The Walking Dead WIP & Other Stuff...

Paints... Paaaaaaaaaaaaints...

Howdy folks!

Long time no post, as usual!

So I did quite a bit of hobby stuff recently and thought a good update was in order.

First up: my Novus building that you may recall from waaaay back in the day.

I took entirely too long to actually slap paint on this bad boy

I kept it simple like the other building. I under coated it with blank, then highlighted VGA Cold Grey and VMA Light Grey, then came back over with VMA Scarlet Red, an excellent vibrant red. Lastly I painted the interior walls with VMA Khaki or something. I still have work to do on it, like paint the debris and machines, but I've held myself to my 2018 mantra:

Get your crap at least table ready.

The flood in Houston forced me to consolidate all my hobby stuff and move them around the house, which when all piled together really became overwhelming when seeing all the stuff I have, and how none of it is completely painted.

So I'm going to try to get things at least presentable when I can, meaning actually painting rather than just thinking of painting. An hour here, and hour there, it all adds up and gets crap done.

So when I saw this building again I decided that's what I'll do, starting with this building, and did it.

Which transitioned into the next project:

The Walking Dead: All Out War Miniatures Game

I Kickstarted this game a while back, and even though I was hesitant when it first came out by the end of the campaign I was really excited to back it and get it on the table. When it arrived I played a few solo games but nothing serious, I mostly used the cars for terrain for other games and even the supply token pieces. I never really tried to get it on the table for our regular gaming group, though, as we usually played Malifaux and it just collected dust.

Recently, though, one of our regulars expressed interest in other games as Malifaux is starting to feel tired - this will happen when it's what your main game is (in our group) and it's played multiple times a week since 2013, which is when at least I joined the group so it's even longer for this player. When I thought about my catalog of games that might be interesting to introduce during this opportunity I brushed by my copy of TWD and figured why not.

I got really motivated to get this table ready and started on two of the walkers:

These were my test models for quick-painting concepts. I figured I'd rely heavily on washes and drybrushing (I hardly drybrush ever, so this shows that I really want to get these done lol) and came up with a recipe/paint order that may very well get the job done, and it's similar to how I painted my old horde Vampire army in Warhammer Fantasy.

For the skin, it's 50/50 VMA IDF Green/VGC Dead Flesh airbrushed on, then zenithal with VGC Dead Flesh, then a heavy wash of SWM Stone wash, then a drybrush of VGC Dead Flesh and a bit of white, followed by a spot wash of GW Green for shading and tone. A few dashes of GW Blood stuff adds contrast to the overall green tone.

For any other elements like clothing I just base, wash, drybrush, repeat as needed. As I said, really trying to get this done fast and not get held up on details like I normally do, and I feel like this recipe is a good balance between speed and aesthetics.

While I painted those I got started on the trucks that come with the game (for the KS version). I knew I wanted a red and a blue truck, as my wife used to own a cool red Chevy and when we first met we drove around in her blue Chevy, so I undercoated one with Black/Cold Grey/Light Grey then hit it with Scarlet Red like the Novus building. Then I washed it with GW Agrax Earthshade for quick weathering and did a few other elements like the windows.

Where it's at so far, these walkers are a breeze and fun to paint

The vehicles aren't done fully, as I need to pick out elements like the grill and hubcaps, and weather it even further with stippling and paint chipping, but as I said earlier - just get my crap table ready, so I did.

Speaking of table ready:

I couldn't help myself! I recently bought a Walking Dead mouse pad mat from our FLGS in anticipation of my recent motivation to get TWD table ready. So I plopped on some Battle Systems terrain, a few trees, etc. and before you know it I've got a pretty sweet table ready to rock this game! With its small model count I may actually get a game fully painted and ready for demos!

I have to admit I really like the small table size and model count, but when you have about 10 or so zombies on this set up you can see exactly the claustrophobia that this game meant to induce in players! It's going to be fun and intense.

And as a side project:

I started and almost completed Rosamu from the board game Yashima. I've always liked this game and its miniatures, and thought it could double as a model in A Fistful of Kung Fu. I painted it mostly by brush, so it felt like painting with one hand tied behind me as I've heavily airbrushed for the last few years, but it's nice to get back to your roots - I just shouldn't have done so after picking orange and yellow as my colors, because man I forgot how tedious and painful those colors are when painting by hand! The difficulty and disappointment actually led me to stop painting this guy for now, but - and this is my new mantra - he's table ready!

That's it for now, I'll keep in touch when I can!

