A small sci-fi base

This is a new 15mm sci-fi base or outpost I've created today. It is a kitbash of parts from the Omega Prime, Slagtown: Eden, Slagtown: Salvage, Watchtower 2, and Sci Blocks, all from Finger and Toe Models. The photos also show an S-Cube mech from the same company and the figures from Spacejacker. Here's the outside view of the small base.

The second floor can be accessed by removing the roof, giving a view of the ladder that leads to the first floor. The ramp was created using a bridge from Slagtown: Eden and a girder from the Watchtower 2.

Here's an alternate view of the second floor. The windows were taken from Slagtown: Salvage, and I edited the wall textures in Gimp.

By removing the second floor we get to the first one, which could be some kind of laboratory, armory or storage, for instance. The stacking mechanism is essentially the one used in Slagtown: Salvage.

Here's another view of the first floor...

Only the ladder is glued to the walls; the rest of the furniture can be repositioned so that I can create different layouts as needed. Those sci-blocks are particularly convenient as I can leave a single block to create obstacles or stack two for walls.

Now I have to run a game using this nice little base -- maybe with an objective of stealing something hidden in it...

Data Retrieval Mission

I've been building a bunch of terrain lately so I took some time today to use it for a quick game. In this scenario, a group of three adventurers: Alex, Bill and Cherry, have just landed their scout ship in a corporation-controlled neighborhood. Their contact has hidden corporation secrets in a safe box, and now they must retrieve it and get away while avoiding the corporation security patrols.

I used FUBAR 4th Edition for this game. My unit has three veteran figures. Alex is armed with pistols and wears light armor, Bill has a shotgun and medium armor and Cherry has a flamethrower and light armor.

Post-apocalyptic playground update

Now that I'm building only 15mm stuff (with the possible exception of Into the Fray,) I decided to organize the post-apoc 20mm models and minis into a separate box to make them easy to find and use. I found a cardboard box that was going to be recycled and covered it with some gray paper. The box is about 8"x8"x4".

 Inside, I've put all the models for my "post-apocalyptic playground", props and 20mm scale figures.

There's enough to moderately fill a 2'x2' board for some small skirmishes... good for playtesting new rule sets or for a quick game.

War in the Planet of the Amazons: Finale

In this final encounter of the War in the Planet of the Amazons campaign, Aleta and her squad must raid an enemy base. This is represented by two buildings near the landing pad. The green patches are woods that block line of sight even from the top of the observation tower.

The encounter took place during the day. As per the raid encounter rules, one PEF started in each building, and another was randomly generated -- in this case, starting in sector 6. My forces started in sector 7, conveniently hidden from the buildings.

I won the initiative on the first turn and moved my units towards the wooded area. The PEF outside of the buildings moved towards the maintenance shack. On the second turn the enemy moved first, with the PEF advancing towards my squad. I then moved my squad inside the wooded area.

The enemy moved first again on the third turn. Now the PEF moved back towards the shack again. My squad moved to the edge of the wood, becoming simultaneously in sight of the three PEFs. The PEF outside the buildings resolved as nothing but nerves. The other 2 turned into a total of 13 enemies: 5 in the tower, 3 in the shack and 5 outside the buildings. Eight of them were facing my squad and thus took part in the in sight test.

Aleta and Delfina rolled no successes. Delfina and Ercilia were killed before they could even act, and Imelda, the new recruit, was taken out of the fight. After the in sight test was completed, Aleta used the rest of her movement to hide in the woods. The enemies moved out of the buildings and split in groups to surround the wooded area.

Some enemies entered the woods and caught Aleta running away. One of them shot Aleta but she was saved by her Star Power. On the next turn she activated first, rolled two successes on the fast move test and left the board. Whew!

Aleta reported their discovery of an enemy base in Mexeluine territory and the subsequent loss of her squad. The base was destroyed by long-range artillery, and that marked the end of the small infiltration skirmishes and the escalation into full battles...

Vault entrance

Here are some pictures of a new terrain piece built by kitbashing Finger and Toe's L.I.A.M. set into some tech elements for 15mm. At first I imagined it as the leftovers of some kind of research facility. After placing Spacejacker's space crew on it, however, I could only see it as the entrance to a Fallout vault -- complete with blue-clad vault dwellers.

