Infecting Mayhem City 05 (Victory Force Zombies)

A little late on this one.  Christmas parties and recovery times from said parties got in the way.  No more excuses, on to more of the expanding zombie horde, courtesy of Victory Force.  I like the set of Zeds I chose here better than some of the previous sculpts.

First up is a red haired party girl in a leopard print dress.  Not even the threat of a zombie apocalypse was going to keep her from the clubs, apparently.  Turns out she should have stayed in, as somewhere along the line a zombie ate here hand.   

Next to her, is another female zed with only a minor shoulder wound.   Just a bite to the shoulder was enough to infect her, and now she is out craving the human flesh as well.

next up we have a fellow with what appears only be some flesh wounds as well.  However, it is obvous from his hands and mouth that he has been out causing wounds.  This zombie has been eating well. 

Next in line is a zombie that could possibly pass for a rager, just based on his pose, I think.  He looks to be a bit of a runner.   He has some wounds to his arms, and chest along with some significant skin loss on his legs.  I like this sculpt and his white T-Shirt really helps his blood stains pop I think.

last in line is my favourite sculpt of the entire 50 zombies that I received.  The ol' half legless Zed.   This guy must have had a horrible ending, and now is on the short end of the stick as a 'walker'.  But he still tries. He appeared to be dressed as a grocery store style employee, but that doesn't really show up now that he is almost completely covered in his own blood.  I even stained the pavement around him with blood.   I really like this guy.

Here are some pics from other angles.

Well the horde is expanding nicely.   Soon I'm going to be ready for some practice level games of ATZ.
Anyone have a favourite in this horde?  I really like the legless Zed shown this week, but the Barney may be unbeatable for uniqueness. All comments are appreciated.

Populating Mayhem City 14 (More of Juno's Crew from Wargames Foundry)

The last couple of posts have shown some of a gangers from the streets of Mayhem.   This time we'll be looking at a different breed of criminal.   These guys aren't robbing folks on a the street, partaking in drivebys or holding up liquor stores.   That doesn't make them any less deadly.  These guys are more along the lines of multi-million dollar jewel thieves, intimidating and blackmailing politicians.   Here they are.

Two brothers in crime, they're names are Vincent and Victor (Vega?).   Clearly Vincent is a play off of the pulp fiction character of the same name and look, but I don't think I'll ever be using him as that character, just the name.   Victor Vega would technically be Michael Madsen's character from Resevoir Dogs (and Vincent Vegas cousin, I believe).   This miniature looks nothing like him, again I'm just using the name.

These two are both decked out in black tuxes, perhaps they were at a night out at the casino when the Zed apocalypse begins.  Luckily, they are both always armed.   Vincent has a nice BA pistol that should be good for dealing with survivors and zombies a like.   Victor, a little more on the wild side, has an MP5K for indiscriminately spraying down rivals.

I'm a pretty big fan of these figures as I think Juno's Crew is one of Foundry's best sets.   These guys have a great theme together, and just scream organized crime   It would be my top recommended set from the site. Do be warned Val (from the last Juno review) is a significant amount taller than the rest.   Speaking of which...

There's the crew, all three brothers as I treat them.   I picture Vincent being a bit of the smarter, leader character, Val being the strongest (he's huge) and while not stupid, he prefers to follow rather than lead.   Victor on the end has a pose that just screams Wild Thing, so he is the loose cannon of the group.   I think this trio would be a fun survivor group to play in ATZ.   I like their chances.


What do you guys think, all comments are appreciated.

Populating Mayhem City 13 (Bobby Jackson's Gangsta Thugs)

Welcome back to the hood of Mayhem, where we will introduce a few more of it's inhabitants.   They are more great figures from Bobby Jackson's line.  They need little enough introduction, so let's go.

