Structures for Zombieville

From last year, here are a couple of structures my brother and I are working on for his Zombieville table. 

As you can see in these before pictures, this church started out as a Christmas village decoration. 

Paint the snow green, touch up the stained glass windows, and you've got a building that isn't quite as seasonal, and can be used in a game with 28mm figures.

There's also this three-level parking garage from an MDF kit. As the top two floors are removable, this structure should make for some interesting battles.

We haven't actually playtested my brother's scenario yet, but the game will certainly have plenty of scenery to interact with.

High rise for 28mm

As I started to throw away the packaging for a new TV soundbar, I looked over the pieces to see if anything was usable for terrain or buildings for my miniatures gaming. I didn't think so until I set one of the styrofoam pieces on its edge. That's when I realized that I had the makings of a modern or futuristic high rise building for 28 mm figures! Great. Because I'm so good about finishing gaming projects.

This will be a representational model, not a diorama, so I'm not worried about fitting in stairs or being too picky about measuring movement. Instead of determining movement based on a figure's speed, I'll adjudicate it based on location and how long it takes to get there--so maybe one activation to get from one side of a level to the other, but two actions to move between floors. And yes, I consider that shaft to be open to all the levels, so you can have line of sight (and therefore shooting!) between characters on different levels. Now let's see if I ever follow through on this.

Tis the season ...

... for deeply discounted holiday decorations that can be adopted for gaming. I purchased two 18" x 36" Lemax landscape accent mats (pictured above with Heroscape figures for scale) at Michael's craft store for 60 percent off.

The mats, intended for a Christmas village display, will work great as paving when laying out frozen ruins for Frostgrave or terrain for Song of Blades and Heroes. At $10 each after the discount, I picked up the last two on the store shelf. I also grabbed two of these brick and cobblestone road packs, from the same company, for less than $3 each. The cobblestones are sort of setting-agnostic, while the bricks will fit right in with modern scenery for All Things Zombie.

Christmas decor can be a great help to terrain makers. So what other holiday scenery have you found that is easily adaptable to miniatures gaming?

All Things Zombie at MillCon

I had the chance to play in a massive game of All Things Zombie at MillenniumCon last weekend. My brother and I were part of a 12-player scenario called "A Walk in the Neighborhood." Jeff was the GM, and he had a massive cardstock city set up on two tables in an 'L' shape. He also had Ed the THW Guy, whose vendor table was right next to us, help out with running the game.

The scenery looked great, and so did the figures, which recalled various characters from popular culture, including the mini that I selected.

My brother picked another figure carrying a firearm to join my wasteland warrior, and we entered the neighborhood. Our goal was to get as much loot as possible, and then get out.

Signs, signs, everywhere the signs

A great find in the clearance section of Hobbytown USA: Five sheets of Ultra Reflect 1/64 road signs printed on reflective material with aluminum backing--for $1 each! These sheets are from Innovative Hobby Supply, a company that sells slot car accessories.

Although a little on the small side for 28mm scale, these signs will add verisimilitude to modern and post-apocalypic game setups. Right out of the package they will make great modern-day terain for All Things Zombie and After the Horsemen. In addition, with a little weathering (rust, scratches, bullet holes), they can fit in with the rest of the Fallout-like scenery in a game of Gamma World or Mutants and Death Ray Guns.

I'm keeping one sheet for myself and sending the rest to my brother for his ATZ game. Since his Zombieville setup will include a multi-level parking garage and several streets, these traffic signs will dress the set up nicely.

Furnishings for Zombietown

More scenery for my brother's All Things Zombie setup (a.k.a. Zombietown). A couple of Jersey barriers and picnic tables and benches in 28mm scale. You can also see some wooden crates ready for shipping. These are from Reaper's Bones line, and a cinch to paint: base color, drybrush lighter, drybrush even lighter, done.

Scatter terrain for Zombieville

I picked up some scatter terrain for my brother's All Things Zombie work-in-progress. These are all from Reaper Minis' Bones line. Here you see them with some Heroscape minatures for scale.

The shipping containers and dumpsters are all made from hard plastic. I just gave them a coat of spaypainted color, and they look pretty good next to Agent Smith (or is that Agent Coulson?). The only problem is that the dumpsters are a lot bigger than they are in real life--almost as high as the shipping containers.

This weapons locker is also made from hard plastic and just took a coat of spraypaint. It looks even better now that I painted some black details onto it.

These wooden crates were made of the softer Bones material. I painted them a tan color with a brush, then drybrushed a lighter shade of tan, followed by an ivory white. The Bones terrain offerings are pretty cool, and I recommend them for your modern and sci-fi gaming.

