Sunday 29 September 2024

Old 40K building rework.

Welcome back,

Back in the mists of time, fresh with enthusiasm and inspiration from the newly released 40K Rouge Trader book, I knocked together this bit of terrain for my Orks and Marines to fight over. Digging through some old boxes I stumbled upon it and thought it would be a good candidate for a rework.


It was made from a plastic tub (possible margarine) and had a sweet tub on top. The door was painted on. In the illustration I have cut part of the original door way out using a soldering iron. In my enthusiasm I forgot to take pictures of it unmolested.

Reviewing the model I decided to keep the lip at the bottom as a kind of step and to give it more of a hatch look. Keeping the rim and lip would also help keep the strength of the tub that forms the base of the model. But the doorway would need some height adding.
Carefully the door way was cut out using a soldering iron (ALWAYS melt plastics in a well ventilated area). The door is peice of cerial packet card cut with pinking shear scissors. I was glued to a larger peice of card which locates the door in place and adds bracing to the model. The doorway is made from xps foam and the data panel is also a scrap of xps foam with card to make the screen.


The rest of the model had all manner of bits added to spruce it up. There are stick on pearls, wires, scratch built steps, medical tubing gubbins and other assorted scrap added. 





I think I may have to rework more models in my collection.

Thanks for looking

Take care out there.


Saturday 14 September 2024

Old One Eye.

Hello and Welcome back, 

"One Eye" Odgie was originally from the town of Graceville in a territory known as the Freepeoples Wilds, which lies to the North of the Last City Wastes. Upon hearing the legends about the famous Baron Freedom, far to the south of the territory, the young Odgie set out to join the Baron's battle against the raiders seeking to destroy the settlements of the Wastelands. By the time he reached the City of Hamsterdam, the city joined Freedomville and the mutants of Doom Valley to form the Freepeoples Confederacy. Odgie signed up and served as a soldier for many years, battling many raiders and other threats, losing a eye in the process.



In this time many more settlements and towns signed up to the Confederacy, enjoying the mutual protection, peace and trade opportunities the alliance offered. In recent years the Hamsterdam council had decided to form the Freepeoples Rangers (just known as the Rangers) to patrol the Wilds between the settlements and help deal with threats to the Confederacy members. As a grizzled veteran with decades of experience Odgie was asked to lead the Rangers.


Although the Rangers HQ is Hamsterdam, Odgie decided to set up a base many days march away on the western coast of the Wilds, reusing a old abandoned legendary wasteland fortress known as "Vali's Fortress". This base is used for training and is a stronghold incase there is a major invasion of the wilds, such as the one made by the Kraptoidiots corporation back in the early days of Hamsterdam and Freedomville.



The Odgie figure is a old 40K RT pirate figure I found on ebay. 

Thanks for looking, stay safe out there.




Sunday 8 September 2024

A paint experiment.

Hello and welcome back, 

Time for a bit of terrain. My recent dealve into Wreckage Station as part of my 5Parsecs campaign has gotten me motivated to get some terrain finished. 

This piece is from the mantic's Industrial sets.



The paint is an experiment. Primed grey and painted with cheap acrylic paint markers. A seppia ink wash and a couple of brown washes tone and blend it all together. The downside to using markers rather than brushes is that it is difficult to get into the recessed detail.

Thanks for looking, take care out there.

Thursday 29 August 2024

Loops Heros Campaign pt 2.

Hello and Welcome back. Its another 5 Parsecs from home campaign batrep. It is campaign turn 2. 

The crew got their pay off Loops. Loops stared at his credits balance and realises he has enough to clear the ship's debt with a few credits to spare. Whoopee, it feels good to be out of debt!

Loops assigns some crew tasks. Loops is off to see Will Twelvetree about the DCS corporation job offered in the last campaign turn. 

Lem and T Bone are sent off to explore.

Maya, Shorty and Joey are sent off to act as decoys in case any rivals are tracking them.

While out exploring Lem finds a broken battle visor laying in a skip, he is a habitual bin dipper. It looks like it might have paid off this time. The combat visor will be useful if he manages to fix it next turn.

T Bone has decided that he likes Wreckage Station and wants to stay (I will have to spend 1 story point when the crew has to leave). It makes sense with T Bone's history and he enjoyed exploring last turn that he would want to hide out someplace that doesn't exist. 

Loops meets Twelvetree in his rather small office. Not what you would expect from a corporate bigwig. 

"I am glad you came back about the job Captain Lamik, my problem here is that Wreckage station does not officially exist, so I don't have the man power, or perks like other company executives. It does limit my abilities. So I have to hire freelancers like yourself to get results. If you are successful in this mission there will be further work"

"As you are aware Wreckage is huge. The station has thousands of sectors. Each around 6 miles cubed, give or take. Everyone here is claiming sectors and subsectors like wild fire in attempts to claim artifacts and old tech. Lots of our competitors are using hired muscle, many of whom should not be here, to grab sectors. I believe you recently had a run in with some Brittannia grunts on a mission. Any idea who they are working for?"

Loops shakes his head. 

"Nevermind, maybe you should have kept one alive to quiz. ha ha ha"

"Anyhoo, I need you to check out sector 020-101 and travel across the sector. I am interested in claiming the sector if it appears unclaimed. My private speeder will drop your crew off and collect them on the other side of the sector." 

This is a move through mission (again). Being a corporate employer there is danger pay offered. There is no deployment conditions to this mission. 

