Mostly Space Hulk to Aliens Rules Conversion Ideas Mostly

Posted on 01/06/2010 by sho3box

WALL OF TEXT WARNING

I am finally making some progress on the miniatures side of the Space Hulk to Aliens project, of which more will follow.  Funnily enough, in one of those weird internet-ty ways it seems that lots of other people are dusting off their Colonial Marines, Aliens and Predators to tackle the same or very similar projects on both Lead Adventure Forum and Frothers.  Mikko at Dawn of the Lead has been doing some very solid work too, elements of which I intend to rip off use to inspire me.

To go along with the miniatures I want to hammer out the basic rules conversions required.  I mostly intend to game with these figures in Space Hulk (mostly), simply because it is such a tight and satisfying system.  Ideas for many these rules have been going around in my head for years while others have been as a result of talking to similarly interested Aliens and Space Hulk nerds and and I want to write them down somewhere.  That somewhere might as well be here.

The intention is to translate existing rules for various elements in Space Hulk into their Aliens equivalent and not to write new rules unless absolutely necessary.  Eventually I plan to write up a simple Force List in the style of the Force List in Deathwing that allows players to pick a simple Colonial Marine force for playing any Space Hulk scenario.

Finally, while I like the idea of Predators I have never really enjoyed the movies that much.  I really think that they are pretty shitty to be honest, even though even suggesting that to most of my colleagues tends to send them into a fit of nerd rage, complete with bad Schwarzenegger impersonations.  So, while I have a pile of Predators waiting to be painted they are not a priority for me in terms of rules conversion.  It will happen eventually but not for a while as I dont really care that much about them and they will be harder to legislate for anyway due to their stealth and all that.

So here goes.  Everything is as in 3rd Ed rules unless otherwise specified:

M41A Pulse Rifle armed Colonial Marine = Storm Bolter Terminator Marine (ignore the Grenade Launcher part of the M41A.  It is considered to be intrinsic to the weapons standard effect in the game.  Consider it represented by the sustained fire bonus if that floats your boat).

M41A Pulse Rifle armed Sergeant= Power Sword and Storm Bolter armed Terminator Sergeant (+1 in assault is fine for a veteran NonCom.  Parry from the sword can be seen as whatever you like, kung-fu grip, sixth sense, Riddick levels of badass-ness: whatever.  Regardless, Sergeants have it.  Just like they allow the CP redraw).

Shotgun armed Corporal (Hicks) = Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield Armed Terminator Sergeant (this one is a bit of a fudge.  Assuming that the shotgun is only effective at point blank range is pushing it, but it does make the shotgun very deadly at that range, just like in video games.  The Block given by the shield is explained away just like the Parry for the other Sarge.  It also makes Apone and Hicks different, but similar which is cool.  The utter absence of Hicks Pulse Rifle (Storm Bolter) is a bit counter intuiticve, but as it will then slot in cleanly to all of the 3rd Ed missions I think that that has to be way to do it.  Finally, this ties in with one of the few extra rules that I intend to use, Acid Splash.  If it works out then having the Shotgun guy run the risk of acid burn will feel just like the movie 🙂 ).

M56 Smart Gun armed Colonial Marine = Assault Cannon Terminator

M240 Flamethrower armed Colonial Marine = Heavy Flamer Terminator

M41A Pulse Rifle armed Colonial Marine with Welder and Electrical Equipment (Hudson) = Storm Bolter and Chainfist Terminator (both troopers open doors/bulkheads that are otherwise difficult to open. Simple and accurate conversion).

Caterpillar P-5000 Powerloader = Lightning Claw armed Terminator (I was initially hesitant about this but the more that I thought about it the more that I liked it.  The LC Terminator has no ranged capability and will shred most opposition, most of the time.  It will also have a decent chance to best the dangerous Alien Queen (Patriarch/Broodlord) in hand to hand, which is reasonable.  It is a neat solution I think).

Company Man Burke, Newt and Jones the cat= C.A.T., Relic or other scenario objectives (I might try to come up with rules for Burke at a later date but having to rescue his sorry ass seems just as appropriate I think).

