Hasslefree Post-Apoc Scoobies & Jayne Cobb

Hi, friends. I recently got the Hasslefree Miniatures Post-Apoc Scooby Gang and got them painted up. My son Mark also painted a Reaper Mini version of Firefly's Jayne Cobb. I did a little work on it to finish it off. I love these minis.

Here's Jayne first. I love the way Reaper made him with the cool hat from the Firefly episode "The Message".

I didn't include a close up of Fred. I need to fix his face some more.

I'll soon be working on the Armorcast Mystery Machine but will give it a Post-Apoc theme.

On an unrelated note I got a Continuous Ink Supply from CIS Inks. I had heard about it over on Morbious' blog. I've been wanting one for a while and got it hooked up and running today. I've got a bunch Of Stoelzel's Structures I still need to build and this should help a lot with that.

Thanks for dropping by. I hope you have a great day out there.

Great Service from Demo's Laser Cut Designs

Hi, friends. I just wanted to share with you something cool that happened. I had recently ordered the Filling Station from Demo's Laser Cut Designs. When I got the kit, I found a couple of small problems: the toilet seats were missing, a bookshelf was missing, the top and bottom for one of the gas pumps were missing, and one of the tabs for the bathroom divider wall had been cut slightly too high to fit the slot on the interior wall separating the restrooms from the rest of the store. Nothing real big, really, and nothing that I couldn't easily fix myself. However, I thought he would want to know in case there was a problem with the layout so he could fix it for future kits. So I sent him an e-mail describing the problem. This was on the 4th of July (USA Independence Day holiday). I figured I might hear from him in a few days. I got an e-mail response within the hour, and a very kind response it was. He said he'd be sending me something in the mail to fix it and a little something extra. A few days later I got this big package in the mail from Steve at Demo's Laser Cut Designs, just full of nice pieces of laser cut awesomeness. All of the missing parts were there, along with 2 new restroom walls. I would have been happy with just those replacement parts, but that's not all he sent. Steve also sent the following extras: a 7.5" x 11.5" mdf base for either a new building or weather shield, most of the components to make a whole new weather shield, and almost all of the components for all of the store furnishings, including 3 more gas pumps. How cool is that!?

As you can see, Steve sent enough stuff to fill an entire work table. Very generous and very cool.

That's all for now. I just wanted everyone out there in blogland to see what kind of customer service you get from Demo's Laser Cut Designs, the best kind. Thanks for dropping by.

Grocery/Big Box Store

Hi, friends. I recently played some scenarios for All Things Zombie wherein I had to go to a Big Box store and then a Grocery store as part of the Day One events. Normally I don't play a scenario unless I have the terrain finished and ready to go. That day I went ahead and played without terrain for the store. I just used a big box I had. It was still fun, but lacked the visual element so I didn't post any pics of those scenarios. I finally got around to making the Big Box/Grocery store. Just a quick job, here's pics.

Here's a shot of the Big Box store across the parking lot. In that scenario, LJ got owned by a bunch of terrified civilians because he didn't use his katana on humans, just tried going "mano a mano". Predictably, the fat squishy bastard got stomped. The scenario was over for him and he didn't get any goodies.

Here's a shot of the Grocery store across the parking lot.  As you can see I did a lot of work to differentiate the Grocery store from the Big Box store. :) The signs are stuck onto the building with removable double-sided sticky tape. Anyone recognize the name of the store? Anyway,  the Grocery store was LJ's next and last location. I did two things differently with LJ at the start of this scenario. One, I changed his attribute of Stone Cold to Brawler. Since it was Day One, I decided I'd pick a better attribute if I was going to survive the rest of the Apocalypse. The second thing was I decided that terrified civilians represented a significant threat and I took off the kid gloves. I would use the katana in melee. Worked like a charm. Between switching Attributes and using a 2-handed melee weapon, I had much better luck with that scenario. Even found a SAW, used it to kill a couple of gangers, shots attracted Zombies, which I killed with the Katana, for my first Zombie kills. That was so successful a scenario I actually got a Rep increase. So to memorialize that fight, I finished the store building.

A little about the store. It is 21 x 18 inches x 4 inches tall. It was made from an old Dell Laptop Computer box. I chose it because it had a little built-in box inside that could be used as an interior room. The walls are made from an old WorldWorks Games kitbash siding texture kit I bought several years ago. I went for a simple blue and white color scheme. I was thinking of Ikea's Blue and yellow. I used other WorldWorks Games textures for the windows and doors. Normally I use doors that open and close and windows that are open. This time I went for quick and just used the print-outs glued onto the walls. 

