Claustrophobia

Claustrophobia is a dungeoncrawl boardgame that I bought last January.  I decided a few weeks ago that I like it a lot more than I initially thought that I did.

Claustrophobia

Although the theme is similar to any other game that concerns itself with monster bashing in confined spaces, the mechanics of Claustrophobia are a little different to games like Descent or Heroquest or Space Hulk and the like.

Obviously there are similarities, but movement in particular is abstracted quite a bit in comparison.  This abstraction isnt so much as to make the player feel removed from the action, but Claustrophobia isnt the Action Point management game that the other examples are.

I wont go into details further here but check Claustrophobia out on BoardGameGeek for a number of more detailed run downs of how it plays.

I played Claustrophobia a couple of times in the Spring and while I didnt hate it or anything, it didnt really set me alight for some reason.  I got a lot more fun from it the last session though.

Troglodytes swarm around, eating convicts and priests alive in an effort to protect hell from religious property developers.

I had long time gaming co-conspirator PB down for a weekend long geekfest recently and we had a few boozy games of Claustrophobia which were a hoot.

The game is supplied with pre-painted figures.  Using prepaints means that I dont get that sense of ownership that comes with hand painting my own stuff. On the other hand however it does mean that I dont have yet another unfinished project staring at me from a box on a shelf in the man-cave.

Demon top left, Troglodytes bottom right and humans spread alarmingly thinly in between.

Naturally I cant just leave it at that though.  In an effort to get the worst of both worlds I plan to add six magnetised weapon and equipment pieces to the human models, each of which represent specific equipment that can be used in the various scenarios.  I will post those up at a later date.

The bottom line is that Claustrophobia is a nice slant on the familiar dungeoncrawl theme.  I recommend it to fans of the genre.  It would likely work out well with some players who generally dont like dungeoncrawls too I reckon.

Zombie of the Week #35: Michael Jackson – Smooth Criminal

Part 2 of a special commemorative pair of ZoTW, bookending the first anniversary of Michael Jacksons demise.

Last time it was Thriller, this time its Smooth Criminal.

Smooth Dead Criminal

Admittedly, a  zombie miniature of MJ in the Thriller outfit makes a lot more sense than a Smooth Criminal version.

Funnily enough, I think that I perversely prefer this miniature to the last one nonetheless.  The noseless sculpt and face largely concealed by shadow make it more MJ-y than the more obvious Thriller figure I think.  Two miniature ways to re-kill a Michael Jackson effigy cant be a bad thing anyway, right?

Annies Not OK

Back to the usual  ZoTW next week.

Alien Queen Basing

Uncharacteristically good weather plus an even more uncharacteristic busy social life has meant that my hobby time has been curtailed of late.  As a result todays post is a bit half-assed.  It does show that at least I am making some progress with my Aliens re-theme of Space Hulk.

Alien Queen Basing

Mikko at Dawn of the Lead has been making a lot more progress on his identical project here.  His latest addition of a very nice looking Alien Queen that came from a gashapon toy is in need of a base.  As I recently made a basic but functional base for getting my large Horrorclix Queen on the Space Hulk board, I decided to put up a quick photo.

Grid Markings

After removing the model from its clix base I stuck some styrene with a treadplate pattern on it to a 60mm plywood base.  I then added some styrene strips in a sort of tic-tac-toe pattern that matches the size of the squares in a game of Space Hulk.

While obviously using such a large figure will make some parts of the game feel a little cramped, the grid marked on the base should make it apparent where the Queen is standing in rules terms.  Adjacent figures will have to stand on small parts of the queens base but I dont foresee that being a big problem.

Zombie of the Week #34: Michael Jackson – Thriller

Part one of a pair of special commemorative ZotW this time around.

Its a year since he shuffled off, so Im here to make sure that he keeps on shuffling.  Well, in miniature representative form chez sho3box at least.

Thriller

I wasnt allowed to watch the Thriller video when it was released.  Some douchebag neighbour decided that her little darlings wouldnt be able to handle such provocative imagery and as a result, nobody under fifteen years of age on my street saw the “shocking” footage of Michael Jackson “terrifying” us with his take on life after death until some time after its release.

Not that I am bitter or anything but have you seen Thriller lately?  Im more afraid of that advert for stool softener styled after a scene from Sex in the City than I would ever have been by Michael Jacksons misunderstanding of the relationship between werewolves and zombies.

I painted this figure last summer, but held off posting photos until now in an attempt to introduce something vaguely political into my toy soldier blog for fun.

HOOOOOOOO! etc

Part 2 next week.

