Zombtober- My plan... (now updated with the real rules!)

So, it is October, which in Zombie blogging circles, means it is Zomb-tober.

From what I have found out, Zomb-tober is an opportunity to get a survivor or zombies done each week, as a way to force oneself to keep painting. Which, sortof doesn't work for me, because that is what I have been doing all year!

Edited: I have just spotted the ACTUAL rules- head here for more info!

"The rules

The Zomtober rules are simple. To take part you just need to paint one Zombie or Survivor (or more!) each week, in any scale you like, posting it to your blog by the Sunday (we use Sunday's as the end of each Zomtober week). So that means one or more minis each week on or before the 4th, 11th, 18th and 25th of October 2015."

So, what to do for Zomb-tober then?

I am a big fan of the book World War Z by Max Brooks. I am sure you have noticed my attempts to copy his style with the little stories I provide for the survivors each week!

So knowing that, one of his follow up books to World War Z was Recorded Attacks.

Which is a graphic novel of a series of zombie attacks throughout history. I think it is a pretty cool idea, mixing up the "modern" zombie genre in an interesting a varied way. I reckon it is really clever!

And so, my plan is to paint at least one survivor and one zombie for a different historical period each week of Zombtober. I am going to aim to post them up each Sunday (in accordance with the rules!), and I will be holding off on the Friday Survivors while I work through October. I am going to finish the last of the Walking Dead Wednesday, and then take a break from that as I focus on making zombies for this challenge!

Right, so there is the plan. Week One's historical period?

World War II

:)

So what are you going to work on this Zomb-tober?

CP

Walking Dead Wednesday- Hershel!

Right- back with another Walking Dead Wednesday.

This time, we are looking at the wise patriarch of the Greene family, Hershel!

Again another of the awesome Studio Miniatures kickstarter series, and sporting a very nice crutch to make up for his phantom limb.

I have painted him in a pretty drab combination of colours, which I quite like as the whole combination.

In Skirmish Outbreak, Hershel would be something like... (I know he is the opposite of a Youth, but his stats fit!)

No Zombie-Hershel, guess Michonne got to him fast enough...

But there is one of the freebie zombies from the kickstarter!

You walk outside, you risk your life. You take a drink of water, you risk your life. You go to a strip club, you risk your life. Nowadays you breathe and you risk your life. You don’t have a choice. The only thing you can choose is what you’re risking it for.

Right, so another Walking Dead Wednesday done. I only have Michonne to go, and I am not too sure what I will do after that!

Now, it is now Zombtober. I have been informed this is something I should participate in. I have been looking at your blogs (yes you!) to gain ideas. A plan has been formed. More info tomorrow....

CP

After Action Report- Spanner in the works...

So, with the tank crew I had finished last week, I headed down to the local club to play the scenario which I wrote for the tank.

The story of the scenario is in the last post, so we will dive straight in to the game!

So the tank crew have been driving around in their M60, only to have it make a loud bang, and stop working. From there, they make the traditional horror movie decision to split the group into two. Two guys stay in the tank, the other two head out to see what they can find in the nearby buildings.

The tank is incredibly formidable...

But starts attracting some attention from the locals...

The two guys out looting the buildings are made aware that they are attracting the unwanted attention..

And so they head down, to get back to the tank and help out their buddies. They quickly kill the zombie at the base of the building...

And kill another zombie in their path, who had no idea it was coming...

Sean however gets grabbed by another zombie, and luckily is able to kill it before it got him.

Meanwhile, over at the tank, the crew attempted to fire the 50cal cupola MG at the oncoming horde. All the heavy weapon manages to do is to ventilate a nearby bus, with not a single zombie affected! Taking matters into his own hands, one of the crew hop out of the tank, engaging the oncoming zombies with his M16.

While he is successful for a time, he quickly starts attracting a lot of attention...

The two outside the tank are beginning to attract attention too, their stealthy run was interrupted by a low moan from the zombies, attracting more to their position. With their main route blocked, they turned and headed away from the zombies...

He had time to kill a crawling zombie who was blocking his escape route...

Meanwhile, things were getting worse at the tank. The drumming of the 50 cal was bringing in more zombies, and wasn't helping Thomas, fighting for his life on the turret...

The escape route for the two outside the tank was fast closing up...

With Hank caught in combat, struggling to fight off all of the zombies...

Not being able to move made the situation even worse as more zombies piled in...

The situation at the tank continued to worsen, with more and more zombies arriving...

And making matters even worse, the 50cal finally ran out of ammo. The other crewman popped a hatch, and got to work on attacking the swarm of zombies on the tank.

But there are no shortage of zombies surrounding the tank...

Having just seen his buddy torn apart, the remaining survivor was hard pressed to fight off all of the zombies around him..

The remainder of the horde finished their meal, and then headed towards the remaining survivor...

He made a break for it, trying to outrun the zombies...

Only to get caught by a zombie's grab as he ran!

Things around the tank hadn't improved...

And the survivor on the outside was in a bad, bad way...