Now there's a tough looking crew you don't want to cross, zombie apocalypse or not.  Starting on the far left we have Heavy C.  He may be gangsta, and he may have two pistols, but his too small t-shirt and belly showing make me view this character as almost comedy fodder.   Even his pose makes him look like he's about one step away from falling on his face.  Next up is Shades.   He's advancing with a pistol drawn, and always wears his sunglasses, day or night.   Under his jacket he's got a hockey jersey on (probably Boston, but could be a retro Pittsburgh).  His pants are an urban blue camouflage style that I didn't really plan on doing.  After starting with a blue base, the highlight I choose was far too bright.  So I decided to really over do it with the blue, and then added some black marks as well.  I'm really happy with it, and pretty sure it came out better than it would had I planned to do camo from the beginning.

Next up is Jimmy Money, with his gun lined up for the deadly kill shot.   He's got a dollar sign charm around his neck for his namesake.  For some reason I picture Shades and Money as brothers (no pun intended), and will treat them as such in scenarios.  Last of the crew is Cliff.  He's a lot less flashy than his cohorts.   Perhaps he is a little bit older, and a little more experienced than his fellow gangers, but this is less of a game to him.   It's not about dancing around and posing with your gun sideways.  It's life or death on the street, and for that reason he carries a big gun, the only in his crew to carry more than a pistol.   Cliffs shotgun will probably make him fair better than the others in both modern/urban combat and a zombie apocalypse.  

All in all, these are great figures.  I have a harder time picking a favourite out of this crew.  Jimmy Money and Cliff are probably my favourite.  If I had to choose one, it would probably be Cliff, just for his uniqueness in weapon choice.

The gang is growing into quite a force.   I'm really satisfied with what they bring to the table.   Here is a picture of them so far:

Thanks for reading, all comments are appreciated.

Populating Mayhem City 12 (Bobby Jackson's Gangsta Thugs)

Welcome back, and it's time to introduce a few miniatures from a great line:  Bobby Jackson's Thugs.  This crew is a set of great sculpts, totally nailing the gangsta feel.  Let's look at what I have painted so far.

On the far right you have my favourite of the entire line, who I have named Tyrone.   Tyrone fits to role perfectly.  He is intimidating, muscled, draped in gold and holding his pistol in the dreaded 'kill shot' angle.   Once again I made a small attempt at checkered/plaid clothing as this lad's boxer shorts are exposed.  
Second in line is the duo of Sammy and Little Walter (names stolen from a book I just read).   Now while most of this line is clearly meant to be made up of mean thugs, I like to view this figure a little differently.  Sure, it is possible that the sculptor intended this figure to be a trashy mom bringing her baby along to a gun fight, but I prefer to view it more as a desperate mother fighting to keep her child alive.  Perfect for the zombie apocalypse, where I am certain this figure will find many uses.  I tried painting her up in a motherly colours rather than a tough girl set (where I probably would have used some black colouring).  The yellow shoes look a little goofy, so I may try to add some blue there as well.  Clearly her base needs to be touched up as well, but that is a simple task.

Last in line, and wielding dual pistols is Billy Z.  Veteran street thug in his early 20s, he's been in enough shootouts to recognize the benefit of some kevlar body armour.  Dressed all in black because he is certain it makes him look tougher, Billy Z is a perfect addition for street gang games or zombie apocalypse.

There's nothing not to like about this set of figures, and would be a must have set for anyone in a modern, urban setting (whether there are zombies or not). Every figure in the set has a dynamic pose that looks like it comes right out of a rap video.   I plan on using most of these figures as rival gangers in ATZ, but some can fit the role as a survivor as well.   All will also work as a gang in any modern conflict, such as could be used with the Flying Lead ruleset.

That's all for this week, all comments are appreciated.

Infecting Mayhem City 04 - Victory Force Zombies

Hello again.  This will be a shorter blog update because most of the things that cna be said were already said in the last post.  These zombies are more of the same, from the great Victory Force Zombie 50 for $50 deal.  Let's look at what we have this time.

A crew of five undead walkers.   You may notice that compared to last week, these zombies haven't been feeding as well.  In fact, only the right most zombie has any blood or gore in his mouth area.   That zombie also is severely lacking in wounds, so much that I considered passing him off as a living citizen. In the end though, I gave his face some blood and more on his hand, and he'll pass as a zombie just fine.
Second zombie is in rough shape.  He is missing his right hand, entire left arm and the skin around his left shin.  He is appropriately the most blood covered of this group.
The third and fourth zombies are both showing multiple wounds, and are leaking a lot of blood.