Austin Malifaux Tourney 11/12/16!

Hello world!

So last Saturday I attended a Malifaux tournament hosted by our good friends in Austin and had a blast!

I had decided to really try to have fully painted crews in time for the tournament, even if they aren't fully up to my finished standard. I went to work all throughout last week...

I had already shown you how I started the Abominations, this one is my favorite so far. He was pretty easy to complete, although I did take shortcuts on his skin as I had only painted with washes and a small amount of highlights. I figure being a summon he doesn't have to be a focal point but I did make sure to not skimp on the NMM. He's such a creepy cool model! Sorry the picture's dark, I took it in haste. Soon I should have better pictures of the entire group.

Here's the other Abomination, painted in an assembly line with the others. The NMM was done nicely, I did shortcuts for everything else including his tank but overall pretty darn cool.

I finished up a half painted Flesh Construct exactly as I had done before. I even left the brass areas incomplete so they'd match! I converted this particular one as I hate the fact that they are carrying a body. It's a cool pose, but the victim is completely out of scale and having more than one with that exact same pose looks cheesy. I gave this guy stabbing hands from the GW Ghouls kit as I have plenty of spare parts from it, and it turns out that GW's heroic scale hands are perfect for the larger scale of Malifaux. I even put GW's new technical blood paint to make it look like he's recently shanked someone.

And here are the ones I just absolutely cranked these bad boys out on Friday night. These guys, except for the Dust Storm, were all not primed or based when I started them at 7PM. With some assembly lines and absolute focus while watching Legend of the Seeker for background noise I got them to tabletop standards by 2AM. Although my airbrush was giving me issues from the start I'm still pretty happy with how most of these turned out. I've still got to line and highlight all of them, but it's a promising start. Note how I'm using a Puppet Wars miniature as my Brutal Effigy, he looks the part and is an official Wyrd model, he just has a different base - but so does Sue.

So late in the night I went to bed, I'd already packed up my stuff so that I only have to do the usual morning stuff before heading out. Turns out that I forgot to plug my phone in and it died before the alarm went off. Running extremely late (two hours!) when I woke up I rushed to meet my ride Dreads to head out. I felt absolutely terrible for causing him to run late as well, but we arrived at the tournament in time for him to play in the first round while I got the bye.

So in the second round I got paired up against Travis, Malifaux extraordinaire, and he was using Asami. The Strategy was Interference with Flank deployment, with Schemes like Convict Labor, Leave Your Mark, Neutralize the Leader, Show of Force and Public Demonstration. I decided to use Leveticus as it's my better crew against Asami and picked Convict Labor/Leave Your Mark.

I had my opponent deploy first and saw that he had most of his crew going toward my left side with Graves/Ama No Zako on the right, so I placed Leve/Ashes/Brutal/Johana on the left to oppose his strongest elements while putting one Flesh Construct and Waif team in the middle and one at the right near the center of the table, along with the Necropunk.

Well early in the game he decided to shift gears and moved almost his entire squad toward my right flank. Once he started to commit to this he realized a lot of his synergies were going to go away and maybe he had made a mistake, but he had a good idea to neutralize the Necropunk and keep me from easily gaining VP from schemes while claiming an easy table quarter.

This stupid Henchman is the cause of all my headaches

I had my right side placing markers for Convict Labor on turn one and hope for the best, they really need to stick around long enough so that Leve can sweep his side and assist the right.

Ashes and Dust also placed a marker near the center line and was used for Leve's (0) teleport to shoot a Yokai off the table and make an Abomination. Now that little minion is able to put pressure on Travis as he is in perfect position to run Leave Your Mark for the rest of the game if he's not dealt with. At worst he'll make a scrap marker for Ashes and Dust to push to later in the game.

The Necropunk tries to hold his side long enough for help

Once we got into the thick of things I had stopped taking pictures, as I needed to conserve battery since I didn't get much of a charge that morning.

Essentially the game had been extremely close the entire time, with every turn ending in a tie between us. I'd get either Convict Labor or Leave Your Mark, but Travis was doing a good job at denying at least one of those a turn. We'd also tie for Interference, but he was gaining on me in terms of quarter control. I took the top left quadrant easily but he'd hold the top right and take over my bottom right, luckily I'd have the Brutal Effigy claiming the Bottom Left.

