One Dice Supers - First Game

    From left, Tom, Allen, and Keith look over the action taking place at our sprawling superhero HQ

Our Sunday evening gaming group has been going steady since the early 1980s. At least four of us -- Allen, Joel, Tom, and myself -- were "charter members" of the unofficial group. So, that means we have been gaming together for four decades! The other day Allen and Tom were reminiscing about how we got our start. Our number one game was Champions superhero roleplaying. Even back then, it was more of a skirmish than RPG, but we played it for a number of years virtually every Sunday. We mixed in board games regularly, too, but Champions was our mainstay.

    Slightly banged up superheros are attended to by the medical staff of the headquarters

Allen told Tom (reportedly - I wasn't present for the conversation) that he'd love to drag out all the old heroes for another game. Tom was intrigued, and began researching a set of rules to play it in  a series of interconnected skirmishes ("...since role playing is forbidden..." he added). That comment was directed at me, likely, as I have no interest in role playing, per se. When anyone has brought up up playing D&D or similar in the last decade or so, I have demurred. Recently, in response to a discussion on the Lead Adventure Forum, I came to the realization that even back then our role playing was really skirmish gaming. The "taking on the role of" was limited. A few players indulged in making speeches (I know I loved my superhero Whaleshark's comic book-like rants at the villains), but for the most part we were rolling dice and fighting on a tabletop.

    The bad guys break in to our HQ and knock our elderly security guard unconscious

Perhaps Tom realized this, as well, and took Allen's suggestion and ran with it. He created a world forty years later when our superheros are old, slowing down, and hoping to retire. However, the world has gone crazy, and is channeling a scene from the graphic novel, "The Watchmen." The public is becoming more and more anti-masked vigilante. Crowds, demonstrations, and government rules are attacking those trying to defend society from crime. In fact, that was how Tom's opening scenario begins. A crowd has gathered outside the hero's seldom-used headquarters, and is threatening to break in. "Off camera," a group of seven of us respond. The heroes are attacked by a group of super powered anti-heroes, drive them off, but sustain wounds and retreat to our medical facility.

That is where Tom's scenario begins. Well, actually it began a few weeks ago when Tom sent us the rules he'd chosen, One Dice Supers, and instructed us to create a pair of characters. Although all rolls are taken care of with the roll of one six-sided die, don't let that convince you the game (or character creation) is simplistic. There are four stats, which are used to derive other stats, and then you add in "Gifts," "Embellishments," "Flaws," and more. All of us were suitable baffled on what to do and how to do it, but Tom did his best to talk us through the process.

    Captain Steel wades into the goons invading our HQ, protected by his high tech armor and shield

My hero is one I created when I was playtesting a superhero variant of my Mean Streets gang warfare game. He's called Captain Steel, and is essentially a strong, agile man in high tech police riot gear. Well, was...in Tom's world we are past our prime and are slowing down. Instead of gaining experience, we will lose skills and strength over the course of the campaign. It's a very intriguing idea. He said he was inspired by the Wolverine movie where Logan is losing his powers and slowly dying. Not to be too depressing, we were also instructed to create a "young apprentice", who will be introduced as we progress through our games.

The game begins with us gathered in our medical facility in our HQ, when we receive a mysterious hologram message from someone calling himself "V for Vendetta." The hooded man is trying to rally us to fight back against what is happening in society. As his message ends, our alarm system goes off and the anti-hero crowd, spearheaded by the Metropolitan Anti-hero Guardians Alliance (MAGA), breaks into our building and knocks our elderly security guard, Stanislaw Lee, unconscious. We immediately begin heading through the doors and rooms to rush to his aid and stave off the crowd's invasion.

    Keith's hero, Badger (at left) busts into a room full of goons, trying to overwhelm them with his voice

Keith's character, Badger, is the first to arrive as he calculated his movement wrong (lots of calculating and deriving new statistics from previously-generated statistics in One Dice Supers). He does his best "presence attack" to try to scare the crowd off. They back off appreciatively, but then immediately go on the attack the next turn. The figure Keith was using wields an armed tipped with a concrete saw, and immediately splatters two of the crowd. Hmm...with heroes like this, maybe I see why we have a public image problem! Meanwhile, the rest of the red-hatted crowd spills past him into the hallway. 

    Three gun-armed goons fall back into the lobby, ready to ambush Badger when he follows them

They are met by a pell-mell rush of superheros charged up and ready to take out some bad guys. With each blow, MAGA minions go flying unconscious, hopefully, or maybe worse. Meanwhile, Badger is still in the room with the more powerful, gun-armed goons. He takes a couple wounds. Hearing his shouts, Captain Steel heroically busts through the door to his aid. He's immediately fired upon and shocked to see some of their attacks get through his high tech body armor and titanium shield. This was alarming, but don't fear. The rules have a recourse for us in "Stunts." Each hero is granted six stunt points to use throughout each game to affect rolls, attacks, defense, etc.

Both Keith and I had to use some of those points to minimize the damage that Badger and Captain Steel were taking, respectively. Eventually, though, we beat down the goons enough that they surrender. Andy's superhero, named "Lift" for his telekinetic powers, uses his telepathy to probe why the crowd was here. Meanwhile, Badger, brandishing his bloody saw, menaces the prisoners into telling them essentially the same thing. They were paid well (they say they don't know by who) to come here, riot, and attack our facility.

    Captain Steel, at right, heroically wades through the crowd of goons to help his teammate Badger

The rest of the group discovers the same thing when they interrogate two attackers in another room. They appeared to be super villains, but had actually stolen and reactivated two powered costumes that were displayed in the museum that is our HQ. I guess we have to do a better job of securing the dangerous weapons in our facility! With all the bad guys in custody or down, the mission was declared over. Tom admitted it was meant to be an easy one to teach us how the system works. Everything is indeed predicated on the roll of a single six-sided die. To hit, you add your ability in question to your skill to the roll of a d6. If you exceed your opponent's Defense, you add in any damage bonuses from your weapon. Subtract the target Defense from that new total number and you have the amount of Health the target loses. Essentially, the roll to hit is combined with the roll to damage in these rules.

For example, Captain Steel adds his Strength of 3 and his skill in his composite material billy club of 2 to a roll of, say, "4". If this "9" is greater than the target's defense, they take hits on their Health. By the way, Captain Steel has a Defense of 9, but also has an Armor of 3, which is subtracted from any hits that exceed the Defense. He also has 11 Health, to give you an idea of how much pounding a superhero can take. Alarmingly, the shotguns the MAGA goons were shooting at him added five hits if their attack roll succeeded. One Dice Supers will likely see players carefully husbanding their Stunts points to survive to the end of the mission (expending one stunt point, for example, causes an attack to automatically miss).

    Big turnout for our last Sunday gaming session of the year, with Anthony & Andy joining us

We had a lot of fun bantering about, razzing each other about what our heroes were doing (or NOT doing). In particular, I razzed Keith about his rather bloodthirsty choice of weapons, and Joel's robotic character on his slowness to the battle. I'm looking forward to seeing the stories that Tom creates. He is a very experienced game master, and has been playing role playing games for many of the decades with other groups. So, he has skill at weaving a compelling tale.

This will likely be my next to last blog post of the year. I will likely do a Year in Review next. I doubt I will get either the scatter terrain I am working on or the batch of miniatures done before Jan. 1.

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 227
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 254 

Sci-Fi Truck & Radar Array (3D Printed)

    Two 3D-printed pieces of scatter terrain -- a Sci-Fi truck and an "Arcane Energy Collector"

I have to confess that I am not incredibly happy with how these two turned out. Am I so displeased that I will repaint them? Definitely not! Will I use them in my Sci-Fi games? Absolutely. I am just sitting back and Monday morning quarterbacking my choice of colors and decisions on painting up these 3D-printed items from Diabolical Terrain and RRB Minis & More.

    Closeup of the models and my attempt to make "glowing" panels with Turquoise & White metallic

The Arcane Energy Collector I picked up as part of my purchases from Rich Brown of RRB Minis & More at ATC 2024. It comes in two pieces, if I remember correctly, and assembles easily. Mine was printed in a black-colored material, which is actually something I would like to see more of in miniatures terrain and scatter. I know it makes it harder to see the details when you're shopping, but having a "pre-printed" black prime could come in handy if you missed a spot in your priming or if there is a scratch. The black will be less visible and blend in. I did my usual spray acrylic black primer followed by a 50/50 mix of black paint and water over it. I did have to be careful in the second step to make sure the holes in the hexagon platform stayed open and weren't sealed over by paint.

