A Brave New World

My good friends Tarron and Adam have put our last battle up on their YouTube channel.   They are asking for constructive feedback on improving things, so if you have some spare time, I am sure they would appreciate any input.

Moving forward we will be looking at shorter games with much lower turn limits and I would like to see us explain our rationale and what’s happening, but I am no expert on things.

We finally played the next instalment in our little Fallout Wasteland Warfare campaign.  (I am sure that there will be a video of some sort added at some point to the end of this post in the near future)

Pre battle briefing

You’ve heard news of an old Military Checkpoint not too far away.

Many such places exist throughout the wasteland as a testament to the war that ravaged the landscape as the bombs fell.

That was years ago now and most such places lie stripped bare and abandoned or home to marauding Raiders or worse, their once full armouries a mere shadow of their former selves.

Checkpoint 57 however is known to be fiercely guarded by grumpy old Corporal Hudson and is set just near some dense woodland known locally as Yao Guai Forrest, due to the mutated bears that prowl at the undergrowth.

Hudson must be still guarding it for a reason.

Your informant also tells you a tale of 3 brothers who went to the outpost to ‘relieve’ Hudson of some of his wares.

Those brothers have never been seen since, so the lord only knows what happened to them.

Was it the Yao Guai, or did they meet an even worse fate?

As the afternoon sun starts its slow descent the cold concrete shape of checkpoint 57 comes into view, maybe now the mystery of the 3 brothers will be solved and some military hardware added to the settlement’s arsenal.

For the most part, the game revolved around our characters doing their best to run away from the Sentry Bot ‘Hudson’ who in turn tried its best to blow us up with missiles.

It was a fun game, although not as combat focused as the others.  It was nice to take the opportunity to model up some more terrain for my growing collection.

I think I have finished the scenery for the next scenario.   I placed it all on the table to see how it would look, and I am pretty happy with the results.

Having my friends choose the scenario from a group of options frees me from deciding exactly what to build and means that I can concentrate on how I interpret their decision.

By the end, I should have a rather nice collection of terrain pieces for multiple different scenarios.

Anyway, onto some pictures for our next scenario.  Soldier Soldier.

Battle report coming soon.

I wanted to make some trees to add height to my layout for this next scenario, so I set about making some pine trees.

As this was a wargames table and not a static railway layout the trees needed to be robust enough to take a few knocks.

I used 5mm thick wooden dowels as the truck and wire for the branches.  Plumbers’ hemp string was cut down and used for the ‘pine needles’.  this is a far more robust way of making trees than flocks and long static grasses glued on, and the finished product is not too bad from a short distance away.

Once that was done it was just a case of brushing each branch and bending it into shape.  Then once happy, I clipped the branches down to length and used scissors to trim each set of pine needles into a nicer shape.

To paint them I spray painted them black followed by a zenith shade of brown and then various greens and sliver greys.

Adam and Tarron decided that in the next scenario, they wanted to try taking on a military checkpoint, hoping to get their hands on some serious hardware.

With that in mind, I set about coming up with some terrain for the mission.   Thankfully there are plenty of images from Fallout 4 on the internet and the Boston Checkpoint seemed like a good place to base this build on.

I started with some plastic strips which I cut down and glued together to make a storage unit for some Power Armour.  Of course, there is no guarantee that we will be able to access it, but it will provide a very nice carrot.

The main structure was built from leftover foam from my dungeonalia project.

Nothing too fancy, just a very simple design.

I then based the building on a cork floor tile to help give it a robust sturdy look and did a base from MDF.

I smeared wood filler over the structure to give a little texture.

I printed off a small computer screen that could be ‘hacked’ to open up the Power armour cage.  I also printed off a suit of power armour and a power armour stand.

I gave the building a base coat of black primer and then drybrushed it in shades of grey.  I wasn’t that happy with how it turned out so ended up changing the colour to a much paler off-white looking colour in the end.

I will show the finished model once I dress the table for the mission.   Just in case Adam and Tarron see this, I don’t want to give away too much before the day.

However, here are some sneak peek pictures.

Just thought I would share how our little campaign is progressing.   At the end of a scenario there may be a decision or two to make   This I have thrust firmly into the hands of Adam and Tarron and I will just go with what they choose.  I have chosen this route as it kind of gives some of the direction to them rather than me dictating each game and also means that it will be a surprise when they decide what to do as I will then have to make up the terrain and dress the table.

A Storm is Coming Conclusion.

With the Raiders camp taken care of, news of your victory travels fast and it’s not long before the names of Pesto Gravy, Hyper and the other one who no one can seem to agree on the name of are on the lips of local traders.

