Zomtober 2020: Week 2

Introduction

<== Week 1 is here

OK, it's Zomtober, it's another Sunday - I can do this.  It's no big deal.  Just put up pictures of another zombie vs survivor "duel", like I've done before.  OK?  Here we go, then...

Polly vs Prison Escape Zombie

This week's confrontation is between a young woman called "Polly" and a zombie who is possibly in prison uniform.  Did he escape from a nearby incarceration facility?  Perhaps; the broken sign over which he is stumbling would add weight to his idea.  Let's call him "prison escape zombie" (PEZ).

Polly is a classic example of the concept that there is no dress code during the zombie apocalypse.  All I'm doing to say about her costume is that it is (to my way of thinking) a very weird assortment of styles and colours.

So, are these her working clothes?  Did she choose to dress this way when leaving home in the morning?  Or were these the only items of apparel that she could find?  All these theories seem somewhat implausible and I'm not entirely sure that I want to know the answer.

Polly comes from one of Wargames Foundry's weirder packets in the hit-and-miss Street Violence range.  I'm happy enough to have one such model in my collection, but I don't think I want a whole load more "sluts with guns".

In contrast, PEZ is a fairly plain zombie, dressed in a ripped (more accurately, shredded) tee shirt with orange trousers and gym shoes.  He's moderately damaged, both on the face and the belly - but is still lurching along.  PEZ is a Studio Miniatures model.

So, who will win this duel?  Polly seems totally relaxed and confident, she has a potent gun and seems healthy, aware and fit.  Is this a slam dunk for her?  Can anything go wrong?  Does PEZ have a chance?  You decide...

Bonus Article

Some weeks ago, when I was contemplating how to tackle the Zomtober challenge, I thought that it would be nice to include a scatter terrain or objective piece with each week's entry.  Well, I failed completely to have anything ready for Week 1!  However, I had one large (70mm?) urban base left from my long-serving, assorted packet of Escenorama resin pieces.

I also had a packet of "corpses" from TT Combat, plus quite a few bits from various Wargames Factory zombie & survivor kits.  I decided that I could put these all together to build a pile-of-bodies model.  Note that several of the contributor models have been converted, mostly to reposition limbs.

If you think that this is somewhat macabre then I agree completely.  My only defence is that this is no more associated with real life than is any zombie movie or book.

So, for bonus points, what happened here?  It looks as if someone with a gun shot down several zombies, maybe because they were feasting on the fat man.  But one of the models (centre) has no obvious injuries.  Is he/she dead?  Indeed, is he/she a zombie or a human?

Final thought: maybe Polly is feeling confident because she knows that she can kill any number of zombies; she may have been the cause of this massacre!  Just like swatting flies...

Follow me for Week 3 ==>

More Congo Tribesmen

Introduction

I've been busy trying to build enough figures to play a basic, 70pt game of Congo.  Here are the latest additions to my Forest Tribes force.  Mind you, even with these additions I think that I'm still slightly short of my goal, though I haven't stopped recently to add it all up.  Just one more unit should do it, I think...

Cannibals/Married Warriors

The Forest Tribes list for Congo has the potential to have 3 classes of warrior, all of whom are basically a man with a loincloth, spear and shield.  It may seem obvious  to others, but I struggled to think how I could make these categories visually distinct from each other.  I don't know about anybody else, but I don't enjoy games with units or models which have different capabilities but which look very similar to each other.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that I'd finish my Cannibals or Married Warriors (I doubt that I'd want to use both classes in the same game) with war paint.  These are the most experienced guys in the tribe; it seems reasonable that they would take the effort to do things properly!

The pattern I've used for my war paint is a simplified version of a scheme that originates in Papua New Guinea.  That's a long way from where my tribe is based, of course - but I figured that skeletal designs of paint are probably quite universal.  In any case, I found some excellent & very detailed photos of the Papuan tribe on the internet...

I remembered to add some war paint to the backs of these natives as well.  This is, again, for the benefit of the players: these models are distinctive from any viewing angle.

Young Warriors

In contrast, the Young Warriors have no markings or decorations, though a few have beads or bracelets.  They are either too brash and hasty to have applied war paint, or they can't afford the ingredients.  Or maybe it's just that they don't have a wife to apply it for them!  One way or the other, it doesn't really matter.

