Saturday, March 29, 2014

Fallout TTG: Post Apoc Terrain Take 2

Hey Folks,

Went round to Andys tonight and finished  off painting some terrain. The town will be known as "Hellvue" - it was "Bellvue" but the B fell off and someone added an H :)

"Hellvue" so far - there are quite a few new additions! 
The Town Hall, Bus Shelter and a Fallout Shelter
Town Hall - was missing the front door in the kit so I blew it out 
First Floor
Second Floor - even has a toilet :)
Fallout Shelter - because any Fallout game needs one of these! Started off as a hotwheels launcher thing it picked up cheap at a community gala. Just needs a sign
Bus Shelter - also a hotwheels piece with extras. 
Frosty Bar - get your irradiated snow cones here!
Finished school and Playground 

Still a few more details, debris and graffiti to add but overall it's getting there!

Cheers
Jason

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Fallout TTG: Brotherhood of Steel Squad

Hey Folks,

Finished the first part of my Brotherhood of Steel Faction Warband for our Fallout game. 
Lighting is a bit average but the steel armour is multiple layers and washes (with a green tinge) to try and get that dull  steel armour look from the Fallout 3 Capital Wasteland chapter. I know the Midwest Chapter in the Mojave uses T-51b power armour but as my guys have the older T-45d armour I went darker instead of shiny :)
Knight Estevan with his AER-9 Laser Rifle held in the classic pose
Knight Marco with his Gatling Laser next to Paladin Romeraz. I've had a crack at painting a stylised BOS symbol on there chest plates. 
 I have seen some pictures with the respirator hoses painted a tan/yellow colour so I decided to paint these the same to add a bit of colour to the otherwise bland (but very nice) models. Likewise with the red stripes on the weapons. 

Pretty happy with them. A bit more work to do on Star Paladin Michaela (my Boss) and then I will crack into the rest of them.

Cheers
Jason

Friday, March 14, 2014

Fallout TTG: First Test Game

Hey Folks,

Being the crazy cats we are we have decided to craft our own rules system for our Fallout games...

Basicly it's s Frankenstein creation that utilises elements of what we like from other systems, but converted to fit fallout and a Opposed D10 dice roll mechanic. This opposed dice roll is the core of the system and looks like;

Attacker Skill roll vs Defender Skill roll

With lots of mods :) Goal is to roll equal or under your skill on a D10 AND beat your opponents roll. Skills are derived from your base S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats and can increase as you play the campaign.