The backs of these guys made out a bit better, but that's not much to be happy about when you join the zombie infected.

And just a profile shot to show some of the wounds from the side.  I like this little set of zombies, and I think they'll fit into my horde just nicely.  I forgot to take a horde shot for this post, but will either edit one in here tonight, or make sure to have one for next time.
Thanks for reading, even though this was a bit repetitive.  I should have a good set of Bobby Jackon's Thugs or maybe some or Juno's Crew from Foundry completed for the next update.

All comments are appreciated.

Infecting Mayhem City 03 (Victory Force Zombies)

The infection is spreading.  More undead are walking.   With the Victory Force Zombies Special it is easy to bolster your undead, and fast.  I picked up the deal over the summer, but in the theme of Halloween they are running it again until October 31st.   Their blog says this will be the last time the special is offered at this price (I predict they continue to offer it at 50 zombies for $60 in the future).   In my opinion you can't get a jump start on a quality zombie horde faster than this offer.
On to the walkers.   This is just 5 of the 50, and featured a few of my preferred zombies from the group.   The guy on the left walks forward with a dull expression, wanting on the flesh of the living.  Judging by his mouth and neck area, he has had his share of it.  The sculpt for this fellow was probably meant to represent a suit, but I wanted to use the opportunity to attempt a plaid coat.  I'm not overly satisfied, but this is something I'll tackle again in the future.
Zombie #2 has a mouth ful of gore, and a blood stained hand, but he is not as stained as zombie #1.  His colour scheme is kind of bland, but I like the sculpt.
Zombie #3 has also feasted recently, and juding by the blood locations, I'd say she was shoveling human remains into her mouth with her left hand.  She also has a wounded leg, predating her infected days.  Other than her flesh, eyes and blood, this zombie was painted completely with Citadel Washes.

Zombie #4 is my least favourite of the group.  Her pants just didn't seem sculpted in a realistic manner and her extended arms, while a common zombie pose, seemed to capture the angle all wrong.   Her hands are bloodied up, but she has not been eating.  I added some gore to her head and hair; likely the wound the ended her normal life.
Zombie#5 may be my favourite of the group.  He is chubby, and missing an arm.  With a missing arm, I figured white would be a good colour for his shirt, to really display the blood at a distance.  He has also fed recently, which at this point is a feature I over use in my zombie painting, but I love it!

So this is just 10% of what I received in the zombie deal from Victory Force Miniatures.  At $1 per zombie, I would suggest this deal to anyone, but particularly for people trying to get a quick but reasonably costed horde.  As awesome as Studio Miniature Zombies are, if you were just starting off and wanted to grab 50 of their zombies, it would cost you a lot more than $50.   Granted Studio Miniatures have a higher quality sculpt, I think the VF zombies are good for what you pay.

The horde is expanding.   Starting to look like something that would really set back a single zombie survivor, but still, a well prepared group should be able to take them down...if they don't expand....

Thanks for reading, and comments are always appreciate.

Infecting Mayhem City 02 - Zombie Strippers (Reaper Miniatures)

Hey again, welcome to the infection of Mayhem City once again.  Now when the infection first begins, many people will be caught in their line of work.  We see this in many lines of miniatures featuring firefighters, police officers or doctors.  Well in the seedier blocks of the city, Mayhem's hardest working single moms are performing their duties, and not even a zombie apocalypse will stop them.  I give you, Zombie Strippers.

Starting on the far left is Blondie.  She has clearly taken quite a wound to the head that has covered her eye and stained her platinum blond hair.    She also has a wound down her side but the blond staining her hand is not likely her own.   Her mouth looks like a particularly anguished zombie.  She must be hungry, as there is no evidence to suggest she has fed lately.
Pinky in the middle is my favour of the the three.  From the front, she is drenched in blood, but none of it is from wounds of her own.  She has obviously feast well, with the amount of blood covering her mouth and neck area.  Her hands have also recently torn someone inside out.
One the end we have the dark haired girl.  Donning black colours in general, she still clutches the severed arm of a former patron.  She is showing multiple wounds from the legs, and a mouthful of blood (though not her own, I assume).

And the girls from the back.   Each of them shows some sort of wound.  Blondie just has a few areas of seeping flesh, while Pink had a large wound that was likely the result of her zombification.   The dark haired girl did not actually have a sculpted wound on the back, but I noticed I had accidentally left a black mark their during painting, so a little blood fixed that up nicely.  This is my favourite thing about painting zombies.

A profile shot, showing that even as zombies these girls are all about the dollar bills.   These Reaper Zombies are quite tall compared to most models.  It doesn't bother me, but it is worth noticing if you do not want your zombies to outsize your heroes.   I believe Reaper miniatures in general tend to be larger, but for now these are the only ones I have.

And with the addition of the Zombie Strippers, my horde more than doubles in size.  It's not too impressive yet, but I'll keep updating this picture.  The zombies I have so far have been full of character, but I'm going to have to fatten this horde up with some filler zombies I received from Victory Forces during their last big sale.   Right not it might not be much of a challenge for a group of survivors, but give it time.  The infection spreads.

Thanks for reading, and as always, comments are greatly appreciated.

Populating Mayhem City 10 - Young Plugs (Wargames Foundry)

Hello again, today I'll be showing two of my latest completed figures, Denny and Les of the Young Plugs, from Wargames Foundry.

I like that Denny is wearing a jacket, and then a heavy checkered shirt underneath, and then a T-Shirt.  If gives him a sense of being over dressed, but appropriately so if he is living as a survivor in desperate time.   Len on the other hand has a sporty sweater that fits in any setting.

Denny comes armed with  scoped rifle, a great weapon for the zombie apocalypse.  Les is more heavily armed with an assault rifle.  My limited gun knowledge would have me label this rifle and M16, but I do recall Vampifan calling it an H&K model when he did his review of the plugs.   Either way, Len is not one to be taken lightly.

With both of them having long brown hair, I like to think of these two as brothers.   They are versatile figures that could easily be used as either survivors or gangers.  With the long hair and goatees, both of them were considered as a star character for my ATZ campaign, as they could pass as 28mm versions of myself from my early 20s.   But I think I have something else lined up.

I'm a pretty big fan of these two, by far the best figures out of the Young Plugs.  Ronnie the Worm was previously presented, and the two females from the group, unfortunately were sacrificed in my efforts to practice conversions (Iwasn't a big fan of either of them anyway).

Well thats all for this week, I hope you like Denny and Les (Foundry's names).  Comments are appreciated.

Populating Mayhem City 09 - The Flamer (Foundry Street Thugs)

Hi everyone, another quick update here with the latest citizen of Mayhem.  It's the Flamer from Foundry.

This guy has his face concealed with a bandanna and is prepared to light a Molotov cocktail.  He has quite a long mass of hair that I painted with greying streaks.  I like to think of this guy as a bit of a mentally unstable drunk problem causer.  He's great for riots, and I'd even allow him to pass for unarmed in ATZ.  He could probably even fit in as an addition to a biker gang.

I'm from Canada, and it seems just about everyone owns a neon orange toque, so I decided to provide Flamer with one.  They're great for being seen in the woods, so maybe this guy is a bit of a hermit on the outskirts of town.  

Not a lot else to say about this figure.  He's a typically well sculpted figure from Foundry, but I'm not sure he's the most useful.  I'm not sure how often ATZ will call for someone who is unarmed except for grenades, which is virtually what this guy is.  That's part of the reason I'm okay with using him as an unarmed civ as well.

That also rounds out my entire pack of Street Thugs at this point.  It was a good set, and I'm glad to have it. I'd recommend it for anyone playing ATZ, or even any other modern era table top gang.

The whole gang.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to have more updates next week.

