The Zombie Incident of 1888 and Its Effect on the Great Occult War.

Brussels Zombie Outbreak 1907

The Zombie Incident of 1888 preceded the Great Occult War by nine years it is considered by some scholars to be the opening salvo of the twelve year long world conflict know as the Great Occult War. The origins of the Great Occult War can be found in the Brussels Zombie Outbreak of 1907. Unlike the Zombie Incident of 1888 the Belgian government was unable to contain the outbreak. 

 

 Anti-Zombie militia Belgium 1907 

France sends troops to Belgium to help the King eradicate the Zombie menace.

 French Cuirassiers departing for Belgium.

The combined French and Belgian force successfully puts down the zombie outbreak a year later. Belgium's beleaguered King accuses Great Britain of engineering the zombie outbreak. By 1908 the great European powers had been engaged, for a number of years, in a jingoistic arms race against each other. Each empire was certain that they will be eventually attacked by another.  The king of Belgium's anguished accusations took root in France's paranoid parliament, had their historical enemy England developed an "Occult' weapon? France mobilized here armies and called up all reservists placing all of Europe on the edge of a knife.

 France Mobilizes

Diplomatic relations between Great Britain and France rapidly deteriorated culminating in the November 16th 1908 declaration of war against Great Britain by France. Not since the days of Nelson have the navies of Great Britain and France clashed so fiercely.

The sinking of the HMS Defiance

 Only the timely intervention of the Kaiser in 1909 on the side of Great Britain saved England from a successful French invasion.

Germany enters the war on the side of Great Britain

 German's intervention sparks a world conflagration in which engulfs all remaining empires in a world wide modern war. Russia and Italy ally with France against Great Britain and Germany, the Austrian-Hungry Empire allies its self with Germany but is mired in a major war with the Ottoman Empire and several Balkan states. By 1910 Europe is carpeted with warring armies.

British troops man assault ships during the Battle of Calais

In 1911 zombie outbreaks begin to appear all over Europe with alarming regularity and without any apparent cause or pattern a situation which continues to the present day.

Major zombie outbreak Warsaw

History books record the first revelations of the Great Occult Powers to have begun at this time*. This war and the emergence of the Great Occult Powers are the catalyst that creates the world in which we live today.  

* Great Britain had entered into it's pact with a Great Occult Power in 1889 over a decade before France or Germany entered into their pacts but this was not know outside of an inner circle of government ministers at the time.

As slow as a shambler

Work on the horde and associated characters for The Zombie Incident of 1888 is moving slower than a shambler but there is some small progress. As you may have noticed I'm trying to clean up, convert & based  all the figures I've got earmarked for this project so far that's 40+. Hopefully things will start speeding up (or at least look like they are) once I've gotten some of these ready for priming. And I'm going to need to get a move on as I've just placed an order for the Warlord Games Plastic box set.

24 more figures for use in zombie conversions and some as anti-zombie forces which will need to be cleaned up, converted & based!!!!

 

This is the bride from the Studio Miniatures "Till Death Us Do Part" set she is getting her dress Victorianized (Yup made a new word.) the bustle is beginning to shape up, I need to do something with the veil though maybe give her one of those tiny hats? Well what do you think of the progress?

 

Mr Cross in the back is by the irrepressible scallywags of Lead Bones he's a modern vicar get the joke?  I think with a slight re-sculpt of the collar I can paint him up as a laborer (no offense Padre).

Zombie Nun also by Lead Bones no conversion needed.

Little boy zombie from the same Studio Miniatures "Till Death Us Do Part" set. You can never have enough zombie children in a horde.

The "Hopper" is a leftover from a long defunct project he is a "Hanged Man" ghost(?) figure from Wyrd Miniatures originally he was floating above the earth but I bent the feet so that he's now hopping along as it where. He is all tied up and still has a noose around his neck maybe someone took the law into their own hands and tried to end his life before they realized he was all ready dead? There is a story in it somewhere when I find it I'll let you know. Stay tuned for more progress next Sunday.

