Elmer Time! Part II: Elmer's Revenge!

Part two of geekend with elmer had us playing King of Tokyo, it's a very light Kaiju themed game. You roll shiny black dice with some different symbols and you do this or that depending on what symbols or numbers come up on the dice. This was pretty fun, very light would be good with some kids and multiple players rumbling.

 The last thing we got to was a card game called "Sentinels of the Multiverse". This is a fun golden age of comics themed deck game where players take on the role of a hero with a pre-made unique deck and they team up with other players to fight the system run villian deck.

 This was out villian "Citizen Dawn". Her super power must be "Wiping the floors with all who oppose her" because we never stood a chance.

 I played the Egyptian hero "RA", he was Sun themed in his powers and mystical objects. Plus he had a smokin' tan.

 Citizen Dawn, don't try any funny pickup lines on her.

 These were environment cards, so along with playing out the villian deck each each turn there is some kind of punishing environment effect, like "Neuter Storm" or some other such nonsense.

 This is Elmer, he's a real boy.

 This is my character RA after having taken so much punishment that he could no long carry on the fight.

 

This is the almost worthless box they give you, "here rubber band this crap yourself and throw it in our terribly shaped box that's not in the least bit condusive to card storage".

I had some fun with Sentinels of the Multiverse. The theme is pretty cool and the mechanics on how the villain and environment effects is pretty good in theory. In practice we had our asses handed to us and I could see the hopelessness of it fairly early in the game too so that was discouraging. Some things I've read about the game talked about the balance issues where it either swings really far to one direction or the other. The game just felt really punishing at every turn. We were always getting screwed by minions or environments or whatever and there wasn't all that much to the strategy that I can really say we were doing something wrong. I'd play it again, but it feels like the thing needs some tweaking.

Elmer Time!!! Part 1

So my buddy Elmer was down a while back for what we call "Geekend" and between video games, chili dogs, and high class beverages we maanged to get in a bunch of play time with some games.

First up for the weekend was "A touch of Evil" by Flying Frog games. I really enjoy this one, along with Flying Frog's Last night on Earth. The games are chock full of photo images with live action actors and models. It gives their stuff a really nice cinematic feel.

To me Touch of Evil plays like a light version of Arkham Horror. The game system runs some sort of "big bad" for the players to fight against. In this go round we combined the base game with the expanasion "Something Wicked" but we drew the werewolf monster from the base game. Good enough.



I wish I could remember all of the hilights but what I can remember included my pet dog getting killed in the woods and hordes of rats marching on the town square. Neither of us got bit by the werewolf so we didn't get to play the Werewolf hero mechanic for when the curse takes full effect.

 

The game ended with us both having to face the Werewolf together. This is not how it normally plays out, typically one hero goes to fight the big bad at a tie but some card we pulled or table we were using pushed us into a cooperative battle. There was a good back and forth that caused Elmer to get knocked out, but the fight ended with my character sacrificing herself to kill the brute (double KO). Good stuff. Playing with the expansion adds a lot more ground to cover. It's a little much for two players we found, but it was really cool having the new locations.

 

 

PLASTIC ZOMBIES ATE MY BRAIN!!!

A little over a year ago or so I picked up a couple packs of these Wargames Factory plasti zombies to beef up my zombie horde on the cheap. There was a little bit of drama around that time with that company and I had feared that I would lose my chance to pick these up.

Since getting out of 15mm I pretty much had to rebuild to get an acceptable sized mob. I started painting these way back and then my painting hibernation started. So they were the first thing I wanted to get off my table when I started painting again a few weeks back. These figures are pretty serviceable, the details aren't really all that crisp, but neither are my painting skills so it's really convenient on both counts that zombies are supposed to be ugly looking.

The figures are modular so your supposed to be able to create a mulitude of different combinations. In theory it's a fun idea but in practice you're choices are pretty limited so you end up with zombies walking around in hunting vests and pajama pants or a nice long sleeve dress shirt and tie with khaki cargo pants. Meh, they're zombies, they're cheap, and they do the trick.

What I made my daddy for Christmas.....and didn't post until May.

Hey guys, it's been a long time since I rapped at you. Sorry about that. My desire to paint and do miniature wargaming sort of went into a hibernation for awhile. Life gets in the way you know. I've recently started painting again and I'll post that stuff here, but a lot of my gaming focus over the past year or so has shifted to board games. There's a lot to be said for everything you need being right there for you in the box and ready to go. So you'll see some posts on that coming up. This post concerns the Spartan diorama I made my dad for this past Christmas. About a year or so ago my dad started getting wind of the Wafflehouse and started telling me how much he liked the things I painted. So he told me that he wanted me to paint him some Spartans or Crusader Knights for Christmas. I've always wanted to paint up some Spartans, but don't foresee ever having a gaming use for them so I chose Spartans.

