Sunday, July 17, 2011
Pulp terrain pieces
I've been building some terrain pieces in 28mm scale, which I intend to use in both ShadowSea-inspired games as well as pulp adventures: pre-historic jungles, swamps, ancient ruins...
The materials used were mostly Lord ZseZse Works' Ancient Worlds set, Puka Shell Games' Terrain Pack (for the grass texture on the campground), a plastic potted plant and some epoxy, foamies and hot glue for modeling. The bases are 1.5mm thick cardstock or 4mm thick foamcore in the case of the campground.
The campfire was inspired by this simply awesome article on modeling burning tires and oildrums, although my results don't do it justice.
I was amazed at the texture quality from Lord Zse Zse Works' product. These columns were easy to build, fit perfectly and they will look great as obstacles or hiding spots in a game.
I still plan on building the temple from Lord ZseZse, plus some ruins with a sacrificial altar using Finger and Toe Models' Lost City blocks but these will take time.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Observatory Model
Last night I built the free observatory model from Dave Graffam using the tips from the just-released (and also free) Paper Modeling Guide (written by Jerry Jensen, released by Dave.) The guide is all about taking care with every step of the building process -- from cutting to pre-folding the glue tabs or spreading glue to the edges, there are lots of little details you might have not given thought before.
Even though it's a one-page model with well-designed parts, it took me about two and a half hours to build using all the ideas from the guide. However, as you can see the model does have some complex parts like the telescope and the roof, so it would be wrong to say that building any model carefully would take over two hours per page.
The point, however, is that the result looks simply great -- perfect, for my standards. I tend to build models in a chaotic fashion: cut and build some parts, apply glue stick without much care, sometimes find out I built something wrong... this little exercise in patience and method showed me how I can achieve better results.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Customizing some plastic minis
Yesterday I went to our local games convention... I regret to comment that it used to be better, but it's still better than no convention at all. Anyway, I grabbed a bunch of old Clix models for a reasonable price (that is, when considering prices of miniatures around here.) The idea is to build two sets to play ShadowSea-inspired games: a set of eight "natives" including lizardmen and amazons, and a set of eight "invaders" with some steam robots, armors and a conquistador. Initially I split them into two groups: the ones that could get by with only a few adjustments and the ones in need of a full repaint.
Always keeping in mind that what I want is "tabletop-worthy" quality, nothing more (heh, possibly lower than "tabletop-worthy" for Cool Mini Or Not standards) here are the ones that I intend to make smaller adjustments. I plan to start with the lizardmen, which I think are really OK, and just add a few details. I might end up repainting the four robots/armors to give them a consistent look...
After everything is done, I plan to cover the base slots with putty, paint them and add some grass, possibly in two different textures for the two groups. Hopefully, everything will be done in the next few days, taking advantage of my vacation.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Review: Chain Reaction 3.0 Swordplay
I got some time to try Chain Reaction 3.0 Swordplay, which is the other free rulebook from Two Hour Wargames. The main question I wanted to answer was: how different it is from the "standard" Chain Reaction, which I have previously reviewed?
The answer is: quite different. Sure, the basics of character Reputation, passing 2d6 tests and reactions remain the same, but then you have different reaction tests, since this is aimed at fantasy/historical medieval conflicts. And there are different reaction tables for each broad type of unit, so that knights on horses react differently from archers or infantry. If the Chain Reaction 3.0 was already loaded with information, this one goes further bringing two scenarios, six historical army lists and four fantasy army lists, to boot.
I ran a quick game using 15mm miniatures and halving all distances and ranges. In this scenario, a small band of orcs controlled by me must steal two treasures from the undead, stored in locked treasure chests. The two orc heroes (in armor) are Rep 5 warriors with heavy armor and two-handed weapons. The one with the cloak is a star. The other orcs are Rep 3, unarmored. Two of them have small shields and swords, the other two have polearms.
The undead are organized into two groups. The first consists of five Rep 3 skeleton warriors, unarmored with various weapons, led by a Rep 5 wraith lord, protected (by magic) and wielding a mace.