Synthetic/Artificial Person = Terminator Librarian (I know, I know but bear with me for a second.

Having watched Alien 4 last weekend, the idea of a synthetic with potent, situation based powers like Prescience (some sort of CCTV based thing) and Force Barrier (overriding a blast door or similar) seems fine to me. Psychic Storm might be pushing it a bit but whatever: maybe Bishop/Cole/Ash has overridden the Liquid Nitrogen spraying thing or activated the sprinklers after causing a short or switching on sentry guns in that area or something else just as Deus Ex Machina.

The Librarians close combat prowess is a bit at odds with Bishops performance but not so much with that of Ash (super-strong, but not super-tough). Considering that Bishop is three laws compliant, the idea of the synthetic going to extraordinary lengths to beat up potentially harmful Xenomorphs is ok with me.  Apparently the comics had combat synths that used to get stuck in quite regularly too, although the three laws tell me that Bishop would be compelled to help whether he was built for it or not.

Funnily enough the thing that doesnt sit well with me is that the Librarian has a Storm Bolter.  It doesnt seem right that Bishop should have a rifle (and the figure that I have to represent the synthetic has a piece of technical equipment in place of a weapon too.  Does Cole use a gun at any point in the 4th film?  I dont think so.

Reluctant Badass Lieutenant Ellen Ripley = Space Hulk First Edition Captain (another fudge.  The Captain in 1st Ed is very potent: he adds +2 to the CP total every turn, adds +2 to combat rolls and has a Power Sword, Grenade Launcher and Storm Bolter.  I have found that the Captain is roughly equivalent to the 3rd Ed Librarian in potency and I have swapped the characters when playing 3rd Ed quite successfully.

I suppose that Ripley is shown to have leadership qualities in the movie so ok to the CP bonus. The Storm Bolter/Pulse Rifle is perfect and the Captains GL can simply be seen as an alternative way of using the Incinerator that Ripley carries.  Thats OK with me.  The +2 combat plus Parry is harder to explain away but in the interests of keeping the rules standard I think that I can live with it.  I will justify it to myself as Fate or Hero points: the things that make the Hero, the Hero.

So, thats the Humans dealt with.   Bugs now:

Xenomorph = Purestrain Genestealer

Alien Queen = Broodlord

Face-hugger or Chest-burster = First Edition Unarmed Hybrid (these guys will get wiped out by fire very easily.  Once converted from Blip to model they move more slowly too.  They will be a fun, straightforward way to add some variety to the Alien players forces without much additional complexity and the rules are already written.  As I will use the 1st Ed blip sets, including the Hybrid blips it will be easy to throw in a few small aliens.  I havent decided on a way to incorporate it into the standard 3rd Ed blips yet.  It will probably be something similar to how the Patriarch can be brought into play, except that a “1” Blip can be exchanged for 3 Face-huggers twice a game or something like that.)

Lastly, Acid Splash.  Some players have added rules for this.  In many ways I think that it is an unneccesary complication for little gain.  Still, after mulling it over I had an idea: rather than roll to hit any/all adjacent models when an Alien dies (which would be tedious and could easily spoil the rapid flow of the game) I want to try out an idea based on the Scatter rule from Blood Bowl.

See Mikkos comments below.

Acid Splash: Acid Splash occurs when an Alien is hit from a shooting attack and that attack rolls at least two “1”‘s rolls at least two “6”‘s. If the target Alien is adjacent to one or more non-Alien figures then one of the non-Alien figures is chosen by the shooting player.  The chosen figure is removed from play.

As noted below this gives only a 1/36 chance of damage and is incorporated into the existing rolls and game mechanics.  It also makes point blank shooting a tiny bit risky which is both thematic and entertaining.  It also means that a blast from an Assault Cannon/Smart Gun is more likely to cause Acid Splash while the Heavy Flamer cannot ever.  Quite satisfyingly accurate to the relative strengths and weaknesses of the weapons as I see them.  Nice one Mikko.

Phew, that was a long one.  Congrats if you endured it this far.  Comments and thoughts on that much are welcome.

EDIT 02/06/10: replaced Acid Splash idea with Mikkos version from comments below.

