Red October Subs & Sandwiches

One of the things I decided I needed to add to my gaming collection is modern/post-apocalyptic buildings with interiors.  These are largely what all the scatter terrain I've been painting over the past couple of weeks will be populating.

About two or three years ago I bought a set from TT Combat that was 3 single floor store fronts with second floor apartments.  Unfortunately I assembled two of the buildings before I became aware of a problem (it's one of those 'now that I've seen it, I can't unsee it' things), there is no way to get from the first floor to the second floor.  For my third building I will be cutting out a hole in the ceiling/floor to accommodate a staircase but for the two I've already built I just decided to leave the second floor off.

I should also point out to anyone new to MDF scenery that it largely comes in two flavours; super basic having no interior detail but being amazingly inexpensive, and fully detailed but far more expensive.  All of the TT Combat buildings I got fall into the first category.  That may seem basic but the price was amazing and they can be dressed up with scatter terrain.

I actually tried something a little different this time and undercoated the building dark brown and then painted over top of that.  I was hoping to get more of a dirty worn look and that seems to have worked out fairly well.  I also decided to add a splash of colour and detail by wallpapering the interior walls, which I think makes the building look more like a real place and less like a model kit.

I took these pictures while I was waiting for the Mod-Podge on the paper to dry so I will probably still go back and dirty it up a bit.  I also kept the doors I cut off the building as I may use those as rubble or in another terrain project.

What are your thoughts?  For about $10 worth of kit and material an less than 2 hours work I'm really happy with this and using it as a template I should be able to get a reasonable collection of buildings done fairly quickly.

-Jay

Are those mattresses....sanitary?

I mentioned in my last post that after acquiring my 'fantasy' beds I had found some beds more appropriate to post-apocalyptic gaming.

A few years ago when I placed my first order for TT Combat buildings I grabbed a couple of their resin accessory packs which included these...gently-used mattresses.

These are perfect as they look like the exact bedding you find scattered around the capitol wasteland in Fallout 3.

My collection of scatter terrain is filling in nicely but hopefully on Tuesday I'll have time to finally complete a more sizable piece.

-Jay

Now I lay me down to sleep

Although I'm finally getting around to getting an assortment of scatter terrain done a fair bit of it is stuff I've collected over the past few years.  Quite awhile back when I started playing This Is Not A Test I bought these Reaper Bones beds, they're intended for fantasy games, but I thought their ramshackle appearance would fit in with the look of post apocalyptic games.

As it turns out I found something else that will work better for This Is Not A Test and Fallout that you'll hopefully be seeing in a few days.  But having said that it's still nice to have these and they should work as set dressing in a variety of games.

I got these Reaper beds as well as many of my other miniatures and games from my Friendly Local Game Store.

-Jay

Some odds and ends

Yesterday was one of those days I picked away at a few small projects and almost finished projects while trying to get some coherent writing done.  Nothing earth shattering here but one more figure I actually needed with a lot of urgency (played using him as my PC last night), and two more sci-fi scatter terrain bits.

First up; Flint.

Flint Stone is my character for Advanced Fighting Fantasy.  He is a member of the Hanna-tribe which of course makes him a Hanna-Barbarian (I'm a dad, I'm allowed to tell dad jokes!).  Anyway Flint is made out of the Northstar Frostgrave Barbarian box set with a Bolt Action backpack thrown on to complete the wandering adventurer look.

Flint did mostly pretty well in his first game until a short run of bad luck (literally, I couldn't make a single 'luck' roll) and I'm looking forward to playing more Fighting Fantasy in the near future.  I also appear to have begun collecting a small tribe of barbarians since last year. 

There's definitely one more Barbarian in my near future and then it will definitely be time to move on.

The other thing I realized late yesterday afternoon while prepping some more Broken Contract figures is that I had the two bases of oil drums I'd gotten with my two female Gen-Mods just sitting around and I could get them done quickly.