The tile floor is from the WWG Mega Mall set. The brown concrete floor in the loading dock area is another WWG texture. 

The shelving units and refrigerator cabinet come from Stoelzel's Structures Market, as do the register counters. The two gun cabinets in the loading dock are also from Stoelzel's Structures, I think it was the Modular Lair. The shelving is held in place with double-sided tape for stability, but I can reposition them if I want to. I left plenty of room between the shelves for getting my fingers in there.

Shot from different angle.

Shot from the back.

Scenic shot across the parking lot. How do you like the "Valdemart" sign? :)

This was a fun little project that I just sort of slapped together. I had printed out all of the paper textures a while back so I just had to glue them on. The box I used for the building had some dents and areas where the cardboard was different thickness. I could have done things to fix that, and did, a little, but there are still quite a few obvious flaws. However, for a quick job, it'll do. And, because it was made from an actual "big box", I can use it for storage. :)

That's it for now. Thanks for looking.

Filling Station

Hi, friends. I'm posting some pics of my mostly finished Filling Station from Demo's Laser Cut Designs. This is a wonderful model with lots of excellent features. It comes with a playable interior, furnishings such as gas pumps, sinks, toilets, store shelves, even a big beer cooler. There's a nice weather shield over the pumps, and a huge marquee sign with the gas prices. There's a big 11.5" x 11.5 " mdf base upon which to mount the model. There are even free pdf graphics you can download for signs and cash registers. And it was all dead easy to build. The major pieces of the station are mdf, the furniture is on taskboard (kind of like thinner matte board. I made or downloaded some additional signage. Here's pics.

Here's an overhead shot featuring the marquee sign, weather shield, and gas pumps. I didn't use the big mdf base sheet and just set the models onto my city board table. I chose to use a blue background for the Station's signage and changed some of the wording.

Shot from a different angle. You can see a little of the building front.

The opposite side. The closest end of the building has two public Restrooms. I closed one door and left the other open. The doors are perfectly sized for the blue door frames. They have two hinge pieces that slot right into the frame so closely that they stay in place, even without glue. But because they are not glued, I can still open or close them. I really like the doors!

Here's a shot from the front of the station looking under the weather shield canopy into the store front. There's a WorldWorks Games ice machine and newspaper machine I made fresh for this build. The trashcans by the pumps are simple scratchbuilds. One is a plaster cast of the inside of a cover for a disposable plastic water bottle. The other is just a plastic cap from an empty tube of toothpaste, painted black and then drybrushed silver.

Just a different angle view.

View from the side along the front of the store.

View of the back from the side. There's an Employee's Only door that opens into the area behind the cash register/clerk station.

A view of the restroom side. The doors have the little male or female signs on them.

Speaking of restrooms. Here are the sinks and toilets.

An interior view. The floor tiles are from Stoelzel Structures Modular Urban Center Kit. The building is based on a vinyl floor tile. Against the far wall is one of the bookshelves that come with the Filling Station kit. In the middle of the floor is a 2-sided sloping shelf unit for merchandise. I need to make some stuff to put on the shelves. To the upper right is the big cooler cabinet, just below it along the right-hand wall is a paper ATM machine from WorldWorks Games. The long "L" shaped counter is part of the furniture that comes with the Filling Station kit. I have placed a couple of Hirst Arts bits on the countertop to represent a cash register and control for the gas pumps. To the left of the counter along the bottom wall are 2 video games from Stoelzel Structures kits.

 Another view of the interior layout. Even with furnishings in place there is still plenty of room for minis.

This shot shows the restrooms a little better and you can also see the video games slightly better.

Here's a shot of the front of the store with the weather shield removed.

This shot shows the awesome beer cooler and the ATM machine a little better.

The pic above shows some of the furnishings better. It also shows an Ohio Lottery sign. What's a convenience store without Lotto. The Lotto sign is also being used to cover the spot where the tab from the restroom divider wall shows on that back wall.

Pic above shows the two video games from the Stoelzel Structures Modular Lair Expansion 2. I screwed up the one on the right a little but I'll still use it.

This view is looking out through the store windows under the weather shield.

Looking down into one of the restrooms. Plenty of room. The toilet and sinks even have drain holes in them. How cool is that?

Here's a shot of one of the gas pumps. The blue graphic with the keypad and display is part of the free pdf download from Demo's Laser Cut Design webstore. I added the No Smoking symbol and the advertisement signs for the top of the pumps. The hoses for the pump handles are made from black wire from the Hobby Lobby jewelry section.

A view of the pump from the side. The pump handles fit into slots cut into the casing. The hoses and pump handles give a very nice 3d effect.

I just thought this was a nice scenic shot showing how well the filling station fits in on the table.

