tiny 15mm Zombie Apocolyps

Sometimes the madness grips you and you just have to buy the latest shiny thing you have found, regardless of how practical this is. That's my excuse for embarking on yet another side project.

The other night, while looking for some stuff for my Flames of War army, I accidentally stumbled upon Rebel Miniatures, a US based manufactures producing odd 15mm figures, and I was particularly drawn to their 15mm modern zombie range. Now that obvious advantage of 15mm for zombies is that you can get an absolutely massive horde painted quite quickly,and for not too much money. I promptly ordered a few packs of zombies, zombie dogs and survivors, just to see what they are like. They arrived quickly,and I set to work.

The first few looked too dirty,as I got a little heavy-handed with the ink washes- I am not used to 15mm scale, and you don't need to use as much ink to achieved the right effect. Once I got the hang of it I was quite pleased with the results. Here's some of my survivors.

Burt used to own a gun store, and his sidearm of choice is the Desert Eagle .50 - more than enough stopping power for your average zed, and intimidating enough to put off most looters too.

Tank Girl claims to have been in the military, but here extremely aggressive nature and psychotic behaviour has lead her companions to suspect that she is just some crazed paranoid survivalist.

Lobo Sanchez used to run with street gang called the Saints. Now the Saints are all dead and Sanchez is on his own. A natural killer with street sharpened reflexes- he is born to survive.

Here's a few pictures of my growing Zombie horde- some are better than the others, but I think my technique is getting better.

A suburban family

Fast and deadly- Zombie dogs are a major problem in urban areas

An assortment of Zombiefied civilians.

Fire Support for the Chester Milita

More reinforcements for the Chester Local Defence Force, courtesy of the Duke of Farhams contacts in the military. In this case, they bring some much needed fire support to the beleaguered militiamen.

The venerable Lewis Gun light machine gun, still widely in service in the British army, and an imported Bergman SMG add support at a squad level, while the platoon in bolstered by the addition of a Boys Anti-Tank rifle to hold off the Socialist's armoured cars.

The Lewis Gunner is by Musketeer Miniatures, with a minor conversion (i.e. the addition of a helmet from the BAM plastic Tommie's sprue). The SMG is a Black Tree Designs (I think) with a head-swap for a West Wind WW2 British Army head. The Boys Rifle team are by Musketeer Miniatures, and have not been converted.

Askari and Simba

Askari is a supervillian from East Africa, who works an an international mercenary, hiring herself out to anyone who can afford her exorbitant fees. In the past she has worked for terrorist organisations, tyrannical dictators, unscrupulous multinational corporations, organised criminal and even pirates. So long as she is paid, she will fight for anyone, regardless of their motives or methods.

Askari is a 'Feral', a rare class of super with enhances strength, toughness and reflexes, coupled with uncanny senses. She is accompanied every where by here faithful lion, Simba.

The figure for Askari is a Superfig, which I got of Leon (cheers) when he was having a bit of a clear out. I have had the lion for many years, and I have n idea who it is by (it might be Ral Patha). The lion's sculpt is quite poor, but I managed to add some shading and highlighting to add some definition where it was lacking.

More Bits of Scenery

The "Scenery Making Marathon" continues to gather pace, with some more long awaited projects being finished off.

These little 15mm scale houses are made by Sarrissa Precision, an excellent new company making scenery in various scales using Laser-cut MDF. Like their rivals Warbases, this company's products are well made and beautifully put together- I am not so pleased about the chimneys, which I feel could have been better finished, but the models are great fun to put together and to paint- much nicer than working with resin cast buildings.
Obviously I got these to use with my 15mm Flames of War armies, and as such they are painted in a style suggestive of Normandy and northern Europe, but with a different paint scheme could serve as British terrace houses for a 15mm VBCW Game (not that I am about to change scale).
I plan to do some more in the near futures too.



Next, I didn't make this one, but I bought it from the pet shop instead. It cost £12.99, painted exactly as you see it- All I had to do was cut the price tag off.
It's supposed to go in a fish tank, but instead its going to grace my jungle boards- I can see this being useful in all sorts of games, from Conan to AE Bounty. If this was sold as a piece of wargaming scenery I would have paid more than £12.99 for it, for sure. And I would have ended up having to paint it, and pay postage on it too!
A bargain, if you ask me.