Populating Mayhem City 08 - Unarmed Citizens (Foundry Street Thugs)

So far we've covered a wide array of Mayhem's citizens, from the military and police force, to the thugs on the street.  But so far they all had one thing in common, they were all armed.  Whether it was pistols, assault rifles or just baseball bats, they had all something to wage battle.  Not so, in today's figures.

Two more "Street Thugs" from the war games Foundry.  Their names from that company are Tony and Bets, respectively.   Tony, I've painted with a sweater sporting the name of California punk rock band NOFX.  They're a favourite of mine, and something I could see an adult skate boarder wearing.  Bets, I painted up with an American Flag on his T-shirt with *USA* written on the back.

While these guys are listed as thugs, I'll probably get just as much use out of them as regular unarmed civilians.  In actuality, Tony can be listed as having improvised weapons in the form of his wallet chain (1 handed) or his skateboard (2 handed).   And if need be, I could assign him any weapon that would fit in his backpack.  Bets could also have a concealed weapon in that rolled up newspaper I suppose, heh.

As for the sculpts, once again Foundry does not disappoint.   Both are great dynamic poses, with Tony cruising on his board, and I particularly like how Bets looks like he is storming towards something with a purpose.  They would make great poses for a city based diorama if you were to inclined.

Hope you enjoyed this little review.   Not sure if it was noticed, but I believe this was the first time I failed to post two blogs in one week.  A major reason for doing this was that I was flying through my material too fast.  In no time I would have all my miniatures posted, and then the blog would come to a standstill.   I'm thinking once a week will be my posting rate from now on.  (At least for miniature posts.   I may come up with random ideas I feel the need to post).
Thanks for reading, and as always, comments are appreciated.

Infecting Mayhem City 01 - Victory Force Zombies

Well based off the title alone, you can get the idea that this is going to be a little bit of a different blog post today.  No longer will I be introducing the citizens of Mayhem City.  At least not of the living.  Today we bring forth the Zombies.  Infected, raised from the dead or otherwise, these will be the source of all problems in the future of Mayhem City.  And I was able to start showing them off due to a package arriving in the mail:

Nectar of the gods?

I had actually begun painting some zombies a while ago after taking part in Victory Forces cheap zombie sale earlier this summer, but without the blood effects, I wasn't ready to show them off.   The first two zombies actually aren't from the sale, but were from their more unique figures of zombies, and I simply couldn't pass them up.

Braaaaains...

So here we have the children's entertainer and the basketball player.  Both zombies are fantastic in my opinion, but I think the 'Barney' zombie takes the cake.   He is just so unique that everyone will recognize him immediately and probably be thankful that he was among the first to become infected.  The basketball player, while a good sculpt, is really only unique in the fact that he is significantly taller than the average 28mm figure.  I gave him the number 17 as it was among the easier numbers to paint.  No rounded edges!

The dinosaur and the tower.

You'll probably also note that I did not center the basketball player on his base at all.  I use washers with a hole in the center as bases, and had a difficult time attaching the zombie. It does look a little odd, but I am thinking of adding a traffic cone or some debris to break it up some more.

Zeds from the back.

I realized in this photo from the back that I had failed to 'bloody up' the wound on Barney's under arm.  I took care of this later, but did not take another picture of it.  The ball player also had something sculpted by his left foot.  I just covered this in blood and treated it as though his skin had fallen off, as his lower leg is just bone.   Hope that's what it was meant to be.

A little brighter, but the blood shows up a bit better here.

Hope you enjoyed the first zombie updates to this blog.   There will be more, but none of the Victory Force deal zombies are as interesting as these two, so they'll probably come in larger batches.

Thanks for reading, and I appreciate all comments and opinions.

Populating Mayhem City 07 - The Military (Foundry SWAT Team Alpha)

Hello.  So clearly this little Zombie Apocalypse isn't going to be handled by police and SWAT along.  It's time to send in the military.   And here they are:

The best of the best.

