The Simpsons... *cue iconic theme tune*

Meet the Simpsons, my family of survivors from Zomtober. This is the last Zomtober post so although I haven't painted these fresh this week I thought I would share what I have come up with for them. In order to use them in a game I felt some special rules were in order to represent family bonds and children in the zpocalypse.  But first introductions are in order.

Ma Simpson (Mary-Lou) the matriarch of the family, lioness and all round star! She's rep 4 armed with a compound bow and SMG, this mother is all about protecting her cubs. She is also a medic and has a wiff of the Britney Spears about her (white trash attractive..lol)

Pa Simpson (Billy-Ray) husband to Mary-Lou, loves his beer, brawling and 'bow.  A rep 4 co star armed with X bow and machete he loves a good fight. He has the attributes brawler and hard as nails.

Next up is teenager Bobby-Joe, eldest of the young'uns he is a bit of a wild loner. Rep 3 and armed with his trusty .22, he has the initiative attribute.

Lastly we have the twins, pre-teen girls who were the terror of the teachers at Jungville Middle School. Gracey-Lyn oldest by 2 minutes (and don't you forget it!) blagged her pa's SMG and Bonnie-May who snagged her momma' favourite .357! Bonnie-May also totes her favourite prank weapon; firecrackers (6" range, no impact but makes noise 6d6 after a turns delay)

Ok so these are family specific rules but I thought they reflected some realism well.

Rule one - The family that slays together stays together!
The family never need to test at the end of an encounter for keeping it together, they automatically pass.

Rule two - protect the Cubs!
The adults will never runaway while the children are still on the table, they will always stay and fight!

Rule three - you stay close now, ya hear?
The children must stay within 4" of an adult at all times, if for whatever reason they become separated more than 4" apart the child will immediately stop moving and must remain stationary until an adult moves to within 4" (the exception to this rule is my teenager model as he is just old enough and has the initiative attribute, I see him as a loner!) They can still shoot weapons and fight in melee but cannot move away from danger as they are rooted to the spot.

Rule four - growing pains
When testing for rep increases the child can only increase on the roll of a natural 6 followed by another 6. This may seem harsh and I know kids learn quick but rep is also about demeanour, skill at arms, muscle power etc.

Rule five - a parents grief
If one (or more!) of the children die then each remaining adult must test immediately by rolling a d6. On 1-3 the parent becomes filled with rage and will 'kill' any zed on the table before ending the encounter, they will gain the rage attribute from here on out. On a 4-6 they will become overcome with grief and will become inactive until they roll a 1-3 in following activations and then they become enraged as above. Note when inactive they can do nothing at all including defend themselves!

day 21 conclusion

rather disappointingly the rest of the encounter is fairly tame, the tunnels hold only two zombies, which are easy meat for the pair of heroes.  They meet up with the weather-girl who when i rolled for her turned out to be a rep 2, unarmed teen! I was hoping for a replacement for Nash, my fat Elvis impersonator and i got Buffy's weedy cousin.  The team picked Debbie up on the way out of the area and they slunk off to lick their wounds.

The after party rolls started off well with Debbie recovering from her wounds with no problem and JJ gaining +1 rep to make her an impressive 5.  However Ling Mei once again failed to increase and massively failed the keeping it together rolls with a dismal 0d!  JJ now a meaty 5 easily passed 2d and decided to go solo and check to see if her parents survived....

So Nash dead, JJ heading for parts unknown and a weak replacement for the missing crew - not a good encounter for Ling Mei and co. I don't know whether to keep going with these guys or not?  I've recently painted up a family of survivors for Zombtober and want to give them a whirl with some house rules I've devised for them.  So maybe I'll mothball Ling Mei and Debbie and introduce the new Simpson family, a white trailer trash bunch o' kick ass rednecks?

  

day 21 part 3

Debbie 'don't call me Debs' Wills gulped visibly as the four large gangers surrounded her, holding their various weapons loosely in their massive hands.  Ling Mei and JJ were too far away so were of no help to her at the moment.  The weight of her huge sigsauers on her hips, normally a comfort seemed to mock her with their unavailability.  

The leader of the gang, with his towering blue mo-hawk and 'roid loaded frame smirked at Debbie and spat on the ground.  "Ok missy, hand over those guns and any valuables you may have about that pretty little person of yours or me and the boys will have a little fun!"

Debbie, eyes darting left and right looked for a way out of the tight spot she found herself in.  The irony of being in the middle of the zombie apocalypse and dying in a straight up daylight street rip pissed her off mightily.  Seeing no escape she sighed deeply, so be it she thought to herself, her sweaty hands inching toward the butts of her 'saurs.

