August already!

Maybe I shouldn't be looking forward to Zombtober and the Doctor Who Christmas special quite so much, cos perhaps that's the reason the year is slipping by so quickly!!
Anyhow, I thought I'd introduce a new "feature" to the blog, so this is the first of a regular monthly roundup of what's occurring in my little corner of the gamingverse - how various projects are (or aren't) doing, share any bright ideas (or acts of stupidity), and generally "tidy up" any loose ends from the previous month.
I'd call it something snappy like "The Wargame Addict's Twaddle", but I wouldn't want to cause offence with the acronym so I'll give the title some more thought.

So, let's start with Brad & Hannah and what's going  'behind the scenes' with the campaign.

Once they'd left the table, and doing the 'Afterwards' checks, all four members of the group had killed a zombie, didn't run away, didn't go "Out Of Fight", and of course re-uniting Hannah with her brother meant the objective had been met, so all of them got a chance to increase their Rep scores.
Fate only smiled on Brad (now rep5) and Sarah (now Rep4) - I guess seeing each other safe is ample reward for the siblings!

I already had an idea of what Travis was going to be like as a character (typical guitarist), so I just need to 'flesh him out' a bit, but Sarah and Dwayne appeared out of the blue as the scenario unfolded. They took part in the action as Rep3 citizen grunts, but now need some detail, so with the aid of "Mythic" this is what we have:~
Dawyne (R.I.P.) was a bit of a loner living in the ground floor apartment, and it was he who'd barricaded to outside doors and "secured" the place when he saw the initial TV reports of the outbreak. Having a manual job at a local print factory, he was in fair physical shape, but imagined himself as more of a 'tough guy' than he was thanks to the number of action films he watched on DVD! He'd convinced Sarah and Travis that their best bet was to "sit tight" until the authorities took care of the situation.
Sarah had not long split from a relationship and taken up residence on the top floor. She'd kept her secretarial job and used to commute back to Gainesville, which is where the archery club was also located. She'd developed a bit of a soft spot for Dwayne, who she saw frequently, but thought Travis was a bit of an oddball (or typical guitarist!) who was often away touring with some band or other for days at a time. With the trauma of the recent events, she currently blames Travis and his sister for poor Dwayne's demise - after all, they'd been safe holed up in the apartment until she turned up and he tore down Dwayne's barricade! She hasn't said anything about that yet, so we'll see how things pan out....

Now the scenery has been packed away, it's time for some more work on the apartments.
Andy's suggestion of using tester pots from the major DIY sheds is a great one, and one I've used before on the buildings which live outdoors on my garden railway, but in addition I grabbed a handful of useful (CHEAP) colours from "The Works"

I'll also be using a (CHEAP) homebrew washes when it comes to the weathering courtesy of "Home Bargains" - note: the bottle is blue tinted plastic, the 'rinse aid' liquid is clear.

The cork tiles are currently under a stack of books, and I'll have a go at printing off some more Streets Of Mayhem and stick them on the reverse side to see if they'll "pull" in the opposite direction and straighten the tiles.
While I tackle the problem of my urban layout, I splashed out and ordered the "Battle Systems" City Block game mat which arrived this morning (it was a great morning for receiving stuff in the post, as you'll see later...). Great value, and though it's only 2ft square (well 600mm actually), I can live with that until I arrive at 'The Final Solution'.

There's been a LOT of tempting 'shiney' new stuff  ("new" in a relative sense) featured across the blogs, TWD All Out War, Test Of Honour, Doctor Who and Travel Battle all have massive appeal to me and so far at least, I've managed to resist. This is thanks mainly to staying focused on my current projects (quite an achievement for someone with the attention span of a goldfish!), and having to be careful with the hobby budget.
Also, I've convinced myself that I don't need TWD (though the mini's are fair game) because I'm enjoying ATZ so much. Travel Battle would also be a bit pointless because I have some 2mm stuff from Irregular Miniatures which have always been intended to do exactly the same thing, and a bit of googling around has turned up a  really tasty looking (free pdf download) alternative to Test Of Honour (and Bushido) - if you're interested, check out "Bushi No Yumi", or wait for an AAR / Review here, cos I'm sure I'll be giving it a go.

So, that just leaves me struggling to stay 'out of the time vortex' and my latest ploy was to spend exactly the cost of the Dr Who starter set, on stuff for my current 'work in progress' - Applied Retail Therapy Psychology? and this constitutes the other stuff that arrived in today's post as mentioned above, and included some of the latest releases from Colonel Bill's Depot and featured (appropriately enough) a recruiting party, which a I thought was very apt.

(Photo from Col Bill's website)

I'll end this month's blether with this teaser..............

Something evil approaches Englands shores!

Thanks for dropping by, and I hope you have an enjoyable August - remember "Winter is coming!"

EDIT: I just KNEW I had these squirreled away somewhere and I've just found 'em while having a clearout!