15mm Evil Empire - The Dark Suns Alliance

At the far edge of the Wytch Star Zone lies a desolate are of space known as the Dark Suns Nebula. Millennia ago a giant O type star collapsed into a supernova of gigantic proportions. The star systems around it were bathed in the outpouring radiation, plasma, gas and dust, and several other stars went novae as a result. After hundreds of thousands of years the shock waves had passed and the systems began to settle again, aside from occasional flares and meteorite impacts from the remains of the shattered star systems.

When humanity first explored the Dark Suns Nebula they found a collection of systems that had been enriched by the multiple supernovae, vast deposits of rare metals and minerals could be found in drifiting asteroids and the scarred and cratered planets that remained. But conditions were hellish, radiation was high and almost none of the planets retained their own atmospheres. Giant industrial complexes were buit on the remains of shattered worlds, and clone-bred workers were forced into servitude.

The hellish conditions took their toll. Mutation and radiation damage began to be seen in the clones, and their level of inteligence was stunted, even as their strength was increased. Some of the clones were more resistant to the debilitating effects of the radiation and their mutations manifested in another way - increased mental capacity.

These clones demonstrated the ability to control the more brutish clones, and in a short while an uprising began. One by one the colonies fell to the mutants, who took over industrial plants, colonies and space stations. Very quickly a hierarchy formed, with the most mentally gifted of the clones at the top, dominating those below them. Some pure-strain humans remain, those depraved enough to side with the clones against their former masters, or those weak willed enough to be dominated by the mental prowess of the leaders. Some pure strain humans who had essential skills or special talents were also kept, and their offspring were born into a life knowing no masters but the mutant leaders.

Now, the Dark Suns Alliance, as they have come to be known, has reached a turning point. Their clones continue to be affected by the radiations of their suns, mutating in unpredictable ways. The clone leaders need to restore their corrupted genetic pool and they have decided that expansion into the nearby Border Worlds Alliance is the way to do it. Slave raids on colony worlds have begun, with captured colonist being sent to processing plants to be sampled for genetic compatibility with the clone banks. Those that are found to be compatible are rendered down to their base organic material to feed the clone tanks, those that are found wanting but are able bodied are sent to the mines and industrial centres whilst those that are not fit enough are sent to "work" in the protein vats and flesh farms.

In the Border Worlds, colonists now watch the skies and fear the night, as they keep a look out for the blood red ships and the faceless soldiers that spell the doom of another colony world...

Symbol of the Dark Suns Alliance

The Dark Suns Alliance are my attempt to create an "evil" antagonist force as an OPFOR for sci-fi gaming. The imagery is based loosely on the old Red Shadows from the 1980's range of Action Force action figures by Palitoy. These figures were the European version of GI-Joe, and featured some of the same vehicles with different branding. Eventually Palitoy was bought by Hasbro and Action Force was morphed into GI-Joe, including extensive stories in the Action Force comic to explain the changes in the brand.

The original Red Shadows were a WW2 German soldier body and helmet, but with a sinister face mask and coloured red. The action figure carried a bazooka reminiscent of an SA-7 Grail, but smaller. Later figures would update the body and provide different weapons, but the one or two I had were limited to the bazookas. At that time I was 10 or 11 years old, and right in the target market, but mostly I was a Star Wars fan, so the few Action Force figures and Vehicles I got wound up being folded into my imaginary Star Wars Mythology.

  My second inspiration for the Dark Suns was the first set of RUSK troopers released by Armies Armies. I got in on the pre-order for these ages ago, but they have mostly been languishing with base coat on, with just a few figures painted.

I also got an undead Nazi figure from Rebel Miniatures, I think, and he seemed to be  the ideal commander for them, adding a touch of the Red Skull to the mix.

The two large droids either side are Rebel Miniatures TOMCats, the one on the left above having been modified to include a large heavy weapon on his left arm and an extra powerpack and connecting cable on his back.