We have been working on lots of stuff (like campaign rules, faction stats etc) but Andy and I thought it was time to throw some dice!
Nevada 2280. An New California Republic (NCR) squad stumbles across a Brotherhood of Steel (BOS) scouting party in the outskirts of the town of Hope.  Soon bullets will fly and lasers burn because War, War never changes...
Star Paladin Michaela leads her small squad of BOS Knights out of the town only to find the way blocked by NCR morons. There are quite a few of them so it looks like the BOS are outnumbered 2-1...but the Knights are wearing power armour and have advanced laser weapons. Knight Marco has a good position un the top story of the large house. He also has a Gatling laser.
Most of the NCR force hides behind the hydroponics barn but a few brave troopers are walking the picket line. 
Initiative is determined by a dice draw mechanic. Each model generates one dice and they are drawn randomly. Each dice is an order and you can use it to Preform actions like move and fire, running, sneaking or picking locks. You can stack multiple dice on one model but this will get generate pins (more on that later)
They've just walked up when Knight Marco hoses them with Gatling laser fire, pinning them down 
Here was out first test - Marco fired four shots at the group of two NCR troopers (as we said burst weapons could fire at all models under a small 3"template) - so two shots each. To hit each one he needed to roll equal or under his skill (Big Guns 3) - 1 for being over optimal range and -1 for them being in cover, so "1"s to hit. On a D10. The NCR troopers opted to return fire as a Reaction to being shot at. This puts a pin marker on them (pins are a -1 penalty to any actions, and stack) and they shot back with there assault rifles. Assualt rifles are ROF3 but as they are reacting this is halved to 1. Unsurprisingly given they were both normal troopers and the range both missed.
The NCR break for cover. Meanwhile a trooper tried to shoot A BOS Paladin. Paladins are elites and as such are tougher and more skilled. BOS Paladin Romeraz has a "tag" skill taking his Energy Weapon skill to 6 (BOS faction stat increase is Intelligence, which is the derived stat for Energy weapons). This combined with how accurate lasers are (+1 to hit) means that Paladin Romeraz hit on a roll of 5 or less, while the NCR trooper needed a 1. I rolled 1 dice as I was reacting (Laser rife is ROF2) and Andy rolled 3. He missed but I didn't 
The steely eyed Paladin sighted the NCR troopers muzzle flash and dropped him. 
Damage is a second opposed dice roll with the attackers skill and weapon damage stat combined vs the defenders endurance and armour. The NCR trooper is endurance 3 (the base for humans) and has medium combat armour (arm 2) Lasers are accurate but don't hit hard. I needed to roll 7 (skill 6, dam 1) or under to damage while Andy needed to 5 (END 3, armour 2) I damaged but Andy passed his armour roll. I beat Andys success so the trooper was knocked down face up, and will need to expend half an action to stand up again. If he beat my success he would have ignored the hit. If he failed to save and I wounded him he would be face down and rolling for injuries at the end phase of the turn. We both take a pin, me for reacting and Andy for being hit
Lots of bullets are flying and the NCR is flanking. Missiles come flying out of the hydroponics barn at Knight Marco but luckily they miss and he is only knocked off his feet
Blast weapons scatter if they miss - we were rolling a random direction dice and a D5 but this should probably be D10 as some blasts are pretty big (10"!) and most pretty large (5")
Amongst the chaos troopers on both sided tried to keep there wits about them and continue fighting
Pins degrade performance pretty rapidly as each is a 10% penalty. You can remove one pin by hitting the dirt as an action/ reaction or spend a whole action to rally (-D5) but only if your in the Leadership range of your boss (Charisma * 2 inches, * 3 inches for NCR, but in Line of Sight) or at the end phase each model can make a Charisma test to remove pins, removing the measure of success amount. (Ie CHA 3 rolling a 2 will remove 2). A roll of a 1 is insane bravery - remove all pins while a roll of a 0 is cowardice, add one more pin! 
Even power armour dosnt save you all the time, Knight Estevan is down and injured 
Models can preform first aid on other models to patch them up. This is a Medicine test (Intelligence base stat) and using stimpaks helps! No self stimpak-ing here like the Vault Dweller or Courier. War bands can also have Specilists, who could be Medics with Medicine as a Tag Skill
Given that Estevan was injured, and by this point do were 2 NCR troopers the two war bands disengaged to regroup

So, thoughts 

A bit clunky to begin with as we were making a lot of it up on the fly! Overall once we sorted out the basic interactions it started to flow pretty quickly. Power armour seems a bit too good so we need to adjust it as Andy really struggled to put any hurt on. Having said that he did manage to pin down my Paladin (4 pins!) so Romeraz had to crawl into the Frosty Ba to hide and recover. 

We decided to not allow models to react to enemy movement unless they were on Overwatch, as otherwise it got very clunky quickly, and also it make Overwatch make sense. 

The initiative, pinning and rally mechanic works really well. The opposed dice roll system works well with a marked difference between those who are skilled and those who are not!

Overall it's a great start and I'm very happy with how it's going! 

Cheers
Jason 

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Fallout TTG: WIP School House and Playground

Hey Folks,

Next up - WIP School and Playground because even in a post apocalypse world education is still important :) 
This is another Bachman building, and it came with the awesome playground equipment! The footpath is from a chopped up plastic disposable plate (WAY cheaper then textured plasticard and quicker than cutting out a bazillion cardboard squares). The fire hydrant and kids bikes are from Black Cat Bases
Interior detail: mainly balsa, match sticks and Popsicle sticks. The desks are scratch builds while the chairs are cut down dolls furniture chairs. Wallpaper from the scatch booking kit. The blackboard will be painted, well, black :)

Overall I think this has come up pretty cool :)

Now to paint it!

Cheers
Jason

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Fallout TTG: Post Apoc Terrain Take 1

GHey Folks, 

First crack at some Post Apocalyptic terrain for our Fallout Inspired Table Top Game. 

Looks like property values have decreased a bit
Survivor shanty town complete with large railway bunk room (perhaps turn into a bar?) some shacks and an outhouse 
And a large mostly intact house. 

Buildings are Bachman "Plasticville" O Gauge plastic model railway buildings with added interior detail. Andy supplied the fallout posters while the carpet and wallpaper is from a scrap booking kit. Furniture is Victorian dolls house furniture which is not quite right for the retro 50's look but close enough 

Cars are die cast 1/43 scale but perhaps are a bit *too* rusted? Add a bit more colour maybe?

Overall pretty happy how they came out so far. 

Cheers
Jason