Merry Christmas!

Taking a few minutes while the turkey is resting to get a post out. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas! In this festive season please don't lick any poles!

 

I have several presents under the tree that I will post later, but the one takeaway this year, is that all the gaming items received are either already painted or do not need painting! How rare is that!

Also I've been working away on an upcoming Zombicide club campaign. Here is a sneak peak being that this is a time for giving....

 

I got the wall files from Perrochon on Thingeverse & have a bunch printed out. Now working on colour themes that I can paint up more walls as needed when the campaign progresses. I have lots of graffiti decal sets from various companies. The last building for the first scenario is currently on the paint table & while all the base colours are done, & is now waiting for the decalling to occur. 

I have the vehicles ready (still clean as the Zompocalypse is just beginning), & am now getting some dumpsters together. Will think about adding the garbage bins I am seeing printed too...if I have enough! 

OK my mouth is watering, I need to eat! Best wishes all! 

Stargrave - Q37 The Medical Lab

Sunday saw us begin our Q37 scenarios in our current campaign. It was also the first run through for the ship encounters using Bold Endeavor. Even though there was no plan to have the Unwanted Company arrivals, 3 of us rolled events that added the pirates chasing us to the next scenario. We had 5 players in this game!

To continue the narrative of this current campaign I had to add additional text to the scenario.

 Scenario 3 - The Medical Lab

Having jumped away from the planet that was being invaded by the pirates, your comms picks up a garbled message. Unable to decipher the words, you were able to get a location. Checking against your star charts, the location appears to show empty space....there is nothing there. Guessing it may be a disabled ship, you figure this may offer a lucrative opportunity & set course.

Upon arrival, you find an uncharted planetoid. The signal is being emitted by an orbiting beacon. Getting a visual of the beacon shows that its been heavily damaged by weapons fire, which explains the garbled transmissions. You then turn your attention to the planet, where a surface scan reveals a large station. Hailing the station is met with silence. Your curiosity piqued you land your ship at one of the landing pads, though no-one greets you.

Despite your misgivings, your exploration thus far has proved quiet. Everything seems strangely normal, theres just noone here. It appears as if everyone just got up & left, leaving everything as it was. Yet there is something ominous, an unhealthy smell is in the air, something worse than the usual staleness of recycled oxygen.

Having passed through the outer habitat sections, your draw closer to the centre of the station. You are starting to get a few hits on your sensors. It could be interference from the station itself, potentially other crews or maybe you've finally found the residents.

Setup - In the center is a large room containing 16 Stasis Pods situated around the outer edges. The middle of the room contains various medical/science stations & a couple of computer consoles which are still operating. The remainder of the board contains walls sectioning off & contain various crates & containers. The central loot token is placed in the centre of the table.

 After players determine their starting location, each deploys 2 loot tokens (1 data / 1 physical) using the normal rules, excepting that 1 of the tokens must be placed beside a stasis pod. Players will then deploy 2 small & 1 large salvage token anywhere on the table.

Special Rules 

At the end of each turn, starting with the player that lost initiative, each player has the option to select a stasis pod & roll a d20. On a 13+, the player deploys a plague zombie within 2" of the pod. The pod then sinks into the floor after discharging its occupant. The zombie may be placed into combat with anyone that is within the 2" area.

The Reanimation rules are in effect

All doors are sealed & will need to be hacked or picked to open them (TN14)

The windows are treated as force walls & require a natural 19-20 to shatter.

Whenever a Loot token is unlocked, roll a D20. On a 10+  a plague zombie enters at 2 random entry locations.

 Loot & XP 

Roll for loot as normal after this scenario 

+10 xp if Captain is ever in combat with a plague zombie

+10 xp if First Mate is ever in combat with a plague zombie

+10 xp if a member of the crew is reduced to 0 health

+5 xp for each door unlocked.

 

Aroo-Gah's crew makes for the first doot after dropping a force wall over the unneeded access.

With the first door down, the crew moves to the second.

Oddly enough, 2 of the windows were shattered with the first attempts to shoo them.

Of course this was made much tougher with the addition of the Unwanted arrivals of pirates. It seemed that most arrived behind the Empire Crew

Scott's crew is tied down with Pirate Shock Troopers...

