Survivor Week 16: Don the Hunter

Friday has rolled around all too quickly, so it is survivor time!

.."Now you see, huntin' zoms is just like hunting deer back before all this"

The tall man was kneeling, calmly aiming his large, Russian made rifle at the shambling figure in the distance.

The rifle cracks.

"Well, 'cept the deer didn't come running at you, zombies are a bit like a pissed off stag when it's mating season"

The hunter takes aim at the next shambling figure.

The rifle cracks again.

"Both of 'em react to sound, but neither of them see so good. That's why I keep my orange jacket- more likely to be shot by some city lawyer on his first time out of the city, let alone firing a gun"

He spotted another shambling figure, aimed and fired.

"Deer are clever, always hard to catch up to. Gotta be patient to get one."

Two shambling figures this time, the hunter fires once, pauses, and fires for a second time.

"Zombies are clever too I guess, they sure as hell know how to sneak up on you, am I right?"

The hunter sweeps the forest in front of us with his scoped rifle, searching for movement.

"You know, if it wasn't for the whole face eating thing, hunting zombies would be kindof relaxing"

A female figure emerges from behind a tree. Her dress is torn and dirty. Open wounds cover her body, her eyes dull and listless.

"Sorry sweetheart, I ain't on the menu"

The hunter fires again...

This week's survivor is from The Assault Group, he was a freebie when I purchased a fair few figures out of one of their ranges. He is meant to be a Russian soldier, complete with body armour and a fur hat. However, my current obsession with the colour orange dictated that he needed to have the ridiculously bright orange camo hunting jacket, and the rest of the colours came from there! And so, Don the Hunter was born.

I am pretty happy with how he has turned out, his rifle will provide some much needed long range support to any survivor group he comes across.

Well, another survivor done, 16 weeks completed now! I am managing to keep up the painting progress well....

Chris

Game photos

At the weekend I took my zombies out and a few survivors to have a test of the new Zombie game we are writing.

The scenario was that the survivors were driving in a school bus, but unfortunately it crashed trying to push past a line of cars on a busy road. The survivors then needed to get their kit, and get off table. I didn't manage a play by play AAR, but hopefully these pictures suffice....

Coop and Sasha set up, back to back defending against the Zombies.

The wrecked schoolbus- probably shouldn't have let Sasha drive!

The Zombies advancing past a line of cars

More Zombies advancing from the other end of the road

Zombies stuck in a funnel between cars

The Zombies got out of the funnel!

Ol' Liz got cornered by an angry blonde...

Watch behind you Coop!

Sasha makes a run for it

Coop under pressure

Carol has taken the high ground

Coop got away from the Zombies, and is providing the good news with his M249

Well, that is until a former police officer learned to climb! The Zombie is one from my buddy, Tom

One of Tom's survivors may be in a bit of trouble.....

There will be much, much more on here about the rules once we get a bit further down in the process. For now, I hope that you enjoyed the pictures!

Chris

Survivor Week 15- Vladimir- now with a photo!

UPDATE: I have now attached photos!

It's Survivor day Friday!

... I was in this nightclub, the super cool joint where all the coolest of the cool were there. So naturally, I stuck out like a sore thumb. I had been dragged there by my room mate, he was trying to chase this hot girl he met in his psyc 101 class. She gave him her number, we both laughed about how it was a fake, turns out it wasn't turns out she might have been actually keen!

So there we were, in the middle of this club. He went off to chase her, and I went to the bar to drink my time away. I had just paid too much for a drink, when the fight broke out.

The dance floor became a frenzy, people running, trampling and screaming. All the while, the music kept playing, it was like the f***ing titanic man.

I get shoved, spill my tiny but expensive drink and I land on the floor, hard. I cover my face, curl up in the foetal position and try to be as small as possible.

Next thing I knew, big hands grabbed me by the shirt and hauled me over the bar. I looked up to see this behemoth of a man, looking 10 foot tall wearing the stupidest Hawaiian shirt and a cream suit.

In broken Russian, he spoke "Follow Vladimir, Vladimir will sort this". He reached into his coat pocket, pulled a pistol and began moving towards the fire exits. No one got in Vladimir's way, anyone foolish enough to try got a pistol shot. I stayed a step behind him, hiding, being as small as possible.

We exited the door, just in time to be arrested. The cops had arrived, blue SWAT vans surrounding the building, men with armour and big guns pointed at the building, sealing each and every door.

When asked to put his weapon, Vladimir just laughed, and said something in Russian that I couldn't understand as he dropped his pistol.