    This closeup shows the two-tone Gunmetal Gray & Pewter metallics on the collector's platform

I painted the dish or platform part first, beginning with gun metal gray and doing a Pewter highlight only on the top part. I left the underneath the darker metallic color to represent it being in shadow. I decided to go with my dark blue metallic for the main body, with "glowing" Turquoise panels. The Turquoise does not show up that well, one of my disappointments. I even painted a strip of metallic white in the center of the Turquoise, hoping that would aid the "glow." The trim of the piece were my biggest gripe about how this turned out. The 14K Gold Metallic I chose is not "coppery" enough to look industrial, in my opinion. I also don't like how the blue and gold combo turned out. I should have used my Iron Wind Metals Copper metallic paint, which I do think looks more industrial. 

    No - it is NOT Tesla's next truck! Instead, it is a futuristic take on a truck for my Sci-Fi games

I bought the Sci-Fi truck from Ron Weaver of Diabolical Terrain at ATC 2024, as well. It's a nice little model - nothing fancy, but definitely futuristic looking. It is called a "Pickup Runabout" from their Lunar Kolony range. It costs just $6 printed in 32mm. I decided to go with Ancient Bronze as its body color, with fixtures and accents in Gunmetal Gray. I was excited that it had so many windows because I wanted to finally trying out my bottle of Full Spectrum color shift paint. From the title, and the sticker on the bottle cap, I assumed it produce a glittery mirror-like surface. What a disappointment! It produced a black surface with a few tiny specks of glitter here and there. It looked terrible. So, I decided to just paint the window black and turn them glossy at the end. Once again, somewhat of a disappointment -- not because of the model, but because of paint choices.

    A final look at the Arcane Energy Collector and the Runabout Pickup Sci-Fi scatter pieces

The models themselves were nice and inexpensive, so I definitely recommend them to others looking for scatter for their Sci-Fi games. Maybe use my examples as how NOT to paint them...ha, ha! What's up next? Well, I am only working on one scatter terrain piece. It is Miniature Building Authority's "Refugee Car," comically piled high with everything but the kitchen sink. There's a LOT of detail to paint on it, so it will take awhile. I've also begun another group of four apocalypse survivors or modern figures. These will likely be the final things I finish in 2024. Which means I also need to do a retrospective post, too, looking back on the year in modeling and gaming. Look for that, too!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 227
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 254 

My Hurried Week of Dark Age Town Additions

    Much to my amazement, I got all of this prepped and ready for the tabletop in one week!

Knowing that I was going to be running my playtest of my Viking Town Raid using Sellswords & Spellslingers this past Sunday, I spent the week leading up to it hurriedly getting some more stuff ready. I wasn't 100% sure I actually needed any of it, but figured it would be nice to have them. I readied two Dark Age buildings for the table, painted up nine more armed peasants, added four highland cattle, two oxen, and a burning fire pit with flickering LED light. 

    This Dark Age hut by Tim Peaslee needed only a minor fix to become part of my Anglo-Saxon town

Amazingly, I ended up getting all of it finished, which honestly surprised me. When I first set up the raid's terrain on my hexagonal gaming mat, I felt it could use a few more buildings. I glanced through my unpainted terrain list that I keep in the Notes section of my phone and saw a couple items I likely could get finished in time. One was a gift from master terrain maker and friend Tim Peaslee. A year or so ago, he had handed me a Dark Age/Medieval looking home that he'd created out of insulation foam and wood. He does the thatch, I believe, by running a wire brush through the insulation foam to give the pattern. Tim then paints the thatch and you would never know it was originally pink foam -- except the one he'd given me you could barely see glimmerings of the pink beneath the thatch color. Being anal, I wanted to get rid of that before I used the building, of course! So, I watered down Walnut brown acrylic paint by about a third and brushed it on thickly. It soaked through, covering any pink. A tan dry brush brought the thatch highlights back, and voila -- one more building was ready for the tabletop!

    My "Made in China" rustic stable needed only a black wash and flocking to be ready, as well

The next building is a rustic-looking stable that originally came from Michaels or similar craft store. I bought this resin piece years ago at a flea market and it still has the "Made in China" sticker on the bottom! It had been obviously mass produced in China, but needed only a little more work. I did a black vehicle wash on the wooden timbers and wattle walls. Next, I painted the green base with my usual earth brown that I use for bases. I flocked it with fine brown ballast and then Woodland Scenics Blended Earth flocking. A second building was ready for the table!

