When Zombies attack!

Zombies in all shapes and sizes, plus a few survivors to try and make it through the night.

First up, the survivors.
Poor guys look a bit rough for wear. A grease monkey and a fireman.

But look at what's after them!





Will they make it through the night??
Stay back you devils!!

All these minis are from Griffin Miniatures. Good solid chunky metal miniatures, I've got plenty of these left to paint, so stay tuned!

I also got a the first set of Studio Miniatures zombies, which are a great looking set of minis. I can't wait to start digging into those as well.

I'm notoriously slow at painting, however...

My yearly blog entry....

Allright, admittedly I don't post here much. Or at all.





But, on the plus side, I am starting to get more antsy to start painting again. I did do these a few months back, nothing super, but fun still:

It is a Alpha Forge Mephalian 'GORT'. A huge beast of Burden used by the strange aliens of Star Mogul. I sculpted some horns on this one, just to give it a different look. It actually ended up looking like a bad 1960's female hair do. Not that there is anything wrong with that!

I'm working on some zombies and hope to have some pics up of those one day. Don't hold your breath.

Last Night on Earth Boardgame Review (and me carrying on).

ACK! I return, after a several month hiatus. It has been a while. Miniature wise, I really haven't done much painting. I can't seem to muster up the will to do it, and now that summer is here, there are far too many things to do outdoors (even if it's just sitting outside).

Miniature gaming appeal to me. I like the story they tell, which to me, is always of more importance than the actual winner of the game. I like the visceral look and feel of well painted miniatures moving across a tabletop filled with inspiring terrain. Unfortunately, I don't get alot of time to do any gaming. With the miniature games I have had in the past, I've barely even tried them. I do enjoy reading through the rules, but preparing and painting the miniatures is just something that takes me too long. Plus, creating terrain is extremely time consuming (and takes lots of space). Don't get me wrong, I enjoy that as a hobby in and of itself, but it's not conducive to keeping my interest in a game. I'm just not a fast enough or dedicated enough painter to field a fighting force by the time my interest wanes.

That being said, there is something about an all inclusive boardgame that piques my interest. As soon as you can muddle through the rules, you can begin playing. No cleaning mold lines, priming, and then taking weeks to paint a few characters. No building terrain and hoping you'll get a chance to field it all. Just pop the box open, set down the board and start throwing dice .

And I did just that with Flying Frogs Productions boardgame, Last Night On Earth.

As you can see by the box art, LNOE is a survival horror game, with the particular menace of everyones favorite brain eaters, zombies. The game is designed for 2-6 players, with folks playing as either the shambling zombies, or a combination of small town heroes.

The game has all the flavor of a B movie. Cheesy stereotypes fill the small town of Woodinvale, the game's fictional setting. From the farmer's daughter, to the luckless drifter, all the archtypes you'd expect in a zombie movie are present. The production levels are quite high and that is showcased in all aspects of the game itself.

The game board, which consists of a two-sided 'town square' area and six 'L' shaped add-ons are printed on a very solid cardstock and feature clean and detailed art representing buildings and areas from the town. In fact, all of the game counters, which include everything from a wound marker to the 'old pickup truck' are well done and have a sturdy feel. All should hold up nicely to many gaming sessions. Most of the art uses actual photos of actors playing the roles. This artistic choice adds tremendously to the B movie feel. You can almost hear the bad one liners.


The game packs a bunch(16) of small six sided dice, a music soundtrack CD (more on that later), the playing boards, the cards, and best of all, miniatures! The miniatures are surpisingly well detailed. Let me take that back, they are sculpted by Gael Goumon, a fantastically gifted sculptor that does many of the Wyrd Games minis (among many others), so it's no surprise that they are so intricate. There are eight of the townsfolk/heroes represented, and three seperate zombie sculpts which are duplicated to give you a grand total of fourteen braineaters. The material they use is a soft, rubbery plastic and although I've heard of some people painting the miniatures, I think I'll be satsified leaving them just as is.


Gameplay is relatively straightforward. There is a 'basic' game that allows you to get up to speed with the rules rather quickly. The advanced game throws in more rules, differing scenarios and set-ups that should allow for great replayability and a variety of depth. I admit to only playing through the basic rules set and using the the simplified scenario. The scenario we played is simply to kill 15 zombies before 15 turns end. The turns are ingeniously measured by a 'sun counter' which represents the setting of the sun. Run out of sunlight before you hit your zombie-killing-quota and it's game over for our heroes.