Realising that without adequate means to defend themselves, it won’t be long before news of your escapade reaches the ears of other hostile gangs and once again Benny and his Brahmin will be at risk again.

Feeling for the young settlement that has already endured so much in the short time you have known them, and seeing the desperate look in their eyes you are left with a few options.

Option 1:

Wish the settlement luck and hope that they can go it alone.

Outcome:  No risk, no reward.

Option 2:

With little to defend themselves with, you give up two firearms (either pistols, rifles, heavy weapons or any combination of them)

Outcome:  The settlement is very grateful for the aid, welcomes you as a trusted trading companion and shares some important local knowledge.

Increase base trading post by 1 level and start the next mission with 2 boost cards.

Option 3:

Taking pity on the settlement and knowing that you can always find more you decide to give them some serious firepower to help keep the trade routes open. Give up two firearms (either rifles or heavy weapons or a combination of the two)

Outcome:  The settlement is incredibly grateful for your heroic gesture and your name becomes the talk of the town.  Permanently gain the ‘Heroic’ trait for the party leader and increase base trading post by 1 level.

Available Missions.

Live Broadcast

Radio Tower 3SM-U81 is not too far away from here, and those synths were heading in its direction.  They sure weren’t going there to listen to music.  Regardless the boosters and receivers would sure come in handy for the settlement and maybe enable us to boost the frequency of the broadcasts and attract some new blood to our camp.

Objective:

Retrieve essential radio equipment from the broadcasting station and find out what the synths are up to.

Reward:

Add a Ranger outpost to the settlement (resolve 1 explore card for free each settlement phase)

Soldier Soldier

After the war, many abandoned military checkpoints and conveys were scattered throughout the wasteland.  As it happens there is talk of one such place not too far away and rumour has it that grumpy old Corporal Hudson is guarding it for a reason.

Objective:

Find a way into the military complex and recover military hardware to bolster the strength of the settlement.

Reward:

Select specialist military equipment

The Big Boy

Rumours of a mini-nuke stash are circulating the wasteland.  The destructive power of such a weapon is almost unmatched.  Super Mutants have swarmed the area in search of this prized item.

Objective:

Find and recover the mini-nukes and escape with as many as possible.

Reward:

Reward: Mini-nukes (value 300 caps each)

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Bright neon lights once flickered all along the streets that were said to be paved with gold, or so they said to lure the sad and desperate who would spend their hours gambling away a fortune.  Now the strip is a sad and depressing place best long forgotten.  Nature has started to crawl back over the bright lights and arcade machines.  But where gamblers once trod there is loot a-plenty to be had and a pawn shop just brimming with shiny things.

Objective:

Search the buildings and loot as much as possible before getting overwhelmed.

Reward:

Lots of Loot to be had.

For this scenario, I decided we would give ourselves a fairly generous turn limit to get the Brahmin safely across the table.  15 turns sounded like a lot, but with the Brahmin easily startled it could end up heading in the wrong direction at any point, coupled with the fact that the two settlers were the only ones who had any chance of guiding the beast, they would probably be doing their best to avoid combat.

I had also sneakily hidden not one but two Machine Gun turrets on the board.  These are on overwatch and will shoot at any enemy model that takes an action once within its range.

The main antagonist of the Raiders was also not on the table at the start, so would be a nice surprise when she turns up in her Raider Power Armour

Once again, we tried to do a video battle report, this time with a more static camera angle.

The gameplay starts at the 17:45 mark   Before that Adam and Tarron of Alpha Strike Games here in Perth Western Australia drive over and discuss the upcoming game and the results of the last game we played.

Full disclaimer, I’m sure we get some rules wrong, but we don’t mind, as long as we come up with a solution that makes sense it’s all good with us.   After all we are pretty new to the game, and these are as much about us learning as anything else, they are, most definitely not, how to play videos.

A storm is coming.

After rescuing some local settlers from the sewer system underneath the abandoned steelworks, they requested our help.

They have been having ongoing problems with a group of raiders attacking and capturing their Brahmin.

Until now the settlement has been struggling to pay off the Raider’s demands and survive in the harsh wasteland.

Without a secure supply route, the settlement will become completely cut off and become easy prey for the raider gang to move in and take over.

With the arrival of our party at the little homestead a spark of hope has been ignited.

The mission is to safely see the Brahmin caravan through the Raiders territory and, if possible, put an end to the Raiders for good.

I don’t suspect this will be easy, but we’ll give it our best shot.

Battle report for this coming soon.