Project Cornetto

With a field in my back pocket and a city ready to be played on, I was well on my way to fulfilling an idea of a big Walking Dead game.

I had floated the idea many times with my nerdy colleagues, to play a big game of sorts. My original suggestion was a game of Walking Dead All out War set in the Mall. This was cool and I was up for the idea, but I wanted something more.

We rapidly approached December without a solid plan. Other ideas were RPG’s following on from a Warhammer 40k RPG I hosted when we had a social trip with work to GW HQ in Nottingham.

Everyone loved the game even those who had never roleplayed before.

Ideas were banded back and forth and it was suggested that we play a big game on December 9^th. I then stupidly suggested, hey why don’t we do something based on what I keep talking about with a Zombie day. I could host and we could do a bit of RPG and a bit of tabletop.

What the hell was I thinking. With less than a month, I had just offered to basically put together a hybrid game of Walking Dead AOW and an RPG. Not only this but host it at my little house and invite 14 others.

Then I made ridicoulas claim that I will put together a Walking Dead table set in the UK. Sure I had a lot done, but it wasn’t ready. I still had so much I wanted to do.

Then I had the stupid idea to take my city a step further an include a rural district with farms and houses.

I set the bar high and now had a challenge to be good to my word. So I got straight onto ebay and ordered a bunch of stuff from the King and Country 3D printed range.  Bought from Cnc_universe, they arrived quickly and if I am honest, some of the most beautiful 3D pieces I have ever seen. I think with the print lines hidden in the stone work, they are a dream to paint and dry brush.

Painting the stone houses as very time consuming and I had to stock up on colourforge sprays with a few trips to the FLG.

I picked up some more scatter and looked to find more vehicles to fit the theme and would arrive in time.

I also wanted some Walkers that looked like soldiers, so I ordered from Patrick Miniatures on Etsy which arrived in time for me to slap paint on.

I dusted off the Walkers sat waiting to paint.

I taught myself how to use Oil washes having never done so before and in the space of a month, I had painted all 150 Walkers, Solider Walkers customised with hand made scrim to represent British soldiers.

I couldnt help but feel the Walker eating a deer, looked like Shaun with his tie, so I painted him as a Walker Shaun. It works really well.

I hand made some military tents using BBQ sticks, foam card for a solid foundation and then wetwipes and hot glue. Sprays and washes did the rest and other than long drying times, easy to make.

I randomly decided to make scaffolding using scotch tape and BBQ stick and they came out really nicely. I like them for what was a 5 minute job.

I put together road signs that had hidden messages or jokes for the players arriving. I made custom roads using the 3mm rubber and grey spray. I then made these more British by adding in road markings from a Sarrisa stencil, as I didn’t mind these being unique to a UK setting.

I made checkpoints with hanging Walkers, sandbags from air drying clay and memorial walls using hundreds and hundreds of tiny cut out pictures I put together from internet resources.

I then had an idea to make more street detritus separate from the rubbish bags. I didn’t want to glue leaves everywhere or discarded rubbish/posters, so using the same thick transparent card protected I used to make bases for the scatter, I just smothered them in mod podge and water and chucked leaves, tescos bags, posters, newspapers and other rubbish images shrunk to size. They came out perfectly and really helped blend with the table and make the streets look even more deserted. What a win.

Using the slap chop technique I painted a whole bunch of characters from the Walking Dead Game and they looked great even with minimal work.

I also had friend 3D print me some custom models for the game including my partner and kids. They weren’t to feature in the game, but they wanted minis having got jealous of my model.

A helping delivery came in the form of a backed kickstarter for AMC Walking Dead RPG from Free Leagues. This couldn’t have arrived at a better time and with the early PDFs and then the physical copy. It gave me the chance in what little spare time I had to write a blend of RPG and Walking Dead All out War.

At that point I had 10 confirmed as coming to the event.

So to make the game my own, I wrote the character cards to represent each of my colleagues. I arranged and sorted all the possible cards from AOW that may be found by the players. I put together note books, maps, custom threat trackers and streamlined table top rule for the game.

I even went as far as to call the event The Fallen Kingdom as it was to be set in the UK. This included providing the group with welcome packs that included pencils, note books, a zombicide dice for stress and measuring widgets that I engraved with FALLEN KINGDOM. I used art work from the RPG to flesh it out and make it unique to my game. I hand made some player cards and laminated the stats for the players.

I then made some bitten cards, trying to emulate the design of the AOW cards, which was tough but they looked great. It meant players had a chance to survive a successful bite if they fail in AOW combat.

Finally I had the idea to explore interiors on maps rather than physically in game. As many of the interiors were not complete yet and seeing as terrain models are quite small, I wanted players to have the chance to break into houses or shops and then explore whats inside.

So using a free interior designer program, I made colour floorplans, added a 1” grid via photoshop and printed in A3 followed by lamination… boom explorable interiors with a dry wipe surface.

Not to toot my own horn but, toot toot. I thought it was genius.

The idea of the game and gameplay would be for my colleagues to work together as a team to protect a group of civilians months after the outbreak. They were housed in a farm house at one end of the map and would need to explore the land during the winter. They had carry limits, effects from the cold and a time limit to find food and bring it back to the civilians and eat themselves or face becoming exhausted or sick.

I used the stats from the RPG to help with narrative elements and searching. When combat takes place it focuses on the area and turns into a small version of AOW using its dice mechanics and weapon/item cards.

I had written search charts for all the present locations based on a success system, put together story arcs with positive and negative outcome and random encounter tables.

This was stressful and exhausting, but when I finished painting the last model and laminated the last player card, I was done with two days to go.

What a whirlwind. An epic marathon rushed at the last minute. My biggest panic was the Walkers as I follow a blood technique from the Walking Dead AOW FB group, that is the best looking technique for blood and drying blood that I had ever seen. Issue is that it’s a long process involving numerous layering. I didn’t think I would have the time to do it and then matt varnish, but I did and it worker. I didn’t have as much detail as I wanted on all the models, but it matters not as I can go back in with detail over the varnish and just varnish again.

I had added little details like leaves glued to everything to represent the passing of time and abandonment. The last vehicles such as the Royal Mail truck arrived and received a quick wash and leaves.

I was happy to call it all ready.

It then took me two house to set it up the night before, as the tables were bigger than expected, the height difference between the 1” high tiles proved a challenge to meet with the grass mat. I knew it would and I knew using my terrain I made for blood and plunder based on the Beast of War VLOG would act as perfect undulations and hills to go under the flexible faux fur mat. Once done the city and rural area blended together perfectly.

With all the building, cars and scatter in place, I took a step back and marvelled in my creation. My partner even teared up as she was proud of what I had achieved. She wasn’t happy that I had just redesigned our house and was kicking her and the kids out so I could play toy soldiers with other adult man children, but the beauty of the table in all its splendour brough a tear to her eye.

Cornetto and the Fallen Kingdom was done.

Can I truly call it complete. No of course not. The project is done, but it is also never done. I will always want to add more and I want to do more tiles and locations to keep it interchangeable and fresh. More house more shops, more locations. I will likely never stop, so I cant call this complete as I will no doubt add more. However my plan for Cornetto and building a terrain scape ready to represent Shaun of the Dead in the All Out War universe. This was done.

One of my final touches, was to add more to Shauns garden, but finding out what records they threw at the zombies and then scatter the albums and covers around my tiny version of Shauns garden.

Voila.