Walking Dead Scenario #3

03.14.2018

After 11(ish) months of painting, making scenery, and actually playing through 2 scenarios, I finally wrapped up the Prelude to Woodbury solo missions by playing Scenario THREE. Yes, THREE. Roughly 1 game every 4 months. I freely admit the game play is an afterthought and excuse for me to make scenery and paint minis. To celebrate painting all (125) of my Walking Dead minis, I played a game. A game that needed 5 of those minis. Did I set up the basic game play area as described in the basic, rudimentary, solo play rule book?

Hell no I didn't just do that!

While I would only need 4 of my little map tiles for the required 15" x 15" play area, I wanted, nay, needed, the proper background with which to play against. Thus, another section of rural Potham, but less rural than previous games and setups, game to be.

With this fringe of Potham set, it was time to see if the Governor To Be could complete his prescribed scenario feat of capturing 4 walkers. The rules, as I read them, stated that 4 walkers had to be captured and loaded into the vehicle (see Police Truck at the bottom of the setup pics). To capture a walker, said walker had to be defeated in combat (score damage, not necessarily a headshot) which would make the walker go prone. Once prone, it could be dragged to the truck at a Sneak pace. While having a walker in tow, I could only defend and not attack any other walkers that came by. The rules also stated that walkers being dragged would make Noise. This is one of those rules I may have read wrong, especially since it was the first time I used the Noise rule, but Noise affects other walkers during the Action (first) phase of the turn. A player normally has 2 actions. As I wasn't the one actively making the noise, I decided that the Noise affect would happen at the end of the 2nd action. This would end up playing very heavily to my advantage. Also, the Solo rules have a special rule I ignore that raises the threat 1 at the end of every turn. I really don't like that rule, as it defeats my desire to sneak around and seems to just make the game (end on turns) faster.

Fluff: Brian, out to win the favor of those fools in Woodbury, has gone out to bring back more walkers to appease the folk during their arena games. 4 fresh walkers would be perfect to bring back. Brian grabbed a truck for his little adventure. Dragging walkers back by the nape of their rotting necks wouldn't be a good way to come back to the town gates. Plus, it'd be stupid. At best he could safely bring back 2. 4 is the way to go! And as luck would have it, he spotted 4 here on the outskirts of this little burb. Brian parked and got ready to bring some walkers home.

Turn: 1
Threat: 1
Fluff: Brian, armed with his pistol, decides to take a shot at the closest walker although there's a barricade in the way. He fires off a shot which hits his target but flies harmlessly through the dead flesh. The sound of the shot catches the attention of 3 walkers, with one of them advancing on top of Brian. With his guard up, Brian pistol whips the walker and knocks him down!
Game Details:

• Action 1: Shoot with barrier in between. Die roll tied. Mayhem ensued.
• Action 2: Hold Nerve (Pass)
• Walker Kill Zone Movement: None
• Event Card: Storm Coming - Raise threat, no other effect.
• Melee Results: Brian (1) vs 1 Walker (0). Walker is prone and in tow!

Turn: 2
Threat: 2
Fluff: After loading his first captured walker into the truck, Brian starts toward the next walker. He doesn't have to go far as one shambles toward him to attack. But Brian is on his guard and fights down this walker as easily as the previous one.
Game Details:

• Action 1: Load walker into vehicle
• Action 2: Move (Sneak)
• Walker Kill Zone Movement: 1 walker moves into contact
• Event Card: The Hunger (+1 Threat)
• Melee Results: Brian (1) vs Walker (0). Walker #2 is prone and in tow.

Turn: 3
Threat: 4
Fluff: With a grunt Brian loads his latest defeated walker into the back of the truck before capturing the attention of any other lurking walkers. Out of the corner of his eye he sees another walker getting closer.
Game Details:

• Action 1: Move (Sneak)
• Action 2: Load walker into vehicle.
• Walker Kill Zone Movement: None
• Event Card: The Hunger (+1 Threat, nearest walker moves closer)
• Melee Results: None

Turn: 4
Threat: 5
Fluff: Taking a breath, Brian sneaks toward the walker. Trying to stay silent, he swings his pistol butt toward the zombie' head but misses. Out of instinct he brings up the knife that's in his other hand and fells the walker.
Game Details:

• Action 1: Hold Nerve (Fail)
• Action 2: Move (Sneak) into contact with walker
• Walker Kill Zone Movement: None (already in contact)
• Event Card: Won't Stay Down (No effect)
• Melee Results: Brian (0) vs Walker (0); Brian uses Kitchen Knife to re-roll: Brian (1) vs Walker (0) for another prone & in tow walker.