Four crews have entered the main chamber, with zombies running about

Aroogah unlocks an objective while covered by smoke

As my crew begins to withdraw, more Pirate Shock Troopers block the path

Scott's Captain is surrounded by members of Craig's crew.

We had quite a few fall to the zombies, pirates included, which were annoying as they too became reanimated. I believe all the crews made it away with loot, though many had  fewer crewmen for the effort....though I am sure they will return...as Zombies!

Stargrave - Plague Zombies

As we launch the Q37 scenarios in the next part of our campaign I needed to get a bunch of Plague Zombies painted up.

Luckily I have a pile of the Mantic plastic sprues of them. These are multi-part & can be built in various ways.

 

Which I did without thinking too much. I ended up gluing 2 helmets on as if they were 0 environment ones. Realizing it after the fact....well I went with it & am happy with how they turned out.

 

This is the first batch of what I am sure will be more as we progress in the campaign. These were speed painted. I went with grey outfits to represent station security types.

 

It would seem that while trying to control some of the infected, they too became infected. Speaking of the other infected, I was hoping to find generic civilians/scientist/doctor plague zombies, but my current searches have yielded little. Maybe some of you 3d modellers who may visit can run with this! This led me to my Zombicide figures where I painted up the inmates from Prison Outbreak.

They will be good generic plague zombies while I continue my search! The game is this Sunday, so looking forward to the insanity!

 

 

Stargrave - Salvage Tokens

 As we are about to begin using the Bold Endeavor & as I was reading through the Ship Maintenance, it got me thinking about creating some Salvage tokens, that crews could grab whilst on their adventures.

I made 2 sizes, small & large using scrap sprue & some leftover bits of PLA to represent cables.

Painted them up with a bit of weathering, you know what they say about one mans trash...

How these will work is that they will be randomly placed by the crews just like the data & physical loot. A crewman can then grab them by spending an action to pick them up. They will suffer the penalties of a heavy item & be slowed to half movement.

Now you say what about the big one? Well, that will require 2 crewmen to carry.

So, after lugging these 'spare scrap parts' back to the ship, how do they work?

They can be stored in the cargo hold. Small tokens will add 10 structural points if the engineer successfully makes his TN10 roll. Large tokens will add 20 structural points. These can be used after determining the result & seeing where the new structural total falls with regards to the Critical Thresholds. Players may then freely add the extra structure points.

I will be adding these to our next game (Sunday) to see how they are received by the gang. As we all are using well used (almost derelict) craft our ships only have 500 structure points to begin. This little project had reduced more sprue ending up in the trash & I have some ideas of some other piles & containers with scrap to use.

Zombicide - Prison Outbreak Cons

Normally I would be painting my Zombicide figures for Zomtober, however as I have a game coming up (which is not Zombicide), I needed a bunch of figures to represent plague zombies. As to which game that is, check out my previous post.

Scouring the web for 3d print files...they were not as prevalant as I thought. So I turned to Prison Outbreak! And thus my Zombicide post was born.

 

These figures will perfectly fit the bill of transformed people into ravening, always hungry, zombies.

I speed painted them & was quite happy with the Army Painter Fire Giant Orange that I used for their coveralls.

 

 There did seem to be a lot of undressing females in the set, was there something that caused them to overheat? 

 

So that leaves the Prison guards which will be painted up at a later date. Thanks for visiting!

Stargrave - Cryo / Stasis Chambers

With our current Stargrave Campaign now moving towards the Q37 scenarios, I needed to get a bunch of Cryo / Stasis chambers painted up.

 

So it was off to Thingeverse to see what was available. I ended up getting the files from RogueVector. I printed 16 in total.

 

Printed on my FDM printer, these came out nicely. Once painted, I was puttering around with various techniques on the glass, trying for some crystalization effects, but for most ended up with more of a fogging effect at the edges.

 

Quite happy with how they have turned out, however I am sure when we see what pops out of them, they will be cursed! I've also been thinking about more signage embellishments, but I am getting into crunch time to get the next things needed for the game painted up!

 Thanks for visiting. 

EWG - Xenos Rampant.

 On Tuesday, Bruce was back with another game of Xenos Rampant. This was set for 6 players, however only 5 showed, so we ended up with 3 on 2.

