Sunday 29 July 2012

Fast Eddie's Escape - NY3K Batrep


This is a long awaited update to my Vali's Fortress campaign. Although this is set north of Vali's Fortress and is a side tale. It gives me a chance to get two of my gangs into action. 


Fast Eddie is bored in the Depressing ruins. The crew feel the same. Forgotten and unwanted. Sick of guarding the eastern approaches to  the Skrap lands they decide to make a break for it. Fast Eddie has a chick who is waiting at Vali's fortress, Marquis D Capbags has loot stashed (stolen from the Skrap lands), Anontio wants to find his way "home" and the rest of the crew yearn for adventure.



Friday 20 July 2012

Neutron York 3000 - Review.



Having played several Post Apocalyptic rule sets I have decided to review one of my favourites, Neutron York 3000 by Sylvain Boudeele of Golgo Island Productions .

Games of NY3K are reasonably quick to play with most games taking about a hour or so to play. The rules are D6 based and have no charts or very little in the way of calculations. Everything is opposed dice rolls. This makes NY3K very easy to learn and a blast to play.

The game mechanics allows characters to spend extra action points (each character gets 3 Action Points) to boost actions such as movement, shooting, close combat or defence. Each Action point allows an action or an action boost. However be wary on how you spend your action points as your lower quality figures will need you to reserve action points for a defence roll should a successful attack be made. Another tip is to keep your figures in cover as that will also give them a defensive roll. Characters are Knocked Out when a successful attack is made and can be revived by medics. Engineers and vehicles are also covered. 

The rules are easy to customise allowing you to customise character stats and weapons to fit your own existing armies, gangs and settings. NY3K also has a campaign system that allows your survivors to improve quality with time.  

The book is filled with background fluff, pictures, diagrams, scenarios, scenario building tools, extra rules, sample gangs and campaigns.  The background is good old cheesy Post Apocalyptic and makes for great, fun games.

In short the rules are quick to learn, quick to play, versatile and good fun.  

Sunday 15 July 2012

New title bar graphic!

My blog has a nifty new title bar graphic. Many thanks to my friend Sylvain (author of the excellent Neutronyork 3000 rules and also known as Bananatyrant on the Post Apoc Wargames forum) who knocked it and a couple of others for me. 


Cheers mate! I owe you a couple of beers! 

Sunday 8 July 2012

Tunnel Terrain....

A couple of years back inspired by the STALKER and Metro2033 computer games I made this tunnel terrain set. It is all made from foamboard and other odds n ends. I planned the build to be a modular as possible. 

Gaming in tunnels is a totally different feel than on an open board. It gives a much more tense game. You have to cover all angles. One hidden figure with an automatic weapon can do a lot of damage. That said angles and Lines of sight are short. Your figures can be in melee before you get a chance to shoot. If your rules have overwatch or snap shot make sure you use them. 


I cant put the whole set together on this puny table! The bits of card painted in rusty metal colours are for blocking off room entrances. There is a removable set of barricades in the tunnels too. If you look closely at the table you will see the blast door that swaps with them.





Cross section with some signage. 


The pipewall section with a warning sign. 


Random tunnel sign. Better mask up! 


The tunnel with the home made ladder. 


Right angle with a poster. 


Same right angle panel detail. Boys always check the red panel - that is were they stash ammo. 


Inside the Stalker Stash room. This room could be a lab, break or security room. 


The lockers (from a dolls house set). Always worth checking. Sometimes there is a medi pack or some ammo. One time we found a pristine assault rifle and some body armour. 


Whoever was here last must have been fans of this, what ever it is.  This room is based on one in the Tunnels/Labs in Stalker. 


STALKER vodka advert. 




The letters are lettraset and where a total pain to apply. The arrows point to a hidden stash. 


I love the way the rust has come out on the air vents (Anisty Castings item)




More lettraset letters




The long tunnel


The removable tunnel door.


SHUT THE DOOR! Where you born in a barn?  


Other side


The barricade for the long tunnel.


Other side


The collapsed tunnel. 


More from the tunnel




Best watch that grid thing. Something unpleasant might climb out of it. 


Another shot of the same tunnel. 


