Happy Battle of Tukayyid Day!

"Thank you for contacting ComStar customer service"

I'm in the process of painting up 24 Mechs in ComStar White. So much fun! I'm not real good with white, so It's a lot of paint white, do some detail and wash, go back and touch-up white. Repeat.

The final mechs actually look okay.

I should have the rest finished up soon, then it will be battle time!

Go Sling Some Paint

Even If It's a Color that is Challenging

Fight Zombie Elvis Impersonators!

 

Zombicide: Army of the Dead by CMON (their last one, I believe) came out late in 2024. A tie-in to the movie of the same name, it was a natural fit.

I pre-ordered a copy and...waited and waited. Finally the notice of shipment!

Six months later I got it. There was a FedEx truck crash in Arizona, insurance claims, and re-stocking woes. It was quite the thing. So when it did finally arrive mid last year I glanced at it, and put it on the pile of "Games I need to get to". 

Somedays, you just wake up and want to kill Zombies. So we pulled it it out to give it a go.

The interesting thing is that this is the only Zombicide product that did not have a crowd funding campaign to launch it. As a result, it is a lean one box set without a pile of (too many) add-ons.

The Good:

Character and Zombie sculpts are amazing. Great variation of Zombie figs, and the three Abominations are really well done.

The graphics are very nice. Sharp and vibrant. The bright fuchsia character boards are well designed and useful. A few minor tweaks to the base rules keep this a fast playing zombie crawl.

The Disappointing:

Nothing really bad or wrong with this game (provided you can enjoy the Zombicide gameplay), so I will just get to the things I wish they would have done.

Missions: Only ten, with no real flow to them. The movie set-up is just perfect for a campaign mode, but no luck there. 

Standard Issues I have with the Zombicide System: Searching is too random and too necessary. The Out of Ammo roll can just doom you very early. Abominations being so all-or-nothing. Zombie actions being too predictable. A bit of randomness in their behavior would spice things up.

Overall, I enjoy this version and we will definitely play through all ten missions and see which ones will be worth replaying. Recommended. 

Go Roll Some Dice

Just Avoid Snake Eyes

Printer Working Hard

 

Longer better, posts next month. Probably. Continuing the short posts for a short month theme: Some Pics of a 3D print!

These are some very nice 28mm sci-fi city buildings. I plan to use them for Cyberpunk and Sci-Fi skirmish games. I have a bunch of street scatter terrain to print up next. It should be very cool.

Go Print Something

Not Everything has to be Grimdark.

  

Tyranid Attack

 

It's been a very busy month. So here is a short form post of pics from a Guard Vs. Tyranid battle from last month.

A fun battle that saw the first use of my newly painted Tyranid terrain. The Guard put up a valiant fight, but it went so wrong, so fast, that by turn three I only had a handful of troopers left. Time for a rematch.

Go Roll Some Dice

Just Shoot Straight For Once

Everyone Loves Hot Mechs (Pt.II)

I had picked up the 35th anniversary started box, mainly because the Unseen were back with really great new minis. I was going to paint up a new Black Widow Company to replace my long lost metal figs just for fun. Then the came the Clans Kickstarter, and hoo-boy the flood gates of awesome mech sculpts were opened. 

Battletech had always had an art problem. I'll not go into it here, as there are many entertaining videos about the '80s and '90s BattleTech art on YouTube. But wow, there was some seriously bad art and mech designs. Add that to the weirdly anemic metal mech miniatures and new players stayed away in droves. 

But now: super clean art, great "realistic" mech designs with well done plastic minis. Home Run.

The kicker for me was Alpha Strike. BattleTech Total Warfare is a wargame, Alpha Strike is a miniatures game. Subtle, but important difference. I enjoy the scale of Alpha Strike more, not to mention the much smoother, faster gameplay. So it's back to the 31st/32nd century for me.

As far as the "everybody is leaving 40K for BattleTech now!" goes, simple answer is no, of course not.

Did some? Sure. I don't know anyone who completely gave up 40K because of BattleTech. (Some of our group gave up 40K for different reasons) 

I still play 40K, I just started playing Battletech again. I love both franchises. Both games (and parent companies) have problems with rules and business issues. Both give me different, good, sci-fi gaming experiences. Battletech is slightly easier to get into, but still has this kinda obtuse wall of Lore that can dissuade new players. Alpha Strike is by far the more teachable rules set, and the box set is a fantastic starting point. 

I'm very pleased to see BattleTech make a comeback on the tabletop. I hope they can sustain it.
 

Go Roll Some Dice

Enjoy the Mech Renaissance

New Year, New-ish Content

 

Happy new year. Let's see how this one goes. In blog plans, I will cover a wider range of games. More Indy (although I'm not quite sure what that means anymore) and small press titles.

Specifically I am going to try Galactic Heroes, Stargrave, and Five Parsecs from Home to start with.

Galactic Heroes primarily because I have a bunch of nicely painted Star Wars Imperial Assault minis just gathering dust. Plus they do make a not-40k expansion as well.

Trying new things will be the focus of this year. Because why not?

Go Roll Some Dice

Maybe With More (Or Less) Than Six Sides

Let's Talk About Mechs, Baby! (Part I)

 

Ahhh Battletech. I picked up Battledroids from my local comic book store back in '84. We had a good time with it, and picked two or three of the twin pack of plastic 1/144 scale mechs. A name change and  year later second edition was released. This was the core of modern Battletech. I played it obsessively for the next five years or so. Loved the expanding lore; the Clan invasion was one of the highlights of gaming. 

