Zomtober 2023 Week 4

Here’s the partner to last week’s submission for Zomtober Week 4:

Just a zombified Beastman enjoying a meaty snack.

This one largely came about as a result of my wondering how well glued together these minis were, and while gently seeing if there was much give to his shield arm snapped it off at the wrist. Once that was gone, I removed his weapon and repositioned the head to look like he was earring from something that was in his hand, and a little green stuff completed the look.

His snapped off hand then got replaced with a zombie hand holding a small length of rope (I think it originally held a skin covered gong that had previously been taken for a chaos space marine conversion), which I covered up the rope texture of with green stuff to make it look like another length of viscera.

This weeks submission brings the Tally to:

31 vs 112 = -81

Also, it’s still Sunday in Germany (where I currently am), so I technically didn’t miss the posting deadline!

Zomtober 2023 Week 3

Another week, and another Beastman zombie inspired by my recent re-read of the Gotrek and Felix novel Zombieslayer:

The posing of the conversion made it very difficult to get a decent photo of, but deadline day is deadline day so this is what I have. I didn’t add any injuries to the model (unless you count the repositioning of the head to give him the broken neck zombie look), so painted him to look like the cause of death was a swift axe to the neck, probably delivered by an angry chap with a bright orange crest of hair.

Pretty much stock from behind, but buried in the middle of a unit no one will notice that!

The conversion started with me seeing just how well attached the limbs were on the salvage minis I’d bought, and one of the archers arm nocking an arrow popped clean off (snapping the arrow clean in half too, which I dutifully picked out of the carpet and stashed in my bits box). This mini however I carefully nipped the hand off to replace with something a little more undead than the sword he was originally modelled with. I was originally going to give him a generic grasping zombie hand, being happy with the existing position of the bow looking like it was absent-mindlessly dangling, but then thought it would be funnier to have a zombie archer than still had an arrow ready to go, but clearly had no idea how to use it. Which led to me removing the weapons from and carefully drilling through a zombie hand and then using the salvaged parts of the previously mentioned broken arrow to practice glueing onto the tiniest of contact points:

Those of you that follow me on Instagram will have seen that I was also working on another conversion at the same time, but as we’re going to Germany in Half Term to visit my wife’s family I’m saving him as a buffer, so no more pics of them until next week! Although while writing this post, I realised that I’d forgotten to include a WIP pic of the conversion in last week’s post, so here’s that as a bonus this week:

A little bit of green stuff and a couple of part swaps can go a long way!

Painting this week’s submission brings the tally to:

30 vs 112 = -82

While digging around looking for parts for a potential future conversion today, I came across these:

My original Mordheim zombies, that must have been painted when I was 19 at most. I’m torn between stripping them to repaint, or just trying to paint over the top to match them to my current painting style. Well, that or just quietly putting them back in the Mordheim box, as they’re very much sculpts of their time aren’t they…

Zomtober 2023 Week 2

Another week, another deadline met! This week’s submission is pretty much a proof-of-concept for this year’s theme, or ‘can I transform salvaged beastmen minis into suitable zombies in the style of the novel Zombieslayer’. And I think the answer to that is yes:

It’s a gor body with the head and hand snipped off and replaced with a beastmen skull and a zombie hand (from the standard topper in the old zombie regiment kit) respectively. The skull bit was originally from the dryad kit I believe, and was covered in vines that needed carefully snipping and filing off. A little green stuff and voila, gaps filled!

While I had the green stuff out I decided to hack a slice out of his gut and model on some tiny insides spilling out from under a flap of skin, as it feels like every good Gotrek and Felix novel has at least one enemy taking a wound to their abdomen and their intestines are described as ‘looping out’. 

Brief aside - zombies go on 20mm bases while gors usually live on 25s. I wasn’t sure the body would fit on the smaller base size, but I think with some careful positioning he should rank up alongside his fellows.

Then it was time for a fairly straightforward paint job, although I couldn’t resist adding some texture to his loincloth to add a little visual interest. My original plan was to have the skull entirely drenched in blood (as I always feel like zombies having any fully skeletal bits feels a little odd and out of place), but in all honesty I quite likes how the bone and horn came out so I ended up only mostly dousing him in blood. It looks so fresh and shiny in the pictures because it’s literally still wet in the pictures…

So, as you might have extrapolated from this and other posts, I managed to acquire a box of scrappy secondhand beastmen from eBay:

A mix of gors and ungors, in various states of disrepair. Some of them had been converted to hold marauder weapons, which I didn’t notice in the initial listing, but not the worst thing in the world as I’m only going to rip them off anyway. 

Acquiring these and painting one of them brings the Tally to:

29 vs 112 = -83

While the last two weeks have largely been a last-minute scramble to get things finished and photographed on the Sunday, I’m hoping that won’t be the case all month as I have the next two conversions already pretty much done. But then again, I’m now out of black spray. And going to Germany in a couple of weeks. Last minute scrambles it is then…

Last Days Seasons campaign: September

So, I just managed to squeeze in this month’s game on the very last day of the month. I decided to play the Fall special scenario ‘The Reaping’ - news that another group of survivors has succumbed to the zombie menace reaches our group, who pragmatically set out to liberate them of the supplies they no longer need!

I set up a wilderness board, that looked something like this:

I set up 14 zombies along the middle strip as per the scenario instructions, then 7 more on the opposite edge to the one my survivors started on, and then had an additional 12 zombies held ‘in reserve’ to make the total number of zombies match the total group level of the survivors. As I’ve previously done, I had the ‘reserve’ zombies come on as if survivors had made an additional noise each turn to represent the denser spread of zombies in the local area until all of the ‘reserve’ zombies are deployed, at which point I’d revert back to the usual rules.

I rolled for weather, and got moderate - no special rules. With that, the group split into two teams as per usual - team ‘guns blazing’ on the left consisting of Devon, Cece, Dionne and Lynn (although Lynn is mostly there to watch everyone else’s backs), and team sneaky on the right consisting of Kev, Jess, and the still as yet unnamed fireman.

A few of the clustered zombies start to notice the group and begin to shamble towards them, and Kev brass as bold marches straight up to the nearest one carrying supplies, ready to hopefully make short work of her with his knife. Keen to make a good first impression, the fireman easily outpaces Jess and wades in to lend Kev a hand. 

Team guns blazing on the other hand already has a steady stream of zombies heading towards them, so elects to hold their ground:

Devon opens fire first, eager to show off his new skills with a pistol in each hand - and misses about half of the shots he fires. The first hit does little more than stagger the advancing biter, but the second is a headshot that takes her out - that’s more like it! As impressive as that is though, it turns out that firing a pair of semi-automatic pistols is pretty noisy…

Cece then follows suit, taking out a zombie that has a crate tucked under one arm - looks like all that shooting practice is finally paying off! Dionne on the other hand seems to be having an off day, and despite sending a couple of bolts at an advancing zed fails to take it out! (In game terms, using all of her skills there was only a 1 in 36 chance of failing to take that zombie out, but I managed to roll a 1 and then another 1 on the reroll…)

Over on the other side of the field, the fireman swings his fire axe at a zombie, but fails to make a satisfying connection. Kev, however, has no such trouble, and buries his knife into the zombies brains, at which point her fingers relax on the case that she had been carrying:

Unfortunately for them, another previously motionless body then stands up holding the case again, so it looks like it’s a case of one down, plenty more to go…

The horde of zombies continues to amble towards the survivors, joined by a pair of naked zombies that enter the board to the left of team guns blazing, drawn by the noise of all of their gunfire in the previous turn.  Cece takes a potshot at one of them, but only manages to wing them. Devon however has more luck, managing to take out an advancing zombie wearing a police uniform.

Team guns blazing then again elects to largely stay out and reload their guns, whereas over on the right stealth has largely gone out of the window for team sneaky as everything degenerates into a swirling melee.

With an explosion of shooting, once the smoke clears there are far fewer zombies facing down the aptly names team guns blazing - although Lynn failed to take anything out with her shotgun, everyone else managed to take out at least one zombie, with Devon even bagging two! Now it’s just a case of dashing in and scooping up the supplies, right?

In close quarters combat, Jess easily smashes her opponent to the ground with her fire axe, but the fireman isn’t so successful, and even gets scratched by the zombie in return!