EDIT 02/06/10: replaced Acid Splash “1” with “6”.

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Dr Braga & Umbrella Security Service NBC Squad / Red Shadows

Posted on 01/06/2010 by sho3box

Umbrella NBC Sergeant & Trooper

I have wanted some NBC troopers for zombie games for a while, but I couldnt decide what way to paint them.  While army greens or khakis may have been apt I figured that I would try to tie them to the Umbrella forces that I have been painting, just to be a little different.

As I plan to get some white-clad HazMat suits at a later date (like the suits at the end of the first Resident Evil movie) I didnt want to go for that.  I decided instead to use the other colours from the palette in the Umbrella logo: red and black.

Umbrella Elite Troops ("Blood for the Baron!")

Painting red is a pain in the ass. Trying to get a shaded yet vibrant red (rather than a brown or orange or pink) is irritatingly difficult.

I went for a bright rubbery red in this case and some liberal application of Tamiya Clear red helped to keep the colour vibrant while still shading it.  I am happy with the rubbery look that the red ended up with (aided by a liberal gloss varnish, which in turn makes the shading hard to see in the photos.  Its there all right).

As I painted the black on to the predominantly red figures I realised how Nazi or James Bond-bad-guy they look.  In particular they remind me of the Red Shadows from the UK Action Force toy range that preceded and was subsequently absorbed into the G.I. Joe franchise.

In response to how cartoony looking the final figures ended up looking, I decided to add a cheesy lightning bolt transfer to the miniatures backs.  I think that it is a GW Space Marine White Scar chapter logo and it was a hell of a lot easier to do than paint an Umbrella logo on a red background.  Plus now it shows them to be some sort of elite squad or something like that.

Dr. Braga and Laser Armed Umbrella NBC Trooper

I painted a Moonfleet scientist miniature at the same time as the NBC guys and christened him Dr Braga, after a Star Trek writter known for his technobabble filled writing.  The doctor fits in well with these elite Umbrella troopers I think but he would be equally at home playing God in a lab or antagonising Xenomorphs in their cage or in any number of other sci-fi toy-soldier-y applications.

Since 2008 I have found myself painting scientist spectacles with 3D glasses style red and blue/green.  It doesnt make a lot of sense, but I like the look and so I keep doing it (Dr Jacoby from Twin Peaks wore a pair, didnt he?  I could be wrong).  It works well on Dr. Braga I think.

I bought a toy vehicle last week to transport these guys around in their own hi-tech, HazMat truck.  I hope to get to that at a later date, probably at the same time that I get the two humvees for the USS guys finished.

Collecting Samples for the T-Virus Project

Note that since August 18th, 2010 I have retconned these guys to be Umbrella Special Forces Unit Epsilon.  Not that it really matters, but for the sake of accuracy 🙂

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“C.Hi.M.P.s”

Posted on 19/05/2010 by sho3box

Something even more frivolous than usual today 🙂

Chimpanzee Hirsute Maglev Patrol

Officers Wilcox, Estrada, Baker and Poncherello from the

Chimpanzee Hirsute Maglev Patrol

are on the case. Continue reading →

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Dr Flint Leghorn

Posted on 11/05/2010 by sho3box

Dr Flint Leghorn

Dr Leghorns momma was one of the Standard Falls townsfolk but his pappy was a member of the Lab Rats tribe.  This gave Flint a unique perspective on life in and around the town and the wastes around it.  It has also contributed somewhat to his eccentric perspective.

Like Sir Reginald Beef Wellington O.B.E. (a close friend of the doctors), Leghorn doesnt live in the town itself but a couple of hours travel from it.  Nonetheless his unusual combination of tribal and scientific medical knowledge means that he gets visited by a lot more townsfolk then one might expect.

"Ahm afraid that there aint nothing ah can do. That there leg done have to come off."

Dr Leghorn is a Copplestone Casting from their awesome “Wasteland Desperadoes” pack, like Beauford X. Tinction.  Like every Copplestone sculpt that I have come across, it is of a very high standard.   I rate Copplestone and Hasslefree miniatures right up at the top of the industry standard.

