Warbooty

I briefly touched upon this whole ‘warboot’ thing in the last Patreon newsletter (which you can catch up on HERE if you like) – but I thought I’d go into a bit more detail here on the blog in regard to some of the models I picked up at the last event… and how that’s inspired a new project.

What’s a Warboot?

First of all, I should probably explain what a warboot is (for those who are not familiar)… though the term seems to have gone a bit out of fashion since someone tried to trademark the term (though they promptly backed down when they faced a lot of backlash from the community).

Anyway, I don’t know how common ‘car boot sales’ are around the world (HERE is the Wikipedia entry if you want to know more about them) – but the term is commonly shortened to just ‘CarBoot’ …and, as you’ve probably guessed, a ‘WarBoot’ is a play on that.

And, instead of folks selling off some of their unwanted household items (like you might find at a CarBoot… which you can probably think of as a sort of garage sale – but on a larger scale), at a Warboot, the things on offer are ‘hobby’ related.

Now, there have been a few of these popping up locally of late (or at least, this is the first I’m hearing of them), So on the 15th of August I attended one of these events for the first time (as it wasn’t too far away).

I didn’t really know what to expect, but seeing how it was free entry, there’s not a lot to lose right?

However, I have to say, it was pretty cool. I mean, the place it was held at wasn’t super huge or anything like that – but there were a ton of things on offer (both old and new), and it made for a good afternoon out.

And, of course, I did end up buying a few things while I was there – so here’s what I got (though there were other things I was tempted by, and a few things I regret not picking up):

Pictured here (on the left) are five metal space marine scouts from 1997, and next to them is a Marauder dark elf (corsair?) from 1995. On the right are nine of the first ever plastic skaven models (from the ‘fantasy regiments’ box from the late 80’s I believe), and at the back is a newer sprue of space marine accessories that had 2 pieces missing.

All together this cost £19 (Scouts: £10 / Dark Elf: 50p / Skaven: £8 / Sprue: 50p) – which I thought was a pretty good deal considering the fact the scouts alone often go for around £5 each on ebay.

Anyway, as you can see, they did need a bit of work to get them cleaned up and ready to paint – and so that’s exactly what I did.

First the scouts were stripped (by leaving them overnight in a jar of dettol, and then some serious scrubbing with an old toothbrush):

Then primed (I just use the Army Painter brush-on grey primer for this):

And finally painted and based:

And, as you should be able to tell, I’ve gone with Blood Angels for these – mainly because when I was a kid, that’s how I painted my very first space marine models :)

That being said, I never had any of these particular miniatures – but painting red shoulder pads again sure did bring back some memories (luckily for me though, paint formulas have improved a lot since then – so I didn’t have to give them half a dozen coats to get decent coverage).

Anyway, now that I know that these ‘warboot’ events are happening semi-regularly at different venues across the Midlands… with the next being in Wolverhampton tomorrow…

...I think I’m going to try to get to more of them – with the aim of adding something new to this ‘warboot army’ each time (and also setting myself the challenge of having to paint up most of what I buy, before attending the next one... at least in regard to this particular 40k project).

Now that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be more Blood Angels (though that’s the main idea), as I can fall back on other ‘imperial’ stuff – perhaps to represent some kind of ad-hock force that’s been thrown together from the remnants of much larger armies – maybe as a last ditch defence of a particular world/city/etc. (as stuff like that is easy to do with One Page Rules, or even the original Rogue Trader game… as I picked up the reprint of the latter a couple of years back).

So that’s the plan. All being well, tomorrow I’ll be heading off to Wolverhampton with my brother, and we’ll see what other bargains are on offer (and find out if I can actually expand on this 'army' with some more warbooty :) ).

Gaming in the 40K universe: Game 2 – Part 2 (going rogue).

The last time I posted here, I got to talking about how I was going about running/playing a solo game of (One Page Rules) StarQuest – but with a few changes so that I could have just the one hero (accompanied by a bunch of retainers) exploring a dungeon-like environment.

So, for the sake of completeness, I’ll post a link to that entry HERE, and I’ll also re-post the photo of the table set up:

Though something I forgot to mention last time was the fact that on smaller boards, OPR recommend that you half all the distances (movement, weapon range, etc.) - however I feel that really slows things down too much.

As such, I thought that maybe reducing everything to three quarters might be a better way to go… though that does mean a bit of extra maths. However, to simplify that, I thought I could still use all the listed ranges in the rules as written – but instead, make a little ruler that was reduced to three quarters size.

So here it is pictured next to a regular ruler…

...and, I have to say, it worked rather well :)

Anyway, now that I’ve got all that out of the way… let’s get to the mission itself.