In addition to the ground forces, I also have some vehicles already painted up for the Dark Suns, the Poundland hovercraft I had previously blogged about, and the kit-bashed skimmer from the Land Booster Spirit kit.

I also have one of the old style Dream Pod9 Moab Combat Mounts, which is all metal and ever so slightly different from the one in the link. I have yet to photograph mine, but here is one painted by another, mine is in the same red and black as all the other DSA troops.

New Project - 4th Corporate War. Part 1 - Background

I have always been a big fan of the R. Talsorian RPG Cyberpunk 2020. I ran a very long and successful campaign over a number of years, taking my players from the US, through Europe on the Eurotour, a long chase after one of the players contacts across the UK as it transitioned from Martial Law to hidden Corporate Law, and then back to the US for the cross continent chase that was Land of the Free.

Our group broke up just as RTG released the first of the 4th Corporate War books, Firestorm: Stormfront, which was a shame, as it had some really excellent stuff in it. Stormfront details a conflict between two of the lesser corporations of the Cyberpunk world, OTEC and CINO, as they fight over the remains of a third corporation, IHAG.

This portion of the nascent corporate war is known as the Oceanwar, as it takes place below the sea. It apparently used a lot of the previously unreleased material from a cancelled supplement called O-Zone. In this phase of the war both corporations are trying to gain control of as much of IHAG's real estate as they can, protect their own stoof and also weaken the opposition. Both corporations start to use special operations troops, hired as freelancers from the two biggest, baddest corporations on the block: Militech and Arasaka.

Militech is a US based weapons manufacturing and security corporation. Think Lockheed-Martin, General Dynamics, Blackwater, Executive Action and basically the whole industrial part of the military-industrial combine privatised and run by one bombastic, bullish, ego-maniacal hyper-patriot who wants to see the US dominate the whole world (the CP2020 world is iconic, but never claims to be realistic).

Arasaka is a Pacific Rim based security and weapons manufacturing corporation. Think Blackwater, Executive Action, Lockheed-Martin, General Dynamics and basically the whole industrial part of the military-industrial combine privatised and run by one vicious, neo-Samurai with a twisted code of Bushido honour that hates the US for the damage done to his homeland (the CP2020 world never claims to be realistic, but is iconic).

See what I did there?

The next phase of the war was the Shadow War. As the special ops teams started to strike directly at OTEC and CINO offices on land, they inevitably started crossing paths with Militech or Arasaka regulars, instead of going up against other SPECOPS teams. At some point the strikes started being less about OTEC and CINO, and more about Militech vs Arasaka. The shadow war is fought by spies and prowling assassins, blacked out vans snatching people off streets and tricked out, smart wired, electro-thermal-chemical enhanced sniper rifles firing fin guided ramjet micro sabot shells with armour-piercing explosive payloads over thousands of meters.

Eventually the Shadow War became more overt, and Militech and Arasaka start to target each other directly and in the open. They begin to field troops on city streets in defiance of the local and national governments. In Japan, Militech is quickly exterminated, as Arasaka pretty much IS the police, in Europe (which is a golden paradise compared to the rest of the world (except Britain, because we're contrary)) both sides are warned once, then stomped on by the European elite. The rest of the world, however, is turned into a battleground.

Whilst I can see the fun in some underwater fighter-sub-vs-fighter-sub battles (using modified Silent Death, maybe?) and sneaky-sneaky assassinations missions, the real war gaming potential is in the open warfare in the  second book of the series, Shockwave. Much of the action in Cyberpunk is set in the fictional Californian metropolis known as Night City, situated between LA and San Francisco.

Night City was covered in a ridiculously detailed handbook that had an entry for every building on the map above, and multiple entries for some buildings. This is the map I'm planning to use for a 4th Corporate war game.

Next time I'll talk about gaming and campaign rules, figures and terrain.