Zombie hotel

My brother is working on his major gaming project, a 28mm town for All Things Zombie.  One of the centerpieces will be this no-tell hotel that he's building, called The Palms.  These photos are of the work in progress.

As he tells me: "Rates are by the hour and clean sheets cost extra."  I'm looking forward to gaming in Zombieville.

Building a better Zombieville

I spent part of the Thanksgiving holiday at my brother's.  He's been gathering minis, vehicles, and scenery for a massive All Things Zombie game. 

We had planned on maybe getting a game in, but since none of the minis were painted (or even put together), instead we spent several hours painstakingly assembling the plastic minis from Wargames Factory. 

We had male and female zombies, along with men and women survivors.  We glued together more than fifty of the undead, and by sibling used the survivors sprues to put together some law enforcement.

I supplied a couple of vehicles: a four-wheeler and a dune buggy from the old Void miniatures game.

He also had some metal minis from a British manufacturer--some interesting zombies as well as a unique take on the characters from the Wizard of Oz.

He's also constructing some buildings from laser-cut wood, including this multi-level parking garage.  I'm looking forward to playing in Zombieville.

Sci fi skirmish at MillCon

In addition to the historical games at Millennium Con, there were a number of scenarios to please sci-fi fans.  One notable setup, from Coach K and his son (who did the Hoth game at Guadacomacon), was called "Contra" and used the Chain Reaction rules.

The scenario involved a U.S. special forces unit out to smash a group of insurgents in Central America.  It was a good looking table, and as you might guess from some of the characters, all was not what it seemed in that steaming jungle...

Zombie games were as popular as ever.  One nice-looking scenario involved a carnival with 28mm figures.

Another table contained a beautiful large setup of hills and valleys, using 15mm minis.

Yet another table held a modern town, and what looked like 20mm figures.  All these games seemed to generate a great deal of interest.

Next: some fantasy games at the convention.

All Things Zombie-Final Fade Out now on sale

While we're talking about Two Hour Wargames, I know some of you have been waiting for the latest edition of Ed's zombie game.  Well, All Things Zombie-Final Fade Out is now available for purchase.  Have fun, and watch out for those walkers!

The Walking Dead

I'm just now viewing the second season of the AMC cable series The Walking Dead, thanks to video on demand.  Gotta say, it's a great show, and I'm enjoying it.  I'm also noticing how it makes me want to play All Things Zombie, especially since that game is so true to the zombie apocalypse genre, as a recent playtest showed.  Or maybe, with the way the survivors are screwing each other over in season 2, the TV show is a good emulator of Ed's wargame.  Either way, I'm looking forward to watching more of The Walking Dead.

By the way, have you noticed how TWD never refers to the undead as "zombies"--the characters refer to them as "walkers" or "geeks."  It was the same way with the movie that launched the whole genre, Night of the Living Dead--that film refers to the shambling corpses as "ghouls."  Likewise, in the Will Smith version of I Am Legend, the in-movie newscasts reference "darkseekers."

So in your own games that utilize the undead overrunning the modern world, how do you refer to them?  Just zombies, or something else?

Playtesting All Things Zombie-Final Fade Out

This week was my last game with Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy, who's moving out west.  We playtested his revised zed game, All Things Zombie-Final Fade Out. 

We picked up where Ed had left off, with the adventures of Jim Bob Joe, a Rep 4 Grunt.  A random event came up: cell phone ringing nearby, so Jim Bob went to answer it (no one was on the other end).  He then went into a nearby building to search for loot.

He found food, but because he got distracted eating Snickers, he forgot to lock the door, and a couple of undead followed him into the building.

Melee against zombies is pretty easy if you have a friend with you, but with a solo character there's no room for error--one bad roll with no backup and you're history.  Jim Bob made some poor rolls and ended up getting chomped on by the pair of zeds.

I quickly rolled for another grunt, a Rep 4 ganger.  Unfortunately, she ended up in a room in hand-to-hand combat with four or five zombies.

It was easy to roll for another character, this time a Rep 5 ganger grunt.  He found a Rep 3 survivor in another building, and they scored some good loot before making it off the board.

 It was a fun test drive of the new ATZ rules; you can tell a great story using the dice and the FFO rules.

It was great getting one last chance to game with Ed.  I'm lucky I got to know him over the past year or so, and I'm sorry to see him move.  Still, we'll keep in touch via the internet, and I wish him and his wife the best in their journey to their new home.

EDIT: Here's Ed's after-action report of this game.