 

BACKGROUND

As mentioned previously, all of these games are being set in a little homebrew corner of the 40k verse – with the possibility of certain outcomes influencing other games (so the result from a solo or co-op skirmish game could have ramifications in an RPG one-shot, and vice versa).

So, with that in mind, the first game that took place (a co-op game using the firefight rules more conventionally) saw an inquisitorial agent (accompanied by a captain of the local branch of enforcers) retrieve some valuable information (of Vermillion level security clearance) from an old abandoned section of the Magna Prime hive city… an area that has recently been rediscovered/reopened.

And, as has been detailed already, other miscreants and ne'er-do-wells have also been exploring the area (despite the best efforts of the Magna Prefects – the local enforcers) in the hope of retrieving valuable archeotech and the like.

Therefore, when Jops Van Jools (a low ranking family member of a Rogue Trader dynasty) appeared on the scene (as part of a scheduled visit – providing various delicacies and even a few illicit goods to the upper hive), he quickly learned of this new development within the depths of the hive – and not surprisingly, it was something that piqued his interest.

Through his contacts, he also learned that the inquisition have involved themselves (though, so far, somewhat unofficially) – but that has not perturbed him from undertaking his own investigation… as any potential secrets/artefacts of ‘the hollow’ (as it is becoming known) might well prove to be valuable… possibly to the extent of elevating his position within the family.

So it is that Jops has used his influence to gain access to a secluded section of ‘the hollow’ - one that appears to be fairly self contained... and one with a faint glimmer of power – the source of which is worthy of further investigation.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: RETRIEVAL (recover the power source from the quest room, and return to the entrance/exit passage)

SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: NONE

 

THE MISSION

Jops and his crew (a squad of three household troopers, Maximilian the cyber mastiff, and heavy weapon servitor CF-HB-1) entered the abandoned structure and immediately picked up multiple movement/lifeform signatures on their scanners. Hopefully these would be little more than rad-grubs and tox-crawlers (or other underhive pests) – but it paid to be cautious nonetheless, as it could just as easily be mutants or cultists… that is, if you gave any credence to the rumours surrounding this place.

TURN 1

CF-HB-1 was sent to keep watch over the left passage, and Maximilian the right, while the young Rogue Trader and his guards investigated the first room on their way to the power source. The ‘blip’ reading from the left proved to be a false one… as did one from the right… but the third one marked a bunch of lumbering corpses – each of their faces contorted into an unsettling rictus grin as they advanced towards the party.

TURNS 2 TO 8

Jops took one of the creatures down with a blast from his plasma pistol, though the panicked guards missed will all three of their shots.

Things then escalated quickly as Maximilian was overwhelmed by the remaining two pox-ridden walkers… and yet more mutant dead-men appeared at the group’s back (from deeper within the complex).

In the resulting battle, things went poorly for the household troops, as they were torn to ribbons while trying to hold back the initial group of monsters (to give Jops and CF-HB-1 time to deal with the newcomers).

And all of that commotion must have alerted other denizens of this portion of The Hollow… as no sooner as the undead beasts were slain, a group of foul smelling cultists (clad in tattered rags, and clutching rusty weapons) entered the room – forcing the remaining members of the expedition to turn and face them.

TURNS 9 TO 16

Luckily, these cultists were dealt with quickly, and Jops was able to search the old consoles in the room (finding some kind of discarded stim wedged behind them), while the servitor opened the door to reveal yet another glitch ‘blip’ on the scanner.

With only one distant blip on the scanner, the remaining duo made their way to their target…

...though it was no simple task to remove this ancient power cell (or whatever it was) – so CF-HB-1 was set to watch the door… while Jops did his thing (i.e. it took several rounds for me to make a successful skill test to retrieve the object).

And all the while, new blips started to appear on the scanners (i.e. this was the first time I actually rolled any ‘sixes’ at the end of each turn – to indicate ‘reinforcement blips’).

TURNS 17 TO 20

With the ‘goods’ (finally) secured, the pair started to make their way back to the entrance - breathing a sigh of relief when the next blip proved to be nothing at all…

...unlike a new reading that suddenly appeared at the end of the passage they had just traversed – as more pox-infested cultists crawled out of the drainage system (i.e. another six was rolled in the ‘reinforcement phase’ – and a blip was placed at a random dead-end).

However, since they had the prize in their possession, Jops Van Jools decided that discretion was the better part of valour… and made a beeline for the exit (lamenting the loss of his troops and the expensive cyber mastiff that would be left to rot in this emperor-forsaken pit of corruption).