Well, that's all for now. I had a great time building this model. I hope you like it and will consider giving Demo's Laser Cut Designs a try.

Minis I painted on Vacation

Hi, friends. It's been a while since I posted. The family and I went on vacation to Geneva on the Lake, a nice little resort town on Lake Erie. We had a great time, swam, relaxed and generally just chilled. I brought up some minis and got some painting done, too. Here's what I got done.

Pic above is a few GW Catachans I'll use for Survivors or Gangers in ATZ. I tried to paint them in the U.S. Navy's new Aquaflage uniform (just the pants, the shirts are just one of the colors from the aquaflage. They're based on black sand and some have road line markings to represent asphalt.

Pic above is a few Clix repaints. Nothing fancy, just a few more guns.

A few more Clix conversions or repaints. Chainsaw guy had a head swap from the Defiance Games United Americas Marine Corps. The two suits had a repaint, and one had his pistol arm repositioned.

These are "Get Some! 28mm Science Fiction minis from Sgt Major Miniatures. These are the rest of the crew and cast of Joss Whedon's Firefly series. From the left, the Doctor, Simon, his sister, River, Caylee the ship's mechanic, and Shepherd Book. I just realized Inara was missing, I found her hiding on my painting table. I used sand from the beach the bases on these minis, as well as a few others. The sand has lots of differently sized particles for a nice, irregular texture. I'm using these minis now for "terrified civilians" for encounters in All Things Zombie by TwoHour Wargames.

Pic above shows the last of my Hasslefree Minis which were waiting in my painting queue.

Pics above are 6 Defiance Games United Americas Marine Corps (UAMC). These are excellent plastics with great detail. I made a slight conversion on a couple in that I used a couple of torsos from GW Empire Militia. Each UAMC sprue has 3 leg sections, 6 heads, multiple weapons, but only 2 torsos, so you can only build 2 figures from each sprue. By using the GW torsos, (which fit perfectly btw) you get 3 troopers from each sprue. Can you see the ones with the GW torsos? The nice thing about using the GW torsos (which I had in the bitz box) with the UAMC parts is you can make 36 UA Marines from 1 $30 box (83 cents each), instead of 24 Marines ($1.25 each). 

Pic above is my crowd of mostly unarmed civilians including recently painted ones. I'll use them for "Terrified Civilians" in ATZ encounters. They're a mixture of Hasslefree Minis, Sgt Major Minis, Clix, and game figures from the boardgame "Last Night on Earth.


I've got a project underway which I think you will like, it's the Filling Station from Demo's Laser Cut Designs. Scroll to the bottom of the page. I saw their 28mm 4-pack of shops on PapaSpanky's excellent Geek in the Basement blog.


Also of note, I finished reading "Karl, Birth of Mystery" by D.J. Kettlety, a fellow blogger. A great read, I think I finished it 3 days while on vacation. He already has plans for books 2 and 3 of the series, which I will certainly be reading, too. 


Well, thanks for stopping by. Comments and criticisms welcome.

Vacation time

Hi, friends. We're heading out on a little vacation for a while. Up to the lake. I'm bring some stuff to paint and some paper print-outs to make some furniture for my houses and boxes/merchandise for my big box store project. I actually played the final 2 locations for my Day One scenario. Ended up being put OOF in the 3rd location (Big Box store). I just used my fists fighting the Terrified Civilians at the Big Box store. I had to fight 6, the 5th put me OOF.  I did better in the 4th one (Supermarket) and actually killed some gangers and Zombies  and even found a SAW. I used the Risk and Rewards cards for the first time, that's how I got the SAW. Used the SAW to kill the Gangers who came from a PEF resolution, the SAW attracted Zombies whom I killed with the Katana. I also didn't mess around with the Terrified Civilians in the 4th one. I used my katana on them, too. Made a big difference. Killed 4 in no time. LJ is now Rep 4. 


Anyway, I'll check in on you folks' blog while I'm gone as I can. See you soon.

All Things Zombie Batrep - Day One, Location 2, Home

Hi, friends. I couldn't stay asleep. Got up at 5:30 am. Drank some coffee. Decided to do another location for Day One scenario of ATZ. I'm using rules from Better Dead Than Zed, and some from I, Zombie.  The first location I did was ATM, that went well. I had chosen 4 locations for Day One. Now it's time for location 2, home. 3x3 foot table. Zuzzy mat, homemade roads, houses mainly from Stoelzel's Structures.