Mighty Armies Campaign Game 5

My two nephews, Orc and Goblin, came over today to continue our irregular series of campaign games for Mighty Armies. We're slowly putting together a nice set of simple campaign rules, and have now introduced favoured units, random events and attrition.

The attrition rules are simple. Each leader can raise as many armies as he likes. Each turn that an army fights it has to be paid for in Gold equal to it's AP cost (usually 44). This represents wages, tribute, the cost of ingredients to keep undead troops animate or dead rats and shiny things for the Lizardmen (who love their bling). After each battle replacements for the the lost troops then also have to be paid for in the same way, or the AP cost of the destroyed units are deducted from the available pool in the next battle as reserves are drawn in to fill the ranks. After each battle the winning side also gains plunder and loot equal to 1d6 x 10 Gold. The losing side gets nothing. In addition to the two villages that generate 20 and 10 gold each, each lair now also generates 20 Gold per turn.

I've drawn up a simple random event table, and once each turn the players roll on it to see what happens:

Roll
2	Omen from the Gods: Your priests receive a fortuitous omen from the gods. You get three re-rolls to use in any of your battles this turn, and instead of automatically routing you get to choose if your army breaks when it reaches 50% strength.
3	Mercenaries: Two stands of Dwarven mercenaries (standard troop types only, no special abilities) offer to join your side for a share of the spoils. You can recruit them for double their AP cost to fight in any one battle.
4	Scouts: Your advanced scouts have found important information about your next battlefield, giving you a tactical advantage. After army setup you may move one of your units by 3 inches in any direction.
5	Healer: A healer offers to join your army for one of your battles. Once, when a unit is destroyed, roll a die. On a 4-6 that unit is instead moved back to your base-line. May not be used on flying units.
6	Struck Gold. One of your mines discovered a rich vein of ore this turn. Gain 10 Gold.
7	No event
8	Famine! One of your villages is stricken by plague and produces 10 Gold less than normal. If you have no villages left, you lose 2 AP from the next battle.
9	Plague! For the first battle this turn your troops fight at an additional -1 in for the first three turns
10	Bad Information! On your first turn of the first battle you get 2 MP less than the rolled number. If you roll a 1, you also lose 1MP from your roll on turn 2.
11	Deserters! Some of your units have fled. You have 2 AP less for your first battle this turn.
12	Raiders! You must fight off an additional attack from raiders this turn. They will have a 40p army with no flying units or spell casters and will attack the closest un-invaded territory to your HQ. Any unengaged army can be used to fight them off. If you are beaten, that territory produces nothing this turn.

I've also created a turn tracker with different seasons on it, so we can start to do some interesting things with weather if battles take place in the winter, for instance, or with gold for harvest time and planting in autumn and spring.

We rolled events for this turn and Orc, running the Barbarian Hordes, got a Famine. Goblin, running the undead army got Plague, and queried how undead troops could catch the plague. I suggested it could be an infestation of rats or bloodworms or a magical malaise that had come over the controlling necromancer. I got Bad Information - so not a great turn all round.

There are four battles this turn, as the campaign map below shows.

We fought Orc's Barbarians attacking the town (Alchemist), defended by Goblins Undead.

Both sides created their armies using 44 points and including flying units. This battle saw the début of some new units for both sides. The Barbarians had some Berserkers (Heavy Infantry, Horde, Fearless) and the Undead had a bone Chariot (chariot) and some Spectres (Heavy Infantry, Flying, Horde).

The battle lines were drawn up:

We ruled that the walled compound to the south could be entered and units placed inside, but the walls blocked line of sight and halted movement (as you had to climb over them. The round tower and the watchtower were impassible to all but flying units and the other building delineated an area of the town that blocked line of sight and was difficult going, so we'd just move them around as needed to accommodate units moving in and out of the town.

I've had a few people comment that the previous reports "helicopter view" wasn't the best, so I've tried to get a few more action shots this time. I won't do a full blow by blow account, but try and let the pictures show the sequence of events:

Skeleton scouts in the village.

The Spectres take flight and advance on the left flank, but the Barbarian Shaman binds one of them in place.

The bone beast moves up in the centre, as the Wolfpack advances on the Undead right flank.

The Spectres elect to leave the bound unit behind and continue their advance.

The Undead chariot decides to switch flanks, and races across the Undead rear area

Turn 3. The Barbarians have been plagued by low MP rolls, whilst the Undead have had good rolls. The Barbarian Berserkers are trying to engage the Wolfpack on the left, but their slow speed is hampering them, and all they can see is difficult terrain in front of them.

The Lich (general) moves up to support the bone beast and scouts in the village.

The Spectres charge the Barbarian shaman and rout him....

But are counter charged by the Barbarian King and his favoured unit of Bison Cavalry. They have the Shieldbreaker spacial ability, so get to roll two dice in the first round of combat. 

The Spectres lose a unit and are pushed back, just in time for the Shaman to blast them with a fireball.

Meanwhile, the Direwolf is charged by the Wolfpack. The Wolfpack is the Undead favoured unit and have Dragon Forged Lances (or claws, in this instance) giving them a +1 bonus to charges. They beat the Direwolf, forcing it to retreat, but their rampager ability allows them to follow up and move back into contact!

The Direwolf defends himself and routs the Wolfpack, killing one of them. He is then joined by the Barbarian King and Shieldbreaker cavalry to face the Lich. The Barbarian Shaman binds the bone beast and chariot in place, as the Beserkers slowly move into the village to try a rear attack. 

The Barbarians charge the Lich, but are driven back (terrible roll for the Barbarians, great for the Undead), losing a stand of the Shieldbreaker Cavalry. The Bone Chariot picks off the birdman who had been spotting for the Shaman. 

The Barbarians re-organise and prepare to receive charge, The Beserkers just aren't fast enough to get through the town in time to help.

Barbarians Rally, Bone Chariot snipes the Shaman and the Lich Rallies as the Beserkers amble through the village.

Barbarians decide to charge again, and are beaten back, again.  Berserkers emerge from the village, but are still too far away to help. The Barbarians only need to lose one more unit to rout.

The end.... surrounded on all sides and charged from the rear, the Barbarian King is defeated.

A bad day for the Barbarians, who fail to seize the town from the Undead. They also have to fight off an attack from the Lizardmen this turn. The undead gain 50 Gold from the victory, but also have to fight off the Orcs at the Town, and are attacking the Orcs at the Fletchers. Could be a costly round for them...

A-Z Book survey

I saw this on another blog, that saw it on another blog, that got it from a different blog (this is like six degrees of blogging), but agree that it's a good bit of fun. Here is my A-Z book list survey:

Author you've read the most books from
Probably Terry Pratchett. I have most of the Discworld books in hardback, but just sold a couple of the first editions to a friend who collects them. I've read all the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child and embarrassingly, I also have an awful lot of very badly written, very repetitive books from a low budget post-apocalyptic survival adventure series. They are the kind of books that describe one of the characters in four paragraphs, three of which are discussing the guns they are carrying, but the books are my brain candy. I can switch off most higher functions as i read them, and plough through one in a couple of hours. 

Best sequel ever:
Red Country by Joe Abercrombie - it's a sequel to his First Law trilogy and is outstanding. When you realise who one of the characters is, things just click all of a sudden and this sense of sinister threat or looming danger appears in just a few words.

Currently reading:
Atomic - The First War of Physics by Jim Baggot
Homeland by Cory Doctrow
Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

Drink of choice whilst reading
Builders tea. Two teabags in a giant mug. Strong, with one sweetener.

E-reader or physical book:
Both. I still buy some books in hardback, although AGG would be happy to have everything in e-book. I still like to have some things in my hand. 

Fictional character you would probably have dated in high school:
Stephanie Patrick from Mark Burnell's The Rhythm Section. As written she was the same age as me, from the same background and from the same-ish part of the country. Of course, she then goes on to become an international assassin...