We sat in an interrogation cell, if Vladimir hadn't been in the room I would have pissed myself I am sure, I was so scared.

After what felt like an hour, an older cop walked in, grey moustache, crappy grey suit and a red tie. He only asked one question.

"How did you know to shoot them in the head?"

Vladimir is another from Hasslefree, but not from their normal ranges. He is an absolute beast, standing well above all of the others. I am sure he is meant to be some sort of secret agent type, but I have painted too many people in normal grey or black suits, so I went a bit Hawaii 5/0 with a cream suit, which had to be combined with a gaudy Hawaiian shirt. His size meant that he became a bad Russian stereotype in my head- big, no nonsense with broken English.

Anyways, another week, another survivor!

Even even more Zombies- Wargames Factory female zombies

Continuing on from the Studio Miniatures Zombies and from the Wargames Factory male zombies from last week, we have the females!

These are pretty much built straight out of the box, except for a few heads from the Wargames Factory Survivor women box. I couldn't resist doing a little few tweaks!

As to the quality, well, I have mentioned before that I am not super keen on these figures. I just am not that keen on a few of them, there are some which are just all too "stereotypical damsel in distress swimming at a lake at night where a guy in a hockey mask kills them one by one" for me.

But then I realized. I have made it a point (so far) to have my female survivors sensibly clothed- by using these zombies, it just shows that if you aren't sensibly clothed and sensibly armed, you are zombie fodder!

Now, I must confess, I came to like these figures more and more as I painted them. In fact, the first of the close up pictures below may actually be my favourite zombie so far!

Waitress Zombie- Now in the running to be Chris' favourite Zombie

Lifeguard Zombie. Probably shouldn't have given CPR to a zombie....

Half a body, still committed to the cause

Secretary Zombie modeling the latest in purple shirt fashion

Go Sports!

Dead, with an impressive hole through her leg

College Zombie saves on tuition by eating her lecturers

Legless Zombie- not to be confused with half zombie

Lawyer Zombie has subpoenaed your brains...

This Zombie is dressed for a fancy party

She brought her own hand to hold

Running Zombie clearly wasn't fit enough to outrun the hordes....

So there you have it, another 12 zombies done. I am still behind my target of a 3-1 ratio, but only by a little bit now!

Chris

Survivor Week 15: Deena

It's Friday, so along with a whole mess of zombies, I have managed to get another survivor painted!

No story today, have been too busy at work to get any creative juice flowing sadly. That also explains the poor lighting for the images today, had to do it before I went to work!

This survivor comes from Recreational Conflict, and was ordered because I got tempted about some other of their figures, and couldn't resist buying a bit more. Overall, the figure isn't my favourite so far, but she is another one completed for my mob of survivors.

The face of the figure isn't great, but elements are good, the shotgun, the pose etc are nice. The figure is also a bit short, see the comparison below:

So, apologies for a quick update, but I just haven't been able to do much writing. I will remedy that next week :).

Chris

Even More Zombies- Wargames Factory male zombies

Earlier in the week I posted up my Studio Miniatures zombies, this time we have their counterparts from Wargames Factory. With my goal of painting 3 zombies for every survivor, I am currently behind by almost 20 zombies.

With only one sprue of Studio Miniatures zombies left, I am looking at other alternatives.

One of those, is the Wargames Factory plastics. I am not a big fan of the Wargames Factory zombies. They just don't inspire me as much as the Studio Miniatures zombies, they are a bit less detailed especially in the faces. But, they are plastic, they are cheap, and when you are part of a 40+ strong zombie horde how much detail is really needed?

Given the faces were my biggest issue, I decided to replace the Wargames Factory heads with spare Studio Miniatures zombie heads (spare because of the head swaps from the Studio Miniatures zombies this week). This keeps them consistent with all the zombies I have painted so far, and I am really happy with the result, so happy in fact that I will be doing this again!

Zombie with a beer gut and red chucks

Paging Dr Zombie....

Soldier zombie back

Soldier zombie side

Zombie with a vest

A former zombie patient, still in his hospital scrubs. Minus a face tho.

Office zombie is trying to return some lost property....

So with those six completed, we are up to 48 completed Zombies. Still 12 short of the required 60 zombies to have triple the number of completed survivors.

Guess I had better get painting!

Chris

More Zombies- Studio Miniatures

I had a very average week at work last week, so to relax, I decided to build and paint MORE ZOMBIES over the weekend.

The first set which I was able to complete was another 4 Studio Miniatures plastic zombies. Now, I have painted quite a few of these now, so I decided to use the Wargames Factory survivor heads just to add a bit of variation, which has been quite successful I think. At any rate, I have one more sprue of the Studio Miniatures Zombies, of which I think a couple of them will become survivors, but then again, I do have plans for more conversions....

