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.

With the Raiders seen off, at least for the time being it is decided to take the opportunity to search the wagon they were so desperate to retain.

Hidden under some old clothing is a small child who tells you that he was on a scavenging hunt with his father and two men from his settlement when the raiders found them.  His father instructed them all to flee while he held the attackers off.   The child watched as his father was gunned down and ran back to help him, where he was easily overpowered and taken as a hostage, no doubt to be used to extort even more from his homestead.  The two others managed to escape and headed into the sewer network below the factory.

Unfortunately, all the gunfire disturbed a pack of feral Ghouls which, although killed off most of the attacking Raiders also cut off the two scavengers from escaping the sewer system.

Not being the type of people to turn your back on someone in need, or rather just knowing the look on Preston’s face should you not offer to help, it’s time to prep those guns and go down into the gloom to rescue those scavengers.

So, a search and rescue mission sounded like it could be fun.  Just for the added excitement, it’s going to be in poor lighting, and why is there an ominous green glow?

For this scenario, we reduced the range of interacting with investigation tokens down to the much smaller red range ruler.  We also had a rule that if you entered the murky water or ended the turn in the water you would take radiation damage.  In addition to that, the yellow toxic waste barrels also had an area effect where if you ended your turn within a certain range, they would also cause radiation damage.  Finally, the feral ghouls, once killed would respawn at the far end of the board.

The survivors had to search for two lost scavengers and then once located, safely exit the sewers by one of three exit ladders.

My friends Adam and Tarron for Alpha Strike here in Perth, took a break from all their Battletech videos and managed to take a hasty video of the game.

Once they have sorted it out a little, I will upload it here too.

Adam and Tarron of Alpha Strike here in Perth did a little battle report, recorded on a mobile phone.   Just a word of warning, the camera moves around quite a lot so not for those with motion sickness.

For the next game in our little campaign, we should continue to make sure the metalworks factory is secure.   There do seem to be some odd noises coming from the sewers that run below the building and I wonder why there are so many barrels of nuclear waste lying around.

Is that the sound of someone calling for help, or is it just the sound of the plumping groaning as it continues to collapse?  Only one way to know for sure.

For this, I am going to use the sewers that form part of my Port Blacksand project.  It will mean I can use something I already have to hand and also buy me a bit of time to get other stuff finished.

I managed to get a day to get stuff done and set about adding some paint to the crashed aeroplane stl I had printed out ages ago.

For this I turned to my go-to painting medium, Rattle-Cans.

I started with a grey filler primer over everything followed by a cheap grey primer from the local hardware store.  After that a few progressively lighter shades before finishing off the hull with a gloss white.  Once that was done, I masked of the hull structure leaving the area I wanted red clear and gave that a nice coat of read spray paint.

Next up I used a variety of different spray paints to create some weathering.  Black, Brown and Zandri Dust.

The bases were sprayed with Brown, Desert Yellow and Zandri Dust.   I didn’t mind about overspray as it just added to the weathering.

I used Citadel technical paint over the bases to create a cracked earth look and then dabbed dark brown paint on pits of the wreckage with a sponge.  Finally, I added small amounts of silver to show some chipping and add some variety to the colours used.

The crates were pretty much painted in the same way, but I used a really cheap wide kids paint brush to paint them.  They were supposed to look rough anyway so no point in using expensive paintbrushes on these.

The wooden-looking framework was Rattle-Canned with Black followed by a light dusting of Brown.

Sure, there is still more detail I could add.  The bases for one need some work done on them and I will probably add some lettering to the plane hull at some point but at the moment my printer is out of ink so I can’t make a stencil.

There are also parts of the gantries which should be metal that are currently painted brown, but for now, it’s playable and nothing is stopping me from going back and adding more detail.

The whole lot took less than a day to paint, so I am pretty happy with that.  It’s not the best paint job I have ever done but I think with the post-apocalypse wasteland you can get away with things looking a little rough.  I find it adds to the charm of the setting a bit when it all looks a little rough anyway.

I had to come up with a quick scenario on the fly, so I decided that the Raider who had started loading up the cart before being scared off by the Ghouls turned up with some backup.

Again, we kept things pretty simple as we are still learning the rules.  I decided that during the lull our group of survivors had found a way to decommission the Turret, unfortunately reprograming it was just too difficult a task, so the only viable option was to completely take it offline.

This was a simple mission of defend the factory, whilst also clearing the grounds of yet-to-be-discovered traps.  The survivors have to fight off the Raiders whilst also discovering and resolving five danger tokens outside the factory.

The Raiders on the other hand want their stuff in the cart and will be trying to force the Survivors to abandon the field.

This was a relatively short battle, but we did realise that Raiders are a lot tougher than Radroaches.

We decided to let the Raiders use their armour stats as shown on the cards, whilst our survivors did not.  The only armour they get is what they can find or buy.   We figured this would be a good way of making it a little tougher on ourselves and also keeping the card management for the AI down a bit.

We are also running our own interpretation of the campaign/settlement mode.

Everything we do and everything we find has some form of impact on our little campaign.  We are not gaining caps (money) for just winning a game.  We actually have to find stuff to sell to make money.   Likewise, if we want to add more members to our force we have to recruit them by spending caps.  This expenditure is an arbitrary way of showing the cost involved in going out and actively seeking out potential recruits.  We are using the caps cost for Battle mode for ‘buying new recruits’ so to add a basic settler to our gang will be a lot easier than adding a Brotherhood of Steel Knight for example.

