Things that make you go “Boom” Pt2

Posted on 13/10/2010 by sho3box

Continuing on from a few weeks ago, here is another small post regarding some interactive little bits of scenery for my zombie game project.

Gas Cans

Players of Left 4 Dead or Left 4 Dead 2 will be aware of the various uses of gas cans in the games.  Generally where a “crescendo event” is about to take place the players have a little bit of time to set up the area ready to receive a large wave of infected.  There will usually be a few gas cans in the vicinity that can be arranged in such a way that when shot they will cover an area of advance for the mindless horde.

Good placement of these cans can barbeque a swathe of infected before they even get to the survivors.  They are also a lot of fun to use well, so I definitely wanted to include them in my zombie apocalypse game.

Filed under: Terrain | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Things that make you go “Boom” Pt1

Posted on 29/09/2010 by sho3box

A small post today, with a rather hastily taken photo too.

When making my Spawn Points recently I took the opportunity to put together a few other smaller terrain/scenario items, all of which fill the roles of the exploding barrel trope (is that the right use of that word?)  popularised in computer games.

Butane tanks (coloured for local distributors rather than the white from L4D) and Fuel drums.

All of the above came from Fenris games and featured in the Zombie Apocalypse game covered over the last few posts here and here.

I was short a handful of gas cans, the sort that feature in L4D that are visible here.  I have ordered a few from Ebay and they will feature in a follow up post.  I bet that you cant wait.

Filed under: Terrain | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

Deadlines: Hostile Corporate Takeover of the Living Dead Pt 2

Posted on 22/09/2010 by sho3box

This report follows on from last Wednesdays post, visible here.

———————————————-

In advance of the Regenerator the zombies lurched forward, wounding Anderson and Symes with their filthy clawing hands.  With the hissing Regenerator twitching forward on its palsied limbs things are looking bleak for Sigma Squad.

The Regenerator moved suddenly and with a spasm spikes erupted from its body, eviscerating Jerabeck.  With cold efficiency Anderson riddled the body of the Regenerator with rounds from her MP5 killing one of the Regenerators parasites, while weaving between the zombies all around her.

With skills honed by years of training Symes broke right, in the opposite direction to Anderson while putting three rounds into the nearby butane cylinder.  The cylinder burst sending zombie and Regenerator offal flying in all directions.  “Hasta la muerte” she uttered pithily as chunks of bloody, rotten flesh rain down around her.

(When setting up the table for the game some cinematically minded player decided that the best place for a butane cylinder was next to a Spawn Point, and he was probably right.  On this occasion it likely kept the wounded remnants of Sigma Squad in the game).

On the street between the Cinema and the rear of the Police station, USS Squad Gamma crossed paths with USFU Squad Sigma, the first living things that they had encountered since deployment.  Under strict orders to keep their noses out of each others highly sensitive business, a curt nod between fully masked sergeants was the sum of their exchange.  Gamma proceeded North while Sgt White went South.  Squad Epsilons  Ingram climbed the extendable ladder to the roof of the Police station to give covering fire over the vehicle holding the vault keycard.

Squad Gamma proceeded towards the milling throng of confused corpses that was trying to locate its last target, Squad Epsilon.

As Epsilon Sgt White rounds the South side of the police station, Ingram gives cover from the rooftop by detonating a fuel barrel, turning a handful of zeds into sub-human torches.  This cleared the way for Sgt White to get the vault keycard in the blue Porche.

Kaplan pauses from the rhythmic headshots and dismemberments to reload, and is caught unexpectedly.  Although he dies quickly from arterial blood loss, Gamma has no time to grieve as the Squad struggles to keep the mounting horde at bay.

Eerie wailing is heard as a Witch shows up near squad Epsilons keycard objective location.  Luckily, the Witch is inclined to keep itself to itself.  As it spawns a distance away from the main routes travelled by the forces, it remains undisturbed for now.

Squad Gamma, rattled by the loss of Kaplan get some payback on the large mob that has congealed near their objective, the Umbrella Corp local HQ.  After some unnecessary risks, some touch and go hand to hand where they were kept alive only by their kevlar, they get their heads back in the game…

…and tactically withdraw around the rear of their target building.

Meanwhile the wounded Sgt Anderson has procured the incriminating documents.  Now Symes (at the front of the fire truck) has the unenviable task of drawing the zombies away from the Sarge.

At this point the unmistakable howl of a Hunter is heard not far from the Police Station and the Umbrella building…

… and the pressure builds as a Licker shows up even closer to both buildings than the Hunter, next to the still crying Witch.

That doesnt bother Anderson and Symes of Sigma Squad. After reaching the chopper Anderson covers Symes sprint from where she had been heroically drawing the cannibal corpses away from the access point.

With a whine the helicopter begins to lift off, which is enough to agitate the Witch into action.  It also satisfies Sigma Squads mission objective.

Meanwhile Squad Gamma has procured Dr Braga and the vital information that he has.  The hordes are getting nearer however and the extraction chopper has to execute some fancy manoeuvring to get close enough for them to board (the Hunter can be seen approaching on the right, next to the game card).

At this point disaster struck.  Pvt Ocampo had been delayed while punching a couple of zeds tickets at ground level, where she has already seen the approach of the Hunter and Licker plus the large encroaching horde. “Get out of here!” she cried, “Don’t wait for me!”

As the chopper delayed the vital extra seconds for Pvt Rain Ocampo to get up the ladder, the brain dead hordes struggled out of the stairwell onto the roof, dragging the pilot and Pvt Symes of Squad Sigma from the vehicle.

The helicopter tilts, rotors spinning in slow motion, Michael Bay sty-lee.  Across the slow motion image of the chopper crashing into the roof the Hunter leaps screaming onto Pvt Symes, who is subsequently torn apart  while his limbs are used to beat the pilot to a mushy pulp.

The only survivor of Squads Sigma and Gamma is Rain Ocampo, and she is surrounded by zombies on a rooftop with her back to a flaming helicopter wreck.

Sgt White, the lone survivor of squad Epsilon has fought his way through the hordes to his objective, despite losing two good men en route, the last of them only moments ago.  Shoving the final zombies in his path aside he uses the key card to enter the bank and to lock himself into the vault.  There he must locate “the package” in the pitch dark before being extracted.  The vault lights dim and the power cut out.  An inhuman voice screams in the room that Sgt White is locked into behind inches of steel.

Credits roll.

———————————————-

I was very pleased with how the game worked out.  The revised elements of the system functioned better than I could have hoped.  While a handful of minor issues were quickly recorded during the game for inclusion in future drafts the game trundled along quickly and cinematically.  Importantly the other players were able to work out the rules and mechanics of the game from the cards and rules document without the author (me) having to translate.  I have hopes that this system will regularly get played at Sho3box Castle.  Which will help me to justify my compulsion to paint even more zombies.

Filed under: Game Rules, Games in Progress, Miniatures | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Deadlines: Hostile Corporate Takeover of the Living Dead Pt 1

Posted on 15/09/2010 by sho3box

Preamble

After last weeks diatribe regarding the build up and preparatory work for the zombie apocalypse segment of a recent gaming weekend, the report of the game itself follows as promised.

For info regarding the terrain and why it looks the way it does check out the previous zombie game report as I want to avoid repeating all of that stuff here.  All of the Survivors, Special Infected and Spawn Points plus many of the individual zombies themselves are pictured throughout this blog.  Use the tags to the right of the post if you want to see something in particular close up.

Objectives and Deployment

“Day 9.  Infection has not progressed further than 8km beyond the original release site, due to Umbrella containment at principal choke points.  Manipulation of political, media and other information sources has provided enough time for the virus to be tested in non-laboratory conditions and without interference from the authorities.

Final data must be gathered before Governmental intrusion becomes inevitable.  Your squad will be deployed directly into the hot zone.  Objective is priority.  All other considerations are secondary.  As a result all non Umbrella personnel are to be terminated with extreme prejudice.  Any contact with other Umbrella personnel is prohibited without express permission from your CO, due to the sensitivity of individual objectives.

