GorkaMorka Gaming

Having been cutting, gluing and painting ork miniatures and post apocalyptic terrain for the last few months, MT and SOS paid a visit to play some GorkaMorka a couple of weeks ago.

The plan was to concentrate on putting our respective mobs through their paces by playing nothing but GoMo for the duration, which is what we did.

I used my Bigdogz mob.  SOS had plans to paint a Freebooter pirate mob, but only got a couple of figures painted.  MT didnt have anything ready so he used SOSs figures.

SOS "Kaptin"

One of the reasons that GoMo was chosen for this particular gaming weekend is that SOS has enough orks already painted to allow us to build pretty much any ork mob we could want.  That way we had a fallback in case painting plans didnt come to fruition.  Therefore MT and SOS picked their mobs from SOS older stuff and we got going.

The look of SOS ork army is largely themed around WWII Wehrmacht, in case you were wondering, with each squad looking like paratroopers or desert camo guys or whatever.  SOS chose the ride above to start with.

MT chose the vehicle above as his first transport.  He chose to use one of SOS squads denoted by their soft brown caps.

We played a number of games over the day.  We didnt record exhaustive details of each game (there was enough bookwork in keeping track of the mob development itself), but we took photos of some of the more memorable moments, starting with the distinctly unmemorable picture below.

The opening three way game. Believe it or not, that turned out to be too much terrain for a game of GoMo...

GoMo needs very little terrain.  Manoeuvring the vehicles is sufficiently difficult that including too many obstacles makes things a bit too frustrating.

Playing with miniatures on gaming tables that are largely devoid of scenery is anathema to me: part of the point of tabletop gaming is the visual vignettes and the 3D, train set nature of the pasttime.  Without those it quickly becomes something that would be better played with cardboard counters on a hex grid.

That said however I think that elements of the vehicle side of GoMo work well and give an unusually fluid (some would say non-existent) battle line.  For the unique game experience that this brings I am willing to suck up the fact that GoMo games are played on largely featureless plains.

A head on ram by SOS causes MTs truck to explode, while my boyz circle in for the kill...

... but a lucky shot from SOS jams the throttle on the Bigdogz truck, sending the lot of them hurtling off the table with flame shooting from the exhaust. Giggling ensues.

The end of the first game had amply illustrated the Keystone Kops nature of Gorkamorka.  It is very much a think-on-the-fly followed by shoulder shrugging and laughing sort of affair.  There is a lot of screwy randomness involved.

In addition this game illustrated that despite having a combined age of ~105 that the three of us are categorically not too old to titter in a juvenile fashion at repeated uses of the words “Nob”, “Chopper”, “Thrust” and “Ram” (all deliberately incorporated into the rules by puerile designers, bless ‘em).  Examples included:

• “All of my guys jump on your Nob”
• “I Thrust my Nob at your Nob while that guy hits the guy with the hat with his Chopper”
• “My Nob is a Spanner”

I didnt think that I would laugh as much as I did either, but it wore me down

Chase Scenario 2 starts with two trucks hurtling through the wasteland, but...

...rapidly turns into a collision, an explosion...

...and a fistfight, with very little chasing involved.

Next we tried a couple of Chase scenarios.  During these games most vehicles largely remain stationary on the table, while the terrain travels towards the edge, giving a “rolling road” effect.

This was something that I had been looking forward to trying for quite a while, but our two attempts didnt work out terribly well.  It is likely to me that this was due to the fact that we were using mobs composed of raw recruits, with only one vehicle each (plus the usual caveat about the Yahtzee like random elements in GoMo).

I think that chase scenarios would likely work better with more vehicles involved and with potentially more skilled vehicle drivers (models that is, not necessarily the players) to flatten out the averages on some of the more extreme results of GoMo games.

King of the Hill three way fight.

MTs mob tries to shift the Bigdogz from their tenuous foothold on the plateau while SOSs boyz opportunistically flank the Bigdogz at ground level.

SOS boyz forgo the enfilade in favour of hurtling bodily into one of the Bigdogz trucks, as is traditional in GoMo. This causes engine explosions in both vehicles (also traditional).

The King of the Hill (or “Nob of da Kop” to use the vernacular) scenario turned out to be one of the more enjoyable games for me.

I specifically made the daft but (to my eyes at least) somewhat charming “Kop” with this scenario in mind.  It was fun for me to have a purpose built piece of terrain with its (albeit limited) functionality (well it is large and flat) in full use.