The second group consists of three Rep 4 skeleton knights, unarmored and equipped with swords. The leader is the one with the slightly taller hat, in the middle.
The answer is: quite different. Sure, the basics of character Reputation, passing 2d6 tests and reactions remain the same, but then you have different reaction tests, since this is aimed at fantasy/historical medieval conflicts. And there are different reaction tables for each broad type of unit, so that knights on horses react differently from archers or infantry. If the Chain Reaction 3.0 was already loaded with information, this one goes further bringing two scenarios, six historical army lists and four fantasy army lists, to boot.
I ran a quick game using 15mm miniatures and halving all distances and ranges. In this scenario, a small band of orcs controlled by me must steal two treasures from the undead, stored in locked treasure chests. The two orc heroes (in armor) are Rep 5 warriors with heavy armor and two-handed weapons. The one with the cloak is a star. The other orcs are Rep 3, unarmored. Two of them have small shields and swords, the other two have polearms.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
3:16 Solo Play
I bought 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars and fell in love with the system. It has a very competently designed "light" rules set, and allows play ranging from mindless alien slaughter to deep character development. In my opinion, it's not the kind of game well suited for solo play, as any other RPG that builds tension based on the creative uses that players make of the authorial power granted to them, like Fiasco for instance.
Anyway, I wanted to try the game and I'm still not sure when I'll be able to find a group willing to play it, so I thought I'd use good ol' Mythic GME along with a couple of house rules and see what happens. My main inspiration regarding solo Mythic stuff, by the way, is the Solo RPG Gamer blog, which has a lot of interesting posts on the subject.
To start the game, I created four "player" characters in the following manner: first, I used the Mythic random description tables to get inspiration for each character's reputation. Then I rolled one six-sided die, adding one for their Fighting Ability, re-rolling on a repeated result. From that, it's possible to figure the rest of each characters' information. I rolled for the weapons and on the names table for each character. Thus were born:
Sergeant Hicks - reputation: Lunatic
Corporal Miller - reputation: Pushover
Trooper Abe - reputation: Sleazy
Trooper Sims - reputation: Righteous
I randomly generated the planet and alien attributes, using the game rules. Since I had 20 threat tokens to use in alien encounters, I decided to roll one six-sided die, adding 1 for each encounter after the first, to figure how many I'd allocate to each encounter. Once I had eight tokens or less left, I would go to the final encounter of the mission. Lastly, I rolled for the NPC who would brief the team. Lieutenant Goodman got a result of "oficially odd" on the Mythic description table. I asked "is he seen as too informal for an officer?" on the fate chart, getting an Exceptional Yes answer. Then I was ready to start...
Anyway, I wanted to try the game and I'm still not sure when I'll be able to find a group willing to play it, so I thought I'd use good ol' Mythic GME along with a couple of house rules and see what happens. My main inspiration regarding solo Mythic stuff, by the way, is the Solo RPG Gamer blog, which has a lot of interesting posts on the subject.
To start the game, I created four "player" characters in the following manner: first, I used the Mythic random description tables to get inspiration for each character's reputation. Then I rolled one six-sided die, adding one for their Fighting Ability, re-rolling on a repeated result. From that, it's possible to figure the rest of each characters' information. I rolled for the weapons and on the names table for each character. Thus were born:
Sergeant Hicks - reputation: Lunatic
Corporal Miller - reputation: Pushover
Trooper Abe - reputation: Sleazy
Trooper Sims - reputation: Righteous
I randomly generated the planet and alien attributes, using the game rules. Since I had 20 threat tokens to use in alien encounters, I decided to roll one six-sided die, adding 1 for each encounter after the first, to figure how many I'd allocate to each encounter. Once I had eight tokens or less left, I would go to the final encounter of the mission. Lastly, I rolled for the NPC who would brief the team. Lieutenant Goodman got a result of "oficially odd" on the Mythic description table. I asked "is he seen as too informal for an officer?" on the fate chart, getting an Exceptional Yes answer. Then I was ready to start...
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