In working on this my dad told me he was a fan of the movie 300, which kind of surprised me. My buddy the good Doctor Merkury said I should try to paint in the stylized sepia pallette that's used in the movie. Frankly I didn't have balls or the skill to pull that off, I tried going for some high contrasts in terrain. I was pretty happy with these and my dad really seems to like the diorama and says it's found a home in his study next to his min Spartan helmet replica that he got when he was in Greece last year.  



RASSLIN'!!!!

So several weeks back my good buddy Doctor Merkury convinced me to go see a live Pro Wrestling event that was put on by an independent promotion called the SWO. I have not been to a live wrestling event in probably 15 years. We had an absolute blast and we started talking about gaming pro wrestling. I still own my copy of the old "WWF Adventure Game" from the early 90's which is a pen and paper rpg game. I remember it being a lot of fun so I set out to try and find some affordable figures. Luckily a company called Jakks makes these generic "Pro Wrestling Ring Starz" which use a lot of the same molds the company used when they were making the WWE "Micro Agression" line.

They make a 20 pack of these 2inch figures that comes with 20 Wrestlers, a ring, an d several weapons and props. I scored a couple of these for $15 a piece and was pretty jazzed. What you see above are the only three sculpts the set offers though, with only variations in paint jobs. So, I got out my Pro-Create sculpting compound to try and make some of these guys look unique. I'm a crap sculptor, but I'm pretty happy with the modifications and paint jobs so far. I used Fusion primer and I'm hoping the paint holds on these as they are gonna take more positioning and posing than your typical wargaming miniature. I also didn't really bother much with shading and detailing on these guys.

These first two are a tribute to two of the memorable characters from the old 8-Bit Nintendo "Pro Wrestling" game. Starman vs. The Amazon. Head Bite anyone?

These are wrestling versions of my friends Jayson and Todd. Todd is the black one.

This is a guy I made up called SharkBite. As soon as I painted the teeth I was in love with this story and was totally off and running conducting a back story for him.

SharkBite, Big Man Japan, and The Revolting Blob

These four are my buddies' and my characters that we made for the one wrestling video game we play. Elmer, Seth, Dave Mysterio, and Mongo. There's also a look at the little championship belts I made for these guys. More of those to come.

Some more characters The Dandy, Alabama Sam, The Enigma.

I'm really excited about playing this. There will be more to follow.

The End of an Era

Below you will find what will most likely be my last 15mm effort. I was given the opportunity to help put together a big "All-In-One 15mm Zombie kit" for the Toys For Tots Charity Gaming Auction that will be held at "Fall-In" this year. I want to thank TMP's "Moe the Great" for all the work he's doing on this auction. I can tell just from the stuff I've seen him coordinating on TMP, that he really cares about this cause. THANK YOU! And thank you for letting me be a part of it! I painted up a whole mess of survivors and "Moe" was painting up a Zombie Horde, a terrain mat, and some terrain pieces. Since I'm getting out of 15mm, on top of painting up the new stuff, I am also throwing in a bunch of pieces from my collection before I sell it all off. On top of all of that, the guys over at Iron Ivan Games donated a copy of "No More Room In Hell". Our hope is that this will be the total package for anyone wanting to get into Zombie gaming or a huge expansion for anyone who feels like they never could have enough Zombie stuff.

Some Rebel Minis Bikers, In fact ALL of the minis that I painted for the auction were donated by Mike at Rebel Minis. He's a good dude. Buy lots of stuff at:
http://rebelminis.com/

Coppers

Various Survivors

More Survivors and Civilians

These are some guys that I had painted already from my current collection. I'm going heavy on Law Enforcement. The Zombies aren't gonna know what hit them.

I'm throwing 30 of my zombies in the mix too. You can NEVER have too many zombies.

Here are vehicles to populate the city including some of my geared up zombie hunting vehicles...and a milk truck.

And finally the buildings that will be in the auction.

So if you are at "Fall-In" this year I highly encourage to to come out and swipe up some great miniatures and help out a great cause. From the looks of it there is going to be a TON of great stuff to be had.
Below is the original call for help showing some of the great items that will be up for grabs:
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=226282

More info on Toys for Tots:
http://www.toysfortots.org/

Thanks for looking!