 

AFTER ACTION REPORT

And that was about it. All things considered, I think it worked out pretty well.

There’s a few things I might change up for my next game – but I’ll discuss those more when I get to it.

In the meantime, I’ve also decided that any models that get taken out during the game cannot be used again for 1d6 missions (as repairs/purchases are made, reinforcements arrive, and so on).

As such, I cannot use my cyber mastiff model again for 2 missions, and these particular trooper models can’t be used for 4.

I can still use the same unit types if I paint more models to represent them (or paint up entirely different units) – but for the next mission only servitor CF-HB-1 will be rejoining him from this particular crew… any other units I include will have to be freshly painted models.

Hopefully, this will encourage me to assemble and paint more models – because if this particular mission is anything to go by, these extra ‘filler units' don’t last long once combat is joined.

Anyway, I hope this was an interesting bat-rep of sorts. I’m mainly ‘journaling’ them for my own benefit/reference (as is often the way with solo gaming)… but I’ll continue to share them here on the blog… along with any session recaps of any RPGs or co-op games that I play in this setting (whatever the system). 

But that’s it for now… I’m off to see what models I can muster for my next game :)

Gaming in the 40K universe: Game 2 – Part 1 (going rogue).

In my last couple of posts I’ve been talking about gaming in my own little home-brewed corner of the 40K universe… first I covered the setting, and then I recounted a co-op game of StarQuest with a friend from Discord.

Next I want to talk about another game I played/ran solo – this time using my 2D dungeon tiles and the ‘random dungeon cards’ I was experimenting with a while back (you can read more about those HERE).

However, before I get to that, I just want to share a picture of the little warband I’ve created for this game, and some extra terrain pieces I’ve made (which I felt were needed to add more of a sci-fi vibe to the dungeon tiles – though I obviously need to do more).

Now, all of these models were printed on my brother’s ‘Bambu A1 mini’ 3D printer – and for a cheap FDM printer (with a 0.2mm nozzle) it does a pretty good job. It really does seem that FDM printers have come a long way in the past couple of years… and if you’d like a follow up article where I discuss all the (free) model parts I’ve used for these (as most are kitbashed in some way), then let me know, and I’ll do just that.

Anyway, for the game itself I used the StarQuest rules again (by one page rules) – but this time I created a single hero (who came out being exactly 100 points), and gave him a small retinue worth the same amount of points from the ‘firefight’ army builder (I judged that these units couldn’t perform any of the specific hero actions in StarQuest – but would count as having a 6+ for any tests that relied on the extra skills a hero has).

Thus we have Jops Van Jools (bonus points if you get the reference) – a young upstart from the Van Jools Rogue Trader dynasty. Being way down the line of succession for the Warrant of Trade, Jops is usually tasked with duties of little import and/or perfunctory roles as is fitting for one of his station.

But enough of that for now… so, the idea for this game was to set up a random ‘dungeon’ of sorts – however, when I’ve done this in the past, I’ve usually generated the dungeon on the fly (i.e. placed a new tile as each room or passage came into line of sight), but this time I thought I’d use my (prototype) random dungeon cards to generate the ‘dungeon’ ahead of time… and maybe treat this as a preliminary (auspex?) scan of the area.

And here’s how it ended up looking (note that I used some common sense to modify the results to fit my small board – so if a card revealed a passage that was 2 tiles long and ended in a t-junction… but I only had space for it to be one tile long with a single right turn – I just did that instead):

 

I’ve also not used any separate tables for this one – and I removed all the blank tokens from the mix. This way, if a card said ‘draw a token’ I was almost guaranteed to get something of interest. Here’s what I went with:

S token = place some terrain to represent an area that can be Searched.

T token = that room/passage tile counts as dangerous Terrain.

M token = add a Monster ‘blip’ in the middle of the tile.

R token = ignore this Result.

Similarly, if I drew a ‘monster room’ card for a particular room – that room got a monster ‘blip’ token, and if I drew a ‘special room’ card – that room also got some terrain to function as a search token. Furthermore, if a card said to roll on the room feature table – I just added a bit of terrain (though I also added some terrain to the quest room, as I think it deserves it).

As for the monsters I’d be using – I used the same army list from the last game (i.e. one that features all the Nurgle themed models I have painted thus far).

