Project Barnum.

So I have now fully re-written the original scenario to a point where I am happy and it is now ready to playtest. I didn’t really need to change a lot as the scenario was fairly straight forward to begin with. I have made some clarifications and amendments. Mainly I have changed the rules to be in line with V 3.0, giving the beast impervious and Hardy to keep him hard to kill. I also gave him the legendary trait to stop him from being compelled and other similar issues. The clarifications came from some ambiguity around the quick and the dead and give ’em hell reactions. I also rejigged the movement slightly as D5 x 2″ should really just be D10″ to avoid needless complications. Overall I am happy with how it seems now I just need to play it. So in the new year it will be Soul Hunters Vs The Nautilus crew trying to capture or kill the beast for research or riches.

So here is the original incarnation of the rules. I took a lot of inspiration from the Badlands adventure scenarios for 1.09 as they were a lot of fun and a little more narrative driven. I took the simple AI from the catch that K9 peril in that pack and amended it to feel more monstrous. I also needed the monster to feel suitably indomitable and that it was on a rampage so I designed an attack resolution table to be varied and brutal. I looked at some of the monsters in other factions as the K9 already had it’s own stats so I needed to come up with a full set of stats for the beast for any situations that arose, As you can see from the report it was a ton of fun however there were some questions and rules that needed clarifying on the fly. I am hoping that my new draft fixes some of those issues and I bring it in line with the new version of the rules. I will also try and make the new version more generic so people can use there own monstrous creations for the scenario.

I came up with the rules (don’t worry I will post them later in the project and my thinking behind them) and with Project Barnum fully painted it was time to play a game. I have included photos from the game and below my opponent wrote a brief write up of our game. It was without doubt one of the most fun and silly games I have played of any system so far. Here is the write up by Sam Berridge our local Warhost enjoy!

“Turn 1

Problems started with the initiative draw, I won by drawing one of my 4 action point cards. There’s only a few if those in the deck so already that felt like an omen.

My forces fanned out wary of Barnum. The real 1st action came from the Magenta Alpha charging my on lookout Gunslingers and getting 3 10’s from give them hell! Damnit no critical!

Despite Having to mettle a shot she still ploughed into my Gunslingers and made short work of two of them.

A little later Helena Flew into a prime position on Barnum and tried to capture the beast alive for maximum victory points (if the beast was still unconscious at end of game the capturing side got 5 points) I used the lasso (mainly because I thought it funny) I wasn’t really expecting it to work but Holy Moly it did and Barnum went crashing down for a nap!

Scott had something other than a specimen collection on his mind. He was determined today would be the day that his Nemesis Wyatt Earp would die. His grey squad had him in Their sights. But nothing a little quick and the dead wouldn’t solve?

Well my dice had other ideas and I took the full force of the pulse rifles ? but STILL he endured Mettle saved his skin. I breathe a sigh of relief. But Scott wasn’t done with me yet because that squad also had a Deconstruction Cannon. My mouth ran dry as he dropped the dice into the tower… ♠? IRON EARP LIVES AGAIN!

After the iron Earp incident I had two problems.

1) Magenta alpha on my right flank.

2) chigoes occupying the top level of one half of the broken building (we’d ruled each half was a separate structure) this was preventing me from deploying Ida Saxon where I wanted because of the 12″ rule.

Solution to 1) Jed Powell and his electro whack sticks! Down goes the alpha in embarrassingly quick fashion.?(Scott’s dice betrayed him)

Solution to  2)hmmm… Wyatt already tried his shotgun from ground level but only got one of the critters. Aha! I’ve got me an idea (more on this later).

The turn ends we check to see if Dino is still asleep yep still snoring!

Turn 2

I steal initiative, unfortunately the action point card isn’t great but Wyatt has enough fortune to get to the top of the other half of the broken building and unload his shotgun into the chigoe filth claim a VP and let Ida rain death down on the unrighteous alien interlopers.

Well that was the plan anyway…

What actually happened is Wyatt got to the top of the building and rolled a 2 with the shotgun.