Squad size is reduced to three to accommodate easy extraction and to minimise disruption to the test site”.

MT, PB and I picked a small force of Umbrella Security Service or Umbrella Special Forces Unit each.  PB picked USFU Squad Epsilon while MT and I each picked three members of USS Squads Sigma and Gamma respectively.

We had access to many more survivor figures, often with more esoteric equipment and or characteristics.  As this was a playtest game we deliberately choose not to use those and to each field very similar three man teams.  This was deliberate and intended to keep our focus a little more on the basic game mechanics.

Shade, Kaplan and Ocampo of USS Gamma Squad deployed on the roof of the bank…

…with orders to locate and evacuate Dr Braga from the roof of the Umbrella local HQ building.  The information that Dr Braga holds regarding the development of his ZG620 (zombie repellent) formula is of incalculable value.

White, Ingram and Hoffman of USFU Squad Epsilon are deployed on the roof of a local retail outlet (“Strangerous Liaisons”, a sex shop).  From this point Squad Epsilon must acquire the code key from the corpse of a deep cover Umbrella agent…

…in his blue porche (lovingly offset here by the wandering flesh eating remains of Michael Jackson).  The Umbrella agent used to work undercover in the bank where he concealed a sensitive package in the vault before being dismembered by Whiskey Deltas.  After acquiring the code from the car Epsilon has to progress to the bank vault to secure the package without destroying it (even if it bites).  Once there they need only wait for extraction.

Anderson, Symes and Jerabeck of Squad Sigma were airlifted to the Police Station roof in a locally acquired helo.

Similarly to the Gamma mission, Squad Sigma must reacquire potentially incriminating documents from the police vehicle shown (again being modelled by Michael Jackson) and return to the extraction vehicle.

Resistance is factored at Level Orange (that’s eighty zeds plonked down at random plus nine reinforcements per turn, plus a handful of randomly determined Special Infected showing up throughout the game, on a 6 x 4’ table, in case you were wondering).

The centre of the target area, just before the action begins

The Action

Squad Gamma proceeds with covering fire, by the numbers.  They encounter a still armoured ex-USS colleague.  The Sergeant puts a shotgun round through its head without a second thought.  “If necessary I expect each one of you to do the same for me” he rasps through internal comms (tough guys always rasp, they never just “say”).

Squad Sigma proceeds slowly and efficiently, clearing a path through the dispersed undead.

In stark, bloody contrast to the advance of the other Umbrella units, the overconfident Hoffman of Squad Epsilon gets too close to a mob of ex-police as he rounds the first corner.  Although he takes a few shamblers with him, he is torn limb from limb in moments, his screams of agony being heard through each Epsilon earpiece.

Squad Epsilon continued to advance.  The longer they stayed the more biters were going to be drawn to the area, so they grimly pressed on.

(This was an alarmingly sudden and early demise for one third of PBs forces, much to our amusement.  Despite being 100% lethal upon contact with Survivors, Zombie mobs move rarely and are very unlikely to move rapidly in succession before Survivors get to react.  At least that’s what Hoffman thought anyway.  This unpredictability is part of the appeal of card driven miniature games for me, even if this is an extreme example of things going not so well for a player.  Don’t feel sorry for Hoffman (or PB): they knew the odds)

Squad Sigma rounded the abandoned cinema, taking out the closest threats all the while.  Their gunfire had drawn zombies in the area towards them however and their firepower was not proving to be sufficient to clear a path…

Squad Gamma gave the horde nearby a wide berth, but still ran into to some opponents that could not be dropped at range.  Kaplan and Ocampo dealt with their targets, while the Sergeant dropped a zombie with the butt of his shotgun and blew its brain remnants out on the ground.  Having become separated from his squad by a small distance by a number of hostiles he confirmed rendezvous at the far side of the park.

Even while Hoffmans remains were being devoured Epsilon came under more pressure from the encroaching dead.

After a struggle that was touch and go for a while they blasted their way through the throng and proceeded towards their objective.