Glad you gave this book a chance
Carter Beats The Devil by Glen David Gold - this was recommended to me by three different people and I didn't bother to read it for ages. When I finally started, I couldn't put it down.

Hidden book gem?
All my Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman - it's only 100 or so pages long, but this book made me smile when I first read it. It's a love story about a man who is a normal and whose superhero girlfriend has been hypnotised not to see him by a jealous ex. Brilliant. I bought it for AGG before I knew she was really as geeky as me to try and ease her into my world of geek. Fortunately, she turned out to be just as geeky as I am. 

Important moment in your book life
Reading Plague Ship by Andre Norton. My first proper science fiction book. Started a lifelong love.

Just finished:
Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch. The PC Grant series is modern, urban fantasy with a nice, gritty edge. Urban fantasy always sounds a bit wank to me, and has shades of Twilight and bit-lit, but these are very grounded and sensible and Mr. Aaronovitch steers clear of the cheesy archetypes and instead goes for a modern take on things like how the River Police deal with the spirit of Old Father Thames.

Kind of book you won't read
Self Help books. I don't mind instructional books, I have a few Dummies Guide To..., but I really cannot be doing with a book that tells me the bleeding obvious over 400 pages, or, even worse, tells me why I'm crap and should do better over 400 pages.

Longest book you've read
I had some monster text books at Uni, and excluding collected works, like the complete Lord Of the Rings, it's probably something like an Iain Banks or Alastair Reynolds sci-fi epic.

Major book hangover because of
Disappointing endings. Recently read Redemption Arc by Alaistair Reynolds and felt it just fizzled out. Put me in a funk for days.

Number of bookcases you own:
7, but the one in the kitchen just fell down through accumulated weight of Jamie Oliver, Mary Berry, Hugh F-W et al.

One book you've read multiple times:
Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams or Mort by Terry Pratchett

Preferred place to read:
Long train journey. I can read on a train or bus, but not when I'm a passenger in a car. I think that there is a feeling of almost being cut off when travelling on a train that really means you can set everything else aside to really get into a book.

Quote that inspires you/gives you all the feels from a book you've read
"Tough, and competent" from Failure is Not an Option by Gene Kranz. Kranz was the mission controller for Apollo 13, but had a long and prestigious career with NASA before and after. One of his jobs was to look at how the mission controllers worked, and his maxim "Tough, and competent" meant that he expected the guys he worked with to be the best they could be - to understand the systems and processes that used, but also to expect that from the people they worked with. He said that you can be tough with others when you know that you are competent at what you are doing.

Reading regret
So many classics I haven't read.

Series you started and need to finish
Bleh. Lots. I'm a bit of a magpie. I've been about halfway through the Ancient Blades trilogy for ages. 

Three of your all-time favourite books:
Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie, Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks and Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.

Unapologetic fanboy for:
Charlie Stross, Cory Doctrow, Richard Morgan, Ben Aaronovitch, William Gibson, Iain Banks 

Very excited for this release:
The Rhesus Factor - the next Laundryverse book from Charlie Stross.

Worst bookish habit:
Buying books on a whim and then forgetting about them. I have many, many unread books because of that.

X marks the spot - Start at the top left of your bookshelf and pick the 27th book:
Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K Gann.

Your latest book purchase:
Atomic - The First War of Physics by Jim Baggot

Zzz snatcher book (the last book that kept you up waay too late)
Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch - also a "nearly missed my stop" book too.

15mm WW2 US Rifle Platoon - fast and dirty paint up.

I've had a Peter Pig WW2 US rifle platoon sat in bare lead for over three years now. Originally bought for Flames of War, my local gaming buddies decided we were done with this set of rules, for reasons I won't go into here, and switched to micro scales for Blitzkrieg Commander and either Bolt Action or Chain Of Command for skirmish. As a result I was left with a lot of unpainted, and now mostly un-needed lead.

I decided to paint them up to sell on. I'd recently picked up a set of Cote D'arms WW2 US paints for my NVL 15mm Scifi troops. These are the same formulation as the original Citadel paints, which was what I cut my painting teeth on, so I was keen to try them out.

I worked out basic equivalences between the colours and my usual GW paints (this was before I switched to Vallejo - I'm such a paint floozy) based on a colour chart in the old FOW US handbook.

The figures were all glued to strips of corrugated cardboard and undecorated GW Chaos Black. The aim was to get an entire company, 3 platoons of 9 stands of 4 men with command, HQ and bazooka stands too. Just under 130 figures in all. By far the most figures I'd painted in one go. With this in mind I decided that the painting standard would be gaming quality - base colours and a wash. I'd never used the "dip" method before, although I do have a tin of unopened Army Painter Strong Tone, but I had heard good results could be achieved with brown ink. I picked up a bottle of Windsor and Newton Peat Brown for this project.

Each figure was block painted with the base colours on a production line, so all the jackets were done first, then the trousers and so on. I grouped the poses together, facing the same way, and worked out a way to paint the figure efficiently with the first in a group, and just repeated the process as I went along. I painted the large areas first, so that I didn't have to be super-precise, as everything else would be painting on each successive colour would be covering up any mistakes I had already done.

Step 3 - (photos for steps 1 and 2 were just too dark to see). Field drab jackets, tan earth trousers already painted. Olive Green helmets, grenades and entrenching tool covers.

Pale sand leggings added

Camo Green webbing, knapsack and ammo pouches. The camo green initially looked far too bright, and I considered painting over, but it actually does blend in OK. I caught the back of the chap on the right's helmet and didn't notice until they were all based up and varnished.

Flesh - it's at this point that a figure starts to look like a little person and not a hunk of lead, in my opinion.

Beige Brown added for boots, wooden stocks on weapons, entrenching tool handle, pistol holsters and knife sheath. Metallic gunmetal for the rifle barrel, MG's and SMG's.

The Coat d'arms paints covered well and flowed nicely. The lighter colours required two coats, but that's probably to be expected on a black basecoat. I did discover that in a few places, such as the rifleman kneeling second from the left, I had put far too much glue on the cardboard and it had glooped over the edge of the figures stand.

I used a Humbrol metallic on these figures, as it was quite a nice pewter/gunmetal in the pot - sort of like a GW Leadbelcher before Leadbelcher was available - but discovered that it took AGES to dry. To avoid the ink diluting the metallic and causing my US troops to get a sparkly makeover, I left the figures to dry overnight.

Next day the figures got a generous wash of undiluted peat brown ink. As i discovered, with ink, a little goes a long way. One dip in the pot usually had enough ink to do 8 or 9 figures. I tried not to let it pool anywhere, but seep into the cracks and crevices on the figures.

Lots of little dudes.

The ink leave the figures with a gloss finish, but really makes the details pop, and adds a nice shadow effect. It also toned down the bright camo green and light sand colours and blended them in, so they looked like faded cloth rather than day-glo disco wear.

The figures were then based on standard FoW bases and Windsor and Newton coarse texture medium  was mixed with W&N Burnt Umber. the mix had some fine ground cork added to it and was then plastered onto the bases. Uncovered areas were touched up with W&N burnt umber, which was then lightly dry brushed with GW Bestial Brown and Dheneb Stone. Flock and small sections of static grass clumps were added and the whole thing was given two coats of GW Purity Seal, followed by Testors Dullcoat to take away the shine.

Each of the 3 platoons was differentiated by some detail on the base. One platoon had just flock and clumps, one had a small cork boulder added and one had a piece of clump foliage added. HQ squad got two small boulders.

I'm really pleased with how they came out. For four evenings work I'm very impressed at what I have achieved. It's slightly irritating that I didn't take the time to paint them whilst we were still playing Flames of War, but I'm going to use the same technique on the US airborne platoon I have for Bolt Action/Chain of Command.