I had some problems with the flesh tones on this figure, mostly because I decided to “fix” some of it while pissed late on a Saturday night.  After that less than successful evenings “work” the figure sat on my painting table for a few months while I painted other stuff, while I waited to find the enthusiasm to get painting it again.

Like the red stripes on Sir Reggie, I decided to try something that I hadnt done before on this figures trousers.  After doing a little bit of research into leopard skin print online I managed to get the pattern painted to a level that I was happy with on the first attempt.  Which was nice 🙂

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Dr Javad

Posted on 09/05/2010 by sho3box

Dr Javad

Dr Javads plan has succeeded, although he had not planned to martyr himself just yet.  That part was an accident.

The weaponised zombified test subjects contained in units Z7 and Z8 are already entering the first stages of reanimation and will soon strike against the infidels like the holy weapon of God.

Biological Weapons Containment (compromised)

Dr Javad is one eighth of my recent project to make zombie spawn points for my games.  As zombies show up during games they will be placed in contact with one or more of these spawn markers.

Each marker is a very small diorama or collection of bits and pieces stuck to a 60mm base.  Most of them are pretty similar in theme but I had a little more fun with a couple more.  I think that this marker with Dr Javad is probably my favourite.

The concept is that the two blue boxes are some form of high-tech containment unit for the transport of zombies.  These units are carried to their strategic destination by evil terrorist/corporate types.  Subsequently the containment units are opened by some prearranged signal which can then release these disease vectors right in the heart of the infidels/testing areas.

The idea is mainly ripped off from Patient Zero, a cheesy book that I read recently (reviewed here on Dawn of the Lead).  That book was in my opinion pretty trashy, although I enjoyed the non-fiction Zombie CSU (written by the same author and again reviewed here) significantly more.  All the same, like a lot of hard-boiled pulp fiction, Patient Zero contained a lot of inspiration for gaming.

The story in Patient Zero is that nasty terrorist types have created the Sief al Din (Sword of the Faithful) virus and are planning to release it throughout the US.  They used “big blue phone-booth-sized containers” to transport the zeds and that is what I tried to represent with the resin sci-fi crates from Fenris games.

Rather than just have a couple of the crates plonked on a base I decided to add a scientist to the base too.  As everyone knows that when scientists try to play God that everything inevitably goes South, I used a Wargames Factory zombie that I got in a trade to represent the scientist in a zombified state.

I replaced the scientists hands with hands from a Mantic ghoul for a few reasons: the WF zeds hands are tiny and shit and the ghoul hands are gangly enough to be crudely bent into a position that they could hold the laptop that I made from plasticard scraps.

The laptop was added for fun and to show that the scientist is likely to have had something to do with the containment units, rather than simply shambling past them.  The “hazardous” transfers plus the numbering and lettering Letraset help with the industrial scientific look I think.

Finally I painted a few of the recesses in the unit sides to look like status lights (Han Solo in carbonite anyone?).  Again, as with all dealings with zombies where anyone thinks that they can control them, one of the status lights is in the red.  Its only a matter of time…

Filed under: Miniatures, Terrain | Tagged: , , , | 8 Comments »

Sir Reginald Beef Wellington O.B.E.

Posted on 05/05/2010 by sho3box

Sir Reginald Beef Wellington O.B.E.

Sir Reginald Beef Wellington OBE lives on the outskirts of Standard Falls, mostly keeping to himself.  He has a few friends in the area, the most notable being Doctor Leghorn.  His eccentric and slightly peculiar nature keeps him at arms length from most of the the towns inhabitants.

“Top hole! And rather spiffing too actually”.

Reggie is the first post-apocalyptic figure that I have painted for quite a while, probably over a decade.   As a child of the ’80s when post-apocalyptic movies were particularly in vogue I will always have a soft spot for the sub-genre.

Reggie is a classic sculpt by Mark Copplestone currently for sale from EM4 as “0041 Gentleman Scavenger. Stunbrella. Bowler hat. Morningsuit (tattered)”.  There is something  about the “stiff upper lip” gas mask and torn morning suit look that is very appealing.

Most versions of the figure that I have seen are painted to look like the figure is wearing a formal suit, usually black.  Just for a little variety I decided to paint Reggie in a “boating” jacket, for that Oxbridge look.   The figure always reminds me a little of Mr Bland (from Bland and Brass) in the Rogue Trooper comics from the 80’s.

Since I painted and photographed the figure I have tidied up the stripes on the back of Reggies left arm.  A few of them were a bit off.  I also put a teeny bit of lichen on the rear of the base, but thats really hardly worth mentioning.

I have a lot of post-apoc stuff in the pipeline, so more inhabitants of post-apocalyptic Standard Falls will be showing up here as time goes by.

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Running the Zombie Gauntlet

Posted on 10/03/2010 by sho3box

 

A few weeks ago a MT (a long time gaming buddy) and I decided to try out frequent LAF contributor AKULAs zombie apocalypse rules, AR:SE (available for free HERE). 

The rules are simple and provide for automated movement for the zombies, like computer game “bots”.  This appealed to the two of us because it meant that we could play semi-co-operatively if we wanted, which sums up the whole zombie apocalypse genre really.

 

 

Preamble

We decided that we would place as much non-ruined urban terrain as we could muster on a 6’ x 4’ table.  We then added 80 or so zombies (ten of which were based in two “hordes”), which covered the table sufficiently to give us a run for our money.  The amount of zombies placed was guesswork, as although we had previously read the rules (satisfyingly short at 2 xA4 pages), we didn’t really have a feel for how effective our heroes would be.  I would rather play a game of a heroic defeat than an easy victory so we erred on the side of more zombies rather than less.

To this we added two Witches and a possibility of spawned zombies spawning as Tanks.  The likely hood of Tanks showing up increased as the game went on.  Although I have a number of zombie “characters” available, we didn’t want to bog down our first game with too many specials, so we left it at Witches and Tanks.

We also specified that Spawned zombies emerged from the zombie horde closest to any survivors (I have dedicated zombie spawn point markers in the pipeline, but they were not available for this game).

A couple of quick notes about the terrain: my modern stuff is pretty crude but functional.  It was originally made under time constraints for use in Heroclix games, which is why the roofs are marked out with a grid.  That’s what the ugly looking white tile spacers are (I really should get around to painting them black).  Eventually I will get around to making some “proper” modern terrain, but as is often the way with these things, the stuff that I have is functional and so “proper” modern terrain never tends to get to the top of the to-do list.  Still, although lacking aesthetically, they buildings are durable and functional, so I wont make any more excuses for them.

Deployment and Table Set-Up

We set up our forces on the South East corner of the table and placed the car park, replete with potential getaway vehicles at the North West corner.  The Survivors were tasked with getting to a specific crashed vehicle in the middle of the battlefield to pick up the vital briefcase of scientists notes.  From there they have to get to the car park where they can hotwire some of the functional vehicles there to make their escape.

L to R: "Silent" Yoshi, Botan, Suzi

MT chose to chart the exploits of some Yakuza survivors.  L to R “Silent” Yoshi, Botan and Suzi.

L to R: Chris Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy, Ada Wong

In an unlikely alliance that could only brought on by impending, walking corpse filled Armageddon I chose to ally the Yakuza with the forces of the Racoon City Special Tactics and Rescue Service (STARS).  L to R: Chris Redfield, Leon S Kennedy and industrial espionage agent Ada Wong.

The view from the South

A shot of the battlefield from the South.  Note the car park in the top left.  That’s where our heroes are headed for.

The view from the North

A shot of the battlefield from the North.  Note  the zombie horde in the centre, just below the overturned yellow car.  Those guys occasionally move around and are lethal if they come into contact with survivors.  Primarily in our game, they were a mobile spawn point.
If you squint, you might be able to see one of the Witches.  It’s the figure with the square base at 9 o’clock to the overturned yellow car.  Witches react to disturbances nearby by shrieking.  This in turn causes shamblers within range of the sound to head toward the Witch.  This is a bad thing.

Northerly view including the Car Park

Another shot from the North, this time showing a little of the car park objective.

Aerial view from the ZTV news chopper

An aerial shot, taken by the ZTV news chopper.