    The Reaper Bones oxen in their stable, happy to be finally painted up and part of a game!

Now, I needed more animals for the stable, right? The stable is rather large, scale-wise, and my current collection of 28mm animals would look diminutive inside of it. Luckily, already based but not painted up, were two large Reaper Bones oxen. I primed them with gesso white, even though I know you supposedly don't need to prime Reaper Bones figs. They got a quick paint job as they were the last things I was working on. I did a base coat of acrylic Bambi Brown and dry brushed them Wild Rice. Next, I painted the thatch of hair on their shoulders Autumn Brown, their horns ivory, and their eye sockets, nostrils, and mouth black. A brown vehicle wash over them and they look very passable for a quick, two-day (?) paint job!

    Four 28mm Gripping Beast (I believe) highland cattle wondering what all the noise of the raid is...

Also already epoxied onto bases were a family of four 28mm highland cattle from Gripping Beast. I had put one adult and one calf on each round base back when I was basing them up as objective markers for Saga (that never got painted). They also received a gesso primer, then a "Georgia Clay" acrylic color base coat. I did a tan dry brush, and picked out their eye sockets, and facial features in black. I did their horns ivory, as well. Once they were dry, I did a brown wash on them, as well. At first, I wasn't too happy with how they looked. Now that they are all flocked and based up, I'm much happier. More animals were in place for my Viking players to steal!

    Three of the 28mm peasants I added "just in case" cluster near the Bad Goblin Games firepit

You have also likely noticed, by this point, the flickering fire pit. This is one of the three 3-D printed LED fires that I bought at Historicon from Bad Goblin Games. This one was the most "Medieval" of the three, so I snatched it out from its brethren to add to the atmosphere of the tabletop. The piece comes with the LED light and the watch battery you slide into the slot ready-made for it. The fire pit itself comes in four pieces. There is the cylindrical, stone base, which I painted black with shades of dry-brushed grays. The orange plastic flames and wood pieces are the second piece. I painted the pieces of wood rather than leave them brown, but left the flames, "as is." I have heard some add a reddish wash over the orange flames. Maybe I will try that on the dumpster and garbage can fire from Bad Goblin Games that I still have to paint? There is also a bronze colored ring that goes atop the pit, which I just gave a clear gloss.  Finally, if you want the fire to be "out," they include a circular disc of "ashes," which I once again did in black and grays. I really like these flickering LED scatter pieces. They are incredibly affordable -- just $5 or less. Bad Goblin will be at Siege of Augusta this January, and I will be sore tempted to pick up more of their incredible terrain!!  

    Next batch of three peasants take their turn faithfully defending the oxen, who watch with interest

Last but not least, I spent most of the week working on nine more 28mm peasants I can use for Dark Age or Medieval games -- especially the raid! Some of them are Ancient Germans from Foundry, while others are Scots/Irish (or Welsh, I forget...) from Old Glory. I needed to put weapons in the hands of some of them, so used some of my spare axes or short swords from my unpainted weapons stash. Other than that, I wanted these to look as poor and simple as possible. So, no patterns or checks or stripes or anything, even though I knew it would make them look nicer. Also, I was in a hurry...ha, ha! I used earth tones -- tans, browns, grays, and some grayish greens or blues. I think they turned out pretty good for a quickie rush job. Did I end up needing them for the game to reinforce the peasants I already had? Well, not really! But hey -- I was prepared! 

    The final group of three Anglo-Saxon peasants ready to heroically chase off the Viking raiders

What's next? I have a couple Sci-Fi pieces of scatter on the paint desk right now. No miniatures, as I'm taking a breath after this hurried week of painting! After that, I am thinking of working on some of the MDF scatter that I bought from Dad's Armies at Advance the Colors...

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 227
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 254 

Viking Town Raid With Sellswords & Spellslingers

    Anglo-Saxon defenders rally to try to fight off fierce Viking raiders who have come to loot their town

With my playtest of the Viking Town Raid using Saga not being a smashing success, I veered from armies to the other extreme. I would give each player command of three Viking raiders and they would be trying to gather the most loot, captives, and animals to win. It would be a cooperative game using Ganesha Games' Sellswords & Spellslingers fantasy miniatures rules, but with only one winning Viking player. Under these rules, the foes (Anglo-Saxon townspeople and defending soldiers) are controlled by the AI and a deck of cards.

