FWW: The Omega Project

"The project which would eventually create Liberty Prime was a massive undertaking between the US Army, General Atomics International, and RobCo Industries. However, it was fraught with delays and ultimately, it was the T-51b model of infantry power armor that liberated Alaska from the Chinese menace instead.

Unknown to either the Army or General Atomics, a large portion of the delay was caused by RobCo siphoning resources for their own in-house project; the Omega-series sentry bot. Superficial similarities to the much larger Liberty Prime speak to the common origins. The Omega prototype was designed to be armed with a similarly devastating array of weapons as the popular sentry bot, including a missile launcher and minigun, as well as the equivalent to the Army's assaultron eye laser. Utilizing the same 'freedom protocols' as Liberty Prime, RobCo looked forward to the vast profit margins they would reap in private and military contracts.

All initial testing of systems proved successful. Upon final activation, the targeting priorities of the Omega tagged all facilities personal as a Chinese invader, with tragic consequences. The program was terminated and the prototype was slated for storage until a forensic analysis could determine what went wrong, though the RobCo board suspected General Atomics sabotage.

And then the bombs fell...

200 years later and a certain underground organization has worked  to clear the virus which caused the malfunction, updating as the Chinese threat any non-Institute entities, and replacing the destroyed weaponry with plasma weaponry. To be safe, deployment is limited to command by Coursers or other high generation Synths, which Omega identifies as fellow patriotic robots..."

SOOOOOOO.... Based on an idea I saw, I picked up a cheap Reaper Bones iron golem, drilled the shoulder pieces out to attach some leftover BattleTech bits, got to practice with my airbrush on doing black base coats, assembled it, added a base & attempted a rust weathering, and then did some sweet crates with a terminal on top.

Stat wise, Omega is built via Automatron cards, without the penalties of mismatched parts (and is hefty in the points category). Movement is not terrain-limited and in most respects, Omega is a robotic Super Mutant Behemoth. It can be taken by an Institute force or robot force, if the leader has the card "robot controller."

This adds to my current Institute/Robot force of a Courser, two Protectrons, two Eyebots, and a Mr Handy/Gutsy. I still want to get a couple more Protectrons, an actual Sentry Bot (which I'll use as the Battered form, with Omega being "promoted" to a better/higher cost version), and some Assaultrons. Hoping for The Mechanist to be in the next wave though, so that they can take over the Robots after The Institute wave drops, as well as  Robobrains  since I want to make a custom FO76 Biv, the drunken speakeasy mastermind.

FWW: Roleplaying in the Dusty Wastes

Stop the presses!

Big Mo (Modiphius) has thrown pre-orders up for a Fallout RPG that is an extension of the Wasteland Warfare system. I've thrown the "character sheet" below, but it basically utilizes "archetypes" or character concept cards like Sniper & Chemist, with a base set of attributes that are then customized with Perks, Specialties, Gifts, and Scars. The weapon and equipment system is the same in that if you have one of the FOWW cards, like "Combat Shotgun," you have all the information needed for the RPG. Since these cards are downloadable from Modiphius, all you really need to play is the core book and some FOWW dice (or you can use the handy conversion chart for normal dice!).

Fallout Development Blog has all the new information and I highly recommend you go there and check it out regardless.

What this means for me, though, is that I need to really get to work painting all my miniatures, and get some more terrain built up. The RPG doesn't necessarily require you to go balls-out with the miniatures, as you can mostly run things "theater of the mind," but nothing really gets players in the zone like a table full of old world buildings to explore, mutants and ghouls to defeat, NPCs to seduce, caravans to escort, mysteries to solve, and mother heckin' Synths.

As campaigning is my favorite way to play wargames, this is super awesome as now, not only do we have a linked narrative option, but (for Commonwealth games as an example), we can use the breadth of in-game lore and locations for really immersive gaming. Because the included archetypes are "setting generic," as it were, your players can just as easily traverse The Boneyard from Fallout 1, as they could Charleston from Fallout 76, or hit the New Vegas strip from FONV. And then there's the 3rd party, 32mm sculpts that fit in with the Fallout aesthetic but that aren't easily pegged into a "Settler" or "Survivor" faction for FOWW. Zombicide survivors, whilst not in the exact same aesthetic or scale, are close enough to play as PCs, with the zombies doubling as good feral ghoul proxies. Hm, even the Zombicide board tiles could make for some good ruined cityscape, after a fashion...

FWW: Fallout76 to the 4th Power

Wow, that sure is an odd title, eh? Alright, but stay with me here.

We've been playing a LOT of Fallout76 the past few weeks. Like probably more than is healthy, and definitely more than we should be for the amount of other games, video or table top, that we should be playing. But we've also been watching High School DxD when we need to take a break. That's unrelated, merely illustrating that my wife is way cooler than most.

ANYWAY, back on topic. So, whilst playing FO76, I've been making a lot of mental notes and sketches for terrain to use in Wasteland Warfare. The aesthetic and building construction is similar to Fallout 3 and 4, with elements of New Vegas (the survival ones on hardcore at least) and it's easy to visualize how something could translate to the table top.

The biggest problem, however, is the greenery. Not that all of Fallout is drab, post-apocalyptic, gray, mind. Just that F076 takes place 25 years after the bombs fell, versus 210 in Fallout 4, so it is much less... Devastated. I assume that's before taking into consideration the three active nuke silos in the West Virginia area, and what players will inevitably do/what will occur further into the bridging of the two time periods. Especially when you consider that the southwest corner of the Commonwealth map in FO4 is the Glowing Sea - an area much more heavily radiated than any other in that particular game, and the West Virginia area of FO76 is southwest of the Commonwealth (point to point, Charleston WV is 622 miles SW of Boston, and 252 miles west of Washington DC). These leads me to think that at some point, the Glowing Sea may thin out, or it may be even worse as the nukes of FO76 would have been launched more recently than any others in the northeastern US.

What changes could have happened to WV in 185 years between the two games? Has the Scorched menace abated? Worsened? Where did the Scorched even come from? When the Brotherhood of Steel finally ended their self-imposed exile, with Elder Maxson's forces reclaiming the Citadel and the Commonwealth, have they returned to Appalachia to discover what their fallen brethren may have uncovered? Is Whitesprings still an Enclave holdout despite their setbacks on the West Coast and Capitol Wastes? What humans have returned to the area in the intervening years? Raiders, certainly, but do any of the locations survive enough to see a resurgence? Have the Responders rebuilt? Have new groups taken up the torch? What of the other Vaults in the area? What weird-ass experiments was Vault-Tec running in them, and have they opened with survivors? What of the descendants of the Vault 76ers?

Big B Rest Stop, in The Mire of Fallout 76 is going to be my starting point here. Since I want terrain to be mixable, matchable, and "location neutral," wherever possible, I'm looking at the two sections of the Big B to start - the Red Rocket portion and the convenience store (Super Duper Mart) portion. Pulling these away from the background elements, such as the hill the BBRS is on, or the roadway, or whatnot, achieves my neutrality and maintains the feel we're going for.

FO76 Red Rockets are, by and large, configured differently from the ones we see in FO4. So I'm looking at a TTCombat Dinogas Station Deluxe to start, but having spent a little bit more time in the location, I think just the smaller Dinogas Station may actually work a little better, minus the canopy piece maybe. For the convenience store building, which isn't connected (I thought they were initially), I'm looking at either the TTCombat Comic Book Store or Fast Food Store, depending on how many windows I want to work with for the second floor, though I feel like the Comic Book Store is a better fit. In either instance, I'll need a Freestanding Staircase from the TTCombat Wild West range so that characters can reach the second floor. It may or may not even matter from a FOWW point of view, but something tells me Modiphius may also release a table top RPG for Fallout using the minis and basic concepts, and I would -love- to run people through the wasteland roleplaying. A couple of burned out car wrecks to the easternmost side of the "footprint" (Corvegas or otherwise) and a grove of dead trees to the west & we have ourselves a nice little location to fight around/in/over. Plus, since it has been 185 years, there can be some significant changes around it, like the addition of a scaffolding section to reach the rooftops of the buildings, plus more sleeping bags/change of furniture on the insides, accomplished with TTCombat Back Alley Accessories.

These billboards are spoken for but I think if I get another pair without the landing part and ladder, would work for the SDM signs.

Also, since I mentioned TTCombat's Wild West range, the Moonshine Distillery has a lot of Appalachian potential as well!

FWW: Making a Base

Wasteland Warfare allows me to do something that I haven't had many opportunities to do before - build terrain features for gameplay. So whilst I've been building some scatter stuff and working on my Red Rocket kit, the below is my first MDF/bigger project.

