Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Post-Apocalyptic Tales => Topic started by: Bubbles on 09 January 2012, 04:17:28 AM
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I want to play a zombie game in 28mm scale and create a modern urban board for it but im having a bit of trouble and by trouble i have no idea where to start.
I have looked at a few rules like ATZ but i cant really decide on what rules i should use. i would like something that is flexible so that i can shape the games how i want, but really any thing that involves scavenging and shooting is good enough for me.
For the board i want to make it an urban set up and i have stolen a few bits and pieces from commander vyper and have decided to use the print out roads and a few other things but to be honest i am not a big fan of the paper/cardboard buildings and its a little bit to expensive for me to buy buildings such as plasticville and other products so im left with one option and thats foamboard/foamcore and to be honest im not a very good terrain maker so do you guys have any tips or tricks that i can use.
does anyone know where i might be able to get 1/43 scale vehicles in australia because i have seen a few on ebay but they go for somewhere between 15 and 20 aussie dollars.
i know where to get miniatures from but i wanted to know what is the survivor to zombie ratio is so that i can purchase the correct amount, i have seen people say that you should have 120 zeds and other say that you should have upwards of 500.
i would like to know where i can get a few small things like jersey barries, dumpsters and all those other small things that would litter an urban zombie board.
Cheers Bubbles
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I purchased most of my vehicles on ebay for my games from the UK for cheaper than the price you mentioned... you just have to hunt for them.
Number of zombies needed can depend on the rules you are playing - I have about 40 or 50 and I need more. Around 100 should do the trick, but I said that about the number I have.
You can always join this forum for all of your zombie advice, help and ideas: http://boardofthelivinglead.proboards.com/index.cgi (http://boardofthelivinglead.proboards.com/index.cgi)
And there are plenty of bloggers to borrow ideas from, including my own: http://zombiewargame.blogspot.com/ (http://zombiewargame.blogspot.com/)
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I am currently working on the same project here in the US. I am still researching my rules so I can give you a couple of suggestions.
ATZ looks pretty good, but from what I can see it can get bogged down when you gets bunches of zeds on the board. Your own house rules might be a good workaround.
Akula has his Total Ar:sed rules. Quick simple, free, and will work with the great hordes of the undead.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/roweller/ARSE/akulasrules.pdf (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/roweller/ARSE/akulasrules.pdf)
The rules for Please Stand By, I shelved pretty quick. It is GW mechanics skirmish zombie play. If you are into it then go for it. It is force on force so do not expect to overwhelm the survivors with zeds.
7ombie TV looks pretty good. It is again force on force, but I think that you can monkey with the rules to keep the zeds coming.
For vehicles, each toy manufactures identified scale is different so do not get hung up on what is listed on the package. This will link help you.
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=35847.0 (http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=35847.0) The ruler was free, but you can do the same with a piece of paper. Just mark a sheet of paper with the height of a 28mm fig, put it in your wallet, and when you see cars at the shop just measure to see if they look right. I have about thirty that I have measured this way. Most were $5.00 US.
Zeds to survivor ratio: I am on my second year working on this project and I have not stopped buying zeds. Painted I am sat at at about 200 and I have another 100 or so to paint. You can recycle them during play, but I like to make sure I can fill the streets if the scenario needs it.
For the terrain board, and individual street litter, that is up to your budget and your abilities. There are many manufactures for both buildings and other sundries. If you have the ability you can make your own. For me time is a factor. I prefer to make five items like dumpsters, make molds and cast them to fill the board. Again that is how I am doing it. Others may not have the time, ability, budget, or pure anal retentiveness to do every object on the board.
Hope my ramblings helped in some way.
Snitchy sends.
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Something else you could do for jersey barriers, signs and the like is to take a look around dollar stores (or the Aussie equivalent) for children's road construction playsets. These often come with vehicles (which may or may not be in scale) and lots of goodies like signs, barriers, traffic cones, etc. Here in the states they are relatively easy to find, as well as being pretty cheap too. I think Commander Vyper used something similar.