The game was the usual shenanigans of course.  Nonetheless it gave us all a few laughs and was unpredictable fun.  MT won as everyone else ran away but, in true GoMo style the Bigdogz ended up with the lions share of the booty.

Trucks chase around the fort while the Bigdogz rescue their brother in arms.

More tyre squealing antics as MT rescues his comrade from SOSs clutches.

The last couple of games that we played involved the fort.  I was hoping for a little bit of a Mad Max like siege atmosphere and I got a little of that at least.  I got a kick out of finally using the fort (having owned it in various unfinished states for about sixteen years).  The games themselves were mediocre from my perspective (and I think MTs) and “shit” from SOSs perspective if memory serves.

Conclusions

Definitely not for everybody, but despite (and sometimes because of) its failings, Gorkamorka proved to be ridiculous but entertaining fun for a day.  Not something to play every weekend, but for a while every so often, sure.

For a game as profoundly silly as it is Gorkamorka has a far too convoluted post game sequence, for little gain.  If that part of the game were smoother I could see my group playing it more regularly.

Our three mobs have a little history now.

1. SOSs guys are basically crewing ghost trucks with swabs thin on the ground, but so far they have got away with it via homicidal ramming and dazzling accurate Kannon shots.
2. MTs guys made an expensive fashion faux pas by buying (useless) Flak armour early on (thats what he gets for not even reading the rulebook in advance ) but still held the top of the leaderboard pretty consistently for the duration.
3. My Bigdogz reputation for rubbishness is deserved with spectacularly slow experience advancement and the massive cost of having to replace an expensive atomised truck hampering their lacklustre efforts further.  Still none of them died or got injured and Ginormuz (my leader, “Norm” to his friends) finally won his last game, giving him his much needed compulsory leadership boost.

With the three mobs details on file I suspect that GoMo will get on the table again at a later date.

Da Bigdogz – Gorkamorka Mob #6: Runtherd, Shoota, Choppa & Big Shoota

The shoota boy above has a head from Kromlech miniatures ( the company that makes the cybork parts shown in this post.  The Runtherd is from the Gretchin box and is a cool little figure complete with vicious herd squig.

Lastly another pair of homicidal post apocalyptic aliens armed with automatic weapons, hooray!

Da Bigdogz – Gorkamorka Mob #5: Nob, Kannon, Choppa & Big Shoota

Dual Wielding Nob and Boy with Kannon

The gunslinging Nob above has a magnetised neck and head.  Mainly this is so that I can swap my preferred leaders head onto this body if he develops in a gun kata direction after a few games.

I have done a little conversion work on a specific ork nob head (details to follow at a later date) and I want to have as many weapon options as possible available for my leader, plus it was a fun exercise too.

The Kannon is a resin weapon from Ramshackle Games.

Boy with Choppas and A Big Shoota Boy

As the heavy weapons in Gorkamorka are not man (or ork) portable the big shoota boy will be used to represent a gunner on a vehicle or emplacement or similar.  The ork big shoota models are too much fun to leave out of my ork painting project anyway.

Zombie of the Week Hiatus

 

A few hitches have meant that I have to put ZotW on hold for a short period.

It will be back soon as I have loads more zombies to put up.

 

 

“Standard Falls” Shanty Town: Pt3

The prototype Town Sign. Still adequate for use, but I prefer the smaller one shown previously.

After assembly painting and varnishing some tarting up of the pieces was the final thing.  I dont have the facilities to photograph anything much bigger than a 28mm figure terribly well, so my terrain snaps are a bit ropier than my usual “alright” photo standard.  C’est la vie.

Firstly I stippled burnt sienna (which is the base colour of the surface that I game on) onto the more expansive flat areas of the bases, such as fenced in area and between barrels/crates and the buildings.

Next I drybrushed the base edges and everywhere that the terrain touched the “ground” with the same colour.

Once that was dry I added some small patches of brown and orange lichen to the bases.  I was trying to quickly evoke a little bit of western theme here, reminscent of dustbowl tumbleweeds.

It was at this point that I finally worked out how to mount the freestanding doors on the buildings.  I had read that paper hinges were feasible for this sort of thing.  I tried it and didnt like the effect.  The project was coming close to the end now and I knew that if I didnt find a quick and functional way to make the doors easily remain open and closed that I would end up leaving them out altogether.