Because Neutralize the Leader was on the board I made sure to be very conservative with Leve's health. The Brutal Effigy healed him up every turn while using Leve's (0) to teleport to Ashes and Dust ensured I wouldn't leave the table and give up points. This turned out to absolutely save me because Travis picked Neutralize the Leader as well as Leave Your Mark! I figured he would, but with the way the game was going and with how conservative I was with Leve's ranges he wasn't able to attack Leve without committing a lot of resources for it.

In the very last turn I managed to gain a VP over Travis and won 7-6! It was an extremely close game but it was very fun.

So lastly in round three I was currently in Second place and was paired against Doug and his Sandeep crew. I had been dreading this for two weeks.

Lately Doug has been terrorizing Malifaux with this master and no one has beaten it yet. The master is just solid and he made a very good list along with it. In anticipation of meeting this crew for the first time I had done extensive brainstorming, and even wrote down every ability and synergy for the crew in a document for me to study. I tend to retain information a lot better if I rewrite everything and make a list myself rather than simply reading the cards. If you haven't tried or read Sandeep I highly suggest you do, that crew is absolutely bonkers.

After extensive reading I had decided that Viktorias would be best suited against them. Sandeep's crew excel with Wp, and they can actually deal with Leve's attrition elements easily. I figured the Viktorias can capitalize on the fact that Sandeep's synergies require close ranges to certain elements, and with a clump of models it's ripe for Blood's Whirlwind. With my elements of attrition using Hannah and Sue they would be able to hold off the Banasuva for the game while the rest of the crew dies.

Sandeep's deployment...

My crew, which has its blood frenzied and ready to see if theory can beat practice

It's about to be on like Donkey Kong...

So on turn one he does exactly what I anticipated. He moves everyone up in a small clump surrounding his Gamin models. The only thing I didn't anticipate was him summoning a Wind Gamin instead of a Metal Gamin. He used the safety of a rail car to hide Joss and company. I placed Hannah and Sue up furthest as a distraction target for his Banasuva, and he summoned and charged them as I expected. I made sure to place Viktoria of Blood directly behind Hannah to make sure the Banasuva goes to the opposite side of where I planned on going - he'd engage her to keep her from doing anything other than killing the Banasuva which is to his advantage. Luckily I foresaw all this and I couldn't believe it was going exactly as I had anticipated!

My biggest concern when I was thinking of this matchup was whether I charge Viktoria on turn one or two. She's completely capable of catching a group on turn one, and that certainly increases the pressure and pace on my opponent, but the situation has to be read very carefully as you rarely get to throw her in more than once. Because I figured I wouldn't be able to get more than two or three models in her range I decided to hold her back for round two as I anticipated him activating the Banasuva first, and even if he didn't it was still a good chance that she could live through a single activation (but very risky).

The risk payed off tremendously. I won initiative and Doug didn't see it coming. Not how many models he had close together near Sandeep on turn one in the picture above. I started with Viktoria of Ashes teleporting Blood to her side, then used Sisters in Fury and Sisters in Blood to buff her and chain activated Blood. Blood then charged Joss and got two other Oxfordian Mages in range, killing Joss and two Mages. I then used my third AP from Oathkeeper (I discarded it at the beginning of her activation) to walk into range of the remaining models and killed everyone except Sandeep.

Killing six models in one activation is absolutely beautiful

The table state was absolutely priceless. Before he activated a model he had lost almost every model in his list short of the Banasuva, Sandeep, Malifaux Raptor and Cassandra.

The Banasuva finished off Sue while Sandeep killed Blood. Ashes and Dust attempted to kill the Malifaux Raptor, but because I spent almost all my resources with Blood I was unable to damage it which proved to later cost me the game essentially. The Raptor flew off the board and Cassandra did her scheme running.

Viktoria of Blood left this world knowing her job was done, Sandeep took revenge

Over the next few turns I killed Sandeep and the Banasuva but Cassandra and the Raptor managed to almost score every point themselves.

Sandeep got a lot of eyes looking right at him...

...then he was gone

The problem was the scheme pool. I had studied the enemy crew extensively but knew I may have a problem with most schemes. The deployment was Corner, the strategy was Stake A Claim - one that gives me immense troubles regardless of crew because it's one I never practice and the interact action requires 2 AP. The pool was also not so much in my favor - Convict Labor, Hunting Party, Mark for Death, Exhaust Their Forces and I think Public Demonstration were in it. I foolishly chose Hunting Party and Mark For Death thinking my killy crew should be able to handle it. I didn't realize that I would be double dipping a lot of the times and it affected my ability to score - either I killed something that wasn't from my Henchman and didn't score from Hunting Party or Blood didn't have the AP to spare for Mark for Death. I ended up losing 7-4 despite Doug ending with only his Raptor alive because I couldn't catch up to it. Had I chose either Mark For Death or Hunting Party and Convict Labor I would have done much better and probably would have won. I couldn't score Hunting Party for the full points because I was never able to catch up to that stupid bird, and Peons count for Hunting Party. I would have easily been able to score Convict Labor. Ugh.

