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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Rufus, survivor


I scrounged around and found the last figure of the Street Violence blister set I owned, a guy who I guess is supposed to look like Rob Zombie or something.  Since I'm Robb, I decided to go with "Rufus" instead.  Rufus is armed with a grenade, a knife, a gun, and a drum-fed shotgun.  That's a pretty solid kit.  Maybe it is the gut and the big belt buckle, but he's got a good "survivor" vibe going for him.

In my inventory of the miniatures I have that might work in this range, I discovered I only had about a dozen zombies, and they are all the Wargames Factory ones.  So I ordered a horde of new miniatures from Zombiesmith on Black Friday (he had a sale, 18% off).  It might be a while before they get here, but in the meantime I have a few more I can be working on.


Monday, November 28, 2011

Stephanie, survivor


In anticipation of launching my solo ATZ campaign, I've been going through my giant collection of odd miniatures in hopes of finding ones that can be, if you'll forgive the term, cannibalized for participants in the game.
This figure is one of rarest I own, and is special to me because it is one that I helped design.  Many, many years ago a friend named Steve Eserin launched a miniatures and terrain company called "The Figure Trader."  To support the line, he created a very interesting game called "Sabotage."  I was asked by Steve to provide some of the concept sketches for the game, and even got my name on the book.  Or rather, I got this accidental pastiche between my real name and my internet handle that Steve apologized for later.  Sadly, The Figure Trader lost a ton of money as a vendor in the meltdown of i-kore,which subsequently declared bankruptcy, forced their debtors to write off the loss, and then had the assets purchased by a member of their own staff who relaunched the entire line as Urban Mammoth.  (As a sidenote, one of i-kores disgruntled sculptors went onto be the guy behind Hasslefree miniatures.  If you ever look at the Void 1.1 line, you'll see his hand in it.)
Anyways, as a thanks for being part of the creation of Sabotage, Steve sent me a ton of resin sci-fi terrain which I still use, as well as a bunch of miniatures, including quite possibility the entire casting lot of this one.  Somewhere I've got about two dozen of this figure, whom I named Stephanie in honor of Steve Eserin.  She's got a little of the cheesecake look to her, but I'm thinking a blowtorch is an interesting option as an improvisational weapon against zombies.
As a side note, despite some health problems Steve still works for Terragnosis, which you should really go check out.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Berkeley, Survivor


Hard to believe I haven't done anything on this project since July, but I got sidetracked by some other things.  Now I'm back, and starting things off with "Berkeley" from Reaper Miniatures.  She's a great looking fig, but she's armed with two of the most problematic weapons in ATZ: a shotgun and a chainsaw.  Both work just fine against zombies, but tend to draw more zombies like flies to honey.

If you read my primary blog, you know I'm kind of kicking about some various projects.  Well, I've decided to come back here.  I've been reading and re-reading the ATZ rules, and I think I know what one of my biggest hang-ups about the rules was, and I've come to grips with it.  Now it's time to get some figures, both alive and dead, painted up and ready to launch.