Conclusion

All of these figures are 28mm models from Foundry.  The natives are really quick to paint, so I expect to have my Forest Tribe ready for a game within a week or two.  Who knows?  I might even post a picture of the completed group at that time.  If nothing else, such a group photo would enable me to check whether I really do have the right number of figures after all!

Congo: random Forest Tribes figures.

Introduction

I'm really keen on Congo (the new "African Adventure" wargames rules from Studio Tomahawk).  After all, the authors have a fine pedigree, having already written the very popular SAGA and Muskets and Tomahawks.  In addition, the European exploration of the Dark Continent is a subject that I have found fascinating since my university years, when I read large numbers of books by H. Rider Haggard and umpired long-running games of the old Source of the Nile board game.

To scratch this itch, at the recent Claymore show I bought the newly-published Congo rules as well as a pack of assorted natives and another of Askaris, all Foundry miniatures.  I've now painted up many of the natives and it's these that I'll be showing below.  They will add to my existing North Star "jungle cannibals" to form the basis of a Forest Tribes force, though I haven't quite worked out how that will be organised yet.

Warriors

"Pelt", "Hangout" and "Scar"

"Bluejacket", "Grandpa" and "Pithy"

  I've got a fair selection of tribal characters here, all of whom are easily recognisable as coming from Foundry's "Warrior Characters - DA064" pack.  There's a slight problem with that pack, though.  Since each tribe would probably have been distinguished from its neighbours by having its own hair style or type of shield, I can only suppose that these guys are all from different tribes.  Well, I won't let that bother me too much (and who knows, I now have the starters for 5 or 6 different tribes I could collect!)

The Boss

The big man and his special advisor

Here is the tribal chieftain.  This time, the figure is from North Star, though his advisor is another Foundry casting.  The chief is dressed in a somewhat unlikely "Hollywood Cannibal" style, with a grass skirt and a bone through his nose.  I don't think this would have been seen anywhere in 19th century Africa!

It's also fairly obvious that the chief has somewhat paler skin than the other figures I am showing today.  I started to paint him many weeks ago and I must have used a different recipe for the dark wash that was applied over the basic skin colour.  Oh, well - I'm not going to repaint him.  I've got a spare Foundry chieftain that I can paint up if this guy's costume and skin colour start to annoy me too much.

All Together

This adds another 8 figures to my Forest Tribe; a.  Along with the 15 North Star figures I painted earlier this year that makes 23.  I've still got a few more models to paint, but these are mostly auxiliaries or decoration (the war drum, the chieftain's favourite wife and daughter, the witch doctor...).  A basic "column" for Congo would probably need about 30-35 models, so I'm still a little short.  Now let's see - should I go for archers, tribal muskets, fierce cannibals or hordes of young warriors?

Cerberus, the hound of hell!

Introduction

In Greek and Roman myth, Cerberus (pronounced Kerberos) was the 3-headed hound who guarded the entrance to Hades or Hell.  His job was to prevent the dead from escaping and the living from entering.  The hound seems to have accomplished the former perfectly, but at least some of the greatest Greek heroes did manage to enter the underworld whilst alive and then leave again.  For example, Orpheus managed to pass Cerberus in both directions - possibly by soothing the beast with his music - and Heracles actually captured the beast as his 12th labour!

Cerberus was sibling to a number of other monsters including the Lernaean Hydra and the Chimera.  So I suppose you could say that he (she?) came from a somewhat dysfunctional family.  I don't suppose that anyone wanted them as neighbours!

Cerberus

 There are several manufacturers who make 28mm models of 3-headed dogs.  I compared all of the ones that I discovered; in the end I chose to buy the Foundry figure.  This model comes in 3 parts: the body & central head and the 2 other heads.  Interestingly the outer heads are identical parts, though I wouldn't have realised this had I not built the piece.  They did need a little filler to mate them seamlessly to the body, but nothing too bad.

 I was aiming for a colouring similar to a brindled mastiff.  This should have some quite visible, if poorly defined, stripes on the body.  However the wash I used was a bit darker than intended and the stripes aren't really visible.  Still, the black elements (ears, muzzle and eye sockets) help to give the hound a sinister appearance nevertheless.

