Some more of our Walking Dead campaign...

Hi all!

Well, we played five more games today... some went SUPER quick... and I thought I would share some photos!

Here is the first one... a food supply run.  It was pretty clear... not many zombies anywhere, so we were able to move up and take care of business quickly.

A zombie did end up being in the house we checked for supplies, but we were able to sneak through without it hearing us.

My guy, Brian, headed towards the other supplies, which seemed easy to snag.

Sandra went to go clear out a nearby car.

And then they went and looted the UPS truck together and ran off!

The next mission was a "Found New Survivor" mission!  He was in the middle, but while there were a ton of zombies they were mostly at the far end of the board... we figured we could avoid them.

Or maybe not!  Two zombies lurched towards Sandra, although she was able to fight them off and knock them back.

Meanwhile Allen moved towards some other supplies, hoping the nearby zombies wouldn't notice him.

Once we got our supplies, we ran!

Next mission was just our new guy, Jim, and Sandra... we rolled up a "Surrounded!" mission!

Sandra and Jim check out some nearby supplies, unaware that a horde of zombies is heading their way...

But thankfully they were able to simply RUN, and they got past the zombies around them and off the board!

The next mission was a Defensive Supply run!  Again it was just Jim and Sarah (Allen and Brian were just too beat up and starving... in maybe supply 25 rolls, we only rolled up food maybe four times... our survivors are slowly starving to death!)

Sandra was grabbing supplies and ready to go when a zombie shambled around the jersey barriers and towards her!  But then Jim, thinking fast, blasted it with his pistol, knowing that even if he missed it the shot would bring the zombie towards him and away from Sandra!  But his aim was true, and he took the zombie out, enabling the survivors to escape.

The next mission was ANOTHER "Surrounded!" mission!  Our survivors really have to pay more attention!  Again, there were a TON of zombies, but not many between our survivors and the way home.

Sandra took a moment to check the bed of a nearby truck....

... while Allen went to check a pile of boxes near a nearby mobile home.  And then we just RAN for it!

So here is the crew now!  As you can see, we have a TON of gear, but we are DANGEROUSLY low on health... we just aren't finding enough food to stay alive!

And we rolled up the next mission... our base is under attack!

A new "The Walking Dead" campaign

Hi all!

Well, my son and I have started a new "The Walking Dead" campaign, so I thought I would share some photos! 

We played one uneventful game, but then I started taking photos.  First up was this food supply run!

So we decided we would stick together, and work our way behind the newspaper stand and bus stop to check the supply stashes there first.

We crept up towards the alley...

... but suddenly the zombies must have caught wind of us, as some bad event cards sent them our way!

While we were able to dispatch the one that lurched down the alley at us, some more began to come up the street, and a few terrible cards in a row (darn you, Pandemonium!) left us barely six inches into the table and already closing in on a high threat level!  We decided to simply cut out at that point, although we did take some damage for not having food.

The next mission was a defensive supply run. 

My son ducked into the mobile home, and we promptly rolled that there was a zombie in there!  But it ended up generating in the bathroom, and he was able to sneak in and sneak out without it catching wind of him.

The blare of a car alarm cut through the air, and while it helped draw zombies away from the center of the board, it rapidly began to elevate the threat level...

My guy jumped into a nearby house and searched for goods...

... while my son's guy snuck up behind a zombie in a park and grabbed some supplies.

At this point, courtesy of the car alarm, the threat level was skyrocketing, and we decided to cut out.  My son's guy made it out, but the zombies were completely agitated, and noticed my guy trying to run away!  They chased after him, causing him to panic and scream, which drew the nearest zombie right onto him!  Thankfully he was able to beat it back and get off the board even in his panicked state.  Unfortunately the threat level had reached the max, and so my guy was unavailable for the next mission and would suffer damage in between... getting lost is dangerous!

Here is the next mission, a food run, which was huge, because we NEEDED food.  I brought the female survivor from our group, and my son brought his usual guy. 

We quickly moved up the street and snagged some supplies that were in the shipping crate and UPS truck before turning around and coming back to approach the 7-11 from the front.