I actually tried something slightly different this time and I think it worked out pretty well, but it may have been just a bit too subtle to show up in my pictures.  For the oil drums I started off by dry-brushing them metallic (Lead Belcher in this case), then painted them with a watered-down yellow (Averland Sunset), and then I hit them with a super light dry-brush of the same metallic again.  This gives the effect of painted drums where the paint is wearing off but no necessarily super-rough or dirty.

So that's it.  I have a few more lingering almost finished figures I'd like to wrap up this weekend and then it's back to the wasteland.

-Jay

Review - Harper's Tale

Today I want to take a look at a 10 chapter, 170 page adventure path for D&D characters of levels 1-10; Harper's Tale.

Harper's Tale is named for lead developer Matt Corley's daughter (and co-lead developer) Harper.  The adventures mix the inspiration and youthful-fun outlook of a child with the sensibilities of an experienced game author to contribute something truly new and unique to the current RPG scene.

The creative team behind Harper's Tale reads like an all-star team of freelance writers and artists currently working in the RPG industry, and it's not just a list of names on the credits page of a book, the quality and experience this team brings really shines through.  Harper's Tale is gorgeously illustrated throughout but I want to call special attention to the fantastic character illustrations by Gwendy Bee, these illustrations are bright and appealing while still conveying a sense of mystery and the fantastic.  In addition to the amazing art I found all of the cartography to be easy to read and use and clearly laid out where I needed it.

The ten adventures themselves are all written by separate writers or writing teams and one of their nicest features is they are structured so that in addition  to making up one ten adventure long campaign they are also all framed so they can be run as individual one-shots.  The central story mixes investigation and adventure as the characters start off by investigating a mysterious illness and follow various leads and clues looking for both the source and a cure.  The adventure path is set in the wilderness but uses many different settings for individual adventures (forests, small villages, dungeons, multi-room buildings) to give the ten adventures a great deal of variety.

In addition to a number of different settings the adventure path is full to the brim with interesting NPCs that not only work well within the narrative but could also be used to seed other adventures, for my part I GUARANTEE my players will meet Professor Piewright at some point prior to actually playing Harper's Tale.

And I couldn't resist the urge to convert and paint my own Sir Cheddar!

Overall I highly recommend Harper's Tale.  There is an absolutely amazing amount of the highest quality content here and the mix of art and writing style really evokes the sense of fantastic mystery, fun, and discovery that I think the best fantasy RPG adventures are capable of.

Harper's Tale is currently available from DrivethruRPG at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/311843/Harpers-Tale-A-Forest-Adventure-Path-for-5e?term=Harper

-Jay

Barricades, Scatter Terrain, and Objective Markers

Although I've still got a few miniatures I need to get painted in the next few days I've decided to take a short detour and get some modern/near-future/post-apocalyptic terrain done.  Traditionally I've done most of my gaming away from my home so my terrain collection has been relatively sparse for the amount of gaming I do.  With everything going on in the world right now I've been exploring solo miniature gaming a bit and it's definitely highlighted some shortfalls in my collection.  I'm reasonably well stocked for fantasy terrain but my modern/near-future collection is a little bit one-dimensional. 
The main things I wanted to get done over the next few days were some scatter terrain and one building with a detailed interior.  Today is the scatter terrain.

I've started with two of Mantic's Walking Dead All Out War scenery packs.  These packs are AMAZING and terrific value for money.  I highly recommend them to anyone looking for scatter terrain for any modern or near-future gaming.  The key features of the Walking Dead packs for me are that they are 'generic' real-world styled (so nothing to tie them to a specific game or even genre really) so they should work across every game I want to use them for, and being plastic they take paint well and should be very durable and hold up to regular use.

First up are the barricades.  The Walking Dead barricades are extremely well detailed without being cluttered or difficult to paint.  I also really appreciate that the sculptor put as much work into the backside of every barricade as they did in to the front facing side.

The thing I really liked visually about these barricades is that they have enough different materials and textures to be visually interesting without being too 'busy'.

Next up are the objective markers, which when not being used as objective markers can just be some clutter and window dressing for the tabletop.

