Populating Havensburgh 19 (Tactical Force Miniatures - Big City PD)

It seems like forever ago, but a while back I made mention of being in the market for police miniatures for my ATZ campaign.  At the time I was trying to decide between Foundry, Copplestone of Tactical Miniatures police sets.  In the end, I went with Tactical Miniatures set, mostly due to the variety of weapons.  If I had gone with any other  set, I would have had to buy multiples to get both Shotgun and Pistol armed officers.  As I am trying to do this as economically sensible as possible, the Tactical Miniatures made the most sense.

As for paint schemes, I considered a typical 'police' blue, but changed my mind at the last moment and decided to go with the modern Royal Canadian Mounted Police look, just to have a home grown feel to them.

Obviously the Tactical Miniatures police do not have hats, not vests, but the rest of the uniform looked pretty good.  My greys wound up a little darker, but I wanted to make certain they didn't come across as white.  I still may try to lighten them a bit (but probably not, they are good enough for me).  First up, the two police officers with hand guns.

And then the duo with shot guns, including the only female of the set.  Each of these duos has one figure posed lining up a shot while the other is more 'at the read' looking around.  I like this diversity.

And finally, the assault rifle officer.  I'm not sure how often RCMP units need assault rifles, so this guy will likely get the least amount of use from the set.   If anything, I may use him as an eventual survivor after the period in which police have dissolved.

 

Overall, I am quite a big fan of this set, and will probably eventually get the Narcotics Division of the same line (though they are mostly armed with Submachine guns, they all have body armour, which is nice).  The scale on these models make them slightly slender when compared to most of my other models, but most of those are Foundry which are on the bulkier side in general.  I don't think it is a big deal.  Highly recommend this set.

(I did realize upon looking at the pictures that I need to add a bit of yellow to the dark blue shields on each shoulder of each officer.  But that won't change much of the overall appearance, so I went ahead with the post.)

Comments are always appreciated.

20 Questions

Well these 20 questions have been making their way through the blogs, courtesy of Angry Lurker and Ray.  I figured I'd have a go at them as well.

1. Favourite wargaming period and why?
I'm going to have to say modern to near future.  Currently, everything I paint is to play a modern day zombie game, but I also like the though of gang warfare without the zeds.   In the back of my mind I also wouldn't mind a bit more futuristic combat, but I'm not ready for that yet.

2. Next period, money no object?
I'd probably like to have a go at something similar to the Hundred Year War.   I don't know a lot of the actual history involved there, but I do love some well painted knights on horseback doing battle.  I also sometimes plan to tackle a Warhammer Chaos Warrior army, just because I like the look of them.  I've never played Warhammer though.

3. Favourite 5 films?
Shaun of the Dead
Pulp Fiction
Lucky Number Slevin
Pineapple Express
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

4. Favourite 5 TV series?
Game of Thrones
ROME
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Community
Sons of Anarchy

5. Favourite book an author?
The Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) series by George R.R. Martin.  I picked these books up about 10 years ago,  and nothing has compared since.  I am very happy that it is now an HBO series as well.

6. Favourite General? Can't count yourself!
Grievous.

7. Favourite Wargames rules?
Though I have't played it yet, I suspect I'll be a big fan of All Things Zombie.   I am looking forward to the solo aspect of it mostly.  Rules that I have played and been a big fan of include Heroscape and A Song of Blades and Heroes.

8.  Favourite sport and team?
The only sport I really watch is hockey, eh.  And the team I follow is the Pittsburgh Penguins.

9.  One use for a time machine, where do you go?

Probably back about 20 years so I could get in on the bottom floor of Google (and/or something like it) and reap the benefits.

10. Last meal on Deathrow?

Snow crab, pepperoni pizza and Vanilla Coke.

11. Fantasy relationship and why?

Jennifer Tilly, because she seems like a wholesome, down to earth girl...

12. If your life were a movie, who would play you?

I'm not sure, probably some nameless extra on this straight to DVD flop.

13. Favourite Comic Superhero?

Very unoriginal here, but since I'm not super into comics I'll say Batman.  And that is purely based on movies, since I haven't even read Batman comics.

14. Favourite Military quote?

"In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." -George W. Bush, 2003

15. Historical Destination to visit?

Not sure.  At one point I used to want to visit many historical destinations.  But at this point in my life, my preferred vacations include tropical islands, sany beaches and lots of rum.