Unfortunately for team guns blazing, another body stands up holding onto the previously dropped supplies, so gathering them all up isn’t going to be quite as simple as previously supposed. 

Things then continued in much the same pattern for a few turns - with waves of zombies pouring towards team guns blazing, being largely shot to pieces and then replace by more zombies, occasionally interspersed with moments of comedy like Devon blasting away with his pair of pistols only to moss with all but one shot, while over on the right it was largely the same situation but with axes and knives rather than guns and crossbows. Jess and Kev were smashing apart zombies with grim abandon, only for the fireman to continuously struggle with his opponent and need his bacon pulling out of the fire, with more zombies appearing within arms reach all the time…

Once again I also managed to roll the end phase event that I’d rolled several times already this game, and the lone unclaimed supply token suddenly found itself on the move again:

So, brief analytical interlude. Team guns blazing - pros: the zombies are bringing all of the supply tokens right to us!

Cons: that’s a lot of zombies coming right to us…

Not much else to report at this point in the game - the survivors would look like they were going to get overwhelmed, before turning the tide and defying the odds (with team guns blazing also putting in a commendable showing when things got up close and personal). Deciding that it was probably time to stop attracting so many additional zombies to the board, team guns blazing holstered their weapons and set about their grim harvest, blades in hand.

Most of the survivors make short work of the opposition, but Devon’s opponent gets a lucky blow on him - thankfully due to all of his Endurance increases at previous level ups he’s so tough that he simply shrugs it off with no ill effects! He’s not so lucky the next turn though, when he finds himself outnumbered and and a zombie bites down on his shirt-clad arm. Flannel protects a little bit from the teeth, but it’s certainly going to leave a bruise!

5 more zombies appear on the opposite edge of the board to our survivors, 3 of whom are carrying supplies, but at this point it’s unlikely this will be be anywhere near the survivors by the time they’d made their escape. At this point it’s about 11pm and my best friend messages me to tell me that he’s about to enter a back to back screening of every Evil Dead Movie. If I’d remembered that was today I could have dug out my not-Ash min!

Back to the game- the fireman finally takes out the zombie that struggling with all game. Determined to make up for this poor showing, he then sprints over to team guns blazing to give them a hand extricating supplies from mangled corpses. As he did so, Cece managed to take out the last zombie that was close enough to be any danger, and then it was just a case of getting everyone off the board with supplies and then making their way home! 

Post-game, plenty of experience gained means lots of advancements:

Fireman gains a level, and hopes for a point of CQC (as with his fire axe and general lack of fighting skills, he’s just about equal to a zombie at the moment). Unfortunately he doesn’t have enough extra XP banked to turn the point of firearms skill he rolls into CQC, so it looks like he’s going to have to start trying to shoot things at some point in the future!

Cece learns the gunsmith skill - she’s less fussed about the actual skill itself, but more interested in the fact that learning that means she’ll be able to utilise the military sniper rifle that’s currently sitting in the group’s stash…

Kev learns the stalker skill, so is even better suited to just running up and starting to mirser zombies from the word go.

Dionne learns the master shooting skill never misses, making her officially the deadliest survivor on the planet.

Jess also gains an additional point of firearms skill - we just need to find her a quieter gun to try and make best use of it!

Lynn learns the master skill street surgeon - while supply seeker might have been the more optimal choice, street surgeon was the more thematically appropriate choice for the group’s medic!

Devon learnt the master shooting skill overwatch. I was tempted to take never misses on him too, given how often he… well, misses, but on the other hand a free Locked&Loaded token every turn is definitely something he can use (and also frees up a few AP every turn so he could potentially reload both of his pistols at once rather than having to cycle through them in rotation!)

Then it came time to see what we’d found in all of the supply tokens - and at this point I realised that I’d accidentally cheated on getting 8 supply tokens off the board with only 7 survivors, as it turns out survivors can only carry a single supply token unless they have the expedition backpack equipment, so Dionne shouldn’t have been able to drag 2 off the board - something to remember for next time!