The objective markers are nice (I have to come up with a better way to paint garbage bags though), with my one real criticism being that the backpack and the suitcase feel way too big and out of scale with the other pieces as well as the 25-28mm models they are meant to work with.  Having said that, having modeled representations of objectives rather than flat counters is a huge improvement and in my case (with two sets) I would only end up using them in games that required more than six objective markers.

I'm really happy with how all this stuff turned out and it looks good with pretty much any period appropriate models.

Next up is a single small building with some interior details!

And always please remember that The Walking Dead All Out War and many other great miniature games are available from your Friendly Local Game Store.

-Jay

Preview - Breaker Kids

I've mentioned over my last three posts that I was trying to get my existing Broken Contract miniatures before my next Kickstarter from Breaker Press arrived.  I made it...with a day to spare.

I was excited when I backed the Breaker kids but much like their previous Kickstarter when the product arrived my expectations were exceeded, drastically exceeded this time around.

When Nick started hyping up the Kickstarter one of the things he talked about wanting to do was not having wasteful packaging.  This resulted in the new models (and the add-ons as well) being packaged in MDF shipping containers that can be used as scenery for your games!

I think any modern or sci-fi gamer would agree that those containers are awesome, and are immediately useful.  But they were part of the pitch, and I mentioned that my expectations were exceeded.  Somewhere around the midpoint of the Kickstarter Nick realized he could throw the slats in that were cut from the containers, and some a-frames to build some scatter terrain.  Having just received the package a few hours ago I haven't built anything with mine yet but when I do I'll show those off.

I really just want to emphasize to anybody who's read this far that I've talked about how awesome this product is, and I haven't even talked about the models themselves, all the above is just...the packaging.  I really hope this continues from Breaker Press and in a perfect world I'd love other companies to see this as an idea they should jump on board with.

On to the kids (and the dog) themselves.  The figure set comes with five figures; one male and one female teen, one male and one female pre-teen, and a dog.

The figures themselves are obviously perfect for Broken Contract but could also easily be used for Shadowrun, Cyberpunk or any modern or near future games.  The textured MDF bases are a really nice touch, especially for gamers that want to step their basing game up to the next level.  The detail is nice and crisp on the figures, and they should be a joy to paint (check back in a week or so).  I'm excited to have some genuinely new and different figures in my collection unlike anything else I've already got.

Hopefully in the next week or so I'll be showing off these figures painted as well as some neat add-on accessories I got with this Kickstarter.

Check out Breaker Press at https://breakerpress.storenvy.com/

-Jay

Is the title of a Breaker Crew leader a 'Contractor'?

Success!

My goal was to get my previous Kickstarter models for Broken Contract done before the newest current models arrived; mission accomplished!

This newest dude will be the leader for my new Breaker Crew which will be made up of my Gen-Mods and some of the Breaker kids once they arrive.
This figure actually came with a variety of different arms and heads.  In hindsight I wish I'd thought to grab one or two more of these guys to make some different characters.

One of the nice things about showing the leader off with the Gen-Mods is it gives a great sense of just how big and brutal looking the Gen-Mods really are. 

Those three figures will form the core of any Breaker gangs I end up playing with the kids and their dog making up the numbers points wise.

Please check out the Breaker Press site not only for these great figures but also for some Dungeon Crawl Classics content in their connected blog https://breakerpress.storenvy.com/

-Jay

The revolution has begun!

A day later than planned but I got my female Breaker Gen-Mod done for Broken Contract.

I LOVE this miniature.  It's rare in any game to find a dynamic looking ogre-sized female figure so I was super happy to get my hand on this wrecking machine.  When I backed the latest Broken Contract kickstarter I actually ordered a second one of these figures so with a different build and a different colour-scheme another one of these models will be appearing in my Fallout collection as a super-mutant.