Narrative:
Having just hit the ATM for some money, Joe got in his car and headed home, planning to touch base with the family, then go to WalMart and one of the nearby Supermarkets. Calling home on the cell, Joe said "Hi, sweetie. I'll be home soon. Is everyone okay? And do you have the list ready for the things you want me to pick up from the stores?" "Yes, everybody's fine, just a little scared. The list is ready", Joe's wife responded. "Be careful coming home. There's a roadblock at the end of the street, and a Police car was cruising by telling everyone to stay indoors because of a "Civil Emergency". We might not be able to go shopping to get supplies if they're closing roads." "Yeah, Joe said, "we'll see. Everything seems fine here. Okay, I'll let you go. Love you. See you in a bit." Pocketing his cell phone, Joe saw the Police barrier at the end of his street. Big-ass concrete block. "Damn, no way around that. I'll have to park and walk the rest of the way" Joe thought.

That wasn't here this morning. Looking up the street, Joe's destination, the white house, is on the left.

View from the opposite end of the board.

Lucky Joe: Rep 3, Military Reaction Table, Katana, Attributes - Stone Cold and Slow.

Rolled on the Getting There Table, by vehicle. Passed 1 d6 (Rep 3). Rep > location number. Counts as passed 2d6. "Arrive there normally".

PEF Placement

All PEFS placed behind cover and out of LOS.

Turn 1

Activation: Humans 3, Zombies 2

LJ moves 8" up the street. PEF in section 4 now in LOS. False Alarm.

"What's that behind that tree? Oh, stray cat. Gotta stop being so jumpy", Joe thought. 

I did a Fast Move once the PEF was resolved to finish LJ's movement. Used only 1 d6 for additional movement, because of "Slow" attribute, instead of additional 2d6 per the advice of Vampifan. (Thanks, Bryan) Rolled a 5, so moved an additional 5". Man, that fatboy can run. :)

The first PEF resolved is represented by the black dice under the tree. It turned out to be a stray cat. (False Alarm)

Completing the Fast Move. There's a PEF hidden in the tree line to LJ's right (Black dice).

Zombie's Turn: PEF in Section 6 can't move, it's Rep was higher than the ZED activation roll. The REP 2 PEF passed 1d6 and moved "1 section toward the nearest PEF, ending its move in cover". Hmmm, this is getting interesting. LJ's got two PEFs in the sector near him and he doesn't know they're there.

"It's quiet ..., too quiet" LJ mutters to himself.

Turn 2

Activation: Humans 6, Zombies 5.  Rolls are too high for either side to activate, but for Day One Scenarios activation rolls equaling 11 means the Police will approach you. "If unarmed he will tell you to leave the area", if visibly armed he will draw his gun and order you to surrender your weapon." 

I wasn't quite sure how to handle this. It's not illegal to carry a sword around, but you are visibly armed with a katana. I decided to submit it to the Dice Gods. 1-3 on a d6 he arrests LJ, 4-6 he lets him go. Rolled a 5. Yay. What would you guys do?

Policeman: Sir, what are you doing with that sword?

LJ: I'm just taking it home, Officer, I live in the white house behind you.

Policeman: Okay, sir. Just get inside your house and stay there. The Mayor has declared an Emergency Curfew and all citizens are required to remain in their homes and stay off the streets until further notice.

LJ: Yes sir, Officer. No problem.

With that, the policemen gets back in his cruiser, checks the roadblock and heads back up the street.

PEFs must still have not been in LOS because of the trees.

Turn 3
Activation: Humans 4, Zombies 2. LJ rolled too high, can't activate. Both PEFs pass 0d6, can't move either.


Turn 4
Activation: Humans 3, Zombies 2.
LJ moves 8". Off to his right he thinks he sees something in the tree line.

Pic above shows the 2 PEFs hiding in the trees.

PEF Resolution - Rep 2 PEF is a false alarm. Rep 3 PEF rolled on Random Road Encounter. Result was "It's Freakin Hot". Either consume 1 food unit, or Rep is decreased by 1 for the remainder of the scenario. Great, now I'm Rep 2. At least I didn't get all killed up by Zombies. :)


Fast Move an additional 5". Rolling good.

LJ's almost there.

Turn 5

Activation: Humans 2, Zombies 6. All of the PEFS have been resolved, but I figured I still needed to roll because you never know if you'll get doubles (optional PEF generation), a 7 or 11. However, LuckyJoe continues to be lucky and moves 8" to enter his home, ending the scenario successfully, and bloodlessly.

Honey, I'm home. And where's all the damn furniture?

Another lucky run. No Zombies at all, again. LJ is beginning to doubt the existence of Zombies, probably just some media hysteria for ratings. However, next locations will be a Big Box store (need ammo) and a Supermarket (need beer food). 

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for looking.