Sunday, January 9, 2011

The Adventures of Shooty McGee and Captain Burglar Alarm!

The other week some of the fellas came over and we played a round of No More Room in Hell. I ran the game and let the guys play. We had four players, each player was allowed to create a Shot Caller and then roll up two other random survivors using the random survivor generator and relying on luck of the draw. In attendance were Allen the lead archivist, Bob-O, The ROshon, and Chris of the One Zed a Year blog.I was a little wishy washy in planning the scenario. So I made it a standard Supply Run with players earning victory points for all of the essential supplies they could find (Food, Ammo, Fuel, First Aid Kits). I also put an ultimate objective in the center of town, a little red schoolhouse where a chopper pilot was barricaded in with a bunch of kids. If a player or players could get to the kids in the school and get them and the chopper pilot to the top of the firehouse they would score an auto win. Well my lack of focus in scenario planning basically resulted in all four of my compassionate friends saying "To hell with the kids, the school is the perfect meat magnet to pull zombies away from us!" This allowed players to more safely traverse the outer rim of the table while zombies were pulled in toward the school. "Safely" is a relative term in NMRIH as the game system tends to produce more than enough zombies to go around...as it should be.

ROshon started by running all three of the Survivors in his crew up to the nearest building...and not a single one of them could figure out how to open the door. Eventually they broke in and found some weapons.

Chris quickly earned the nickname "Shooty McGee" by opening fire on anything that moved within 30 feet of his team. This also had the pleasant result of loading up the Dice Grave (The Dice Grave in No More Room In Hell is the pool of dice where shots fired dice along with dice from other encounter events on the table end up and are then rolled during the zombie turn to generate new zombies) and drawing tons of Zombies into the area, nearly every turn.

Al, being a veteran zombie game player, had his crew roll in pretty quietly, not drawing too much attention to themselves.

...and then there was Bob-O imediately earning himself the nickname "Captain Burglar Alarm" when he tripped the home security system in the first house he explored, resulting in a whole buttload of extra dice being added to the Dice Grave.

Shooty McGee continues to "Scarface" his way down Main Street while Zeds engage some of his guys in Monstrous Melee. Chris did a good job fighting them off though.
Al dispatched a few zombies of his own.

Bob-O walks into the second house he encounters and finds an old icebox full of human remains that releases a stench into the air that increases the chance of new zombies being spawned for the rest of the scenario...way to go Captain Burglar Alarm.
Meanwhile the children in the schoolhouse await a rescue that ain't gonna happen, and the shamblers close in...poor little bastards.

Schoolhouse is Zombie-ese for "Boxed Lunch"


Chris sends his team to the firehouse to explore and that's when things start going south for him..

...and he suffers his first casualty at the hands of the undead.

Chris manages to get his team to another building but the Zombies immediately gnosh his second survivor and take a couple bites out of his Shot Caller.

Several Hordes of Zombies form outside of the schoolhouse and eventually the barricades fail to protect the poor helpless little children.

Chris's Shot Caller finally succumbs to the ganshing teeth and claws, eliminating his entire team.
Al's team makes a quiet exit managing to secure the most essentials.

Bob's team ends with an encounter against a large group of Zombies, but manages to put them all down.
As hordes of zombies finish eating the children and start heading out towards our remaining Survivors, the game is called as the living decide to make a quick exit off the table. Al ended up taking the win with the most combined Zed kills and essential supplies found.
Chris or "Shooty McGee" did manage to get over 20 zombie kills but as his entire team had been taken out of action, the points did not count.
Overall it was a good game, it was fun and it was good for me to have a really smooth run through the system. Next time I won't put a giant zombie magnet in the middle of the table.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

This is my BOOMSTICK!!!

I just finished up a batch of some Studio Miniatures zombie survivors. I did a few for some friends as late Christmas gifts, but I kept this one for myself. This the "Cole" miniature who bears a striking resemblance to the a certain big chinned Candarian demon killer. These miniatures were a blast to paint, probably the nicest I've ever painted. I have started picking up more 28mm stuff lately, especially a bunch of Reaper's new zombie survivors from the Chronoscope line. I'm having trouble focusing on 15mm right now.


I always wanted to try doing a fall foliage basing and found a great website that suggested using oregano. Loving to cook, but not being overly adventurous with spices I found our oregano still had the original seal on it. So here we go. I really like the effect.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

How awesome is my wife?!?!?!