Sigma was finally making some headway when the first of the less common undead threats appeared alarmingly close to them.  While not especially fast, the Regenerator (square base, standing next to Spawn Point) is very dangerous up close and very resistant to gunfire, as the combination of T-virus and Las Plagas parasites work to knit its dead flesh beck together after trauma.

Will the Regenerator tear squad Sigma limb from limb?

Will Dr Braga be rescued?

Who will live?

Who will die?

What will explode?

Tune in next week for the thrilling (well somewhat amusing and entertaining in a well-you-had-to-be-there kind of way) conclusion of…

Deadlines: Hostile Corporate Takeover of the Living Dead!


Filed under: Game Rules, Games in Progress | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Alien Queen Basing

Posted on 23/06/2010 by sho3box

Uncharacteristically good weather plus an even more uncharacteristic busy social life has meant that my hobby time has been curtailed of late.  As a result todays post is a bit half-assed.  It does show that at least I am making some progress with my Aliens re-theme of Space Hulk.

Alien Queen Basing

Mikko at Dawn of the Lead has been making a lot more progress on his identical project here.  His latest addition of a very nice looking Alien Queen that came from a gashapon toy is in need of a base.  As I recently made a basic but functional base for getting my large Horrorclix Queen on the Space Hulk board, I decided to put up a quick photo.

Grid Markings

After removing the model from its clix base I stuck some styrene with a treadplate pattern on it to a 60mm plywood base.  I then added some styrene strips in a sort of tic-tac-toe pattern that matches the size of the squares in a game of Space Hulk.

While obviously using such a large figure will make some parts of the game feel a little cramped, the grid marked on the base should make it apparent where the Queen is standing in rules terms.  Adjacent figures will have to stand on small parts of the queens base but I dont foresee that being a big problem.

Filed under: Boardgame, Miniatures | Tagged: , , , , | 5 Comments »

Zombie Spawn Points

Posted on 16/06/2010 by sho3box

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 🙂


Filed under: Miniatures, Terrain | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Mostly Space Hulk to Aliens Rules Conversion Ideas Mostly

Posted on 01/06/2010 by sho3box

WALL OF TEXT WARNING

I am finally making some progress on the miniatures side of the Space Hulk to Aliens project, of which more will follow.  Funnily enough, in one of those weird internet-ty ways it seems that lots of other people are dusting off their Colonial Marines, Aliens and Predators to tackle the same or very similar projects on both Lead Adventure Forum and Frothers.  Mikko at Dawn of the Lead has been doing some very solid work too, elements of which I intend to rip off use to inspire me.

To go along with the miniatures I want to hammer out the basic rules conversions required.  I mostly intend to game with these figures in Space Hulk (mostly), simply because it is such a tight and satisfying system.  Ideas for many these rules have been going around in my head for years while others have been as a result of talking to similarly interested Aliens and Space Hulk nerds and and I want to write them down somewhere.  That somewhere might as well be here.

The intention is to translate existing rules for various elements in Space Hulk into their Aliens equivalent and not to write new rules unless absolutely necessary.  Eventually I plan to write up a simple Force List in the style of the Force List in Deathwing that allows players to pick a simple Colonial Marine force for playing any Space Hulk scenario.

Finally, while I like the idea of Predators I have never really enjoyed the movies that much.  I really think that they are pretty shitty to be honest, even though even suggesting that to most of my colleagues tends to send them into a fit of nerd rage, complete with bad Schwarzenegger impersonations.  So, while I have a pile of Predators waiting to be painted they are not a priority for me in terms of rules conversion.  It will happen eventually but not for a while as I dont really care that much about them and they will be harder to legislate for anyway due to their stealth and all that.

So here goes.  Everything is as in 3rd Ed rules unless otherwise specified:

M41A Pulse Rifle armed Colonial Marine = Storm Bolter Terminator Marine (ignore the Grenade Launcher part of the M41A.  It is considered to be intrinsic to the weapons standard effect in the game.  Consider it represented by the sustained fire bonus if that floats your boat).

M41A Pulse Rifle armed Sergeant= Power Sword and Storm Bolter armed Terminator Sergeant (+1 in assault is fine for a veteran NonCom.  Parry from the sword can be seen as whatever you like, kung-fu grip, sixth sense, Riddick levels of badass-ness: whatever.  Regardless, Sergeants have it.  Just like they allow the CP redraw).

