Playing with the Castle

Been playing around with my DwarvenForge Castle stuff. As you can see, it is for sale on the Dwarvenforge website.

This is the Count's Castle with the Watchtower on one corner and some other added parts.

Large corner tower on the cliff.

The hanging parapet on this corner is a cool item, in my opinion.

Model's eye view.
Looks impregnable to me...

The Mountains of Erinthor set allows me to raise the castle up, making it more imposing on the tabletop. I threw this set up together the other morning, so the cliffs aren't perfect. I had to use a lot of pieces under the castle to hold it up, including some stuff from my caverns set, but I made it work. Part of the fun of Dwarvenforge stuff is building and solving the puzzle of how to do what you imagine. It's a bit like Legos that way.

This week I bought a 4'x8' sheet of 2 inch insulation foam for a home improvement project. That will give me lots of 2 inch foam to use to make risers for beneath my builds. Once the foam is cut to some appropriate sizes and painted matte black, it will be perfect for building on. That will give me more pieces to use for the parts of a build that actually show.

Anyway, until next time, carry on!

Count's Castle

Last week I said I received my Dwarvenforge Castles Kickstarter. Here are some shots of the Count's Castle being assembled in all it's glory...

Gate House.
The lighted LED torches are a nice touch.

Everything is modular.
The corner towers can be broken out to be free standing with the add-on I bought.

It's a lot of parts.
It took me a while to figure out how it all goes together, which is part of the fun.

Getting there!

Voila! The Count's Castle.
This an amazing addition to my collection.

Drone view.
The details are superb. We will be having much fun with this stuff for years to come.

My daughter's Reaper Druid takes aim from the parapet!

Well, that's it for this week. Until next time, carry on!

Castle in a Box

I received my Dwarvenforge Castles Kickstarter stuff the other day.

Main pledge and add-ons.
Couldn't wait to haul it to the basement.
Had to start unboxing in the kitchen.

It's a pile of stuff and this isn't even all of it.

All the add-ons unboxed and spread on the table.

Suspended Parapets set.

Small Tower Batter Bases.

Small Tower Breakout set.
(Allows you to make a free standing tower from a castle corner tower.)

Ruined Walls set.

Stone Bridge set.

Ruined Large Tower set.

Larger Tower Batter Base.

Large Tower Transition set.
(Allows you to add a Large Tower to the corner of a castle.)

Of course that is just all the add-ons that allow me to have some variety in my castle layouts. My main pledge was the Count's Castle...

Count's Castle boxed.

Next week I'll show you what this looks like when it's all put together.

Until next time, carry on!

A Little Zombie Gaming

Played some All Things Zombie: Final Fade Out a couple weeks ago. It was a simple Search scenario in an urban setting. The players were all new to the game so I kept it simple and did not use PEFs. I played as the referee and ran the zombies while they each took a character. It was a fun game and my friends enjoyed it.

My urban board.
I need to get some MDF buildings to replace those card stock ones.

Here you can see the character cards I use.
I've made one for each of my survivor/ganger models.

The zombie kills are piling up!
They did pretty well, for noobs. Only one of them got killed.

Drone view.

That's all I've got for today. We had a great weekend and I'm looking forward to when we can do it again.

I've been doing a fair bit of painting lately. Since I have such a nice space for painting now, I'm trying to develop a more regular habit. I borrowed an idea from the running world and have committed to 30 minutes everyday for 30 days. It's the best way to start a new habit of anything. It's felt great to get back into the hobby with more consistency.

My goal is to finish all the character models for my other D&D game. One of my friends is the DM and my 12 year old son, his 12 year old son, and I are the players. We each run two characters, so there are six character models. I've finished three. Once the six are completed, I'll start slogging through my lead pile. Clearing out several half-finished projects will be the first priority. Next week I'll have some minis to show you.

Until next time, carry on!

Escape from the Big City

We had a game of All Things Zombie: Final Fade Out last Friday. Players were my wife, my middle son, my good friend, and myself. We each had a Rep 4 Star with the weapons on the mini and 2 attributes. We selected attributes from a list I found some time ago of all the various attributes from the Two Hour Wargames library. It made for some good characterization.

