The Ambush

On the way back from the visit with the scavs, the Goat ran into an ambush.  Here is Charley's take on it:

"We was comin' back from the scavs, when we found a wreck on the road, that hadn't been there before.  We saw the smoke some ways out, and scanned it through the imager.  Couldn't really see anything but a wreck and some smoke.  Panky decided to approach slowly, keeping an eye out for a likely ambush.

Smoke in the distance.

View from the other side.

 

The ambushers.

 

When we got there, Panky sent me out to take a look, and sure enough...ambush.  "You can just stop right there, drop your're weapons, and get out that truck." The voice came from the right, and I just dropped.  The voice fired, Panky had the turret on auto, the gun burped and just liquefied the voice.

Charley checks things out.

 

 

"Just stop right there!"

Then the goat took fire from two others, Panky took a hit in the vest, got really pissed, let the auto-engage go, and just shot the hell out of everything.  I just laid there like a rug.

Two guys take on the Goat with rifles.

 

They lost. Charley is okay in the middle of the road.

The last guy tried to surrender, but Panky wasn't taking prisoners today, so that didn't work out so well for him.  The goat shredded him too, not sure that Panky really wanted to do that; I think the auto-engage just got away from her.  Either way, Panky was wired, and just started yelling at me for being useless.  I asked her if the auto-engage was off; she didn't seem to 'preciate that much, but I didn't want to get shredded too.  She confirmed, and I searched the splats for anything interesting.

Last guy tried to surrender, he didn't survive.

Turned out to just be some gangers.  Musta saw our dust cloud, and thought that they'd rustle up some new wheels.  They musta been stupid or something, 'cause they clearly didn't stand a chance against the goat with what they had.

Anyway, the whole thing put Panky in a crap mood for the rest of the trip.  Guess she just don't like killing people, even when they got it coming.  We just stayed quiet 'till we got back, reported on the scavs and ambush, and then I went off to clean up and get some chow."

A Visit With The Scavs

Every now and then, we bump into the Scavs.  Sometimes we check on 'em, see if they're okay, if they have anything new to trade, and what news they might have.  Other times we just happen into 'em, like today.  They seem to get everywhere and know everything that happens in the wastes.  Heck, they often know more about what we're doing, than we do.

The Scavs aren't part of the Confederation.  They're too tribal for that; plus, they don't completely trust us.  But they have helped us in the past, and we try to help them, usually.

Approaching the gas station in the Goat, having already missed the action.

They don't tend to grow or raise too much, at least not like we do, but they find stuff, and build things too.  The scavs live in the old ruins out east, and live kind of rough, building makeshift houses out of the ruins and rubble.  They say that they stay free that way.  Mostly good people, but kinda crazy, little scary sometimes.

The scavs were a little twitchy, but luckily everybody stayed cool, nobody got shot.

Anyway, we arrived at the old gas station, off of the old high way. And some of the scavs were there, doin' their thing.   Seems they had a run in with somebody and killed a man.  I went out with a couple of them and checked the body.  Kind of a big guy, but nothing special.  Typical rifle and personal items, but don't know who he was, or who he was with.  The scav's took his stuff, buried him.

Headin' out to check the body with the scavs.

 

The victim from earlier.

The "Captain" was there, don't know if that's his rank or his name, and we shared the latest news with him.  He said that some travelers from way out east said that the Greenies are spreading.  He also said some travelers claimed to have been chased by some sort of robot soldiers, while rooting around some old-time government place up north.  Said they lost some folk.  He told a good story, ain't no more robots after the end, though.  Not for a long time.

Talkin' with the scavs. The narrator, Charley, is to the right above.

Told him how we had 'lectricity in several Confederation towns now.  He laughed, didn't believe us.  Said 'lectricity is like robots, don't happen after the end.  And, said he still ain't joining the Confederation, even if it was true 'bout the 'lectricity.

Shanie was with him, they call her "Princess". One of their best trackers, showed us a gun that she found.  A real beast, looks like it might shoot through our armor.  Shanie is one of the toughest guys you ever gonna meet.  When she was a kid, bandits attacked and killed her family.  She was maybe 12. Killed seven of 'em, before they gave up trying to get her.  She is real smart, invisible quiet, and a great shot.  Might be kinda pretty too, if she'd ever take a bath.

Panky, the "Goat" commander to the left, the Captain center, and Shanie to the right.

We traded the Captain some medicine for some 'lectric parts they found somewhere, and some books, and we headed out.  It was a good visit.
_______

This action was interesting in that it didn't need to result in a combat, and the rules allowed it to develop as an encounter without shooting.  My hope is for the game to permit light role-playing that will allow for a story greater in scope than simply fighting.  So far, it seems to work.

After: The First Encounter

This is the first "battle" in my post-apoc world.  Basically, just a small, simple encounter to allow a run through of the rules, yet another of my home-brew things.

The scenario was a brief skirmish where a couple of "scavs" were baby-sitting a few boxes of loot, until more help could get there to move them, and were happened upon, by three "salvagers".

The set-up was that two scavs were in the gas station, with three boxes of goods in the service bay.  Assistance would enter the board on turn 8 from the far end of the table.  The three salvagers entered from the left in the photo below, roughly to the rear of the gas station.

View of the table game at start.  The Salvagers

enter at the rocks clipped off on the left edge.

 

The scav in the front of the building was spotted after

moving to the window at the left.

 

Quickly, the leader of the salvagers spotted a scav as he peered out of the window of the station, and his two associates moved near the board edge to get more out of sight of any other occupants of the gas station.

The associates advance, while their boss covers them from

 just out of the view to the right.

As the two associates advanced towards the building, the scav in the service bay saw them through the rear door, and fired at the fig in the black coat, causing two wounds, and  taking him out of the game.

As the associate was hit, their leader fired at the scav in the window, missing completely, and giving away his position.

The salvager leader, preparing to shoot.

 

The target returning fire.

 

The scav, annoyed by being shot at, returned fire, causing a light wound.  The leader hit, with a man down, called off the "operation".

Help arrives (between the building the table edge).

 

Just as the salvagers exited the board, leaving their associate to bleed out, help arrived for the scavs (not that they needed it).  Now the scavs could be on their way with their three boxes of loot.

_____

Like I said, just a very simple run through of the rules.  No obvious bugs; moving, sighting, shooting and modifiers seemed to work fine.  I went on with a second encounter, to test some of the non-shooting stuff and will share that in a day or so.

About the only thing that went wrong, is that you will notice the difference in color of my highway terrain pieces, as compared to the surrounding pieces.  It seems that my newer batch of Woodland Scenics flock is a lot lighter than some of my older stuff.  I've been using the same mixture for roughly 29 years, and have noticed variations over the years, but not like this.  Guess I'm going to be adding another layer of flock as soon as I buy some brown stuff to darken up my terrain. 

I also realized that I need to make some additional terrain pieces. Just some rises, maybe with a few rocky crags sticking out here and there,  something besides my "Goblin Valley" pieces.

A Base for my Post-Apoc Gas Station (Part 3)

While working on my post-apoc highway, I also made the base for my gas station.  The base consists of a 1'x2' tile of 1" thick EPS foam, finished in the same fashion as the highway sections in the previous post.

Once the basic surface of the tile was complete, I added some more bits to make the base a little more interesting.  I decided to make all of the bits removable to facilitate easier storage of the base with my other terrain tiles. 

Raised detail included indication of the guard rail that once surrounded much of the gas station's lot, a raised island for the gas pumps, and the original sign post for the station.

With a roadway tile that includes drives mating to the gas station lot, here is the final product:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figs are 28mm Copplestone (I think).

Highway to the Apocalypse: 28mm Terrain

One of the projects that I've long put off, has been the construction of a post apocalypse highway.  While it may not be imperative for the conduct of the games, a collection of ruined buildings with no indication of the roads that once supported them just seems wrong.  So I finally got my butt in gear and got to work on this long delayed project.