Being that winter is coming and finding a kerosene heater would be really handy, I rolled four times on the winter table, once on the summer table, and three times on the standard tables - and due to some boringly average rolls, literally only found fuel and scavenge on the seasonal tables, so it looks like all of those zombified survivors had mostly been carrying planks of wood around with them! On the standard tables I managed to roll even greater amounts of scavenge, but also turned up a firebomb and a surplus SMG, which Jess quickly took ownership of (having not fired her noisy rifle in a couple of months for fear of attracting more zombies).

Allocating jobs after the game, Devon decided against trying to recruit a new member of the group this month, and instead decided to build a wood burning stove for the farm house. I know, it would be cheaper for Lynn to build it with her engineer skill, but her time is mich better spent in the garden harvesting food! As much as I’d like to let everyone rest to try and shake the niggling sickness that’s been with the group for months now, Devon knows that the weather is turning and winter is on the way, so sets the group to building up a stockpile of supplies, with what little medicine they already have distributed to the most productive members of the group in the hopes of staving off anyone becoming bedridden… so everyone else set about harvesting medicine, fuel, or food, with Cece working the cold cellar in the hopes of being able to preserve any excess meals to help the group last through the winter. Unfortunately again the dice seemed to be against me, as while nobody went hungry, there was only enough food left over to make 2 preserved meals.

Of the three survivors that were given medicine (Jess, Dionne and Cece), only Cece started feeling any better. Unfortunately, the fireman became sick from spending time out in the field in close quarters with other sick survivors (and definitely not from getting clawed by a zombie, honest), and then Devon, Lynn, Jess and the fireman all fell bedridden! Maybe they should have all rested this month rather than pushing themselves so hard…

So, next month - looks like it’s up to just Dionne, Cece and Kev to try and find some medicine! On the other hand, that’s 18 levels worth of survivor, so a force to be reckoned with. I kind of wish I’d had Devon recruit a new member rather than building a wood burning stove in the early autumn, in hindsight…

Zomtober 2023 Week 1

Also known as ‘what do you do when you realise midway through September that the first Sunday in October is also the first day in October, and you’re pretty busy’ - that’s right, you paint half a zombie!

A pretty simple conversion, cutting down one of the weapon wielding arms that I’m probably never going to use to try and make it look like he’s pushing himself up out of the ground.

I don’t know how well it worked (especially as that side ended up getting mostly obscured by grass), but he’s built and painted and done and now joined his friends from last year’s Zomtober:

But why does a freshly raised zombie have blood all over him, I hear you ask? Maybe it’s old blood from his wounds opening up as he scrabbles out of the grave, maybe he bit someone’s ankles, whatever you need to sleep at night. 

As previously alluded to here on the blog, my plan for this year’s Zomtober was to do themed entries around the zombie army in the Gotrek and Felix novel Zombieslayer (that I recently finished during my re-read of the entire series), which involves a horde of undead beastmen (and even the occasional zombie Minotaur!) besieging a castle. Unfortunately, my bits box is lacking in gors, but luckily I’ve just been able to win a scrap lot on eBay to cannibalise for parts - although shout out to Mik of Miksminis (not that he posts there anymore, look him up on instagram!) for offering to send me some from across the pond!

I suspect that next week’s will be as last minute as this week’s post, which involved desperately googling ‘how to get stubborn superglue out of pot’, which revealed apparently putting it in hot water is the way to go. And thus:

So, at the end of Zomtober week 1, the Tally looks like:

28 vs 100 = -72

Luckily that Heresy order still hasn’t turned up, otherwise the Tally would look even worse. He says, having previously admitted to having ordered more miniatures for Zomtober… 

(And for anyone wondering where the next instalment of my monthly Last Days game is, fear not, I played it last night, but haven’t had a chance to write it up yet, having been busy getting this post up!)

Gimme fuel gimme fire…

So, one of the Last Days scenarios requires specific food and fuel scavenge tokens. I have suitable tokens featuring boxes of canned goods already, but for fuel I knocked up these:

The gas bottles are from Fenris, and the other bits come from a Tamiya 1/48 WWII stowage kit that I bought a million years ago when my only project was AE:WWII.

