Music for Zombie Gaming - Part 2

Video games do a pretty nifty job of mixing visual with audio and whilst graphically games have come a long way, I think it is the soundtracks that have improved more than anything over the years.

Arguably, some of the worlds finest up-and-coming-composers have cut their teeth on video games, Steve Jablonsky comes to mind, responsible for the first three Gears of War games and all three Transformers movies among others.

Left 4 Dead was a pretty decent game, setting aside the creeping horror for pure unadulterated action and whilst it missed the mark for many purists, it's a popular franchise for good reason, you get to shoot lots and lots of zombies... make that gazillions of zombies!

Mike Morasky's themes are dark, sinister and there's some wonderful use of piano and bluegrass guitar that gives it a small-town American feel form time to time. Pretty much all of the tunes are worth adding. I even like in game recordings from Left4Dead 2 from the Midnight Riders. Last seen somewhere near the whispering oaks fairground. Check out their website for more info.

To finish off, here's another track from me back in 97. Entropy - Machine.

Billy! Get to da Chappa!!!

Ever since I started Zombie gaming I've always wanted to include an obligatory 'Get to da chappa!' scenario in one of my All Things Zombie games.

Trouble is, despite my best efforts, I never really found a decent enough looking helicopter for the right price.

Thankfully I finally managed I pick up this bad boy about 6 months ago.

28mm Model for scale

1/43 scale Fast Lane Agusta A109 fully licensed Die Cast Helicopter.

It was £14.99 from ToysRUs, and I'm pretty pleased with how it looks on the table top and it is likely to feature in my next big game.

Music for Zombie Gaming - Part 1

I don't know about you, but when I get into something, I REALLY get into something.

You know; watch the movie, read the book, wear the t-shirt and listen to the theme tune... whilst drinking a cup of tea from a mug with a bio-hazard logo on it... that kind of thing.

Music has been a massive part of my life for years. Before I got a real job I was a working musician. Click on the EP cover below and you can listen to one of our tracks from 1997.Yes, that's me on bass and lead vocal. Sheesh, 97 feels like a long time ago these days!

When I'm playing a game miniatures game, board game or working on a hobby project, I usually gravitate towards film, television and video game soundtracks.

So for a bit of variety, I'll be posting some of my favourite zombie gaming tracks.

Johnny Cash is not who I naturally think of when it comes to the Zombie Apocalypse in musical form but the use of 'The Man Comes Around' during the closing credits of the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead nailed it for me. This track made the playlist pretty early on.

I'm back!

So... that was what they call a Hiatus then?

After setting up Zombie Shop, and then JJD UK, both of which have been and continue to be fantastic fun, and then taking a full time job over 200 miles from home things became a little difficult to keep the blog going. Travel, late nights and a crazy schedule meant something had to give, unfortunately it was the blogging.

So. Just over 18 months later and I'm finally back home, this time (fingers crossed) for good.

Thankfully there wasn't a complete vacuum in gaming or hobby or Zombies, and luckily, after starting blogging I got into the habit of taking pictures of things as I made them, so to make up for lost time, I'll be posting a few tasty morsels of everything I've been up to.

So what's next?

There's the completion of Outbreak City for my All Things Zombie campaign, quite a bit of Dust Tactics, new survivors for ATZ, some Judge Dredd miniatures, a 3D Incursion Board (that's half-way through) and more Live Roleplaying fun.

Most of all though... I've missed you guys.

Malifaux Crew - Seamus and The Red Chapel Gang

"There's no problem that cannot be solved by throwing a few dead hookers at it."

Malifaux Ressurectionists - Seamus and the Red Chapel Gang

That quote, allegedly from one of the Malifaux developers, caught my attention.

I was in the mood for something different, something new and something I could get on the table and play quickly without spending a vast amount of money on it.

Malifaux seemed to fit the bill perfectly. Card-based mechanic, scenario driven and low model count. Victoriana-Steampunk-Horror-with a dose of Wild West and the entry cost was low; awesome-hobby-sauce!

The fate decks are superbly flavoursome.

Without any clue as to what sort of tactics I might favour with any crew, I did what the sensible hobbyist does.

I browsed the pretty figures and chose the ones that made me go "Oooooh perty!"

I settled on Seamus Crew Boxed Set: The Red Chapel Gang, a fate deck and a copy of the updated small rules manual, all from Arcane Miniatures. The rulebook is well laid out and easy to read but worth noting it doesn't contain any background or fluff.

For a change, I actually missed the fluff

The models were a little awkward to assemble and I broke the end off Sybelle's riding crop. With no hope of re-attaching it I had to model something from scratch, it ended up a little too bit, but it won't be breaking off anytime soon.

The crew took about 3 sessions to finish and they first saw action a few weeks back.

The bases are miliput and I have a battened 3'' by 3'' board ready to model in a similar style.

First impressions of the game are great. Easy to learn mechanics gain depth when characters combine abilities and 'trigger' enhanced outcomes and the scenario-driven gameplay means there's not always a stand-up fight leading to a tactical, though-provoking exchange rife with cunning and shifty looks as you figure out what on earth your opponent is trying to achieve. AND... there's zombies in it! :)

Poor undead ladies got macerated by mechanical Shelobs!

I'm sold on it and plan to model the game board later this year before picking up a few new additions to the crew.