This blog isn't even 2 years old yet but its now over 20,000 hits this is due entirely to all you nice people following my miscue efforts. This blog would have most certainly been abandoned were it not for those of you who post comments so thank you. And speaking of thank yous I'd like to give a warm thank very much to all these Google Plus followers who I haven't thanked before:
Julia Morgan, Congtan Huynh, CJ Kilbride, Tom Candlin, Matt Eastwood, Kevon Downs, Fred Jackson, James Baldwin, Stephan K, Bullcher Feb, Ken Reilly, Mark G, Danny Jeurissen, Shay O'Shea, Uber Toten, Alexander Noorlander and Thrym of Thrym's Table now on the blog roll her at Feinds in Waistcoats.  I suspect that even with this new list I've overlooked someone if that is the case I'm sorry.

Tiny Work Table update

Some hasty shots of some of the things I've been working on this weekend. More to come next Sunday.

New Member
I would like to welcome Evan Hughes the editor of the next issue of WBQ (Wargame Bloggers Quarterly) to the blog.
Correction Dave Docherty will be the QBW editor for the November issue not Evan. 

Its Here... Wargame Bloggers Quarterly

 

What?! You didn't know you were waiting for something with baited breath? We take it from me you were. You were waiting for Wargame Bloggers Quarterly the brain child of Michael "Millsy" Mills. That's right a free wargaming PDF periodical featuring articles from the big names in wargame blogging like Loki, The Big Red Bat, Dave Docherty, Michael Awdry and mere dabblers like myself. So pop on over to Millsy's Blog to download a copy.

Another New Member
Welcome Ken Reilly of Yarkshire Gamer following on that Google thing.

Also I've added many of the great blogs of you guys me readers to my blog roll so many if fact  I don't remember which ones have just been added.

Not Really a Horde More Like a Crowd

 As you can see 16 figures is not much of a horde and most of it remains unpainted to boot. I have a handful more of unbased zombies in the bins but I'll have to acquire many more before they resemble anything that can be called a true horde. So far the "horde' consists of Westwind, Lead Bones, Studio, Wyrd and Horrorclix figures.

ATZ is a game of characters not factions in ATZ players play a "star" character who leads an ever shifting band of "grunts", other survivors who look to the "star" for leadership or even hope through the zombie Apocalypse.  So with this in mind I've been gathering a cast for the Zombie Incident of 1888 which will include; Her Majesty, the Great Detective and the Dr., the Gentleman from Norwich, Sister Agnes Zombie Hunter, Sir Francis, the dog Buttons, Jim the milk lad, the White Rabbit, Roundhouse Ray the Prizefighter and Professor Pratt just to name a few. Some of the characters mentioned about will be heroes others villains while more will be innocent bystanders or victims if you prefer. I want this project to be a showcase of sorts of the Gothic Horror/Steam Punk miniatures I've been collecting for the past 2 years so the Werewolf of London and other oddities will make appearances in the game.

Left to right the dog Buttons, Jim the milk lad, Professor Pratt.

New Members

More new members Sander of "mon cher Alava, Marmont est perdu!" and "Modus Reg Magni Momenti" and Navin of The Painted Figs Projects Blog. These new member welcomes so far haven't included all of you lovelys following with that newfangled Google + thingy like Evan, Millsy, Darrell, Ray, Paul, and so many others but I welcome you all as well. I haven't been paying much attention to this Google + thing but I promise to use the +1 button in the future. 

Kirby Down but Not Out at Games Workshop

Now I don’t normally blog about news issues here but the turmoil in the halls of power in the Evil Empire effects all of us in the wargaming community whether we want to admit it or not. Mr. Tom Kriby has been forced out of the CEO position but he is still Chairman of the Board so most likely brutal infighting will occupy the halls of power at Notingham for some time to come. Here is a link to the GW annual report.

Here are my personal thoughts on Kriby’s preamble note passages in italics are direct quotes from the preamble.

“CHAIRMAN’S PREAMBLE
Games Workshop has had a really good year.
If your measure of 'good' is the current financial year's numbers, you may not agree. But if your measure is the long-term survivability of a great cash generating business that still has a lot of potential growth, then you will agree.” No company has a good year when they lose one fourth of their value. This is why he’s not CEO anymore but he refuses to accept it.