Imagine it if you will, in cinematic terms. The roof door burst open, Kurt Russell (moustache in all its glory) strides onto the rooftop Slo-mo kicks in as the wind catches his duster coat, he raises his shot gun and works the Slider, CHA-click… Confusion and horror pass across his face as he realises what’s happened. The chigoe are drawing Thier blasters, he flings the broken weapon down in disgust and braces himself for what’s coming there no where to hide (failed q&td) can he he just mettle this out as he did before?

Nope. Even Wyatt can fall.

Now given Scott’s history with Wyatt (has failed to kill him on every single match) I kinda expected more reaction but I think he was just in shock he’d finally done it and slightly disappointed that it wasn’t his viridian alpha!

Seeing his best friend so cruelly cut down by a twist of fate was more than Doc could bear. His screamed curses alone could have struck a man dead with fear, His Nickel plated pistols spat fury up to the roof where the things cowered, the storm of lead washing away the blight of thier lives. Eventually the clicking of hammers falling on empty chambers broke through Docs rage, his eyes fell to his revolvers, the barrels hot and smoking, he remembers Wyatt giving them to him as a gift years ago, all the memories of his friend tumble through his mind uncontollably and so Doc weeps…

Although Doc mourns there is still work to be done. Helena sees an opportunity and thinking the monster subdued, soars towards the Watcher deployment zone to secure a valuable VP.

But the price will be terrible.

The monster awakens snapping the rope that binds it as easily as a man breaks a cobweb.

It staggers to it feet a little uncertain but it’s senses, unnaturally sharp, detect the one who hurt it. With an Earsplitting roar the beast charges straight for brave Helena.

Grey’s dive to the side to let it past. A Vermilion sentinel, those foul but steadfast guardians of the watchers commanders decides that as there aren’t actually any commanders on the field he doesn’t have to be quite so steadfast and legs it (Magenta is down and the Viridian keeps failing his mind check to get out of reserves – I think he was waiting until Wyatt was gone!)

Unchallenged the beast bore down on the indomitable Helena, she does not flinch, Her expression stern even as the jaws close around her. She does not scream.

With Helena’s demise a shocked silence seemed to descend on the battleground, even the watchers paused in horror and awe at the savagery in their midst. It was broken by the creature itself, a roar of triumph or a scream of pain from its unnatural condition? Whatever the cause, it spurred Helena’s comrades into action

Turn 3.

immediately 20-20 reacted. Bringing his massive rifle to his shoulder he took careful aim and blew the beasts brains out in one devestating shot.

Any satisfaction the automata may have felt was not to last. The beasts corpse began to bubble, melt and reform. What arose from the churning filth was arguably worse than what had been before.

A solitary hex beast.

Of course the Infernal investigations team had dispatched untold number of these horrors in Their time but this one…

This one still wore remenents of Helena’s uniform…

Unwilling to let his commander and friend suffer any more Jed opened fire (triggered activation) alas the Grey’s between him and the creature prevented a kill shot.

The Grey’s for their part seemed no more willing to let the thing live than Jed and in a desperate hand to hand struggle managed to silence the tormented thing.

On the far side if the battle Montoya was in a bad way. (The last round had forced her to mettle out a wound and used her fortune) a Grey unit had tracked her down. If she could just catch her breath she could charge the unit and cut them to ribbons. Otherwise she’d surely fall to their guns.

I drew a 1. Not enough to reach them (about an inch short) but Doc was nearby…

Through his tears Doc saw Montoya, he knew in that moment what he had to do. No longer caring if he lived or died. Doc charged forward (gamble pulled a 3) putting himself between Montoya and the Grey’s his pistols began their terrible song once more. Six targets he had and fanning the hammer 6 bullets he sent forth.

5 found their mark. He had failed.

The lone survivor bore a Deconstruction Cannon. He hadn’t been able to put enough distance between himself and Montoya he glanced back to apologize but she cut him off her eyes locked on to his “it’s ok” she silently mouthed to him.

Then they were gone.

(I could have retreated Montoya but they would have caught her anyway. This made better storytelling)

The battle us becoming a war of attrition now.

My deputies have all eventually been picked off gaining Scott valuable VP.