We carefully threaded our way through the dump...

... and then moved up and engaged the zombies at the front of the 7-11!

Sandra managed to knock hers down and get into the store to grab some supplies, while my son's guy knocked his zombie down and then moved in for the kill.

But the threat level was rapidly increasing, and a few bad cards suddenly saw every zombie turn to us and begin to shamble forwards!  It was time to run!

Our guys began to lose their nerve and panic... Sandra began to run as the horde of zombies followed her, and my son's guy let out a scream, which brought a zombie RIGHT to him!  Thankfully he managed to kill it and run off the board, just as the threat level hit max...

... but Sandra didn't have such luck.  She panicked and was promptly overwhelmed by zombies with nowhere to turn!  But even though they rolled something like ten dice, the leather jacket she had found in the UPS truck saved her life, as the zombies must have been distracted by it and did no damage to her!  Instead they lurched backwards clutching the jacket, and she managed to turn and sprint off the table, escaping what we were CONVINCED was certain death!

So here is where we are now.  We've found some decent supplies, but have little food, and our little group of survivors is slowly starving to death.  Fingers crossed the next mission goes well... we drew a mission card, and it turned out to be a gun run!  

I'll post more eventually!

The Walking Dead card holders, and painted trash piles...

Hey all!

Thought I would share these great new boards I picked up for The Walking Dead!

One of my annoyances with the game has always been dealing with the cards and the health markers... they are always sliding all over the place and a real mess, especially since I play only campaigns, where you have to keep track of guys for many games in a row.

Well, a friend picked these up, and I loved them, so I got them too!

Now, I did do a few things with them.  First obviously is the painting.  But I also wanted to have a better way to track health than the simple, easy-to-slide-out-of-place counter.  So I just took a drill and drilled eight holes along the top and numbered them. A few cut down Battleship pegs work to track health... white for health, red for if someone has been bitten. 

Overall they turned out fantastic:)

Oh, and here are the trash piles, painted up.

Another one... I love the chair in there.

And the last set.

Some trash piles from Antenocitis Workshop...

Hey all!

Well, I got some rubbish piles from https://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/ and I have to say, they painted up GREAT!

They weren't too expensive... maybe eight or nine bucks... and they turned out really sharp.  Required very little cleanup.

Did a few extra things with them to make them pop... gave the black garbage bags a gloss varnish, and added some leaf scatter to add a bit of a different texture.  Overall I think these will look great on the table!

Built 4Ground's Woodbury Rise 138 house for The Walking Dead

Hi all!

Well, my birthday just passed, and I got a few great buildings from 4Ground to spruce up my zombie table!

The first one I got was the Woodbury Rise 138 building, in half-destroyed form.  Now, I don't know exactly what destroyed the house... I don't think zombies do that sort of damage, but in my head I imagine that maybe a propane tank exploded or something. 

This model was a beast!  Something like 11 pages of directions... but honestly it was a lot of fun.  I like projects where you follow careful directions and end up with something cool:) 

 It is a fantastically detailed model.  Doors open, glass in the windows, etc etc.  I made one or two small mistakes, but nothing of note.  And it is very cool that the roof lifts away, allowing you to play in the attic, and the attic lifts away as well, letting you play inside!  I did have to do the rubble work and all of that... the set actually comes with a ton of extra bits and pieces to use as rubble, including some bigger chunks of wall and framing, and that, plus some pebbles and sand and other bits, made for great rubble.

Overall very happy with how the house turned out, and looking forward to a few games using it!

A little Marvel game I made

Hey all!

Well, my son and daughter got a HUGE collection of Marvel Lego minifigures. So, like anyone would, I decided to make a game for them!

I based it loosely on my most playable game ever, my M.U.S.C.L.E. wrestling game.  But there was a lot different that needed to be reflected with this one... different powers, multiple characters in a fight, and a bunch more!

So I currently have it in a state that is pretty playable. 

You play 3 v 3.  You have cards that you can play... Attack Cards, and Defense Cards.

There are two general classes of cards; a set of general "all" fighting cards... punches, kicks, blocks... that each player gets, and then you also get four "hero" cards that are specific to each hero. 

