Dead Man's Hand Report: The Jail Break!

At Earlswood Wargaming we are lucky enough to have not one but two super talented scenery makers. As well as Big Al, whose prolific scenery building gave us the Gettysburg and Battle of The Bulge boards, we have Dave, who mas made the most amazing scenery for Dead Man's Hand. Dave's scenery began life as a pile of Laser-cut MDF buildings but they have been embellished and weathered to perfection (as you will see). Playing on Dave's beautifully made board is always rewarding, as the narrative that develops is very rich, and the photos end up looking like a museum diorama. Sit back and enjoy a Saturday western matinee.

With the dastardly bandit leader in jail the citizens of the Old West town began to relax. The Circuit Judge would be arriving at noon and was sure to hang the criminal, and that would be the end of his reign of terror. Time for the good folks to get back to normal.

The bank clerk and the butcher swap tall stories about how they took on the bandits

The saloon keeper sweeps away the broken glass and looks forward to an evening of celebration in the town. 

Old Crazy Dean the balloonist takes his balloon out for a spin. 

But what is this... the bandits are not going to let their leader swing without a fight. They are going to try a jail break! One of the villains takes the clerk hostage!

Another deranged killer rides through High Street shooting up the town, terrorising the Good Folk!

The Marshal and his deputy spring into action. 

A concerned citizen takes out the killer on the horse with both barrels of his shotgun...

but is in turn gunned down by the Mexican bandit who had been hiding in an alleyway.

Another deputy takes up position in a half built house, and takes pot shots at the bandits 

while another prepares to defend the jail house

  

The Mexican charges into the jail with his six shooter blazing, but miraculously hits nothing

Outside a bandit and the marshal get into a shoot out...

and the brave marshal is killed!

Inside the jail house the Mexican is gunned down by the lawmen

The last bandit tries to beat a deputy in fisty cuffs but is overpowered and arrested!

With the bandits dead, captured or driven off nothing can stop the Circuit Judge delivering a healthy does of justice to the dastardly bandit leader, and restoring Law and Order once more! Yeha!

All credit to Dave, who painted all the figures as well as making all the scenery. 

Dead Man's Hand: Dead Cavalrymen

"Argh! They shot me Sarg! I can'y feel my legs...it's so cold..."

Some dead cavalry for my Dead Man's Hand gang. these figures were converted from the dead outlaw figures. Strictly speaking you don't need dead bodies for Dead Man's hand, but they are a bit of fun and add to the over all visual effect of the game. 

Dead Man's Hand Cavalry

Here are my 7th Cavalry troopers for Dead Man's Hand, ready to shoot some 'red-skin' renegades, or Mexican banditos.  The figures are from Great Escape Games.

Dead Man's Hand: Work In Progress

Just a quick mid week post to show you a work in progress pictures of a couple of dead cavalry men for Dead Man's Hand. 

Having dead bodies for you team is not really essential in Dead Man's Hand, but it is a lot of fun. Unfortunately Great Escape Games have only brought out dead bodies for a few of their gangs- and none at all for their second wave of gangs- including my favourite the Seventh Cavalry. 

So Instead I bought one of their packs and just converted them- mostly quite minor green stuff work and a bit of shaving with a scalpel, but they both needed head swaps- one is a Mordhiem warhammer head, and the other is a Mantic zombie head with a hat from a Warlord Games ECW musketeer.  I am quite please with the results, but I have to say it is only when you have a go at green stuffing you realise how talented the likes of Kev White, the Perry Twins and Paul Hicks are to be able to make something that looks like a human being out of Green Stuff!

Zomtober Week 4: Napoleonic Zombie Survivors and Undead Cowboys!

First up- for Regardez! Zombie! I have three more Napocalypse (do you see what I did there?) survivors- These three are cavalry men who have lost their horses- may be their mounts ran off at the smell of the undead, or else perished it the bitter winter. What ever happened these poor donkey-wallopers are now reduced to tramping through the snow like everyone else.

First up a Dragoon, sporting a musket as well as his cavalry sabre and pistol- A dragoon might do better that his other cavalry colleagues because at least he has been trained to fight on foot.

Next up, a very dashing Carabinier sporting a rakish brace of pistols- I love this one- very dynamic pose for a Perry Twins model. He certainly has a dash of the élan you would expect from a French cavalryman.