Turn: 5
Threat: 6
Fluff: Brian tosses walker #3 in the back of the truck - a nice little gaggle of walkers is growing back there. One more to go. Brian takes another deep breath as he readies for his final goal.
Game Details:

• Action 1: Load walker into vehicle
• Action 2: Hold Nerve (Pass, -1 threat)
• Walker Kill Zone Movement: None
• Event Card: The Herd (remaining walker shambles closer)
• Melee Results: None

Turn: 6
Threat: 5
Fluff: One more walker appears and is on Brian before he knows it. Startled and out of instinct Brian fires off a shot from his pistol and hits the walker in the chest, knocking him down. Brian picks him up, the last of the group he set out to capture.
Game Details:

• Action 1: Hold Nerve (Fail)
• Action 2: None
• Walker Kill Zone Movement: Nearest and remaining walker moves into contact.
• Event Card: Roamers (No effect)
• Melee Results: Brian (1) vs Walker (0), final walker is prone and in tow.

Turn: 7
Threat: 6
Fluff: Brian loads up the final walker. In the distance he sees a herd shamble by. It's time to crank up the truck and get back home before drawing any undo attention.
Game Details:

• Action 1: Load walker into vehicle.
• Action 2: In theory, Brian gets into the truck.
• Game Won & Over

This was actually my second play through, as there were a couple of rules I was unclear on. The first time I won in 12 turns. There were a couple of things I did wrong as well as some die rolls going against me. This time I was successful the first time in each combat, which helped a lot. Looking back, I need to double check if picking up the prone walker to drag is an action since I ended up making it an automatic event. It also helped that Brian never had to waste movement dragging a walker back to the truck - he was always adjacent during combat. The helped both in saving an action per turn, and the walker was loaded before any Noise effects factored in.

Overall, still a fun little game.

Since I set up so much extra scenery for background, I went ahead and took some beauty shots. I had planned on more walkers coming into play via event cards, so instead of keeping them in the box to pull as needed I just set up a herd outside of play stocked up with zombies to pull. It turned out I didn't need any of them, but that's not the point.

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100% Walking Dead In Color

03.02.2018

In May 2017 I decided I would concentrate on painting my Walking Dead minis and give myself a little focus beyond the random assortment of things I would pick to paint all willy-nilly like. Slightly less than a year later, I've managed to complete the Walking Dead minis that have been released through retail outlets at this juncture. Oh, trust me, there's a lot more coming.

Over the last couple of weeks I finished up the final 24 of 125 minis. That's how many minis (ha!) are in my Walking Dead collection. Looking at the first one I painted VS the last one painted... honestly, I can't tell that much of an improvement. I had a goal, and that goal is complete. I have more goals, I just don't know what order they need to be in yet.

Once again, these look ok when in play from a couple of feet away. Up close, geez. Not nearly as good as I thought when I was painting them.

And now the update I've been looking forward to:

• 125 painted
• NAUGHT to paint

 

Here's the latest hobby spreadsheet update!

Next up I'm going to finally play the 3rd mission/scenario from the solo Woodbury set. I've got 125 minis painted, and yet still only need 6 to play this scenario. But I'm in this for the toys and prep, not the game! After that will be a little break from painting proper as I work on a convenience store from TTCombat. The first commercial building in my zombie infested world!

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Zombies and Animals

02.17.2018

My skill level for miniature painting is definitely Game Table. My minis look ok from about 3 feet away. I have friends that paint much better than I do, and they motivate me to be better, but I ain't nowhere near as good with intricate details as they are. But I don't let that keep me from painting. I enjoy my non-computerized hobby.

The first half of this month got 12 more minis painted. Since Walking Dead's Rick on a Horse only had 2 minis (Rick and horse are molded together on the base, so I count them as 1 + the zombie that came with them) I added in one of the Chronoscape minis to round out the batch. Thanks to Rick's Horse and Ezekial having a tiger, I painted my first animals that I can ever remember. Appropriately, I'm not too sure how my paint schemes for those animals match anything realistic as I used plenty of reference painting pics and there was a pretty good range of detail in those. As it was, I tried stopping before I screwed things up too much.

Things I learned this time.

• Don't try to use the very last of the primer in the spray can. It comes out to wet and pools in the details of the sculpt.
• Light/bright green is not a good background for yellow decals. Now that I've typed that, I think I typed the exact same thing a couple of years ago when I was painting Dust minis.
• Washes are my friend. I still do best when I can apply a wash for clothing right on top of the white primer.
• Don't use black for clothes. I've been paying attenting to some Batman Miniature Game painters, and instead of black they go with dark greys, blues, and even purples. On Negan I used the darkest grey I had and then applied the blue wash that I seem to love. It looks black enough but still has highlights and details.

 

With my focus on Walking Dead minis, this gets us to:

• 101 painted
• 24 to paint

 

Ever so close to wrapping up the Walking Dead stuff. 18 of the remaining 24 are the 3 big rules expansions. Once all of those are done, if I can get them painted before the next wave of minis is released, I'm going to return to the MDF buildings and try a test to see if I can print exterior details for the commercial buildings like I did for the interior of the last house. This will help make up for my MDF-painting limitations, plus with the help of Paint Shop Pro I could really get in some details that I wouldn't be able to properly paint. But that's all for another time.

Here's the latest hobby spreadsheet update!

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