Playing with How to Host a Dungeon

I've just finished a session of the demo version of How to Host a Dungeon and now it's on my shopping list for the next time I grab some gaming PDFs. I played it on the computer, using the dice tool from RPTools. For the sheet I created a letter-sized image in Gimp. To generate the positions of the dice, I simply used a random number generator from random.org.

How to Host a Dungeon is a solo dungeon-building game/toy that allows you to evolve a dungeon through four "ages": the primordial age, when the land is created; the age of civilization, when an ancient people carve the land until some extinction event; the age of monsters, when numerous groups fight for the land; and the age of villainy, when a powerful force attempts to take over the land.

During the primordial age, you roll on some tables to fill the underground with features like caves, rivers and veins of gold and minerals. Here's the result of this first age, in which I rolled a cave complex and two sets of natural caverns. In this age the dark green circles are primordial monsters hidden in the dark and the light green ones are minerals and gemstones. I'm not sure if I should have stacked the minerals like that but in the end it worked.

I selected the dwarven civilization for the second age of my dungeon (in the demo version there are two options: dwarves and dark elves.) Since I didn't have many minerals, I had to generate a gold vein. This civilization starts with a main mining shaft, one mine chamber and one barracks. Here's the view after the first complete year, with a new mining chamber, barracks and treasure room. The red line marks the gold vein.

Landing pad

Here's a small landing pad built with Dave Graffam's Spaceport Tiles. I've built one of TopoSolitario's Chicharras as it seemed just the right type of vehicle to place on it, and one of Tommygun's air cargo containers on the back.

 Separate images of the Chicharra and the landing pad:

Update: here's the landing pad with a control tower and maintenance shed, as well as some miniatures by Spacejacker.

Another Patrol Mission in the War of the Amazons

After a while, here's the third battle in the War in the Planet of the Amazons campaign. This time, Aleta, Delfina and Ercilia go on a patrol mission in a region with ruins and wooded areas. Here's the map with the PEFs in sectors 2, 5 and 6.

Ercilia thought she heard something move in the woods but it proved to be nothing more than a wild rodent. The group of Mexeluine soldiers took the time to survey sector 8. It was Aleta's turn to note something moving in the ruins in sector 5, but it was just the shadows playing with her mind. The previous ambush might have all of them on edge. She completed surveying that sector, and also sectors 7, 9.

The last PEF resolved as two rep 4 soldiers, one hiding in the ruins and the other in the woods. The one in the ruins moved to a position in cover to fire at Aleta, prompting an In Sight test. Aleta acted first, firing at the enemy soldier and taking her out of the fight.

It was then the other enemy soldier's turn to move to the edge of the woods and attack Aleta's group. Delfina reacted first but, being out of range for her shotgun, dropped to the ground in order to avoid being hit. Then the enemy soldier and Aleta fired at the same time. The enemy was stunned, while Aleta was saved by her star power. Ercilia was taken by surprise. Aleta then fired again during her Received Fire reaction and took the other soldier out of the fight.

Having defeated all the opposition, the group took their time to patrol the rest of the sectors and moved back to their headquarters. Having found a route without heavy enemy presence, the next encounter will be a Raid to an enemy outpost. The EAL remains at 3. Playing time: about one hour.

Rake's Corner map

This weekend I've built a new game board, using Dave Graffam's recently released Rake's Corner map. As the map is tileable, it can be built in many configurations. In my case, I chose to print 24 tiles in 50% resulting in a 21"x20" board. The first step was to open the tiles in Gimp to resize them. Then I arranged them in six pages to make assembly a little easier. I've printed them in 120gsm couché paper and, since that paper doesn't absorb the ink too well, I  sprayed some "waterproof spray" over them.

The next step was to cut each tile to make them ready for assembly. Here's a "preview" obtained just by placing them side by side.

After that, I used spray glue to place the tiles on a large sheet of 2mm thick rough cardstock. Then it was just a matter of cutting around the board. I left a margin of about 1cm to protect the edges of the map. Maybe later I'll cover the edges with some kind of adhesive tape to avoid wear.

Now I plan to make some buildings to place over the map. For now I have completed the warehouse, asylum and cottage of the Rake's Corner set. I've also put the longhouse I had built some time ago on the map.

This project took me most of the weekend, between resizing, printing and assembling but I'm very satisfied with the results. Even the small casks and crates for the warehouse came out well.