Gameplay

Heading East

The Survivors start by heading north via the Eastern table edge.  The theory was that they should avoid the large concentration of slackjaws in the middle for as long as possible. The more noise that the Survivors make, the more active the living dead become.

Businesslike and professional rolling up of a flank

Leon brings up the rear while Botan beheads a walking corpse with his katana.  Chris gives covering fire as they head to the junction where they will proceed West towards the car which contains the briefcase.  So far so good.  “This is a snap for a international woman of mystery such as myself” thinks Ada as the survivors make short work of any zombies in their path.

The first casualty

As she rounds the corner Ada is attacked by a corpse that has been drawn by the gunfire.  In a surprising display of incompetence, Ada is caught flat footed, while the zed seems to be at the top of its game.  Ada has her throat ripped out in a gurgling spray of blood.  “NOOOO!” cries Leon.  “I never expected our flirtatious will-they, wont-they relationship from opposite sides of the track to end like this!”.

“At least she is properly dead.  She isn’t coming back from that”. Chris advises Leon using stilted, computer game-y dialogue.  Chris then riddles the offending zed with lead.

Objective acquired

Botan is “in the zone” at this stage and advises a stealthy approach as he has heard the crying of a Witch up ahead.  “What are supposed to use now? Harsh language?” says Leon in a predictably action movie quote style as he holsters his pistol.  Silent Yoshi does not speak.

Botan ignores them both and chops up two more undead with  ninja like stealth before he pins a crawler to the ground as he retrieves the crucial briefcase from the crashed car.

The Plan

At this point viewers at home were treated to some expert commentary about the situation from back at the ZTV station, complete with a play analysis.  The circled vehicle is where the briefcase has been retrieved from and the green path is the direction that the survivors have chosen to take to get to the car park and getaway vehicle.

Turning Eastward again

Chris runs forward and clinically dispatches the Witch in their path before it can react.  He then provides cover as the remaining survivors head past the limo and towards the cinema.

The "Horde" in the foreground starts moving...

 A large zombie mob starts to stumble toward our heroes, forcing them to hurry away from it, perhaps a little rashly…

Zombies approach from all sides

 Despite gunning down a number of zeds as they closed, Suzi and Yoshi are forced into hand to hand.  Leon and Chris are unable to help as they keep the other closing ghouls at bay.

The death of Botan...

Botan bites off more than he can chew.  While he makes good account of himself in terms of eviscerated corpses, he is eventually dragged down to his doom…

...and the birth of a Tank!

With a series of bloody, squelchy sounds the thing that was Botan convulses.  With a roar, all of its hair falls out and tentacles sprout from its rapidly growing body. Witness the birth of a Tank.

(In game terms we had been using the AR:SE rules to determine if downed heroes would come back as zombies.  Ada hadn’t but Botan had.  We had also been incorporating a simple incrementing roll to determine when the next zombie to spawn would be a Tank.  As luck would have it, this happened when Botan shuffled off, so he was the one that came back as a Tank.  And all in front of a poster of the Governator.  “I’ll be back” indeed.  Hooray for narrative!”)

 

Decisive action required

 The Survivors have a small chance to re-kill the Botan Tank if they can get to it while it is transforming.  With that in mind the four remaining survivors attempt to circle the Tank and neutralise with extreme prejudice.  Suzi has to riskily dodge away from her close combat aggressors to help out with the tank, but a well timed cartwheel reminiscent of Xiaoyu in Tekken 3 gets her where she is needed most. 

Our heroes repeatedly plug the Tank and barely manage to re-dead it before it gets a chance to get up.  “If its dead, we can kill it!” cheers Chris, confusingly.

Car park bound

 Almost as if our heroes have overcome the main aggressor in the third act, the sun breaks through the clouds (or the camera flash was too close) giving the survivors the strength to run around the side of the cinema toward the car park and salvation.  Chris cheerfully riddles a few zeds that get too close en route.

Bus stop

The survivors jump over the car park wall and line up beside a bus.  Suzi, familiar with hotwiring her own school bus during the many Battle Royale school trips that she has been on suggests that she get the bus up and running.  Leon whimpers self pityingly about Ada.  Yoshi remains quiet.  “Holy $h1t! Its Michael Jackson!” says Chris and heads for the roof of the bus.