Oh well, lessons learned. I was disappointed in not getting the win but the silver lining is that I definitely was correct on how to beat the crew, I just need to anticipate the scheme pool a lot better. I also need to reorganize the crew to handle schemes better. I'd hate to replace Ashes and Dust as I really like how he interacts with the crew but my Viktorias are seriously lacking in the scheme department. Maybe it's time I give Void Wretches a try seeing as a lot of people like using them - I just can't see how the're truly effective. Ashes and Dust really do give me a lot of points to play around with though and would help with model count, we'll see how it goes!

In other news while I was at Dragon's Lair in Austin I saw that The Walking Dead - All Out War was on their shelves. Although I knew that they were on retail shelves I still complained about not receiving my pledge before others could buy it - and as soon as I did complain to my wife with a picture of the box she then notified me that I got a package and the picture showed it was from Mantic! I almost wanted to quit the tournament right then and there to open up my goodies!

Well I finally did as soon as I got home and it is so awesome. I wasn't a fan of the miniatures when I first saw them on the Kickstarter but was impressed with the gameplay and small scale enough to back it. The sculpts actually look a lot better in person and the exclusive components are well worth over the price. Once I get some pictures up I'll update you with my impressions!

Battle Systems Terrain Review!!!

MERCS bounding down the street

YESSSSSSSSS!

So last year in September I pitched in for my first Kickstarter, the amazing terrain from Battle Systems with a post apocalyptic theme. I was floored with their City Block and took the plunge almost immediately. Then they revealed the Shanty Town add on and I was in even further. It was a perfect offering for what I've been looking for in terms of modern/futuristic terrain for several games, most notably MERCS, but also for The Walking Dead Kickstarter that should be coming in soon.

My first attempt at a simple building

I eagerly opened the 20lb box for all the cardboard goodness. I was pretty amazed at how much fit into such a small package, there's plenty of terrain just in the core boxes alone. Then there's all the free stuff, the add ons and scatter terrain they fit on almost all the sheets. It's definitely got value, but most importantly it's an easy way to have great looking terrain for any board without the time and skill needed to devote to either scratch-built or unpainted terrain.

More coverage with experimentation

I began by making very simple builds just to see how the various pieces worked. I didn't pop out a good portion of the pieces as I didn't want to have tons of stuff not built and have to rummage around later to find them. There are so many things that add even more realism to the board like furniture scatter terrain, different types of stairs and crates, and even dilapidated walkways. I hardly touched the Shanty Town stuff as I wanted to make more complex buildings and walkways with it.

I opted to try filling out the regular street mat as it seemed to be the easier one to quickly fill out. It doesn't require as many floor tiles as they are printed on the mat, and the squares provided a quick guide toward my build. The greatest part about this mat is that you can build so many different layouts, an incredible testament to the creators' planning. You can make the floor parts into pavement using their roof squares, you can use a floor panel to cover the roads to make bigger interiors, and if you have enough stuff you can make the entire mat as an internal building! I really want to make a cool mansion using the walkways, as an entirely interior MERCS game seems really unique (not to mention other games, like Zombicide or Walking Dead, to make a Resident Evil type of board!).

Full coverage of the 2x2 mat

Here you can see I added quite a bit more stuff, including a wrecked-out building on the bottom left and a small type of outpost at the top. I probably spent a few hours building it at most, but this included opening, studying and popping out the terrain - I anticipate getting very quick at building these in the future.

So much awesome, it's better than anything I could make and much faster

It's like Legos for terrain and it can get dizzying with the amount of options you have. Once you get into it your imagination runs wild with the possibilities. I kept everything fairly standard, but I already see myself making some really cool stuff now that I know how it works all together. 

The fences provide quick ways of LOS blocking while pieces like the Park Bench and Barricades add tons of flavor you don't normally see on a board

I got a total of 3 different mats, a regular City one, a mat that looks like a Desert landscape and one that is a transition between the two. If I include my Deadzone 2x2 mat I can make a 4x4 table if needed and definitely can fit these on my 3x3 mats. The sets go extremely well together, as their different visuals create a lot of interest together while having several qualities shared between the two.