Zombie Spawn Points

These two are numbers seven and eight of the eight strong zombie spawn points project.  The rest of the zombie spawn points were posted as Zombies of the Week if you fancy a more in-depth look at any of them.

The remaining two dont really qualify under that tag so I have put them here instead.

A Cerberus marks its territory against barrels of unholy chemical concoctions using cold, dead, bloody dog piss.

This one is similar to many that have gone before, except that this one has a zombie dog instead of a zombie human.  Allowing animals to become zombies opens up a whole can-o-worms, but I am ok with it being cross contagious with a limited number of species.  Kinda like swine or bird flu I suppose. Dog-flu that re-animates corpses I suppose.

Predatory Sewer Dwelling Mutant

Tentacles dont tend to suggest zombies to most people.  The figure is designed more as a Cthulhu thing really I suspect.  Nonetheless I was happy to use a manhole with tentacles coming out of it as a zombie spawn point.  I suppose that it goes back to my zombie grounding in the Resident Evil franchise, where mutant animals…

[comic store guy mode ]

…and not necessarily zombie animals.  There is a difference of sorts…

[ /comic store guy mode... well... reduced to normal levels at least ]

…are reasonably common due to reasons related to the zombie outbreak.

Yesterdays News

The newspaper is an image that I found online a few years ago and held on to.  I printed out a sheet of tiny papers back then but always found them just a little too big to fit on most 28mm figure bases.  I am pleased with how they look on the spawn base above though.

Lastly, here is a silly, tiny shot of all of the spawn points together, along with some of the other zed related stuff that I have painted up recently, just for fun.

Its curtains for Jill Valentine.

The spawn points were a satisfying project: the sort of thing that I regularly talk about, but dont always get around to completing.

Not this time

Zombie of the Week #33: Private Watford

Pvt. Watford

All personnel are required to be aware of safety protocols regarding shipments.  Under no circumstances should compound 39-B (purple containers) be stored, loaded or unloaded in the vicinity of any other hazardous materials.

In particular, under no circumstances whatsoever should compound 39-B be allowed to come into contact with standard consignment barrels.  Contact with the contents can result in a hazardous biological reaction.

Health & Safety Pallet Stacking Violation.

Another spawn point, quite similar to Pvt. Maberry and Pvt. Molina from over the last couple of weeks.  This is the last one with the zombie-emerging-from-a-barrel motif.

I like the barrel zombie models.  In particular Pvt. Watford is amusing in how very limber he seems to have remained despite (or perhaps because of) being stored in a barrel of toxic waste.

MiB vs Little Green Men via Flying Lead

Flying Lead is the Ganesha Games (of Song of Blades and Heroes fame) “shooting” rules.

Basically the rule set is concerned with almost any setting that has a gun in it, from (wikky-wikky-Wild) Wild West to WWI to WWII to Vietnam to Iraq to futuristic stuff.  The base core set is quite generic, with lots of rules and stats for some pretty disparate forces such as pulpy Mafia, some  WWII guys, the Black Hawk Down guys etc.

There are also a few scenarios, all of which are from different “eras”, including a not-Stargate scenario.

Stargate isnt my thing but for my inaugural run of the FL system I decided to twist the scenario to suit my miniature collection.  The Jaffa became Little Green Men and the SG team became MiBs.

I put some suggestions as to how to stat up the MiBs up on the Ganesha forum and used those pointers to change the SG team stats into something suiting my figures.  I tranferred the Jaffa stats to the Little Green Men as is: the Jaffa were statted up at a Stormtrooper level of effectiveness (i.e. shit), which was perfect for my needs.

MiB Force: Agents C, P, G and B plus Freddie the Remoolian Negotiator

The Eljee'ems with one of their scout saucers

Note the big pink pointy thing that Foreign Secretary Zorg (the guy in the purple coat) is holding.  Thats the Macguffin.

View from the Eljee'em Mothership

The battlefield, complete with two Eljee'em scout saucers (Eljee'em exit points)

Scenario:

A highly advanced Vorthuan ship has crashed in Arizona, Earth.  The Eljee’ems (L.G.M.s…geddit?) have made an unauthorised landing Earthside to pick up Vorthuan tech of value to them.  The MiB have taken umbrage with this and want to stop the Eljee’ems beaming out via their scout saucers (on the East and West of table).  The Eljee’ems start in possesion of the MacGuffin.

The MiB move out

The Eljee'ems move out

Agent P follows Cs lead

Diplomatic Envoy Flarz gets ready to cover the Foregin Secretarys advance.

The slow Eljee'em advance continues

Incoming long range Series 4 De-Atomiser fire from Agent B breaks the Eljee'em will to fight...