You have been warned!  I thought it might be fun to have sections where you cant use certain weapons.


A right angle. The mad looking huge pipe thingy is a 20mm plastic conduit bush/coupler. You can pick them up in DIY stores quite cheaply. The electrical box is made from the covers you get on a 3 pin mains plug when you buy a new appliance (US and Euro guys might not be able to get these as your plugs are round pins). The hole in the top was plugged with putty. The cable is a guitar string with a putty bracket. 


Eeeewwww - watch your step. The puddle is PVA glue painted green. It may be hazardous, it may not...step in it and see. 


The lower walls in this section came from packets of end pieces for UPVA windows that where left behind when the builders installed our new windows a couple of years ago. A long dead explorer lies on the floor - a warning to others. 


The vented tunnel. In the Stalker game a vent like this leads to the hidden Stalker Stash room.  


The other side of the vented tunnel. I quite like how the pipes turned out. 


Ribbed section with grid. The ribs are made from plastic coffee stirrers you loot from cafes. 


A shot of the wall ribs.




The electrical box is scratch built from foamboard and card. The conduit under it was a qtip and the handle was a chopped up WW2 1/35 anti-tank rifle handle.


The propped up tunnel. It makes a nice choke point. May even be a good mission to seal a tunnel by blowing the props (directly stolen from the Metro 2033 game! ). 


The ladder down room. 


The wide tunnel. 


The wide tunnel being used as a camp. 


Small room. My line painting isnt the best. It wasnt helped by the masking tape not sticking, so its free hand. I am thinking that if I ever do this again I will paint the inside walls first. That way its easier to get a straight line and there is no limits on brush movement. 

One of my favourite rooms. 


Its based on the first room in the Metro 2033 game. See the big door? That leads up into the station and to the surface. The rear wall is double skinned so the door slides in between them. The posters are pictures I found online and printed off. The wall fans/aircon units are resin items I found on Ebay. The mechanial backup door wheel is a pop fastener and the power switch on the left hand side of the door was a rear airfoil off a 1/100th Cobra helicopter kit with 1.5mm diameter punched bits of card as buttons. 


Oooh heck, your not going up there are you? 


Other end of the room. 


More detail and posters. 


Large room. The bulkheads slide out for maximum versatility. I used plastic I beam to make the holders and the bulkheads are mounting board. I may detail the bulkheads one day. 


Picture with them removed to make extra door ways. 


Green room with the bulkheads in. 


No idea what that gubbins is. Power generator, power backup, Air pump or water pump perhaps? It was a power plant from a 1/6000 port playset I got as a kid (yikes - that was 30 years ago! ). I extended the chimneys with plastic straws. There is some sort of lever arrangement fitted to one side (that was some sort of hand control from the cockpit of a 1/24 Messersmicht 109 kit). 


Brown room. 

Imagine you are exploring some tunnels and you see this? 


A ladder goes up. 


A ladder goes down into the dark. Did I just hear a distant snarling? 


You climb the ladder to some sort of holding tank or over flow. Except there is a big hole in the centre of the tank. A cold dread fills you as you wonder what might be lurking down there. 


On the other side of the tank some pipes appeared to have emptied into here once. A suspicious dried green goo is on the floor. As there are Bio Haz signs you better not fall in. Looking over you spot a hole in the wall. You wonder what made it. Is this where the mutants have come from?  


Even more worrying is the metal mesh in the grates. It appears to have holes smashed into it from below. 

The whole thing is a poly packing piece from a new printer. The ladders are trimmed wire mesh. The metal grating is granny grating/embroidery mesh. Plastic straws and textured paint finish it off. All that was added was a few signs.


At the vending area...Ice Cold Nuke or a Ice Cold Rad Beer? Vending machines by Ainsty/Old Crow, First Aid cabinet by Fenris games and the safe is by Pardulon. 


Lockers by Pardulon


Some Plaster cast bed I got off ebay. No idea who makes these. Anyone?


High tech research lab by Copplestone.


Lab Equipment by Pardulon


Toxic Waste store...barrels by Fenris Games. 

There are a few more resin and scratch build parts for this set. But I will show them off another day.