I started with a 4Ground "2x Damaged Containers A" MDF set. These are roughly 25 Pounds, but you can get them significantly cheaper if you scour eBay, and don't mind longer ship wait times. So 25 (I don't have a Brit pound sign) retail netted for $20 USD is not that bad at all. The downside, however, is that a few of the sprues were a good bit damaged, and I imagine that is why the price was so low. But since I'm using this for Fallout, I don't even mind.

(Retail image)

So there are different ways to build this, but I really liked the idea of doing it as above, with the two sections connected and the added radio dish piece. The rooftops are removable for interior play or diorama purposes. Immediately, I came up with three different ideas - raider base, Enclave forward post, or the Leader's Office from the Settlement Mode. Each gave me some different ideas but ultimately, I decided to keep it kind of generic for use as any of the three.

As I said, my first MDF (which is like a thin pressboard) kit, so it was a lot of trial and error, but I got the yellow half done fairly quickly, more or less. Nuka Girl for scale reference.

Rather than move to the grey section right away (the instructions didn't make it seem like it mattered what order I did individual pieces in), I went ahead and put together the little bathroom piece.

It's pretty cool. So after that, I got a little bold and not only blew through the grey portion, but also joined the two together. NOTE - it said to use the white type glue, and I did, but I forgot how long it takes to get a good hold, and I had to fix a bunch of stuff as I went. Because PVA is apparently NOT the same thing as Elmers. Oops. I also made up some little light pieces, and used provided "iron plates" to tighten the joining.

Rather than keep it loose, I glued the radio on top of the detachable roof to help lift it open.

Now I had to think of how I wanted to improve the footprint. Including adding an extra bit of plasticard underneath the containers to raise them up a bit (as if they were on a cracked concrete slab), which I painted a small section to know the break in the floor between the two, and I added some plants under there.

 

Once I had my footprint, I thought about that radio dish, and the starting rules for settlements. Since they begin with small power generators, and someone in my FO group had posted, I got some cheap (less than $7 for 3) Reaper Bones starship generators. Drilled into one and added the connectors that FO4 gens have and got to priming/painting. As well as a wall mounted computer from my terrain bin, for possible turret controls...

All top tier ideas, but which require painting and time. But worth it in the grand scheme of things. 

Then I marked off on my footprint where the generator would be, and where the containers would be, so that I could paint and base and flock and whatnot the remaining plasticard sections. As opposed to just naked white. Got the base painted, added my main pieces, then had to go back and touch up places where I left too much white showing.

After that, I came up with the idea of using a pan to do all of my basing in, and that helped to get the glue applied the way I wanted to.

Yay, shaker cap basing material. And yes, I put all of the extra back in. So, with that part done and dry, I let things chill for a minute, then came back and started doing some finishing touches. And yes, I realize the flock material is super light on certain parts. That's intentional as it's the wasteland. Later, I'll learn how to use Sculptamold, as the only thing I really wanted to do with this that I didn't is build a rock wall for the one side. Using foam board may have also been a little better than the plasticard for a base. I'm fairly certain it will hold up (the main container section at least) but I'd have liked a little less floppiness in the finished product. And the pics don't show it as well, but the generator is connected to the building - since I drilled in that paperclip piece, I did the same for the building, and then attached a small piece of basing barbed wire, which I went over with a black ink to darken it up a bit. May still weather things more and use an ink on the trees, but otherwise, we're ready to go.

I dig it. It has play potential. For the Brotherhood. Ad Victoriam!

EDIT - One of the things that bothered me with the plasticard/basing material is how easily it rubbed off. So I went back and added a few things, like some leaves under the trees, a little bit of an ink wash on the trees, connected the two roof pieces with some leftover "metal" pieces over and under, and then sprayed it all down with a matte varnish to keep the basing material more solid. I actually practiced this on my mutfruit grove first. Worked just fine. Makes me a little more confident with moving minis across this. Now, to get another really good game in...

FWW: Into the Wasteland

So... Five months without a post, eh? And then to return only to post something entirely unrelated to Union City? For shame.

Ah, my humble readers, I beg your forgiveness. I started this with grandiose plans, forgetting entirely my ADHD when it comes to playing games and keeping up with fiction for the ones that I don't often. I promise I'll have some things coming up soon on that front. Until then (first of many on this topic)...