I know technically in the game fuel is more likely firewood (as you even get a bonus to gathering it if the model doing so is armed with an axe), and realistically  gasoline would go bad within a year, but aesthetically I thought they’d be more fun than just matchstick cut down into a pile of firewood! The gas cans are red because I think that’s the colour they are in Fallout 4, in the unlikely event that I start yet another project…

Getting these finished was a quick win, which was handy as my painting motivation has been almost nonexistent for thee last couple of months. I’ve finished Front Mission 3 now, so that’s one less distraction, I just need to stop falling asleep in the evening putting the kids to bed…

On the work front, I had a meeting in London at Foyles on Charing Cross Road, which is conveniently just round the corner from both Orc’s Nest and Forbidden Planet, so between those three places I ended up with this little haul:

And of course I needed a nerdy tote bag to carry it all in:

Between the issues of a Warhammer partwork, officially licensed miniatures of the Crow (pure impulse purchase) and a Battletech lance that features a couple of mechs that will be my first Kurita paints (apparently they’re weebs that love war crimes, so I think that’s going to be my faction), the Tally stands perilously at:

27 vs 100 = -73

Well at least it’s a pleasingly round number of miniatures received? Even if my Heresy order is still on its way…

As well as miniatures, magazines and a new paintbrush, whilst spending a lot of time on trains I treated myself to this:

Because again due to spending a lot of time on trains I was able to finish Zombieslayer (where I’ve been re-reading the entire Gotrek and Felix series):

And got to thinking - maybe for Zomtober this year I could convert and paint some minis for Zombieslayer (as it’s a horde of zombified beastmen mostly). I hopped onto eBay, thinking I’d be able to pick up some battered old plastic gors that I could strip, but pickings are surprisingly sparse - does anyone have a gor sprue in their spares that they’d want to swap?

Last Days Seasons campaign: August

Having had quite a busy month (being in Ohio for a fortnight for my Brother-in-Law’s wedding ate up a lot of potential gaming time!) I found myself setting up for this month’s zombie survival game the night before my birthday. 

(Brief aside - I didn’t find any fireman miniatures in Ohio, so the previously shown fire axe wielding miniature joined the group as my as yet unnamed firefighter)

Looking back over my campaign record, I noted that a lot of the time I’d been playing custom scenarios of my own invention, so figured I should probably try one of the generic scenarios from the rulebook (to make sure I’m getting my money’s worth, if nothing else) and promptly rolled Home Defence, which I’ve not yet finished the scenery for, so I re-roles until I got Bushwhack. Now, bushwhack doesn’t really work as a solo scenario (as there’s not really much point in trying to assassinate a particular zombie) so I set it up as a sort of reverse bushwhack that I dubbed ‘the rookie run’ - three survivors find themselves cut off from the rest of the group and must make their escape with their scavenged supplies as well as their lives. So, it seems Devon and Cece have taken the new guy into the city on a supply run and found themselves surrounded - can they break out? Can the rest of the group get to them to cut them a path to safety?

Setting up the table, it looked like this:

Why is there a pile of corpses in the ruins next to the cemetery? Just what have people been getting up to?

Rolling for weather, it turned out we had been caught in the middle of a summer storm, and so visibility would be notably reduced. 

The group make their way through the gate of the garage where they had briefly taken shelter and Devon and the Fireman start shooting at aimlessly milling zombies to try and clear a path. Devon manages to take out the first zombie on his second shot, but the Fireman isn’t yet used to his brand new revolver and is wildly inaccurate.

Barely five minutes into their breakout attempt the weather changes. No more storm, but the sun is starting to set - luckily behind the group so the sun isn’t in their eyes!

At the start of the next turn, my usual inability to roll low on noise checks is rewarded, as rather than more zombies Dionne and Kev appear on the board to investigate the gunshots. And are immediately jumped by a pair of zombies.

The fireman had apparently only loaded a single bullet into his revolver, and found himself needing to reload. Luckily his superior physical fitness means that even pausing to do so he can still cover just as much ground as Devon or Cece…

Dionne attempts to break free of the zombie grabbing at her in order to bring her murderous crossbow skills to bear, but it seems to be fairly handsy and so she is forced to draw her samurai sword. Is it a replica or is it real? Who knows, but we’ll find out in the CQC phase…

Devon again takes out a zombie on his second shot (thank heavens he has a semi-automatic rather than a revolver!) The Fireman, slightly embarrassed at his earlier performance, takes a little longer to line up his shot and gets his first zombie kill. Cece almost manages to line up a shot on a zombie coming up behind them, but unfortunately the sun is in her eyes and she narrowly misses.