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For terrain pieces you can try Fenris Games.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/geronimo_jones/m.html?hash=item23179f349c&item=150720165020&pt=UK_Toys_Wargames_RL&_trksid=p4340.l2562
Antenocitis workshop also do some great terrain.
http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/wargames-scenery-terrain.html
Here are a few blog's which might come in usefull.
http://vampifansworldoftheundead.blogspot.com/
http://hobbitualoffenders.blogspot.com/
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I wasn't a fan of paper terrain either until I saw some in action at a store.
It's a compromise but I think that... depending on what your priorities are... for the price, and the savings on time it's worth it to at least start with paper terrain... and then build from there once you get the game on the table. At the moment I'd rather focus on painting figures... so I've been collecting the excellent Graffam kits (mostly fantasy so far).
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Andrew at the local games club has done loads of paper terrain.Some great pieces are available.It has loads of advantages over resin stuff.Price,weight and storage too.For me I like resin for the extra detail.
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I got a lot of my dumpsters and extra type stuff from Black Cat:
http://blackcatbases.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=430_442&zenid=5a8d8ec04a35f1f939d2a77b7cce4e39
and Armorcast: http://armorcast.com/
Jake
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You could use the Streets of Legends set from World Works Games for your general street and concrete layout, then just add pieces of foamcore cut to various sizes for buildings. If you use the optional building rules from ATZ, you dont need any interior detail anyway.
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If it's only roads you want, you'd better have a look at http://www.scalescenes.com/ (http://www.scalescenes.com/).
They look better than WWG.
Another great advantage of paper terrain is the weight (or rather, the abscence of it)
You can put a whole city in a large box and lift it without breaking your back :D
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"...not a very good terrain maker..."
I highly recommend Matakishi's cork buildings! He gives easy-to-follow instructions with pictures, and cork is CHEAP!
http://www.matakishi.com/makingthings.htm (http://www.matakishi.com/makingthings.htm)
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I think Commander Vyper used something similar.
No all my urban scenery, bar two recycling centres were from Ian at Fenris Games, Jed over at Antenocitis workshop & stuff from snapdragon and a few bits and pieces from Black cat.
The only 'toy' bits used were the wooden pallets, that were 1:50 from one of those diecast companies whose name escapes me.
What with worldworks and scalescenes also being mentioned by various people, (the combination of worldworks buildings and scalescenes roads being a little idea of mine ;)), you really should check out my zed thread. Also...
It's a compromise but I think that... depending on what your priorities are... for the price, and the savings on time it's worth it to at least start with paper terrain...
If you print at a high quality and build foamcore internal strutures to create long lasting buidlings then there's no compromise (or savings! :D).
Again I won't post shots here unless asked, so if you need any pointers go and take a look at said zed thread!
;)
The Commander
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funnily enough i stumbled across matakis buildings last night and it seems like good terrain pieces that even i can do, i wouldn't necessarily say cork is cheap here but it is cheaper than many other terrain making materials.
i actually have read your thread post quite a few times commander Vyper and i think your boards pretty neat and i would definitely like to be able to create something like that one day.
im definitely going to be buying a few things from fenris games and amorcast as i think they have some really neat stuff that will go great with some of matakis building designs.
i am pretty sure im also going to go with akulas ar:se rules because they seem to be the most easy and fun to use but im definitely going to check out ATZ and many of the other zombie games out there.
ive had trouble finding some 1/43 scale vehicles so it looks like im going on an expedition to the city to go rummaging through the reject shop and have a wander over to the hobby supply store to see if i cant find some things to use on my board.
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In Oz, check out Toy stores for Die cast vehicles, some come with a scale printed on the box, there's plenty of 1:50 stuff.
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If you live in Sydney you could try King Of Cork in Willoughby for your building cork.
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A couple of times a year Aldi sell 1:50 die cast cars. They were about 4 bucks a pop. This year they had a police car, some sports cars and a 4wd.
