Merry Christmas!!!

A bit late in the day, but I hope all my readers had a very safe and happy Christmas!! 

I was fortunate enough to receive a pile o' wargaming stuff this year - 

And not pictured is pretty much every piece of Dremel equipment ever made, and a couple more Walking Dead graphic novels!

Now! On to New Years! 

6MMRPC - AtDE Red Claw Gang

It's been an extremely slow month for me. I've been putting a ton of hours in at work, and prepping for the holidays isn't helping either. So to those of you in the challenge, I apologize - I haven't been keeping up with the post a week rule/guideline etc. I'll attempt to do better.

Now, I have completed a couple of things. The main thing being the Across the Dead Earth starter Gang - The Red Claw -

That's the first half of the gang. The second half is moving in on the other thing I've finished, a wrecked pickup truck/objective marker/loot counter hiding spot -

"What ye thinks in the box!?"

Had a lot of fun painting these figures up, and after about an hour of cleaning up resin flash, the truck was as well. 

My plan is to use The Red Claw gang as a Scottish gang reminiscent of the likes of the movie "Doomsday"...which may lead to me painting up the "Crimson" figure to represent Rhona Mitra's character - thanks to Michael Awdry for correcting me on the actress.

Hmmmmmm...

The Information Acquisition Operatives of "The State"

Finally finished painting the first official gang for "Across the Dead Earth"! Loads of character and again, SUPER clean sculpts!

I give you, the Information Acquisition Operatives of "The State" -

Had a lot of fun painting these lads. I went for a mix mash of colors and camo that I think holds up to the idea of scavenging items from army depots, surplus stores etc. Once I can figure out how to make some soda cans, I'll be dressing up the bases a bit more and maybe adding some grass tufts and the odd flower, but as Christmas is coming, no money to spare atm. Anyways, hope you like 'em!

Next up, probably the "Red Claw" gang!

6MMRPC - A Start on WW2 Japanese and ???

Well, you can definitely tell I've been parenting vs hobbying. My son is here for my month with him (that happens every other month), and the Thanksgiving holiday so my hobby time has been limited to maybe an hour or two at night after he's in bed. 

Hence why it's taken me so long to finish this update. But, it's worth it. This post will showcase 12 finished figures, AND, 2 small terrain items!

First up, the beginning of my 1/72 or 20mm plastic Japanese platoon for Chain of Command by the Lardies -

Platoon Leader and Sergeant. (The Japanese titles escape me atm.) 

Next we have a mortar section, the gent with the rifle over his head is the corporal in charge of the section - 

These are a mix of Revell and ESCI Japanese Infantry sets...the quality of the Revell figures is much higher than the ESCI ones, though they were all a pain in the anatomy to clean up mold lines on. I'm happy with the game quality paint job, and look forward to finishing the platoon, and their ANZAC and USMC opponents. My one main concern with this project is the amount of same pose figures there are in each set...may have to do some searching for other manufacturers because as these next three pics show; I need a lot of bloody men - 

Moving on. Ok, so these next figures started painting life way back in late 2011 when I first got back into wargaming, and had hardly any paints. They were meant to be US Long Range Recon Patrol troopers for Vietnam, but I personally thing they're too dark green to match up. Soooo I'll either have to fudge on historical painting accuracy, or, use them as something else. I haven't decided yet. Maybe both.

They're also 1/72 plastic figures...no idea the manufacturer. Terribly detailed. Actually had to hand paint on some of the rucksack straps. 

Lastly, I finished two quick bases for single trees. I'm pretty happy with them and they definitely have some weight to them which should help with preventing the trees from being knocked over by the errant arm sweep - 

Anyways, it feels really good to knock out another 12 figures, and my paint desk is still quite full. My next post will probably be my first finished gang for Across the Dead Earth. 

Stay tuned.

Current Projects...he's insane folks.

Ok, so roughly 20 folks give or take started this Mountain Reduction and Painting Challenge back on September 1st...I, and most others had some sort of plan as to how we were going to proceed. Well, I'm here to tell ya dear readers that my "plan" has gone completely out the bloody window. Sort of. 

Everything that was on the plan is still there. The major muck up in the plan is that now...all the components (or parts/units/armies thereof) are now sat firmly ON my workbench. I severely suffer from painting boredom i.e. Painting the same thing night after night, and my mind has adjusted to where I'll work on something till I'm bored, then move to a different period, genre, unit, army, terrain piece etc. It may sound insane but it works for me.

So here is the list of current projects in the works -

Dark Ages - Rulesets: SAGA and Dux Brit. Armies - Anglo Danes, Vikings, Welsh, Romano-British, Picts, Saxons and Anglo-Saxons. (Side note - my girlfriend is in the process of building a strathclyde welsh force). Most of that is 28mm, but I do have several packs of 15mm that I'm still trying to decide what I want to use them for.

Sword & Spear - Imperial Romans, Celts, Republican Romans, and Carthaginians. All in 20mm Plastics.

Muskets & Tomahawks - French, British, Indian, and Colonial Militia. All 28mm.

