Star Schlock: First Look

Joe's wife Ellen Levy shot a ton of great photos of the game. The crappy ones are mine. Anything good in this battle report is her work. Thanks Ellen!

I've been working on a set of sci-fi skirmish rules for a few years, and finally brought them to test with the Scrum Club. The rules are still in an "alpha" state and I'll be posting about them more as they approach a publicly available "beta", but I thought I could share this battle report so you could see what I've been up to.

An innocent bystander gazing off into the distance, little heeding the terrible peril into which she'll soon be thrust. Heed the peril, Dawn! Heed your ass back inside where it's safe!

Star Schlock is designed to simulate the low budget, forgotten sci fi films and tv shows produced between 1968 and 1988 on the tabletop. I've got a soft spot for such gems as Starcrash, Battle Beyond the Stars, and Robot Jox, but Star Schlock should work for getting high brow fare like Battlestar Galactica, Planet of the Apes, Dune and Star Trek on the table as well.

For this game, four players would face off divided into two allied teams. Rich and Josh took the sinister forces of the Totalitarian Overlords while Walt and Joe commanded an allied native resistance and a stranded Baroness caught in the crossfire.

The battlefield, quiet before the storm.

Each force had their own objectives, unique to them. The asymmetric goals for each player are intended to capture the battles from sci fi movies which aren't always evenly matched set piece battles.

The Baddies

In this matchup, the white armored soldiers of the Totalitarian Dominion were intent on conquering the rebellious locals, with the detachment of their force under the alien Captain Vrok leading the assault.

The Totalitarian Overlord and his white clad dronetroopers

Captain Vrok, outfitted in his dashing red uniform. 

The Goodies

The Baroness, stranded on the planet after her starship came under attack by Dominion forces, was intent on escaping the battlefield.

The Baroness, her trusty robot companion R-TOOT, and her personal guard preparing for battle.

Aiding the Baroness were a collection of primitive alien rabble led by Doctor Owens, an anthropologist who came to study them but instigated their insurgency to resist Dominion rule instead.

The alien rabble gawk as the Baroness' personal guard rush into battle.

Doctor Owens, xeno-anthropologist

The key to their victory would be Doctor Owens' daughter, Space Cadet Owens who knew of a vital weakness in the Dominion's forces that could swing the tide of battle.

Space Cadet Owens. Probably joined the Space Rangers because she loves a man in a uniform.

The Battle

As battle was joined, both sides surged towards the objectives essential to securing victory. The  red clad personal guard of the Baroness dashed through the native village to capture the communication objectives so the Baroness could call in an escape vessel to escape the Dominion's clutches.

Darting through the village towards the communications beacon.

Charging forward the Dominion quickly claimed a number of important battlefield objectives: energy picket towers on the outskirts of town.

Captain Vrok's flanking force moving into the hills to meet the alien natives.

First Fire

That Baroness darted towards her landing zone, while her valiant defenders attempted to hold the line against the Dominion assault.

Josh's pic of his terrifying dronetroopers.

With the Baronesses troops dug in around a central objective choke point, the vile Overlord of the Totalitarian Dominion floated forward on his hover throne to direct an orbital bombardment from his personal cruiser hovering in orbit.

PEW PEW! A furious firefight breaks out as blaster beams lance between opposing squads.

The vile Overlord floats into battle with his dronetrooper guards to break the stalemate.

The orbiting Dominion starship fires. An explosion rocks the battlefield!

With a hole in the line, a second squad of guard took a building overlooking the Dominion advance, while the Dominion dronetroopers pushed into the newly opened gap.

The natives exchanged intermittent fire with Captain Vrok's force.

The Overlord slipped into the guards's line, unleashing a one-two blow of noxious fumes that overcame all units within short range, as well as calling in another orbital strike on the native resistance.

The Overlord unleashes a Vile Cloud.

...and unleashes a second orbital bombardment.

That one dead ewok. You know the one.

With the Dominion closing in on the leaders of the resistance, they make a last ditch effort to secure a victory. Having called in an escape vessel, the Baroness braves a hail of fire to reach the landing zone.

The Baroness reaching the edge of the battlefield.

Space Cadet Owens, having used her rocket pack to move around the flank of the Dominion forces strides out from cover.

She cries out to Captain Vrok, begging him to abandon the Dominion cause and join her. "You can't deny it Vrok! You love me, and I love you! We can make it together, we just have to try!"

Tragically Walt's dice failed him and he was unable to secure the Forbidden Love objective. Vrok rejected Space Cadet Owens' plea, "It could never work between us! Bumpy forhead, smooth forhead, our differences will always tear us apart!"