Dionne’s samurai sword turns out to be real enough, as she takes out her opponent with little difficulty. Kev however struggles somewhat, eventually managing to get the better of his opponent, and thanks to his Headhunter skill narrowly manages to get his knife in the zombie’s eye. 

The fireman needs to reload after taking a single shot again - if we make it back to the shelter, someone is going to have to show him how to chamber more than a single bullet at a time! Saying that, maybe he learned from Cece, as she also keeps needing to reload after taking a single shot…

Drawn by the sounds of gunfire, zombies start streaming out of the woods and nearby cemetery:

The central group of survivors continues their advance to freedom, back to back (and probably with some sweet military hand signals as they do so), with Cece clambering on top of a dumpster to try and bring her hunting rifle into play to cover their escape:

As they do this, Kev and Dionne move up to link up with them - Kev lunges at a zombie on the way, hoping to quickly take it out to prevent it later sneaking up on them, and unfortunately gets some disgusting fluid in his mouth, gaining another level of sickness (which means that he’ll unfortunately be bedridden after the game).

Dionne, on the other hand, doesn’t have time for getting up close and personal, and instead starts heading for open space so that she can start peppering zombies with crossbow bolts.

Devon takes out another zombie between his group and freedom with his semi-automatic (again on the second shot - more time needed shooting tin cans on the firing range methinks to get used to shooting with only one good eye). The Fireman then attempts a shot at the one remaining zombie between them and freedom, and narrowly misses, his bullet pinging off of the back of a yellow truck nearby. Luckily, this doesn’t set off it’s alarm. ‘Be careful of car alarms when you’re shooting’ hisses Cece to him, before narrowly avoiding doing the exact same thing.

Dionne, meanwhile, shows us why she is the deadliest survivor on the block, easily taking out a zombie cheerleader with her crossbow.

Kev manages to beat his zombie in close combat, but despite being armed with a suite of weaponry and skills to excel in specifically this situation fails to put it down. In return, the zombie scrabbles ineffectually at him, tying him up for another turn. 

All of a sudden, five zombies burst out of the garages that the group had originally been taking shelter by in the centre of the table - this is going to put a bit more pressure on the group to make their escape speedily!

Luckily for the group, Jess has apparently heard all of this commotion and appears on the table directly in their path. Less fortunately, the Fireman and Cece discovered once again that they had apparently only reloaded a single bullet previously - more haste less speed needed! And then Devon’s gun clicked empty (presumably because he’d been taking two bullets to hit each zombie he’d taken out so far) - torn between whether to reload their guns or put all of their energy into making a break for it, they decided that discretion was the better part of valour and that they were just going to try to sprint straight to Jess! 

(Normally I’d have gone xp farming and tried to rack up as many zombie kills as possible, but it was getting late on the night before my birthday, so trying to get the supplies off safely won out - I’m assuming that at least one of the supply tokens was the ingredients for a birthday cake). The Fireman, having a surplus of Action Points and no space to move into with his extra reloaded his revolver before making his run - I imagine that he was reloading, complaining about how seemingly often you have to reload a revolver, before looking up to see Devon running off some distance ahead of him, at which point he goes ‘oh shi-‘ and sprints after him, not wanting to get left behind.

Cece climbs down off the dumpster, the box of supplies cradled awkwardly under one arm, and seeing that she wouldn’t make it safely far past the zombie between her and Jess grimly reloads her hunting rifle… Luckily for her, just our view Dionne has come around the corner and is sighting down her crossbow at the same zombie. Cece makes her shot and hits, but isn’t able to turn that hit into a kill. A second later, a crossbow bolt appears puncturing it’s skull, and it ripples out of sight. ‘Dionne, is that you?’ Cece timidly calls…

Or at least that’s what would have happened if I hadn’t realised at this point that in my excitement to to see if the survivors could break out I’d forgotten to move the zombies this turn, so set about rectifying this. With so many zombies immediately behind her:

Cece would have run round the single zombie rather than staying where she is and getting mobbed, so I retcon the last paragraph and move her. Re-playing events, as she sprints past the zombie a crossbow bolt sprouts from its head just as it is reaching out to grab her, and out of the corner of her eye Cece sees Dionne furiously gesturing for her to run faster. Ahead of her, Jess blasts away with her surplus assault rifle, taking down a single zombie that had been closing in on the escaping group. 

Kev, despite me only managing to roll a 1 manages to beat his opponent again, but for a second time fails to turn it into a kill. I’m assuming this is because he’s already starting to feel groggy after getting splattered with grossness earlier, and so will need a lie-down when we get back to the shelter…

The sun goes behind a cloud, which is handy, as pretty much every zombie is now between the group and the direction of the setting sun! 

Hearing Jess’ fusillade of fire, Lynn appears at her side, cradling the sawn-off shotgun that Kev had previously gifted her after receiving his arm injury that meant he was no longer able to make use of it.

Seeing that the shit was about to hit the fan with a huge horde of zombies moments away from catching up to the group:

everyone turned tail and sprinted off of the board to safety. Except Kev, who still couldn’t get away from the zombie that he had been grappling with for the last few turns, and there were now a couple more zombies bearing down on him…

Seeing that he was now all alone, Kev was spurred to greater heights of ferocity and savagely hacked apart the zombie, before dodging the clawing hands of the next zombie reaching for him, and dancing off of the board (which is probably for the best, as I’d just rolled the event that means from that point on D3 zombies appear whenever 1 would have previously, so the board was going to start getting even fuller…)

Post-game:

Fairly quiet for level ups this game, as most characters only rolled a 1 or 2 on their D6 for surviving the game, and most of the characters that didn’t start the game on the board didn’t really do much, truth be told.

Devon gained the gunfighter skill (one last step on the way to getting a master skill!) which will let him dial-wield pistols. Here’s to hoping we find one! Otherwise he might have to borrow Kev’s magnum, which I think he’s only actually fired once since getting it…

The Fireman, being a fresh recruit, gained enough experience to level up and chose a characteristic boost rather than a skill to start with, and gained +1 to his Firearms skill - I’m assuming Devon has sent him to shoot tin cans for the forseeable (reloading after every single shot I don’t doubt).

Having managed to get all 3 supply tokens to safety, I decided to roll once on the Sunmer table, once on Winter, and once on the standard table from the main rulebook. We found some fuel, a preserved meal, plenty of Scavenge, and a semi-automatic - hooray, dual wielding for Devon is a go!

When it came to allocating jobs, I took a bit of a risk and only had Dionne gathering food, but I figured that as the group had a substantial stash of preserved meals it was worth it to allow Jess to continue building up a stockpile of medicine (as the real enemy for the group so far has been sickness more than the zombies) and Lynn to build a second garden so that in future months multiple people can work on harvesting and hopefully canning food to prepare for the coming winter. On that front, we also need to build up our fuel stores, as well as thinking about ways to heat the farmhouse more efficiently. Thanks to the single dose of medicine that Jess managed to harvest last month, Kev was able to recover completely from his sickness, and is now feeling right as rain again.

Seeing as how I’m 8 months in and with no plans to stop, I should probably see about printing out and laminating some proper tokens rather than the scraps of paper I’m currently using…

As well as playing a game, the Tally has taken a number of hits:

In Ohio, I picked up the Battletech Essentials box (as it’s a Target exclusive), as well as picking up a Beginner box and Barnes &  Noble exclusive box of battlemechs (as seen in my previous post - we went to another B&N so I grabbed them!). And a couple of packs of D&D minis from a comic shop we found on an excursion into Colombus - some pixies, because I’ll probably need them for Silver Bayonet, and Xorn, because I figured they’d probably come in handy if my attention swings round to my Monstrous Alphabet project again.

Then the day after I played this game it was my birthday, where I was gifted miniature goodies:

The battletech box has another 8 mechs in, and that Skaven Bombardier fits on a 20mm square base with a certain amount of cursing about fiddly tubes…

So once everything is factored in, the Tally now looks like:

27 vs 86 = -59

Oof, the chances of me ending the year in the positive are looking fairly slim aren’t they? Especially when you consider I placed a little Heresy order at the start of the week during their big sale…