I set up an urban board and we selected the scenario "Escape!" from the ATZ rulebook (pg. 68). Since I was playing with a group, I didn't capture a turn by turn, but here are some highlights...

Board from the 'East' edge.
Players must enter from lower left and exit at upper right for the first half of the scenario.

Players move onto the board and hunker behind a car in the parking lot.
Starting form the lower left and going clockwise - Zeke, Ed, Rob, and Monique.

There were 24 starting zombies generated! We decided to set them up differently from the stated rules. We rolled for each board sector (1-6) to see how many zeds were in that sector. Sectors 7-9 would be zed free at the start. This gave a nice scattering of zeds all across the board instead of a ring of death encircling the party 12 inches away.

View from the 'north-east' corner, behind the gas station.

Monique and Rob rushed forward and quickly killed a few zeds.

As the game progressed, the zeds closed on us quickly. We opted to rush along the east board edge to the gas station. Our plan was to run behind the gas station and around the brown building, evading and confusing the zombies. Then we would rush to the other corner to escape. Essentially we were going to make a big left hook, hoping to avoid the bulk of the zeds.

As we crossed the street into the gas station, lightning struck the brown building in front of us, blinding us all! We were in melee, with a crowd closing from our left. Stunned, unable to move or fight for a turn, things were suddenly looking very grim.

What you can't see in this photo is the crowd of zeds closing in.
Fortunately, we had knocked down the zeds we were in melee with before the lightning struck.

It seemed pretty certain we were doomed. But then, in true ATZ style, something unexpected happened. Deus ex Machina!

A PEF that had been hovering behind the HMMV at the intersection strolled into view and resolved as 3 survivors. After a "Talk the Talk" test we "exchanged pleasantries", much to our relief. Had we gone to a "Walk the Walk", they would have destroyed us, since we were only citizens. Lucky for us, they came up behind the zeds that were closing on us. After a round of "popping the weasel" and a bit of melee, they cleared the way.

With a friendly wave, we dashed through the gas station, leaving them to carry on down the street.

The above is the aftermath as the survivors moved on down the street.
I got so excited I forgot to take any pics during the action.

After a series of "Fast Moves" the group exited the upper right corner without incident. We had survived the first half of the scenario! We would have likely lost some of us, or maybe the entire group, had not those survivors showed up just when they did.

For the second half, the board remained set up essentially the same as before. Now the object was to enter from the upper left corner and exit from the lower right in the picture below. We generated starting zombies (22 if I recall) and again placed them in board sectors 1-6 by random die roll.

Set up for the second half.
The red circles are PEFs.

Our group started in the corner behind the large gray building. We decided on the same tactic - run along the southern edge (left hand in above pic), and then hook left to exit from the northeast (lower right) corner. As we ran behind the building, the zombies all moved towards the center of the board. We missed a couple activations and a PEF resolved as more zombies so by the time we cleared the building there was quite a mob waiting in the street for us.

Zombies shambling out of the fuel storage area.

Walkers (and PEF) in the street.

Unfortunately, I didn't take many pics of the second half. But once we broke into the street, our plan was in shambles. It was going to be a fight to the death to get through the crowd of zeds. After a loooonnnng melee battle, we broke free and ran across the intersection towards the gas station. Ed, our melee master, led the way, beheading zeds left and right with his katana. By shear dumb luck none of us was overwhelmed in the melee and we slowly, but steadily, ground them down.

Approaching the gas station. Almost home free!
Near the yellow cab you can see the aftermath of the massive zed melee.

In the end we all survived! It might have been a first for one of our ATZ games. It was surprising, since I threw Ed (my character) into the crowd of zeds, expecting him to sacrifice himself for the sake of the party. But then he lived! Go figure...

Fortunately, we never met any hostiles other than zeds. It could have gone very differently otherwise. MVP could possibly go to Ed for fool-hardiness and dumb luck, but the real saviors in the game were those 3 strangers who emerged at just the right moment and then faded away, all ATZ-style.

A good time was had by all. I'm sure we will be playing again soon.

Until next time, carry on!

All Things Zombie Returns!