Not much to say on the painting-side as I followed the exact same colour choices as my previous Gen-Mod (not a lot in the way of high fashion going on in the Ferrum Sky mines) but I did want to call out something I forgot to mention in my last post.  These figures have amazingly detailed backpacks that house their various mechanica and chemical supplements.  In addition to the wicked backpacks I'd also like to call out one other thing I wish more miniature companies would do; as these figures are designed to have backpacks on, the front of the figures are modeled with straps for those backpacks.  This might seem minor but it's small details like that that once they get into your head you can't get them out.

I've got one more Breaker to do (their new leader) and then I'm just waiting for the Breaker kids and dog to show up.

Once again please check out Breaker Press at https://breakerpress.storenvy.com/and support a terrific indie game company.

-Jay

Let the (new) workers revolt BEGIN!

It's been awhile since I did some work on any models for Broken Contract but when I got my notification that the models from their newest release we're shipping to me I figured I'd better get off my butt and get the three miniatures from their last release done ASAP.

Broken Contract is a game set in a dystopian world where indentured miners toil under oppressive conditions.  The basic premise of most game scenarios is that the miners have decided to break their contracts, revolt and escape.  As enthusiastic as I have been about the game the main reason I hadn't rushed to paint the last release is that I have been playing the security force (Black Squadron Security) in the game and the last release and now this new one have been for the miner (Breaker) faction.  Having said all that I realized I could paint all the new Breaker models and end up with a force that is distinctly visually different from my friends Breaker forces made up up miniatures from the first wave.

So without any further ado please allow me to introduce my first Breaker Gen-Mod model.

Gen-Mods are genetically modified workers who are enhanced both chemically and with cybernetics.  For those of you not familiar with the game they are roughly ogre-sized and the fellow you see here is standing on a 40mm base.  In addition to being a fantastic model in his own right, this miniature is also the character depicted on the front of the Broken Contract starter box.

Broken Contract is available online at https://breakerpress.storenvy.com/ also please check out their blog in the sidebar as it covers some other cool gaming as well.

That's it for today, two more Breakers to get done (hopefully) before my Breaker kids and dog arrive!

-Jay

Review - Whispers In The Dark (Preview - Horror In The Windy City)

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Matt Corley was running a joint fiction and RPG Kickstarter for an investigative horror game set at the end of 19th century.  I had a chance to read through the fiction-side of the Kickstarter, and it was GREAT!  The follow up plan was to play Whispers In The Dark (the first title in the RPG series) last week to try out the core mechanics but unfortunately the horror of real life reared it's ugly head and pushed our game back to this coming week.  I'm stoked about playing but having done my prep I wanted to share my thoughts on the game itself prior to the current Kickstarter ending.

Whispers In The Dark is a joint effort by Matt Corley and M.T. Black who both have a tremendous track record of writing interesting and thematically original 5e content.  Whispers uses 5e for it's core mechanics which I have to say really highlights how well the Skills and Feats allow players to develop distinctly different characters.  The game drops the concepts of Race and Class entirely, and re-focuses not only on Skills, and Feats, but Backgrounds as well.  This allows players who are familiar with D&D 5e to pick up and play a different style of game without having to learn a whole new set of rules.  From a physical point of view the rule book for Whispers In The Dark is a work of art unto itself.  The layout, font choices, and style of art create a very period authentic mythos feel.  As a longtime fan of Cthulhu mythos, Ravenloft, and D&D this rule set scratches all those itches.  I'm really looking forward to running Whispers In The Dark later this week, and in hindsight my only regret is that I hadn't bought the book earlier, as it would have been great support for a D&D game I just ran (which I should be covering in another review in a week or two).  I strongly recommend Whispers In The Dark for all fans of horror gaming whether they have prior experience with D&D or not.

Horror In The Windy City is a follow up to Whispers In The Dark and introduces a new alignment system, which I think a lot of folks online who have been debating the merits of D&D's current alignment system will really like.  For anyone who's curious the alignment system is up as a preview on the Kickstarter page, I highly recommend checking it out.  The real draw for me personally is that the included adventure content in Horror In The Windy City is the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story of HH Holmes.  If you're familiar with the story of HH Holmes, just stop reading now and go back the Kickstarter.  And if you're not familiar head on over to the Kickstarter and read about the Murder Castle.  Overall I would say that for a lot of gamers Horror In The Windy City looks to straddle the line between period mystery and fantasy horror in a way that should appeal to a tremendous range of players.