Chamone in peace... again

“THAT’S for “Earth Song!” hollers Chris as he empties a clip into the former Prince of Pop turned cannibalistic reanimated corpse.
“Its too late to look at he man in the mirror now sucker!”  says Chris in a failed attempt to deliver a pithy closing one liner.  Zombie MJ’s head explodes in a shower of gore.

Clang!

The bus shudders to life and Suzi floors the pedal, heading straight through the gates with a clang.

Vehicular extermination

Suzi expertly guides the bus over four zombies as the survivors drive off into to sunset.  Billie Jean plays to fade.

 

 

Conclusions

We had good fun with the scenario and rules.  We had a couple of minor rules decisions to make a call on during the game, but as we are both grown ups with a lot of hours gaming time clocked over the years, they were decided upon quickly.

I plan to make cards for each of the survivor miniatures that I use as quick reference for the weapons and abilities that they have.  Having played the game, I have more of a handle on how it works now and I will base the stats accordingly.  I plan to bring a very, very simple points system (as in each character is rated as 1, 2, 3, 4) so that James Bond type characters are distinguishable from some survivor with a two by four.

Next time I will incorporate some Hunters and Jockeys into the mix, along with a different scenario.

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Sin Eater Rhino APC #1

Posted on 06/01/2010 by sho3box

Front and Top

Space Marines (and Chaos SMs) should always have a few Rhino APCs in my opinion.  Regardless of whatever is in vogue in terms of army selection for games, a mechanised column of Marines is just a cool image I think.

Front 3/4 View

My Sin Eaters ended up with three Rhinos, the first of which is here.  This Rhino was usually used to transport a Squad of Plague Marines.  This was the second Rhino that I assembled and subsequently become known as the “jacuzzi rhino”. 

Front View

While I still like the first Rhino that I put together (photos to follow eventually) it was pretty austere by the standards of most Chaos vehicles.  Although I deliberately played down much of the more baroque aesthetic that tends to be ladled all over most Chaos armies that I have ever seen, I did get a little carried away with this vehicle in particular. 

Port Side View

In fact as the army went on everything got more baroque really.  Still, I dont think that it looks as silly as the myriad of vulgarly overburdened Chaos armies out there.  Many are so covered in spikes and skulls and impaled bodies etc that the shapes of the models get so indistinct as to ruin the entire look.  IMO, naturally.

Rear View

The concept for this vehicle is silly but sort of fun: Nurgle is synonymous with corruption, illness, rot and bodily fluids and so I decided to make the tank look like it is filled with snot. A very adult approach I am sure you will agree.

Starboard Side View

When putting together an army for whatever reason it is important to have a few centrepieces.  Personally for armies I think that usually the most important thing is a sense of uniformity in the colour scheme.  That can lead potentially too uniform / potentially bland overall look and so it is important to have a few things that draw the eye.  While the conversion of this Rhino was not particularly difficult to do it has over the years probably been the one thing that most observers point out in the army.

Top Down Front View

Top Down Rear View (note the Nurgling swimming with the marine)

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Sin Eater Possessed: Squad Nemesis

Posted on 01/01/2010 by sho3box

 

A few figures that I am quite fond of to start 2010.

Squad Nemesis was assembled and painted up for use as a Possessed unit in my Sin Eater Chaos Space Marine force back in 2000.

Squad Nemesis Possessed Marines

GW didn’t make possessed Chaos Space Marine figures at the time (although a lot of their original Chaos Renegade marines from the 80s were very suitable.  I also painted up a unit of those guys for the Sin Eaters, of which there will be photos at a later date) although the Chaos Mutation sprue came out around then.  Subsequently GW made specific metal possessed marines who looked a little like the Mordheim possessed if I remember correctly.

Anyway, I wasn’t that keen on the possessed figures that I had seen up to that point: they were usually predictably heavy on the tentacles and bat wings etc and low on interest factor (to me at least).  With that in mind when I got around to making my own I tried to steer a little to the left of the usual fare.  Unsurprisingly I used Resident Evil as an inspiration and starting point.