Shotgun armed Corporal (Hicks) = Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield Armed Terminator Sergeant (this one is a bit of a fudge.  Assuming that the shotgun is only effective at point blank range is pushing it, but it does make the shotgun very deadly at that range, just like in video games.  The Block given by the shield is explained away just like the Parry for the other Sarge.  It also makes Apone and Hicks different, but similar which is cool.  The utter absence of Hicks Pulse Rifle (Storm Bolter) is a bit counter intuiticve, but as it will then slot in cleanly to all of the 3rd Ed missions I think that that has to be way to do it.  Finally, this ties in with one of the few extra rules that I intend to use, Acid Splash.  If it works out then having the Shotgun guy run the risk of acid burn will feel just like the movie 🙂 ).

M56 Smart Gun armed Colonial Marine = Assault Cannon Terminator

M240 Flamethrower armed Colonial Marine = Heavy Flamer Terminator

M41A Pulse Rifle armed Colonial Marine with Welder and Electrical Equipment (Hudson) = Storm Bolter and Chainfist Terminator (both troopers open doors/bulkheads that are otherwise difficult to open. Simple and accurate conversion).

Caterpillar P-5000 Powerloader = Lightning Claw armed Terminator (I was initially hesitant about this but the more that I thought about it the more that I liked it.  The LC Terminator has no ranged capability and will shred most opposition, most of the time.  It will also have a decent chance to best the dangerous Alien Queen (Patriarch/Broodlord) in hand to hand, which is reasonable.  It is a neat solution I think).

Company Man Burke, Newt and Jones the cat= C.A.T., Relic or other scenario objectives (I might try to come up with rules for Burke at a later date but having to rescue his sorry ass seems just as appropriate I think).

Synthetic/Artificial Person = Terminator Librarian (I know, I know but bear with me for a second.

Having watched Alien 4 last weekend, the idea of a synthetic with potent, situation based powers like Prescience (some sort of CCTV based thing) and Force Barrier (overriding a blast door or similar) seems fine to me. Psychic Storm might be pushing it a bit but whatever: maybe Bishop/Cole/Ash has overridden the Liquid Nitrogen spraying thing or activated the sprinklers after causing a short or switching on sentry guns in that area or something else just as Deus Ex Machina.

The Librarians close combat prowess is a bit at odds with Bishops performance but not so much with that of Ash (super-strong, but not super-tough). Considering that Bishop is three laws compliant, the idea of the synthetic going to extraordinary lengths to beat up potentially harmful Xenomorphs is ok with me.  Apparently the comics had combat synths that used to get stuck in quite regularly too, although the three laws tell me that Bishop would be compelled to help whether he was built for it or not.

Funnily enough the thing that doesnt sit well with me is that the Librarian has a Storm Bolter.  It doesnt seem right that Bishop should have a rifle (and the figure that I have to represent the synthetic has a piece of technical equipment in place of a weapon too.  Does Cole use a gun at any point in the 4th film?  I dont think so.

Reluctant Badass Lieutenant Ellen Ripley = Space Hulk First Edition Captain (another fudge.  The Captain in 1st Ed is very potent: he adds +2 to the CP total every turn, adds +2 to combat rolls and has a Power Sword, Grenade Launcher and Storm Bolter.  I have found that the Captain is roughly equivalent to the 3rd Ed Librarian in potency and I have swapped the characters when playing 3rd Ed quite successfully.

I suppose that Ripley is shown to have leadership qualities in the movie so ok to the CP bonus. The Storm Bolter/Pulse Rifle is perfect and the Captains GL can simply be seen as an alternative way of using the Incinerator that Ripley carries.  Thats OK with me.  The +2 combat plus Parry is harder to explain away but in the interests of keeping the rules standard I think that I can live with it.  I will justify it to myself as Fate or Hero points: the things that make the Hero, the Hero.

