East Of Jacksboro

Following on from the previous encounter ( Jacksboro ), once they'd cleared the suburbs, Brad had made his mind up that they needed to try and make good their losses from leaving the RV behind. A short time 'off the road' to plan their next move and grab some shut-eye would also be a good idea - he didn't use the old phrase "Grab some Z's" anymore!.
An isolated single storey house appeared on a bend up ahead, and Brad eased on the brakes and cut the motor..........

....... playing "fair", I still rolled for any zombies generated by the engine noise where the pickup entered the encounter area before also rolling for the five members of the group - were the results typical of how this encounter would go?!

The group climbed out of their vehicle and assessed the situation -

Jacksboro was the centre of a busy agricultural area, and there were a LOT of wandering zeds surrounding them, probably from farms and packaging plants in the vicinity. They also thought they saw movement at the far end of the hedgerow in front of the house which turned out to be just bad cases of nerves, (raising the ER to 3), and to their surprise, a young woman holding a rifle was standing just beyond the house!

Amy Littlelake. Rep3 Pep1 Sav2 Free Spirit BAR and 1 food

She seemed friendly, but a little bewildered so Brad yelled over to her to head for the house as he set off with the group straight for the front door. Obviously in some state of shock, Amy stood rooted to the spot. (Failed to activate)

Brad lashed out at the zed barring their path, knocking it to the ground where Nate finished it off with a well aimed kick to the head - it didn't even get chance to groan, but the surrounding zombies could be heard as they stood around watching the survivors hungrily.

Brad was relieved to find the front door unlocked, and raced to the back of the house as soon as he'd swung it open and seen the main room empty -

Nate and Zac took up positions by the windows, and Travis closed and bolted the door as Hannah followed Brad towards the rear doors.

Amy was still rooted to the spot as the zombies were moving in! (Still failed activation) Brad and Hannah yelled at her to make a run for the house before it was too late!

Their shouts seemed to spark her into life, and she ran towards the door where Brad ushered both girls into the safety of the house,

closing the (glass!) doors behind him as he stepped inside with the zeds closing in,

on both sides of the house.

Brad quickly ordered the furniture rearranged to buy some extra time.

To Be Continued....

 

Meanwhile on the painting front, I was recently lucky enough to grab the 'survivors' from the Zombicide Black Plague core set. The four guys will eventually get done as a party of adventurers for D&D,

but the girls (which were the main reason I bought the set) jumped the queue and have been painted straight away for Witchfinder General

and of course, the week wouldn't be the same without knocking out another cavalry regiment - this time a little more colourful, and representing Astley's cavaliers.

 
We've got three days 'on the road' this weekend, so I probably won't be able to visit any blogs or respond to any comments until Monday, so until then, thanks for your time here and I hope you make the best of the weekend before the next Big Chill arrives.

Less IS More

Well, it certainly seems to be the case when applied to painting units for my fledgling ECW armies!
Hobby time has been severely limited this week (not helped by me also spending some time finally finishing "Resident Evil:Biohazard" on the Playstation!), but I've still managed to add another regiment of horse - Royalist this time, which have spent far less time under the brush than the previous unit.

Major Wormsley's Regiment of Horse

I deliberately chose another unit of buff coated arquebusiers so there would be a direct comparison with the previous paint session, but for these guys I started off by fully assembling the models, with the riders fixed on the horses, so painting would be as per a 'one piece casting'.
After priming, I decided to limit the range of colours for their palette,  and also "eased back" on picking out individual details (a step which proved to be really difficult, as the temptation to keep revisiting each mini was extremely hard to overcome!).
This meant adopting the mentality of viewing the whole, grouped  'unit' as I would normally view a single 'model', and concentrating on getting them to look OK on the table from normal viewing distance (they'd win no prizes in any painting competition, but they're not destined to sit on any display shelves - I think the word is "functional"!)

The speed painting allowed me to paint up the excellent little "Tavern Set" from Col. Bills,

and some casualty markers for the "Victory Without Quarter" rules,

proving that not only does the new approach to painting cavalry units save me time, but also doesn't  dent the painting mojo like the last regiment did!

Just to finish this post, here's yet another reminder why you should always keep an eye on the toy shelves in your local charity shop - I couldn't believe my luck this week, when I spotted this for 50p

The info on the chassis tells me it's a Maisto Humvee made in China, and because it's not 'playworn' the paint job will be OK until I find the round tuit that'll allow a repaint.

As ever, a big thankyou for visiting, and for those that prefer batreps to bodges, the next post should be more to your liking.

Ironsides

It's been a very busy week with work, and apart being able to enjoy some quick reads of the blogs (thanks guys!), hobby time has been at a premium. I was determined to post something this week though, so here's the 'speed bump'  that slowed down painting progress last week-

Byron's regiment, which adds two troops of horse to the tally.

I know my Achilles Heel for this project is mounted troops, which in theory should take about the same time as twice the number of foot to assemble, paint and base, but for some reason are taking me longer.
One "mistake" I made with these guys was to paint everything individually before final assembly - the next unit will be fully assembled first and then painted just like a 'one piece casting' along with  trying a few different techniques to try and speed things up, to see how much time that saves.

Very brief, but a 'progress report' none the less and I shall try to make up for it next week!

A Glitch In The Matrix

It's been one of those weeks - everything was going so well, busy with work but still managing to get plenty of hobby stuff done, then everything just came to a grinding halt!
"Cat sitting" for our next door neighbour and "camera fixing" for a friend are my convenient excuses, but I fear it was the pain of assembling a dozen plastic horses and riders (with an average of seven parts to each) that knocked me off my stride. I'm beginning to really dislike the time involved with these 28mm multi-part 'kits' - and I've just received my parcel from Warlord Games containing yet more of 'em, after taking advantage of the recent "Three For Two" offer on their website!

So, what did I manage before the glitch, well, after the previous post, I continued to experiment with "Mini Mold" and this time tried simply applying sand, grit and small pebbles to the base (saving all that time sculpting the ground) before pressing the mould, and I used 'standard' Miliput (half the price of the 'fine' variety I used on the previous marker) to see if it would pick out the detail well enough.

Ignore the mini - he's just there as part of the experiment on this test piece, but I'm more than happy with the way this method has turned out and see it as the way ahead.

On the painting table, the ECW project has continued with the addition of a green regiment of foote,

and I've added a few more individuals to the Witchfinder General population, that will also conveniently double as "Reload" markers for the ECW battle games.

The charity shops haven't turned much up of interest recently, but I found a very pink, well playworn "Matchbox Speed Kings Dodge" for 50p. I knew exactly how I wanted this to look, and once the rivets were drilled out, I took the car apart and gave it a coat of black primer,

followed by a stippled 'rust' colour to turn it into a Rat Rod, which shouldn't look out of place in either ATZ:FFO, Blade Runner, or post apocalypse games.

Finally, NOT part of this week's output, and just for Simon, who wanted to see it - here's my one and only (at the moment!) 'Clix mini that I mentioned in a comment over on the Fantorical blog, where there's some fantastic work being done converting these 'toys' into mini's fit to grace the table top.
Please bear in mind that this is a very old "conversion" I did years ago, and it's simply a coat of PVA glue followed by a dip in the sand tub, followed by a quick lick of paint to turn The Hulk into a Hulking Earth Golem for my D&D games!

Before I return to the task of trying to get those two troops of horse finished for next week, thanks again for visiting, and for any comments you might leave - especially if you have words of advice on how you reduce the tedium of assembling units of plastic miniatures!!