Long Rifle

A while back I succumbed to another Two Hour Wargames title, "Long Rifle". This is a skirmish game set in the French and Indian War, an era I have always been interested in. My interest has been further peaked following all of the cool FIW goodness on Ray Rousell's "Don't Throw A 1"  blog. So, armed with my THW Long Rifle rulebook and with some Conquest Miniatures Miami Indians and Colonials, I decided to start making some Long Rifle terrain. First piece is a log cabin,  made from 1/4" dowel.

Material used: 1/4 inch round dowel, cereal card for the roof, Hirst Arts fieldstone pieces for the front porch, chimney and fireplace. Alo HA wooden plank pieces for the fireplace mantle. Based on a piece of mdf with sand and static grass on the base, as well as some pieces of air dry clay along the base of the cabin on the long walls. The front door is made from coffee stirrers.

This was a simple build with only 1 window and 1 door. You can see the air dry clay "stones" along the base of the long wall of the cabin in this view.

Pic above shows the rear of the cabin with a Hirst Arts fieldstone chimney. The upper portion lifts off for access to the interior. Hmmm, didn't do too good a job making the upper portion of wall match with the lower. I'll have to fix that.

This shot shows the roof lifted off. A packed dirt floor, whitewashed walls (log cabins tended to be dark) and the rough mantle and fireplace made from Hirst Arts wooden plank and fieldstone molds. No furniture, yet, though there would not have been much.

A side view of the interior.

Same view with a Conquest Miniature Miami Indian for scale.

Here's another view of the cabin with some Conquest Miniatures Miami Indians passing by. I'd hate to be in that cabin and see those Indians out there if they were pissed off.

A closer view of the Miami Indians. These are beautiful sculpts. I went with the Miamis because I live in Ohio and the Miami were once indigenous here.

Showing the Miami from a different angle. There is a lot of detail on these minis. My favorite is the guy in the middle with the rifle and upraised tomahawk.

Oh my God, they're coming right at us!

View from the back. 

This cabin was a fun little build. I used a Dremel to cut the dowels and then notched each log at each end with a grinding bit on the Dremel. Took a little while but worth the effort and the cost was minimal. 

Next up are some Conquest Miniatures Colonials and an Indian Longhouse. I'm planning to make the Longhouse based on the excellent how-to Ray posted here.

Thanks for looking. I know it's a departure from Zombies. I couldn't help thinking that these Miami Indians would make short work of some Zombies with their Tomahawks and Muskets. 

Day One - Campaign Starting: Hit the ATM

The following lead-in to the scenario is rated "R" for bad language. If you want just skip it and go to the batrep below that big paragraph.

It seemed like all the news shows were carrying stories about the outbreak of what some media dicksmack was calling "Chinese Rabies or CR". Apparently a disease caused by some unknown pathogen, it caused its victims to become crazed, shambling, and murderous, biting and eating the flesh of the non-infected. It was reported that the the disease spread by being bitten by an infected person, making the bitten person "turn" within a matter of 12-24 hours into another ravenous thing. "Chinese Rabies, my ass", Joe thought, "they're Zombies". So far there were some reports of CR in big cities, especially ones with international airports, but nothing reported in small towns, yet, like Findlay, where  Joe and his family live. It was a Saturday and the kids and some of the grown kids were home at the house with their Mom. Joe had been scheduled for a 1/2 day at the Acute Clinic where he worked. Relieved at noon by the oncoming, Joe was headed out the door. The oncoming Doc said "I almost called off. There was a case of CR reported in Toledo." "Damn", Joe said, "That's too close. If any of those crazies show up, you should get the hell outta here. I'm gone, good luck." Leaving the clinic, Joe thought that things were getting bad fast. It's only 45 miles to Toledo. Shit, I better get home. I'll call home and make sure everything's okay. Entering the car, a little Hyundai, Joe saw the back seat was still  full of his son Stephen's junk. Most noticeable among the junk was Stephen's replica Katana. He had bought it a yard sale for 20 bucks. Steve had borrowed the car  recently and gone to a Renaissance Fair with some friends. He had the Katana sharpened at the Fair. He said the swordsmith had told him was a very good replica, and was worth considerably more than he had paid for it. It sharpened up very nicely. Might come in handy, Joe thought. Calling home on the cell phone, his wife Patti told him "Everyone is okay, but it looks there's trouble in Toledo according to the news. We might have to get some supplies, can you stop at the ATM and get some cash?" she asked him. "Sure, it's on the way home", Joe said.