...and they run away at the first sign of trouble.

Eljee'em reinforcements arrive with impeccable timing...

...and take Agent C out of action with blaster fire.

Long range De-Atomiser fire from B continues to hamper the alien advance.

Agent P blasts another interstellar lawbreaker.

Agent G and Flarz exchange fire.

P also gets involved in the firefight under the saucer

P and G keep overwatch on the beam up point while B keeps up his De-Atomiser bombardment.

Freddie, the dog like Remoolian negotiator makes his move.

The fusilade of MiB fire breaks Foreign Secretary Zorgs nerves and he retreats with one of his underlings.

Envoy Flarz chooses this moment to show why he has been entrusted with the protection of the Foriegn Secretary. He ignores the fearsome image of Freddie bearing down on him and forces G to hit the dirt to stay alive.

An underling races from behind some wreckage as the Foreign Secretary steels himself for the sprint across open ground to get to the beam up point...

The Eljee'em trooper, anxious to impress his leader forces Agent P to hit the dirt. Although this exposes the trooper to fire from the recovered G, any shots being fired at the Trooper are not being fired at the Foreign Secretary, who still holds the objective. Flarz is also pinned in place under the Saucer.

Flarz risk taking turns out to be worth it as Foreign Secretary Zorg takes advantage of the confusion to get to the beam up co-ordinates and transport to the Mothership.

The game was ok.  Not great, but ok.  We found the multiple modifers both for and against shooting to be irritating to have to be constantly worked out.  Next time we will have the basic modifier (that is Combat + Weapon + Skills) calculated and written down for on each models stat sheet.  That way the only modifiers to be worked out on the fly are range and cover.  I hope that this will help to make Future Flying Lead games run more smoothly.

Zombie of the Week #32: Bud

Bud

The Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal programme developed an”unexpected” hitch.  A bunch of Cannibalistic, Humanoid, Underground Dweller shaped hitches.  Heads will roll, figuratively and literally.

A Bloody "Accident"

I have never seen C.H.U.D. (although the DVDs are en route as I type).  I am however familiar with the cover of the VHS which I could never get anyone else to rent with me as a child.  I figure that this Black Cat Bases manhole-with-hoodie figure was inspired by it.

(Edit: since I drafted this post I have seen C.H.U.D. While far from the likes of Citizen Kane, it was better than I expected.  Unintentionally hilarious in places but actually trying to be a grown up movie about monsters in others: it could have been much worse. C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the Chud however lasted less than ten minutes in the DVD player.  It looked like it was going to be a Weekend at Bernies type affair.  Ugh.)

The warning barriers come from some cheap Pound shop toys that I bought years ago.  I hopefully applied enough ink washes to them to remove most of the toy look from them.  Those things look so plastic-y in real life that I wasnt sure how far to go.

Naturally I then ladled gore all over them too.

As I have already painted up a pair of hoodies as Left 4 Dead Hunters I followed the same routine while painting Bud.

Mostly Space Hulk to Aliens Rules Conversion Ideas Mostly

WALL OF TEXT WARNING

I am finally making some progress on the miniatures side of the Space Hulk to Aliens project, of which more will follow.  Funnily enough, in one of those weird internet-ty ways it seems that lots of other people are dusting off their Colonial Marines, Aliens and Predators to tackle the same or very similar projects on both Lead Adventure Forum and Frothers.  Mikko at Dawn of the Lead has been doing some very solid work too, elements of which I intend to rip off use to inspire me.

To go along with the miniatures I want to hammer out the basic rules conversions required.  I mostly intend to game with these figures in Space Hulk (mostly), simply because it is such a tight and satisfying system.  Ideas for many these rules have been going around in my head for years while others have been as a result of talking to similarly interested Aliens and Space Hulk nerds and and I want to write them down somewhere.  That somewhere might as well be here.

The intention is to translate existing rules for various elements in Space Hulk into their Aliens equivalent and not to write new rules unless absolutely necessary.  Eventually I plan to write up a simple Force List in the style of the Force List in Deathwing that allows players to pick a simple Colonial Marine force for playing any Space Hulk scenario.

Finally, while I like the idea of Predators I have never really enjoyed the movies that much.  I really think that they are pretty shitty to be honest, even though even suggesting that to most of my colleagues tends to send them into a fit of nerd rage, complete with bad Schwarzenegger impersonations.  So, while I have a pile of Predators waiting to be painted they are not a priority for me in terms of rules conversion.  It will happen eventually but not for a while as I dont really care that much about them and they will be harder to legislate for anyway due to their stealth and all that.

