Wasteland Wondering 31-08-14

Welcome to another issue of Wasteland Wondering. I fear that I have been neglecting this blog for the last couple of weeks. So this is going to be a catch up and rather than posting loads of posts I am going to do it in one big hit! 

One thing I picked up was this rather good book....

I have Dampf's first book and I loved it. It is filled with great tutorials on building terrain and lots of ideas, tips and more. The second book is more of the same. There is lots of pictures and step by step guides. I of course am a huge Post Apoc and SF fan. There isn't much in these books for this type of terrain. However there is plenty to spark the imagination in this book. I am thinking of trying some of the builds but replacing the "traditional" materials with the types of materials folks might scavenge after the end of the world. 

Dampf's books are worth buying for anyone who builds terrain or just likes to look at eyecandy. The good news is that they are still available here.

I have been thinking about some bugs for my PA settings. You cant beat a swarm of giant rad roaches. So I invested in some of these critters...

"Bob! Look at these critters!!"

I found them on Amazon £1 for 10. So I got 30 for the suckers. 

"Arrghhh! Loads of them!.....Bob....are you wearing Doc Cosmic's pheromone spray again??"

"Bob!! RUN!!"

Here is a piece I made a few weeks back for my 15mm SF stuff.  It sat to one side and I forgot to record it for my blog. Doh! 

This started life a plastic seed pot. Anncoetti's resin doors, grills, windows and fans. Bits of card add details. Half an kinder egg pod makes up the dome. 

The comms dish is a plastic screw cover on a bit of plastic sprue. 

My After the End project has rumbled on. The mini collection has been raided and new gangs made up. Not to mention the joys of rebasing some figures. Expect a introduction to the gangs in the near future. 

I have got one figure painted...introducing Doc Cosmic.

Doc Cosmic is the Trader of Boxfort in the North Liverpool ruins... 

I got some new barricades made up.  

This model is made from old foam blocks. 

This one is scraps of polystyrene packaging made to look like the locals have piled up rubble form the ruins to make defenses. 

The wood pile

You need to keep warm on those cold wasteland nights. It will also make good cover around the settlement. This is made from scraps of balsa wood. 

Another Wreck:

Made from a old diecast toy I have hanging about for years. 

That's all for now for now...thanks for looking. 

The Wanderer and a wreck - goodies from Project Zeke Miniatures

Project Zeke Miniatures makes a limited range of miniatures and terrain suitable for Post Apocalyptic Wargaming which I hope they will add to in the future. There is also a small selection of back packs available to customise your figures.

For now my first Post Apoc Character in a while....

The Wanderer.

Wanderer wanders the wastelands and ruins of Post Apocalyptic Britain. He exchanges news and stories for a place to stay in various settlements.

The Wanderer is a figure from Project Zeke. I love the kitchen knife tied to the rifle as a makeshift bayonet.

As you can see from the pictures I also got a car wreck from Project Zeke.

15mm Freetrader Crew (GZG)

Every sci fi game needs a not Firefly Freetrader crew for shenanigans and getting into to trouble with the law. I have the very nice Heresy Miniatures figures for 28mm. Naturally I wanted a Free Trader Crew for my 15mm stuff. Ground Zero Games makes a nice Not Firefly Crew & passengers in 15mm. I added a robot from 15mm.co.uk as I feel that every ship needs a robot even if its just to kick or for target practice. 

The Crew: 

L-R: A pilot, 2IC, robot, Engineer (Back), Captain, Dogsbody and Mercenary Muscle. 

The Passengers:

 L-R: Cooky Girl who helps on missions (possible PSIer), The Doctor (Cooky Girl's Brother), A Hostess and a Preacher man. 

This is two sets and there is two of the Captain, 2IC and Muscle figures in various poses. I have added the guys to my 24th Browncoats Mercenaries. 

15mm Mercenary Herman Heavy Tank.

I have been working on a Mercenary Heavy Grav Tank for my 15mm stuff. The Herman Heavy Grav Tank an older (outdated) tank which houses a early plasma cannon. Older kit such as this often find itself in service in the outer rim colonies. 

A good old fashioned machine gun is fitted to the turret and another in the front hull for anti personnel use. 

This tank started life as a 1/72 Sherman Firelfy Tank kit sent to me by my mate Jay over on Twitter (@souljacker1974). As soon as I seen it I knew what I wanted to do, build a 15mm grav tank from it. 

The tracks and wheels where dumped and a new bottom was made from plastic card. The grav units are made from old disposable razor handles. The extra armor plates are plastic rhinestones. The plasma cannon is made from beads which I glued onto the trimmed gun from the kit. The bits box yielded a old rocket launcher from a ancient GW Dark Future Car. I still have my Dark Future set. One day I will give that game a spin again. 

The razor handles are hollow and they needed something to tidy them up. Larger Rhinestones did the job nicely. I have just spotted some filling that needs tiding. Grrrrr

I used a couple of clear bases under the grav units to give the tank a bit of a lift. 

In all this was a fun build and I learnt a lot. I will be making more in the future. 

Wasteland Wondering - 3 Aug 14

Pic from Across the Dead Earth game.

Welcome to once again to another Wasteland Wondering. There has been only a little hobby stuff happening here. Its been a busy week at home. A couple of family birthdays and a  family loss. I have only managed to part finish a 15mm building. Hopefully there will be some pictures here next week. I want to get some 15mm figures painted and then I will give it a break for a while. My paint brushes are dying to get some 28mm post apoc action. I have done a little more on my new post apoc setting.

Alice my 17 year old cat has had deteriorating health for some time. We had to make the difficult choice and have her put to sleep. She was a little deva and we have many happy memories of our life with her. Its strange to only have three cats now.

On to the post apoc thoughts. There seems to be a category  of faction missing from a lot of rule sets - The Wanderer. It seems that lots of post apoc movies and novels have wanderers. Mad Max, Steel Dawn, Deathlands but to name a few. They are a good way for the writers to explore the post apoc world. I am thinking of making some wanderers of my own. It would be a great campaign with them getting into all manner of trouble. 

Project Zeke Miniatures has joined the Post Apoc Wargames forum. Project Zeke has some nice figures and terrain. They are limited at the moment but I hope to see their ranges grow with time (and if you are reading this please make some survivors with SA80 assault rifles). 

I have been working on my new setting. So far I have two enclaves in Liverpool. One located around park lands. The other operating from a cargo ship washed inland by the Tsunami.

My old Babylon's Burning setting had the two sports stadium's in the city survive. A stadium is a great start up point for a faction. A big field to grow crops (not to mention the stand roofs), places to run operations and stands for pitching camps. I randomly generated a couple of factions. In the Reds stadium there was a Kop Shop Enclave based on the police force with a play on words for the Kop end of the stadium. In the Blues stadium was the Children Of Goodness Cult with ideas based on the Everton club. They fought over the park land that lies between. 

They have survived again. This time I am thinking about running gangs out of each of the stadiums. Each will be based on the teams mythos & colors. 

I think that Sports clubs  is a great resource to exploit to make gangs. They are often colorful, have their own colors, badges and legends. Rugby league clubs have good names too. 

For the other parts of the Post Apoc UK  I hope to bring the Skrap Knights out of retirement. Some of the more Sci Fi figures may have to be dropped. They will hold a few places in what was Cornwall acting like Dark Age Knights. New Albion has issues with the Skrap Knights.

Thats all for now folks...Thank you for reading.  

After the end

Here is the start of the background fluff for my new modern post apoc setting. 

I found a pack of exercise books and pens when I was working through some ruins. I thought I would record what happened so those that follow know. That is assuming that those follow can actually read this. Hopefully these books wont end up as fire fuel or with some wastelander wiping his backside on them. 

Everyone thought that the end of the world would come from one of the many wars between . However it was just a ordinary day when they noticed a whole field of space rocks right in the Earth's path only a couple of days away. Earlier in the year two asteroids out in space collided destroying each other. Apparently the debris had drifted right into our path. 

Hundreds of thousands of space rocks sat in a dense field right in front of us. They told us not to worry as they where all small enough to be burnt up in the atmosphere. It would just give us a couple of spectacular light shows. They got it wrong. Very wrong. It caught us unawares. 

The giant flaming rocks smashed into the planet. Some exploded in the upper atmosphere not causing much damage. The majority exploded below the altitude airlines fly at. The air pressure from the exploding rocks wiped out anything below them. Each explosion emitted a thermal radiation burst causing fires and third degree burns. Firestorms raged across the surface of our world. Huge rocks from the  fragmented asteroids and fell to earth causing craters, destroying buildings and starting yet more fires. 

The rocks also smashed many satellites and the space station out of the sky adding further destruction on the world below. 

Some of the space rocks made it to the world's surface intact causing massive damage. Craters hundreds of meters wide and buildings for many miles flattened. The thermal radiation caused fires for many more. Thankfully only one of those hit the UK but other parts of the world where not so lucky. 

There was a few asteroids that fell in a glancing blow to the earth. The tails burning everything under them. When they finally hit the earth they cut a path into the earth cutting new gorges. Deep horrible scars in the earth. New hills were formed and places got buried by the displaced earth.