Here is my last cavalryman, for now. A hussar with a pistol and a sabre.  Hussars have a reputation for being dashing rakes with the skills to live off the land behind enemy lines- useful skills when surrounded by Les Morts Ambulants!

And on the Cowboys vs Zombies front I have finally finished all the ones I intended to do- these pair are from West Winds Victorian Zombies set. 

And here they are all together. In the further I might add a few more to this collection, may be some of the Warlord Games Zombie Indians, or a few of the Wargames Foundry zombie cowboys. On the whole I think the Red Box Games undead go quite well with the West Wind Games Victorian Zombies. 

Dead Man's Hand: A Deadly Shoot Out

Last Sunday I joined the Earlswood Wargamers for an evening of gaming- my planned game- Drums and Shakos, was called off when my opponent was unable to make it, but instead I ended up playing Dead Man's Hand with Dave and his nephew James on Dave's new Dead Man's Hand Board. Regular Readers may recall that I posted some pictures of Dave's last Dead Mans Hand board earlier in the year- here is a link. Well Dave's new board it at least as cool as his last one,and he had out done himself with scatter terrain that help make the board feel 'lived in'.
For the record Dave is using Dead Man's Hand figures and his terrain is mostly from 4Ground- although he has added many of his own embellishments.  

For the game we each took just three men from each gang- I was the desperadoes, James the Mexican Banditoes and Dave was the Law. Basically the plot was that there was some bad blood between the Mexicans and the desperadoes over a deal that had gone sour, and both sides were going to settle the score, while the Law just kept the peace and killed the bad guys- a classic three way battle.  

The encounter kicked off early, when one of my thugs wielding a shotgun decided to take the initiative. Howling a curse at the slimy double crossing Mexican, he leapt up onto the wagon and tried to blast the Bandito who was carrying a shotgun, hoping to take him out of the fight early. Things did not go well, when the Mexican snap fired with both barrels, blowing my desperado away, and only reviving a light wound in return! Even in Dead Man's Hand people do tend to live a bit longer than that!

He ain't all there is he?
Not such a smart move after all!

With one man down I decided to play smarter. My boss clambered onto the roof of the gun shop, where he had good cover and could snap shots off at the Mexicans in the street bellow, while my sneaky injun half-breed skulked in an ally-way beside the gallows, hoping to outflank the banditoes. 

Sneaky lightfoot halfbreed injun!

Alerted from the gun shots the Marshal and his deputies appeared from the jail and saw the Mexicans standing over the body of my desperado, smoking guns in hand, and drew some quick conclusions, before shooting. Reasoning that it might be better to let them get on with it my boss hid on the roof, popping up to let of the odd shot, including shooting the Mexican's boss in the back and wounding a deputy. This last action singled him out for some 'attention' from the marshal, who had my boss in his sights- but to my good fortune, the marshals gun jammed, and my boss made it across the rooftops onto the balcony of the undertakers, out of sight of the vengeful marshal. 

In this town I AM THE LAW!

Meanwhile my half breed got into a close range gun fight with one of the Mexicans- which end up with a tense moment when the both realised their guns were empty. The Mexican  licked his dry tips nervously as they eyed each other up, but the half-breed got the drop on him and dashed drew his hunting knife, gutting and then scalping the Mexican. 

The halfbreed scalps his victim

The last of the Mexicans, with revenge in mind, sprinted into the undertakers, intending to sneak up on my boss and shoot him in the back. He never got a chance, as my boss spotted him: Crashing through the window from the balcony into the first floor of the undertakers, the boss ran to the top of the stairs and shoots the last Mexican dead as he began to climb the stairs!

The desperado boss leaps across the alleyway to avoid the marshal's vengeance!

The Marshal spots my half-breed scalping his victim and opens up with his six shooter, narrowly missing the injun. The half-breed dived for cover in a half-built building and returned fire. The last deputy tries to out flank the half-breed, but comes under fire from my boss, who charges out of the undertakers, guns blazing. 

The Deputy has a chance to end it, but misses the desperado boss. Fatal mistake. 

It was then everything changed- the half breed opens fire, and in a lucky moment hits the marshal, killing him outright. The last deputy opens fire on my boss, but his nerves get the better of him, and he misses. Outnumbered and out guns he makes a dash for the undertakers, but is cornered by my desperadoes. More bullets fly, but in the end the deputy was gunned down.

