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...