These five nicely cover the roles of the military I think.  Machine guns, pistols, assault rifles, submachine guns and snipers can be covered by this group.  I went with a paintjob of catachan green with grey gear.  Originally I started with a grey outfit and green gear, but I was not fond of it so I started over.   To be honest, I probably should have used this opportunity to attempt some camouflage painting, but I found the prospect of that too daunting.

Time to run some crowd control on the population of Mayhem.

The first three figures are remarkable similar to 3 from SWAT Team Shadow, but with a few big differences.  The heavy gunner at the far left is equipped with a radio headpiece, the pistol wielding soldier has a Big Ass gun in stead of a regular pistol, and the woman is holding her MP5K in a bit of a gangsta pose.

The Military Men

Just a closer view of the men from this squad.   My favourite sculpt is probably the sniper, though I do like the way the guy in the middle holds his pistol with two hands, it looks authentic.  I also like to picture the pistol armed soldier as the leader of the group.

Girls in Uniform.

And now for the ladies.  I also consider them the rookies of the team.  At first I had the girl on the right pegged to be the groups leader; then I realized she came wearing pigtails.  I couldn't see  a leader with pigtails, so she is demoted, heh.  The one on the left gets cast as a rookie due to her gangsta pose.   At one pint I even considered modifiying the figure so she was holding the gun properly, but that would make the figure a near copy of the one I already have from SWAT Team Shadow.  So she stays as is, and is treated as an overzealous rookie.  

Mayhem Military

Over all I am satisfied with the way this crew came out.  The paintjob isn't my best, but if does the job.  

Thanks for reading, and as always, comments are appreciated.

Populating Mayhem City 06 - The Dominatrix and Her Crew

Welcome back to the sixth edition of Populating Mayhem City, and my seventh post over all.  Things will be a bit different this time, as for the first time I will be blogging on figures from different packs.  This is just because by the time I was done with them, I felt they went together. So with the girls being from Miss Trude's Girls and the male from The Young Plugs, I present The Dominatrix and Her Crew:

Miss Trude has a nice pair...of bodyguards.

I guess I'll start with the attention grabber in the center, Miss Trude.  Armed with a silenced MP5K, this dominatrix sports mostly black.   I am rather fond of the sheer shirt I gave her, which was just a flesh colour base given multiple black washes spread unevenly.  If I had a do over, I would lighten up the middle of shirt too, but I'd hate to ruin it by trying to touch it up.  Not much else of note, as it is pretty standard black with grey highlights.   The military cap has a glossy finish on the beak too.

Miss Trude and her guns.

Furthest left is the figure named Mistress Goodnight on the Foundry page.  I decided to take a different path with her however.   I was thinking with the Street Violence line, I was going to wind up with more than a few dominatrices.  What I needed were more 'slaves'.   This figure is decked out entirely in latex, with a styling that could be considered typical submissive wear.  (The large rings on the back suggest some sort of hanging bondage that would be on a slave rather and a Dominatrix, I think).  So in the end, I named her Slave Girl, and she is a devoted bodyguard to Miss Trude.   

Leather clad and looking for trouble.

On the far right comes Ronnie from the Young Plugs package.  I've dubbed him Ronnie "The Worm", a client of Miss Trude.  Ronnie has bleach blond hair that I tried a new method for (different from Slave Girl's).  I started with a basecoat of blue, and worked up by adding more and more bleached bone to the (very thin) mix.  I like it, and will use this method from now on I believe.  

I also gave Ronnie a metallic silver MP5K.  I think these actually only come in black in the real world, but I wanted to break up the one colour tone to The Worm.

And from the back.

I really like the way this crew came together, and I like thinking of them as a trio with a Dominant female and devoted bodyguards.  It works for ATZ, or any other modern gang based ruleset (I'm thinking, Flying Lead).  By the time I'm done, I'll have many more figured that can fit in with these few, but I think I'll always think of these 3 as a core unit.

The Street Violence line is great, and by now you all know I'm a huge fan (I don't think anyone dislikes them).    If you've liked just about anything else from the line, you'll find a place for these ones too.
Thanks for reading, and as always, I appreciate all comments.