New Zombicide – Heroes

Guillotine Games has been drip feeding us with new character art these last couple of weeks, ramping up anticipation for the Kickstarter at the end of May. Yesterday the group of heroes included in the Green Horde box was completed.

ASIM

I don't think we've had a Saracen-esque warrior yet, so I like this departure. It conjures up game ideas based upon the Sinbad adventures.

BERIN

 Wearing a wolf's head as a hat, with a nose ring and some kind of emerald axe, Berin appears to be the angry Dwarf of the group. Intrigued to see what his rules will be as he's got some interesting gear.

JOHANNES

This guy looks like a standard human, an imperial type with crossbow and sword. He's meant to be trustworthy and fearless.

MEGAN

My guess is that Megan is the Magic user of the group, given her staff and array of potions. Interestingly she has a bandage over one eye in this illustration, but not in the box cover image at the top of the page.

ROLF

Let's be honest, Rolf is Conan. Brute force with little finesse. I'm guessing a melee monster.

SELI

Seli is my favourite character so far. A skinny tribal elf of some kind, with a funky sword and dagger by the looks of it. This has the potential to be a fantastic model to paint and I'm intrigued to see what skills she has.

So there we have it folks. If things follow the previous release, they're our 6 heroes for the Green Horde box set, with another 4 in the Wulfsburg-style expansion, and who knows what else in the way of stretch goals come Kickstarter time.

I'll have a look at the zombies that have been revealed thus far in the next post. I have to say, how excited am I?!!

Miniature Painting & Monty Python

It seems I have found my hobby haven in Zombicide: Black Plague at the moment. Our regular Tuesday Night Gaming has kept enthusiasm levels high thanks to Bull's random character approach, and we're working our way through all the characters we have.

Needless to say, despite a new Kickstart campaign on the doorstep, I have been on Ebay tracking down some of the models I wished I'd bought first time around.

One of the bonuses to the renewed hobby enthusiasm is that I've returned to the painting table after an 18 month hiatus. Inspired by the rate that Bull was painting his BP characters, and playing characters I'd dismissed as a waste of time, I now have a painting list that grows daily. Thing is, I'm really enjoying the painting!

Nothing pushes your painting than a deadline set in stone. I found tournaments great for this back in the 40k days, but this time we had arranged a BP game day at Awdry Towers for the Easter Saturday and time was flying by. I sat up till past midnight to get models finished in time.

On the day we decided to make it a Monty Python outing, and used Michael's non-Zombicide models that he had lovingly painted up some time ago to an exquisite level.

We managed to get a couple of games in – although it was actually the same game twice, as we died horribly first time around… how very Monty Python-esque!

Despite the quest only requiring one character to get to red level then exit the board, we toiled for hours to reach our goal. As the characters headed through the orange level of experience points, things started to hot up. At one point we had FOUR abominations on the board at the same time!

In the end we cruised, carefully and steadily, through to our goal – no rash decisions or over the top heroics (though I had to be reined in on a couple of occasions).

Fantastic game – my thanks to Mr Awdry for being a fantastic host as always, and to Bull for providing the leadership we needed to survive (second time around!).

More painting soon!

Zombicide Green Horde is coming in May!

Those of you who play Zombicide Black Plague may have already heard the news, but I only found out last night after returning from a failed Tuesday Night Gaming quest at Bull's. There is a new Z:BP kickstarter coming at the end of May to launch a new expansion. The Green Horde will include infected Orcs and Goblins.

I am sooooo excited!

This may actually make up for me missing Salute this year, and has certainly become the focal point for the year!

https://cmon.com/news/zombicide-green-horde-is-coming

Black Plague Escalation

A new month dawns, and I thought I'd wait till I was well passed April Fool's Day before posting this latest bit of news – I've actually painted a model, and finished it!

That's right folks, it's been a good 18 months since I finished painting Ox for Guildball, which was my last completed model. This time my attention has been focused on Zombicide Black Plague. After three consecutive weeks of Tuesday Gaming Night (albeit they were mostly on a Wednesday), enthusiasm for the fantasy board game has hit new heights.

What has injected the new enthusiasm is using EVERYTHING from the Kickstarter rewards. All the monsters, all the cards, the lot. We've been working our way through the scenarios using a team that is picked entirely at random. What this has meant is that the usual suspects don't always get a look in, and you're forced to use models and skills you've never looked at before. There are at least two models that I had dismissed when creating my dream team last year, but was dealt in games this last month – and they proved to be pretty awesome.

Anyway, back to the painting. I got a few hours on Saturday morning to myself and decided to use the time to crack out the paints again. After watching Bull steadily paint the models we've used over the weeks (or the high performing ones at least!) I was inspired to start painting some of my own.

I plucked four out of the collection – Falstaff, Mizar, Morrigan and Grim – and began laying down the colour. It didn't take long for Falstaff to become the favourite for an early complete, so I concentrated on him.

Happy to say he is now complete. Very enthusiastic about the painting right now, so need to keep the momentum up. Morrigan probably the next in line so stay tuned.

Now, just need to get Falstaff in a game now.