Here's a size comparison with some humans.  In this case, they are 2 Wargames Factory Greeks and a Wargames Factory Numidian, all recently completed and added to my collection.  Note that the WF Greeks are quite tall and chunky figures; the Numidian is more average for a 28mm person.  Even so, the hound is clearly quite a monster: he's as big as a horse (if not quite so tall)!

Conclusion

Cerberus is a very useful monster who ought by rights to strike fear into the hearts of all bar the stoutest of heroes.  In a game it wouldn't be unreasonable to give him any number of attributes, depending on the scenario, such as fiery breath (maybe) or regeneration (he never seemed to die - or perhaps he's already undead?).

However, I think that all the ancient heroes were taking the wrong approach.  The easy and obvious way to defeat a creature like this is to show him 2 squirrels, throw them in opposite directions and just watch the hound tear itself apart in an attempt to chase both of the squirrels at once!

Greek Mythology: Harpies: part 1

Introduction

I seem to be on a bit of a roll at the moment with my 28mm models from ancient Greek legends.  Last week, I showed my satyrs and at the end of that article I promised harpies.  Well, here they are - at least, in their unpainted form.

These models come from the Wargames Foundry Greek Mythology range.  There are 4 packs of harpies, each of 5 models, so you'd imagine that there was a lot of variety in this collection.  However, 2 of the packs have feathered wings and 2 have leathery wings; I prefer not to mix and match these, so my choice was reduced to 2 packs.  Added to this, when I picked up a couple of packets at Salute 2014 earlier this year the Foundry stall had sold out of all apart from 1 variety.

So, I've got 2 packets (10 models), with 5 distinct sculpts, though some of the poses are quite similar to others.  I'd like to add a bit of variety; what can I do?  These figures aren't very good for repositioning limbs, as the arms are often tightly coupled to the wings and the wings are very solid.

Inspiration came from reading a passage in the 7th Voyage rulebook.  In the suggested scenario, the cast of harpies have a variety of different weapons (and none).  Although that might not make any functional difference in some rules, it will in others - and it should be relatively easy to achieve.  Let's give them some weapons!

Claws and clubs

The first batch of harpies that I'm showing here have not been given any weapons.  3 of the 4 models are straight out of the packet, whilst the other one (3rd from the left) has been cut off its base and its legs have been repositioned.  I've placed a flat rock on the base and mounted the harpy on a wire; it's meant to look as if she's leaping from the rock onto her prey.

Spears

It was very easy to drill out the hands in a couple of the harpies (especially as Foundry use a relatively soft metal for casting).  To arm them, I found a couple of javelins from the Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors kit; these smaller spears worked well since the harpies are not quite as chunky as many modern 28mm figures.

Swords

I have a number of spare swords from various Warhammer kits, but all of them were really far too big for my taste (imagine that!).  This caused me some difficulty until I remembered that I also had a part sprue of goblin warg riders from Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings range.  Excellent - the LotR models are a very good fit, scale-wise, for these harpies.  Fortunately for me, there were 2 spare swords on the sprue.  Again, I drilled out the hands of the recipients.  Each sword was cut into 2 across the middle of the hilt, with the blade part pushed into the drilled hand from one side and the pommel part pushed into the hand from the other side.

Bows

I was determined that some of my harpies would have ranged weapons.  Again, I raided the LotR warg riders, but this time I cut off the hand or arm that was holding a bow.  These were spliced carefully onto the harpies, after carefully removing their own hands.

These were certainly the most complex conversions of the bunch.  As well as the bows themselves, I added quivers (from the same donor sprue); in turn these needed belts or straps to hold them.  I added a loin cloth to one of the harpies, mainly to help disguise my botched belt.  The other model didn't need such an adjustment as a conveniently-positioned arm already obscured the join between quiver and belt.

All Ready for Painting

So, here's my group of 10 unpainted harpies, based and ready to be undercoated.  In the original Greek myths, there were only 2 (sometimes 3?) of these creatures, but where's the fun in that?  I want a whole flock of demi-humans with a bad attitude.  I see them as something like enormous seagulls: aggressive, dirty and noisy!

I've already painted these figures, but I think that pictures of the finished models can wait for another time.  However, I'll give you a hint as to their appearance: purple!