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I can't believe being that near to China, Hong Kong etc you can't get hold of decent diecast cars, shouldn't be an issue really but as I'm not in that hemisphere I wouldn't really know.
Anyway do you have anything started yet, essays are good but pictures paint 1000 words doobee doobee doo etc... ;)
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i havent got anything started yet commander viper as projects like this take cash but hopefully in a couple weeks ill be rolling in more than enough dough to get things kicked off.
i was looking through a few zombie threads on here and i saw a picture and it had a shipping container that looked resin and its doors opened as well as it being able to fit miniatures inside so you know does anyone know where they come from.
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=37215.0
here's the thread so does anyone know where they're from
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Here are a few Zombie blog's which should be of help to you.
http://hobbitualoffenders.blogspot.com/
http://zombiewargame.blogspot.com/
http://vampifansworldoftheundead.blogspot.com/
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http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=37215.0
here's the thread so does anyone know where they're from
You could try asking the poster? ::)
And there's a 'Y' in Vyper marine! ;)
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"i was looking through a few zombie threads on here and i saw a picture and it had a shipping container that looked resin and its doors opened as well as it being able to fit miniatures inside so you know does anyone know where they come from."
That container is from AT-43, part of the Operation Damocles Set. It's plastic, also, not resin. May still be able to find them on e-bay.
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Oorah commander Vyper pardon me for the misspelling but i have a question, is griffin miniatures still up and running because i cant get any of the dead walk miniatures on their store nor can i get really anything on their store except for blade runner.
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6milPhil does resin shipping containers too: http://slugindustries.wordpress.com/ (http://slugindustries.wordpress.com/)
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I'd suggest Akula's Zombie rules, free pdf and fast playing.
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6milPhil does resin shipping containers too: http://slugindustries.wordpress.com/ (http://slugindustries.wordpress.com/)
I have some of Phil's in use for my halo table specifically:
(http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq186/Vyperzoom/ODST/Scenery%20and%20static%20weapons/Sundayredteam.jpg)
(http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq186/Vyperzoom/ODST/Scenery%20and%20static%20weapons/painted3.jpg)
but equally useful for my zed stuff, go buy some! ;)
Oorah commander Vyper pardon me for the misspelling but i have a question, is griffin miniatures still up and running because i cant get any of the dead walk miniatures on their store nor can i get really anything on their store except for blade runner.
No idea about the griffin situation re: their zombies or survivors sorry mate. You could try emailing Mark directly? see if there are any sets left.
Cheers
The Commander
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I've tried contacting him but he's unresponsive but I'm sure i would be able to find a set on eBay if worst comes to worst.
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Sorry to high jack Bubbles :'(
But,
Vyper,I don't remember seeing those before.