 

And since my warband is 200 points in total (i.e. 100 points for my hero, and 100 points in ‘followers’), when playing StarQuest on ‘difficulty 1’ – that meant that the first ‘wave’ of monsters that appeared in the ‘dungeon’ would be worth a total of roughly 100 points (i.e. half the points value of my guys) – and so a random ‘wave’ of opponents was created in the app… which gave me these:

However, I still want there to be some mystery to the game (i.e. I don’t want to know exactly where all the enemies are going to be) – so I actually placed twice as many blip tokens on the board… with the idea being that if I got a result of one, two, or three when it was flipped over – that would correspond to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, enemy on the list… and if I got a four, five, or six – that would indicate a false reading from the scanner (i.e. no enemies would be placed).

 

As such, the blips (marked one to six) were shuffled – with one being placed (face down) in each of the ‘monster rooms’, one being placed on the tile that yielded an ‘M’ token, and the last two were placed in random dead ends (these dead ends would also function as ‘spawn points’ for additional enemies placed later in the game).

 

Speaking of which, I didn’t want to roll for additional ‘waves’ in the usual way (which involves keeping track of ‘enemy alertness’ – instead I simply rolled a d6 at the end of each turn. If that resulted in a six – I just put another monster blip at the end of a random ‘dead end passage’ (from any blips that had already been removed from play).

And the last thing I’ve introduced is something from Five Leagues/Parsecs… that being that each room has been numbered (in this case one to six) and I’ve rolled a d6 for each blip – with the result being the room that it is moving towards…

 

...as you can see in the image above (i.e. the blip in room two is going to be headed toward room five on its turn).

 

Now I know I’ve probably made all of this sound rather complicated with my bad explanation of things – but it actually worked rather well in practice :)

Anyway, rather than making this blog post any longer, I think I’ll recap the game itself in a separate article in a day or two. So, here’s hoping this has been a vaguely interesting read, and I’ll hopefully catch you again in the next one.

Gaming in the 40k universe: Game 1 (Inquisitorial Secrets)

As I recently mentioned, I hope to get some more solo/co-op games in this year, and base those games in the 40k universe-ish (maybe even an RPG session or two).

In my previous post I outlined the homebrew planet where this will be taking place (hence the ‘ish’ part mentioned above), and in this one I’ll do a brief recap of the first game I played with a friend on TableTop Simulator (TTS).

So, for the table, I was able to find a bunch of assets that folks had already uploaded – so that we had a nice area to play on, and all the ‘bad guy’ miniatures we would need (note that even though there are tons of models available on TTS – I only used ones similar to those I have painted… because even though we are playing online, the whole thing is still being used as a means of encouragement for getting actual miniatures painted).

Also, one of the nice things about TTS is that it allows you to import images of your own – to make little standees. For example here’s a shot of the models we painted for our ‘heroes’:

On the left is Khalia (an inquisitorial acolyte) and young Capt. Tommard Howas (of the Magna Prefects)

Now, the system we used for this game was ‘StarQuest’ from One Page rules – which seems like a fun little skirmish game – as it pits a number of ‘heroes’ up against waves of random enemies (I say ‘random’ – but you create a list ahead of time, using their ‘firefight’ army builder – and it only draws from that list… so that you can ensure that you only face off against models you have in your collection).

Anyway, you can also randomise the mission’s objectives (primary and secondary) if you like – but since we are playing a bit of a narrative game, I chose these ahead of time so as to tailor them to the setting.

So, I went with ‘Area Search’ as the primary objective (i.e. there are three markers on the board… and one of them will be the thing we are searching for), and ‘Escort’ as the secondary (so that once we had found ‘the thing’ we had to get ourselves, and it, to the extraction point).

As such, the set up went something like this (note that the idea is that I’ll set things up for the first mission, then my friend will do the next, and we’ll alternate back and forth whenever we play):

An Inquisitor by the name of Yadec was investigating disturbances in a newly opened (previously abandoned) manufactorum level of Magna Prime. Now this area is not technically part of the underhive (as it’s not low enough) – but due to the fact that it’s been lost/sealed-off for as long as anyone can remember, it commands a similar status.

To begin with, these ‘disturbances’ were little more than the usual gang squabbles/claims over the area, the enforcers trying to keep order, and miscreants and ne'er-do-wells daring its depths in the hope of uncovering ancient artefacts and lost technology. However, this didn’t last long, and the two most prominent gangs in the area (‘the scabs’ and ‘the skinnies’) actually seemed to start working together – a worrying sign.

Enforcers of the Magna Prefects attempted to clear the area out on several occasions (in order to make way for a more official exploration/reclamation undertaking) – but each time they were either repelled or lost entirely. Since then, the usual rumours of cults and mutants occupying the area have begun to surface (along with tales of it connecting to the actual under hive) – which led to an investigation by the aforementioned Inquisitor. However, he has not been seen or heard of for quite some time.

However, several faint signals/beacons have recently been detected in one part of this area – ones bearing Vermillion level security codes of inquisitorial origin.

As such Khalia has been tasked with the retrieval of whatever it is that is sending out this beacon… and has been accompanied by young captain Howas of the Magna Prefects (as a local escort).

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE = AREA SEARCH (locate the data slate containing the inquisitorial data)

SECONDARY OBJECTIVE = ESCORT (retrieve that information, and return it for decoding)

 

THE GAME

Now, we actually played this game at the start of the year – so some of the details are a bit hazy… but I think it went something like this (I’ll try to keep it brief):

Acolyte Khalia and Capt. Howas proceeded with caution as they entered the eerie structure – weapons drawn and at the ready. While not really part of the underhive, the whole place had a similar look and feel – along with a faint smell of rot and decay… a rather unsettling thought.

However, it didn’t take long for the source of that odour to make itself known, as several mutant undead creatures shambled towards them as the pair made their way down a broad corridor towards the first marker.

The beasts were quickly dispatched, and the marker proved not to be the thing that they were looking for… simply delaying them long enough to attract the attention of yet more walking undead… twice as many as before… closing in from the other end of the corridor.

These were dealt with in a similar manner – though this time things resorted to close quarters combat – with both the acolyte and enforcer suffering minor injuries.

The duo then ventured deeper into the complex, avoiding the attention of more blighted creatures and pox-ridden cultists, only to realise that the second signal was also little more than a false reading.

As such, the last signal had to be the thing they were looking for – so off they went.

This was a race against time, as more enemies started to pour into the area… and, of course, the data slate proved to be difficult to extract from it’s surround. Yet, in time, the data was retrieved, and several nearby enemies were slain.

But, with more and more foes making their way to the site of the last marker...

...Khalia and Howas were forced to sneak around them, and on to the extraction point before the area was totally overwhelmed.

* * *

And that was about it. I think there were some search tokens investigated along the way… and there was an ineffectual frag grenade thrown into the mix at some point – but, all in all, it was a fun evening’s worth of gaming :)

Gaming in the 40k universe (not necessarily using 40K rules)

 

For a while now I’ve been thinking about creating my own little (non-canon / fan-fiction) 'world' based in the 40k universe (or something vaguely 40k-ish) – just so that I can set some of my games there (be it an occasional RPG session, a skirmish game with a friend, solo-gaming, and so on).

This is mainly so that a bit of an ongoing story can be achieved (as I do like things to have some kind of narrative), and also to encourage myself to paint some of my sci-fi mini’s, and get some use out of all the sci-fi terrain that I’ve made (as I’ve only got it to the table once or twice).

Now I don’t foresee it being anything special, nor particularly original – just something to draw upon for my own personal games.

So, what better place to start than a hive city – where an old section of the (under)hive has been uncovered/rediscovered… and is infested with cultists (and/or worse). This could lead to some fun sci-fi dungeon crawling shenanigans – as various factions vie for control of the area, and/or undertake expeditions to seek out ancient archeotech or similar.

And since I currently live (in the real world) in the area where the old kingdom of Mercia once was – I think that’s what I’m going to call this ‘fantasy’ world – or more correctly, the gas giant about which the (habitable) moons orbit. A quick online search actually reveals that Games Workshop do mention a planet called Mercia in their fiction once – but nothing is said about it other than a Rogue Trader caught some ‘blight’ there – which works well for me… since I’ve got a bunch of Nurgle models painted up for the ‘bad’ guys :)

As such, the current plan is to go with something like this:

PLANET: Mercia (gas giant)

LARGE MOON: Mercia Magna (hive world) 

SMALL MOON: Mercia Parvum (mining penal facility) 

And most of the action will take place on Mercia Magna...

MERCIA MAGNA

Capital/Largest Hive City: Magna Prime

Planetary Governor: Lord Ulf Inneza

Station in geosynchronous orbit: Magna Caelum

Enforcers: Magna Prefects

...beginning in Magna Prime (i.e. that’ll be the site of the ‘new’ discovery)

(pictured here are a bunch of ‘Magna Prefects’ that I kit-bashed last year)

Now, I have played a couple of games already (an online co-op game in tabletop simulator using the StarQuest rules, and a solo game where I experimented with my random dungeon tiles/cards again) – but rather than tagging the results of those on to the end of this post, I’ll see if I can write them up separately, and have each game in it’s own post.

So, that’s the plan… and in the meantime, I’m also going to be working on some new sci-fi stuff for the YouTube channel – starting with this little fellow...

...so there's that to look forward to as well :) (well, at least, I'm looking forward to it!)