Dominion forces push the guards back.

With the Dominion forces slaughtering the resistance and capturing a number of objectives, they were able to force the end of the battle. Both sides totaled victory points, the Dominion scoring a total of 23 and the allied resistance scoring 19. Had Walt's dice been a bit hotter and Space Cadet Owens able to convince Vrok to admit his love for her and join the resistance, the Goodies may have been able to squeak out a win.

Conclusion

And that was it! Teaching a new system, especially one that's still under construction, is always bumpy, but overall I was pleased with how the game turned out. I still have more refinement to do on Star Schlock, but I can sense that these rules are starting to gel. I was happy to see players having to make challenging decisions, planning and executing strategies several turns ahead, and delivering at least a handful of memorable highlights. After working on them for nearly three years I was worried I'd start getting sick of them, but I'm honestly jonesing to play again immediately.

There's more work and play testing ahead, but I do want to give a shout out to the Second Saturday Scrum Club, my Monday night game crew, my family and my patient ex roommate Mark and his wife who have already helped me get this far. Thanks play testers! I couldn't have done this without you!

A third faction of alien horrors would have appeared in this battle as well, but a player dropped out at the last moment. Next time!

"Somebody call a doctor!" Sci Fi figures and markers

I've been making progress on the sci-fi game I've been writing, and with it came a host of core hobby projects that I needed to complete: grunts and soldiers for multiple factions, bystanders and table scatter. With those basic components completed, I'm starting to work on some of the more unique bits for the game.

Sci fi figures that don't look like they've leapt out of the GWs 41st millenium are uncommon, but thankfully Reaper Miniatures has a number in their Chronscope line that work for my needs.

I'm aiming for a late 1970's sci fi cinema vibe for the game, and while this space cadet has a definite 1950s rocket girl overtones, she gets a pass by way of Erin Gray's "Buck Rogers" jumpsuit.

In the original script for Star Wars, Uncle Owen was an anthropologist studying wookiees. In a nod to that forgotten manuscript, I've painted up this Captain Nemo from Reaper as Doctor Owens, a wilderness explorer leading a similar band of wooly alien natives.

Opposing this heroic duo will be a horde of space monsters, each with a grisly melee attack. The results of those attacks will leave the battlefield littered with bloody messes, tokens that are part of game play.

I pressed a number of abandoned miniatures, left over parts and miscasts along with copious amounts of putty to create these disgusting markers. Gross! Fun!

With all of the bits I need finished they'll be hitting the table this evening for another playtest.

Can you spare some sculpting feedback?

With 3D sculpting becoming commonplace in the production of wargaming miniatures I thought it was time to take a chance at sculpting some figures myself. I've never sculpted anything before, but I'm not one to let gross ignorance stop me from pursuing my hobby goals.

I've been tweaking my first full body human model, and before I start creating variants running, gunning and getting up to no good, I was hoping you could provide any feedback to help me refine this base model. Any suggestions you have to improve it will be welcome, whether you are a sculptor, caster, 3D modeler, printer or miniature painter.

1) This is a static pose, with some unfinished wrinkles and detailing in the clothing. Final sculpts will be more dynamically posed, with less obvious mirroring of body parts.
2) I intend to send the models to be SLA printed to create masters for eventual spin casting. Do you see any red flags I need to keep in mind when reposing? I'm a bit concerned about the undercut that will be necessary for the back of the helmet.
3) I like big chunky minis ala Games Workshop circa 1988. The head and hands are intentionally scaled up for this mini, but not sure if I need to enlarge them even more to give it a proper old school, comic book inspired panache.

Thanks for any feedback you can provide!

Painting Challenge: March of the Dead

This post originally appeared on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

I had high hopes for this year's painting challenge, but I wasn't able to carve out the time to make much of a dent in my leadpile. With a paltry few hundred points completed, I expect these undead figures to push me over my self imposed minimum threshold of 500 points, alleviating my shame a bit.

I've wanted an undead army since spotting a fantasy scenario featuring a skeletal horde in Battlesystem 2nd Edition, nearly 30 years ago. Manufacturers never seemed to have the same vision for the undead that I did though. Game Workshop took a decidedly Egyptian feel with their Tomb Kings, and many of the more recently released undead miniatures have been too dynamic in pose and expression for my taste.