Jed is eventually felled by a locust long range strike.

With so few units on the board turn 4 and 5 pass quickly Scott has a last desperate gamble to kill 20-20 but fails.

The dust settles and the VP’s are tallied.

Lawmen 8

Watchers 8

A tie to one of the best games I’ve ever played.”

Finally, on the modelling front I needed a suitably Lost world base. Now this was very easy. I bought an XXL oval base from Wayland games to make sure it felt as epic as possible. It fit perfectly so now to add to it to make it not seem so barren. First thing I did was cover it in Stirland battlemire, I bought a War World Gaming Jungle Warfare Diorama Scenery Kit from Amazon as it had everything I wanted. I covered the battlemire mud in the loose jungle foliage with a little of the autumn and summer basing grass from the kit. I added a couple of the jungle grass tufts to finish it off. I did consider adding a palm tree but it would make transporting it in tact a nightmare so I decided against it.

So now he was all built up the next part to think about was how to paint her up. Looking at the box art it felt kind of drab. This is a hideous monster with horrible gaping wounds and needed to look scary but vibrant at the same time. With that in mind I considered what colour should the skin be, grey was my first instinct it would make the gore pop, but then I thought about it and changed my mind. Grey is still a bit drab and although more realistic it was a bit boring; this is a ZOMBIE T-REX! It needed to be bright bold, then inspiration came from the perfect source. My daughter saw me pondering over it and I asked her what she thought I should paint it. Her instant response was dinosaurs are green, of course it should be green, when you were a kid what colour did you draw dinosaurs it was always green. So, I started off with a Corax white spray base coat, I did the main skin colour in Caliban Green then washed it with Biel Tan green and finally dry brushed it with Nurgling green. The exposed flesh was done with Ratkin flesh, followed by Fulgrim pink then a light wash of Reikland fleshshade and then Carroburg crimson.

The ribs and bone extrusions were done with a base of Zandri dust then a layer of Ushabti bone then a light wash of Agrax earthshade. This took a while doing tidying and figuring out what bones I wanted above and below the skin. The same was done with the teeth as well.

Lastly, I covered obvious errors and certain parts with Blood for the Blood god to make it look really gross looking. Some of the scars were dry brushed with Astorath red to make them look inflamed and raw. The eye I did white originally, but it didn’t really work it looked sort of unfinished. So, I decided to add some nattiness to it, so I used Nurgles rot to make it look infected an oozing. Lastly on Barnum herself I used Abaddon Black and coated it in Ardcoat to make them shine and look sharp and unnatural. The rock was very basic based Mechanicus standard grey washed with Nuln oil and then dry brushed with Dawnstone. A couple of bits of moss with some dabs of Stirland battlemire where I wanted them and covered with some woodland scenics medium green foliage.

There was an idea, an idea about a zombie dinosaur. So Lost World Exodus was announced early 2019 and some detachments have since come out for it. At the time though I was so excited by the idea of the concept I wanted to do something to fill the gap between then and when it was released. So, from all the interviews and information that came out the big thing that stood out to me was the idea that there would be some rules that involved the flora & fauna in the new biome in Well’s chasm. The other stand out was the potential for what are known in the setting as “hyper reptilian creatures”.

With these things in mind the first idea I had was obviously a rampaging dinosaur, sorry, hyper reptilian creature, I have to be careful, Raptors make terrifying lawyers for many, many reasons. However, this didn’t feel quite in keeping in the setting, I began to wonder why a dinosaur would suddenly be on a rampage in its natural environment. Then like a bolt of lightning hitting a conductor it came to me. This had to be an escaped Enlightened experiment some sort of monstrous creation that was on the warpath because it had been experimented on to the point of madness.

Now I had the idea I needed the monster and as always, the internet provides. I found this Zombie T-rex from gale force nine’s Tomb of antihalation range, and it was perfect. I ordered it and waited patiently for it to arrive mulling over the rules and winning conditions. Once it got here it was almost perfect in scale and looked even better in the flesh. It went together very easily and any gaps were filled and some weren’t as I wanted them to be seeping blood or ooze or maybe both. Now I was ready for the next phase the painting.