of the Abomination so early in the game.

Things got even worse when Wanda faced with dispatching a single walker to end the survivors' phase threw a one - the dull metallic thud of a frying pan missing everything but the wall behind the solitary walker's head, meant that she started the next phase with a wound!

As the game progressed, fate seemed to shine a little brighter on our rollerskating waitress as she picked up some serious weaponry in the shape of a meat cleaver and an automatic shotgun.* Now armed to the teeth Wanda was to become our vanguard, but sadly this tactic came to an abrupt end…

*I warned you I wasn't a purist as these weapons should not have been available, oh well!

Opting for search on her final move Wanda discovers a zombie under a pile of rags, already wounded the result is unavoidable - and I was so looking forward to unleashing that automatic shotgun! 

It was fair to say that I wasn't having all the bad luck, with Mike's hapless Sheriff Phil opting to fire into  a crowd of walkers only to miss with every shot!

What followed was an heroic, but ultimately flawed stand off as Amy and Phil fought back to back trying to buy Doug some precious time as the hordes of shambling dead surrounded them...

It was to prove a futile move and the game was abandoned in favour of lunch!

Our enthusiasm renewed, due in no small way to the restorative power of tea and sausage sandwiches, we vowed to avenge the losses of the previous game by returning to the scenario with a new cast and a clear plan of action.  Mike was running Raoul and Elsa, whilst I set out with Josh and Ned.  It seemed that the bad luck of the previous game was continuing to haunt me in this as my two characters found themselves accompanied by the abomination in far too tight a spot!  With two actions remaining Josh was weighing up the option of leaving Ned to fend for himself when an inspired search turned up…

… the Concrete Saw, in one swift move Josh fired up the beast first time and despatched the lumbering mass that blocked their way.  Now seemingly unstoppable Ned, armed with matching .44 Magnums and Josh with his shotgun and the truly awesome concrete saw, opened another set of rooms before taking up a holding role in the street.  

The plan was a simple one, draw the hoards of undead towards them, buying valuable time for the others to collect the provisions and make a break for the exit point - yes we abandoned the objective tokens at this stage, but in the interest of the game you understand!  Although they went down fighting with the bodies of their victims starting to pile high around them, Josh and Ned succeeded in drawing shuffling mass of reanimated corpses to one side of the board, making enough noise to literally raise the dead.  Meanwhile on the other side of the board...

Mike had managed to unearth enough provisions to prepare a veritable banquet, but now had to find a way for Elsa to escape the whole length of the board.  What followed was a truly cinematic moment as the hoard descended on Raoul's position; they shuffled the entire length of the board as Elsa quietly waited, having garnered enough experience points to claim 'slippery' as a skill.

As Raoul emptied his sawed off shotgun in the swarming mass for the last time, the sound of the shots slowly faded as Elsa broke cover.

Although she didn't have it all her own way, the exit was eventually reached and so our session for the day came to an end.  A hugely enjoyable day, I am always impressed at how well this game works and throughout the day Mike and I were already mulling over possible custom scenarios - a St. Trinians field trip for example.  With so much more to explore within the Zombicide world, I think it is fair to say that we are both looking forward to the next encounter.  

Dry Stone Walls

A fairly self-explanatory post this morning as I head up the mighty metropolis that is Ashford for some zombie themed shenanigans with that splendid chap the 'Dark Templar'.  These are from 'Warlord Games' and were originally sold as part of their 'Rorke's Drift' set, something I still want to get my hands on! 

My first impressions were not favourable, particularly when looking at the amount of air bubbles that needed to be filled and excess plastic that had to be hacked away.  That said, it was clear that they were a good looking sculpt and I was hopeful that they might yet prove their worth.

Plenty of dry brushing and flocking later and they war complete, I just need to rediscover the damaged versions that I have put in a safe place! 

Redoubt Enterprises Clubmen

Having safely returned from a short break visiting my parents in the Principality, it is time to get the summer's hobby work underway.  First up, these additions to the ranks of the Clubmen, three splendid sculpts from 'Redoubt Enterprises'.  I have mentioned on many an occasion that I am very fond of these more robust of sculpts that look to keep things simple.  Compared with more the recent releases, from the likes of 'Warlord Games' these 'honest' sculpts shun the need to impart the most meticulous amounts of fine detail, giving me the freedom to slap paint on the miniature without unduly worrying that I might be concealing the sculptor's craft.

Sold as individuals, the gentlemen required a head selection to be made and I found it too difficult to pass up the opportunity to use one of their bandaged types.  Looking at the fearsome blunderbuss that he is brandishing, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the wounds were self inflicted! 

 The matriarch, was again, one of those sculpts that you look at and think, "I have to have one", armed with little more than her womanly charms and a knife lashed to a pole, she is clearly determined to fight to the death to protect her plot.   With plenty of large spaces to paint, I managed to get through these three relatively quickly and thoroughly enjoyed finding a palette that suited my needs.

Finally, then, an image comparing the recent 'Warlord Games' sculpts with these latest additions from 'Redoubt Enterprises'.  Clearly they are bigger, and if you focus on it for too long they seem ridiculously so, but having based them on the same size washers and used the same basing materials, they are starting to hold together, particularly when seen from a distance.

More from 'Warlord Games' on the table at present, with the Hell Hounds lurking in the shadows, but looking forward to some Zombie fuelled nonsense this weekend with the 'Dark Templar', I must remember to take the camera!

Riot Girlz

Well technically one, but who is counting?

If all goes to plan then should be the last scheduled post, whilst I enjoy so time with my family.  Looking forward to catching up with everyone soon, but in the interim:

    Now there was a tradition, here at '28mm Victorian Warfare' of painting up a miniature that tied in, albeit it very loosely, to the most recently completely page turner to have graced the bedside table. Well with the completion of thoroughly enjoyable 'Radio Hope' by Sean McLachlan it seemed only fitting that something Post Apocalyptic was promoted to the painting table.

Now I had hoped that this would have been in the form of some very interesting scavenger types that I had spied over at 'Black Cat Bases', but sadly things are obviously still not right there.  When my previous order finally turned up it came with a discount by way of an apology, a nice touch and not necessary given the unfortunate family circumstances that seem to have befallen them.  I decided to continue to show support by redeeming said voucher only to find that the order had taken so long to arrive that the voucher had expired!  Not to worry, thinks I, I will just simply place another order, after all they do have some wonderful items on their list - that was over three months ago.  

It then occurred to me that I had a possible stand-in for a wasteland wanderer in the shape of this delightful miniature.  This was a freebie from that splendid chap, the 'Dark Templar' and was one of the preproduction sculpts for the game he had been working on 'Aetherium'.  Even though this was not not the finished article, so to speak, there were so lovely touches, including tread on the soles of her boots - now there's attention to detail!

The plastic was a little bit fiddly to work with and although I had washed the miniature in detergent first it still seemed to resist the application of acrylic primer that I was using.  In the end, I resorted to giving it a coat of matt varnish to allow the paint some form of key, obviously this would not have helped the delicate details, but there was still plenty left to work with.

A fairly predictable colour palette with a nod to all things punk including the addition of some cherry red Dr. Martens and a studded leather belt.  I had pinned her to a 'Warbases' MDF disc, which allowed me to have a little fun with the debris of a forgotten world strewn about the place and ultimately I'm pleased with how she turned out - a timely reminder to myself that I had backed yet another Kickstarter in the shape of 'Across the Dead Earth';  Expect more of this later in year!