Very nice. :-*
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Don't know what rules you decided on, but if i can put my Two cents in I would suggest as follows:
1) All Things Zombie: Better Dead Then Zed (plus the Haven and I, Zombie Scenario/expansion books)- The chain reaction system that ATZ uses is a very flexible system allowing you to tailor your games how you want, and with the challenge system in the rules you can easily incorporate an action not covered by the rules. Want your character to build a "distraction/Trap" for the zombies, then take a challenge test to see if you succeed or if you fail, Pass with at least 2d6 then the action goes off flawlessly, pass with 1d6 1st time then you made a mistake, but didn't fail so you can try again, 2nd time you fail, pass 0d6 then you fail outright. With a failure it could be as simple as the item, repair, construction, etc... not working, holding together, etc... or it could be as serious as the trap blowing up in your face or the "distraction" going off and attracting all the zeds to your location. Another nice thing about ATZ is that you can incorporate the rules from any other THW game that uses the Chain reaction system, so if you wanted to do a WWII scenario with zombies then use the NUTS! rules with the ATZ zombie rules, want some new Attributes for ATZ then draw then from Nuts!, FNG, or 5150. Want in addition to Zombies some Aliens then use 5150 with ATZ. Yes it can get bogged down if you have a bunch of players and zombies on the board. Word of warning though many find that the Chain Reaction rule system has a higher learning curve then most other rules, partially due to the fact that rolling a low score doesn't always mean failure, in most cases whey you are rolling a test vs your rep you want to roll as low as possible. Over all a great customizable rule system with great customer support on the THW Yahoo Group. You do have to purchase these rules, unlike the next two rules I am going to suggest. Also THW does have a proposed Post Apocalypse rule set, After the Horsemen, coming out soon (Ed the THW guy said baring any delays it should be released right around April)
2) Akulas AR:SE- a quick little rule set only consisting of a few pages, less of a learning curve to learn, also great for larger groups such as conventions. Free on one of Akulas Blogs http://akulasrules.blogspot.com/
3) Dead Walk Again- Another nice little rule system, the current version is a lot cleaner then the 1st edition. I will admit I haven't played the newest edition of the rules so I can quite comment on them. Free through the Dead Walk Again Yahoo Group http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/deadwalkagain/
There are more rule sets out there such as Ambush Z, 7TV- 7ombie, No More Room In Hell, etc... I have played a game or two of many of these rule sets but I keep gravitating back to ATZ due to the great customer support Ed has, and the ability to tailor the rules as needed via Challenge Tests and the use of other Chain Reaction based rules.
As for terrain (any price mentioned is in US Dollars)
1) World Works Games- Great scenery that you print out and assembly yourself. I have the older Urban Mayhem sets and not the newer TLX sets, if you check out Vampifans blog (link given in a previous post) you can see how the WWG Urban Mayhem stuff looks since he uses that for a majority of his scenery. One nice thing with WWG terrain you can either have the buildings with a full interior or just as shells, and use the THW Building rules as mentioned above (found in I, Zombie and as a free download on the THW website) if they are shells. Also now available through WWG is some of the Ebbles Miniatures cardstock models through the Ebbles Lab section of the WWG site. The Resistance, Patrol and Convoy sets are great Military style vehicles that scale well with 28mm minis, plus they are cheap at $2.50 a set and you can print off as many as you need, so if one gets destroyed its not a big deal. If you want a Vault style play area there's also Guncrawl a Space Hulk-esque gme from Ebbles Miniatures/Ebbles Lab. The Ebbles Lab version included the Prop sets that Ebbles Miniatures had available separately, these include a Store room, Workshop and Barracks (along with a lavatory prop set). I use the Ebbles Miniatures/Ebbles Labs Prop sets to populate some of my Buildings like the Ebbles Miniatures Folding Unit Structures (which are currently unavailable), primarily the Barracks prop set for the bunks (single and doubles), desks, tables and chairs for Military barracks/Relief Station housing. The Workshop and storeroom props are used to populate a workshop building and a storage building. Cardstock terrain is a great inexpensive way to populate your table with scenery, and if it gets ruined its easy enough to replace, only down side may be the cost of ink for your printer and the time spent cutting and gluing.
2) Model Railroad Buildings- For 28mm you can easily use O-Scale model railroad building such as the Bachman Plasticville line. You can typically get the buildings either prebuilt or as kits. The downside is that most these will require some additional work to get them to look good, you will want to paint these and weather them to get rid of the plastic look, some you may also want to add a small amount of interior props such as the Grocery Store, since it has the large window front (I believe some of these may come with an insert picture for an interior, but I may be wrong). You could either leave the model railroad buildings as shells and use the THW Building Interior Rules, or you can furnish the interiors with props. Advantage- sturdier then cardstock and will last longer. Disadvantage- Cost, you are looking at say $15 for one building kit and even more for the prebuilts), you also will need paints, weathering chalks, etc... to get the buildings to look good. Time wise it could be less time then with cardstock modeling or it could be more time depending on how in-depth you want to get on how the buildings look.