And as a close up on them, trying to show off some of their details:

The (former) cop- perhaps one of Bob's that didn't quite make it?

Pizza Delivery Boy

Angry Zombie in blue jeans

Classy windbreaker Zombie

This is the first of a few batches of Zombies I was able to get finished, the horde just keeps on growing! I have decided that my Zombie horde needs to be at least three times as large as my number of survivors. That means that by the end of the year, by the time I finish this project I will have to have completed well over 150 zombies!

Challenge accepted :)

Chris

Survivor week 14: Maya!

After Police Month we are back to our regularly scheduled program....

... Look, I never saw her, but I knew this guy who got his ass pulled out of the fire by her....

His story went that he was somewhere near the Little Creek Naval Base. He thought that military bases would be safe- hell we all did! Thinking about it now, it was a dumb thought. Military bases have aid stations. Soldiers get bit, get taken to the aid station. Doesn't matter how many guns you have up on the walls if the infection is inside.

By the time he got to Little Creek, the place was burning and the last ship had sailed.

No food makes you more than a little crazy, so he decides to go in. Finds a few zees, whacks them with this priceless signed by Babe Ruth bat that he had stolen from the Yankees Hall of Fame, guy wouldn't shut up about how badass he was stealing it- man I wanted to punch him just for that. Everyone knows hockey is a better sport. He probably picked the bat up off the ground as he ran away anyway.

So he is moving in to Little Creek, trying to find a building not on fire so he can start looting. Except whoever torched the place did a damn good job- there wasn't anything not burning.

Now this guy gets a bit bold, he heads into one of the big storage warehouses which looked to be only burning at one end. He said it was untouched, canned goods, guns and ammo, tanks and Humvees. I think he was full of it, but I guess it made the story better.

So he is loading up his winnings, when the Zees catch up with him. They crowd around the door, bashing at it trying to get in. So he has zombies on one side, burning storeroom on the other. He makes a choice- at least you can shoot a Zombie, you can't fight a big burning factory.

He prepares himself, loads up one of those rifles he just found and rushes out of the door yelling at the top of his lungs, finger pressed on the trigger of the M16. But no bullets came out of the gun. Nothing happened.

I didn't want to tell the guy, but the firing pins were probably taken out to make sure the crates were made safe, don't want some loony getting a M16A4 and going postal.

So the guy starts beating on the Zoms with the but of the weapon. He said it broke in half after a couple of Z skulls, but I know you can crack more than a few with one of these (he gently pats the worn, formerly desert camouflaged M4 assault rifle next to him).

Out of options, and left with just his priceless Babe Ruth bat to save him against this horde of zombies.

This is where his story hit the next level of unbelievable. He said that this hooded figure came up, two pistols in hand and started plowing through the zombie horde.

Bam, zombie gone.

Bam Bam, two zombies gone.

Then the hooded figure reloaded and continued firing.

All the Zombie gone, the hooded figure comes over to this guy and just says "give me what you got out of that warehouse"

Guy disagrees, and he gets pistol whipped for disagreeing.

He wakes up the next day, big cut on his head surrounded by a burnt out naval base and the bodies of a whole lotta zombies. Anything useful had already been taken by the hooded survivor.

It took another glass of moonshine for him to admit that the hooded figure was a she, guess he was embarrassed about getting his ass handed to him by a girl- although I think that was a close second once he realized that she had taken his pants and run them up the flagpole.

Guess she had a sense of humour too....

This week's figure comes from the Reaper range, and when I got her originally, she looked like this:

I really liked the pose, the two guns the big flowing hood and so I bought the figure. And then I looked at the figure once I got it home, and she was wearing.... well... not a lot. I have spoken before that I like my zombie survivors to be practical, so out came the greenstuff and off sculpting I went, ending up with this:

Pants, singlet and holsters for the pistols. Not the greatest sculpting you will ever see, but a multitude of sins are covered by painting!

In terms of the paint job, I had it stuck in my head that she would have this big red hooded cloak. Then to add some interest to the figure, I painted the pants in a version of the US Navy camo (I had been watching The Last Ship while doing the sculpting!). Of note is that she is my first survivor of colour- and let's be fair that is because of the Walking Dead's Michonne! There are more on the way too.

Anyway, that is it for this week, painting continues. I am almost finished doing some weathering on my police car, and work is ongoing into expanding the horde even further.... Oh and planning the next theme month!

Chris