End of Days - Post apocalyptic gaming

Enforcement Droid Series 209

2012-02-20T22:53:00.008-08:00

A few pictures of a new model for my next faction, once the mutants are finished, ED-209. This one is a liitle snap together plastic Japanese kit picked up on ebay. No idea of the scale but it looks good with 28mm I think.

Cheers Jon

The hills have eyes....15

2012-02-16T07:39:00.000-08:00

A few more pictures of some of the detailing I've been doing to the shacks. Mostly I've added some odd bits of furniture to the interiors provided by Blackcat bases. Like the Chop 'ouse I've tried to not over do the details at the expense of play ability.

On the outside I've added chimney stacks and heating/air purifier vents to the roofs and walls provided by Ramshackle games. I've also got a whole load off resin metal plates from Ramshackle that I'm going to paint up and add to the shacks walls and roofs for extra.... errr.... ramshackleness.

Cheers Jon

The hills have eyes....14

2012-02-15T15:01:00.007-08:00

Quick update I've now finished painting up the wind/power station for my mutant town. I added a brass etched warning sign to the front door and went for a rusty dirty paint job. Unfortunately the wind station didn't quite fit in the spot I'd set aside for it so I had to build a balsa wood platform for it to sit on (and still needs painting)

Cheers Jon

The hills have wind.....13

2012-02-11T02:05:00.000-08:00

I decided that mutant town needed a power supply to run things like heaters and maybe a few lights (could be used for air purifiers too but it's probably a bit late for mutants to worry about such things).

Luckily I got my big box of random resin bits from Ramshackle games yesterday. Among the things I had ordered was a small resin bunker/building which I decided to use as a power station/generator. At first I thought about making it run on pig poo (like Mad Max 3) but in the end decided a wind generator might make sense in the mountains.

So up are above are a few pictures of the station I cobbled up out of junk and some ramshackle bits last night. It's been primed with Humbrol silver spray and just need painting now.

Cheers Jon

The hills have eyes...... 12

2012-02-09T23:01:00.000-08:00

Having got my package from Black Cat bases I set about creating my rubbish tip under the housing shacks. I wanted the area beneath the shacks to look like somewhere the mutants would dump their rubbish.

I started off by carving some irregular shapes from polystyrene packaging and then carved out holes to sit the larger pieces of rubbish, like the freezer and sofa, into. I textured the polystyrene with floor tile grout and sank cork boulders into it. When the grout had dried I painted up the pieces (easier than doing it when they're stuck to the board) and then glued then down to the terrain board.

While the glue was drying I started painting up lots of extras pieces of junk (look closely at the pictures see what you can find). Then I used more tile grout and cork boulders to blend my polystyrene humps into the board and then painted them up to match the rest of the hill. Then I glued all my extra junk in among the rocks and added bushes and grass tufts to finish off the whole effect.

To be honest my crappy photography skills don't really do this little area of mutie mountain justice. I'm really pleased how well it came out. My package from Ramshackle games turned up today so now I have a load more detail/junk to add still loads more to do before I'm finished.

Cheers Jon

The hills have eyes......11

2012-02-07T22:47:00.000-08:00

A little more progress last night. My order from Black Cat bases arrived yesterday so I can start detailing the shacks. So first up I finished of the Chop 'ouse with some interior detail. It would be very easy to go overboard on the detail but this is a gaming piece and there needs to be room to move miniatures around. So I've tried to give an impression of what this shack is used for while leaving plenty of floor space for miniatures.

Next up putting some detail in the housing shacks.

Cheers Jon

The hills have eyes 10

2012-02-06T09:27:00.001-08:00

Well I'm still waiting on various bits to finish my mutant hill town. In the mean time I thought I'd start painting some of the shacks. I've started on the side with the toxic waterfall and hopefully the pictures can give you an idea of the look I'm going for. Lots of browns, rusty metal and the odd bright colour from some piece of scrap.

I've still got a ton of stuff to do on this project. Including

* detailing on the shacks

* sorting out the two cave interiors

* detailing the mountain with rubbish and rock piles

* adding vegetation and dead trees

Loads to do but my enthusiasm levels are still high so I'll keep chipping away at at taking breaks to paint up more miniatures or build small scenery pieces when I need a break. I have no idea how long it will take to finish but I think (hope) it will be worth it.

Cheers Jon

More Mutants

2012-02-01T22:57:00.001-08:00

Finished off the latest batch of mutants yesterday. From the top we have a Mongoose Judge Dread mutant, the next two are LAF miniatures and the last two are from Hasslefree. I now don't have any miniatures left for this project to paint from the first order I made but I'm already eyeing up some new ones to buy.