When I saw these figures based on the 1562 painting "Triumph of Death" by Bruegel the Elder, I knew I'd found my guys. While an undead shambling horde represents our own inevitable mortality, I also think they are a metaphor for the unfeeling, unsensing march of time, scouring all before them. These staid, emotionless automatons marching in their perfect ranks, with halberds and javelins at the ready don't slay out of hatred, but as part of the entropic machine that will inevitably collapse all of man's creations, grind mountains to dust and darken every star in the sky.

That's a bit dark, but don't be glum. This skelly brought a giant fish to cheer you up. What a whacky guy!

All 83 of these 28mm figures will likely be my final entry in this year's Analogue Painting Challenge.

 For my Curtgeld I've donated to Veteran's K-9 Corps, an organization that provides service animals for veterans and first responders. Thanks to Curt and the minions for managing the challenge, and loosening the entry rules to allow some decidedly non-historical figures into competition.

Painting Challenge: This and That

This post originally appeared on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

I spent a lot of my hobby time over the last few weeks preparing and running our club's first local game convention. Despite a busy schedule, I managed to sneak in a bit of painting. No giant point bombs today, but at least I polished off a few more figures.

I added machine guns and a new matte black finish to this 20mm scale car for Gaslands. I intended to paint it in some sort of garish silver or purple, but it simply called out to be painted black in homage to the 1989 Batmobile. It's hit the table a few times and has proven especially deadly!

Luke Skywalker has been fighting in my Monday night Star Wars Legion battles for months in a simple brown primer coat. I rushed a quick paint job on him, good enough for tabletop play and maybe a few points for the challenge.

Finally I finished up my collection of Astropolis krogloggs. The intricate sculpts and detail warrant additional painting time which I've enjoyed, but certainly slowed my progress in the challenge.

That's it for this week! Four 28mm figures and a 20mm vehicle.

Scrum Con 2019 is in the Bag

Hot damn, we did it! Forgive my crowing, but I'm thrilled we managed to set up and launch our one day con within six months of the idea first percolating through our club's brain trust. Renting a hall, setting up tables and putting out hot dogs doesn't really make a gaming convention though. While I may have helped set the stage, it was really our game masters and attendees who brought the event to life.  Based on our post-convention satisfaction surveys, and the comments we received during the convention it sounds like our little con sated a hunger for a gaming focused local event.

Our Scrum Club learned quite a bit from our inaugural event, but with one nominally successful game day completed we've already begun discussing improvements for "the next one".

While I didn't get a chance to run or play in a game, I still had a great time chatting with attendees, welcoming some folks to their first con ever, and getting a chance to watch some very talented GMs work their magic.

If you attended Scrum Con, thank you for taking a risk on our little venture. And special thanks to the game masters who trekked in to put on a show for our players, especially Buck Surdu, Eric Schlegel, Greg Priebe of the HAWKS, Kelly Armstrong and Neil Carmichael of the Army of Central Maryland Wargaming, Joey McGuire, Ed Watts, and our RPG hosts Zeb Cook, Elizabeth Ferrara, Luke Stacks, Scott McKinley and Keith Sloan.

And to the Scrum team, Walt, Jared, Rich, Steve, Francesco, Zach, Josh and Joe thanks for all the hard work. You guys are really a great team to work with. Now let's get crackin' on planning Scrum Con 2!

Painting Challenge: A Plethora of Krogloggs

This post originally appeared on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

I adore these goggle eyed kroglogg aliens and managed to boot several more off my lead pile and into active duty.

These chaps are labeled as "hunters" in the Astropolis line of miniatures and act as pest control aboard the enormous star cruiser that serves as their home, but in my collection they'll pressed into service as front line troops of a rebellious alien rabble. Kroglogg eyes are widely set on hammerhead shaped noggins. I assume the forward facing optical sensors on these ceremonial helmet give these particular alien soldiers binocular vision so they can act as sharpshooters for their depth perception lacking kin.

In so many science fiction series the aliens are part of a monoculture devoid of individual character. All klingons are warlike. All hutts are obese gangsters. I appreciate that many of the figures in the Astropolis line have individualistic characters woven into them through their sculpts.

This beverage sipper looks like a cranky old fart, while the mother and child are expectedly awaiting the arrival of a loved one.

Our dutiful papa is enroute, lugging his work parcels with him while this dimwitted attendant barely notices his passing. Love 'em!

I'm used to polishing off dozens of identical historical figures at a time, but these individual figures are requiring more attention to get right than I'm used to. My Painting Challenge point goal is looking increasingly overly optimistic, but I'm hoping that with just a few more individual sci fi figure to do I'll be able to drop some point bombs with mass units of uniformed figures soon.

In total these 10 figures should bump me up another 50 points.