I think over time we will fine-tune a settlement mode that we are happy with and use the official Modiphius one as a guide to how we want ours to work.

I guess at some point soon I should start thinking about making some more terrain to add some variety to our games.

Well, this project system has done it again with a nice double post in error.   So looks like I will have to put something else in here to fill the space as there is no option to delete complete posts.

So, to fill this space with something I guess I will share some images of a piece of terrain I have been sitting on for a very long time, possibly as long as two years now, that at some point I will get around to doing something with.

For this battle we tried to keep thing fairly simple.  The Sole Survivor, Piper and Preston Garvey would be searching the ruined steelworks for suitable pieces of metal that could then be used as crude armour plates.

Breaking off the bits required whilst keeping enough intact to be usable would not be easy and required a strength test at -4.  However, there was a bonus of +2 per extra person assisting with the action.  Any plates successfully removed would provide a hard armour +1 bonus for the next mission.

Mixed in with the metal pieces there were also numerous other items to be looted, some would turn out to be nothing but worthless junk, some would be items that could be later sold, and some could just turn out to be traps.

The factory was infested with Radroaches and a family of Feral Ghouls had also taken up residence.  In addition, there was a Machine Gun Turret near the front door (Which the players didn’t even notice on the table until it started firing).

Not many pieces of metal were secured, mainly due to the Turret catching players by surprise and making them take a huge detour to avoid facing it. However, the mission was classed as a success as the factory was cleared out and made secure.

Although badly bruised and beaten we had managed to find a couple of Stimpacks and a Radaway to help patch us up meaning that we would be heading into the next mission with Piper and the Sole Survivor having one radiation damage and Preston having one normal damage.

Out of the items we discovered the most notable included, some Leather Armour, a Usable piece of Steel Pipe and one piece of Metal that could be fashioned into a crude piece of armour.

The game was great fun.  The players enjoyed it so much that they wanted to continue playing, so on the fly I had to come up with another scenario.

After a rather disastrous start to our timid steps into the new world, it became very quickly apparent that we would not survive for long without some form of protection.  Thankfully a nearby steel manufacturing plant could provide some raw materials that could be very handy.

The mission is simple, get in and gather some useful bits of steel that can be crafted into some form or crude armour plates, if we are lucky, we may even find some other useful items.

Approaching the outer wall, it looks like someone had the same idea and an abandoned cart loaded with goodies has been left outside. Hopefully, whatever scared them off is not still here.

The table is set for the three of us to fumble our way through another game of Fallout Wasteland Warfare tomorrow.

The table was set, and it was time to get some figures out and have a go at actually playing a game of Fallout Wasteland Warfare.

Both my friend, Adam, and I had read through the rules and watched plenty of YouTube videos in preparation for our first tentative steps into the world.

We decided that we would play cooperatively as ultimately the plan is that a small group of us, Myself and my two Battletech buddies, would have a go at setting up a settlement and hopefully watch it prosper as we worked together to build a better world.  For when we needed to scratch that itch of going head-to-head, we would shift over to Fallout Factions and run opposing gangs there.

We chose to arm our small motley crew of rag-tag humans with the bare minimum, a bolt rifle here, a stun baton there, nothing too fancy as we imagined that this was a group of newly acquainted people just starting out.

We kept the AI controlled enemies to the basics of Molerats and Radroach’s, which we figured we should be able to handle without too much drama, oh how wrong were we?

Now this game really does make you feel like you are totally unprepared for all the nasties out there and it wasn’t too long before we realised just how squishy people really are in the irradiated wasteland.  Before long, our team was swamped by gribbly creatures hell-bent on sucking out our juicy innards.

Thankfully this was a learning game before settling down on how we intend to go forward and we certainly learnt a lot.   Having no armour makes things scary.  When things charge you, it is a fight for your life, none of this heroic wading through things unscathed.    Some of the larger things in the wasteland just got a lot scarier and even the smallest piece of armour became a lot more sought after.

The game does a great job of capturing the feel of the video game where at low levels you do feel vulnerable to almost everything.

After the game, we sat back and reflected on how we planned to go forward with this, and we decided that we quite liked the feeling of being completely out of our depth.  It made those small finds so much more important, the small victories so much more awesome and all of a sudden, our characters were at risk of being lost by our carelessness and that the loss of even one person would send shockwaves through our little settlement.

So yes, there will be more.  We will start up a little group, head into the wasteland, and see where our adventures take us.  I know one thing for sure, I will enjoy doing more terrain for this at the very least.

Fallout 4 is probably one of my all-time favourite games and is the reason I bought a PS4 all those years ago.  This month we finally see the world of Fallout hit the big screen, so it seems like as good a time as any to get to grips with fallout on the tabletop.

A couple of mates are looking at diving into Fallout Factions, and I have been collecting Fallout Wasteland Warfare for a little while now so it’s probably about time I did something with the models I’ve gathered.

This project, hopefully, will encompass a variety of Fallouty goodness.

To start with I guess we should slap some terrain down, pick up some dice and try and learn the basics.

The terrain here is a mixture of scratch built, plastic bits, resin and filament-printed bits all stirred together to hopefully try to create something that I can build upon over the lifetime of this project.

I plan to use a combination of different techniques and approaches with this stuff to try and break away from the feeling that everything has all come from the same mould.

So, the table is set for our first few steps into a brave new world.