The "hero" cards are where I tried to grab the "flavor" of each guy.  Gamorra is a bunch of punishing close combat attacks.  Spider-Man has several cards ("Spider Sense!") that allow him to avoid attacks, and one ("Web up!") that lets him freeze an enemy in place.  Dr. Strange can use the "Time Stone!" card to heal hurt allies.  Iron Man can use his "Reactive Armor!" card to absorb damage and strike back at whomever attacked him. Hulk can grab a piece of scenery and throw it at someone.  Captain America can toss his shield to attack, and use it to defend himself and even nearby allies, if they need it.

Each turn you get two "all" cards and two "hero" cards to use.  You can use any card to move one space, or use it for what it is meant for... hitting them with War Machine's gatling gun or sniping them with Winter Soldier or leaping to attack several enemies with Black Panther.

There are a lot of variables to account for, on top of just the damage of the attack or the range.  Some characters have a lot of longer ranged "hero" cards, some have a lot of close range "hero" cards.  Some, like Hela, are nearly pure attack "hero" cards.  Some, like Groot, are nearly pure defense "hero" cards.  Some heroes, like Peter Quill or Captain America, focus on improving the team around them.  Some heroes, like Loki and Vision and Dr. Strange, can do crazy stuff, like using a Sling Ring to push an enemy far away or using the "Will you EVER not fall for that?" card to force an attack to rebound on the attacker.  And then Ultron actually gets into the game with a bunch of drones (he gets 4 drone teammates instead of the usual 2) and can actually use his drone cards across the entire team,  even using them himself, to create a tough opponent who can sacrifice drones to save himself and can order his minions to swarm their opponents.

You need to keep in mind who is on your team and what they do, and also how badly hurt they are, as you play.

Here you can see Hela facing off with Ultron and two drones.  Her "Spike Storm" card will be able to hit all three of her enemies, and her "Power of Asgard!" card can push her own damage onto her enemies... she is all about damage, and has no defense "hero" cards.

Here the three key Avengers face off with Vulture, Lizardman, and Rhino.  Iron Man's "Mini Missiles" are a fantastically versatile card, allowing him to push a ton of damage onto a single enemy or split it among several enemies (unlike Hela's "Spike Storm" above, which has to be split among enemies), while Captain America's "Avengers Assemble!" card actually lets the entire team pull an extra "all" card... resulting in the three cards at the bottom of the photo and which gives the team a TON of options, either to attack, defend, or move, this turn.

Here the Black Order might be in a bit of trouble, as Loki can use "The Tesseract!" to teleport Corvious Glave to the far side of the board, and then Dr. Strange can use his "Magic Whip!" card to crush him for one damage for each square he is away... one of the nastier combos in the game, if you can pull it off!

The Guardians can be tricky!  Here you can see Peter Quill, who can use his "Dance Off, Bro!" card to take cards out of the other player's hand, and Groot, who can use his "We Are Groot!" defensive card to lend defense to any ally within range.  By the way, all three of Groot's other cards are called "I am Groot!" but they all do different things, and when Groot dies he gets replaced with Baby Groot, who can only take a tiny bit of damage and has no "hero" cards, but he CAN move around using "general" cards and being a pain in the rear end!  Rocket's four cards include "Big Gun!" "Bigger Gun!" and "Biggest Gun!"... Rocket has no defensive hero cards.  

So that's the basics of game!  If you stand on terrain, you can use it to absorb a certain amount of damage before it disappears... trees absorb 2, cars absorb 4.  And as heroes take damage, they have to permanently discard hero cards that they use, until they are completely out and removed from the game.  The more hurt they are, the less effective they are.

So far it has worked really well...  my son and I just had a game as Hela, Loki, and Thor took on Ultron and his drones... I swarmed him with drones, using Ultron's cards to keep them going and push them forward, taking Loki down.  But eventually Hela's insane offense, combined with Thor's ability to punish from afar with his "Hammer Throw! (the drones like to fight up close and don't do as well from far away) wore me down and won the game for him!

Fun!  And if you want to know more, just ask!