So here goes.  Everything is as in 3rd Ed rules unless otherwise specified:

M41A Pulse Rifle armed Colonial Marine = Storm Bolter Terminator Marine (ignore the Grenade Launcher part of the M41A.  It is considered to be intrinsic to the weapons standard effect in the game.  Consider it represented by the sustained fire bonus if that floats your boat).

M41A Pulse Rifle armed Sergeant= Power Sword and Storm Bolter armed Terminator Sergeant (+1 in assault is fine for a veteran NonCom.  Parry from the sword can be seen as whatever you like, kung-fu grip, sixth sense, Riddick levels of badass-ness: whatever.  Regardless, Sergeants have it.  Just like they allow the CP redraw).

Shotgun armed Corporal (Hicks) = Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield Armed Terminator Sergeant (this one is a bit of a fudge.  Assuming that the shotgun is only effective at point blank range is pushing it, but it does make the shotgun very deadly at that range, just like in video games.  The Block given by the shield is explained away just like the Parry for the other Sarge.  It also makes Apone and Hicks different, but similar which is cool.  The utter absence of Hicks Pulse Rifle (Storm Bolter) is a bit counter intuiticve, but as it will then slot in cleanly to all of the 3rd Ed missions I think that that has to be way to do it.  Finally, this ties in with one of the few extra rules that I intend to use, Acid Splash.  If it works out then having the Shotgun guy run the risk of acid burn will feel just like the movie ).

M56 Smart Gun armed Colonial Marine = Assault Cannon Terminator

M240 Flamethrower armed Colonial Marine = Heavy Flamer Terminator

M41A Pulse Rifle armed Colonial Marine with Welder and Electrical Equipment (Hudson) = Storm Bolter and Chainfist Terminator (both troopers open doors/bulkheads that are otherwise difficult to open. Simple and accurate conversion).

Caterpillar P-5000 Powerloader = Lightning Claw armed Terminator (I was initially hesitant about this but the more that I thought about it the more that I liked it.  The LC Terminator has no ranged capability and will shred most opposition, most of the time.  It will also have a decent chance to best the dangerous Alien Queen (Patriarch/Broodlord) in hand to hand, which is reasonable.  It is a neat solution I think).

Company Man Burke, Newt and Jones the cat= C.A.T., Relic or other scenario objectives (I might try to come up with rules for Burke at a later date but having to rescue his sorry ass seems just as appropriate I think).

Synthetic/Artificial Person = Terminator Librarian (I know, I know but bear with me for a second.

Having watched Alien 4 last weekend, the idea of a synthetic with potent, situation based powers like Prescience (some sort of CCTV based thing) and Force Barrier (overriding a blast door or similar) seems fine to me. Psychic Storm might be pushing it a bit but whatever: maybe Bishop/Cole/Ash has overridden the Liquid Nitrogen spraying thing or activated the sprinklers after causing a short or switching on sentry guns in that area or something else just as Deus Ex Machina.

The Librarians close combat prowess is a bit at odds with Bishops performance but not so much with that of Ash (super-strong, but not super-tough). Considering that Bishop is three laws compliant, the idea of the synthetic going to extraordinary lengths to beat up potentially harmful Xenomorphs is ok with me.  Apparently the comics had combat synths that used to get stuck in quite regularly too, although the three laws tell me that Bishop would be compelled to help whether he was built for it or not.

Funnily enough the thing that doesnt sit well with me is that the Librarian has a Storm Bolter.  It doesnt seem right that Bishop should have a rifle (and the figure that I have to represent the synthetic has a piece of technical equipment in place of a weapon too.  Does Cole use a gun at any point in the 4th film?  I dont think so.

Reluctant Badass Lieutenant Ellen Ripley = Space Hulk First Edition Captain (another fudge.  The Captain in 1st Ed is very potent: he adds +2 to the CP total every turn, adds +2 to combat rolls and has a Power Sword, Grenade Launcher and Storm Bolter.  I have found that the Captain is roughly equivalent to the 3rd Ed Librarian in potency and I have swapped the characters when playing 3rd Ed quite successfully.

I suppose that Ripley is shown to have leadership qualities in the movie so ok to the CP bonus. The Storm Bolter/Pulse Rifle is perfect and the Captains GL can simply be seen as an alternative way of using the Incinerator that Ripley carries.  Thats OK with me.  The +2 combat plus Parry is harder to explain away but in the interests of keeping the rules standard I think that I can live with it.  I will justify it to myself as Fate or Hero points: the things that make the Hero, the Hero.

