Sunday 12 June 2016

Wasteland Wondering - furry devils.



Welcome back to my blog and another Wasteland Wondering.

I have to report that my hobby activities will be at a stop because of the arrival of these two furry hooligans. 




The tuxedo kitten is called Toffee whilst the black moggy is called Dixie. In case anyone was wondering about their names, my wife is a life long Everton supporter. 

The house as you can imagine is in mayhem as these furry devils rampage about. It is exhausting fun. There is many belly laughs at their antics. Our existing cat Joey is slowly warming to his new brothers. In time I suspect he will teach them his bad habits including Catzilla attacks on the wargames table. 

Not getting any hobby time doesn't mean I can't think or plan. My focus on the 20mm combat cars is waining. It think I overdosed on it. My thoughts have turned to Trogwana. 

Trogwana is a wasteland on mattblackgod's world populated by the Trogs. Many think they are mutants but the Trogs have been on the world since the before the end. The Trogs are G.E.L.Fs  (Genetically Engineered Life Form) designed as a combat system. The various factions hired them during the wars on the world. Incidentally the Mutiemen are also GELFs produced by the same corporation for use as slave labour. 

Long time readers will remember that I am using Space Orks for the Trogz and they are similar in many ways to the Aliens from the 40K universe. They even use similar tribes. To be honest it seemed a good way to use my old 40k army in the wastelands.

The Trog's genetics enable them to survive the harshness of Mattblackgod's world's wastelands easier than humans. However the various toxins have caused interesting mutations to the GELFs mainly effecting thier skin colours. Okay I confess I am just looking for a reason to paint some orks in odd colours.

Trogwana has attracted the Trogs and is similar to GW's Gorkamorka. There is a large town build from scrap and ruins. The Trogs have several camps and other townships. Here they battle each other for scrap to trade at Trogwana. One of the joys of Gorkamorka is you can make many custom style mobs. I have many ideas. Just need the time and the money! 

The Trog warbands will roam and cross swords with Wastelanders over scrap and other supplies. 

Hobby wise I am thinking of increasing the size of the mobs I have. I found a warboss which I am going to customise. He will be getting a background story. My Goffs will become the Mattblack Trogz clan. This clan will wear black war paint,  rusty metal and black colours. Maybe a radiation symbol with a Ork skull as a symbol. 

I am looking into getting a big mek and a Kaptian Baddrukk just incase I decide to run a 40K freebooter force. Kromlech do some nice Orky things including Afrika Korps Orks which I am thinking of using as Blood Axes. My existing Blood Axes will be reworked into another mob. 

The 15mm orks are still planned for Wild Galaxy too. 

That said a little voice at the back of my skull keeps telling me into getting across the dead earth minatures. Lots of great post apoc figures in that range. 

That's all for now. Thanks for reading.

Friday 3 June 2016

Welcome back to my blog. In this Wasteland Wondering I will be discussing real life, hobby slump and new post apoc ideas. 

It has been nearly a month since my last post and over a month since my last hobby post. 

I have found my hobby progress to be slow. As soon as I get started I get distracted. It is partly due to life being busy. Since my return from Spain nearly 4 weeks ago I have been celebrating 20 years of marriage,  had my 16yr old cat Spooky pass away, celebrating my wife's birthday, working on my motorbike, got a mutated rad cold, going away visiting some stately homes and away kitten hunting. Yup it's been busy but it isn't the only thing stopping my hobby drive. I think working just on 20mm cars is boring me a little and I realised that it has been over a year since I played a game! I should get my finger out. 

I have managed a couple of hours playing post apoc games on my console in the last month. Wasteland 2 and Fallout 4. I have barely scratched the surface of both games. 

In Wasteland 2 you play a team of Rangers out to save the wastelands. It is a RPG type game. The Rangers is a nice idea to copy for a Tabletop game. A small skirmish squad of 4 or 5 characters would suit many games. 

Fallout 4 has the main character in cryogenic suspension coming out the vault 200 years later to explore the world. Good fun so far. There is a band called the Minute Men who offer help to folks in the Wastelands in a similar manner to the Rangers in Wasteland 2. Minute men use clothing similar to the historic unit. It is tempting to get a historic figure or two for conversion. 

Cyrogenic suspension often turns up in Post Apocalyptic fiction. The character in the Rage game comes from such a vault (although he has cyber kinetic enhancements too). There is a major character in the Deathlands novels that was also frozen in such a fashion.

Hobby wise I just picked up the Gorkamorka rule books on evil bay. You can't have too many rule books in my book! I have always loved Orks. I am thinking of trying this in 15mm though. I also read the Gaslands beta. Looks a good game. However it doesn't cover infantry so I plan on sticking with Warlands. 

Gaslands is gladiatorial in nature and it gto me thinking of gladiatorial combat in the post apoc world. It could be a great way to get some warfare going. In Mars Arena (Deathlands novels) a bunch of warlords capture Wastelanders to have them fight in an arena which is the walled up Las Vegas ruins. Traps and mutant beasts are added to add to the mix. There is a twist. The winning team must then fight each other to the death. The survivor may get hired by the winning warlord but often snipers on the walls finish the job.

Another idea would be for  a contest run by Utopia City with prizes of supplies and other items folks in the Wastelands would happily kill for. It could be run by a TV show with arenas set up across the wastelands. Thick walls around these places could be built easily using the same technology Utopia uses to build the mega city blocks. In the wastelands bands  of wannabe winners would join to compete. The TV show runs the carnage live on TV in a similar style to the movie Running Man.

Auto dual will also be popular sport enterainment so the contests could run vehicle battles. A friend reminded me of this old battle report which is along the same lines that I posted on the Post Apoc Wargames forum a few years back. 

Auto dual combat

For the gangs/games on foot I was thinking of various traps including mutant beasties to make it interesting. Maybe a league with various gangs fighting each other for the prizes could be created. Wasteland townships and cities would get involved for certain vital supplies.

Thinking about this it may make a great club or show game using various rules. 

This is what I have been thinking about and planning. Let's see what happens next. 

Thanks for looking and take care out there!