Cheers Jon

Corporate incomes

2012-01-30T15:30:00.000-08:00

Got a few more miniatures painted up. These guys are the start of my mercenary group Corporate Incomes. When the corporations of New Denver needs a job done that their, quite frankly poor quality, security services can't deal with they call in mercenaries and the best of the best are Corporate Incomes.

These guys are wearing their tactical wasteland camo. At the top we have Jenny Jones pistol fighter and martial arts expert renowned for her acrobatic fighting style. Next up Iroquois Lickskin hard bitten one eyed cynic. Last up Sergeant Henry 'Henno' Garvie tough NCO and all round hard bastard.

I want to add a couple more guys to this group including a sniper. I also want to paint the same figures up in a urban camo scheme at a latter date with different urban bases for operations inside New Denver.

Cheers Jon

The wastelands are a dangerous place....

2012-01-29T11:00:00.000-08:00

A few more painted miniatures.

At the top we have a Hasslefree youth painted up in a colour scheme demanded by my six year old daughter. A very small and delicate miniature that painted up quite nicely (better than my rubbish photos show). This figure is basically going to play the part of victim/objective/lunch in my games.

Next up some poor wastelander captured by the mutants and sacrificed to their weird religion. The model came from Magister Militum. An unusual subject but one that fits quite well in the post apocalypse I think.

Last but not least an old Ral Partha miniature from bits box. I think it's meant to be some sort of D&D slime or ooze. I painted green with a gloss varnish and then gave it a base to match my post apocalyptic water effect. I envision this miniature as some sort of one off post apocalyptic aberration of nature hiding in the slime rivers of the wastelands as an ambush predator.

Cheers Jon

Say hello to the ladies....errrr

2012-01-28T16:02:00.000-08:00

A few quick pictures of a couple more mutants for my my mutant family. Both of these are errr ....ladies. The top one is a typical mutant house wife carrying a typical mutant cooking utensil the big axe. As most mutant family recipes begin with

step 1. take a live captive and remove the head.

The axe is an invaluable item to mutant homemaker. The model is an old GW flagellant from my bits box who was missing his flail and head. the model got a new head and a load of green stuff work on a hood. A plastic axe head was added to replace the missing flail.

The bottom mutant is Rosie a mutant good time girl. By the standards of mutant town shes a bit of a looker. Don't know where the original figure is from but I removed her head and replaced it with a Mantic ghoul head then re-built the neck and hair with green stuff.

Cheers Jon

More mutants for the family

2012-01-28T03:03:00.000-08:00

Work on mutant mountain has temporarily halted while I wait more building material. I've added a couple more shacks, but I'm almost out of balsa, card,plastic and I've gone through 8 tunes of super glue. I've ordered various scenery dressing from Ramshackle games, Fenris games and some barbed wire off a guy on ebay.

In the mean time I thought I'd splash some paint on a few of my mutants. The top three pictures are a guy I bought of ebay. He was described as a GW figure but what range he came from I have no idea. originally he had a very large over the top club which I didn't like so I replaced with a big knife from my bits box.

The remaining miniatures are all from the LAF last project post apocalyptic range

http://magistermilitum.com/prodtype.asp?PT_ID=1629&strPageHistory=cat

I love these guys really easy to paint up and suitably haggard looking. Though not mutated in any obvious way I think they fit well with my mutants ragged look.

Cheers Jon

The hills have eyes... and a new speargun....9

2012-01-24T15:50:00.001-08:00

A few pictures of the last couple of nights work. First off I have added a walk way to connect the house shacks to the rest of the settlement and incorporated a defensive wall (if you call timber off cuts,planks and corrugated tin a defense).

Second I've added another shack above the house shacks next to the waterfall pool. I decided this shack made quite a good defensive spot so instead of a tin roof I've given it a more substantial fighting platform roof (still removable to allow access to the shack).

I decided it would be cool to add a weapon system to the roof. I don't really see the mutants in my post apocalyptic setting having access to many firearms (not ones that work anyway) so thought a giant spring powered speargun might be just the thing. I good rummage in the bits box came up with a few bits that were thrown together and then stuck on the roof.

More shacks to build next I'm thinking 3-4 more then I can start thinking about detailing and painting.

Cheers Jon

hills have eyes .........8

2012-01-22T22:56:00.000-08:00

Just a few pictures of yesterdays work. I've added three house (??) shacks to one end of the mountain. As usual I've added a removable roof. I'm not quite finished as I need to add a walk way along the front to allow access to the rest of the settlement.

