The Webster Street Irregulars

 

Back when Osprey's "When Nightmares Come" first released, I was definitely interested - modern setting, occult enemies, ordinary people pushing back against the things that go bump in the night? That's 100% my jam. North Star offered a bundle deal, if I'm remembering right, offering the rulebook and your choice of a pack of "Apex Investigators" made by Fenris Games, to use as your monster hunters. 

 While I was at it, I ordered myself some 3D printed bases with urban detailing from Etsy. Once the figures arrived, I cut the tabs off their feet and glued them to the urban bases, feeling pretty pleased with myself. 

And then, as so often happens, they sat, unattended to. "When Nightmares Come" didn't grab me by the ears and demand I play it when I first read through it, so I shrugged and put it on the shelf with the other Blue Books, figuring I could borrow elements from it to enrich other games later on.

Recently, I read some play-reports for When Nightmares Come over on the Lead Adventure Forum, and felt my interest rekindle. And reading other people's play-throughs helped me through some of the things I wasn't understanding (I feel like the 64-page Blue Book format might have hindered this one a little bit!). 

So I've decided I'm going to make playing a full six-game campaign of When Nightmares Come my goal for October - ideally, playing the final game on Halloween. This is going to entail some painting through the month of September to get myself ready; first up, the hunters themselves, finally primed and painted and ready for action.

 While I will be giving everyone individual names and backstories, for now they're presented largely without comment:

First up is my "Weaver," in the game's parlance, a minor spellcaster with the knowledge and training to push back against the supernatural. I went with gray hair, envisioning her as an aging witch who has pulled the team together. The eyepatch, combat boots and arm bands show she's no frail fortuneteller. This is a woman who has kicked a werewolf in the nards and lived to tell the tale. 

Next up are my two "Wardens." These are characters who know their way around weapons and violence; while anybody in the game can use a gun or a knife, these guys are the best at it. According to Ian over at Fenris, the one guy is sculpted to look like celebrity chef Guy Fieri, so my bleach-blonde paint job is accurate. I'm imagining the gray-haired guy with the flashlight is a retired cop who assumes he should be leading the team. 

 Finally, my "Wrights" - these are techies, tinkerers, and modern-day alchemists creating tools from scratch - monster repellents, lures, potions of speed and healing, etc. I really like the gal with the fluffy boots and the palm pilot and had to give her some raver colors.

 Together, I'm calling them the Webster Street Irregulars; Webster Street being one of the local streets I look to for inspiration with my terrain collection. It's a lot of small shops and restaurants with apartments above, and buildings like that are going to be my next priority in terrain-building so that I can add more height to my tables. I already have one, in the form of the Nickel City Smoke Shop, and a couple more are on the way. 

I've also gotten some work done today on a few more pieces of scatter terrain - a pair of Crown Victoria police interceptors from Miniature Tanks Co. These are mostly just done in cheap craft paint, other than the lights. All that's left to do is putting some decals on them. 

 I did have to order a few more figures for When Nightmares Come, but I'm really pleased at how much I was able to pull out of my leadpile and designate towards the game. 

 

Miniatures Acquired: 212

Miniatures Painted: 215

Terrain Acquired: 5

Terrain Painted: 9

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 15

 

Zombie RV: Game 3, "Trial By Fire"

 I had to take today off work to take Gina to a doctor's appointment out in Rochester, and we got home early enough for me to set up the table and get another game of Zombie RV in, in preparation for putting on a table at Wargames Among the Warplanes in just under two weeks. When we last left our heroes, Dave and Dudikoff, the mysterious ninja warrior, had escaped from the zombie horde with their lives, but without their former companions. This time, they've picked up a pair of new recruits, Bobby and Larry, who are armed with pistols. Both figures are from Brigade Games' "Drug War Z" line. 

 

There were supply caches to check inside the Urgent Care, in the apartments above the Dispensary, inside the Pawn Shop and on the roof of the Off-Track Betting parlor. Five zombies were clustered around the burning dumpster at the beginning of the game; on subsequent turns, I rolled a die to determine if more zombies would spawn at the dumpster or at one of the table edges. 

Dudikoff snuck around to the back door of the Urgent Care, while Dave, Larry and Bobby crossed the intersection, aiming for the pawn shop and the back door of the Dispensary. 

 Bobby, the stealthiest of the group, peeled off and turned up the street, intent on heading towards the Off-Track Betting. Unfortunately, he sneezed and drew the attention of the milling zombies.

 Meanwhile, Dudikoff found the cache in the Urgent Care but nothing registered to him as useful. And some zombies, drawn by the sound of him rummaging, were beginning to enter the building.

 Zombies spawned along the table edge between the Dispensary and the Pawn Shop, right in Dave and Larry. 

 Dave darted past them, throwing himself through the doorway into the Pawn Shop. Larry skedaddled into the Dispensary and headed upstairs. The zombies followed Dave, and once they began to push their way through the door he opened up with his shotgun.

 Dudikoff kept up a fighting retreat as he headed back towards the rear exit of the Urgent Care. Bobby, meanwhile, reflected on the fact that he'd always assumed it'd be his bookie or one of his ex-baby mamas killing him in front of the dispensary. 

 Larry found nothing of value in the dispensary and headed back down, while Dave found supplies in the pawn shop. As the zombies kept coming, Dave made a mad dash for the front door to leave them behind. Seeing Dave running, Larry took off running in the same direction. 

 

Dudikoff ran from the pursuing zombies, but the Nasty Zombie managed to catch up to him; a slash of his katana pushed the Nasty Zombie back, allowing him to duck through the back door of the Donut Shop. 

 Bobby was wounded and knocked down, but the zombies, distracted by the stench of stale beer, sweat and the cheapest cigarettes on the market emanating from Bobby's undershirt, failed to finish him off.

 Larry climbed on to the roof of the video store and started firing his pistol into the air, distracting the growing zombie horde. As the undead clustered around the video store, Bobby managed to get to his feet and begin making his way towards the RV. Dudikoff had the same idea.

 

Meanwhile, Dave made it on to the roof of the OTB and found... nothing! Even with his Scavenger skill, he came away empty-handed.

I didn't take a picture of Dave on the OTB roof. Oh well. He climbed down the drainpipe and started to make his way towards the RV, all of the zombies' attention focused on Larry's gunfire.

And then... click!

Larry ran out of ammo.

 And suddenly Dave was the noisiest thing on the street.

 Fortunately, he was carrying a shotgun into this target-rich environment, and was able to clear a path. Larry leapt across the gap between the video store and the pawn shop to avoid the zombies still pressing against the rear of the video store. He quickly made his way down to ground level and took of running. Zombies began to pursue.

 Fortunately, Bobby and Dudikoff made it to the RV, revved it up and threw it into gear. They were able to pick up both Dave and Larry, meaning the entire team survived, even if they didn't find much of value. 

***

All in all, a good game! I think I've got a good handle now on what combination of the core rules, and the house-rules written by Mike over at Lead Legionaries, I want to bring to Wargames Among the Warplanes. I also think I'm just going to recreate this layout there to make things easy on myself. I managed to fit almost all the scatter terrain inside the buildings, and I can stack those in a plastic tote so I'm not lugging five boxes' worth of terrain from my car to the venue like I did last year. 

So the one remaining question...

Do I want to allow the players at Wargames Among the Warplanes to fight among themselves over supplies? Or should I be firm about "it's all of you against the zombies"? 

What I'm working on

 Just a few small things today - first off, I finished a piece of scatter terrain from Miniature Building Authority that's been sitting, unhappily half-painted, for six months on my workbench. I'd used too yellowy of a brown for the wood of the crates and it looked bad. I stripped it, reprimed, and repainted, and now I'm happy with it. I especially like how it can sit flush against the wall of a building.

Had some opportunities for some fun details - a radiation hazard symbol on the barrel (that's probably fine to leave in a random alleyway, right?) and "FRAGILE" upside down on one of the crates.

 

Some months back, I got another set of irregular terrain bases from Things From The Basement, and built them up with cork layers with an eye towards making another set of jungle terrain.  Well, the second batch of trees I got were just absolute junk. Greasy, warped plastic in weird colors. So I never got around to making the jungle terrain, and these corked-up bases were just sitting there, until I started working on my samurai and I thought, "some pieces to make a bamboo grove would be nice."

So I ordered some model bamboo, and set to work painting the bases. Tonight, I drilled holes in two of the bases and inserted some bamboo stems of different sizes to see how they'd look:

 I might have made a mistake by not flocking the bases before drilling holes, but overall I'm happy with them and I can flock around the stems without egregious difficulty. I packed the bamboo in pretty densely so nobody can argue with me about whether or not they'd block line of sight. 

I'll work on finishing these two bases tomorrow and then tackle the next five or six - I forget how many I've got. Enough for a respectable grove!  

 

Miniatures Acquired: 207

Miniatures Painted: 210

Terrain Acquired: 3

Terrain Painted: 9

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 13

 

FINISH HIM!

 A few more Crooked Dice martial artists finished this week. We have a very humid week ahead of us, so I might not be at my painting bench too much - even in the basement, just sitting there painting, I start getting sweaty and there's no place I can conveniently plug a fan in to keep the air circulating. 

First up, two copies of "End Level Boss A," painted as the characters Scorpion and Sub-Zero from the "Mortal Kombat" video game and expanded media franchise. Both characters used the same model, just palette-swapped, in the original video game, hence using two copies of the same figure! Scorpion is depicted with pupilless white eyes in most media as a nod to him being undead, and I copied that on to my paint job here. 

 

I also finished "Street Fighter A," which I painted as the villainous Chong Li (played by Bolo Yeung) who went up against Van Damme in 1988's BLOODSPORT. 

 These will eventually see action on the table in future games of "A Fistful of Kung Fu."

In other news, my picking up entirely too many plastic zombies from my friend Dave has been delayed by his attending Gen-Con and coming home to find his dryer had given up the ghost, so I'm still in the green! I did pick up a couple of vintage "Clan Wars" samurai figures cheap at one of my local game stores who are still clearing out stock from a previous owner. I was looking at the Reaper paint rack and I think some of those colors were discontinued before I reentered the hobby in 2014...

 

Miniatures Acquired: 186

Miniatures Painted: 195

Terrain Acquired: 2

Terrain Painted: 8

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 10

 

Zombie RV: Game 2 "Enter the Ninja"

Following Sandra's death at the cabin, Hector, Mark and Dave soon picked up a new survivor. A man dressed in a white ninja outfit with a sword slung across his back. The man refused to speak, communicating his needs solely through gestures. Mark soon gave him the name "Dudikoff" in reference to the ninja gear. Dudikoff's silence soon proved frustrating however, and before long Mark was shouting at the ninja to say something, anything. 

As the crew pulled on to a city street that looked promising for supplies, Mark and Dudikoff were keeping their distance from one another.

 

The group began to fan out, with Mark scaling the OTB and Dudikoff entering and climbing the stairs to the roof of the dispensary. Dave lined up a few lingering zombies and squeezed the trigger on his shotgun - and discovered he was out of ammo.

 More zombies were soon congregating, and Dave and Hector were in the middle of it - at least until Dave ducked into the dispensary and out the back door, leaving Hector to fend his way down the street alone.

 Mark and Dudikoff investigated two possible supply caches and came up empty, while Dave worked his way around and up on to the roof of the liquor store, finding a small cache of supplies there. 

 As Hector fought his way towards the last supply cache (in the bed of a crashed pickup truck), Dudikoff leapt across rooftops and jumped down, katana at the ready, on to one of the zombies that threatened him.

 Not to be outdone, Mark jumped down to start swinging his wrench at zombies as well.

 Leaping over a crashed car, Hector checked the pickup truck and found...nothing! 

"Let's get out of here," he said, eyeing the growing zombie horde. Dudikoff nodded, cutting his way free from a swarm of the undead.

 Dave was already running for the RV.

 Dudikoff jumped over zombies, and Mark and Hector tried to make it, but the swarm was just too densely packed; for every zombie they killed, two more shambled in.

The two survivors ducked into the RV and threw it into gear. "Looks like it's just you and me, Dudikoff," Dave said.

"You know, Michael Dudikoff wore a black ninja suit in the American Ninja movies," the ninja replied gruffly. "The white ninja look comes from Franco Nero in the movie Enter the Ninja."

"You could talk this whole time?" 

"Hai." 

"Should... I start calling you Franco?"

"No, Dudikoff is fine."