'Cos it's only a Northern town...

I'm expanding my building range to cover the kind of slum areas that existed in the UK until the 1960s and beyond.

The idea is to produce a few streets similar to the ones I spent my early years in complete with back yards.

Although I'm restricted to making semis I'm generally going to use them as terraced in groups of 3. Hence the need for the middle back yards to only have the dividing wall. 3 makes six households on each side of a street - in comparison, the street I lived on for the first few years of my life went up to about Number 140! These houses work for any time from the late Victorians up to around 1960-1970.

Size wise they are best used for 20mm-true 25 mm figures, seen here with some Airfix French Foreigh Legion figures for comparison. I realise now that I should have put the windows higher up on the wall - no matter.

They're quite quick and easy to make - this is my second batch of 3 backyards. I've completed 8 houses so far though 5 still need chimneys.

The houses were also quite easy to design. Firstly I used Publisher to download doors and windows clipart from the internet sized to the size I wanted. Next, I downloaded pictures of brickwork and roofing tiles, resized them and then copied and pasted the images and fitted them together to fill the page. On the bricks page I drew and cut out a template for the building, cut it out and pasted on the doors and windows. The template was scanned and used to make the basic houses. Chimney stacks are balsa.

 

Not sure how many of these I'll finally make - a decent looking setup would probably need about 12-16. I will need to do a corner shop or two as well. 

Quite pleased with these - crude, but quick, easy and (in bulk) look OK.

Quora silliness the other way.

 I generally moan about Quora and it's habit of deleting my answers as spam - still 100% success rate in overturning them since I bothered trying, but anyway, nothing to do with this.

This one is total silliness. I've given out about 1,600 answers apparently. They usually just disappear into the wilderness, few people see them, few people comment on my comments, few people upvote them and I seem to have 65 followers - a lot less than this blog.

But for some reason things can take off. I answered the following question:

 https://www.quora.com/Why-is-England-the-only-country-in-the-English-speaking-world-that-does-not-have-a-native-language-other-than-English-NZ-has-M%C4%81ori-the-US-and-Canada-have-various-native-languages-even-Scotland-Wales-Ireland/answer/Rob-Young-152?__nsrc__=4&__snid3__=55054488262

'Why is England the only country in the English-speaking world that does not have a native language other than English? NZ has Māori; the US and Canada have various native languages; even Scotland/Wales/Ireland have Gaelic, Welsh and Irish languages?'

My answer was:

 'Sorry, you’re mistaken. England has at least two native languages. English is one, and in fact England is the only country that has English as it’s NATIVE language. For example, in New Zealand English is not a native language - it is a foreign import! The second native language in England? Cornish! OK, only a couple of thousand people speak it, but it’s still an English native language!'

Nothing much to it, just a simple throwaway answer, few minutes to think about and write.

To date, it has 806,000 views (2/3s of my total views over 1,600 answers!), nearly 3,000 upvotes,  plus attracted 567 further comments...

I mean, what is about this one totally nothing of an answer that attracts that kind of attention? I am at a total, complete loss!

 Update: sometime today it passed the million views mark! (17/7/23)

Father's Day prezzie

 Father's Day prezzie from Steven has arrived. It was a case of Crooked Dice - Zombies, Zombies - Crooked Dice...

Must admit never manage to get bare metal castings to photograph well - in the past I would give them a thin wash of brown, works much better. My main problem with these figures is that I don't really feel I'm going to do them justice when I paint them!

Zombie first action.

First action was to see whether the lady turns. Rolled a 1, she did! Dice roll meant another 2 zombies came out of the factory.

So four zombies attack the nearest targets - the police.Initially one zombie is shot at the beginning of the move leaving 2 more shots available, both 'missed' on a dice roll, other police roll meant a zombie got into hand to hand. The streets have cleared apart from one citizen who rolled a 1 and froze.

In the hand to hand phase one zombie died, another fight continues...

Police survive their zombification rolls. Four new zombies joined the fray. Meanwhile a young lady who had dashed inside came out armed to the teeth and eager to see action. A 6 meant an instant kill followed by a 5 - zombies didn't even get close! For this scenario I had 3 player characters involved and decided they would come back into the fight on a roll of 4 or above - 2 'failed' this and stayed inside. Being a 'scenario' rule this isn't part of my rule set!

One of the police falls to the enemy, the other takes out another zombie.

Finally the second officer falls while the girl's gun jams but her axe doesn't. There were a total of 4 jams over the 3 guns used in this game.

 I stopped at this point because I'd achieved what I set out to do. Put simply, things worked well. Single zombies proved fragile, swamping victims worked well, as did firing and combat rules. As a limited scenario it did it's job - I introduced a rule where combat can result in a human 'turning' after a combat but that's all. 

It was quite a pleasing result.

Not quite the last night in Newhaven

 Let's face it, it's going to take a lot for this town to go under...

A low bang is heard coming from the factory. A few strands of smoke can be seen coming out of some upstairs windows.

A small crowd assembles rushing to see what's happening.

'Nothing to see folks, everything's under control' says the manager from the doorway.Minor mishap, lots of smoke but no fire - everything's sorted now.'

So everyone goes about their business as the police discuss the issue with the newly arrived and flustered Peabody.

Back to normal as the streets start to clear. There's a slightly offputting stench still in the air...

Empty streets as Vicar McKensie slowly walk towards the factory to see if he can help.

Once more people turn towards the factory as the doors burst open and some of the walkers pile out screaming...

Followed by... ONE Zombie! Threw a 1! - but then threw a 6 to get extra movement. Happily for the zombie, one of the workers threw a 1 and froze.

Which the zombie took some advantage of and attacked.

The lady must have a handbag full of lead because she was able to beat it off and pull away. Meanwhile, the officers of the law are just thinking about reacting.

It looks at first glance that the odds favour the humans a bit much in combat. However... zombies are weakish and can be beaten off. Next rule to write will be to see if and how quickly the victim 'turns'.

Cyrus Peabody etc

Cyrus Peabody, factory owner, scientist, probably insane but in Newhaven who's to judge...

Resigned his position at the University when his parents left him the factory. This allowed him more leeway to indulge his hobby/life work of making money from dubious military contracts. Said contracts usually involved working with dead (sometimes nearly or soon-to-be dead) bodies. Lab in the house, storage in the factory.

Likes collecting old books, usually of a supenatural nature. Has a dedicated library elsewhere in the house. Likes blue. All furnishings provided by Frontline Wargaming and have just recently been painted!

Peabody and other newly painted Last Night on Earth figures.

Also assembled and painted some of the Project Z figures. The right arm of the chainsaw guy didn't go quite right.

The two zombies have been painted to match some of the other figures. It also gives a good size comparison between Last Night, Zombie Z and cheapie architectural figures. Thinking about it, that nurse archetectural  figure would make a good zombie as well. Several manufacturers have produced mounted/dissmounted versions of cavalry figures; don't know of anyone who has produced a set  of civilian/survivor/zombie versions of figures.

 So between Olive Street and Peasbody the scene is set for something.

Olive Street

General view of Olive Street (named after a street called Vine Street!) showing the tenements,factory, police station and church.

 

View from the top of the street. The church is a table decoration that my parents had. Not in such good condition these days but nice to get use out of it.

Factory workers lining up at the start of the working day. In these days where industrial and residential tend to be separate the idea of a factory in the middle of a block of slums might seem strange. Back then it was normal.

The home of Cyrus Peabody, owner of the factory. The house is far older than the factory and the slums having been in the Peabody family for generations. In reality, it's an incense burner from Birmingham Christmas Market that was accidentally broken and no longer considered fit for display in the house!

View down the street giving a better view of the positions of the factory, Peabody's house and the police station. As it's vaguely American I suppose I should call it a station house.

View of the top of the street showing the vicar outside the church. Olive Street has been set up on the space previously occupied by Fairport harbour so the buildings behind the end of the road are from Fairport. Completely different neo-Lovecraftian places.

OK, the real life influences. In my childhood I lived in the Team Valley Gateshead, just off  Askew Road. Most of the elements of Olive Street are represented here - though I don't remember a police station. Likewise, there was no equivalent to the Peabody House. 

There was a factory  and a mission (Vine Street Mission - there is no way to describe Sister Winifred!). And English equivalents of New York slums - 2 up and 2 down, if you lived in the 'up' you had an outside loo down concrete steps and no rail. Concrete gets very slippery in the wet! 

There was a print works at the bottom of Askew Road that discharged into the River Team. Half a dozen pipes, each discharging a different colour waste dye. The discharged dyestuff streams didn't merge with each other so it was like a rainbow heading downstream towards the River Tyne. Late 50s/early 60s was a different world.

Provisional Zombie rules

 OK, this is the first draft and obviously subject to revision... There will be lots of mistakes and things that don't work...

Zombie Rules

Zombie generation:

Zombies come from somewhere. In most games this will be a single source point – a particular building or road. The suggestion is that players roll 1or 2 D6 at the start of each move and that number of zombies appear at the generation point.

Human responses:

It is assumed that the humans would probably not recognise the threat at first. Therefore humans cannot respond until the first ‘victim’ has been attacked – best to place a NPC as the victim! ‘Normal’ spotting rules apply to see if this attack has been noticed. NPCs that spot the attack and don’t freeze will flee directly away from the scene of the attack. Player characters that spot the attack will decide on their actions with movement limited according to a movement die roll! They might freeze!

Move sequence:

1. Test for bitten humans 'turning'

2. ‘Spotting’ by zombie.

3. Humans spot, move and/or fire distance weapons. One option per move segment.

4. Zombies move pro rata depending on shooting results

5. Humans fight with close combat weapons

6. Zombies and humans fight in combat, humans now classed as unarmed. They’ve had their shot!

Movement:

Zombies shuffle around at 4” per move until they ‘spot’ a live human. They will then move towards the nearest spotted human or body of humans at 6” per move, but will increase this to 8” per move if rolling 6 on a D6.

Zombies spot humans and humans spot zombies in line of sight: 

8” or less automatically, 

Over 8” to 16” on rolling 3 or above, 

Over 16” on rolling 5 or above.   

After the initial spotting it is assumed that zombies and humans are aware of each other and spotting checks only have to be made on humans in cover.

Zombies within 6” of a zombie that has spotted a live human will follow that zombie. Likewise, any human that spots a zombie and chooses to run can be followed by other humans within 8” – it is assumed that the human yells something along the lines of ‘RUN! ZOMBIE!

Humans in cover can also be spotted within 8" if the human rolls a 1, or a body of 3 or more humans rolling 1 or 2.

Humans can move up to 6” per move. If a zombie gets within 8” this will increase to 8” per move on rolling a 6, but will ‘freeze’ and remain stationary if they roll a 1. Dice rolling is mandatory...

A human can choose to stay and fight or run, but will obviously have to fight if contacted while frozen. If caught while running, humans do not get to fight using the close combat weapons option 4 - it's straight to 5!

Furthermore, humans get tired – at the start of every subsequent move the human must roll a D6. Roll a 1 and s/he has to stop for a breather for that round – but can still fight!

Weapons’ fire:

Revolvers/automatic pistols range up to 6”, shotguns up to 9”, rifles, etc up to 12”

All handguns/rifles/shotguns can fire up to 3 times per move, one shot for each third of the move. If the zombie reaches the human before the third shot can be fired treat the firearm as a close combat weapon. How far a zombie moves depends on the result of a dice roll. Roll up to 3 dice in sequence:

Roll 6, zombie hit and killed in first segment of the move and shooter has two shots left that can be aimed at another zombie.

Roll 4, 5 zombie hit in second segment. Roll again, 4, 5 or 6 zombie destroyed; shooter has one shot left that can be aimed at another zombie.

Roll 2, 3 zombie hit in third segment. Roll again, 4, 5 or 6 zombie destroyed; no more shots can be fired.

Roll 1, gun jammed, no more firing that round. Gun can be cleared in next round by rolling 4, 5 or 6.

Note this means, for example, hit a zombie with a rifle on first dice roll, zombie moves 2”   and ‘dies’. Second dice it moves 4” and ‘dies’. On third dice it moves 6" or drops at the shooter’s feet. Subsequent targets will move their relevant amount, third dice and again zombie possibly drops at shooter’s feet! Or can drop at shooter’s feet on first or second shot if that’s how far the zombie gets!

Close combat:

Anyone armed with a close combat weapon or distance weapon that has not been fired 3 times can get in the first blow. Note a distance weapon that has jammed is counted as having already fired 3 times!

There is no real distinction made as to the weapon type: sword, club, baseball bat, chainsaw... except knives need a 5 or 6 to ‘kill’ and guns can only use remaining shots!

Zombie killed on roll of 4 or more. If human rolls a 6 the weapon can then be used on another zombie in contact, another 6 and a third zombie can be engaged with a weapon. Distance weapons still have their 3 times maximum use!

After weapons use, it is assumed that human and zombie are grappling with each other and no weapons used. Human rolls 3 D6, zombie rolls 1 D6. For the human, choose the highest scoring dice. The highest score ‘wins’ and loser ‘dies’. Against a second opponent, human rolls 2 dice, if a third zombie is engaged human rolls 1 die. No more than 3 zombies can engage a human in a move. If the result is a draw move to the next zombie. 

Even if a human wins a combat they may have been bitten. Roll d6 at start of next move: 1 human has been bitten. If so, roll again, 1 turns that move, 2 turns following move. A zombie that turns will attack the nearest human.

Any humans still alive and in combat next round start the sequence again. Humans cannot and zombies will not disengage from a combat – no human can leave combat until it is no longer in contact with a zombie!