3) Scratchbuilt- You build the buildings and other bits of scenery out of foamcore, bits, styrene sheeting, cardboard, etc... For this you could also use parts of Model Railroad buildings (say the face of the building) or even textures from cardstock models like WWG.
4) Props- Granted props can be found in cardstock models from WWG and other companies or even model railroad scenery. I believe this should be its own separate category though. Buildings are what makes the board look good in a zombie game, but props are what brings it to life. You can as mentioned go the cardstock route to model railroad scenery or even props manufactured by gaming companies. I would also included vehicles in this category, World Works Games have some nice models in their sets along with the Ebbles Lab vehicles or you could go the Die-cast and plastic model route (roughly 1:42 to 1:48th scale looks good, plus the Hot Wheels Motorcycles {the ones that are packaged the same as the cars} are close to scale too, if you can find them).
I myself have a mix of cardstock vehicles and diecast vehicles that I use along with a mix of cardstock and model (both model kits and model railroad) props that I use for my games. In addition to the cardstock buildings I have I am also planning on using some Model railroad buildings (such as the Bachman Plasticville Motel kit and trailer park kit) to populate parts of my board. For the railroad buildings I plan on getting a couple of the Trailer Park kits (three trailers per kit, two per prebuilt iirc) and maybe one of the Cape Cod Cottage kits to make a trailer park for my table (the Cottage will be used as the parks office), especially since I have yet to find a cardstock trailer that I like.
The nice thing about building the Zombie table is you can also use it for Post Apocalypse games (especially if you model some of the buildings and/or vehicles as ruins and wrecks). Plus for Zombies you don't have to have the game set strictly in a city, you could do a small rural town with a couple businesses (say a diner, a small general/grocery store, a farm supply store, post office, city hall/police station) and one or two housed in town with a farm on the tables edge outside of town with a wooded lot in between the town and the farm (great for limited LOS) or even have the entire game take place on a farm ala Night of the Living Dead. If you wanted to game a Dawn of the Dead setting you can do that too, either scratch build your own mall or use the WWG Mayhem Mall set. Or if you wanted you could have the game take place in an underground facility ala Day of the Dead (original 1985 version) or Resident Evil the movie (using the Guncrawl game tiles or even the Firstlight and Firstlight Retrofit {or the newer TLX sets Codename Titan and Titan Control} sets from WWG, and for a Day of the Dead setting you could also incorporate the WWG set Caveworks). The possibilities are endless.
While it may look like I am trying to push you towards the WWG cardstock models I am not, I am using them as an example of whats out there, you also have Fat Dragon Games and Mirco Tactix that do modern cardstock buildings. I only have a couple buildings from Micro Tactix, where as I have most of the older Urban Mayhem sets from WWG (only missing that I know of Mayhem Junkyard and Urban Grind, along with the multi-genre sets Cathedrea Noctis and Wild Woods Grove that I can use for a Modern Day zombie game), and I love the look of the WWG sets.
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im using akulas rules and i have made a start on my horde of zombies with 30 generic zombies and 6 septic zombies crawling out of a container for eureka miniatures. i need advice on my horde, do i use numbers or quality for choosing which miniatures i do and don't buy
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im using akulas rules and i have made a start on my horde of zombies with 30 generic zombies and 6 septic zombies crawling out of a container for eureka miniatures. i need advice on my horde, do i use numbers or quality for choosing which miniatures i do and don't buy
A whole thread devoted to zombie mini companies as a sticky at the top of the list so enjoy.
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What are some cheaper alternatives to GW products such as paints and glues, Commander Vyper and Luckyjoe what paints and glues did you guys use for your miniatures and such.
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I have used cheap craft paints and still do sometimes. Now I am mainly using Reaper Master series, GW foundation, or Model Master acrylics for the minis. The reason I switched to the more expensive paints was that sometimes I was having to do 3 or evn 4 coats of the craft paint to get coverage. The GW Foundation paints seem to the job done in 1 coat.