Jon

Mutant barrel jumper...???????

2012-01-22T12:43:00.001-08:00

Bit of a weird one spawned by a joke on the Post Apocalypse Wargames forum. When I posted up pictures of my waterfall on my mutie mountain a poster said I needed a barrel going over the falls, someone said there should be a mutant in the barrel followed by a comment that the mutant really should have a chainsaw????????

So for a laugh................I built one from my bits box........just because.

Jon

The hills have eyes....7

2012-01-21T15:08:00.000-08:00

Managed to get some work in today. Firstly I built the prison were the mutants can keep captives/food which is much the same thing to mutant cannibals. I then attached it to the chop'ouse as it seems reasonable to keep the food close to the slaughter house......now when a mutant asks if the butcher has got anything "good out back" the butcher can pop out back to see whats in the holding cell (maybe I'm giving this to much thought.....).

I've also added some grizzly detail to the chop'ouse it's not glue in place yet as I need to paint it up first.

Finally I've added a bridge spanning the two tall areas the bridge is removable to allow the tops of the mountains to still be removable to allow access to the caves. I think I've worked out I have room for another seven or so shacks one they're then I can start painting them up.

Cheers Jon

The hills have eyes.....6

2012-01-21T01:56:00.000-08:00

A few pictures of last nights work. This is the "Chop 'ouse" think of it as the mutant's version of the....butchers. I want to add some more details in a bad horror movie vain (hooks/saws/ bodies)

Again I've left the roof removable to allow access. Next I need to build somewhere to keep the food.......er I mean prisoners of the tribe.

Cheers Jon

The hills have eyes......5

2012-01-20T11:50:00.000-08:00

I made a start on the shelters and shacks last night. The picture (a slum in Rio) at the top is kind of what I'm aiming for though not that densely populated as this is a gaming piece and I need to leave space to actually move miniatures around.

I've added a watch tower to the highest part of the mountain complete with warning bell to be rung in case of attack....or at dinner time.

On the same mountain top we have the first shack built from pieces of scrap plastic card and balsa wood. I've made a roof but left it removable to allow miniatures to be placed inside.

Finally I've done a bit more work to the main entrance including a bill board which will have some sort of witty settlement name on it (just as soon as I've thought of one)

I popped into Hobbycraft on the way home from work tonight and lucked out on a large bag of balsa strips in the clearance sale which has now given me loads of raw building material.

Cheers Jon

And the mutant shall inherit the earth....

2012-01-19T15:47:00.000-08:00

Well I started on the shacks and shelters for my mutant mountain tonight I haven't taken any pictures yet. I think this is the point were the project will slow down a bit as the shacks are a more involved build than just carving up bits of pink foam.

In the mean time I thought I'd show a couple of pictures of my mutant preacher. This miniature is from mad puppet miniatures and called HOST mutant leader. He didn't look like a leader to me more like some sort of priest/witch doctor/shaman so that's what I'm going to use him as. I imagine my mutant tribe having past down knowledge of pre-apocalypse religion which has now become mixed up with later ideas to form some weird new mutant religion which this guy preaches to the tribe .

Hopefully some more photos of progress on my mutant mountain tomorrow

Cheers Jon

The hills have eyes ....4

2012-01-18T16:16:00.000-08:00

More progress I had a go at making the mountain waterfall tonight using an Idea I picked up from a model railway website. Basically it involved using clear silicone sealant to make a water effect on a clear plastic backing sheet.

On the plus side I think it's come up quite well for a first try. On the down side it was really messy the £$"$%*^ sealant got every where and wasn't nearly as easy to work with as the model railway tutorial made out.

One other slightly problem was I couldn't connect the bottom of the waterfall to the bottom pond as I wouldn't then be able to to remove the top to allow access to the cave behind the waterfall. Which means there is a slight gap at the bottom and the waterfall doesn't look quite as good as it could have done.

Right next up more shacks to dot the mountain side.

Cheers Jon

The hills have eyes ....3

2012-01-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

More progress on mutant mountain. The main bulk of the mountain has been painted using cheap test pots from Wickes and cheap artists acrylic paint from the Works. The model was painted all over with burnt umber and then when dry dry brushed in a colour called toffee and then dry brushed again in a cream yellow called sand. the two caves were painted black inside and will get some dry brushing when dry. The two pools where painted with GW Dark Angels green/Goblin green getting lighter towards the edges of the pools.