    A good view of the Anglo-Saxon town as Allen, Mike W, and Joel laugh about how the raid is going

So, instead of commanding four units, my players were down to just three guys each. I had read reviews of SS & SS rules and was intrigued. I especially like how it neatly encapsulated the actions of enemies in its activation rolls and card deck system. When it is a player's turn, they select one of their characters and choose to roll for either one, two, or three potential actions. Rolls of "8" or higher on a 20-sided die are successful, 7 and below failures. For each failure, a card is drawn from the event deck. This could activate either a single foe, a horde of them, or even every foe on the board. It can also bring on reinforcements for the bad guys, have an enemy pop out of ambush, or a myriad of other events. 

    Joel's leader, Olaf the Wise, is under attack by a Saxon axeman while his companions rush to his aid

People are encouraged to tailor the event deck to their scenario. For example, whenever the "Trap" card was drawn, I ruled that a village dog would spring out and charge the Viking character who failed their roll. Another neat mechanic is that when a player character (PC) attacks a foe, or an event card determines one attacks the PC, only one die is rolled. The player rolls and if he equals or exceeds the "Danger Level" of the foe, they inflict damage on it (usually killing it -- except for tougher foes). If the player rolls less, they are struck by the foe and possibly take damage if they fail any armor or shield rolls.

    I put our host, Mike W in the blue shirt, in charge of drawing the event cards and reading the results

Designed as a cooperative or solo game, SS & SS essentially "runs itself." I stood by as GM and directed the action for our first game, but I can easily see in the future we can run it as fully cooperative and I can play, as well. Not for the Viking raid, of course, but for our own skirmishes (which, I am sure you are SHOCKED to learn I have an idea for...!). The game flowed easily with the players understanding the sequence and system by the second turn. I could step away for a bathroom break or refill my beer and come back to find the action continuing unabated.

    Tostig, at right, engages an Anglo-Saxon archer while his leader Krumm takes a breather

I used my new hexagon game mat and had each of my five players select an edge to start with their three Viking raiders. In the center of the board was my scratch-built stone church (with flickering LED lights inside tonight!). Guarding the front were the Anglo-Saxon captain in charge of the town defenses and his hearthguard. Their numbers would swell by one whenever the "Scenario Event" or "Mana Flux" cards were drawn. On subsequent runnings of this scenario, I will probably reduce that down to just one of those two cards. By the end of the game, there were far too many hearthguards for the Vikings to risk trying to break through.

    Viking chief Halfdan, left, and his swordsman Fafnir fight off a horde of Anglo-Saxon fyrd

In fact, I will likely reduce the number of foes that begin on the table at the start of the scenario, too. Only two buildings were entered, and only the crew of Mike W's Hakon the Skald took any captives. No one bothered to snag any of the town animals in their pens, either. I will likely make both captives and animals worth more loot in future games to encourage such raider-like behavior! As it was, most of the "silver pieces" worth of loot was taken from the bodies of the slain defenders. 

    Each of the "blood spots" marks where a defender was slain by the deadly Yvgni and his Viking crew

Still, all the players knew it was a playtest and understood their goal. Even if they didn't reach the church, they had fun slaughtering townsfolk and avoiding their counter-attacks. The deadliest defenders were the "Wandering Monsters" of a mounted Anglo-Saxon hearthguard who would show up on the table edge and charge into the closest raider. The town dogs performed particularly badly, though, being driven off without causing any hits in all but one occasion. The most spirited defender was a town boy who, after watching his mom and older sister being knocked unconscious by a Viking, fought off that same Viking for several rounds before finally being subdued. 

    Ulfgar the archer is ridden down by an angry mounted hearthguard, while Tostig tries to aid him

Still, the Anglo-Saxons inflicted some losses. Mike S, despite it being his birthday, received the unhappy present of terrible combat die rolls. Two of his three Vikings were knocked out of action by the defenders. Allen lost one, as well, and probably had the worst luck at activation rolls of any. Otherwise, all forces were able to withdraw off-table when we called the game for time. Mike W barely edge out Tom 36-35 victory points as we "kibbitzed" what would happen in the next turn and counted up the points. Allen scored 31, Joel 25, and birthday boy brought up the rear with only 14 points. Hard luck for Mike S two weeks in a row!

