Axel's Lads

Well it's been two years since I made any progress on my space pirate army but I'm finally starting to get some more things done for it. Axel's Lads here are more of your regular pirate crew type miniatures. I made these guys entirely out of Games Workshop plastic kits. I think there are parts from the; Catacan Jungle Guard, Caidian Shock Troops, Empire Militia, Knights of the White Wolf sprue, Tau Firewarriors, Dark Eldar, Eldar weapon sprue, Chaos Marauder Horseman, and Caidian heavy weapons sprue.

I'm pretty happy with the way they are turning out considering they were made from left over kits. Keep watching this space for more progress.

"Resident Evil Hunters" Episode 3 "Unfettered"

July 24th 1998 Raccoon City. Anya Fields and Meredith Hartwick of “Hartwick and Fields Investigations” are at their downtown office. It's mid morning when a woman walks in. She introduces herself as Victoria Sanchez a reporter from the “Raccoon City Times”. Sanchez explains that she had received a package from Eddy Williams about dangerous and illegal experiments being conducted by the Umbrella Corporation. She also says that Eddy told here than the investigators had helped him get the information. Unfortunately her editor wanted more if he were going to risk going up against Umbrella. Miss Sanchez found another lead. An Umbrella employee who claimed to have solid information about seriously illegal activities by Umbrella. His name was Tyler Norton and he was hiding in a family hunting cabin in the Arklay Mountains. Miss Sanchez offers the investigators $3000.00 if they will help her find Norton's cabin and get the information. Hartwick and Fields agree.

After a flat tire and making a few wrong turns Hartwick, Fields, and Sanchez finally find the cabin. Unfortunately it took much longer to find than expected and it's almost nightfall when they arrive. They cautiously approach the small cabin.

Sanchez knocks on the door and a young man with an automatic rifle opens it. The man looks frightened. “Are you Sanchez?” the man ask. Sanchez introduces herself as well as the investigators. The man introduces himself as Tyler Norton an employee of the Umbrella Corporation. Norton explains that he was hired by Umbrella as a dog handler. He took the job thinking he would be doing security work but after signing a non disclosure agreement he found out it was for another reason. Umbrella began experimenting on dogs by administering them something called the T-virus which cause the dogs to mutate into larger killing machines. They called these creatures MA-39 Cerberus. Norton was frightened by this work but more frightened of what would happen to him if he tried to quit his job after seeing what he had see. He had also heard rumors that Umbrella has experimented on humans with the virus which turned them into mindless “zombies”. A few weeks ago the Umbrella Corporation managed to secure a timber wolf from Alaska. They named the wolf Fenrir and it was their intention to infect it with the t-virus and turn it into a super Cerberus. Norton decided he had to do something. He gathered all the information he could about the Cerberus project and broke Fenrir out of the kennels and hid him at the cabin.
Norton continues to explain that last night the cabin was attacked by “zombies”. Fenrir broke his chains and attacked them. Though he killed several it appeared he became infected. Fenrir attacked the cabin but ran off after hearing some howling coming from the surrounding hills. Norton fears the zombies and Fenrir might come back at any time.
Sanchez looks over the evidence that Norton recovered from the Umbrella labs. She's excited that it look like good evidence.

The group prepares to leave the cabin but when they look outside they see several groups of individuals who appear to be stumbling towards the cabin. Norton says "Damn they are back. Kill them!".

The creatures approach the cabin in four group from several different directions. One group seems to be cutting the humans off from their car. Everyone inside the cabin readies their weapons and takes up positions at the windows. After dealing with the creatures at the farm and Kruger's lab Hartwick and Fields have packed a formidable arsenal. Fields readies her AK-47, Hartwick loads her 12 gauge pump action shotgun with slugs, Norton takes up a position with his rifle and even Sanchez is given a Colt 1911.

Hartwick takes up a position at the door. Fields and Norton take up positions at the window. Everyone starts shooting at the creatures.

Several of the creatures fall but other simply shrug off the shots. Fields seems to be having the most luck with her AK.

Despite several creatures being shot down the rest stumble on oblivious of the fates of the others. Sanchez gets into the fight shooting out the back window at a group of zombies but her shots are wild and untrained so she has no luck.

Eventually some of the creatures reach the cabins front door and back window. Hartwick tries to fend them off with her shotgun but finds it harder to hit with the creatures clawing and biting at her. The creatures at the back window attack Sanchez but have a hard time reaching her through the window.

Fields and Norton manage to take out the rest of the creatures converging on the cabin with well placed rifle shots. Hartwick at Sanchez manage to avoid injury fighting off the creatures but do little damage themselves.

A maddening howl is heard even above the gunfire and fighting. It seems Fenrir has found his way back to the cabin. Fenrir charges towards the cabin and unlike the creatures he is very fast.

