"To The Man-Cave!"

In the spirit of a few other blogger's recent posts I thought I'd share a couple of shots of the man-cave.

The man-cave.

It isn't always this tidy.
When we originally viewed the house some 7 years ago the vendor showed us into a back room as she stated "...and this is the games room." Within seconds I'd re-decorated and was figuring out how to fit in two 6' by 4's. There's a room just off this with a sink, and storage area and a seperate washroom. A kettle was added to the ante-room for our last gaming weekend and once a beer fridge is installed (planned for later this year) we can dissapear into the realm of battle without surfacing in the rest of the house for weeks at a time.

Outbreak City's Aftermath
Whenever I play a game I have been planning and working on for some time two things happen:

1) I breathe a huge sigh of relief, content in the warm glow of gaming geekery
2) I get giddy about new projects and start something fresh for the playset.

New projects include: more vehicles for my 40K Orks, some 15mm moderns, the completion of some Star Wars Miniatures 3d terrain and a stupidly ambitious 1/35th scale WW2 skirmish set. All good stuff, but what about the undead for All Things Zombie?

I recently spent a long session basing my Studio Miniatures Zombie Horde 1 hjust before the big game, but didn't get a chance to paint them all. I used the miliput method and, for the most part, copied the examples of the Studio Miniatures marketing shots as reference. It was only the 3rd time I've used miliput. This week's lesson covered mixing only the amount you can work with before it cures. Whoops.

Base Monkey Mafia. SM Horde plus Hasslefree WIP.

I couldn't wait to get some paint on them and so (after the Hazmats were finished) started right away. I've almost finished the first few. The rest should follow shortly.

Studio Miiniatures - WIP (+an old GW mini on the right)

I picked up a couple of new 1/43 scale cars to add to the collection.

Alpha Romeo - Tourer
New York Checker Cab

I am particularly pleased with the New York taxi. I assume it is only supposed to be seen in New York (perhaps someone can confirm if they are found elsewhere) but they are so iconic - let's just say Outbreak City has yellow checker cabs too.

My first battle report was run using the 2005 All Thing Zombie rules and I felt that an upgrade was long overdue.  I picked up ATZ- Better Dead than Zed from Two Hour Wargmes last week. I experienced superb customer service from Ed at THW. I placed my order for the pdf. version on a Sunday and I was reading the rules just a few hours later. Thank you Ed. They look great so far. We have a couple of games planned for the weekend of Salute, in addition to a trip to the show. One using ATZ - BDTZ and one using No More Room in Hell. I'm looking forward to our Undeadathon.

I ordered some Litko THW token sets (here and here) and eagerly await their arrival. One of the reasons I wrote the batrep in a narrative style was that when I looked back at the pictures I simply couldn't remember at what point in each turn I had taken them (there were over 50 taken in the end). I found it surprisingly difficult to explain what is happening in game mechanic terms and tell the story at the same time. I am interested to see if the Litko tokens help make it a little easier to translate what is going on. My hat goes off to anyone who has written batreps. Writing my own has made me appreciate what goes into them all the more.

14 comments:

  1. Nice man cave, plenty of room in there, good painting start on those excellent studio miniatures, like the yellow cab (iconic), might see you at Salute (some of the rejects are going), definitely need some pictures from your games even just as eye candy.

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  2. Nice Man cave fella, I Gotta get that big fat female zombie, she sooo reminds me of dawn of the dead... warm giddy geeky feeling.

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  3. Cheers guys. It was great to finally get a space I could do what I wanted with. I really was sold on the place the minute I walked in. Thankfully my better half loved the rest of the house too. :)

    TAL - Yup, Meeting up at Salute would be cool, happy to share other game shots too.

    The Extraordinarii - She really does look just like that DoTD remake lady-zomb, even down to the nightdress. Highly recommended.

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  4. Very nice Ad - keep up the good work! I use DAS modelling clay for my bases; no mixing problems with that.

    @Extraordinarii: You should watch Doghouse for a big, fat 'zombird' ... euwh!

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  5. I love seeing pics of other gamers' dens. (Memo to self - must take pics of mine sometime soon.) Is that an Aliens pulse rifle on your table? Whatever it is, it looks way cool.

    To wade into the fat female zombie debate, she always reminded me of the old lady the fire crew were called in to investigate at the start of the film REC.

    Nice to hear you appreciate the effort it takes to post an ATZ batrep. It takes me about three days to prep such a post, which is often longer than the time it took to play the scenario!

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  6. Your "man cave" is bigger than my whole house!!!! XD
    I'll be to Salute too with my girlfriend but my spoken english is far worse than my written one!!
    I hope to see you there... :)

    About batreps, I'm terrorised at the idea of preparing my future ones, it's already difficult to write them in an interesting way (and you all managed to), but I'll have to write them in different languages.... HELP!!!! ;)
    Ciao

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  7. @Vampifan: Maybe he's just pleased to see you ...

    ;)

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  8. I'd never seen the "fat lady zombie" fig before, really, really cool.

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  9. Oooohh.....nice place!! Studio miniatures really makes some great figs!!

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  10. Oh, what a nice and tidy man cave. Seems to be much more comfortable than my dark subterranean lair (wanted to be an evil genius, but failed on both accounts).
    But...maybe you didn't clean up the room...you are just hiding everything under your big table! :o)

    Whiteface / Oliver

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  11. Sounds like a Salute bloggers meet up is in order, or in the very least a vast number of 'show-and-tell' posts :)

    Whiteface - The junk and mess is what is holding the table up! :)

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  12. That is actually awesome. I would love somewhere like that to call my own

    Following!

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