    Mike S, left, smiles in the early going of the game, not knowing the ill luck that awaits him in town!

Unlike last game, I am calling the Viking Town Raid using SS & SS a success. It will likely be my game that I run at conventions in 2025 -- well, at least for the first half of the year. In fact, I plan on giving the game a "Hollywood" hook and purchasing figures for "Vikings" stars Ragnar Lothbrok, his wife Lagertha, and their sons and painting them up for my convention games. I asked my players what they thought of the scenario and rules and their comments were very positive and encouraging. The only suggestions were on how to balance the scenario out a bit more. So, I would say look for more semi-historical skirmishes in 2025 using SS &SS!

    Young Viking chieftain Krumm falls to a horde of defenders just as he was in sight of the church!

What's next? Well, I took the week to hurriedly bring two more buildings into play, nine town defenders, and six farm animals. Amazingly, they were done in time and used in the game. So, it will be just a matter of taking pictures and writing up the blog post to show you those. Looks for that in the next couple days!

    It is dawn and a pit fire burns in front of the church before word of the Viking raid awakes the town

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 227
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 254 

    The monks are awake, though, and singing praises in the church by the flickering candlelight

    An overhead look at the raid's progress towards the end of the game

Four More Survivors (Replacements?) for Zombie RV

    4 more survivors for my Zombie RV games because...well, other ones "got 'et'!" Ha, ha

I decided that it would be a good idea to paint up the occasional survivor for my Zombie RV games just in case we continue to lose people. A couple weeks ago, I dug through my unpainted lead and picked out a eight armed with melee weapons or various firearms. This is the first of those eight. A batch of four replacements - two with pistols, two with melee weapons.

Once again, these 28mm miniatures are from various manufacturers. The tall guy holding two pistols is a Foundry figure from their Street Violence line in the "Scabies Punks" set. The two bald guys are from Battle Valor Games. The policemen was purchased in a flea market, so I honestly don't know what line he comes from. He's very tall, and the slotta base (ugh - I hate those things!) doesn't help with him looming over the other figures!

    My favorite of the batch from Foundry's 'Street Violence' range -- Mick, armed with two pistols

My favorite is the Foundry fig. His musculature really popped with the dark flesh wash I do in the beginning and the brown wash that I do at the end. The leather harness holding his magazines looks great, but my favorite part of how I decided to paint his pants. I went with black pants and metallic decoration on them. The stripe down the leg I painted in an almost florescent green to go with his punk rocker red mohawk and droopy mustache. I was tempted to do some tattoos on him, too, but honestly completely forgot about it! Still, he stands out from the other four already, so I guess he didn't really need the tats!

    Because my friend Keith wanted it, here's a survivor named 'Moe' -- from Battle Valor Games

The two bald guys are very similar figs, just armed with different weapons. Interestingly, they came form different packs. One is from Pulp 06A Civilian/Survivors and the other from Pulp 05A Civilians/Survivors on Battle Valor Games' website. So, to differentiate them more I painted one up black and the other white. I tried to use ordinary looking clothes as these are supposed to be survivors of the zombie apocalypse, not uniformed troops. In Zombie RV, replacements for your gang typically come with just a melee weapon. I wanted to make sure I had a couple of these guys ready in case, you know, the zombies get hungry! Once again, I thought about giving them logo wear or some sort of writing or decoration on their jackets. I ended up deciding not to do it as I couldn't think of anything to inspire me. Lame excuse, I know!

    I like this pose holding the flashlight in one hand and his pistol in the other - not sure who it is from!

The police officer is a pretty cool pose. I like how he is holding the flashlight in one hand and has his pistol raised in the other. Since Rick in the Walking Dead TV series was a police officer, it makes sense that some cops would survive the initial apocalypse. I mean, they're armed and have the training, right? I painted his uniform up to match my other police officers that I painted long ago for both Pulp and my Mean Streets gang warfare rules. He painted up very quickly, considering there are basically two clothes/uniform colors on him!