The latest game we played had four of the hapless heroes struggling to stay away from the ever increasing, and slow moving horde. They ran from the high school to the gun shop in an effort to arm themselves, only to have their luck run out as the zombies swarmed. Sally, the high school sweetheart, proved to be a dead aim, killing a zombie almost on every turn in the later stages. Sadly, she was overrun, and eaten when she ran out of ammo and desperately tried to get away. The zombies made quick work of the luckless drifter, Jake Cartright, and put an end to the game with four rounds to go. No word on why the Sheriff and the High School Quarterback were so ineffective, although the horror of seeing poor Sally devoured may have been too much. The zombie death count was a frustrating 13, but our heros couldn't remain composed long enough to finish them off and get the 15 count needed for the win. I am very excited to try out the other scenarios and implementing the advanced rules. That is something I plan on doing in my next gaming sessions.



The game uses a combination of dice rolling and playing special cards. The cards grant things such as health bonuses and guns to the heroes and vicious fighting and movement bonuses for the zombies. Knowing when to play the cards in your hand adds yet another layer of strategy to the wild romp.



A typical game would seem to be from about one to two hours long.

Gamer support can be found from the companies website, as they have several scenarios and rule additions for free download. I'd like to see more of a FAQ on the website, as some of the rules could bear further explaination. A forum, for game fans to discuss ideas, would be a nice addition too, but those really have no bearing on the product at hand.


The soundtrack CD as I mentioned earlier is a clever novelty to throw in. It's well done in the same vein as the rest of the production value, and actually adds a great tension as a backdrop to the game. I highly doubt the music will become a top download on I-TUNES, but that is not what it is designed for. It's background music, to add a creepy ambiance. It has the effect of giving me more 'bang' for my buck, something I truly appreciate.


And it does give me a great bang for my buck. Compare the price of this game, which is roughly 45-50 dollars, to any other form of media entertainment, and I feel I am getting a fantastic deal. As I mentioned earlier, I like games played with miniatures, and realistically it is the boxed boardgame of this sort that is delivering that to me. Tannhauser (see review earlier in this blog) was another recent game to make me realize this. I'm not giving up on traditional tabletop miniatures games, as I'll still most likely paint, but these boardgames are allowing me to game without the guilt of not having my fighting force painted up (or even assembled!)


The game plays out like a movie (albiet a cheesy one), and to be honest, that is what has captured my imagination the most. It is the story, or the simulation of feeling like you are in the story that makes this type of gaming appealling. LNOE has captured the survival horror very nicely, and I am extremely pleased with the product. I highly recommend you try this game.





The company already puts out an expansion set to the original game, called Growing Hunger, which includes four more miniatures representing new heroes and seven more 'red' zombies. The new set also boasts additional rules, game boards, and scenarios and will add great life to the title. As I give LNOE some more playtime, I may give this a go. Also, I noticed a WEB only set of cards and scenario for the original game. I find myself wanting to support companies that put out this quality of a product. Especially when it is a small independant company that obviously shows much passion for what they do. They've managed to put out a solid, entertaining game with high production values and great replayablilty. Plus, you get to eat brains. How can you turn that down?

Iron Painter!

Over at one of my favorite internet hangouts Wyrd Games www.wyrd-games.net, I started this little painting competition that is blossoming into something pretty cool.

We are now in the '4th' Season of the contest, although that only means we've done three others. There is no real time frame, just whenever it comes about.

Here is basically how it works: I do a signup sheet of interested participants, randomly match them up in one on one pairings, give them two weeks to finish a miniature and upload a picture. At that point a team of impartial judges (not me!) scores each mini in three different categories. I then figure up the results, announce the winners, and redo, until there is a single champion.

The twist is that with the announcement of matchups, I also announce a specific 'theme' ingredient that the painters need to incorporate into their work. Some themes are painting techniques such as NMM (non metallic metals, using non metal paints to represent metal items), some themes are more mundane, such as the 'Green with Envy' theme where painters were required to use green prominently, some are rather esoteric. We had a theme once of "angry". The artist are asked to represent that somehow in their work. Not as easy as it sounds.

Another feature of the contest is it's gruelingly short deadline periods. Two weeks seems like a long time, but to do that consistantly for what could be 4 or 5 rounds really takes its toll. Real life has a way of butting in, and only the toughest painters can scratch their way to victory..thus the name IRON Painter.

Here are some THEME examples:


vincegamer's version of Object Source Lighting (OSL) Object Source Lighting basically means that the miniature is painted with a 'light source'. All highlights and shadows are emphasized to give the illusion the light source is real. So the light you see coming from the candle, and the shadows...all painted on. Vince is a master of theme interpretation, always well done, always clever.

Another Theme from Season One was 'weathered'. Skya (The Champion from Round One) interpreted the theme to show her character in 'weather'...Raining in this account:Skya aka Noel, is a fantastically talented painter, and her ingenious themes and fantastic brushwork makes her a favorite for the latest competition as well.

Here's another, this one from Season Three. The theme was PAINT IT BLACK, a take on the Rolling Stones song, the painters were required to use the color black prominently. This is OrkyDave's vision.


That's just pure genius!!

