After just over a year’s effort I’m happy to say my late WW2 project is nearing completion, and although there’s a good few bits and bobs still underway, along with a pile of forthcoming game reports to entertain you over the coming months I have been digging around for my next project for a month now. Now I know I bang on about how wonderful the web is for researching but for a middle-aged bloke who grew up gaming it really is an epihany, not least in how much window shopping you can enjoy.
Briefly I did consider 6mm moderns with an eye on Iraq and Afghanistan, but as I already have a pile of buildings suitable from my colonial collection and rate scratch building as my fave part of the hobby I thought better of it. My actual choice came about more coincidently…
I was wandering around looking for trailers for the recently released film “Zombieland” when I discovered the rather wonderful blog Dawn of the Lead where Mikko Meriläinen rather handily collects film trailers together if they fit into the zombie or apocalyptic genre. I’ve been an avid viewer of zombie movies since I first saw “Dawn of the Dead” in ’78, which I found hilarious then as I still do – the mix of schlock horror and increasingly inventive ways of slaughtering zombies, or zeds as the kids call them now, tickles my funny bone.
Of course serving up trailers isn’t all Mikko offers, if it begins with a Z, ends with an E, and has ombi in the middle he’s mentioned it including an amusing range of miniatures and links to other zombie plague infected folk which I followed to discover the following two sites.
The all-singing, all-dancing Screaming Alpha is a well laid out and attractive site which although covering gaming as a whole is obsessed with Zombie miniatures. Even though they’re all 28mm, and therefore heathen, there’s a mouth watering array from a wealth of manufacturers all reviewed in no small detail by John Price as part of his Master Zombie Database. This form of obsession verging on lunacy is exactly what modern gamers enjoy, personally I admire the underlying tone of insanity it’s a true beacon of dedication which words alone can’t express.
Last but most definately by no means least, from Dawn of the Lead I clicked on a link to Vampifan’s World of the Undead, very much a gamer’s personal blog packed with great articles, photos, figure reviews and a handy pile of links collected together by Bryan Scott. There’s no shortage of wordage here, revealing not only enthusiasm but also a communicative and sharing nature. This along with photos aplenty is what makes an outstanding blog as I see it.
Now the astute amongst you may have spotted which direction my new project will be taking, I’m going to do a small Zombie project. This will be shared with the boy Slug, who has become rather sharp with his brush on his 1/76th scale figures. However we’re not overly impressed with the range available for 6mm, the best being Steel Crown Productions’ Edenite Zombie Hoarde above, with some folk also using civilians from Irregular Miniatures. Combined with a distinct lack of modern vehicles and props 6mm rather sadly doesn’t cut it for a zombie project, and I must admit a certain surprise at the lack of manufacturers having a bash at the genre, especially when it’s become quite massive in other gaming scales as well as in popular culture as a whole.
Instead we’ll be sneaking down the road to the stone ring of the 28mm heathens and using miniatures like those produced by the terminally brilliant Studio Miniatures above. I did consider starting an alternative blog to cover this project but there’s little point and it’d just be a distraction from the game in hand.