Lots more to do yet in the way of detailing. As you can see I've started to add shelters, defences and a bridge made of post apocalyptic junk lots more of this to do to give it a sort of shanty town in the mountains look. I also want to build a waterfall, I've checked out some model railway stuff on the net for some ideas on that one.

Cheers Jon

The hills have eyes....2

2012-01-17T11:29:00.002-08:00

A few more shots of my mutant stronghold. I had a lot of gaps between all my bits of foam/cork and polystyrene so I filled them using a can of expanding foam filler after the filler had cured I set about it with an exacto knife to carve it and try to blend it in with the existing foam blocks

Next up to add texture ,strength and fill any smaller gaps the foam filler didn't get I covered the whole thing with floor tile grout and left it to dry. Next job is to paint it up.

Jon

The hills have eyes....

2012-01-16T22:53:00.000-08:00

Well I decided to make somewhere for my mutants to live (and drag back their victims to). Originally I planned to just make a few shelters out of wasteland junk.......but I got carried away and now have this Hill top stronghold complete with caves.

The whole thing has been built of off cuts of pink foam and polystyrene on a hardboard base (with extra batons screwed on for strength). Lots of carving with an exacto knife to try and get a rocky look. Next up filling and texturing.

Jon

More Mutant big guys

2012-01-14T14:55:00.001-08:00

Managed to finish up a couple more large mutants tonight. The first one is from Mad Puppet Miniatures a rather strange looking guy and for some reason clutching a teddy bear(maybe belonging to his last dinner?).

The second guy (bottom picture) is a hero clix miniature that I've re-based and painted.

Cheers Jon

Shipping container

2012-01-14T01:59:00.000-08:00

Right I finished of another piece of wasteland debris last night in the form of this scratch built shipping container.

The body is made of a square tube that my daughter got some Christmas chocolates in. I mounted it of some thick card and then clad the tube in corrugated cardboard and thin card strips. The doors are made from the flaps of the box opening with some metal rod glued on. A couple of bits of junk were strewn around the entrance.

The base is covered in pva and sand and I tried to build it up the sides of the container to give the impression of sand/dust drifts. Slap of paint and I'm left with a nice place for wasteland adventurers to explore they might even find a hungry mutant hiding in there....

Cheers Jon

More mutants

2012-01-12T12:58:00.000-08:00

I managed to finish of two more mutants for slowly expanding mutie tribe. The first one is from Fenris games

http://fenrisgames.com/

He is rather hideous but was unarmed so I swapped his hand with a GW zombie hand holding a blade. Luckily GWs zombies have such huge hands that it fitted perfectly despite him being a rather bulky fellow.

The second guy is from Wyrd miniatures and goes by the cute little name of Killjoy. I loved painting this guy and as you can see he is one big mutant. Because of his size his base is pretty large so I gave it a ruined road sign (from one of my Pound land car sets) to break up the base.

I think he has come out really well.

Cheers Jon

Poundland Raid

2012-01-10T16:09:00.000-08:00

I had to go to the bank tonight after work and thought I'd pop into the Poundland across the road to see if there was anything useful and came out with a bag of cheap vehicles for the post apocalypse.

Scale wise I have no idea what there are but they fit into my, admittedly rather hazy, looks about right to me scale. I'm notoriously unfussy about scale if looks right in my minds eye it will work for me (despite their best efforts the scale fanatics on TMP have failed to correct this trait). So below are some pictures of my haul with a sample 28mm miniature for comparison.

First up three cars (all the same but different colours). Made of plastic and a bit flimsy I'm planning to turn them into wrecks so their build quality isn't really an issue.

Next up some sort of police 4x4 and is a proper diecast that has pull back and go ability and doors that open. I was going to wreck it but I think I might make this one into a working vehicle maybe some sort of post apoc technical.

A police hummer this one maybe slightly under scale it looks a little small to me though I did find a picture of a police hummer online with a policeman stood next to it and his head is in line with the roof so maybe its the base that makes it look small. Not sure weather to wreck this one or keep it as a runner but they did have plenty (including army and fire versions) so I could do one of each.

I bought two of these sets mostly because I figured I could use the plastic petrol pumps to make a petrol/gas station forecourt the street lights and barriers are OK as street dressing to. As for the big bulldozer thing it is made of plastic and not that well made. I think I will wreck one and make the other into a post apoc killdozer when I get the time.

Quite pleased with that little haul for the princely sum of £5.00. The rest of my miniatures arrived today as well so now it's down to lots of painting and terrain making to get enough together for some sort of game going.

Cheers Jon

Mutant scum...