That's just a small sampling of some of the clever and inspiring painting. Come on over and watch from the sidelines, or get yourself involved in the next one.

The contest started out as just a fun 'community activity' for the denizens of the Wyrd site. To make the contest fun, we ask each participant to pony up with a fee of either 5 dollars, or a miniature to go directly to their victor. Also, during the two week 'paint period' painters are encouraged to show Work In Progress shots, give points, try to bribe judges, and talk good natured 'smack' to their opponents...all in all it makes for quite a spectacle!!

Oddly enough, the past three Iron Painters have been women. A fact not lost on anyone. Skya, Wren, and Cdukino all now can claim to be true IRON PAINTERS! The rest of the contestants have fallen short. Both Wren and Skya have entered the latest version, but there is some stiff competition already. Only time, and judging will tell. The grand prize is a tidy little sum of $100 cash and a gift certificate of $50 to the Wyrd store! Random prizes will also be available.

The Iron Painter is something that has become very popular, and I hope it continues to grow. I am very proud of it, but moreso proud of the people that have made it what it is..

A special thanks to Nathan (frustrated father) for allowing the webspace and judging, EricJ and Ritual for judging and support, and a very long list of helpful and generous painters and contributors. A special thanks to Duende for sending me a spreadsheet to help me with my math...LOL She also sent along oodles of minis to be given away for prizes, as well as competing and brainstorming on how to make it an even better event.

A review of Tannhauser.

Tannhauser is a French boardgame newly translated to English. It is available at the Fantasy Flight Games, sells for just about 60 bucks.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/tannhauser.html

I'm rather a novice gamer, so take that into consideration with my review.

I love it.

Should I make my review more detailed? Ok, will do....

First off, the setting is just right for me. It's an 'alternate' universe where the Great War never ended. The forces of the Reich have continually been at war with the forces of the Union for 30 years. It isn't strictly an Alternate WW2 game, I suppose to simply to keep those nasty Nazi's out of it. That makes sense on a global sales scale. (Germany for instance bans any display of a swastika). But, make no mistake, the Reich is filled with characters right out of an Indiana Jones movie.

The gameboard itself is a thick, folding piece of card pre-printed on both sides with different game maps. One map is the first floor of a Keep, while the reverse is of the Crypts below, where the Reich have been up to no good. They have found some 'should've remained buried' secrets. My board is a bit dark, and unless you have good lighting can pose a challenge to see all the glorious detail.

The key feature of the board, is the Pathfinding system. This feature, which basically consists of multi-colored rings or spaces, allows you to determine line of sight, movement and range quickly and easily. There are a few flaws in the system. A few areas are not so easily discernible, but working these kinks out fairly and quickly has not been a problem for us.

Each side, which consists of 5 characters, is kept track of by a very nice 'character' card, with a neat system to easily track wounds and other stats during the course of a game. Each character is allowed 'slots' to carry equipment, weapons, and special items. We've only done limited experimentation swapping around the characters 'kits' but it seems a small kit change can make for quite a difference in game play.

The 10 minatures come pre-painted, and I wasn't disappointed in the quality. Of course, they are not as nicely painted as one could do with a bit of effort , but if I had to paint them, I doubt I would have even played a single game yet. If I had my druthers, I'd have them all painted up like this:

That is the 'Strossentruppen' (affectionately known as Stabby Stabberson in our games) painted up by Spacemunkie, a good friend of mine from Cool Mini Or Not. Damn that dude can paint, but I digress... You can buy unpainted versions of all 10 minis on the French site Take On You. The quality of the pre-paints is more than adequate for our needs though.

The game can be played several different ways, with a story themed 'objective', capture the flag, or our favorite, straight up deathmatch. The difficulty levels simply equate to Easy= 2 reinforcements, Medium=1 reinforcement, and Hard, where reinforcements are shit out of luck. You cannot call in reinforcements (which are always 'troop' types not heroes)until one of your troops die off, so there is never more than 5 characters per side, regardless of the difficulty.

The story mode, while seemingly interesting, hasn't captured enough of our attention yet, so I will have to pass on reviewing that until we log some more time at it. Same goes for the Capture the Flag element. Deathmatch, well...that's pretty much all we want to play. Play is fast and furious, with a decent game taking about 1 hour. Automatic kills are not uncommon, and while it's a bit discouraging, I like the 'realness' it brings. It also makes you think twice before charging into an area. You may not survive the round if you do. There are items such as grenades, smoke grenades, health packs, etc. that can be strewn around the board in 'crates', giving a very nice computer 'first person shooter' feel.

The weaponry seems nicely balanced, although it does favor the Reich for close in fighting, and the Union for a more ranged approach. So, if you are a 'in your face, close and personal' type of player you may want to lean towards the Reich.