16. Biggest wargamming regret?

Not getting into it sooner.  I always figured I couldn't take part because I was not a painted.  Well I'm still not a great painter, but I enjoy it.  I imagine if I had jumped into the hobby in my teens, I'd be a good painter now and have a lot more experience.

17. Favourite fantasy job?

As a member of the unemployed at this point, I'll say any job is a fantasy job.

18. Favourite song top 5?

Coma White - Marilyn Manson

Las Cruces Jail - Two Gallants

Fortunate Son - CCR

19. Favourite Wargamming moment?

Anytime I'm actually playing with someone is a good moment, I think.

20.  What upsets you?

Very little.  I don't like being upset, so I don't let many things bother me.  Of course horrible human behaviours bother me, but I am not really exposed to that on a day to day bases.  I'm pretty happy and laid back.

Well that about does it.  I've really enjoyed reading these on everyone's blogs, so I hope at least some of you enjoy mine.

Building Havensburg 001 (Sarissa Precision)

Here we have it, the first dwelling for the streets of Havensburg.  A few months back I went with the City Block combo offer from Sarissa, and that includes this Apartment building.

Sorry that the lighting was not the best for these pictures, but you get the idea.    These are the C.D. Apartments, named after Havensburg's glorious Mayer, Clay Davis.   (The name Clay Davis was stolen from the Wire, I believe, but I've never watched that show.  I just used it as I wanted the initials CD, and found some Clay Davis election posters seen below).  While Clay Davis is a respected politician, he also is a head in the criminal world, and owner of many different chunks of real estate.  His initials play up a bit of a pun, as these truly are seedy apartments.

Some pics from the side showing off the signs. The Splint sign is from WWG, while the Clay Davis election posters I found in a Google search, and created the CD Apartments ad myself.

And just an overhead shot to show the inside.  On the left is the bottom/main floor.  Two separate apartments divided by a hall way and broken into two rooms.  Then on the right we have the attic part of the apartments.  Sarissa does not divide the attic, but I decided to use a piece of foamcore to do so.  I haven't added stairs yet, but I decided to not use full scale stairways, instead opting to just print out a single square icon representing where the stairs would be.   This isn't as realistic, but it saves space and time.

Hope you liked my first building, comments are appreciated.

Infecting Havensburgh 13 and a new Hero (Victory Force Zombies and Juno from Wargames Foundry)

Hey all, sorry in the delays, I've been feeling a little uninspired the past few weeks.   I've got a lot of areas in which I'm working on, but none seem to get to completion.   Well, not none, since these are the last of my Victory Force Zombies I picked up in a 50 pack oh so long ago.  To be fair, I believe this actually equals 48 zombies, as I've selected two that will be painted up as corpses instead.

Here are the zombies:

Good sculpts here as always, but nothing too spectacular about the first two.  In fact, I think this is the third time we've seen the second sculpt from the left.   The middle zombie however, is a bit more unique.  He was very tall, mustached and wearing shorts, which separated him quite a bit from the rest of the horde.  He has a vibe of a bit of a zookeeper or survival guide.  I like him.

Next up is another female.  She is a good sculpt but nothing too exciting.  I'm always happy to have more female zombies though.  And last up, is a bit of an oddball.  A zombie in a full snow suit.  I'm not sure he'll fit in with all the other zombies in their T-Shirts, but he is a little unique to say the least.

So to liven this post up a bit, as the VF zombies are a bit of a tired them here, I though I'd share another of my likely Hero characters for my ATZ campaign.  The character is a representation of my wife, Dawn Marie, and the sculpt is Juno of Juno's Crew (Wargames Foundry).  Dawn Marie is an office manager for a department of the government, hence the power suit.  When picking a sculpt for my wife, I o of course wanted one that not only resembled her somewhat, but was also dressed in something she would wear.  It's actually quite difficult to find realistically dressed female miniatures.  

Of course, since picking and painting this miniature, my wife has pretty much had a make over, and thus, almost never wears glasses anymore (contact lenses) and has ditched the blond highlights for a head of bleach blond hair.  Oh well, I tried.

Here are the heroes of my ATZ campaign:

Comments are appreciated as always.