After almost a solid year of waiting, watching spoilers, reading development updates, etc, my pre-order "Fallout: Wasteland Warfare" starter bundle & Red Rocket scenic set hath finally arrived from Modiphius. Let me tell you up front and right away - totally worth the wait. The PVC miniatures (I didn't spring for the resin upgrade, couldn't justify the extra cash) are better than any of the plastics that have been released for BattleTech in the past 20 years, and the box set also came with the bonus Nuka-Cola Girl & the Alien Zetan that was supposed to only be for retail pre-orders. Modiphius has (not past tense, they're still working on it) lots of issues with production and shipping, and they were trying to make it right by people. I respect that.

SO! The game itself is very set in Fallout 4 to start, and it's there that I'll begin with some of my thoughts. Wave 1 focuses on three main factions; Survivors, Brotherhood of Steel, and Super Mutants, with Minutemen as sort of a Survivor sub-faction, and both Robots & Creatures (Deathclaws, Radscorpions, etc) available for play as well. Waves 2 and 3 will be bringing expansions to existing factions, with more characters and Power Armor sculpts, as well as adding Raiders (which should have been Wave 1 IMHO), The Institute, and The Enclave (first Fallout 3 faction, including Frank Horrigan from Fallout 2 and yes, I will be switching my fealty over to here just as soon as it drops, believe).

The style is skirmish - true to the feel of the Fallout videogames, it's small parties of miniatures battling over objectives. That's where this game really shines for me. It isn't (usually) just a straight forward "kill the enemy, raaaaah!" kind of game. You might have to hack terminals, or search for the water chip (OLD SCHOOL, YEAH!), or rescue settlers. And, in addition to playing against your friends, Modiphius has created an "AI" for solo or co-op gameplay, which intelligently allows uncontrolled pieces to fulfill their own objectives and playstyles. I know that sounds weird, and I've only experimented with it a little bit, but it actually works fairly well. It's like playing something similar to Arkham Horror, where the game itself fights your every move.

If that weren't enough to be awesome, again true to Fallout 4, a "Settlement Mode" is added for campaigns, where you virtually construct a settlement, purchasing buildings and perks in between games. I say virtually because there is a checklist that you can follow but for the real die hard fan, you know buildings are going to be assembled and pictures taken. At least, that's my plan.

If one were so inclined to really learn a lot about the nuts & bolts of this, head to Modiphius.com and check out their development blog, or Modiphius.net to order (without any lower pre-order price points now, sadly). But, I wouldn't title something "Into the Wasteland" if I weren't planning on taking you, my dear, sweet, held-at-gunpoint-and-forced-to-read-this friends, on a journey into where I'm looking to go with this.

Since the default setting is Fallout 4's Commonwealth (and yes, there are a host of NPCs from the game available currently), I immediately started brainstorming a larger campaign than just what is featured in the "Settlement Mode." Best thing about the internet is that my greatest requirement for what I had in mind is a highly detailed map of FO4, which I found with a lettered/numbered grid, and plain text for locations.

Using the map, and the building of settlements, each faction is assigned a starting sector/location within that sector. Play can follow the "Settlement Mode," but with an increased bigger picture going on - control of the Commonwealth. That's the goal of the 4 divergent lines in FO4 (Brotherhood, Minutemen, Railroad, Institute), and I think it could play out amazingly well in an extended narrative. Yes, I know, it's basically what I think about BattleTech's 5th Succession War campaign, but this is a little different in that a) I can get WAY more people interested in FOWW, and b) each game takes WAY less time. Each campaign turn would basically be an individual settlement turn for each player, but including overall faction goals, and things that would push faction influence across a wider portion of the wastes.

For example - Survivors; begin play at Sanctuary Hills or Red Rocket Truck Stop (player choice). These locations are at D3 and E4 on the map respectively, and immediately from turn one, the Survivors influence the 8 squares surrounding either one. Which, if the Survivors chose the Red Rocket, this influence would include Sanctuary Hills, as well as Abernathy Farms. If, in turn two, the Survivors player wishes to fortify Abernathy Farms, depending on how turn one went of course, they would now influence the 8 squares surrounding that as well, which include things like the Ranger Cabin, giving them a good section of explorable locations and some other type of bonus, as well as a nice sphere. Because of AI, random events, co-op, and player versus player options, all based on "Cap Cost" of characters, units, and whatnot, this entire campaign can be played by 1 player or nearly infinite. Like in FO4, alliances can shift (with some restrictions) and unexpected enemies can appear almost anywhere if one is not leery...