    An almost identical pose to 'Moe,' C.J. from Battle Valor Games is armed with a knife instead

I decided to go ahead and name these survivors. I found out what happens when I let my players name them...ha, ha! Still, in deference to my friend Keith, I gave him a "Moe." He won't get a "Schmoe," but at least he has one of the names he chose out of thin air the first time we played Zombie RV. So, what else is on my painting desk? LOTS! I have an emergency batch of 9 Dark Age peasants that I hope to get done in time for Sunday's game. Not sure it is going to happen, though, since it is Wednesday as I type this and I have only the flesh completed. I also have some more Sci-Fi terrain and one or two other oddball things. So, stay tuned to see what gets finished next...!

    Another look at the whole crew - and the police department die cast pickup I got at the grocery store!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 227
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 239

More RRB Minis Domed Habitats

    Two of my recent Rebels figures guard their small out post of RRB Minis & More Pod Habitats

I am on a bit of a tear right now painting up Sci-Fi terrain. Two more items were finished today that I picked up this past October at Advance the Colors 2024 from my friend Rich Brown at RRB Minis & More. While shopping at his booth, I added two more "3D Printed Pod Habitats" to my collection. If you remember, RRB was also where I got the tracks for some of my modified droids. Rich prints the Pod Habitats in three sizes, and I think the two I purchased (in the foreground above) are the "Large" variant.

    You can see the three sizes of habitats here, with the 2 in front being my most recent purchases

I had three of his habitats painted up already, two small ones and one "Very Large." They paint up very quickly, I've found. I do a black prime on them, followed up by painting them one of my favorite craft metallic paints, Chocolate Brown. I did the structural support pieces in Gunmetal Gray. At that point, I pulled out my old ones to make sure I was doing them the same. Oops. I wasn't! So, I went back and redid the trim on the two small ones I'd previous painted to match the "new" scheme which I'd used on the Very Large one. Now, all five have the same look. Whew -- these things are important! Ha, ha!!

    The habitat on the left has my replacement MDF door, but I think it fits the look rather well

In addition, I used a Turquoise metallic for what I am interpreting as the windows or skylights. The door control panels I paint black and then gave glowing red,  yellow, and green buttons. Speaking of doors, I somehow lost the door on one of the habitats in between the time I bought them and went to prime them. I looked all around, but couldn't find it. I'm sure Rich had included it in the bag. It probably fell out either when I took pictures of my ATC 2024 purchases, when I stored them away, or maybe when I pulled them back out. No biggie! I was able to find a couple MDF pieces that looked good and glued them on to cover the missing door.

I really like these 3-D printed models, and will be picking up more of them next time I see Rich at a convention. I think I'll buy the "Very Large" size from now on. It is in the middle in the above pictures, and was big enough for me to add some miscellaneous Sci-Fi machinery (which I also bought from RRB!) to the the top of the door's roof. If you like them, I encourage you to pick some up from him. He's got quite the selection of retro Sci-Fi looking terrain and models like these.

Get ready for more updates coming soon. I finished four more survivors for Zombie RV just this evening. Well, I still have to put their names on their bases, as soon as I think of good names. What should I call them...? Schmoe? Trunk Monkey...? Ha, ha - nope!!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 227
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 235

FASA Starfleet Game - Federation Convoy Smashes Through Klingon Blocking Force

    Mike W, standing with Star Trek ships shirt on, explains the rules to FASA Starship Combat

Our usual host wanted to take a trip down memory lane and play some FASA Starship Combat this past Sunday evening. He and Keith had played the game extensively with counters and hex maps in their college and post-college days. Mike W even showed off his tub with two binders full of ship display sheets. However, wanting to play a miniatures version of the game, he had his son Phil print off dozens of Federation and Klingon starships with base stands and got them ready for use.

    Situation towards the end of the game after Mike S and Joel's Klingon squadron had been destroyed

Awhile back, Mike S had run one of the many iterations of the game Starfleet Battles. Mike W, a FASA fan, had not been impressed with Starfleet Battles' complexity. Excessive complexity, in his eyes (and mine, to be honest)! As a gaming group, we had also played Starfleet Battles decades ago when we were in our 20s. We'd given up on it back then because we recognized it as one of those games that rewards the veteran player too much and makes it next to impossible for a newer player to stand much of a chance (with all other points being even). Most of us simply didn't play it often enough to "get good" at it, unlike the bigger fans of it in our group, who practiced at it regularly.