Alas Battletech's super detailed game system was a two edged sword. It felt great tracking all the damage on a full 8.5x11 sheet (per mech) you could really fine tune the tactics to the mech(s) you had on the table.

But...It was a slow game. Like, a really slow game.

It took a few hours to fight a 4 v 4 battle with experienced players. Any more than that and your whole weekend is gone. Which also meant there was a real shallow pool of viable scenarios, mostly just matching different types of Lances against each other. 

I guess it is a hyper detailed skirmish game? 

Still, I loved it. Painted a couple of companies worth of metal mechs, read all the novels, tried some of the variant games (Aerotech, Succession Wars, Battleforce, et al) but as time rolled on, my number of plays kept going down. Then three things happened in the early '90s: The amount of good Battletech product releases approached zero, Good PC video games arrived and, of course, Warhammer 40K.  More specifically  Adeptus Titanicus, a giant mech game with (ahem) truly epic battles. That much pretty ended my tabletop Battletech gaming.

However, I never totally abandoned Battletech. I still picked up the novels (such as they were at the time) Played Mechwarrior 2, 3, and 4 a whole lot, and hoped for some kind of makeover of the game system.

Then came the Kickstarter...  To be continued! 

 

Go Roll Some Dice

Giant Robots Make Everything Better

New Paints for Painting

As I've said many times before, I'm an average painter. I do think I've done up a few models that verge on really good, but for the most part I'm painting for the battlefield. My skill has improved over the last five years or so, and I'm pretty happy of where I am at. But that doesn't mean I take don't take small steps forwards, and try new things. 

Waaay back in the early '80s when I was building plastic model airplanes I was painting out of the Testors Model Master paint jars, and it was good.

So it wasn't much of a culture shift when I got into miniature wargaming. I gradually shifted over to Citadel paint pots, mostly for the more appropriate color range, but the water wash-up was new and awesomely better than cleaning my brushes with paint thinner.

The dropper bottles came onto the scene, but I never really cared for them, mostly because I didn't use a pallet, and it just kinda seemed like extra steps for no good reason.

Well, I've slowly come around. I really do like the new Army Painter Fanatic line of paints, and I see the usefulness of the dropper bottles as well. Now that I am expanding with some non-40K minis, the available colors matter as well again. So now I have a mixed arsenal of pots and bottles with a truly wide range of colors to pick from. There are many choices out there, don't limit yourself just because you haven't tried something.

Go Sling Some Paint

Fun Comes in Many Shapes

 

Escape from Projekt Riese Lands

 

Well it took a long time, but my Deluxe version has finally arrived. It has the base game and all the expansion minis in a very nice two box slipcase.

The base game game comes with full color standees and is completely playable without any kind of miniature. The flip book full of maps and scenarios makes for a compact and fast set up/playing game. 

But...

I'm a sucker for minis. WW2 weird war Nazi zombie monsters? Oh my yes. The figures are pretty good. Softer plastic than I would have preferred, but nice sculpts with good details. I'm sure they will paint up just fine. 

I'm going to read the rules and get it on the table this week for festive zombie slaying.

Go Roll Some Dice

Try Something New

Spooky Season Gaming

 

While I wait for my Deluxe version of Escape from Projekt Riese to arrive (next week, juuust missed Halloween) I thought I would throw together a quick list of horror themed games we have played recently.

The new kid on the block. The first game in Rayobx's WW2 zombie games, it is a compact and fast playing solo/co-op zombie killer. 

Fourth(!) in the Horrified series, we have only given it a couple of plays, but it is quite good, and you can add in the monsters from Horrified Greek Monsters (which our current favorite of the lot).

Great for a group of like minded folk, it's silly and fast paced culty fun!

While mostly being long over playing Munchkin, I do like to drag out the Cthulhu set for the Halloween party.

A very fun game, and very thematic, it does a good job of making the player feel hunted. It is a solo only experience, but a very good one. Huge amounts of replayability, and I have a few expansions I've yet to try out.

Still my favorite of the Zombicides, fast and fun, great with 1-4 players. Now if I could just get around to painting the minis...

My new Number One horror game! It's kind of a tower defense style game, but you are trying to get the hell out of there. I will do a review of it soon-ish. 

There are a few classics I didn't mention because they did not hit the table in the last few months. Maybe next year!

Go Roll Some Dice

In Costume!

Dorn On Deck

My Rogal Dorn Heavy Tank has finally reached completion. It had been sitting around waiting for a little bit of touch-ups and decals. 

The main hold up was that my stock of Imperial Guard decals had been consolidated and moved to a safe location. 

Like, really, really safe. So safe I had been mindwiped of where that was. At least that is the story I'm going with.

Eventually, while I was looking for Space Wolf decals I discovered the Guard decals. Such is the way.

Overall I'm very happy with how it turned out. It is a beast on the tabletop, and now looks to match.

Go Finish Something

If you Can Find It.

 

Imperial Walkers on the North Ridge

 

I just had to paint the minis from the Battle of Hoth boardgame. They are really good sculpts with nice lined detail. Which means they should really take a wash well. And that they did!

Task Force Blizzard in all its glory. They look great on the map.

Echo Base Defenders hold the line, in winter style. 

Yes, one of the Snowspeeders has grey stripes. That is Rogue Leader (Luke). I watched the battle scene far too many times to try and pick out details like that. Mostly, I found a bunch of continuity errors. Making movies is hard. But painting these minis was easy! I'm still amazed at the details on these small minis. 

 Now to print up some 3D terrain...

Go Paint Something

And Increase the Immersion