I love collecting, painting, converting and scratch building terrain. I even get to play a game once in a while. I'm a big fan of gamification as part of teaching - I'm an elementary school teacher.
This blog covers my hobby work and 'teaching through gaming'.
My son is seeing all manner of weird stuff on youtube and playing games with the friends. Super heroes and monsters all over.
So there's this creepy pasta, internet monster thing called Siren Head. It's a scary tall humanoid with a couple of sirens where his head should be.
Anyway he wanted one for all the other miniatures to fight with (my son is allowed to play with all my models).
We took a few different boardgame models (from all the cheap auction, resell, break even) buys I've been doing. He picked a miniature from The Others (by CMON). The conversion was rather simple.
Cut off the head, breasts and some heads on the stomach. Then drilled a hole in the next and added a bit of cut off sprue. The sirens are made from some part of a scavenged model war ship, green stuff cones and some wire. Super duper simple. The cut areas was simple to fix with some green stuff, since the monster was already a wrinkly gross thing.
We base coated the model in a brownish red, then added red was and two layers of red highlight. Some Siren Head pictures is like beef jerky / muscle tones, other more grey mummified. My son chose red. The siren is metal with some layers of rust colors.
He looks really nasty for a bit of quick work. And I might make more monsters like it. He'll fit perfectly into Zona Alfa.
If you like weird miniatures, aliens and mutants check out Patrick Todoroffs games. They're all miniature agnostic and play quick and well. I'm a big fan of pretty much all his systems. You can find them all here.
This big clunky mech was painted for a competition over on the Stalker7 facebook community, it's an absolutely amazing group containing all P. Todoroffs different systems. He's great at running competitions and always offers nice prizes as well.
In order to contribute to that community, I always try and find something to paint for it. This huge robot is from the Reichbusters kickstarter (I won an auction for it really cheaply). Most of it I've sold on (and broke even, so the rest is free for me).
I added a claw (from Warhammer 40k) but otherwise it's not converted. For The Institute (a faction I made up for zona alfa / Insurgent Earth) the yellow color / blue triangle is used on all of it.
A quick and easy paint job, tried throuwing on a lot of weathering with washes and drybrushing.
Patrick Todoroff is doing amazing skirmish games and you should consider getting some of them. They can all be found on Wargames Vault.
Here's the robot with a team of scientists and their two bodyguards.
If you enjoy all manner of miniature blogging, follow some of the social media. I try to use all of them differently. You can find them on linktree. Also considere giving a look on Guilders: A Life In Shadows, a skirmish campaign game I'm working on.
This blog post was originally written as a feature for Uncle Vanyas, an excellent little compendium made for Zona Alfa. If you want to check out a really cool community, head over to Stalker7, Patrick Todoroffs play ground. ---- "Alright kids gather around and listen to old Uncle Vanya. I got another tip for you, a good place to look when you're inside the Zone. The the anomalies started and everything went to shit, all manner of forces moved in here to control and contain it. Both the army and those bloody UN peacekeeping tourists. The all set up FOBs - before knowing what was going on!
Now you can find these FOBs all over the Zone, huge areas filled with those nissen huts, prefab steel barracks - we call the tin coffins around here. The thing is, they're often filled with good stuff. The Zone is filled with them! Sometimes soldier boys leave those FOBs as part of a mission, just leave - might come back and use them later. Cheap to build, so just leave 'em. Might forget or leave common stuff. Sometimes they have to evacuate quickly as anomalies shift or they just all die from some weird stuff.
That's the tin coffins you really wanna find, a base left in a hurry. Just keep your fucking eyes open! You might find NVGs, MREs, boxes of Igolnik rounds - or some weird deadly shit. Had a guy try to light a campfire with scavenged fuel, it turned out the jerry can was filled with Hellslime - blyat, what a mess.
Where to look? Well there's manned bases around the edge and near the checkpoints, but you can find the abandoned ones deep in the Zone. Sure I know a few tin coffin graveyards. Here give me your map, I'll mark out a few."
Let's build some super cheap, scrap material terrain - the well known corrugated steel barracks.
Step 1 - Cutting the can Get your oversized tin cans. These are the ones they use at the pizza place, deli or restaurants. I found my first in dumpsters at the store and then got some from my pizza guy. Mark them in half and cut them with metal shears (it's a bit tricky at the bottom). You can also use a grinder, it's faster but it's a two man job.
The tin cans will bend when doing this (either way), but it's easy enough to fix, so don't be alarmed when they're out of shape.
Step 2 - Making a base Time to make some bases. Not much to it. Use mdf, cardboard or whatever else you have lying around. I found some discarded board in my school's arts and craft room.
Make an X on the back of the base with duct tape. Do this on all your terrain, always. The X will add some tension to the base and it prevents a lot of the warping you often get from using wood / pva glue on bases. All my homemade terrain has this X underneath.
Use a sharp knife to angle the base edge, we don't want that steep 3mm edge. Angle it out, nevermind it not being completely even.
Step 3: Gluing it down Place the half can on the base and draw around it with a pencil. I used a hot glue gun for mine. Contact glue will work as well or PVA (though this is not the best option). If using pva, use a lot, at pressure on the barracks and let it dry completely.
Sand up the edge of the base. Use this time to strengthen the bind, I added lots of glue and sand on the edge of the barracks (inside and out) - to keep it in place. Perhaps add more than one layer. My hard board had some nice texture, using that as concrete in this build.
Part 4: Painting made easy All my terrain is nearly completed with cheap spray paint. Saves time and is damn quick. Paint the inside and floor grey first. Then use paper to mask the floor and paint the barracks green. Then mask with paper and paint the sand brown. Five minutes and you terrain looks decent.
I wanted one to be a medical bay, so using masking tape I made a square - spray white. Then using smaller pieces of masking tape made out a cross - spray red. Make sure previous layers is completely dry before adding masking tape.
Step 5: It's all in the details Repair the outline of any stencil with a finer brush and hobby paints. I've also added some details to the barracks with chess piece markings, painted free hand. In Escape from Tarkov the military base buildings have call signs based on chess pieces - making for easy identification. Fun little detail.
We need to blend and tone this spray paint layer. I use a homemade brown wash for all my terrain. Cheap brown and black acryllics, dishwash soap (a few drops), water and PVA. Splash the entire thing in it, a few layers. Flick that paint brush as well for some stains.
Lastly add whatever static grass and tufts you want to the base.
Showcase All finished up! Here's some quick to build, super cheap terrain pieces that'll fill out a lot of space on your board. This build is easy to make for other settings as well. I plan on making both a couple of all white red cross ones and some yellow / blue FEMA ones.
If you enjoyed this, please check out my blog: Bloodbeard's Garage for more cheap scrap material builds.
Let's see a couple of stalkers getting into trouble at an abandoned army FOB.
I really enjoy playing Zona Alfa and I'm a couple of games in to a solo campaign. Being a huge fan of both Stalker and Metro 2033 the game really hits something with me.
I've been eying the Lead Adventure miniaures for years, but they're also a lot over what I normally pay for models - normally going for cheap plastic and conversion work. I got these guys cheap though, second hand. They had been for sale for a long while and I made an offer. They even came all base coated and based.
If you like Zona Alfa make sure to check out that part of the blog. And we've also had the author Patrick Todoroff on for a chat on the Discord. Give it a listen!
The team
The beginning 12 point team, consisting of a leader, veteran, 2x hardened and 2x rookies.
For the entire team I've gone the a simple palette of browns, greys and greens. The only real spot colors on the guys are the orange AK magazines and the blue eyes on their gas masks.
Oleg - Rookie
First up is Oleg, a rookie. Simply armed with a trusted AK47, a pistol and a couple of grenades. He's wearing a red headlamp to not mess up the night vision of his friends and himself.
Sulla - Rookie
The other rookie on the team is Sulla. This guy is also armed with a couple of grenades, wearing an old coverall tank drive suit. He's armed with a shotgun and meant to get in close and personal. ... which is kind of that because he only has one action.
Piotr - Hardened
One of the important guys on the team. Piotr is armed with a light machine gun and has skills to better use it. He can lay down a lot of fire in no time, and he's been getting a lot of kills in the games I've played so far.
Dimitri - Leader
This guy is really rocking a leader pose. He had some bad conversion work done to him, he came equipped with a chain sword. ... Well that ugly thing had to come of and i found a pointed hand from a WW2 Warlord Games Russion instead.
I love this models, he's so damn cool.
Sasha - Veteran
The veteran soldier Sasha is armed pretty much like the leader. A good trusted assault rifle and lots of action points. Usually Sasha will be leading half the team from one flank and the leader Dimitry will be taking the other side.
Kirsh - Hardened
This is the sawbones, the medic on the team. He has the sawbones skill and comes equipped with as many bandages and smoke grenades as he can carry. I chose this pose as the medic, because of the running stance. He's moving quickly towards some wounded comrade in need of assistance.
The Zona Alfa Facebook community is super active and author Patrick Todoroff is making some good competitions over there. There's been a 'make a single human miniature' competition and I decided to enter.
The model is made with Warlord Games bits. Legs, AK and head are from the modern military sprue. The torso and pistol arm is from the zombie survivors. The backpack is a Warlord Games ww2 sprue bit. The straps on the AK and backpack are made from thin paper. He has a respirator in the belt, resin from Anvil Industry.
The colors on the model are inspired from two different bandits from the Stalker PC game.
Slowly building up some bestiary for This Is Not A Test, Reality's Edge and Zona Alfa. All three systems have some nice overlap in the random enemies that might appear. Hit the bit box and found some critters to use.
I'm always motivated to do stuff, that I have an actual plan for. So the rats were done because I needed some sprawl rats for an RE scenario. The dogs was needed for a TNT warband and also saw use in the first Zona Alfa scenario I played.
Giant flies
These are just some cheap halloween decor flies from ebay. There's 50 in a bag, so plenty for all manner of things. I've been basing some of these on lush jungle bases for use in Ghost Archipelago and some with wasteland themed bases.
Rats
These are from some GW Warhammer skaven kit, I have no idea which. Got them from a massive bit box I won on auction and made sure to keep this little buggers. They are cool, small mutations and augments on them.
Mangy dogs
Wild dogs are part of pretty much any system. And I've painted a lot of Mantic Games plague dogs. I've painted versions for Deadzone, I've used them as Frostgrave wild dogs and zombie dogs. And now made these for the wasteland - and I'm finally out. Really been putting a lot of them to use.
We need blogposts for everything! And I haven't actually made a post about the excellent talk with Patrick Todoroff. The author of Zona Alfa, Nightwatch and Hardwired have been on the Discord for at chat about his stuff.
It was super cool and kicked off our series of podcasts.
So go check it out in the podcast hub or listen to it right here.
Years ago I bought a won a copy of Sedition Wars for super cheap at an auction, and I've never really gotten around to using any of the models from the game. But with Zona Alfa I wanted to paint some of the models, they seem like perfect mutants from the zone.
Zombies
These dudes came with a some base colors already done. A black undercoat with a necrotic grey/green flesh drybrushed on top. I just picked out a few details and made sure to give one of them a slav ganger uniform - blue Adidas pants.
Mutant
These is definitely a dangerous mutant and also an unmodified Sedition War sculpt. I like the Roadside Picnic setting of an alien encounter, and these guy would fit to be that kind of mutant - something from outer space.
Bloodsucker
This is an iconic Stalker monster, so I needed to have one for my mutants as well. The body is from an old plague stage 3 restic model (Deadzone 1st edition). The arms and the head is from a Dreadball mutant team. My son loves this model, he turned out really good.
The Witch
The last kind of the Sedition Wars sculpt is this beast, I call it The Witch. I figure it's a very nasty, stalking, silent killer. Again it has a really nice alien look. This one was base coated grey, had some metal and bone details picked out. The entire model is then covered in purple wash.
Alright comrades listen up. The first run was a success for us, I know we didn't bring out a lot of cash - but experience is a reward on its own. Especially for a couple of rooks like you. Now that case we extracted is a treasure map - guns, inventory, ammo. We need to get into this bunker. Problem is some outsider, ganger, no brains got a hold for the key for the bunker. We don't have the ordinance to open the can without the key. This is not gonna be a walk in the park, we're going into Chernya Woods. Dangerous hot spots in there, nasty critters. I'm not sure those bandits know what they're doing setting up camp in there. They won't be missed. With a bit of luck they're already ripped apart and we just go searching for corpses - but it might turn into a firefight.
You all still have your grenades, drop whatever change i have left on extra bullets. You're not ready for all the sneaky sniper stuff yet - it'll just go to shit. No, we're gonna make it rain lead instead.
So they're off into Chernya Woods to attack a bandit camp, secure the key card and perhaps score some other look on the way.
For the game I'm using the the solo rules additions posted on Osprey's Blog.
Setup
Before playing a scenario, I always make sure to have the right terrain pieces and objectives. For me it's a great motivator, that's also why we also roll scenarios before a game date. For the Walk in Chernya Woods I have to make five new forest bases to proper cover a 3'x3' mat, when there's not much else on the board.
And that's pretty much the setup. Lots of woods and single trees. I placed to forest bases of all dead trees to mark out hot spots - and added some rusty oil drums to those places.
The mat and road are homemade, painted on some cheap felt.
At the center of the board is the bandit camp and as per the scenario description they have some barricades set up. I expanded the camp look with a few tents and a campfire. The five bandits were put at random positions along the barricades and all started with action points saved for overwatch.
To up the the difficulty I split my squad into two groups and then roll for random board edges for them to enter. This turned out, so that my crew would be attacking the board from opposite sites. And I decided to put them in tight groups of three.
The plan was for my leader to give action points to a rookie with his leader skill, and the team members being close together - to better tackle the hotspots. One guy can spot the spot (giving a better result on the summoned enemies), another will throw a bolt at it from safe distance and the third is ready to shoot anything that spawns with some overwatch.
Team one was leader Dimitry, hardened (bone doc) Kirsh, rookie Sulla. Team two was veteran Sasha, hardened (LMG) Peotr and rookie Oleg.
Then before starting the game I rolled to check which weather conditions we would be working under - a sunny day in the park, no troubles there.
Zona Alfa seems like a game where the crews bank account will grow very slowly, as grenades and med-kits will need replenishing after games. So it was important for my gang to try and clear the hotspots in the area, to earn some important cash - and hopefully not take any real casualties doing it.
Rolling to high on the table for random enemies would be a disaster, no way in hell could my guys take out another group of bandits - but that's the zone for you.
Turn 1
Stick to the plan for as long as possible. Team one started out, well covered by all the trees the bandits could draw no line of sight from the start of the game. And as planned my leader gave an AP to the rookie, the hot spot was scouted (giving a +/- 1 on the random encounter table) and a bolt was tossed at it by the rookie Sulla.
The luck sure seemed to smile on Dimitry's crew - a single zone rat spawned. A single rat, happy days. A bit excessive doing 7.62 rat catching, but never mind that.
The bone-doc Kirsh takes the shot, get a critical hit, kills the rat out right - and with the extra AP he can already move to the hotspot.
Team two moves forward, trying to stay in cover behind trees. Unlike team one, the make sure to not trigger the nearby hot spot - too many enemies close by. Veteran Sasha gets spotted by the alert bandits and they open fire on him. He's hit badly and must spend his personal med-kit to stabilize the wounds - he gets two pinned counters. The attack on this front is slowed down.
The bandit leader Big Nikolai also opens up at team two, but rolls a fumble and jams his weapon - he then spends the second action removing the pinned token. A bandit near him also opens up with his AK47, but he misses all his shots.
The remaining bandits doesn't do anything. The rookies only have 1 action point, they didn't have any line of sight, so staying alert in overwatch is a better choice. When playing solo, make the enemies smart - even if it's not covered by the rules.
Turn 2
I'm staring off with team one and bone-doc Kirsh searches the hot spot, he finds 350 worth of items and a gas mask. But an alert bandit does spot him from the camp and fires his AK47, but fortunately he misses.
The my leader Dimitry and rookie Sulla moves closer to the bandit camp, staying in cover behind oil drums and trees.
Intervention! I play with rules that allow the enemy to take over the turn, and at this point it happens. Big Nikolai once again shoots at my veteran Sasha and once again hits him - bringing him down. And he's out of med-kits.
Another bandit shoot at rookie Sulla in the other direction and hits him, he's brought down. Sulla use his med-kit to patch himself up in cover of a pine tree, he's pinned down.
Absolutely deadly, it's only turn two and I'm running out of medical supplies.
Now it's time for the rest of team two to take action. Rookie Oleg runs to Sasha, trying to get in to help bandage him up - don't want to do injury rolls on my veteran. That's worth sacrificing a rookie for.
The LMG armed hardened Piotr shoots down a bandit, ripping him apart in a hail of 7.62.
Turn 3
Starting this turn with my medic Kirsh. He opens fire at a bandit in the camp and kills him. Then not having any clear targets, he throws a flashbang at big Nikolai and a goon, hoping to add some pin counters to them. He manages to hit the bandit leader and takes away a crucial action point from him.
And after this first model the bandits intervene and take over the turn. Darn! The remaining bandits all open fire. One bad guy shoots at Kirsh, hits him and brings him down - he spends a med-kit to stabilize himself. But the bandit rolled a critical hit and fires his AK again, fortunately missing the second shot.
Big Nikolai and the goon next to him also shoot, trying to bring down the rookie helping my veteran from the previous turn. But bad guys miss their shots and the regular dude even fumbles, giving himself a pinned counter. That flash bang was however good, as the bandit leader only got to fire his weapon once.
Back to my guys again. rookie Oleg gets to Sasha and manage to close the second set of AK wound he got. That's a lot of medical items spend across the team in this little skirmish.
Last guy to go is my LMG armed hardened soldier. He hurls a frag grenade into the bandit camp, scoring a critical hit on the throw. The explosion takes out a bandit and wounds Big Nikolai. With the extra action point from the critical Piotr is able to kill the bandit leader - with a lot of bullets from his light machine gun.
The rest of the game
With the bandits all killed there's still plenty of time left to search the bandit camp. After the main objective is done, there's still time to clear the remaining hot spot. The crew gets in to smart positions, the hot spot is scouted and a bolt is tossed at it. Again I roll well and only got hit by a single zone rat and it was easily killed by the alert stalkers.
Aftermath
The crew manages to gain 19 advancement points, that I'm not too sure how I'll invest. The team loot some gas masks, a med-kit, molotov and 550 worth of salvage.
But there's not a lot left for the retirement fond. The crew have used four med-kits on the run and a couple of grenades. After faction taxes, exchanges rates, selling gas masks, restocking med-kits there's 365,5 zone script left.
That's not enough to be worth exchange back to rubles and put into the bank.
Nevermind that. My crew has the key card, they have more experience and nobody died - I call that a major win!
Now I need to build a couple of ruined apartment buildings for the city center, then we gonna loot that bunker.