During the three days of bombardment some rocks hit the seas causing tsunamis, flooding many areas and causing yet more destruction. Here in the UK places like Liverpool and Glasgow got smashed by massive waves. I dread to think how many folks died in their hidey holes by water flooding. At least the flooding put some of the fires out. Well you have to find the positive in these things right?

For weeks many earth quakes and tremors rocked the world shaking some of the surviving ruins down. Landslides crushed yet more places. A few volcanoes also kick started into action spewing lava and ash. Some Professor I once met said that Iceland is now nearly twice its original size. He also told me that he estimated that three thousand asteroid strikes hit the UK alone. 

Here in the UK survivors started to emerge after a week or two, usually when their supplies ran out. We staggered  into the remains of our shattered world. We saw things in those ruins that we should have never seen. Things that haunt our nightmares still. 

The clever ones headed out of the towns and cities for fear of diseases spread from the rotting dead bodies. Some surviving villages, settlements and farms accepted the refugees with some resentment. In other places all out battle started over the buildings. 

The remains of the UK government started weak radio transmissions telling survivors that the UK will be evacuated from the South East. Many made the dangerous journey south back then. I guess less than half of them made it there. 

They where not the only radio transmissions. A radio beacon was transmitted from a army base in Edinburgh hoping to attract more survivors and evacuation by the surviving government. The beacon went silent after nine months. A wanderer from the area told me that a war had started with local gangs surviving in the ruins of Edinburgh. It seems the commander made a few bad decisions and the gangs overran the base. Only a few from the base escaped the city. 

Winter hit and it was harsh. Much harsher than we had even seen before. It lasted for over eighteen months. Eighteen months of ice and snow. Except the snow was dirty grey with ash. Many froze or starved to death. Things where not much better in the government evacuation camps although they got limited food and supplies from the government. Those holed up beyond the city ruins where forced to return to salvage supplies. 

Eventually the long winter ended and the light returned. The skies became blue again. As the temperature increased the corpses thawed too and began to rot. The dead came to claim the living with the spread of diseases. Folks in the ruins got sick and many died. It was a rough time for the human race. But it was not all not bad.  Here in the UK a new radio transmission started. It transmitted after dark and gave information to survivors on how to survive. Useful stuff and I know many would have not survived without this information. No one knows where the transmissions come from but many of us regard  them as our savours. To this day the transmissions continue.  

During this time the remains of the UK government formed a new government under a surviving member of the Royal Family. It was renamed New Albion although many know it by the nickname of “the State”. New Albion kept all those who had hoped for safe evacuation as prisoners. Those fit enough where pressed into military service. The rest were forced into farming and rebuilding. Their radio transmissions became a invite to a better life by joining New Albion. Food, water, medicine and work awaited. Word spread that this was a lie as a few prisoners had escaped and even today people escape the state. 

New Albion took control of the London ruins as far as the M25 corridor and as far as the south coast. They also control as far east as the ruins of Reading. Windsor is now the seat of the “King” and the remaining social elite live in “luxury” in Eaton. Everyone else in New Albion is little better than a slave. The State has limited access to tanks and even helicopters. That is how they protect the parasitic elite of New Albion. Personally I think it is sad that we have a chance to rebuild society from new and we go ahead and repeat the mistakes of the past.

Now you would think we had suffered enough but no. There was more to come. The sea levels started to rise after the long winter ended. They have risen by nearly 9 meters causing much flooding. In  many places many survivors had to flee inland. The center of New London flooded and these districts are now known as “New Venice”. 

Here we are, five years after the end. Life is still tough but it is getting a little easier. The only animals left are rats (which are getting very large), crows, ravens and packs of wild dogs. There is claims of big cats and monkeys out in the wastes too. A few settlements have also managed to keep animals for work purposes. All the easy salvage is gone and many of us are now having to dig for loot. Good stuff still turns up in the ruins. We are turning a corner, mankind may just pull through this. 

Doc Cosmic
Box Fort
Liverpool Ruins

Wasteland Wondering - 27 Jul 2014

Welcome to another Wasteland Wondering blog post. There has been little hobby related stuff going on here in the last week. There has been a couple of family crises this week and hot beautiful weather.

I have been thinking out my new Modern Post Apocalyptic setting as mentioned in my last Wasteland Wondering blog post.

I am looking at a setting which involves a Asteroid Storm destroying the world. There will be a few big slammer asteroids that cause craters but these tend to destroy massive areas. One hit on the UK or Europe would wipe out a couple of  large cities. The plan is to have a bombardment of smaller asteroids explode in air-bursts which is often the case with these sized rocks. They would destroy quite a bit and there would be a  thermal burst causing fires. The fragments would still be large enough to smash buildings and possibly explode at ground level. 

I have played about a sliding timeline. However I have settled on a 3-5 years after the end as a starting point. As time rolls on I may progress the time line to. 

As for the content I am looking at elements from the Babylon's Burning & Across the Dead Earth game background. Ideas from the Toxic World Novels and the End of the World Running Club novel will be added and stirred into the pot. There will be a few thousand of my own ideas including some of my old Babylon's Burning campaign ideas. 

I have already named the remains of the UK government (called the State in my last Wasteland Wondering Post) as New Albion and mapped out their control of the SE part of England and possible mission locations beyond their control. 

For New Albion and other factions I will be using some Modern British figures. Their weapons and kit will be widespread. Ex-soldiers and well equipped scavs will be a part of most factions. These figures will need tweaking to make them look like a Post Apoc force. I have some figures equipped with SLRs (British Army Issue semi auto version of the FN FAL from the cold war era). My reasoning there will be some old stocks of these weapons in old cold war bunker stores. 

The main focus of my setting will be my local city although I hope to create stuff from all over the UK. Whilst I am looking and the UK I will be adding some bits to the background which will cover other parts of the ruined world. Hopefully some of my friends from around the globe will be inspired to add their local details & creations to the mix. 

Digging around I found my old Babylon's Burning campaign map. This was a old Ordnance Survey map of Liverpool. It has damage, flood zones and faction locations added. It was good for deciding on where possible scavenging and loot locations. One thing that struck me is how lightly Liverpool got off last time (destruction was decided by dice rolls). I will be adding further damage to the area. The factions will be reworked of course. 

In recommend the local map idea for any post apoc gamers. It adds extra color to your game and setting. A club can relate to a area they know. 

Anyway - I am off to start writing up some of the background....

Thanks for reading! 

Cheers

Introducing Skoota

So you find yourself on Planet Wolfden and you need to hire a getaway driver for the job you and your crew are planning to pull? Then you need to speak to the best...you need to speak to Skoota!

Skoota can drive any ground hugging vehicle every made and he can drive it well. Of course he will also do honest work too but charges less. Skoota is rumoured to be a ex stunt driver from some circus and ended up on Wolfden after a argument over his fee.

Skoota is my first attempt at a character figure in 15mm. The mini is a Ion Age Malig Mech Pilot. 

Meet the Meatheads.

Another gang for Planet Wolfden. Introducing the Meatheads. 

The Meatheads are a gang that live in one of the many dead starship hulks that litter the Hullscape region of planet Wolfden. The Meatheads like to bulk up watching body building holovids. Their weapons and primitive armour are made from scraps from the starship hulk they inhabit. 

This gang like to raid other Hullscape gangs, Corporation bases and the Space Port. One thing they consider a hobby is to go head to head with the Rogues gang when ever they can. The Meatheads keep a bunch of bikes which they like to use in these raids. 

The figures and bikes are by The Scene Miniatures from the Wasteland Warriors range. 

I left the armament off most of the bikes as I don't like big guns on two wheelers. I put ammo boxes over the holes. As a biker the big side mounted guns offend my eye and sensibilities. The guns are outside the weight triangle which would make it handle akin to a fully loaded shopping trolley with a stuck wheel. Firing the guns would make the bike lose control and probably crash. So they are in the spares pile. 

These figures would make great Space Orks should someone fancy doing Gorkamorka in 15mm. Hmmm a future project me thinks! 

Wasteland Wondering 20 Jul 2014

Welcome back to my humble musings on the hobby and post apoc related stuff. Today I delve once again into Post Apoc. 

As many of you may have noticed from my blog posts I have drifted away from post apoc a little and I have been getting more & more into Sci Fi. 15mm SF offers lots of scope for (often cheap) conversions and scratch building. As a model maker I am having lots of fun with this genre. However I have recently started to get my PA (Post Apoc) appetite back back. 

So what got me back into the hallowed genre? When I lost my mojo last year I tried watching & reading my PA favourites but they didn't seem to help. Even the hallowed pages of 2000AD didn't help, although they did give me more inspiration for Utopia City. 

All it took was a change...to get some new inspirations. I have to remember this in case I have another slump in the future.

I downloaded & read the Sulphur & Wreck Age rule books and then worked my way through the very good Toxic World novels by Shaun McLaughlin (there is a new one out "Refugees from the Righteous Horde" which is on my reading list). 