2012-01-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

Well my first miniatures ,from my Christmas money spending spree, arrived. In this case Mongoose's Cursed Earth mutants and desperado's from their Judge Dread range (sadly though they were quick to deliver they forgot to send one of the miniatures ....sigh) link here

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniatures/judge-dredd/cursedearth.html

I rather like these guys mutated, but not in an over the top GW way, they really look like they're grubbing a living in some post apocalyptic hell hole.

A group shot of the first four of my mutant tribe.

The first guy is straight out of the bag. He is an ugly so in so, to sy the least, armed with a rather knackered looking shot gun.

This guy had a bit of conversion work. I removed his (frankly quite puny) knife and gun and gave him a large rusty blade and scrap metal shield, from my bits box, which goes nicely with his pots and pans improvised armour. I also added some scared/mutated skin on his face with green stuff.

This guy looked a bit to 'normal' so I added a sack cloth hood out of green stuff no doubt to hide some terrible mutated face....

This guy is truly mutated so he didn't need any extra work. I liked the fact he was wearing a suit
though I think I might have dirtied his clothes up a bit to much.

I still need to finish the bases with a little bit of setting dressing, to give them the post apocalyptic look, but I'm quite pleased with how these guys turned out. Some more Mutants arrived in the post yesterday so more pictures to follow after they've had a lick of paint.

Cheers Jon

Wrecked Big Rig

2012-01-07T12:27:00.000-08:00

Another piece of wasteland wreckage this time a wrecked big rig. This is a 1/50th scale vehicle that I kept when my son decided he was to old for toy cars (I knew I'd find a use for it one day)

I took most of the tyres off and broke the plastic windscreen before sticking the truck down to a piece of thick card. I added a spare tyre, oil barrel and pallet (all artistically arranged) and added some tarpaulins made from kitchen towel and watered down PVA glue. Finally plenty of sand and PVA glue were liberally applied.

I went for a rusty paint job with a few bits of the old green paint job left followed by plenty of weathering. I finished off with a bits of clump foliage. Like the helicopter I want to finish off with a few yellow grass tufts (just as soon as I buy some)

Cheers Jon

crash landing

2012-01-05T22:57:00.000-08:00

As promised my first bit of scenery for the post apocalypse. This is a crashed helicopter made from a cheap 1/48 scale plastic helicopter from the local 99p store that cost, not surprisingly, 99p (bottom picture). I think it's a cheap knock off of a Toys'r 'us diecast eurocopter.

I made the base from thick card and added some polystyrene rocks and then took a hammer to the heli and re-built the pieces onto the base and added liberal amounts of PVA and sand. A quick paint job with plenty of weathering and job done. I added a few (hardy) bushes from clump foliage to add some colour and when I've got them I'll add a few yellow grass tufts to finish of the base.

Finally I figured this helicopter could just be used as a piece of scatter terrain on a wastelands table or as an objective so I made a little fire ball from some cotton wool and a cocktail stick that can be stuck in the wreck to make it look like it's recently crashed.

I started on another piece of scenery last night pictures to follow soon.

Cheers Jon

So it begins....

2012-01-05T15:49:00.000-08:00

Well I spent a pleasant couple of hours on the net last night spending my Christmas money. So I now have an assortment of miniatures that will hopefully be dropping onto my door mat over the next week or so.

After ooohhing and ahhhing over the lots of nice miniatures on the net suitable for the end of the world I decided to start off with a little tribe of wasteland mutants mostly because I love mutants (I blame it on playing to much 1st edition 40K as a kid). I've tried keep away from the over the top tentacles and three heads GW style and gone more for the deformed, hunch back with bad skin look. As well as the mutants I've picked up a trio of suitable post apoc heroes to battle the mutant scum.

In the mean time desperate to get stuck into my new project I've started on some scenery pieces. Pictures to follow in the next couple of days hopefully.

Thanks to all those who have decided to follow this blog already, despite there being nothing to look at yet, hopefully you won't be to disappointed.

Cheers Jon

End of Days

2012-01-04T13:14:00.000-08:00

Hello,
well 2012 has started and I was looking for a new gaming project for this year. Being 2012 and the end of the world as we know it (well allegedly) It seemed fitting to jump into a long held ambition to model and game the world post apocalypse.

This is going to be firmly Hollywood in style and hopefully will see lots of the usual suspects such as road warriors, zombies, mutants and heroic survivors.

Hopefully this blog will chart my progress at building a hellish post apocalyptic world in miniature. I plan to include a bit of background, some game reports and pictures of my modeling projects.... assuming the real apocalypse doesn't get here first

Cheers Jon