A plan view of the yard attached to the shack above.

So I had a rummage in my stuff.  I ended up sticking cheap plastic-y flat magnets on the inside floor of the buildings at the doorway.  Then I bent flat picture hooks until they sat at right angles and glued them to the back of the doors with room for the magnets underneath.  This allows me to add or remove doors as I wish.

You should be just about able to work out what I am taking about by looking at this picture:

I have yet to paint the inside of the doors and the hooks, but I will give it them quick coat of black, just so that they look a little neater.

Next on the to-do list was adding a whole load of posters and signs to the walls of the buildings.  Some of these were posters from the Foundry Rules With No Name downloads page.  The majority however came from images that theangrylurker had collected for just this purpose here, here and here (thanks Fran!).

Although the posters all have meaning (rather than just being abstract shapes) I wasnt terribly fussy about whether they made sense or not.  I tried to make sure that not too many duplicates would be visible if I lined up the buildings as a street but beyond that I stuck them wherever I thought looked good.

I also stuck some small printouts of a newspaper with the headline “THE DEAD WALK” onto the ground in a few areas.  It helped to break up some of the flatter base areas without presenting an obstacle to miniature placement, plus a bit of litter brings a model to life a bit I find.

Next up are some of the smaller scenic elements that I prepared at the same time.

Renedra Gravestones

I made the graveyard in strips for convenience for storage, set-up and during play.  I could have spent a bit more time varying the tones and colours in the stones but by now I just wanted to be finished quickly, so I left them all one colour.

GW Ork Barricades

Above are the six GW Ork barricades.  I really like how these came out, but I should have photographed them differently.  All six are in that shot believe it or not, but its hard to tell.  I am chuffed with how they look anyway

Pardulon Junk Piles

The Pardulon junk piles are nice and were very quick to prep.  As one of the games that I plan to play with this terrain is Gorkamorka the junk piles will be thematic terrain whether I play using the shanty or not.

The three larger scratch built buildings were difficult to photograph, so sorry about the shadows and the like.

Lastly the building with the unfeasibly large corrugated roof shown below is the saloon.

Like all of the scratch built buildings in this project, I originally put them together back in ’96.  Of the six of them the saloon was ever finished properly.

Saloon interior, complete with back room, barman and dancing girl.

I did the interior pieces sixteen years ago, but they are more than adequate for my needs all the same.  In fact, if I painted them now I would probably spend less time on them.

Although I have plans to make a few magnetically attached signs that could identify the buildings (Undertaker, Saloon, Marshall, that sort of thing) as and when required for scenarios, I had run out of steam at this point.

It wasnt fun any more, so I decided to leave Standard Falls as is for a while.  I imagine that I will get back to to those bits when I get around to making a clock tower and finishing the saloon.

Thanks for looking!

“Standard Falls” Shanty Town: Pt2

After assembling the elements of my post apocalyptic shanty town I sprayed most of the pieces black.  I left the wooden signs unsprayed as I wanted to try painting them with washes and a little drybrushing and to leave the existing wooden colour show through a bit.

Sprayed Pardulon Shacks

I then drybrushed the shacks, the scrap and the barricades with cheap silver acrylic from Lidl.  For a little variation I also entirely covered some of the sheets modeled onto the shacks etc in silver at this point.

Two Pardulon shacks before and after a big silver dry/overbrush.

Next I painted a random selection of elements on the pieces with a ruddy red oxide colour (which has become a recurring colour in this terrain set for an unknown reason).

Lastly for this stage, I painted a number of details in suitable colours, such as the wooden doors, the tarp roofs on two of the shacks, tubing and other details on the barricades etc.

While I wanted the end result to look ramshackle, I didnt want it to look too gaudy.  Real junk and garbage obviously has a massive variation in colour.  That would have been time consuming to paint and the end result may have looked… well… like garbage.  So I used a limited palette on the lot.

Generally speaking I stippled those colours on.  I layered the colour on roughly in some cases and just used a base colour in others, whatever looked ok to me for each piece at that time.

What I didnt really do was any significant highlighting.  As I planned to lightly drybrush almost every thing with silver at a later point it wasnt worth while: the silver will provide the highlight.

I planned to apply some appropriate transfers at this point, hoping that good usage of them would imply that elements of the shanty had been scavenged from items that previously had another use.