 Richard, Bryan & I had the force attempting to get our convoy vehicles off the far end of the table while Bruce & Chen played the defending force.

We had Bryan use his force to tie down & occupy Chen on the one flank, while Richard & I massed on the right.

We moved most of our vehicles up into the rough, as we were hover craft, it didn't slow us at all.

One of Bruce's forces holds the built up area.

We were able to smash through Bruce's force, he was sitting with just the remnants of his infantry droids. Thus they conceded. In hindsight, having the 3rd player would have likely made for a much heavier slugfest. 

Thanks for bringing it out & running it Bruce!
 

Stargrave - The Rescue

Sunday we played our 2nd game of Stargrave. I used the basis of The Botched Deal scenario to create the one below. I also took some 'ideas' from Core space in how the civilians act.

The Scenario:

 The Rescue! - Having escaped the Station, you make for the planet surface, hoping to outfit your crew & then make a break before the pirates arrive. You send some of your crew with the First Mate into town to buy some gear, while you stay behind with the remainder to get the ship ready for a jump.

  Your crewmen return, informing you, that there are wanted posters of you & your first mate plastered everywhere! It seems your actions on the station have preceeded you. Your facing charges of murder, theft & general unpleasantness from the evacuation from the station.

  Your first mate has failed to return & his tracker shows his location within the town. He must have been captured.

  The plan now is simple. Get in, Free your Mate & get back to the ship as quickly as possible.

Special Rules:

1) Once the start location are chosen, another player takes your first mate & places him in a building 30" from your start location. A Pirate Trooper is placed with him as his guard.

2) The doors & hatches of the buildings are locked (TN12) & must be picked to open from the outside.

3) Any ranged combat within a building will provide a +1 Cover to the defender.

4) The Townsfolk are anxious & agitated with the likely arrival of the pirate forces. There are 1d0 + Player # currently walking about the streets. If when rolling for initiative a player rolls 1-4, an additional town person emerges from a building, place him outside any door. Townsfolk are treated as ruffians for skills.

5)  At the start of the creature phase roll a d6 for each townsperson to see what they do.

    1 - Civilain is revealed as a bounty hunter who is after the nearest crewman in LOS.

    2 - Spends both actions moving in a random direction.

    3 - Makes a ranged attack at nearest crewan in range & LOS, then moves into cover from the target. If noone in range, perform random move as above.

    4 - Moves towards the nearest crewman in LOS. If he contacts the crewman, he offers to join the crew. If no crewman in LOS, move randomly. If they join your crew & survive, they become a Recruit if kept.

    5 - Move into cover from nearest crewman in LOS.

    6 - Moves towards nearest unengaged crewwan in LOS. If they contact the crewman they provide them a Side Hustle card, which can be used in any future scenario.

  If a townsperson is engaged in combat, they will act like regular creatures. This will also occur with engaging any pirates that arrive. Any other townspeople who observe the combat will also engage the attackers.

6)  Unwanted Attention -  The pirates have followed the engine trails to the surface & have sent scout ships to investgate. Roll 1d20+Player # each turn to determine what arrives at a random location.

 

Loot & XP:

Players roll for Loot as normal

Gain xp as normal

+30 xp if first mate rescued. 

We had 5 crews trying to rescue their First Mates.

The first member of 'The Pack' arrive in town

Scott & I got into a major gun battle, spending the first few turns taking one anothers crew out.

While we were busy exchanging gunfire the smoke could be seen popping on the other side of town.

The couryard in the central building (where there were 3 first mates being held) was getting busy with lots of civilians.

The Pirates make their appearance & begin their hunt for targets & loot!

My Chiseller makes it to the roof above where my fist mate is held & is swarmed by Craig's crew. Surprisingly he survived & forced Craig to leave.

A bit of the action at the far end of town with Kurts & Craigs forces engaging one another while more pirates were arriving.

 The game was quite hectic, players began using the arriving civilians to temporarily deal with pirate arrivals. The pirates did capture 2 of the loot tokens. Thanks to everyone who played & now we depart this planet where we are no longer welcome....what awaits us now? 

We will begin using the latest supplement ship rules, however our rickity ships will all be starting with 500 structure points. Wish us luck!