"She's drawing!" screeched the ganger bearing a large shotgun in his hands with a massive fireaxe strapped to his back.  The pump action swung up and a gout of flame leapt from the barrel, a cloud of pellets spraying out and slamming into Debbie's chest, lifting her up and away from the big man.  The other three gang members opened up with their guns wildly, hitting nothing but adding to the cacophony.  With a thump Debbie hit the ground, driving the remaining air from her lungs and leaving her groaning on the floor.

Ling Mei, seeing her friend thrown to the floor, let out a primal scream and shot from distance with her bow.  The arrow, rushed and wild, went high and she shouldered her bow in frustration putting her head down and sprinting toward the gangers.  JJ, her face red with anger, fresh tears pouring down her cheeks lifted her shotgun to her shoulder and pulled the double triggers.  Her first shot dropped the youngest of the gang to the floor, the pellets tearing lumps of flesh from his upper legs.  The second caught the leader of the group through the throat, the buckshot pulverising the trachea of the big man and nearly severing his neck with the force of the blast.  With a grunt of satisfaction she slammed fresh shells into the smoking  weapon. A green haired gangbanger toting a hunting rifle, took a look at the savage intensity on JJ's face and with a grim Ling Mei bearing down on them, decided he had had enough and without a second glance took to his heels, running flat out away from the carnage and leaving his mate to face the woman's fury.  With a shaky hand the last punk tried to lift his huge magnum but had barely raised it passed his waist when a freshly reloaded JJ emptied her gun at the hapless ganger nearly ripping him in two.  Ling Mei reached the screaming ganger on the floor, who had had his legs blown away by JJ's opening volley.  With a casual thrust she drove her blade through the temple of the boy to silence him.

All the noise of this combat had not gone un-noticed by the undead and several came over to investigate.  Four zeds charged Ling Mei and JJ and they soon became embroiled in melee with the foul creatues.  Ling Mei slammed her lead blade through the open maw of the first zed and used her left hand sword to keep the other at bay, while JJ smashed the other two into little pieces in a whirlwind of fury.  Ling Mei stood over her friend's prone form spinning her twin swords in a defensive weave keeping the dead-head away and finally with a lightning stroke took the head from its shoulders in a spray of black blood.

Just as soon as it started so the combat came to an end as the last zombie fell to the floor in two separate places.  Ling Mei knelt down to her friend, a quick pulse check confirmed she was still alive. It was then she noticed that Debbie was wearing the flak jacket she had taken from the national guardsmen only the week before, breathing a sigh of relief and slumping to the floor.

JJ came over to the two friends lying on the ground; "come on Ling Mei, lets go get this weather chick!  Debbie can stay here and can keep our 6 covered..."

"go on" breathed Debbie, clearly in discomfort, but also clearly determined for the group to complete it's mission.  "go get her."

Shooting a fretful glance back at her friend, Ling Mei nodded to JJ and without hesitation headed into the looming darkness of the tunnel.

Zombtober week 4

This week's Zombtober offering is back to the humans trying to make it through the zpocalypse. To that end we have a group who could be either survivors or gangers.  I have very little experience painting black skin so hopefully I've pulled it off! They have all been made up from wargames factory survivors with the only minor change of an adult head on the kids body as the boxset only has one child head, which is a bit strange! I wanted to include a young survivor to represent a "hopper" (yes I've been watching the Wire box set .....) all of the group have a superhero logo on their clothing somewhere, I don't know why but I was having a moment :)

Heroes.....

thanks to Vampifan (cheers dude!) I managed to get my hands on figs of some everyday heroes. -paramedics!  These guys might not carry big guns or dress in spandex - they might do, who knows what they do in their down time... But they save lives on a daily (near daily at least, well weekly.....ok, ok, maybe just sometimes!!) basis.  I'm not sure whether they will survive the zed apocalypse for too long given that they try to revive the dead for a living(!) but I know some tough old SOBs who wear the green so you never know, especially as a lot of them are ex-military!

I painted these guys in the same uniform colour as South East Coastal Ambulance (SECAmb) which happens to be my trust.

My Halloween night planned then!

on Halloween night I shall be providing first aid cover with St John Ambulance for this event

Hell yeah, I'm looking forward to this, but I'd better keep the defibrillator fully charged cos I think the public are going to be scared to death!!!
https://youtu.be/ICP1kkOPQgM
Check out you tube link people this is gonna be awesome!!

Charging....stand clear.....shocking...

I have been working on a project for the last couple of weeks, the hospital mentioned in my post - ambition.  This project has been fizzing about in my brain ever since I started thinking about zombie gaming way back in 2011/12. Then I switched careers and joined the ambulance service and started training (that never really stops!) and working shifts and gaming got put away so I could concentrate on the real deal.  Now I'm used to the shift work and settled in the job and have a little more time to dedicate to the gaming (although perhaps I should concentrate on the degree more....) the hospital project has come back to the fore. To that end I laid out the floor plans and bought some foam board!