I downloaded The Damnation Alley movie which I had never seen. It gave me more ideas. The Cold War movie is a favourite over on the Skank site. After watching it I also realised that it must have inspired some of the stuff in the Fallout Series of games. It may be an old movie but its worth a watch.

More recently I am reading "The end of the world running club" (worth a look for Brit Post Apoc and Babylons Burning fans) which I am enjoying immensely. I have also just got the Across the Dead Earth (ADE) rules which I am working my way through (hey my home town of Liverpool is home to gangers!! lol ). 

Games wise I hope to give Sulphur and ADE a go. I however suspect that my old favourite ruleset Neutron York 3000 will reign supreme. It is simple to play and there is no charts or calculations. 

During my slump it didn't stop me creating new PA ideas. Some of these will hopefully emerge when I start work on this again. 

My other plans are to create a modern post apoc possibly reworking my old Babylons Burning creations which I set local to me in the UK instead of the USA. Write about what you know as they say! These factions where created back in 2005 (many of which migrated to Mattblackgod's world when I created that). Like all cities Liverpool has evolved somewhat since then and some of my BB factions & city map will no longer be applicable. Like the BB map I may redo it using a random dice roll to figure out the strikes. 

I like some of the ADE factions and fluff so I may mix them in too. The end of the world running club novel has some nice ideas too. As mentioned in many other rule UK based rule sets - firearm options will be limited. However this doesn't stop some creative wiring to give a reason why certain factions have access to such weapons. 

Speaking of Mattblackgod's world that will carry on as normal but will cater for the more Pulp & SF aspects of Post Apoc. Stuff like old killer robots, mutants and cyber enhancements. 

Inspired by the ADE terrain I may revisit my PA terrain collection and add weeds & plants. ADE has inspired me to make some Urban PA boards too. I have the materials I just need the time. 

For my new Post Apoc setting I am thinking of multiple asteroid hits with additional Tsunami and quake damage. Like my old BB setting there will be a 9M sea level rise which will lose Post Apoc Liverpool much of its docklands. It will give scope for half flooded buildings and ruins in the warehouse region beyond the docks. A alien jungle from asteroid bound spores are tempting along with deadly plants. 

Faction wise I will use most of the BB ones and add some other bits. So far I have: 

Enclaves - Attempting to rebuild a civilisation. Many will be based around some sort of old world authority military or police base. They can be good trade hubs and many survivors who crave safety will try to join. Enclaves usually have a good stock of weapons. 

Gangs - Gangs of survivors carve out turf they claim as theirs. They are low in number and are armed with mixed weapons usually few firearms. Gangs often scavenge and run raids on Enclaves, Merchants or other gangs. Clever gangs will charge payment to other groups to cross their turf. 

Salvagers - Salvagers (also known as Stalkers or Scavengers) often work with each other. They go out into the wastes and ruins to recover the things that the Gang settlements, Enclaves and Traders need. 

Traders - Traders become rich and are usually based in Enclave's. After a few attacks by raiders they often employ Mercenaries to protect them and their trade trains. 

Mercenaries - Life is cheap and you can make a pretty penny fighting for others. Mercs are used by many. Merc units are often ex military squads who survived the end and now can't find a flag to fight for.

Pirates - The UK is still an island and Pirate raids often happen along the UK's & European shores as there is very little shipping to attack. Many vessels are junks powered by steam, oar or wind. Some have access to old naval vessels which are running on home made fuel. 

The State - Inspired by ADE fluff. The State is based in the ruins of old London and this Police state controls the SE corner of the UK. It has access to lots of weapons and is constantly on the look out for anything that may give them the edge to reclaim more of the UK. 

Choobs - Another ADE faction. Subterranean survivors who live in London's tube system. These seem good fun to play and I do have that tunnel terrain I created. 

There is scope for other factions too such as slavers (essentially a gang), bandits (gangers), bounty hunters, tribals and cultists. 

It seems a staple of the genre to have ex-human creatures be it Zombies, Feral Humans, Plague victims or Fallout style Ghouls. I like Feral Humans living like ghouls. In the Toxic World Novels (The Scavenger and Radio Hope) there are also Solvent/Chemical abusers called "Tweakers" who live in the ruins near what was a petrochemical plant. These are a similar to zombies due to the chemical abuse that they use to escape the harsh reality of their world. I am tempted to add these. 

Figures wise I am lucky in that I have lots of suitable figures already in my collection. There is plenty unpainted too. Anything sporting weapons that look too SF will be out. Horse mounted figures are a possibility for some factions too. 

Now what timeframe after the apocalypse to start? 6 months? 3 to 5 years? 10 years? Decades?? 

I am open to any ideas whilst I stir this melting pot of ideas. 

Thanks for reading.