Whispers In The Dark is presently available through DriveThruRPG at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/299564/Whispers-in-the-Dark-Quickstart-Rules-for-5e?term=Whispers+In+The+Da it comes in a variety of formats across a number of different price points.

Horror In The Windy City is in the final days of it's Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37222410/the-devils-city-for-5e and I would highly recommend backing it to any fan of investigative horror, or anyone interested in bringing in new elements to their Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons game.

-Jay

Review - The Devil's City

As I touched on just over a week ago Matt Corley is running a Kickstarter for an investigative horror game with an accompanying novella.  Please take a moment to check out the Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37222410/the-devils-city-for-5e

Today I'm going to be looking at the novella portion of the Kickstarter 'The Devil's City' co-written by Matt Corley and Sara Tantlinger.

Although I had heard the story of HH Holmes before, knowing that this would be a fictionalized version of the story really left me not knowing what to expect.  The format of the novella really worked well for me with the early chapters basically being framed as loosely connected short stories with their own beginnings and endings.  When the story moves into its later half it comes together as in fact being one coherent story not by the any of the protagonists, but by being the story of the antagonist, HH Holmes.  The story starts off feeling firmly rooted as a period horror/crime story before moving off into the realm of the fantastic. 

Stories like this can be extremely difficult to discuss without spoiling things so I'll leave the issue of the story to one side and instead address the structure and style of the story.  This is in my opinion horror fiction at it's best.  Horror stories when well told know when to give detail, when to be explicit, and when to leave space for the reader's imagination.  The Devil's City gets this balance perfect, it puts me in mind of the best balances of HP Lovecraft's writing minus the dated and overly verbose prose style.  The victims of the murder castle are all sympathetic in their own ways with more time being spent building the sense that they are real people than being given over to the details of their various tragic and gory demises.  Having said that their deaths are presented as being cruel, disturbing, and horrific to a degree that increases the reader's empathy for their plight, while also painting Holmes as a true monster.  Once we journey deeper into the narrative is when tinges of the supernatural begin to make themselves felt thus moving the story further from mystery and deeper into horror.

Overall I would say even if you're not interested in the gaming side of this project, this novella stands well on it's own merits as a fantastic piece of fiction.  It's objectively well written and and tells a genuinely interesting story in a compelling style.  Every fan of HP Lovecraft, Steven King, or Brian Lumley will definitely want to read The Devil's City and should check out the Kickstarter while there is still time at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37222410/the-devils-city-for-5e

Please check back in later this week for my review of the game portion of this Kickstarter.

-Jay

A long overdue return to the wateland

It's been a while.  It seems like not that long ago two different flavours of post-apocalyptic gaming were  my main miniatures focus; zombies, and Fallout or Fallout inspired games.  Gears shifted, things changed and Fallout had been left behind for what seems like over a year now.  Two things have changed that in the past few weeks.  First my buddy Andrew wants to get back to playing This Is Not A Test when we're all allowed to go outside and stand within 6 feet of each other again, and secondly I've been playing some Fallout 4 and it's gotten me excited about the look and feel again.

Deciding I would paint some new models I pulled out the copy of Fallout by Modiphius I got when it was initially released, took a deep breath, and finally started working on those models,  For anyone who doesn't remember I was super excited about Fallout leading up to this game's release, but then once I had it (the version with vinyl figures) in my hands I was super disappointed in the state of the warped bases.  I decided to push past that feeling and simply chop the bases off and re-base the figures.  While waiting for the primer to dry I flipped through the rulebook and had also totally forgotten that Fallout included rules for solo play, so this also meant I'd be able to get some games in during the current lockdown.  So although I'm ultimately painting the 'survivors' to use in my This Is Not A Test game, I decided to start off by painting the Super Mutants as they will be my AI force for Fallout.