I had a 2'x2' blank terrain board that I had already made up out of mdf and batten for another canal piece but hadn't got round to using yet.  On the plans I had drawn up a basement piece and ummed  and ahhhed about putting it in as it would protrude above ground level (the terrain board is 30mm deep and each floor needs to be 40mm) I was persuaded by another blogger - thanks N667! to put it in and I'm glad I did, the protrusion is not that bad and I have put in steps and ramps for the various entry points so that access won't be effected and as it was pointed out to me, a creepy basement is atmospheric and iconic to the genre.

The first thing I did was measure out the ground floor onto the mdf, straight away realising that I wanted the basement to be the same shape as the rest of the hospital so that subsequent floors can be stacked on top. No problem, flexibility is my middle name (odd I know, but my parents were hippies....*this is a lie*... :P) cutting the shape out with a sharp blade was simplicity itself. I then sank the mdf to the bottom of the board and fixed it in place using the outer walls of the basement and masking taping the bottoms.

I then used my hot glue gun to reinforce the join at the top of the walls to the surface of the board.  This was the first time I used foamboard in my building and it was fun and easy to work with.

Once the basic shape was done I looked at the spaces inside and decided to change things around a bit from the plans. The mortuary moved to the south east corner and the rest moved around from there.  I had planned on using 3mm board for the interior walls but hobbycraft are having a special offer on 5mm (white only which is a bugger!) so I went with the thicker stuff, which is fine as this level will be supporting a further two floors and a roof with helipad and other fun stuff.  The lift shaft stayed where it was as I need this to run through to the roof obviously! I also added some stairs, again at the suggestion of N667, as this would give me more options and they went into the same place as the stairs will be on the other floors.

After that i added a cobblestone road around the edge of the board so that it would fit in and link up with the rest of my modular terrain.  the cobblestone is in a plastic sheet from Amera plastics and are amazingly good at only £2 per sheet.  I also used a sheet of foam from a local craft store to create a paved pedestrian area at the front entrance.  the three foamboard pieces on the rear of the piece are the bases of the slopes i plan to put in so that i can put in ambulance bays and an A&E (ER for those in US) and also a delivery entrance. Ive put in some minis for some scale!

next i needed to seal the edges of the foam board with PVA and then give the whole thing a good covering with matt black car primer.  A basic paint job to follow, as this was the part of the hospital that the public doesn't see, in typical NHS style they are sparsely decorated, the floor is bare concrete and the walls an institution green.  Im not completely happy with the doors i have done for this part of the model as it is just the foamboard that i had cut out for the doorways and a staple at the top and bottom to allow it to be opened.  they are functional but don't look great so I will try something different on the next floor.  they have been painted a blue grey to match the boiler and other heavy equipment for the hospital.  I left the stairwells black for now to add atmosphere...

I have also added ballast to the rear of the hospital to make the ambo bays.  For the interior I have been scratch building furniture out of bits and bobs and i'm really pleased with the results, so much so that although i have ordered resin hospital beds for the wards etc I will scratch build everything else including all the signage which is hand-painted.

the mortuary consists of a stainless steel sink - which is bloodstained (of which i'm bizarrely proud of the tap that i built out of mdf scraps!) and tray with large scalpel for vivisection and a computer to update hospital records, a stainless steel autopsy table with drainage grooves carved into the foam for detail and of course the bank of drawers for the bodies!

I also scratch built the boiler adding plastic tubes (from a real ECG paper roll-empty of course!) to represent the outflow pipes, carving dials and details into the foam front of the boiler.  I have now added some floor furniture for survivors to hide behind. i also hand painted the pin up that a janitor has hung up out of sight of the big bosses... you can just see a sewer entrance as well in the top left to add an extra objective point. 

The next room was the store room, the shelves are made with coffee stirrers and bits of mdf, the boxes i built out cereal cardboard.  The sacks were made of masking tape wrapped around card scraps and painted in a sinister bio-company logo - are they the cause of the outbreak?  I will be adding blankets (kitchen towel) to the shelves to add more detail.

This level is completed by the laundry room with scratch built washers and another piece i'm weirdly proud of - the laundry basket!

There are still loads of details to add, more posters and small bits as and when i think of them but that's the bulk of this level done.  The rest will be done later on and i'll also be putting together some corpses and bloody spots etc on bases that can be added to represent different points in the outbreak.  Let me know what you think so far, any suggestions welcome and i can either add it or put it into the next level....

cheers