The last images of the tank weren't any better...

So all in all a cracking game. My plucky band of survivors tried really, really hard to survive, but just got totally overwhelmed by the number of zombies attacking them. End result? No survivors, lots of zombies. Thanks to Tom for a good game, although, that really didn't stop him from slaughtering all of my guys.

If you think you can do any better than I did, I will be posting the scenario up later this week so that you can have a go.

Question for the commenters- Zombtober, what is it, should I be involved in it?

Chris

Survivor Friday- Tank Crew!

When I was making the M60 tank for the Walking Dead Wednesday (here), I got this great idea for a scenario. I am going to play it tomorrow with my buddy Tom, and once I have played it through, I will get it up here on the blog for you all to play!

The story goes like this....

“.. me and every other reservist got called up when the panic hit. There were four of us from farms near Hanksville, Sean, Hank, Ian and me, Thomas. The rest of the crew made up a pretty clever acronym of our name, which they used to prefix whatever we are doing at the time. It was all because we hung out together all the time and made a pretty good tank crew.

Anyway, so the panic hit, and you have a few hundred reservists kicking around the base, with f all to do. There were no orders and a total comms blackout. We weren’t the first to abandon our posts, and I am sure we weren’t the last. Guess we are the interesting ones because we did it with our training tank. She was an older M60A1, supposed to be retired as a training tank since ’05, but since the replacements hadn’t come through, we had kept her running. She was known as ‘Accident’ as a moniker for the number of training drivers who had driven her so “expertly” into anything and everything.

It was easy enough to grab ‘Accident’, after all, we were the ones on duty guarding her. So we made sure she was filled up with gas and whatever MG ammo we could scrounge and then set off. We picked up the gate guards on the way, they were in on it.

The going was pretty good, we didn’t have any trouble on roads. That was where we found our first walkers, and when we lost the two gate guards riding on the back. We were moving slow, trying to weave through traffic, trying not to throw a track. The two guys on the back didn’t stand a chance. One got grabbed, the other tried to help. I watched them tear those guys apart from the safety of the turret cupola.

We were moving through the outskirts of some town when our luck finally ran out. The engine gave this almighty bang, and then quit. We had all hopped out to see what the problem was, taking turns suggesting fixes. Might as well have been smacking it with a hammer for all the good it would do. So Ian and I grabbed some guns and headed out to the farm nearby, figuring if we were going to be stuck we should try and see if there was any chow to be found, or a place to bunk for the night.

As it turns out running a V-12 twin-turbo engine to push a 60 ton tracked monster around isn’t exactly quiet. Hank and Sean had been “fixing” the engine for all of 5 minutes before they started turning up. Ones and twos to start, easy enough to keep away from the guys working. But before long it was a whole lot more of them, more than they could keep away with only E-tools. Hank reattached the fuel hose, while Sean covered him with his M4. Once the hose was reattached, they both hopped into the safety of the tank.

Ian and I had just finished grabbing whatever cans of food were left in the house nearby when we heard the V12 shudder into life. We bowled out of the front door, only to find that a whole lot of Zeds had heard it too, and were heading to the tank.

There was another loud bang from the tank, and black smoke began to rise from the engine deck. We knew at that point that ‘Accident’ wasn’t going anywhere any more. Hank and Sean would have been able to see grotesque faces leered through the vision ports as hands clawed at the hardened steel armour. Ian and I just looked at each other, realising that there was no way that the zombies could get in, and that our buddies were going to need our help to get out…”

Now of course, I was going to need to make up the four tank crewmen for the game.

I started with the plastic Mantic USMC models, from their Mars Attacks! range. Big pro tip here, wash them with hot water and dishwashing liquid before you try to paint them. Mantic must use an oily mould release, which leaves a bit of residue on the model. I am not a huge fan of the original models, the scale is slightly off for me. But, that won't stop me from using them!

These are the four I started with:

Next step was to decapitate them all, plus remove the arms on most of them. I then used replacement parts from the Wargames Factory male and female survivor sprues. The net result is:

So with the assembling done, it was time to get some paint on them, and this is the final result:

And of course, we need the shot with the tank:

We will be playing the scenario tomorrow, so we will see how the crew go, and should have a write up here over the weekend!

Chris

Walking Dead Wednesday- Sasha!

Right, we are back with another Walking dead Wednesday, another great sculpt from Studio Miniatures.

This time we have Sasha, Tyrese's sister. In the last season she is a crack shot with her rifle, and maybe isn't doing so well with this whole apocalypse thing. She seems to be taking on the role which Andrea played in the comics, which I don't think is a bad thing.

And here is the Studio Miniatures version!

I promise she is less shiny in person.

And Sasha is lucky (?) enough to have a zombie version as well...

And the two side by side:

In Skirmish Outbreak, I would think Sasha would be something like...

right, there you have it, another one done ON TIME! Which is exciting.

Next week? Hershel I think. And as for this weeks survivor? Well, firstly there are more than one, and secondly, they are on the painting table!

CP