Finally, for now at least, a hobbit hole- scratch built by me. With my steadily growing hobbit army for Lord of the Rings I thought I needed some suitable scenery- this is a prototype, but I am so pleased with it that I will certainly make some more.
Here's a link to a sort of WIP/Tutorial as to how I made it on the Lead Adventure Forum here.

Coming soon....Another 28mm VBCW factory, and more 15mm Flames of War French buildings.

Das Panzergrenadiers

Just a quick Flames of War update- I have finished my first Panzergrenadier platoon, complete with their Opal Blitz trucks. These will support my Panzerkompanie, providing much needed infantry support to scout out the enemy and protect the valuable panzers from the British infantry.

These infantry figures are by Plastic Soldier Company and are hard plastic 15 mm German soldiers. You get over 100 models for £18. The bases are by Warbases and are pre-cut from MDF, as the PSC figures don't come with bases. These figures are nicely sculpted and well cast, with a lot of detail. The box included a few medics, radio operators and ammunition carriers, which adds to the details. I am not sure the sculpting is quite as good as on the very excellent vehicles, but they are inexpensive compared to metal, so I mustn't grumble too much. Another minor point is that they are actually relatively tall when compared with the Flames of War British I have painted- actually a head taller- they are also much more anatomically proportioned. Its only a minor thing, but it's worth noting.

The Opel Blitz trucks are resin and are made by Battlefront for Flames of War.

Battle at Merlin's Reach (Pulp City Battle Report)

Another Pulp City game, over at my old pal Leon's (AKA Pulp Citizen). All the figures and scenery are Leon's.

This game was called Merlin's Reach. The back story is that Somewhere in the heart of merry old England there is a portal to a hidden pocked dimension known as Merlin's Reach. A vicious band of nefarious supervillains from the Necroplane have managed to locate the portal and have entered Merlin's Reach with the intent of gathering up a number of spirits to fuel their terrible infernal machines.

Heroic British supreme Sovereign has gathered a Team of mystical and nature orientated heroes to try to stop the villains plans.

The Villain Team- Morne, Hellsmith, Boreas, Tritonious, Twilight and Seabolt.

The Heroes- Perin, Trail, Blood Rose, Harrier, Soverin, Kitty Cheshire

Hellsmith makes a bold move- entering the ruins of a temple to seize the first of the spirits...

Perin, god of thunder, wasn't about to let that happen and the two might supremes clash in an epic battle from which only Perin will walk away...

Mean while Morne and Harrier battle it out for another spirit. Harrier gets the drop on Morne, and escapes with the spirit, racing to he sky with her prize...Seabolt get the last spirit. Sovereign tries to pin him down, but Seabolt is a slippery customer....
Tritonious uses his water powers to try to add Twilight and Seabolt bit when Tritonious is defeated by Perin, it leaves his teammates vulnerable. Twilight soon falls too...

Despite the destruction he causes Seabolt can't prevent Sovereign finally catching up with him and the villains are defeated.

True to my word, I have continued to press on with getting half finished building projects completed. This week I have been painting some factory buildings for my VBCW game. This is a warehouse that I showed as a WIP in February. Now it is complete (Yay!).
I do plan to build an urban battle field eventually, but in the mean time here it is sat in the middle of a lovely green field.

And although it was slightly less time consuming, I also built these cricket stumps. What says 1930's England more than the sound of leather of willow on a sunny summers day?

There is a cricket club at back of my house, and I could here them playing while painting the warehouse- I guess that inspired me. My son says that you only have one wicket in cricket, not two as I have made, but what do I know about cricket?

An umpire, with a rifle? That's just not cricket!

Keep Calm Posters VBCW Style

Here's a link to a fantastic little website where you can create your own 'Keep Calm and Carry On' poster.

I made a couple of posters for my own amusement, one for the Wirral Socialist Workers Council (allies of the Liverpool Free State), and one for the Chester Local Defence Force, who support good old King Edward.