With the help of Norton and Fields, Hartwick managed to kill several of the creatures attacking her.

Fenrir charges past Sanchez's car and into the open. Norton and Fields pour fire into the infected wolf and score some impressive hits but the beast just keep coming.

Fenrir closes the distance between the car and the cabin with astounding speed but just as it looks like he will make it Fields hits the beast right between his eyes nearly blowing it's head clean off. The massive wolf falls just one leap from the window that Fields and Norton had been shooting from.

With Fenrir destroyed Hartwick, Fields, and Norton manage to clean up the rest of the creatures attacking the cabin in short order. Sanchez runs over and starts taking pictures of the dead wolf.

After finishing off the last zombie Fields is the last to emmerge from the cabin her AK smoking from the barrel and foregrip with a nearly empty magazine.

With all the creatures dead the survivors are able to get to Sanchez's car safely. Sanchez is confident that her editors will finally let here write a story exposing Umbrella's illegal activities.

Note: This was the third episode of my Resident Evil campaign usign the Savage Worlds rules.

Family Zombie Painting

The family that paints zombies together stays together. We decided to get some zombies painted over the holiday break.

My daughter is really getting into the spirit of things.

While we were painting I heard a weird noise outside. I went out and found a sheet of 3/4 inch styrofoam insulation laying in the front yard. Aparantly the gods were pleased with out painting and decided to gift us with terrain making materials. I let it set for about an hour then decided to put it in the garrage.

And here is out little zombie hoard. Just a small group so far to add to what we already have for our Resident Evil campaign. Four of these are from RAFM's modern Cuthulu line and three of them are from Reaper's Chronoscope line.

Spaceport 69 Depo 5

Well I'm finally getting a start on my Spaceport 69 project. I've collected several plastic meat trays because of their interesting shape. I've seen people try and make terrain out of similar plastic packages but they often try and use the package for the main part of the sturcture. That's not alway a bad thing when it's well pulled off but a lot of the time it just ends up looking like a painted bit of packaging on the table. I've decided to use them as roofs for the older more industrial buildings in the spaceport.

I'm building the buildings out of foam core. I'm trying to make all the buildings in this project as playable as possible so I'm making interiors for them. The best way to make interiors for buildings is to plan them out first.

After I finished the basic floor plan I picked out a few miniatures to see how they fit in the floor plan. I wanted to make sure I could get at least one figure on an average size base in every room.

After finishing the floor plans I planned out the front, back, and sides. This took a while but planning makes construction easier.

Of course it's always good to check with the experts. My son was giving me advice the whole time.

After I got the outside walls cut out I put the structure together using sticky tack. Sticky tack works great for this but don't leave it on too long or it could get harder to remove.

After I got everything cut out I used sticky tack again to put the entire building together. Of course there is a lot of detailing to do and painting before I can put the building together.

Here is a shot of the interior with a few minis inside. I left the inside walls a bit shorter so I could get to the minis in each room easier.

Next the detailing and painting.

Ol' Roy of the V.F.U.W.

Hey I'm working on a Biker Gang for my Resident Evil campiagn. I'm using Hotwheels bikes and plastic GW minis for the bikers. I'm mostly using Catachan Jungle Fighters and other GW bits for the bikers. Each biker will have a mounted and dismounted version and if everything turns out like I plan I'll be able to remove the mounted bikers from the bikes so I can use the parked bikes as scenery. My curent plan is to just put the riders on the bikes with a little bit of sticky tack so they can be easily mounted and dismounted as the game progresses.

First up is Ol' Roy a frankenmini of GW bits. His body and legs are from the Catachan Jungle Fighter box. His head is from the White Wolves head sprue from the Empire fantasy army. His arms are both from the Militia boxed set for the Empire fantasy army. His right hand and SMG is from the Necromundia boxed set. His left hand mounted version is also from the Empire Militia set.

The way the legs worked out on the mounted version makes it look like he is standing on the bikes pegs which is good because these Hotwheels bikes are way overscale but easy to come by so I'm using them. Honestly they arn't any bigger than the various GW bikes so they don't look that bad with GW figs in my opinion.

Ol' Roy here is part of the V.F.U.W. biker gang or Veterans of Fucked Up Wars. They will be used primarily in my Resident Evil "Hunters" campaign.

Where did the time go? aka Why no updates?

Well here it is late September and I haven't made a post since late June. Where has the time gone. Well it has gone to school and the baby. I forgot how hard it is to have an infant in the house. This last summer I stayed at home and took care of my son who is now 9 months old and since school started I've been swamped. I've been running my Stargate campaign but I've pretty much been using miniatures I already have painted for it. I haven't built any new terrain or painted any new miniatures.

I have been doing some game related creative things. I've been working with a small press RPG publisher on a modern zombie/monster/invader game that will be out soon. I've been doing photo illustration for the project.