My wife made me a personalized boardgame for Christmas! I knew she had been working on a special surprise for me the last several months but I had no clue what it would be when I was tearing it open on Christmas morning. She put together this multi tile boardgame for us with a bunch of the places we frequent, you'll notice a lot of restaurants (what can I say, we like to eat). There are other locations like church and family members' homes and such. She even incorporated vacations we take together. Each person has to complete a series of "tasks" or errands to win the game. The tasks are all personalized too and provide a lot of laughter. Lisa also told me that she has ideas for expansions....though she refuses to do a zombie themed expansion :O(
Not only did she do a great job designing the appearance of the game but knowing I am a gamer she really put a ton of effort into making rules that were fun and I have to say that I am very impressed. The game uses several different gaming elements and keeps the player interaction going so you always feel 'in the game'. It is light and it is actually a ton of fun (not just something I'd play because I feel obligated ;oP). This really is such a special gift and I am very lucky to share my life with such a wonderful, talented woman.


Saturday, December 11, 2010

Early Christmas Presents from the LAB!!!!!

Doctor Merkury played Santa a little early this year and gifted me these awesome sinister miniatures available from WHAT THE?! Miniatures. I was told to give a big shout out to the company because "They were nice to him", he didn't elaborate on what that meant....it usually means something dirty, so I didn't ask any questions. At any rate they can be found at: http://whattheminiatures.com/
They make an assortment of very fine Weird War II miniatures, I particulary like the Lilith and the Twins miniature and may be ordering her to lead my She-Wolves down the road.
Doc Merkury painted these great miniatures up fo me and they are awesome additions to my slowly growing Weird War II stuff. I'm looking forward to statting these guys up and fielding them. First up we have this fiery gentleman. 13 loyal German soldiers were sent through an experimental dimensional portal created by Nazi scientists...only one returned and he no longer spoke in words, but in flames.

I bring you fire!!!

Next up is this very sinister Red Skull.


Complete with a trophy of his victory over a certain super soldier.

Take that America!
Thanks again Doc, these are awesome.
I got you pink velociraptors, coming soon!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Tramp Steamer...Take 2

After some discussion with TMP'ers I decided that I needed to go back and put a few more touches on this boat. I added a cargo boom and some rust/weathering effects. I found a really good site(lost the link) that had tons of pictures of old cruise ships and steamers that had been beached in India for scrap. I tried to duplicate some of the appearance of rust and weathering that I saw in the pictures on that site. I think it gives the boat a lot more character and am pretty happy with it now. The final effect makes it look like it's been through the ringer a couple times, but I like it. The before shot.

After weathering and additions.




Thursday, December 2, 2010

These Ascots Ain't Gonna Move Themselves!

Here are some in progress shots and final results of the first tramp steamer I'm building for my pulp crew. This first ship is meant to be more of a river runner, smuggling type boat. I took a lot of artistic license here and generally don't consider myself much of a model builder. Okay so I know that boats aren't generally perfect ovals but I wanted simple. You'll see later that I ended up shaping one end to a point to give the boat a more "realistic shape". It was the front end I did that to in case you're wondering.

Used a pretty flimsy posterboard for the hull, but it's what I had around that I cold shape and bend. It ended up warping a bit but nothing tragic.

A couple bad pictures of the early stage of the bridge.


I took a piece of foamcore in the shap of the boat and peeled off the paper from one side. Then I made lines with a pen to make the texture of boards for the deck. The effect is alright.

The finished cargo hold. I named the ship after one of my other favorite smuggling ships.


Put a Pulp Figures deck gun at the front of the ship (what do boat riding guys call the front?). I don't know if ships like this ever had guns in the front like this, but I figured if a boat was ever sailing into Cthulhu, they'd be glad for a front gun.
This is pretty much the boat. Meh

From the back (what do boat riding guys call the back?)


The little bits and bobs are all from Reviresco. Cool detail stuff. Probablythe only saving grace of the thing frankly. The ladders are dollar store train tracks.


"Should I be walking off into the water like this???"
"Yeah, it's fine just keep walking"
I made a litte gangplank for the ship's crew to use when docking in exotic ports such as scenic Innsmouth and the Black Lagoon.
All in all I'm pretty pleased with the results. It's a pretty fun little piece of terrain to compliment my tramp steamer guys. The next project is a 3-4 foot long tramp steamer with several levels and areas that would act as a full terrain board for "on ship" encounters.