It's a bit of fun, so why not have a go and make your own. The site owners can also have your poster made into a t-shirt, mug, badge etc.

Scenery Workshop (Part 1)

Having recently had a look in the garage, whilst hunting for something else entirely, I found that I have a number of half finished scenery projects. I am a great one for starting scenery and never getting to finish it: It's just too boring to spend a few nights painting a building, when I could spend the same time painting miniatures. What I tend to do is eagerly build it, and then run out of enthusiasm for the whole thing before it ever gets to the painting stage.

This summer, I have made my self a vow to get some of those half finished scenery projects finished and so I have suspended my figure painting (well almost) until I can get more scenery completed.

This week I would like to showcase some jungle scenery I have just finished.

This was the easiest thing to make- a few hours and I had made 10 stands of trees and undergrowth. I bought the trees off EBay from a supply in China- about £8 including p+p for 30 palms. They don't need painting and are made form quite a soft, rubbery plastic that is very forgiving as it tends to bend rather than break. I used brown mounting card for the base as this would mean I didn't have to paint it. I pushed drawing pins through the bottom of the card and pushed the trees down onto the pin. Next I glued some bits of green lichen and some bits of fish tank plastic plants from the pet shop. Finally I flocked it with may own mixture of statigrass and clump foliage.

I also made a hill. Hills are great bits of scenery as the are generally not scale specific- this one could work for 40K as well as Flames of War or even Epic. This one is made by Games workshop and is cast from hard plastic- it's a bit expensive for what it is, but it is a tough and durable piece of scenery.

I have painted the exposed rock as red sandstone, to be of more use in my Wirral based VCBW campaign, as the local stone has a lovely warm red colour, but as you can see it also works well in the jungle too.

I can see this scenery being useful for Warhammer or a Conan setting right through to WW2- Burma, Vietnam, Predator, Pulp City and all the way to AE Bounty and 40K. Now that is versatile scenery. I am tempted to make some more!

Das Panzerkompanie

Work progresses on my Flames of War Panzerkompanie, with the completion of my Company Command Platoon of two Panzer IV H and a Bergepanther recovery vehicle. Technically, this Company is now complete, but I feel it needs the addition of some infantry, in the form of a platoon of Panzergrenadiers and a Panzer Pioneer Platoon.


The Bergepanther recovery vehicle is massive, swamping the Panzer IV H and StuG G tanks, but it is only armed with a MG- making it a tempting target for enemy tanks and AT guns.
The crew are a mixture of Flames of War and Plastic Soldier Company- Which shows they go together very well.



The next plan is to build up my British Rifle Company with the addition of a couple of armoured platoons and some heavier weaponry (like AT guns and MMG's). I have also recently bought some scenery, but patiently await its delivery.

Summer Holiday Trip to Warhammer World

Summer Holidays are here and I had to organise a day trip for the kids while my wife was busy. Where to go? Let me think....

Warhammer World of course! Warhammer world, Games Workshop's flagship store, is in Nottingham, less that an hour and a half from our house- I perfect chance to engage in a bit of gaming related shenanigans while maintaining the pretence of taking the kids out for the day. In my defence, I must point out that my son Charlie was a keen as I was to go. Eleanor was not so enthusiastic as she wanted to go to Florida, but then you cant win them all.

Charlie took the opportunity to expand his already massive Lord of the Rings Moria Goblin army. I added a few Hobbits to my Shire army. I had previously decided not to collect any more GW Armies, as they are just too expensive, but as this was more a case of adding to an existing army I felt that is was justifiable.

All in all, Charlie and I had a great time. The whole experience for Eleanor could have been enhanced by the addition of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

Here's some gaming tables I photographed while I was there. Amazingly, if you turn up with your own armies, you can play on these masterpieces!

This just goes to show what you can do with a ware house of plastic kits if some one tells you to design something impressive.


This is a gorgeous Eldar vs Imperial Guard table- kind of half diorama and half battle board- amazing!

A sweet little Empire Village built just using the GW plastic buildings- A bit to built up for Warhammer, in my opinion, but great for Mordhiem or similar games.