I pulled together a couple friends Friday night for some All Things Zombie. The players were both new to the game so I played as the referee and ran the scenario. I created a Search Mission where the players had to secure a safe place to stay for the night. I loaded up a farmer and his wife as one PEF, a rogue cop as another, and a mom and her two kids as a third. Not all of these would automatically be generated by PEF resolution, but were possibilities on a d6 chart I made. The rest of the entries on the chart were zombies.

This was a one off scenario in a rural area with the farmhouse as the main feature. Since I was refereeing, I said the farmer and his wife (Mr. and Mrs. Brown) would be in the house if they did not generate as a PEF. Too bad, considering what happened...

Both of our heroes, Shawn and Ed, are stars with Rep 5. Shawn has a sawed-off shotgun and a cricket bat. Ed has a katana and a pistol. I did not use attributes as I was keeping things simple for my friends who were unfamiliar with the game.

I took a few pics throughout the game, but did not really log each turn in full. I think I've captured the flow of it though.

My idea was that the heroes would have to gain entry to the house and convince the Browns, one way or the other, to let them stay, all while dodging zombies and trying to stay alive. Of course, as is often the case in ATZ, it did not turn out that way at all...

The Farmstead. The main road runs east to west - right to left in this photo.

A look down the lane.
The house is a Stoelzel's Structures farmhouse.
The shed is scratch-built.
The rest of the terrain is random bits I've collected over the years.

My collection of zombies and humans.
Not a huge hoard, but plenty for most of my games.

Our heroes, Shawn and Ed, started on the east end of the highway.
They opted to cut though the hedge and run along the tree line on the east board edge.
Wise choice, considering all the zeds generated at the start of the game were randomly placed in the road.
This probably should have been a sign of how the luck was going to go for this game.

Shawn and Ed make their way towards the propane tank and the back of the shed.

Suddenly the farmhouse erupts into flame!
(We rolled doubles for activation and drew an event card.)
Tough break for our heroes, considering they were planning to stay there for the night.
Even tougher break for the Browns, who are about to lose their home.

You can see the PEFs hovering around the house as it goes up in smoke.
Then the alarm on the car in front of the house started to shriek.
(We had another doubles and an event card.)
Things went down the crapper pretty quickly.

A couple turns later zombies are closing in.
Our heroes have crossed the field, killing a few zeds on the way.
The PEF in front of the house resolves as a mom and her two preteen children.
Marie and the kids choose to join our heroes, but the relief of having a bigger group is short lived.

The zombies around the shrieking car pounce on Marie and the kids!
Before Shawn or Ed can do anything, the girl is ripped to shreds while Marie screams curses and the boy fights for his life.

Shawn leaps forward to help the boy but is bashed and stunned by a lucky zed.
Ed wades in and barely keeps the zeds from feasting on the girl.
Marie fires her pistol wildly, hitting nothing.
With the burning house and the car alarm, it's chaos!
Meanwhile, from the field, the zeds are quietly closing in on the noise. 

The survivors manage to finish off the zeds in melee and move to cover near the car.
Ed is able to hot wire the car to shut the alarm off as the rest of the gang blasts away.
A flurry of bullets and shotgun blasts takes down a number of zeds, but they keep coming.

It's a bloodbath in the yard as the flames fully engulf the house.
The heat is terrific, but our heroes fight on.

A view of the propane tank and fuel yard from the woods to the east.
Everyone remembers the house is on fire and this is a fuel yard, right?

Finally, the last zed is felled.
The survivors move to investigate the shed.
Maybe they could stay here for the night?
But what about the heat from the house? Isn't this a fuel shed?!

The survivors choose the better part of valor.
After a few more turns, they open the shed to find enough fuel for the van.
Surprisingly, the keys to the van are in the ignition.

Taking what they can, the heroes pile into the van and head off down the road, churning gravel. Behind them, as they turn onto the highway, a fireball erupts into the sky. The sound of the explosion rolls like thunder through the night.

"I guess there was propane in that tank after all," says Ed calmly.

"Yup," says Shawn, equally passive.

Marie lays on the back seat holding her son, the two of them weeping quietly.

So, not the most successful mission. Although, to have a fully fueled vehicle is nothing to dismiss lightly. Still, I sure hope the Browns weren't home after all!

We had a great time! My friends are hooked and want to play again. I'm hopeful that we might even get a regular game night going.

Until next time, carry on!