It's still in a brainstorming stage, since I need to play more games and want more product released, and to get more people involved before I really go off the deep end, but here's some of where I'm leading;

Factions Available+ + Starting Locations
Fallout 4 Map
Brotherhood of Steel - T14 Boston Airport or J12 Cambridge Police Station
Creatures - None, can't make settlements
Enclave Remnants -  D31 Sentinel Site
Ghouls, Non-Feral - P15 Goodneighbor#
Gunners - L23 Gunners Plaza or G25 Vault 95
The Institute - K14 C.I.T. Ruins (Or under it, as it were)
Minutemen - S19 The Castle
Raiders, Forged -  T6 Saugus Ironworks
Raiders, General - T12 Easy City Downs or Q24 Quincy
Raiders, Nuka -  A18 Nuka-World Tram (not on the map, from DLC)*
The Railroad -  Q13 Old North Church/Railroad HQ
Robots - Per Leader, H12 Greygarden or N3 General Atomics Galleria otherwise
Super Mutants - I20 Coast Guard Pier or P25 Wilson Atomitoys Factory
Survivors - D3 Sanctuary Hills or E4 Red Rocket Truck Stop
Vault Dwellers - I17 Vault 81


+ - Not all of these are player-factions. I'll build in an AI to account for their growth later.
* - For the time, the campaign might not have any of the DLC locations/factions, until I can find a way to work all the area from their minimaps and stuff into things. This includes Far Harbor, and the Mechanist DLCs as well.
# - Ghouls require a Non-Feral as the Commander, but a Non-Feral can lead Ferals, and the Faction as a whole can include them.  

So, each Faction that the game has currently available has a Faction Card for normal play, and I was thinking of a campaign perk or bonus or something for each one. Like easier access to certain weapon types or beginning play with certain items for free.  Something to reflect their individual flavors. Like I do with all campaigns involving multiple factions. And since the game, currently, is divided into the factions I've listed above, certain characters will be available for multiple groups to use. As a Commander, they're considered to be "the" unique character, but can still be included in another force as a unique archetype.

Example - Sole Survivor in Fallout 4 can pick ANY Faction to join/questlines to complete, at the player's discretion. So, whilst Sole Survivor (Nora/Nate) are listed as "Survivors" on their unit card, they can be the Commander of a Brotherhood of Steel player force as Nora/Nate, and then included in another player's Institute force as Sole Survivor archetype. This also means that a single character can't be used as a Commander for more than one Faction. But it matters for characters like Preston Garvey, who was errata'd to be Survivors/Minutemen to be able to use his abilities with the Minutemen unit. I'll make a list as I can of who else a character can join using all currently available (mostly Survivors) uniques. This also allows for proxy forces for factions that haven't been released yet, like using a Courser and a handful of robots to start an Institute settlement or Cait and some settlers as Raiders, General.

Any can be a Leader for Robot Faction. Any not listed can only be a Leader for their assigned Faction.
Cait - Survivors, Raiders (Any)
Codsworth - Robots only (Can still be a member of Survivors)
Courser XC-88 - Survivors, Institute
John Hancock - Survivors, Ghouls
Nick Valentine - Survivors, The Railroad
Preston Garvey - Survivors, Minutemen
Ronnie Shaw - Survivors, Minutemen
Sole Survivor (Nora and Nate are individually unique, so each one can lead a different Faction); Any non-Super Mutant, non-Ghoul
Strong - Survivors, Super Mutants

Settlements 
As I mentioned, the "Settlement Mode" has a whole system of Caps to balance forces, by paying a set cost for each character, weapon, armor, item, unit, so on and so forth. Victories in battles and more territory controlled, as well as perks of the Faction, will open new avenues here. I'll have to get a lot more familiar with how this whole system works before I go too far into that. 

I have a copy of the mat that came with the Red Rocket scenic saved in my Dropbox. Totally planning on, at the very least, drawing where my buildings and whatnot are as my settlement grows. Then, if another player attacks my settlement, I'll be able to constantly put terrain pieces back into the same place. Outside of that, my goal is to only track expansion to starting locations as actual settlements, with other notable locations counting as outposts and influence expanding, unless players actually want to do multiple settlement turns in each campaign turn. Logistics would be a lot more to handle and more time for individual games would need to be devoted, but that is a possibility.

I'm building a variety of terrain pieces for whatever aesthetic a player might need, but I also invite anyone who wants to play to try their hand at doing their own unique interpretations of characters and buildings. It's a lot of fun! Even if I'm not the best painter, I'm really looking forward to eventually getting the robot core set and painting the crap out of a Sentry Bot.