The enemies are feral muscle, as I don't have any suitable figures I am going to use the Tessor (old Urban War Junkers) as those ex convicts are nearly feral. They have a aggressive deployment. The are 8 well equipped enemies (military rilfes) including a lieutenant and a specialist with a hand flamer. This could be a tough assignment as my crew will be out numbered and out gunned. Two crew members need to make it off the table for it to be a success.

The feild of battle and initial deployment.



"Tessor? Here? What the hells! There is a fair amount of countries here considering this place doesnt exist!" growls Loops. "Right these guys are feral and will charge towards us. Split up and get them in a cross fire, they out number us, so we have to whittle them down quickly". The crew split up hoping to gain an advantage tactically.  



A couple of Tessor Ferals on seeing Lem in the distance, dodge into cover and open fire with their military rifles. So much for Loops plans.



"Ooh ya flunker!" Lem swears as a shot hits him but failing to wound him. Lem is stunned and pushed back. 

T Bone gets a bead on a Feral and opens fire. 

Scoring a hit but not wounding the Feral, stunning and knocking him backwards. 


Shorty moves to a better firing position. Maya fires on the distant Ferals missing them. 

Joey runs around to flank the ferals. 


A Feral has the same idea not seeing that Joey is nearby. 

Another Feral fires on Maya. 


Scoring a hit but not wounding Maya, stunning and knocking her back. "Ooh that smarts!" she snarls as she realises she isn't wounded.

The Feral Lieutenant spots T Bone screams "DIIIIEE!!" and shoots at him. 

The bullet hits T Bone but fails to wound him but stuns and knocks him back. 


Another Feral spots Captain Loops and fires on him, causing Loops to be wounded. 



Lem yells "Loops is down". Shorty raises his needler growling "Finally, a target" and fires on a Feral.  


Dropping the Feral. "Yeah! For Loops!" Shorty yells feeling some sort of revenge for the injuring of his friend.


"Oh, where has he gone?" Maya mutters in frustration. The kid Joey is proving to be a bit of a wild card. She moves to support Joey’s flanking move. 

Joey keeps advancing and spots the Feral closing. Joey fires wildly at him, missing the Tessor goon.



Joey gets a quick reaction in the next turn. He charges the Feral and wins the close combat. Joey puff his chest out in his victory.


Unfortunately for Joey, the Ferals in the distance spot him and open fire. A shot slams into the wannbe hero causing him to be knocked back and to be stunned. 

The other Ferals advance along the centre of the feild and pour fire on T Bone causing him to be knocked back and to be stunned. T Bone is starting to think that there is a target painted on his hat.

Lem spotting the Feral Lieutenant and fires his hand laser at him, killing him. 

Tired of being battered by weapon fire T Bone retreats to a better position.

Shorty fires on the Ferals missing while Maya plans her next move.

"I have to stop that dumb scruff from getting killed" Maya mutters to herself and moves to support Joey. She shoots at the feral, causing him to be knocked back and stunned. 

"Ooooh, hang on...no blood! I hope the crew didn't spot this.'" At this point Loops recovers, red faced and moves into close combat with a Feral (I forgot that he was supposed to ignore the first injury roll this campaign turn, DOH!). 

Unfortunately for Loops the Feral wins and Loops is back on the casualties list. 

"Crap, the boss cant fight for crud!" Lem growls. In revenge Lem shoots the Feral dead. 


T Bone advances and tries to shoot the Feral in cover, his shots slamming into the pipe stack. 


Maya takes another shot at the Feral missing him. 



The Feral returns fire taking Maya out of the battle. 


The remaining Feral moves into better cover.


T Bone rushes up to flank the Feral. 


Shorty moves to a better firing position. 


Joey moves into the ruin and yells "For Maya!"

Bullets from Joey’s gun taking down the Feral who gunned Maya down. 


The remaining Feral seeing the rest of his squad has had enough and flees. 


As the crew have held the feild this mission is a success. The crew find a starship part on the field (worth 2 creds once it is installed). 

Epilogue:

Twelvetree pays 4 creds to the team including danger pay (a bit tight!). He also rewards the crew with a data file (worth 2 rumours). 

Both Captain Loops and Maya have minor injuries and will be out for the next mission. It didn't seem worth using the Nano Doc for minor injuries.

Loops gains +1XP, allowing him to improve his Combat stat . 

Lem gains +3XP but hasn't enough XP to improve a stat.

T Bone gains +3XP allowing him to improve his Toughness stat.

Maya gains +1XP and she uses her XP bank to improve her Movement stat.

Shorty gains +4XP allowing him to improve his Toughness stat.

Joey gains +3XP allowing him to improve his Combat stat.

The crew spend the night drinking and gambling gaining the crew 1 story point.

Lem decides that he needs a make over and gets a new haircut. 

Footnote: 

The crew did better than I expected considering that they were outnumbered and outgunned. If the enemy had a tactical deployment the result may have been different. The crew also had plenty of bad dice rolls. It also didn't help that I forgot that Loops was supposed to ignore his first injury roll this game. I guess it took him a little longer to realise he wasn't wounded. It's a bad example for a Captain to roll about like he was injured in front of his crew. However if he had stayed in the game instead of rolling around going "ooh ooh I am shot in the wallet!" perhaps the battle would have turned in the crew's favor earlier.

The next mission will be interesting with only four crew members, unless I send some of the crew out to recruit some temporary bodies. The stat increases should make the crew a little more combat effective, dice gods permitting. There is also a chance I am going to come across a rival or end up on a quest mission soon. The crew Patron Twelvetree will always have jobs for the crew until they fail a mission. I also wonder if the patron Valchiria will have a mission or if he has discovered who his rival is. 

Thanks for reading, take care out there.