The two game boards actually bear this out as well. The Keep game board has lots of tight corners and closed off quarters...which could be why (at least in our games) the Reich dominates the board. The Union only once looked like it was going to win handily, with 'Ozo' left by his self for the Reich. But, the sneaky little bastard kept hiding behind doors, firing his 'ghost bullets' which can track around corners. He ended up killing four of the remaining Union's characters, snatching victory from the proverbial jaws.

The more open-spaced Crypt board has some seriously long ranges which allow Barry Daniel Brown (the heavy gunner black man in the picture to the right) to use that piece of stellar piece of hardware. Oh and a beauty it is. On his full strength, you roll 6 dice to see if you can hit your opponent. A roll of 9 or 10 is an INSTANT KILL, unless your opponent can roll a at least one 10 on his 'shock' roll. The opponent can counter the big gun, because it has to be at least 4 'circles' away to use it....If you can keep him close, he is no where nearly as effective (ie he can't fire!!). But the Crypt level has long stretches of open line of site. Posting Barry along those paths will ensure the enemy doesn't pass through...at least not unscathed.

So as not to favor any one player, we have been playing randomly, letting the roll of the die determine not only which team you'll use, but also which board we will play on. It seems to have worked out, but I do prefer to play as the Union...even though I regularly lose!!

Although the game says it's designed for 2-10, we have only played with 2. Quite frankly, any more than that would have lots of guys sitting on their hands until it got back to their turn. But, on the converse of that, as quickly as it plays, and as easy most of the rules are to grasp, this makes for a perfect beer and pretzel game. Maybe the camaraderie of sharing a frothy brew will make the wait worth it...

The game box is a bit misleading, indicating that there are only 2 10-sided dice included. Mine had a nice compliment of 6. I assume that is just a misprint on the box. The box itself is a lovely piece of work, with solid cardboard and great cover art.

Most excitedly, for me, is the 'future expansion' this game will see. There already is a 'Russian' expansion pack in the works that will introduce new locales (via another gameboard) but also some more characters. Character packs, such as the 'Wolf' mercenary (he can fight for either side) will add some interest to not only the ongoing story, but to some of the tactical decisions you will need to make. Wolf was made available as a promo freebie to buy Tannhauser, either via pre-order, or at Gencon. There are several more in the works.

Support for the game, via Fantasy Flight Games is lacking at the moment. Although there is a nice discussion group on the FFG site, there is not the incredible range of information that is available on the French language site. It's too bad, because there are some errata that needs to be defined more clearly. But, it is still a very new product, and we will see how they respond.

The price, 60 bucks, seems about right. For all the components, boards, cards, etc. I don't feel I overpaid in the slightest. I compare it to the price of a new X-box game, or any other of the 'toys' I find myself wanting. Hopefully new expansions will be a bit cheaper, and the character packs will fall in the 10-15 dollar range, making them an excellent value (all things considered) in my humble opinion.

Another exciting idea is to come up with some home brewed rules. We've a firm enough grasp of the rules to be able to add some features in without killing the balance. I've already started converting over a few minis, and just need to draw up some stats and a proper back story.

So, to sum up, I heartily recommend this game. It has enough ease of play that allowed us to jump right in, but also enough depth to get us excited about future sessions....if we can get past our love for Deathmatch that is.

Ok, here is some art.

I drew a picture in ink, and then scanned it into the computer and used Photoshop to color it. Now admittedly, I know nothing about photoshop, as the most I've ever done with it was to crop a photo and put in a background.

BUT...it turned out surprisingly cool. For me, at least.

I'm kinda proud of it, but I realize its still amateurish, but hell...I'm a amateur!

A bit of a lull.

Ok, admittedly I haven't had anything new up in a while. I attended GENCON back in August, and I still haven't gotten settled down enough to work on anything, painting wise.

I have been working on some fiction, dabbling a bit making some gaming rules, and actually playing a game. My brother and I have been giving Tannhauser, a 'alt-WW 2' type board game, a real tryout. So far, we both really have been enjoying it. I've never been into the gaming aspect of the hobby, although it has always intrigued me, and its fun to see that you can do something else with miniatures other than just paint them! I think I've only actually won once, but it hasn't dampened my enthusiasm for it.

GENCON was an absolute blast. I really had no idea it would be so fun. Next time I go, I will plan on participating in more of the events there. This time was just to soak it all in. I did get to meet and hang out with the folks from Alpha Forge, and Wyrd, as well as meeting many of the real life avatars of some of the people I know from the various websites I haunt. So, other than possibly having to sell my extra kidney to pay for my credit card bill, it was worth it.

I've also dug out my pencils and started drawing. I am working on some Alpha Forge inspired art, and having a good time doing that too. I used to draw almost constantly years ago, but it was something I put on the back burner.

Pictures are worth a thousand words so next time I'll include those and not be so damn wordy!