As it happened I didnt apply any transfers.  I had an afternoon set aside to do more work on the shanty and if I had put on transfers then I would have had to leave the whole lot to one side to dry overnight, so I decided to leave the transfers off.

So the next step was to wash more or less everything with a mix of liquitex black ink, burnt sienna and water.  This deadened the colours a bit, shaded some other areas and gave some definition.

At this stage the wooden areas got a little attention with a combination of drybrushing, ink washes and all that.  It was a bit freeform and done on a case by case basis, but was all simple stuff.

After that most areas got a light of drybrush of silver.  Some areas had some detail picked out if it had become too dull from the wash or if it rewarded a small bit of effort.

Next: finishing touches.

“Standard Falls” Shanty Town: Pt1

The vulture model to sit on the sign is in the post.

I warbled about getting my post apocalyptic town ready for gaming with just over a year ago.  The setting and my conceptual plan are loosely detailed in that post.

I finally got around to working on the town itself over the last few weeks, only one year later than I intended…

The first thing that I did was assemble the lovely resin shacks that I got from Pardulon and then base them on cork tiles.  I have based a lot of my non-urban terrain this way for the last few years as its cheap, surprisingly sturdy, easy to work with and the broken edges give a rocky, wild west feeling.   Its a quick, cheap and easy solution to something that has always previously been a hassle for me.

As is apparent from the photo I also stuck some barrels, crates. wheels and other bits and pieces down too.  I tried to include enough to at least give a vague feeling of the buildings being lived in, but without clogging up the pieces so much that they limit figure placement to an irritating level.  Only time and gameplay will tell if I succeeded at balancing that.

I made five shanty buildings back in 1996 (above).  They were largely built from corrugated plastic poster board that I took from a skip on my way home from college.

Note the chipped edges on the old shacks shown. They will be either repainted or obscured in some way later on.

I decided to press these old stalwarts into service in Standard Falls and so I stuck them to cork bases too.  I didnt bother trying to blend the slightly battered existing card bases to the cork.  I would rather just assume that it is a sheet of scrap that the shanty builders built on top of.

I left enough room on the building bases to add bits of balsa, card and textured styrene sheet at the front.  That sort of thing can give a little context to terrain pieces and help them to look a marginally less like they were dropped from orbit into the setting.  Also I hoped that the addition of a post apocalyptic boardwalk would evoke a little of the western frontier town feeling.

Note the GW ork barricades (rear) and the Pardulon junk piles (fore).

Next I stuck half a set of Renedra plastic gravestones and a set of Pardulon junk piles to cork bases (I hope that the other half of the Renedra gravestone set will eventually be stuck to greener looking bases for use in zombie and Buffy type games).  I cleaned up a set of Games Workshop Ork Barricades at this stage too, but figured that they didnt need to be based.

Finally I got a some popsicle sticks, burned “STANDARD FALLS” into them with a soldering iron and hot glued them to cork bases.  I forgot to WIP photograph those at that stage but via time travel technology a picture of one of the finished signs is at the top of this post.

Lastly, for no reason other than I feel like it I will show you what two of my cats were doing right then as I managed to take a photo of them while forgetting to keep track of the miniatures…

I made two signs, once with each of the two sizes of popsicle stick that I had available.  I was trying to get a western feel and make signs reminiscent of the sign for the town “Redemption” in The Quick and the Dead.  I think that it worked well.  Scorching the letters in was fun too.

Next: painting.

Scrap Objectives

More tiny gaming props today.

Shown above are two unexploded grenades and six “Scrap Counters”.

The unexploded “stikkbomz” might occasionally be used in games of Gorkamorka.

Scrap in the Gorkamorka setting is analogous to treasure in a dungeon RPG setting: its the main reasons for the protagonists to be there.

Scrap was originally represented by cardboard tokens in the Gorkamorka game.  While 3D representations of things like that can be nice to look at, they are often impractical in game play terms, proving to be awkward to move around with the model that is supposed to be carrying it and the like.  Often cardboard tokens are just more practical, if not as pretty.

Despite that I decided to make Scrap Counters anyway, based on 22mm tiddlywinks.  I made sure that each counter had a piece that served as a handle to pick it up and tried to make the profile of the scrap reasonably flat, so that they wouldnt be too awkward to use in game.

I actually really enjoyed making these, almost like a set of tiny dioramas.  Painting the ork skull and the Necron head were highlights.