So, thats the Humans dealt with.   Bugs now:

Xenomorph = Purestrain Genestealer

Alien Queen = Broodlord

Face-hugger or Chest-burster = First Edition Unarmed Hybrid (these guys will get wiped out by fire very easily.  Once converted from Blip to model they move more slowly too.  They will be a fun, straightforward way to add some variety to the Alien players forces without much additional complexity and the rules are already written.  As I will use the 1st Ed blip sets, including the Hybrid blips it will be easy to throw in a few small aliens.  I havent decided on a way to incorporate it into the standard 3rd Ed blips yet.  It will probably be something similar to how the Patriarch can be brought into play, except that a “1” Blip can be exchanged for 3 Face-huggers twice a game or something like that.)

Lastly, Acid Splash.  Some players have added rules for this.  In many ways I think that it is an unneccesary complication for little gain.  Still, after mulling it over I had an idea: rather than roll to hit any/all adjacent models when an Alien dies (which would be tedious and could easily spoil the rapid flow of the game) I want to try out an idea based on the Scatter rule from Blood Bowl.

See Mikkos comments below.

Acid Splash: Acid Splash occurs when an Alien is hit from a shooting attack and that attack rolls at least two “1”‘s rolls at least two “6”‘s. If the target Alien is adjacent to one or more non-Alien figures then one of the non-Alien figures is chosen by the shooting player.  The chosen figure is removed from play.

As noted below this gives only a 1/36 chance of damage and is incorporated into the existing rolls and game mechanics.  It also makes point blank shooting a tiny bit risky which is both thematic and entertaining.  It also means that a blast from an Assault Cannon/Smart Gun is more likely to cause Acid Splash while the Heavy Flamer cannot ever.  Quite satisfyingly accurate to the relative strengths and weaknesses of the weapons as I see them.  Nice one Mikko.

Phew, that was a long one.  Congrats if you endured it this far.  Comments and thoughts on that much are welcome.

EDIT 02/06/10: replaced Acid Splash idea with Mikkos version from comments below.

EDIT 02/06/10: replaced Acid Splash “1” with “6”.

Filed under: Boardgame, Game Rules | Tagged: , , , | 14 Comments »

Dr Braga & Umbrella Security Service NBC Squad / Red Shadows

Posted on 01/06/2010 by sho3box

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 🙂

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

“C.Hi.M.P.s”

Posted on 19/05/2010 by sho3box

Something even more frivolous than usual today 🙂

Chimpanzee Hirsute Maglev Patrol

Officers Wilcox, Estrada, Baker and Poncherello from the

Chimpanzee Hirsute Maglev Patrol

are on the case. Continue reading →

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: , , , , | 9 Comments »

Dr Flint Leghorn

Posted on 11/05/2010 by sho3box

Dr Flint Leghorn

Dr Leghorns momma was one of the Standard Falls townsfolk but his pappy was a member of the Lab Rats tribe.  This gave Flint a unique perspective on life in and around the town and the wastes around it.  It has also contributed somewhat to his eccentric perspective.

Like Sir Reginald Beef Wellington O.B.E. (a close friend of the doctors), Leghorn doesnt live in the town itself but a couple of hours travel from it.  Nonetheless his unusual combination of tribal and scientific medical knowledge means that he gets visited by a lot more townsfolk then one might expect.

"Ahm afraid that there aint nothing ah can do. That there leg done have to come off."

Dr Leghorn is a Copplestone Casting from their awesome “Wasteland Desperadoes” pack, like Beauford X. Tinction.  Like every Copplestone sculpt that I have come across, it is of a very high standard.   I rate Copplestone and Hasslefree miniatures right up at the top of the industry standard.

I had some problems with the flesh tones on this figure, mostly because I decided to “fix” some of it while pissed late on a Saturday night.  After that less than successful evenings “work” the figure sat on my painting table for a few months while I painted other stuff, while I waited to find the enthusiasm to get painting it again.

Like the red stripes on Sir Reggie, I decided to try something that I hadnt done before on this figures trousers.  After doing a little bit of research into leopard skin print online I managed to get the pattern painted to a level that I was happy with on the first attempt.  Which was nice 🙂

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: , , , , | 3 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »