Zombicide Invader - Pods!

3d terrain variety has been added, Character variety has been added, Abomination variety has been added, and new enemy variety has been added over the past year of working on Zombicide Invader.  The next bit of variety comes in the form of opening up the new missions provided by Zombicide Black Ops - which means Pod Zones!  

Pod Zones act as active mold zones with a bit of an extra 'bang' as they can be targeted with ranged attacks and destroy everything in the room when hit hard enough.  It will certainly be nice to have an additional way to deal with the Juggernaut abomination as it is the leading cause of character death and challenge up to this point.  

Since the Black Ops expansion has the Pod Rooms printed on the game board rather than separate paper/cardboard tokens, something was needed to represent them on the 3d terrain board.  I plan to continue to use the paper 'mold' tokens that come with the base game - at least for now.  The mold can just be slid under the pods and the pods can be removed and mold flipped to the inactive side when destroyed.  

These were a nice opportunity to use the airbursh along with the Vajello Air paints I received for Christmas and the new Badger air compressor (with an air tank) for my birthday.  Both worked fairly well, but I know I could have spent some more time on them to get a better effect.  The airbrush made quick work on them with just a bit of drybrushing and a black wash (which was probably not necessary) to top them off.  I tried to replicate the color scheme as accurately as possible and they turned out to resemble the game art well enough in my opinion.  

If my count is correct, 16 pod zones will be more than enough to cover any Black Ops scenario.  On most scenarios, there are far fewer than 16 pod zones so I'll probably add a couple of these models to each pod zone on the map.

I've updated my Thingiverse 'thing' with the STL for the pods:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5337884

The sculpt was a bit lazy and it has a few resin traps and islands so running the sliced file through UVTools is recommended.

Paints used:

Zombicide Invader - Brood Mother

The Brood Mother and its brood are one of my favorite abominations as far as how they operate.  The concept of the Brood Mother getting close and then spawning a flood of little ones is pretty neat.  We've used this abomination in a couple games early on before anything was painted and we gave it a lot of attention and got rid of it before it ever had a chance to release its spawn.  

I'm not exactly sure what creature(s) from what games/movies this is similar to, but it reminds me a bit of Halo where I recall dozens of little creatures coming out of larger beasts.

The first step in processing these models was to chop off the unsightly posts that help them stay on the bases.  I'm sure one or more of them will eventually come off the base, but so far, I've only had one leg of the Brood Mother come off during painting.  The little ones have four legs glued to the bases so I think they'll be ok, but the Brood Mother itself only has three legs glued down and has two magnets to hold it in the storage.  I may take one of the magnets off just so it won't take so much force to pull it out of the box.

This is the first group of models that I've painted using primarily an airbrush.  There is still some fine-tuning and improving to do on this tool, but they turned out fairly well I believe.  The spawn models are almost 100% painted with the airbrush with only a touch of edge highlighting to finish them up.  The Brood Mother itself was entirely base-coated with the airbrush, but I did incorporate several techniques to finish it off including some spot washes (primarily some dark tone to give the shells on the back of the Brood Mother some more definition as well as the back tentacles), dry-brushing, and edge highlighting.  

I received the Vajello Model Air and Game Air paint sets for Christmas which inspired the use of the airbrush on these.  The paints are very nice and I look forward to using them on some more models!

They turned out to be a decent representation of the reference art and I'm fairly happy with that.

Paints used on this model:

Next up on the workbench:

Zombicide Invader - Buddy Bot

 

Continuing with the orange color scheme, the Buddy Bot seemed like a good follow-on to the Orphans Gang.  Since most of the orphans are tech-savvy, adding another bot for them to control should be an interesting addition.  They'll have to stay clear of it of course, but the advantage of using it may prevent them from just destroying it as soon as it gets in their way.

Buddy Bot looks to be a homage to "Claptrap" from the Borderlands video game.  I've never played the game, but there are several similarites including the mono-wheel, color scheme including vertical white stripe instead of horizontal, and the blue camrea 'eye'.

We shall see if this 'abomination bot' adds an interesting aspect to the game or if it is just irritating due to instant character death caused by a couple extra abomination activations.

Paints used on this model:

Next up on the workbench:

Zombicide Invader - Goliath

 

Beyond Goliath's large appearance, his skills confirm him as a combat tank.  He is indeed a melee master and probably the most powerful of all the characters I've seen so far.  After taking Super Strength at Orange level, he literally could take out two Abominations in one attack with a single Cattle Prod by rolling a pair of 4+.  Oh, and he is one of the elite few that can withstand a hit from an Abomination without any additional armor.

Given Goliath's massive combat effectiveness and his 'bodyguard protocols', it would seem fitting to add a house rule that Goliath can at no time be further than 2 zones from Jennie if at all possible.  That would both be very thematic as well as put a minor limitation on this otherwise melee juggernaut.  Since CMON felt it appropriate to not even create a separate web page for the two of them, it seems the intent is clearly for them to stick together.

With Goliath done, the Orphans Gang is complete!  Here is a group photo:

This gang definitely feels like the most overpowered group of characters just due to all of them having the Unstoppable skill at blue.  They can basically speed-run many missions with minimal resistance.  I'm sure I'll use them all together at least a time or two, but likely one or two will be picked to join another 'normal' group that still has the possibility of getting 'stuck' with Xenos.  

Another observation after playing with four of these characters on a mission that includes Xenomoths - the orphans are basically impervious to them.  Since the moths either move or attack and the orphans can just move out of their zone, they can basically just be ignored except for some perhaps strange edge cases.  Over-powered, but really neat-looking models!

Paints used on this model:

Next up on the workbench:

Zombicide Invader - Ink

 

Ink is apparently the least tech-savvy of the gang (other than Goliath) and only gets any sort of machine-oriented skills at Red.  Of course, it is Remote Control All rather than fiddling with a single Bot or Turret.  Again, we see 'Zero-G Run' as a skill on a character that has Unstoppable.  It appears Zero-G Run may be slightly less flexible than a Free Movement Action since Zero-G Run requires moving two zones at once.

Paints used on this model:

Next up on the workbench:

Zombicide Invader - Jennie

 

Jennie followed suit and was a fun-to-paint model.  The boots are a common theme to this gang and they are really neat looking.  They look like ski boots and the orange/white contrast really makes them stand out.  Generally, the feet are kind of ignored with the 'faces and bases' approach of many hobbyists.  Clearly, I don't spend a lot of time on the bases, so I'm happy to see the extra details on the boots.

Brothers-in-arms skills are always a nice attribute as it not only gives some sort of bonus (+1 Die Ranged in this case), but also encourages the group to stay together.  As with any sci-fi, D&D, or horror movie, splitting the party usually doesn't end well.  

Paints used on this model:

Next up on the workbench:

Zombicide Invader - Wizard

 

The Wizard was another fun model to paint.  Zenithal highlighting was definitely helpful to add natural variation in color to the blue jeans and jacket.  The only issue I had to deal with is that the yellow looked a bit green going over the darker areas.  This may not have been too big of an issue if the primary color of the jacket wasn't green.  As it was, it looked like paint from the jacket had spilled onto the underside of the arms of the jacket.  The problem was solved by mixing a little brown into the yellow and selectively layering the shaded parts.  I definitely wanted to avoid using any sort of brown wash on the sleeves of the jacket as that lesson has been learned several times...it just makes it look 'dirty'.  

Taking a break between base-coating and highlighting & touch-ups seemed to work a bit better.  At the very least, it didn't feel as tiring to paint a character start-to-finish in one sitting.  Completing The Wizard marks the halfway point of the Orphans Gang.  I'm enjoying painting them thus far and will miss painting their over-the-top orange and white flight suits/armor once all are complete.

As with most of the rest of the gang, The Wizard is heavy into machine control plus some extra movement opportunities.  Although, Zero-G Run at Yellow for a character who already is 'Unstoppable' does not seem to make much sense other than being just a nerfed Free Movement action.  A Free Movement Action is a Red-option for him though so he can really zip around at red.

Paints used on this model:

Next up on the workbench: