After having the grand idea to play some Fallout as a miniature game, AWB FINALLY managed to live the dream last Friday by putting on a small game in 15mm for the Butchers of the Bell Curve gaming group.
System was Tomorrow's War, which was the reason AWB purchased these rules in the first place, and figures from GZG. The game had a raiding party of nine Super Mutants vs a Science type team from one of the Vaults numbering in at eleven. Inspiration was mainly from Fallout:3 for, as fans of the game probably know, West and East Coast Super Mutants are slightly different.
For those playing along at home, the Super Mutants were classed as D8 quality and morale with one Super Mutant Brute as leader which was morale D10. The Brute was classed as 'Hard to Kill' as per the Tomorrow's War rules and the rank and file were given 'Tricky to Kill', a variation to this rule where a D4 is rolled as the saving dice instead of the normal D6. There was a two mutant weapons team with a minigun (+1D support weapon) that was also classed as Intimidating, all others had stand weapons and none had armour.
The humans had a two man 'Science Team' armed with pistols, a 'Security' team of four figures in armour (1D), a 'hero' (D10 quality/morale and armour, Designated Marksman skill) and a four figure squad of 'Hangers On' armed with SMG/Shotguns. All except the 'hero' were D8 quality/morale and the side's Confidence was rated as Poor based on the rational ground that their mission was rather risky for little 'real' reward.
The humans were tasked with retrieving as much 'science' (read VP) as they could from a small shack they had found in the middle of the wasteland without getting killed and the Super Mutants had the more straight forward task of wiping out the PUNY HUMANS!!!! Hence the humans got no VP for killing Super Mutants, while our favourite big yellow skinned idiots had no interest in the 'science'. Both sides therefore could obtain victory here...
Although (spoilers), the Super Mutants ended up getting butchered.
The humans were gone for all money at one stage. The 'Security' team was being forced back, the 'hero' had been last seen collapsing under a hail of minigun fire and what's more, a Molerat had just popped up randomly to be annoying.
Then, having also randomly found enough loot to increase the 'Security' teams supply level for the rest of the game (which under the rules gives that team a very useful +1 dice to roll when firing), the luck swung back, the Super Mutants were falling like Bloatflies and by turn seven the humans were casually finishing off the wounded.
All good fun really and completely justified all the time the last two years spent, on and off, painting figures for this project. Neither of the two players were experienced with the source game and probably missed some of the deliberate references (as well as referring to the Super Mutants as 'Ninja Turtles' for most of the game) which was a mild pity. There was also a few of the 'house rules' that probably need a little more Beta testing. The vault dwellers all had PIPBoys for example, which as players of Fallout:3 and Fallout New Vegas will know, allow use of the VATS system. Sliding VATS into Tomorrow's War without making it a game breaker is still a work in progress. Current version/theory has PIPBoy equipped teams being able to reroll failed reaction tests with the chance to take a VATS shot coming up via the set of home made Fog of War cards. These random event cards also include such 'Fallout' type events as the Mysterious Stranger and the appearance of various non friendly animals.
So, still a bit of tweaking to do with the house rules for this project (as well as a LOT of painting still to finish) but overall a very entertaining Friday night using a reasonable straight forward game engine that provided an amusing dialogue to the night's events.
Good fun, with the only real failure of the night being the complete failure to remember to take any photos.
Showing posts with label Tomorrow's War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tomorrow's War. Show all posts
Sunday, 15 September 2013
Monday, 10 June 2013
Projects - More Fallout game planning
In an attempt to push forward the dream of playing Fallout in 15mm, or maybe just as an excuse to avoid painting, AWB has been making some more cards to use within this project.
This current batch (no photos this time as once you have seen one homemade card printed onto 90gsm you have seen them all), are 'Stuff Cards'. This is an AWB idea that is not from the Tomorrow's War rules and an attempt to add a bit more Fallout type flavour. There are 18 cards (as that is what fits nicely onto a single A4 sheet more then anything else) and the theory is that each player will draw between 1 and 3 at the start of the game based on their sides Supply Level.
Most are things such as Chems that can be used as desired to give temporary bonuses to units while 1 in 6 are dud cards such as Teddy Bear and Mystery Meat (don't eat it, please) that serve no in game purpose. These cards will hopefully reflect on the sort of amounts of semi useful junk the average Fallout universe type character might be found carrying about.
This current batch (no photos this time as once you have seen one homemade card printed onto 90gsm you have seen them all), are 'Stuff Cards'. This is an AWB idea that is not from the Tomorrow's War rules and an attempt to add a bit more Fallout type flavour. There are 18 cards (as that is what fits nicely onto a single A4 sheet more then anything else) and the theory is that each player will draw between 1 and 3 at the start of the game based on their sides Supply Level.
Most are things such as Chems that can be used as desired to give temporary bonuses to units while 1 in 6 are dud cards such as Teddy Bear and Mystery Meat (don't eat it, please) that serve no in game purpose. These cards will hopefully reflect on the sort of amounts of semi useful junk the average Fallout universe type character might be found carrying about.
Sunday, 9 June 2013
Projects - Fallout as Miniatures - Fog of War cards
As hinted at in an earlier post, AWB has been attempting for months to get around to playing some tabletop 15mm wargaming in the Fallout universe, most probably using the Tomorrow's War game system.
Just to prove that AWB doesn't spend their entire day updating blog posts, here is a cheap and nasty photo to tease and excite you...
... which strangely also refuses to rotate the correct way. Oh well.
So what you can see is some work in progress Vault Dweller types converted with a dab of green stuff for the PipBoy from GZG figures and some home made Fog of War cards.
Tomorrow's War using these cards for random events during their games to add more colour and confusion to the game. Unfortunately the supplied cards are aimed at more your traditional future war experience (ie fire support, nano tech, communications nets) and don't really fit into the Fallout flavour.
Hence, with a little help from CorelDraw and some 45x65mm card sleeves, AWB has created some new ones. Only 18 so far and probably could do with being printed on some thicker paper but a reasonably pleasing effort so far. All that needs to be done now is to actually finish painting and ask the Overseer nicely if we can open the Vault...
Just to prove that AWB doesn't spend their entire day updating blog posts, here is a cheap and nasty photo to tease and excite you...
So what you can see is some work in progress Vault Dweller types converted with a dab of green stuff for the PipBoy from GZG figures and some home made Fog of War cards.
Tomorrow's War using these cards for random events during their games to add more colour and confusion to the game. Unfortunately the supplied cards are aimed at more your traditional future war experience (ie fire support, nano tech, communications nets) and don't really fit into the Fallout flavour.
Hence, with a little help from CorelDraw and some 45x65mm card sleeves, AWB has created some new ones. Only 18 so far and probably could do with being printed on some thicker paper but a reasonably pleasing effort so far. All that needs to be done now is to actually finish painting and ask the Overseer nicely if we can open the Vault...
Sunday, 12 May 2013
Pip-Boy Light's On - Musing on Fallout Projects
AWB of course has several projects on the boil at any one time and two of them currently revolve around the Fallout franchise of computer roleplaying games. First is playing Fallout as a miniature tabletop game using Ambush Alley Games 'Tomorrow's War' and the second a traditional pen and paper roleplaying using the 'Heavy Gear' rules published by Dream Pod 9.
Most of the ideas to make these projects work are relatively straight forward. Tomorrow's War is already a flexible open set of rules designed to be used in any setting, the main stumbling problem being the well know slow pace AWB takes to paint figures. Playing Fallout as a roleplaying game takes a slight more bit of ground work. All equipment and beasties that might be used in the campaign need to be converted from computer stats into the roleplaying system. Not really that big a deal; guns are guns, humans are humans and there is no magic system to worry about. After all, roleplaying is a group activity and as long as everyone has a reasonable idea how an object works then most groups can run with it.
Which brings us to the Pip-Boy.
Now for those readers who are not familiar with the Fallout Universe, and seriously, AWB is currently frowning at you in a concerned and angry manner, the Pip-Boy is the wrist mounted portable computer the main character wears that doubles as the game's main player interface. Think of it as a large smart phone with rubbish graphics and a few health monitoring aps. There is some implication that they are bonded for life to their user, or at least cannot be removed without the owner's permission (ref the Fallout 3 add on Operation Anchorage) although it is probably safe to assume they can be removed or none of our heroes would ever get in and out of those skin tight suits of stealth armour.
The problem is V.A.T.S.
Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System is a game mechanic that allows Fallout 3/Fallout New Vegas players (where the game is 1st person shooter for the most part) to conduct limited points based targeting in the same way that Fallout 1 and 2 (which were action point based 3rd person isometric style games) allowed the player. With a handy press of a key the game player could pause the action, carefully assess the tactical situation and target enemies for violent destruction. While never stated as such, perks such as 'Maths Wrath' within the game strongly imply that V.A.T.S. is controlled by the Pip-Boy, but how?
Clearly if V.A.T.S. and Pip-Boys really existed they would not be able to physically freeze time. If they could then, well, those powers would no doubt be used for evvvvvvillllllll(tm) and not improving your next shot with that 10mm pistol you are carrying. Within the game, the down side to V.A.T.S. is that weapons degrade faster. How this is meant to work AWB honestly has no idea. Let's just all assume the increased weapon wear is simply a play balance tool and move on. What is probably the best guess as to how the system works is that the Pip-Boys uses a combination of it's built in sensors and some motion prediction aps to track the immediate targets, calculate existing weaknesses based on detectable injuries and then offer up predicted travel paths and offset aiming points. Or something. It strikes AWB as to be similar to the predictor gunsights that started to come into service late in WW2. In theory they offered up a lot of useful targeting aids, but only after the user had entered in a reasonable amount of data first. In practise they seemed to make an average shot better, while the good shots who already knew how to judge deflection ignored them completely.
So, getting back to putting V.A.T.S. into other gaming projects.
The great danger is to make it a super weapon. In Tomorrow's War the scope is not the hero character but the movement of squads and fireteams. Tomorrow's War uses a buckets of dice type system where the higher the roll the better, and better troops get to roll bigger dice. Elites for example may roll D12s, while scum play with D6. Middle ranks get D8s or D10s. Since the system involves opposed dice rolls where one side must beat the actual number rolled on the dice, the difference in dice size can be very powerful.
So making V.A.T.S. increase dice size, which was AWB first idea on the subject, is probably not the way to go, especially since in universe the only people with Pip-Boys are Vault types and, player character excepted, most of them are pretty rubbish fighters.
The feel at the moment therefore is that V.A.T.S. gives reaction bonuses. Tomorrow's War has a reaction test mechanic where the side must test to see if they successfully 'react' to oppositions moves. In this a natural '1' is 'Bad' and the (non play tested) feel is to allow units with Pip-Boys to re-roll any 1s.
Which may work. Like we said, it is non play tested and a work in progress.
Our second project in the Fallout Universe is the old school pencil and paper Roleplaying game. Here the problem is both trickier and easier. First we can just solve the problem by ensuring all players never get to wear a Pip-Boy in the first place. If that fails, or we decided we do want to have our PCs wear the blue and yellow jumpsuits, the size of the problem will probably depend on how flexible the players are and if they are around your table to role play or roll play. A good role player could just state 'I am going into V.A.T.S.' and the skilled game master inform them, 'stuff happens'. A roll player would probably want to know the dice roll modifiers. Here we have some options - bonus to hit, bonus to crit chance, bonus to initiative or maybe just bonus intelligence about the target to be given to the players.
Personally AWB is thinking that 'if' the Fallout RPG campaign ever gets off the ground it might just be the easy escape with 'Plan A', but should the campaign start and RobCo's most famous wrist watch gets an outing, then AWB will keep you posted.
Most of the ideas to make these projects work are relatively straight forward. Tomorrow's War is already a flexible open set of rules designed to be used in any setting, the main stumbling problem being the well know slow pace AWB takes to paint figures. Playing Fallout as a roleplaying game takes a slight more bit of ground work. All equipment and beasties that might be used in the campaign need to be converted from computer stats into the roleplaying system. Not really that big a deal; guns are guns, humans are humans and there is no magic system to worry about. After all, roleplaying is a group activity and as long as everyone has a reasonable idea how an object works then most groups can run with it.
Which brings us to the Pip-Boy.
Now for those readers who are not familiar with the Fallout Universe, and seriously, AWB is currently frowning at you in a concerned and angry manner, the Pip-Boy is the wrist mounted portable computer the main character wears that doubles as the game's main player interface. Think of it as a large smart phone with rubbish graphics and a few health monitoring aps. There is some implication that they are bonded for life to their user, or at least cannot be removed without the owner's permission (ref the Fallout 3 add on Operation Anchorage) although it is probably safe to assume they can be removed or none of our heroes would ever get in and out of those skin tight suits of stealth armour.
The problem is V.A.T.S.
Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System is a game mechanic that allows Fallout 3/Fallout New Vegas players (where the game is 1st person shooter for the most part) to conduct limited points based targeting in the same way that Fallout 1 and 2 (which were action point based 3rd person isometric style games) allowed the player. With a handy press of a key the game player could pause the action, carefully assess the tactical situation and target enemies for violent destruction. While never stated as such, perks such as 'Maths Wrath' within the game strongly imply that V.A.T.S. is controlled by the Pip-Boy, but how?
Clearly if V.A.T.S. and Pip-Boys really existed they would not be able to physically freeze time. If they could then, well, those powers would no doubt be used for evvvvvvillllllll(tm) and not improving your next shot with that 10mm pistol you are carrying. Within the game, the down side to V.A.T.S. is that weapons degrade faster. How this is meant to work AWB honestly has no idea. Let's just all assume the increased weapon wear is simply a play balance tool and move on. What is probably the best guess as to how the system works is that the Pip-Boys uses a combination of it's built in sensors and some motion prediction aps to track the immediate targets, calculate existing weaknesses based on detectable injuries and then offer up predicted travel paths and offset aiming points. Or something. It strikes AWB as to be similar to the predictor gunsights that started to come into service late in WW2. In theory they offered up a lot of useful targeting aids, but only after the user had entered in a reasonable amount of data first. In practise they seemed to make an average shot better, while the good shots who already knew how to judge deflection ignored them completely.
So, getting back to putting V.A.T.S. into other gaming projects.
The great danger is to make it a super weapon. In Tomorrow's War the scope is not the hero character but the movement of squads and fireteams. Tomorrow's War uses a buckets of dice type system where the higher the roll the better, and better troops get to roll bigger dice. Elites for example may roll D12s, while scum play with D6. Middle ranks get D8s or D10s. Since the system involves opposed dice rolls where one side must beat the actual number rolled on the dice, the difference in dice size can be very powerful.
So making V.A.T.S. increase dice size, which was AWB first idea on the subject, is probably not the way to go, especially since in universe the only people with Pip-Boys are Vault types and, player character excepted, most of them are pretty rubbish fighters.
The feel at the moment therefore is that V.A.T.S. gives reaction bonuses. Tomorrow's War has a reaction test mechanic where the side must test to see if they successfully 'react' to oppositions moves. In this a natural '1' is 'Bad' and the (non play tested) feel is to allow units with Pip-Boys to re-roll any 1s.
Which may work. Like we said, it is non play tested and a work in progress.
Our second project in the Fallout Universe is the old school pencil and paper Roleplaying game. Here the problem is both trickier and easier. First we can just solve the problem by ensuring all players never get to wear a Pip-Boy in the first place. If that fails, or we decided we do want to have our PCs wear the blue and yellow jumpsuits, the size of the problem will probably depend on how flexible the players are and if they are around your table to role play or roll play. A good role player could just state 'I am going into V.A.T.S.' and the skilled game master inform them, 'stuff happens'. A roll player would probably want to know the dice roll modifiers. Here we have some options - bonus to hit, bonus to crit chance, bonus to initiative or maybe just bonus intelligence about the target to be given to the players.
Personally AWB is thinking that 'if' the Fallout RPG campaign ever gets off the ground it might just be the easy escape with 'Plan A', but should the campaign start and RobCo's most famous wrist watch gets an outing, then AWB will keep you posted.
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
Painting Projects from the Bottom of the Figure Pile (1)
In what no doubt made perfect sense at the time, AWB seems to have at one stage purchased some 15mm Nuns from Peter Pig. They are classic pengiun style, have some figures armed with nasty looking sticks and are all rather angry looking.
Why AWB decided to own these is anyone's guess. What AWB is going to do with said figures is alway open to speculation. While they may have been purchased as part of the incedibly slow moving Tomorrow's War 'Fallout' project - in which case they probably should be based up as individual figures - AWB struggles to see a need for a crack squad of Nuns fighting their way across a 15mm Capital Wasteland and hence the current plan is to base them up as a small unit of Fields of Glory horde.
Why AWB decided to own these is anyone's guess. What AWB is going to do with said figures is alway open to speculation. While they may have been purchased as part of the incedibly slow moving Tomorrow's War 'Fallout' project - in which case they probably should be based up as individual figures - AWB struggles to see a need for a crack squad of Nuns fighting their way across a 15mm Capital Wasteland and hence the current plan is to base them up as a small unit of Fields of Glory horde.
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