So, thats the Humans dealt with.   Bugs now:

Xenomorph = Purestrain Genestealer

Alien Queen = Broodlord

Face-hugger or Chest-burster = First Edition Unarmed Hybrid (these guys will get wiped out by fire very easily.  Once converted from Blip to model they move more slowly too.  They will be a fun, straightforward way to add some variety to the Alien players forces without much additional complexity and the rules are already written.  As I will use the 1st Ed blip sets, including the Hybrid blips it will be easy to throw in a few small aliens.  I havent decided on a way to incorporate it into the standard 3rd Ed blips yet.  It will probably be something similar to how the Patriarch can be brought into play, except that a “1″ Blip can be exchanged for 3 Face-huggers twice a game or something like that.)

Lastly, Acid Splash.  Some players have added rules for this.  In many ways I think that it is an unneccesary complication for little gain.  Still, after mulling it over I had an idea: rather than roll to hit any/all adjacent models when an Alien dies (which would be tedious and could easily spoil the rapid flow of the game) I want to try out an idea based on the Scatter rule from Blood Bowl.

See Mikkos comments below.

Acid Splash: Acid Splash occurs when an Alien is hit from a shooting attack and that attack rolls at least two “1″‘s rolls at least two “6″‘s. If the target Alien is adjacent to one or more non-Alien figures then one of the non-Alien figures is chosen by the shooting player.  The chosen figure is removed from play.

As noted below this gives only a 1/36 chance of damage and is incorporated into the existing rolls and game mechanics.  It also makes point blank shooting a tiny bit risky which is both thematic and entertaining.  It also means that a blast from an Assault Cannon/Smart Gun is more likely to cause Acid Splash while the Heavy Flamer cannot ever.  Quite satisfyingly accurate to the relative strengths and weaknesses of the weapons as I see them.  Nice one Mikko.

Phew, that was a long one.  Congrats if you endured it this far.  Comments and thoughts on that much are welcome.

EDIT 02/06/10: replaced Acid Splash idea with Mikkos version from comments below.

EDIT 02/06/10: replaced Acid Splash “1″ with “6″.

Dr Braga & Umbrella Security Service NBC Squad / Red Shadows

Umbrella NBC Sergeant & Trooper

I have wanted some NBC troopers for zombie games for a while, but I couldnt decide what way to paint them.  While army greens or khakis may have been apt I figured that I would try to tie them to the Umbrella forces that I have been painting, just to be a little different.

As I plan to get some white-clad HazMat suits at a later date (like the suits at the end of the first Resident Evil movie) I didnt want to go for that.  I decided instead to use the other colours from the palette in the Umbrella logo: red and black.

Umbrella Elite Troops ("Blood for the Baron!")

Painting red is a pain in the ass. Trying to get a shaded yet vibrant red (rather than a brown or orange or pink) is irritatingly difficult.

I went for a bright rubbery red in this case and some liberal application of Tamiya Clear red helped to keep the colour vibrant while still shading it.  I am happy with the rubbery look that the red ended up with (aided by a liberal gloss varnish, which in turn makes the shading hard to see in the photos.  Its there all right).

As I painted the black on to the predominantly red figures I realised how Nazi or James Bond-bad-guy they look.  In particular they remind me of the Red Shadows from the UK Action Force toy range that preceded and was subsequently absorbed into the G.I. Joe franchise.

In response to how cartoony looking the final figures ended up looking, I decided to add a cheesy lightning bolt transfer to the miniatures backs.  I think that it is a GW Space Marine White Scar chapter logo and it was a hell of a lot easier to do than paint an Umbrella logo on a red background.  Plus now it shows them to be some sort of elite squad or something like that.

Dr. Braga and Laser Armed Umbrella NBC Trooper

I painted a Moonfleet scientist miniature at the same time as the NBC guys and christened him Dr Braga, after a Star Trek writter known for his technobabble filled writing.  The doctor fits in well with these elite Umbrella troopers I think but he would be equally at home playing God in a lab or antagonising Xenomorphs in their cage or in any number of other sci-fi toy-soldier-y applications.

Since 2008 I have found myself painting scientist spectacles with 3D glasses style red and blue/green.  It doesnt make a lot of sense, but I like the look and so I keep doing it (Dr Jacoby from Twin Peaks wore a pair, didnt he?  I could be wrong).  It works well on Dr. Braga I think.

I bought a toy vehicle last week to transport these guys around in their own hi-tech, HazMat truck.  I hope to get to that at a later date, probably at the same time that I get the two humvees for the USS guys finished.

Collecting Samples for the T-Virus Project

Note that since August 18th, 2010 I have retconned these guys to be Umbrella Special Forces Unit Epsilon.  Not that it really matters, but for the sake of accuracy