I shot the sheriff. And I did shoot his deputy too. 

 All in all an excellent game- and a privilege to play with Dave's lovely figures and scenery. I thought I was a goner when my shot gun wielding thug bought the farm on the first round, but by being a sneaky backstabbing lucky scum-bag I pulled the game back- Nine men started- only two left standing- both mine. 

Zomtober 2014: Week 2

Week two of Zomtober is over already, and I managed to squeeze out some more historical-zom-apoc figures. There first three survivors for the Zombies vs Napoleonics game (I have decided to call it Regardez! Zombie! for short). 

The survivors are from Perry Miniatures 'Retreat from Moscow' range. Les Morts Ambulants (does everything sound cooler in French?) are from Mantic and I painted them last year for my Finnish zombie game 'It Snows in Hell'. 

In addition to Regardez! Zombie! I have added another zombie to my slowly growing horde of living dead for my Cowboys vs Zombies game (which has yet to be given a funky title). Some intrepid photographer even managed to capture the unfortunate zombies likeness in sepia film (just before it ate his head!)

Again, another one from Red Box Games-

Zomtober 2014 Week 1

Week One of Zomtober finds me with two more zombies for my Cowboys vs Zombies idea. I make no apologies for the green skin- I am just old school. 

These two are from Redbox games, and I picked them up when Red Box was having a clearance sale because they were switching from white metal to some sort of spin cast resin. Even having them shipped from the  USA they were a bargain.  Nice models- quite slight, with small heads, Well probably not that small, just realistically proportioned unlike most heroic scale minis. They work OK along side West Winds Victorian Zombies, but would look stupid next to GW and Mantics.

Blood and guts were painted with GW new technical paint, Blood for the Blood God (yes, that is what it is really called) which goes on semi-translucent and dries with a lovely sheen- an excellent product. 

two down- twelve survivors and three more zeds to go!

Zomtober 2014: The Plans!

I have always maintained that everything is better with zombies (with the probable exception of real life) and this Zomtober I intend to prove this. 

Given that Pulp Citizen and I can, between us, field 60-70 painted 'modern' zombies, I thought it was high time I mixed things up a bit and got historical. 

First off...Napoleonics vs Zombies!

Building on the excellent work of Jane Austin in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies I have decided that the early 19th  century needs more zombies. Zombies are a lot more scary when your musket takes 20 seconds to reload. 

I toyed with the idea of doing some Spanish zombies to be used with my Peninsular War Napoleonic figures, but the nice neat uniforms and rank and file just doesn't look 'zompoc survivor' enough for my tastes.  Then I stumbled on the Retreat from Moscow range by Perry Miniatures and knew at once I had to get them. By good fortune I made ice zombies for my Finland Zombie Outbreak for last years Zomtober. All I have to do is paint some survivors and I am good to go.

The 'plot' will be that Napoleons army, defeated by the Russian winter, are falling back in disarray. A band of stragglers struggling through the deep snow and driving winds when they are beset by ravenous undead!

Rules wise I think I will be looking at mashing Songs of Drums and Shakos with the undead rules from Songs of Blades and Heroes. The rules are so similar it should be easy enough to work out. 

Here are a couple of snow-bound pictures to give you an idea of what I am going to be going for...

Regardez Zombies!

The last thing these guys need is a zombie apocalypse!

Here are my ice zombies I painted last year...

Now before anyone goes crying foul and pointing out that I haven't painted any zombies in Zomtober (After all the idea is to paint one zombie a week for the whole of the month) I have decided to launch a second mini project...

Cowboys vs Zombies!

This one is drawing inspiration from Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, a spin off for the original computer/console game. 

Cowboys are tough resilient folk, well used to dealing with dangers that would freeze a lesser man's soul, who better to face a zombie apocalypse and survive? That said, with the isolation of many 'wild west' towns, there is no chance of the authorities turning up to save the day (well maybe the rangers or the US cavalry), so the towns folk are on their own. 

I am thinking of using In Her Majesties Name for this one...the undead could be a faction lead by a necromancer or Native Americana shaman. I haven't really worked out the specifics yet (I rarely bother to workout the rules until I have the figures painted)

Here's some pictures to get the creative juices flowing..