Outbreak City: How to Build a 28mm Zombie Gaming Table - Part 4

With the show looming and with TONS of work still to do I kinda knew I had to knuckle down and get the 'texturing' stage finished. You can play All Things Zombie on any surface really, but once I had the vision in my head, I just had to make it a reality.

I was working away from home during the week whilst this project progressed, and I wanted to get this to a 'ready-to-paint' stage before going  away again on the Sunday night.

Rather than lock myself away in the man-cave, and miss out on my family, I commandeered the living room on Saturday morning and set about moving things forward whilst the family caused even more chaos all around me.

The texturing progressed.

Whilst I was 100% behind this method, I couldn't help wonder what had really let myself into.

Cutting out squares of card for something small is one thing, anyone who has scratch built a slate roof knows that by the time you hit the second half the novelty diminishes, but this, as simple as it was in principle, was something else.

Perhaps I had over-estimated the time it was going to take... maybe... perhaps... erm... yeah... I did. A lot.

Minutes rolled into hours and daylight vanished. By the time everyone was tucked up into bed I put a little backgorund inspiration on.

Resident Evil flowed into Night of the Living Dead and as the credits rolled on Dawn of the Dead a little face appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Were they being chased by monsters Daddy?" Whoops, error.

My daughter was a awake and quite possibly scarred for life. It was around half three in the morning and I still had loads to do if I wanted to get a sealing coat of paint into the boards. I should be taking her up to bed again and settling her down.

"Can I help Daddy?"

I need all the help I can get, and my daughter; a hobbyist? Epic.

"Yes please." I confessed.

My other half woke up a few minutes later. For some inexplicable reason, none of us could sleep, so, perhaps in sympathy, an army of cardboard engineers marched onwards.

Cardboard Engineer Reinforcements - 3.30 am. Thank you guys - I love you.

Not only was the help appreciated but with three people sticking the tiles down, things progressed ever more rapidly. We finished the boards by the time the sun came up and thankfully, we all hit the sack, exhausted.

One of three 2' by 4'  sections.

On an easy Sunday filled with lots of sitting down quietly, pancakes and copious amounts of strong coffee I headed to the garage and sealed the edges of the boards and the sidewalks.

Sealing the main detail on the board, and the sides of the battens, with MDF Primer.

So far so good. Perhaps more of a 'How NOT to' guide for this stage, but after a close call the project was back on track again.

To be continued...

All Things Zombie

Random Encounter 1 - Scratch Built Ork Stompa

Following a huge amount of support from fellow bloggers I'm going to throw in a few random encounters These random encounters will include some of the non-zombie stuff I've been creating over the past few years, either just before or alongside the Outbreak City project.

Well badly Mech!

I recently discovered that Warhammer 40K had it's 25th Anniversary. That sounded like quite a cool landmark until I realised that it meant I had been playing 40K for 25 years; Yikes!


Ball point pen Supa Rockets!

As an Ork player who has never owned anything but Orks so, quite frankly, I'm not that good at 40K and haven't really developed any strategy other than a massed assault. GW got me into this hobby so despite me playing a whole heap of different games now, I still play 40K and LOTR occasionally.

Belly plates. Sigil is off the original Stompa.

Sat in my bits box for a number of years was the interior of a small waste paper bin which my buddy James said "You should make than into a Stompa." It seemed like a good idea, but I guessed a scratch-built Stompa would require quite a bit of work and whilst my bits box was full, there wasn't quite enough Orky Stuff.

Titan Close Combat Weapon - GW, Lego and other bitz.

With the introduction of Apocalypse, and the super-heavies, the Orks were blessed with one of the coolest Orky models ever, the Stompa. I picked one up and after struggling to build it (It isn't the easiest kit to build, but it looks good) I found they had very kindly included a few optional accessories. The excuses had to end, I now had the Orky bits I needed to scratch build another stompa.

Big Shoota turret.

The model progressed with polystyrene being parcel taped to the waste paper bin to build a basic frame with a layer of papier-maché on top to give a solid base for everything else to come.

Da bit dat makes da smoke and noise!

The feet were cardboard tube 'legs' with Hirst Arts blocks and for everything else I raided the bits box and tried to replicate GW's Stompa as closely as I could.

Ork pilot, otherwise known as a Stompa-er.

Cardboard and plasti-card 'plates' were glued onto the papier-maché with individual rivets super-glued in place. The head was a deodorant cap with stuff stuck on. Cannons, shootas and rockets were made from everything from pipes, to pens, to bits off an old star wars toy - essentially all the best junk out of my bitz box. I used spare goblin and Ork figures and one I'd saved from the original Stompa.

"We will fix it, we will mend it!"

It took quite a bit of time to finish and being a model for a GW game, enter scale creep (it ended up bigger than intended), but all it does the trick.

Shoulder plate courtesy of Darth Vader's Tie Figther circa 1980 something.

We tend to work on 'secret' projects for our 40K Apocalypse games so that there can be a big reveal come gaming day (a tradition stated by James), and this one was fun to deploy.

That's what I call a Deth Kannon!

And I couldn't post this without a comparison shot. Mummy on the left, completely scratch built. Baby on the right; GW's kit, with a few bits missing, used on mummy.

If 40K is your thing here's a video from a 40K Apocalypse game played in the Man-Cave back in May 2010, 7000 points per side. The two Stompas see action side by side.

Next time, we return to the construction of Outbreak City for my All Things Zombie campaign.