ACW - Rulesets: Either Polemus or Black Powder. Haven't decided yet. This is all 6mm and its both Union and Confederate...roughly 2200 6mm figures...did I mention I'm crazy?

Chain of Command - two bloody scales. 20mm ANZAC's and Japanese, and 28mm Germans, Finnish, Soviets, and Polish. Also playing with a Partisan force for use against either the Germans or the Soviets.

I Ain't Been Shot Mum - 15mm German and Soviets. (Side note - My brother is currently building Americans.)

Arab-Israeli Wars - GHQ MicroArmor. Don't have a ruleset as of yet. Suggestions?

ACW 2.0 Moderns - Rulesets: Force on Force and/or Flying Lead. Government, Rebel, and Foreign Interventionist Forces. 20mm plastics with potential for some skirmishes in 28mm.

Space Hulk - All the figures from the game set.

Post-Apoc/Zombie-Apoc - Rulesets: Across the Dead Earth, Ambush Z, Flying Lead, Songs of Fear and Faith. All 28mm.

Good God...I may need an intervention. On a positive note, since the challenge started 2.5 Months ago, I've completed damn near 60 figures...that's more than I'd completed in 3 years combined.

Thank You

Just wanted to take a moment to thank the veterans. It's an honor to serve with you. God bless and check your six. 

PS - I'm not 100% sure on the dates for other nations Veterans Day, but thank you also to the veterans of foreign lands who've stood beside us...we may speak different languages, but y'all are my brothers and sisters too. 

Levy Incoming

Been chipping away at my dark age forces...I've got a large hill of unpainted dark age stuff.  So here's some Levy I've finished up over the last 4 days.

First up, some kit bashed GB Plastics -

The nice thing about these is that they're generic. I could use them for pretty much any army of the dark ages.

And I also finished up the Pict Slingers!

I love the energy in these sculpts!  Loads of character and a lot of fun to paint!  Side note - That's a whole blister finished.  Oh boy...actually finishing stuff?!

6MMRPC Zombtober Finale!

Yes it's late.  Yes these were all finished in Zombtober proper.  Work has been insane lately, as I worked 2 48hr shifts with a day off in between that was spent mostly sleeping.  Did get a pretty decent commercial structure fire in a used appliance store though.  Here is a pic of my helmet that started the shift clean and ended it at 0330 in the morning looking like this -

Anyways...on to the final finished mini's for Zombtober 2014.

"Mike you ain't gonna believe this shit! Poor ol' bastard.  Survived 70+ years surrounded by beautiful women just to get turned while drinking coffee!"  

Yes folks...Hugh Hefner. Zombiefied.

Also pretty pleased with how the camo coat turned out on my Zombie Hunter.  Both of these are from Studio Miniatures.

Next up, some survivors...lovely ones at that. Both from Reaper.

The gal on the right will be a Biker Babe for my planned Biker Gang's Leader.

And here is Nurse Millie, from the Psychiatric hospital where it is believed the Outbreak started - 

Dutifully carrying her tray of pill bottles full of experimental drugs for the criminally insane.........starting to pick up on the fluff????

And finally - 

These two intrepid Hasslefree Police.  These guys are going to see service not only against the Zeds, but also in my planned American Civil War 2.0 campaign, as well as some other odds n sods.

So...Zombtober 2014 = Success!

Well Done to....

...Dead Earth Games!

I received my KS rewards a couple days ago, and before I start putting paint to the figures, I wanted to post up a little review of the KS. So...here's what all came in the package - 

The Rulebook is lovely. Full color. Loads of pictures and artwork of lovely post apocalyptic scenes! I'm still in the process of getting all the stuff to play some games, so I'll do a review of the rules here in the future. Something I completely forgot about is that the guys put everybody who supported the KS in the "thank you" section in the book, so it's kinda cool to see my name in there haha. I'm a nerd. Sue me.

Also included are card stock tokens and cards. Now, they'll be perfectly fine once laminated...but I personally would've gone with a thicker card stock. And I would encourage the guys to consider getting tokens made either out of plastic or mdf sometime in the future to sell along with the other products for the game.

"Shut up Dave and tell us about/show us the minis!" Ok ok. So, I jumped in on all the minis produced with the KS monies and man am I glad I did. These things are awesome. The following pics are of them straight out of the bags. I did nothing to them other than set them on my white board. 

The State Faction:

The Red Claw Faction:

The Adam's Family Faction:

As you can see, there was no, I repeat, no cleanup required at all. The sculpting is crisp and well detailed, though they are a bit slimmer than most 28mm figures, I'm chocking that up to it's rather hard to find food in Post-Apocalyptic Britain lol. I'm really excited to paint all these figures. 17 in total. 

Based on the way this KS was handled, the communication between the backers and the lads at the AtDE crew, the quality of the products, and the fact that everything was delivered on time...I can honestly say that I cannot wait to see what they come up with next. And Rich, get the web store up mate! I want to spend more money with y'all!