“Having taken on the conversion of our stores to a one man format with all the concomitant complexity of staff changes and new sites and new lease negotiations – a long job not quite finished – we decided to re-arrange the management of our sales channels from a country-based system to a central one. This meant removing four European headquarters, consolidating all trade (third party) sales personnel at our Nottingham base, creating a new continental European grouping of our retail stores, and recruiting new management for these divisions whilst flattening the structure by removing all middle management. At the same time we changed leadership of our retail chain in the North American area, and gave birth to our new web store after many months’ labour.”  Looking beyond the megalomaniacal even fetish like need to try and control a world wide retail company from one location this illustrates that Mr. Kirby has no idea what sort of business he’s in. Let me start by stating that even if Mr. Kirby understood wargming and had good business sense GW would lose market share. Why because GW gained it’s preeminence prior to the rise of the internet. In the 90’s the majority of Sci-fi and fantasy wargamers in the West played one of GW’s core games that's no longer the case now that smaller companies can reach gamers through the internet. Now here’s why Mr. Kirby doesn’t have a clue, GW made the most profit in its history during the mid 2000’s with their LOTR Strategy Battle Game they did this even though internet gaming stores were well established by this time, they did this by bringing in an entirely new group of people excited by the LOTR films through their fleet of very visible high street stores. No other company could have done that and now thanks to Mr. Kirby’s reorganization GW can’t ever do it again. His one man store model will never bring in anywhere near the numbers of new people to GW as the high street model did. What’s worse his naïve belief that the internet will increase GW sales the last thing GW should want is gamers shopping on the internet. On the internet gamers are confronted with a cornucopia of games with prettier models, more interesting rules and cheaper prices. That doesn't help GW's bottom line.

“In the technological world we occupy there is constant debate over who 'innovates' and who merely copies. We have, this last year, spent an indecent amount of your money trying to stop someone stealing our ideas and images. It is a very difficult thing to do when it is done through a legal system designed to prevent people stealing hogs from one another. Our experience has probably been typical of most – far too much money spent on far too little gain. The argument is that we have to do this or we will, bit by bit, lose everything that we hold dear, everything that keeps the business going.” I read this as the board feels he’s spending too much on lawyers. The 0.3 million reduction in legal costs cited in the year end reports suggests to me the tide of IP lawsuits is beginning to recede.

“Because no one seems able to grasp the essential simplicity of what we do there has always been the search for the Achilles heel, the one thing that Kirby and his cronies have overlooked. These are legion.” Actually Mr. Kirby seems incapable of understanding the simplicity of Games Workshop it’s a company that makes games people want to play and miniatures people want or can afford to buy. Interest in GW's core games has been dropping for some time now and a large segment of people who would like to purchase GW miniatures feel they can’t afford them anymore. 

Sorry I had to get that off my chest.

Victorian Zombie Sources

More West Wind zombies.

Now that I've decided on my project I took a moment to look up "Victorian zombies" on Google not much comes up other than this DC graphic novel and this ridiculously cheesy hoax. That's what happens when you have a population of idiots who never read a book in their lives. Make a Google image search of "Victorian Zombies" and you'll get images of the fine West Wind zombie box set, various cos-players and Clint. Not actually an image of a zombie Clint* an image of the Foundry Undead Cowboys he painted.

I will give you my readers two Victorian Zombie sources I've actually found useful. The first is a thread on Lead Adventurers Forum Zombie Hunting with Style by Papa Midnight and the second is this interesting article from the Utah Children's Writers. In addition to these sources I feel when one is considering the Zombie Apocalypse one must consult the one and only definitive source Dawn of the Dead by George A Romero.

I feel that the only way to get that post Apocalypse feel for Victorian London it to have smashed carriages, overturned costamonger carts and corpses littering the streets.  The new Roadkill limited addition release by Johnny Borg Castings formally of Mega Miniatures has solved my dead horses dilemma the decomposed horse looks like its served as a feast for zombies. Besides nothing says the fall of the British Empire like a dead bulldog. The goat, sheep and mermaid corpses will become Pirate gaming objective markers. Flat rate $10 world wide shipping will be a steal for non Americans.


*This blog can't definitively claim that Clint is or is not a zombie so for legal purposes this blog urges anyone encountering Clint on the street should proceed with caution.