Wednesday 24 February 2016

The Walking Dead (TWD) project - the beginning

Hi all

There's lots of excitement/negativity/chatter about the new "the Walking Dead" game soon to be released by Mantic.  I've seen a lot of comments good and bad about what the game is going to include, game type - will it be RPG? will it be a board game? etc etc. I know some of the people who read this blog are backing the Kickstarter and that's great, they are adding stretch goals all the time and smashing them constantly which can only be good. I personally like Mantic minis and have loads of them, bulking out my Orcs and Goblins WFB army and hundreds that almost completely make up my Vampire Counts WFB army (one day I'll photograph them and show them!) so I'm looking forward to the game.  More to the point, I absolutely love the TWD franchise and watch it religiously. I did read quite a few of the comics but unfortunately my daughter fell out with her friend who was supplying me with them! 

So to the point of the post, which is I'm starting yet another mini project which is based on the characters of TWD. Yes I know there are bespoke 'not' TWD minis, some really excellent ones by Studio Miniatures and Hasslefree which normally I would be all over, except I've got to conserve the gaming tokens for Salute, which is just round the corner in April.  So I decided to be a bit frugal in a tribute to one of my favourite blogs, now sadly stopped - "a year of frugal gaming" by Frugal Dave (I really loved that blog, shame Dave no longer blogs, it was because of him and a competition he ran that I turned away from GW and started gaming other genres! But I digress....) I decided to use my existing resources to come up with the goods. The challenge of the project is to be completely cost neutral, to only use resources i already have. To this end I raided my Wargames Factory sprues and came up with my starting survivor group.....The Grimes family. (My apologies for the poor quality of photography, hopefully Rich will offer up his services and I can show them properly, but you should get the idea!)




For Rick I had already used up the cops figures from the Male Survivors box set so needed to source a different pose/body, in the end plumping for the cricket bat wielding male. I chopped the hand that had the bat off and replaced it with the hand of the little girl survivor from the female boxset, this gave him his big ass revolver that is trademark Rick Grimes. I was going to give him the head with the deputy's hat but wanted to save that for Carl. Painting him I used Vallejo Khaki for his shirt and citadel Mournfang brown mixed with black for his trousers and tie.

from season 1

Carl was based around the boy from the male boxset but was given the cowboy hat wearing head from the females boxset. For his pistol, I chopped the machine pistol that comes with the fig down to resemble a simple pistol and added the end of the sprue to represent the home made silencer Carl uses later on in the programme.
home made silencer


To round out the Grimes's I put together everyone's favourite mom (yeah right) Lori together as a pretty much standard build from the female set. The Lori trademark, apart from being a mopey b**ch is the checked shirt which I made a half decent attempt at using purples.

a much villified Lori


Although not part of the Grimes family , I also put together another survivor that joined one of my recent ATZ groups, armed with a BA rifle he later found a SAW when he killed an Army Officer and I add him here as I painted him up at the same time....lol The SAW I constructed from a Bren gun on the Bolt Action WWII British Sprue thay i have for that game and chopping the Ak47 that came on the fig in half and glueing the two together.



Enjoy
dGG

16:23 (+7)
figs bought:painted (difference)

23 comments:

  1. Wargaming on a budget is always to be commended, so well done on these first rate conversions. As you know, I'm backing the Mantic TWD Kickstarter. I really wanted it for the new figures but I'm loving the scenery items just as much and even the rules look far better than I'd imagined them to be. It should be a cracking good game.

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    1. Yeah i'm having to watch the spend till April lol. They were simple but fun conversions and came out fairly well :-)

      I like the look of what they have done with the minis, not a fan of the boards they have put out there. Have yet to see the ruleset although there is the free download i posted about on the forum.

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  2. Good representations of TWD characters, simple but easy conversions too.

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    1. thanks Joe, they were simple in the main but effective i think. i have a few more to come too :-)

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  3. Terrific stuff Andy, and a great idea for a project. I have actually pulled out of "TWD" KS as I can only afford one and the Conan RPG KS is ripping through the different source books. I do though hope to get the Mantic Games minis at some point - hopefully they'll sell them without the game.

    As a complete aside there is annually a bloggers meet-up at Salute, so hopefully I'll see you there and shake the hand of the man who is costing me a fortune in 2016 ;-)

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    1. With pleasure Simon, I'm coming up with Rich (whose photography I showed a while ago) Chris (who wrote the Vimearo batrep) so you can meet da Grotto gamers too! Let me know when/where etc.

      Ooh Conan rpg sounds good..... ;-)

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  4. These look great and I'm looking forward to this. I haven't taken the plunge yet with TWD Kickstarter, but have been watching it closely and think that I will end up going for some of it.

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    1. Thanks Michael, the KS was intriguing but I'm not ready to commit to it. Will wait and see

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  5. Excellent the WGF kit is great for making some of the cast. Did you see my Merle attempt with the kit? I keep meaning to get the female set and make a Carol mini as she is just badass.

    http://brummieswargamingblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/zomtober-2014-week-4-and-final-zomtober.html

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    1. Carol's on her way and yes she has become a proper badass. I'm off to check out your Merle!

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    2. I can't find the right way to do the badass knuckled knife she carries

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    3. Me either so bottled it! Shame as it defines her.....

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  6. Good figs, they capture the characters pretty well. I love the idea of just converting from what you have on hand. It's something I should do more often, like many, I have plenty of junk laying around!

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    1. Yeah not exact as they would be with bespoke minis but that's not the idea. Saving my gaming budget to blow it all in April means either attacking the lead pile or a new project.... You can see which way I went..lol

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  7. What they said...good work!

    I'm slightly puzzled at the rash of new zombie games that seem to be coming along, but line you, I've got enough stuff to make most anything I want already.

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  8. As i am also saving pennies for Salute (my first!) and being the type of gamer who regularly repurposes miniatures, I appreciate and applaud your ingenuity. Very well done, Andy! Who needs 'official' miniatures anyway?

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  9. Excellent work dude! Just goes to show how versatile the Wargames Factory stuff is. Great paint on Lori's shirt too. TWD characters are definitely on my to do list! Too many models not enough money or time. Lol.

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    1. So versatile, they plug gaps in my figs availability :-)

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  10. These figures are awesome. I had the privilege of seeing them up close and personal. The pics do not do them justice dude :-)

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    1. Thanks man, just checked out your blog, keep posting and we'll put some of our batreps on it!

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