6MMRPC - Zombtober #4

God I hate this. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Denton Quaid mutters to himself as he aims his service pistol at the zombie Canadian prime minister shambling towards him on the steps of the White House...the US President a few shambling steps behind the PM............

 

Another Tiny Terrors mini from Studio Miniatures, and the absolute blast to paint Constable is from Reaper!

Also, painted up this medical tent.  It's from a set of $2 army men I bought at a bargain mart for my boys, I just knicked the tent.

It'll do for what I'm planning for it.  Though I'm undecided if I want to secure it to a base.  Thoughts?

IT ARRIVED!!!!

Quick note to say, my Across The Dead Earth Kickstarter stuff has arrived!!! Pics and some early reviewish thoughts soon!!!!

Zombicanus II

War Encampment - II Legion

Brittania, 135mi north of the wall.

Senator,

This dispatch may not reach you. Our encampment is surrounded. The reports of the dead walking are true...our legion encountered several villages full of rotting celtii walking about...when our men came into view, they were attacked and while the corpses were dispatched, several of the men were bitten. Our medicos weren't too worried, and then our men fell ill with a terrible fever and died. Laid out for burial, they must have rose thru the night and attacked several men. It's been hell ever since. The clash of arms has drew many more of the dead celtii from the surrounding region, and as we throw our dead over the walls of our camp, it adds to the ranks of the dead.

Gods help us.

Our few scouts that have gotten out and been able to return have spoke of celtii leaving on small boats towards that island to the West. If this reaches you, impress upon the senate that we need reinforcements on the island. If by some miracle we survive, then we'll need them to help subdue the dead...if, as I think is more likely, we all die, the IV Legion will need help holding us all back at the wall. 

Help.

6MMRPC SITE

Here is a link to a one stop shot of all the blogs participating in the 6 Month Mountain Reduction and Painting Challenge 6MMRPC Blog Roll.

It was kindly put together by daveb over at Miniature Insurrection. Thanks Dave!

6MMRPC - Zombtober #3

So, up this week for zombies are these two gnarly gents -

 

 

 

 

The hospital patient is a Reaper mini, loads of detail (as you can see in the rear pic). Pretty happy with how he's turned out.

 

The 2nd one I painted up as a sort of old hippie working as a greeter at a hunting or camping store.  He's a Studio Miniatures fig from I believe their "Zombie Horde 1" set.

 

 

Side note - ABSOLUTELY LOVE the new technical paint from GW - "Blood for the Blood God". If you don't have any, go buy some...ASAP. You'll thank me later.

Dark Age Archers - West Wind

So continuing on with my Dark Ages project as well as Zombtober, I've finished up these West Wind Archers. 

Absolutely lovely sculpting. They didn't require any cleanup, and took paint wonderfully. I've got several packs of West Wind figures from different periods, and they're all lovely!

Zombtober - Firefighter Survivors

This weeks entry of survivors is rather special.  For those that don't know, I work for a city fire department in the Midwest.  I tried to paint these four guys similar to my FD. 

Captain and Firefighter - Front

 

Captain and Firefighter - Rear

Firefighter and Probie (He's the cleaner one on the right) - Front

Firefighter and Probie - Rear

 

 

I apologize for that annoying hair, I didn't notice it while taking photos haha.  These firefighters are from http://www.tin-soldier.com/rpg2.html The sculpts aren't that great...needed a ton of cleanup, and the tools that came with them were so bloody terrible, I refuse to use them.  When I find suitable tools or weapons, I'll go back and add them.

 

These are the best modern US Firefighters I've found though...and I'm decently happy with them now that they're painted.  Enjoy! 

Zombtober...Sort of.

This is a mini that I painted last year for Zombtober 2013, but while looking over my zombies I decided I wanted to do some extra work on the base. So, I present you with -

 

 

This is a Reaper Zombie Stripper.  I now have a different style of painting zombies...basically more greyish.  That being said, I like her paint job.  I dressed up the base with a stripper pole (paper clip), and some dollar bills (paper, colored with one of my wee lads markers and then washed with a dark brown wash). 

 

I'm not counting this as my official Zombtober 2014 entry for this week, but I wanted to share it with y'all.

 

 

Zombtober 2014 #2

Time for my next round of zombies.  Now I must admit, some of these were half finished from last year, so the work put in was not too bad at all.

These three Zeds are Wargames Factory plastics...on first opening the box I thought they were terrible...assembly was a pain in the @ss and there was not a lot of variety in poses.  Oh what a paint job will do!

 

These two - Left is a Studio Miniatures Tiny Terrors sculpt, painted in Oregon Ducks Colors.  Right is my attempt at making a slightly older Black Sabbath fan out of a WF plastic.

 

These two = Left is a Reaper Zombie Doctor. Right is also a Studio Miniatures Tiny Terrors Sculpt.

 

 

 



I'm posting better pics of these HazMat Team members due to a request.  Again, they're from Hasslefree and were a joy to paint. No cleanup needed!


Hope y'all enjoy this zombie goodness!