And as far as Zombies, I stole a page from CDR Vyper's thread wherein he (or someone else, can't exactly remember ATM) mixed the WarGames Factory legs with Mantic Zombies and heads. I think the hybrids look pretty good.
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i) Same paints I use for everything, mixture of citadel colour paint inks glazes and washes (original sets) GW paints, inks and washes & VJ paints. Wonder wash on occasion too.
ii) Yup I did the kitbash, only good use for the WGF zombies as bits to be honest.
iii) Glue???? Superglue for most conversions.
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you guys have all been a greatest help i just the last question, how would i go about taking a picture of the design of my zombie board to put on my soon to be Bubbles zombie board thread. the design is actually on the mdf board if that makes any difference.
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For me the paints I prefer to use were the Reaper Pro Paints (.75 oz pots), locally they were a couple pennies less then the GW Citadel paints (.4 oz pots) and the Privateer Press P3 paint (.5 oz pots). Unfortunately Reaper have phased the Pro Paints line out so I will probably be looking at their Master Series paints, which I do have a couple of. I also use a couple of the Plaid craft paints (Apple barrel Colors and Folk Art paints) fore some select colors. In addition I do have some of the newer style pots of GW paints and some P3 paints.
Though I have been looking at the Vellejo Game Color Series of paints, and have heard great things about them. I may invest in a couple bottles of them if I can find them locally, if not I may break down and order some online.
Now every one who does zombie gaming seems to have their preferred Zombie flesh color, for me it is the now out of production Reaper Pro Paints Ghoul Grey, though I am thinking of trying some of the colors in the Reaper Master Series Undead Flesh triad (Bloodless Skin, Moldy Skin and Ghoul Skin) since I have only a partial pot of Ghoul Grey left. There are others who paint the zombie skin a flesh tone with a drop of grey, blue or green in it to give it an unhealthy coloring, where as others paint it with a flesh tone and then drybrush/highlight the skin with a grey, green or blue.
Now miniature wise I get what I can, Reaper Chronoscope (Survivors mostly), Zombiesmith (Zombies), Victory Force (Zombies, though have been looking at some of their other figures to use as survivors), Hasslefree (Survivors, do want to get their zombies though), eM4 (survivors), Mantic (Ghouls for use as ATZ Ragers), Hero/Horrorclix (survivors and zombies), and a couple of other miscellaneous manufacturers. The nice thing about modern day (Zombie and non Zombie) gaming is that more and more companies are releasing figures we can use, plus with some slight work you can even use Sci-Fi figures (I use the GW Catachan Jungle Squad figures with the "skulls" removed from the weapons and canteens as a Special Force unit, a Mercenary Unit, or even a Militia unit in my ATZ games).
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you guys have all been a greatest help i just the last question, how would i go about taking a picture of the design of my zombie board to put on my soon to be Bubbles zombie board thread. the design is actually on the mdf board if that makes any difference.
Digital camera and a photobucket account mate, then copy the [img ][/img ] link direct from your photobucket, bucket and paste into your thread post...simples!
;)
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As Commander Vyper said for pics a Digital Camera and an Photobucket account are needed for the pics. Though you don't have to use photobucket, you can use Flickr, Google Picasa, or one of the many other image hosting sites.
Now as for the Camera a simple point and shoot digital or cell phone camera will work or you can get fancy and use a Digital SLR with a macro lens, if you have a camera you can put on a tripod and has a timer function that's even better, even better if you can attach a trigger release/remote (the trigger release/remote feature is typically found on your DSLRs and not point and shoots). The tripod will provide you with nice stable (not shaky) shots IIRC over in the Workbench area there's a good thread on photographing minis. The key thing is to remember that you want plenty of lighting so you can see the details that may get lost in the shadows.
Heres one of the threads in the Workbench How-To section on taking photos http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=6052.0 There are a couple of others there too. Best thing to do is if you are unsure on getting the pics to look good is ask, and of course practice.