And so the scenario begins.
I decided to do 4 destinations. 1- ATM. 2- Home. 3- Box Store. 4- Supermarket.
The following is an account of the trip to the ATM.
Joe Rep 3 Star Retired Military. Attributes: Slow and Stone Cold. Weapon: Katana.
Playing on a 4x4 foot table, I placed the ATM objective 18" from the starting edge.
Rolled on the "Getting There Table" vs. Rep. Passed 1d6 but since my Rep (3) was greater than the location # (1) it counted as passing 2d6 - Arrive there normally.
Parked the car at the table edge 18" from the ATM.
Per the rules, no zombies are placed at the start.
Turn 1
Rolled Activation
Humans 3 Z-4. Total was 7. Gotta check to see if a Zed is generated. On Day One Urban areas count as Suburban for Zombie Generation purposes. Need a 5-6 to get a Zombie. Rolled 4. Too low, no Zed.

Move - Did a fast move using the new Fast Move rule. Wasn't quite sure how to play it with the Slow attribute, but decided to ignore Slow since there's no mention of it in the new rule. Even a fat guy can run fast if he has to, at least for a little while. Maybe I'll Houserule it that Slow reduces the additional move by 1/2.  What are you guys doing?

Moving like a fat blur, our hero Fast moved almost to the ATM at the end of turn 1.

Turn 2
Activation: H -1 Z-6. Another 7, is a Zombie going to show up? Nope, rolled too low again.
Moved to the ATM and collected 3 Luxury items. I guess that's money for this scenario.

Turn 3
Activation: H-6 Z-3. Rolled too high to activate.
Nervous, Joe dropped some of the cash and had to pick it up, count it, and make sure he had it all. "#$%%@%" he muttered.

Turn 4
Activation: H-2 Z-1.
Fast Move: 14 inches toward the table edge.

Almost there.

Turn 5

Activation: H-3 Z2.

Got back in the car and headed for Home (Destination 2).

So, destination 1 is done. Once again my luck held out. Thanks for looking.

Pallets and Acheson Creations cover

Hi, folks. I haven't much free time lately so I used some of it for small projects. Here's some of them. First up are pallets. I had seen some really nice ones on other peoples' blogs and they inspired me to make some of my own.

These were made from matchsticks and coffee stirrers. They are 1" x 1" and 5mm high. I made 15 of them. Took quite a while because I split the coffee stirrers into about 3mm boards. The boards were then glued onto 1" lengths of matchsticks, 6 or 7 on top and 3 on the bottom. They were based on this picture from a commercial pallet website.

Once assembled I painted them with MicroMark Age It Easy Brown for raw wood. This stuff is very cool. It's alcohol based and won't warp the thin pieces of wood used in this scale. Once that was dry I  sealed them with Testor's Dullcote.

Next up are some very cool Acheson Creations Accessories. I had seen these on another Zombie blogger's site and thought they were really cool. These have got to be one of the best kept secrets on the interweb, beautiful resin terrain for 50 cents to $1 each.

The pic above shows a 28mm Hasslefree mini with a "28mm scale cluster of oil drums" and "two tires and fuel drum".

Pic above shows 28mm Tire Stacks. I really like these.

Pic above shows the "Cluster of 3 Wheelie Bins" and "Debris Pile #1".

Here's more Wheelie Bins and "28mm scale pile of oil drums".

These are very nice quick pieces of terrain that will add realism and nice cover to your tabletop. You can't beat the price and if you follow the link to Acheson Creations Accessories, above, you will see that they have some 15mm, 20mm and 28mm terrain pieces as well. 

That's all for now. Thanks for looking.

Nice gift from a fellow Zombie Blogger

Hi, friends. It's been a while since I've been able to blog. Work and other 4-letter words getting in the way. I've been able to fill a little of the tiny amount of free time I've had doing the scenarios in Max Brallier's "Can You Survive The Zombie Apocalypse?" That's really been nice and a great way to relax after a long day at work. What's really cool about this book is that it was a present from our beloved Vampifan of "Vampifan's World of the Undead". It's been said that the Zombie blogging community is the nicest group in the blogosphere, and Vampifan really epitomizes the kindness and friendliness of the Zombie blogger. Thanks very much, Bryan, for your generous gift and for all the inspiration and entertainment your blog gives the rest of us.