The two player starter comes with three Super Mutants and two Super Mutant Hounds.  I decided to do the hounds first, and hopefully will get the actual Super Mutants done this weekend.

I still need to do some cleanup around the eyes (I'm starting to feel like that could be a copy-paste comment in every blog entry lately) but overall I'm happy with how the hounds turned out.  They have a lot of great texture and one thing I didn't even realize until I started painting them is how much more feral and savage these look for not only having huge sharp teeth but a lot of exposed gum area to really give the impression that they're snarling.

I'm looking forward to batch painting the Super Mutants next and then it will be the survivors one at a time.  Once I get those done and have a chance to do some solo play I'll probably circle back and review the game itself as well.

And just a friendly reminder that Fallout Wasteland Warfare and many other games are available from your friendly local game store!

-Jay

First Thoughts - The Devil's City

Yesterday I discovered two amazing looking books on Kickstarter I really wanted to bring to everyone's attention.

Matt Corley, the creative mind behind; Tales From The Margreve, Lamp Light's Sanitarium, and Harper's Tale has recently turned his focus to investigative horror set at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century building up from a basic foundation of 5e D&D.  So what I'm saying is, if you like:
-D&D 5e
-Horror RPGs
-Call Of Cthulhu
-Ravenloft: Masque Of The Red Death
-Investigative RPGs
-Horror stories or games based on real (seriously!) world events
...then this is a Kickstarter you owe it to yourself to check out!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37222410/the-devils-city-for-5e

The Devil's City Kickstarter is basically comprised of two books.  First up an illustrated 90 page novella co-authored by Matt Corley and Sara Tantlinger based on a fictionalized version of the story of HH Holmes (I'll come back to that in a bit for those of you not familiar).  Like I said I'll elaborate in a bit but if you're a horror fan, the story of HH Holmes is definitely a case of truth being far stranger than fiction.

The second book will be Horror In The Windy City.  A 5e compatible campaign book that will build on to Mr Corley's existing Whispers In The Dark game.  The author has extensive experience writing horror gaming and he has shown he consistently 'gets it' in terms of writing excellent thinking-person's horror rather than classic D&D hack-n-slay style.

So that's what the Kickstarter is, now let me tell you why I backed it, and why I hope you'll consider backing it too.

From a gaming point of view I've always liked D&D as a game system and it's the system the greatest number of existing players are familiar with, and the greatest number of potential players are open to.  Most of my gaming friends and I have always liked the idea of Call Of Cthulhu and in all fairness it is a good system but in my opinion it doesn't have the familiarity or the ease of use of D&D.  I really think for a ton of gamers investigative games could be a real inroad to discovering D&D outside of the more traditional 'dragons inside dungeons' style of gaming.  As prep for this I'm planing on running a group through Whisper In The Dark in two weeks.  I'll let you know how it goes, and how it works.

From a story point of view the story of HH Holmes has always fascinated me.  Again I have to reiterate, this is a TRUE story from our real world.  I'll give you the truncated version but if it interests you the way it interested me do some research online and back this Kickstarter!
HH Holmes was 1890's version of Jigsaw from the Saw movies.  He built a hotel in Chicago that was filled with secret passages, dead-end hallways to nowhere, and (in a manner of speaking) traps.  In short he built a hotel, invited people to stay there, and then starting murdering them once he got them inside.  I can't stress enough, this is a real thing that happened in an American city just over a century ago!

So there you have it.  An investigative horror RPG set in an only slightly warped version of our own world 130ish years ago.  A talented creative team, a game that manages to be familiar and new at the same time, and an inroad to a whole new genre of gaming.

I hope you'll all check out the Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37222410/the-devils-city-for-5e and my plan is next week to write a full review of the novella, and the week after that to provide a review of of my Whispers In The Dark game-play experience (hopefully integrating) Horror In The Windy City's new alignment system.

-Jay