Back from the Dead!

Back from the Dead!

Well that took longer than expected...

Hello, zombie lovers, and thank you for your patience over the last year and a half.  As some of you you may already know PZM ceased trading due to various real world conflicts and I had to take an impromptu hiatus from all things hobby.

Things continued to get real over the last 18 months with my studying demands going into overdrive, me having to resume work at the same time and, as an unexpected bonus, a new baby falling into my lap. I did manage to lose 20kg during that time though so at least my self-esteem survived the adult-pocalypse.

So what's the plan?

With the advent of my new career and my swelling familial responsibilities, the torpedo that hit the PZM store remains effective and I sadly won't be resuming sales. However, I've been away from the table for far too long and it's definitely time to get my game on.

To whit, I have in the works a small campaign designed specifically for friend to Zeke (and all round champion of gaming) Jim from Hive City Terrain. This campaign will be played and logged over the next month or two so standby for the introduction post very soon. I'll be floating some new campaign ideas and showing off a new personal sculpt so stay tuned.

Whatever, here's the sculpt: 

I'd just seen Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead

This guy will be functioning as a sort of GM-controlled guide for Jim's character as he embarks on his sojourn through the Z-poc. Jim was also good enough to do me a few resin casts so expect some variations from the original sculpt (and this is not just because the baseball bat was too fragile...ahem).

That's all for now, guys, but I honestly cannot wait to get back to the table and get interacting with this awesome community once more.

Stay clean and I'll speak to you soon.

Safe House 2015 - Intro

The 2015 team after 24 hours on the road

(L-R) Jim, Simon, Phil & Ross

Now that the weekend is behind us it's time to catch up on the action from Safe House 2015. 

And what a weekend it was! 

We have raised a fantastic total of £697.08 between us and the campaign is still open at the Safe House 2015 JustGiving page so any pennies you fine folk can sling our way to help us beat last year's score would be amazing.

Lets begin by introducing the characters and format of the campaign. 

The campaign ran much like last year with three acts and a grand finale comprising a total of about 10 games. 

However, this year I left out a lot of the prefabricated story and plot devices so that the players could better craft their own tale of survival. As such I eschewed controlling my own character to play the role of Games Master, controlling the zombies and NPCs and occasionally throwing out events and situations to complicate matters for the other guys or just to improve the overall experience.

Players also only had one character each this year. This significantly streamlined play between games and increased the fear of death, a change I will be keeping in place in future.

So let's meet the Stars:

Smudge, Coach & Cornetto

From left to right we have: 

Smudge (Phil) - Former Royal Engineer now contracting in the US, Coach (Jim) - Volunteer fire fighter and coach at the local high school, PC Cornetto (Ross) - retired ex pat policeman who likes taking shortcuts. 

For the games we used the standard rules for THW's All Things Zombie and some updated rules from I, Zombie and the new Tales of Dread supplement. In addition, I introduced a standardised inventory system using a new printable gaming aid I commissioned for the event; the Survivor Bug-out Bags, available free from Project Zeke Miniatures HERE. 

These are yours to use as you see fit and are just a small token of our gratitude for all your support.

The trusty bug-out bag 

With that said, let us begin on our journey of survival. See you in Act 1 of Safe House 2015.

Safe House 2015 Links

Intro, Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, Finale

August 2014 - Sophisticated Pallet

After such a hectic July, what with Safe House and various other projects reaching their climax, I have been taking August a bit easier. That's not to say there's nothing to report, however.

No, we've seen the release of the new Wrecked SUV terrain piece and the Bridges, Zeke, Eddie and Lars miniatures (I also had another special miniature cast but it was last minute and I haven't painted it yet but I will be covering it in another post soon).

Wrecked SUV

Bridges

Zeke

Eddie

Lars

I have also begun remastering the P-Sec Private Security Squad miniatues and have therefore reduced the price of old miniatures to clear. You can now buy pose A, B and C individually for only £1 each.

Enjoy your retirement, boys

As with last months post I will be making a habit of sharing my personal hobby doings and resources I find helpful with you fine people. This month I have been beavering away trying to make terrain for a very special mini-campaign following directly on from the events of Safe House 2014.

Now, I don't want to give anything away about the content of the campaign as I think you will really enjoy it when I post the AARs and I don't want to ruin the surprise. That said, I found a superb tutorial for making 28mm wooden pallets HERE and have been snipping coffee stirrers ever since. Here's a little look at the end result of about 15 minutes work...

Teeny pallets

Anyway, that's all for August. I hope it was a good month for you. Lots of good stuff to come in September including the Safe House Epilogue.

New Miniatures - Out Now!

New products for September 2015

It's taken a little while but they're finally ready to go. Here are the next lot of miniatures available now from Project Zeke Miniatures:

Bridges

Zeke - The Smart Zombie

Eddie

Lars

More miniature news in the August update next week.

New Product - Wrecked SUV

Well, things have been pretty busy here, hence the lack of posts recently.

I can confirm that the new miniatures will be ready for sale at the end of August/beginning of September (sorry for the delay). In the meantime, here is our latest scenery piece, the Wrecked SUV:

With hindsight being 20/20 I wish I hadn't painted it white. What a nightmare that was to photograph! And I'm still not 100 percent happy with the pic but it will suffice for now.

I hope you like it and are already thinking of better paint schemes.

That's all for now, you crazy cats. Stay tuned.

Safe House 2014 Bonus Content - Characters

In the wake of such an overwhelmingly positive response to the Safe House 2014 batreps I thought it would be nice to give you all a closer look at some of the miniatures used in the campaign.

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A.J.

First up is one of my own survivors from the campaign.

A.J. is an experimental conversion I did a day or two before the event. His legs and torso are from the upcoming Bridges and Zeke figures from Project Zeke Miniatures as is his backpack, available now as part of our new Survivor Gear Pack. 

A little modelling putty and a head I had lying around from a Horace 'Action' Jackson from Reaper Miniatures and A.J. (geddit?) was ready to bust a move.

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Jake

Jake is another conversion using the body of "Herb" by Rogue Miniatures, a Travelling Tweedy Head from Crooked Dice and a MOLLY pack from The Assault Group to complete the 'survivalist' look. This guy is actually my personal favourite...even if he's not one of my sculpts.

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HANK

This next fellow got a fair bit of play time throughout Safe House but it occurred to me that there weren't really any good pictures of him in the reports. So allow me to present Codename: HANK. 

This is another converted PZM mini that I did last year using a P-Sec body with the silencer trimmed off the weapon and a simple head swap for a US Gas Mask Head from West Wind Productions.

And he bears a certain resemblance to a beloved video game character of mine. No prizes for originality for me.

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Spec Ops

Last up is the Spec Ops character that appeared very briefly at the end of Act 3. He was originally intended for use as the chopper pilot but I scrapped that idea and only found a use for him out of sheer happenstance. 

However, even though he played virtually no part at all in the campaign, I thought I'd take the opportunity to shamelessly show off another simple P-Sec conversion possibility. 

Using a different model to HANK, I trimmed the silencer again filed down the rim of his helmet. A couple of rows of holes were then drilled into the sides to finish off the tactical helmet look. Lastly, I added another PZM backpack and got painting (connoisseurs among you may appreciate what I was attempting with the face mask). I really want to do some more of these.

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That's it for another day but there will be more Safe House bonus material coming your way in due course. 

Catch up on all of the Safe House action below:

UPDATE 01, UPDATE 02, UPDATE 03, UPDATE 04, UPDATE 05, UPDATE 06, UPDATE 07

Intro, Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, Act 4

New Products for July 2014

New Products!

from Project Zeke Miniatures

With Safe House 2014 now safely in the rear-view mirror it's time to get some new products out on the shelfves.

The first three new items may be familiar to some of you. Here's what's new for July:

Rusty Wreck

Some of our Rusty Wrecks were used in our ATZ:FFO demo games at Conpulsion 2014 and they are now retailing for £3 each.

Urban Detritus 

The Urban Detritus set was also seen at at Conpulsion 2014 and they are on sale now for £1.50 per set.

All of our scenic products are cast in high quality resin.

Survivor Gear Pack 

The Survivor Gear Pack is a collection of our backpacks cast in white metal. Perfect for kitting out your band. Each pack of four individual sculpts is on sale now for £1.50 (models shown for scale only).

Available now!

Safe House 2014 Update 07

We're coming at you early this week and it looks like this might be the final update before the event. As it is, I need to get some posts prepared for the Safe House after action reports and, to be honest, there's not much left to show off anyway without spoiling the surprise for later.

With that in mind I would like to make one last shameless drive for support and donations by asking you all to like, share or drop a quid in the tin at the Safe House 2014 JustGiving page.

Anyway, it seemed appropriate that our final teaser is the revelation of Project Zeke Miniatures' eponymous model, Zeke - The Smart Zombie, who will be featured during our campaign.

When Zeke first heard the adage "Marines don't die, they just go to hell and regroup", I don't think he realised it would be quite so accurate. Zeke comes complete with broken leg, torn cheek and dangling eyeball but none of these things were enough to pry this Marine away from his rifle. That one's his.

See you all soon for the Safe House AARs. Wish us luck. 

Catch up on all of the Safe House action below:

UPDATE 01, UPDATE 02, UPDATE 03, UPDATE 04, UPDATE 05, UPDATE 06, UPDATE 07

Intro, Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, Act 4, Epilogue