I started off by designing the roadway, figuring what I needed at a minimum to cover my 9'x6' table, while still giving some variety and flexibility to possible terrain layouts.  I use modular tiles of 1" thick EPS foam, often called "blueboard" (or in this case "greenboard" as it was the Lowes brand product) for my terrain.  Depending on the need, I mostly use tiles measuring 1' square, with some 1'x2' and 2' square pieces as well. 

For this project, I settled on four 2 foot lengths, and five 1 foot lengths of straight highway, a "T" and one four-way intersection, an additional "T"  with a paved driveway, and a two foot section with two driveways to mate with an abandoned business as the core of my roadway.  I figure that after a few games, I'll see what else needs to be made, and add it then.

First I cut the sheet of foam into the appropriate sized tiles on a band saw; then, I laid out the basic roadway design with a straight-edge and black ball point pen.  Scale for this 28mm project is a bit of a hybrid, as the figures are loosely 1/56th and the vehicle models generally labeled 1/43 and varying to 1/50 scale.  Since neither the figs, nor the vehicles tend to maintain a consistent or accurate scale, and compromises need to be made to get sufficient terrain on the table, I sized the roadway as follows;  travel lanes are 2.25" wide, paved shoulders are 3/8" and there is a 3/4" right-of-way on either side of the pavement to accommodate ditches, sign posts, utility poles, etc.

The tiles where sanded to remove the smooth sheen to the surface of the foam allowing them to more readily accept paste and paint.Also, a little relief was given to the topography of the terrain, with subtle indications of drainage along the sides of the pavement, a slight crown to the yet to be paved road surfaces, etc.  Edges of pavement were re-indicated with a pen where needed, after sanding.

Next, the beginning of the pavement was applied.  I cut strips of masking tape to create an eroded, decayed pavement edge, and taped along the edge of pavement.  Also, some potholes were cut from the tape and applied to the travel lane portions of the roadway.  A coat of artist's matte medium was painted onto the road surfaces, and a layer of  fine Woodland scenic ballast was poured onto the tiles. The excess was quickly dumped off (and recollected), and then a spider web of pavement cracks were "drawn" into the ballast with a pencil, while the matte medium was still wet.  The tiles were then allowed to dry.

 

The dry ballast received a very fast, light sanding to remove unwanted"glops" left from the cracking process, and a second layer of ballast was applied to get a more uniform, though not perfect covering.  This coat was allowed to dry and given an light "glop" removal sanding.

 

Once the ballast was dry, a coat of acrylic paste was painted onto the ballast.  Additional applications of paste were added to create irregularities in the roadway, offering indications of patches, slurry seal, and other variations in the surface.  The differences in the color at this point were caused by using up different brands of paste that I had setting around.

 

 

Masking for "patched" areas.

When the acrylic paste was dry, the tiles were cleaned up, and a base coat of artists acrylic paint was applied.  Later, A touchup coat was applied, and then some variation in color of the patches,  weathering, and dust coats were applied to the pavement.

With unpainted patched areas.

 

With patched asphalt painted.

Another  layer of dust were added to the pavement, as was a hint of faded white edge lines and yellow center lines.

 

 

Last, flock was then applied, again using the artist's matte medium as a glue.  Once the first flock application was dry, a second application was made to dress up the rotting pavement a little more.

 

 

With 1/43 Isuzu Amigo and 28mm fig for scale.

 

 

And now I have a roadway to the apocalypse.

28mm Abandoned Gas Station part 2

I finally got the gas station more of less completed (well, at least the building).  Here are some pics:

It looks a bit cruddier in person.  The pictures kept coming out pretty dark, so when I adjusted, much of the dust and dirt got "brightened" away. The fig is 28mm, I think Copplestone, for a bit of scale reference.

Anyway, mix of enamels and acrylics, evening used a base coat of spry paint, after nearly ruining it with my first brush coat.

Wish I had a photo showing the roof of the actual place, as I have no idea what they looked like from topside.  The sea of white looks a little bland. 

Next stop is to get to work on the base for it, and the road sections.  I'm hoping to start cutting foam this evening.