Bloated with Dark Energies. WooOOOoo.

I prefer “science” zombies to “magic” zombies and I have liked the Tyrant style super-zombies from Resident Evil since I first saw them.  Therefore they were a big influence on what I wanted my Possessed to look like. 

Although trying to avoid the idea of magic-y things in the context of an army that supposedly represents worshippers of Dark Gods who receive direct aid from their patrons might sound perverse, I did have a few reasons to do so.  Mainly, the urge to have something slightly different from what I had seen already was one.  This was also influenced by the background of the Chaos Space marines from that era.

Corrupted Beyond Recognition

Before then the Chaos Space Marines were regularly portrayed as mindless devotees to their own cults.  A couple of things about this make them less interesting to me: firstly that I don’t like religion and in particular mindless people with a lot of “faith” and secondly the idea of Chaos Marines who are already completely under the thumb of their patron suggests weakness. 

Part of the suggested background for the Chaos Marines at this time was that the different Legions were actually more in a marriage of convenience with their patrons and that the Marines therefore had their own agenda and goals.  This interested me a lot more that another bunch of frothing jihad types.

Raaargh!

So Squad Nemesis was intended to be a group of (relatively) sane Chaos Marines who use pseudo-scientific means to either augment themselves with physical mutations on a temporary basis or use the pseudo-science to temporarily become a host for whatever daemonic energies were doing the rounds.  So I went with a look that involved a lot of cables coming out of the marines backpacks into their bloated and deformed bodies: a little more science than magic.  I think it worked and of the units in my Sin Eater force Squad Nemesis is one of my favourites.

The parts used were Ork arms, zombie heads and guitar strings.  The guitar strings didn’t keep their shape as well as I hoped which meant that they had to be kinked into shape rather than curved.  I would have rather that they were curved but I got over it.

Happy New Year and all that jazz!

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Sin Eaters Brother Chaplain Bakul

Posted on 25/12/2009 by sho3box

 

Not very Xmas-y, but what can you do?

Brother Chaplain Bakul of the Sin Eaters

Brother Chaplain Bakul of the Sin Eaters (note the eeevil Rosarius)

According to the 40K fluff, all of the original Chaos Marine Legions bumped off their Chaplains during the Horus Heresy.  The Word Bearers held onto their guys (they became Dark Apostles if memory serves.  Big into their false idols those Word Bearer scamps). While I understand that GW wanted to give the Chaos Marines their own identity and feel, I do think that the idea of a eeevil Chaplains of the Dark Powers leading Space Marines into battle is potentially fun.  With that in mind I put this guy together on a whim in 2001 or so.

Likes his skulls does Brother Bakul

Lots of Skulls on the Shoulder Pad and the Backpack Nozzles

Brother Chaplain Bakul is entirely plastic and is covered in enough skulls to make a rocker blush.  It reinforces the Chaplain skull motif I suppose, although spiky skulls are perhaps my least favourite element of GW Chaos stuff.

Yet More Skulls on the Shoulder Pad and on his eeevil Crozius Arcanum

I don’t like the way that GW have canonised the colour schemes for Chaplains (black), Librarians (blue), Techmarines (red), Apothecaries (white) etc.  I think that the additional colours can ruin a palette and are often unnecessary. 

 Additionally, GW policy seems to be to cover the relevant miniature in that colour when perhaps just a little of it would suffice (for a good example check out the jarringly blue Librarian that features with the Blood Angel Terminators in 3rd Ed Space Hulk.  It ruins the effect in my opinion.  And don’t get me started on the Blood Angel yellow helmet=Assault, blue helmet=Devastator thing.  Ugh). 

The Chaplain is the least offensive of the marine specialists in that regard as adding some black to a scheme isn’t as disruptive as adding an actual colour to it.  Still, when I added a Chaplain to the Sin Eaters I wanted to use the minimum amount of black to make him stand out a bit without ruining the army uniformity.  I think that it worked fine.  Not brilliant, but not awful in my opinion.

“Bakul” apparently means “sweet smelling”.  Ho, ho, ho etc.

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