Here is a small sample of the work I have done for that project:

If you want to see more follow this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/unit18_nate/sets/72157622379476500/

Resident Evil "Hunters" Episode 2 "Dr. Kruger's Labratory"

July 23, 1998 Raccoon City. Anya Fields and Meredith Hartwick of "Hartwick and Fields Investigations" are at their downtown office. It's mid afternoon when they get a visit from Eddy Williams. Eddy tells them he needs their help to recover incriminating evidence from Dr. Kruger's hidden lab before the police find it. Eddy intends to turn the evidence over to a news agency and he's afraid if the police get it that the Umbrella Corporation will use their lawyers to make sure the evidence never sees the light of day.



Eddy also tells them that Kruger was experimenting on the infected creatures in his private lab as well and that he doesn't know the condition of those creatures at this time. Eddy instructs the investigators to meet him at the McDonalds at 4th and Chestnut at 9pm so he can help them break into Kruger's lab.



Hartwick and Feilds decide to stock up on some supplies in case they run into more infected creatures. They pick up an extra shotgun and Colt 1911 and some ammo at a local pawn shop then they pick up some duct tape and flashlights at a department store. They also check a local map and notice that the McDonalds they are meeting at is within walking distance of Kruger's home.

Hartwick, Fields, and Eddy make their way through the escape tunnel and end up in Kruger's bunker at the far end from the lab. Eddy explains that he's most likely to find what he's looking for in the lab. The lights are out in the bunker and the switch doesn't seem to work. Good thing they all have flashlights.

Hartwick thinks she hears something in the room to her right. She opens the door carefully and shines her flashlight inside. The room appears to be a storage room and at the moment it is occupied by three zombies.



The creatures start moaning and shambling towards the investigator. Hartwick and Eddy start shooting and one of the creatures goes down.


Unfortunately their shooting has attracted the attention of another group of zombies who start shambling towards them from a room down the hall.


Not wanting to be attacked from both sides at the same time the investigators first finish off the creatures in the storage room.


They then turn their attention to the creatures coming down the hall. For whatever reason this group is moving very slowly. Two of the creatures are gunned down at range by Fields and Eddy while Hartwick finishes off the storage room zombies.


With all the gun fire another group of creatures surges out of the room at the far end of the hall. this group seems more determined than the last.


Hartwick, Fields, and Eddy shoot several creatures as they charge down the hall but two of the zombies manage to make it into hand to hand.


Hartwick takes out one of the creatures with a couple buffets from the butt of her sawed off 12 gauge but the other creature hits Fields and shakes her up.


The investigators manage to beat down the creature. For the moment things seem quiet again. Fields recovers from being shaken and they all decide to re-load their magazines before they continue.


As they move down the hall Eddy notices that the room to the chemical storage is half open. He decides to push it the rest of the way open and look inside. Not surprisingly there are several creatures inside.

Eddy tries to shoot the nearest creature but he misses and they charge him. The creatures hit him several times but fortunately for him do no damage.


Hartwick pushes into the fight and takes one creature out. Fields tries to help but can't get through the door.


The creatures attack wildly and score several hits but again do no damage to the investigators. Eddy and Hartwick manage to beat the zombies down. Eddy explains that the lab is the next door up on the right and that he thinks they should get in there and start looking for evidence. He's not sure if the lab had an alarm but he's afraid the longer they are down there the more likely it is that the cops will show up.


When they check the door they notice that it is slightly open. Hartwick carefully pushes the door open to find the room filled with creatures.


With amazingly accurate gunfire half of the creatures are gunned down before they even notice the investigators. The humans fall back into the hallway and continue to shoot as the other zombies advance.


Another creature goes down trying to get through the doorway but two of the creatures make it into hand to hand.



Fields is hit again and shaken up again. Hartwick is also hit but not hurt. The investigators fight back but don't take either creature down straight away.


After a bit more fighting one of the creatures goes down. Anya Fields manages to pull herself together and now it's three to one.


Zombies are tough but not that tough. The last creature goes down without inflicting any damage. Hartwick and Fields quickly check the remaining rooms and find no more creatures. Eddy manages to get the power back on.

Eddy starts downloading information from the computer while Hartwick and Fields search the lockers. Hartwick finds two more doses of T-Virus antidote and Fields finds an AK-47 with 3 full 30 round magazines. A further search of the complex turns up an Umbrella Corporation I.D. badge for a man named Bob Johnson and a first aid kit.

Eddy thanks Hartwick and Fields for their help and explains that he plans to take the evidence he found on the computer to a reporter he knows at the Raccoon City Times.

Note: This was part 2 of my Resident Evil campaign using the Savage Worlds rules. I know it seems like the heroes had an easy time of it but they really got lucky. The zombies got the worst initiative cards all but one round and they failed to wound with really bad die rolls.