LATE POST

Well it's been a while, but at last here's a LONG overdue post on the blog!
Family commitments, work, a leaky gutter on the front of the house and mechanical problems with the van have left me with virtually no hobby time to speak of, but thankfully there's still been a trickle of post-worthy progress and finding myself with the opportunity, I'm making the effort - just to restore my mojo.
I'm not going to do anything daft like saying "Things should start returning to normal" (whatever 'normal' is), because the last time a did that, they didn't!!!

Anyhow, I've hardly lifted a paintbrush over the last month, but was determined to keep things at least ticking over, doing a little bit whenever I got the chance - usually while having a Java Lava before setting off somewhere else in the van.
The result of this plan are presented here.....

The drummers are "Musicians" for my Test Of Honour warbands. I decided to mount the pair with the portable drum together on a base, and will treat them as a single mini in the game. Conversely, I trimmed down the large base provided with the Dixon's mini and mounted the drummer on his own base - the drum can now double as a terrain piece.
A "Bannerman" and another Sergeant for the Takeda round off my total, but there's a Mura clan standard bearer still on the bench as 'work in progress'.

Something I would definitely have mentioned earlier was the Warlord Games "£1.00 sprue sale", where I splashed out and ordered a couple of Modern Military and a Female Survivors sprues for the All Things Zombie campaign (Mentioning ATZ, the sharp eyed among you will have noticed that my "Currently Reading" info box displays the latest version of my favourite zombie game, and I have been giving it a thorough read since its release - expect a review / game report soon.), and a Terminator endo sprue for Bladerunner droids, plus Terminator Resistance fighters - also destined for Bladerunner (and any other Sci-Fi games).
Not only is the number of mini's for a fiver great bang-for-the-bucks, but I received another 10% Off all in store purchases voucher....... all I need now is the time to pay them a visit!

I also picked up issue one of the Games Workshop part work whilst on my travels - three pots of paint and a brush for £1.99 is not the sort of price associated with GW, so how could I resist?

 The Space Mu-Reens have gone in the bits box for now, but let me know if you happen to need them to finish off a squad or something.

Now, after the painting and collecting, we move on to the interesting part of this post - gaming.
Being away from home and not being able to play was getting me down, and bless her, my wife noticed. Both of us are big fans of The Walking Dead tv series, and she'd been playing a new game on her mobile phone........

I'm far from keen on this kind of game, but she convinced me that "owt was better than nowt", so I downloaded it and started playing.

DON'T WORRY - THIS IS NOT A POST ABOUT A MOBILE GAME APP !

It's OK as a "gaming fix", but here's the revelation..... for the first time (apart from some 'social' D&D sessions with friends) - we were gaming together and not only that, it opened up the opportunity for me to talk her into actually trying a game of ATZ !!

So, it is with great pleasure that I present a brief AAR introducing Jackie.

Jackie and Cory were out on a foraging run in the downtown area of Lubbock - it's normally quiet around here, but the "Differently Dead" seem a lot more active today!

Even though they've gone in quietly, there's a whole bunch of zeds closing in from all sides. Jackie has ditched the original plan of checking out the diner across the road and decided they should duck into the general store on the corner.
The first PEF has emerged onto the street, but the school bus blocks the line of site

The pair enter the store and thankfully find it clear of zombies, they also see it's already been picked over - but whoever was here previously had left behind a loaded rifle!

Gratuitous overview of the zombies closing in on the store and all three PEF's on the move.

While Jackie started searching for anything else useful, Cory barricaded the front door by pushing shelving and shop furniture up against it...... and here, dear reader, I became engrossed in running the game and its narrative for SWMBO and made a complete hash of what few photo's I did remember to take!

Somehow, while barricading the door, Cory sprained his ankle very badly (Random Event after rolling "doubles" for initiative),

his cry of pain and stream of foul language distracted Jackie, who was sure she'd just spotted someone else out on the street over by the diner entrance (one of the PEF's moving into cover).

The walking cadavers were gathering outside the front of the store, and looking at the state of Cory's ankle, it was no time to risk checking upstairs.

The pair made their way over to the side door and checked for an escape route - a pair of zombies were shuffling along the alley but the crash of broken glass as the store front window gave way under the weight of the swarming undead spurred them on! A blast from Jackie's shotgun took down one of the zeds and cleared a path to safety.

As ever, ATZ:FFO took the game in a completely unexpected direction with the number of zombies generated, and I was worried that my Better Arf wouldn't get as much enjoyment as I'd hoped from such a restricted encounter ("First Impressions" and all that) - however, to my amazement and delight, she loved it !

Many thanks to regular visitors to the blog for your patience, and a big "Hiya" to newcomers Mike and Jonathan. Fingers crossed it won't be another month before the next post!