Air Condition Units provide easy cover on roofs while adding in a realistic touch

Although I don't have any pictures of it I did create a house using their Suburban House add on that fits well enough in games like Malifaux as it has a certain aesthetic that can fit in on Western boards (as long as you don't include the garage). I wasn't fond of it when it was first revealed during the project run, but an image of a fully built house on the desert mat had me sold.

This is an incredible build by the creators to show its versatility, the house easily fits into Malifaux

 Waiting almost a full year for this stuff has been agonizing, but regular updates and nearly daily responses to the comments section gave me full confidence on receiving their product. I had already researched their previous Kickstarter projects and saw that they had a great reputation already built. They always had timely updates, responded to almost every individual question and put out their stuff in a timely fashion - something that not many Kickstarters are able to achieve. This time was no exception and arrived within a few weeks of the projected delivery date. Delays are always expected but this one exceeded my expectations.

These stairs are not only impressive visually but provide great function as you can stand miniatures on every step

I may be performing MERCS demos in October and plan on building up a few layouts for them. This stuff makes it easy to transport and build on arrival with some planning. I'm able to transport this stuff in a small container should I need to, and I'm pretty sure I'm able to get more efficient with it in the future.

Cat for scale

One of the main reasons why I love this stuff is how easily you're able to add elevation into your games with it. Elevation is one of those things that gets ignored when building tables, as in a lot of rules sets it may not be elegantly handled and creates issues while playing (I'm looking at you, Malifaux!). However is a lot of modern to futuristic games, notably shooters, elevation is key to creating an interesting game. A simple slight adjustment to floor levels alone creates visual interest, but also can change how you approach movement in a game. Interiors are another point of contention for gaming, but I love going into buildings for shoot outs as it creates a whole different dynamic to how you attack. One minute you're safe, another a model pops out to shoot you point blank range! And with this stuff you're able to access every single level with ease. This was something I found lacking with TerraClips, a similar product I've talked about a while back, where although you're able to create multi level stuff it's not exactly locked in place and stable. This stuff stays in place very well and is very strong, I have full confidence in my models being on the roof.

Cat for lulz

I hardly touched any scatter items that were included as I concentrated on items that added the most bulk on a table. The ones I did build were pretty incredible in their design considering they're all made on two dimensions. I was particularly surprised at items like the dumpsters and the park bench, they help create a more lived in space for such a small item. My only minor issue with the dumpsters and the big crate are that you will have to use glue if you want their lids to stay on, which I'll eventually do. It's not major at all, and some will want to keep the lids off, but for someone like me who's not planning on keeping them that modular will have to add more work into it. For the most part, however, you're not going to need glue at all. The stairs are really snug when put together, something I worried about when I first saw them. The stairs that came with the TerraClips system were a nightmare for me, as their fit was not good at all and kept coming apart while I was building them. These ones not only look better but fit so well that I just leave them in the box without any glue and have full confidence that they will never come apart.

If you're familiar with making card terrain at all then you'll realize that using a marker or pen on the edges will help enhance the look of the terrain significantly. I had purchased some decent artist markers in preparation of the build for this reason. I've mostly used black and brown, with some maroon and blue for some parts. This greatly improves the look and hides the fact that it's all made of cardboard for the most part. A lot of the parts like walls actually match their edges well enough that it's not entirely necessary to use the markers on. I'm sure that you can make them look even better with it, but I didn't find it to be distracting on the walls or lighter pieces of terrain like the AC Units. On some scatter it was completely necessary to elevate the terrain, like the lookout post (not pictured), crate or the park bench. You'll mostly find that on the darker pieces you'll want to use your marker, as the lightly colored card edges will stand out most with those.

Some decent lanes of fire for the FCC House 9

Of course I had to pose some miniatures on this stuff, it just begs for it.

I love this stuff!

Overall I expected this stuff to be the bee's knees, and it did not disappoint. It should be available for retail purchase on their web store by the end of September, I highly recommend getting some yourself if, like me, you find your terrain priorities getting pushed to the back burner due to time and other hobby needs (like thousands of unpainted minis!). They come from the UK, so shipping may be an issue, but it's one of the few times I find it worth the extra price. Soon they'll have another Kickstarter for their Sci-Fi line, I'm sure it will fit in nicely with the Urban sets. Once I build more layouts I'll post more pics!