Mike W claimed FASA rules were "nothing like" Starfleet Battles, and emailed us the Basic Rules. I read through them and thought they were a nice, simple, stripping down of the excessive stuff (or "chewy" as my friend Andy says). I looked forward to giving them a try as I felt that, unlike Starfleet Battles, there wasn't enough variation in weapons systems and other things to handicap the newbie and arm the grognard. That said, I still think they were exactly like a simplified version of Starfleet Battles. You still have a ship display. You still allocate your power to movement, weapons, shields, etc. You still move on a hex grid using an impulse system. When you knock down a ship's shields, you still roll for internal damages (though not 40 times like in Starfleet!). 

    The two Federation freighters, left, and their three powerful escorts - 3-D printed by Phil

Mike W had concocted a three-sided scenario with secret components, he stressed. For example, Keith and I were not to discuss our Klingon squadron's victory conditions with our fellow Klingons Mike S and Joel. Allen and Phil ran the Federation's three starships and two freighters, facing our two Klingon squadrons of three ships each. We had a pretty good idea that the Federation ships, one on one, were more powerful than ours -- especially Mike S and Joel's squadron. We just didn't realize how vast that power difference was!

Our glory-seeking commodore Keith insisted that we move up slowly (we came on board after the first turn) and plan on letting the Federation ships destroy our fellow Klingons first. To score a major victory, both our allies and the Federation had to be destroyed, and both freighters captured by us. Even scenario designer Mike W was surprised by our lackluster approach and strategy. As it was, Allen detached his Enterprise class starship to deal with the three D7 whatevers captained by Mike S and Joel. Phil moved the other two ships, one a smaller one and another Keith said was a "monster" class one, towards us.

    Klingon squadron of D-somethings controlled by Keith and I, taking our time advancing

Allen needed no help from his ally to blow up the three Klingon ships, one after another. The slight bit of damage they put on him did not stop him from crippling my ship later in the game when our squadron belatedly arrived to fight the Federation. In fact, I fired only once on the very last turn of the game. I did zero damage to Allen (his shields absorbed it all) and Allen staggered my ship nearly destroying it in one salvo of phasers and photon torpedoes. I told Keith that my ship sent a transmission to Klingon High Command accusing him of sabotaging our chances of victory and blaming him entirely for the our losses...ha, ha!

    The doomed squadron of Klingon Mini-Ds commanded by Joel and Mike S

It was an overwhelming Federation victory. Whether it was Commodore Keith's tactical fault or scenario designer Mike W's imbalanced forces, we called the game as we had no chance at victory, at that point. The rules were very easy to pick up, though. Allen, who had never played FASA before, swatted aside Mike S and Joel's starships like he was the valedictorian from Starfleet. No one made any major rules blunders that I was aware of. If I am going to play a starship combat game, I am fine with FASA. 

    Counters mark where Mike S's 2 ships have blown up as Allen's Enterprise prepares to destroy Joel

Although Mike W insists the sides were more balanced than we (especially Keith, who'd played the game extensively) contended, I think it might take some adjustments to provide a more balanced game. For example, the weapons of Phil's monster class Federation ship (I forget what name they keep saying it was) and Allen's Enterprise class outranged ours noticeably. Their energy systems were more efficient, granting four points of shield protection for one energy unit vs. our two for one.

Of course, it could also be a case of "Federation bias" among the rules designers -- much like some World War II rules like to make Germans into supermen with super tanks. Or maybe not. I honestly don't know, but do know that the two most experienced players disagreed whether it was a balanced scenario. However, who am I to talk? I set up a scenario last week that (much to my surprise) gave the Vikings almost no chance of winning...! 

    Should the Klingons have been worried the GM was wearing a shirt with Enterprises all over it??

Still, it was fun to get together, roll some dice, move some ships around on a hex mat, crack jokes and have fun. Next week, we are trying a completely different take on my Viking raid on an Anglo-Saxon town. It will be much smaller, with each player controlling three Viking raider figures. We'll be using Ganesha Games' Sellswords & Spellslingers rules. The SS & SS rules have the "bad guys" (Anglo-Saxons) controlled by A.I. and cards, with all rolls being made by the players. It should be interesting, and hopefully a lot of fun. Stay tuned to see how it went...!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 227
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 235