Hawkwind Saga: The Lost Episode

This is a chilling random encounter that I never finished!

The rain poured down as the man, known as Hawkwind, stood reluctant to enter the bar before him. The cheesy neon lights flashed in the puddles. One said "Ope !" clearly the n had burned out long ago. Another said "Live Noods!" clearly someone forgot to check their spelling. The name of the place was simply named Gus'.

"This must be the place Miranda was talking about" he mumbled to himself. He sighed and entered the building. His senses were immediately overwhelmed by loud music, the smell of piss, beer, and other noxious scents. He scanned the place and, after a moment, saw Miranda.

On his way there, a nude man dancing on a table swung his junk nearly into Hawkwind's face. He didn't flinch and in a flash, his blaster pistol was aimed at the guys package. "If you don't get that thing out of my face, you're gonna be known as the guy with no nuts" Gordon said flatly. The dancer only shrugged and blew a kiss at Hawk, moving on to another bar patron.

As Hawk came up to the table where Miranda was seated, she obviously saw the entire thing. "A little excitement, eh babe?" she said with an impish grin. "I think you guys would make a cute couple."

"Shut it, Mir" he said as he took a seat next to her with a heavy sigh. "Definitely not my type."

"Oh, just what is your type?" Gordon felt a hand on his leg.

"Really? I'm not in the mood."

Miranda feigned insult. "Oh come on, just a little fun? Loosen up a bit, Gordo. Have a drink, on me" she signaled to the serving droid for a couple drinks."Anyway, I happen to have a job for you" she said, switching to a business tone.

Hawkwind massaged his eyebrows "you've got a job for me? I thought you worked for me?"

She stifled a laugh "No, you are mistaken. I need you to take me to a...location...in Zirqon territory. I have a contact there who needs some illegal parts but you can't just land a ship there."

Gordon snapped his head up "Zirqons! They don't exactly like humans...or anyone for that matter. You got some balls, Miranda just hope mine are bigger." He mulled it over in his head "all right, I'll accept the job but I expect hazard pay for this one."

Miranda smiled ruefully. "I do, just don't threaten them like that dancer!"

Next encounter, escort!

Tanan Saga: Troll Troubles

A young elf deftly crept through the forest, eyes and ears sharp for anything ahead. Tanan was his name, a scout from a nearby elven village in Tereken. 

Tanan

 

Tanan is a rep 5 wood elf shooter with an AC of 2. He has the attributes slippery (race), hard as nails (random), and agile (class). He's aligned with Red Sun. The encounter is Wandering. I figured instead of a Carousing encounter, an elf would feel more natural recruiting on a wandering encounter so I chose 1-3 Tereken Men, 4-5 Elves, and 6 Trolls.

Sinister Cities Tactical Maps Review

More than meets the eye!

While on a 2D kick, I decided I needed an urban environment but didn't have the tiles and other goodies to work with. Unlike some products that just had streets, I wanted some top-down buildings. That's when I came across these, Sinister Cities: Tactical City Maps. As you know, I'm a huge fan of David Okum's art style so it was only natural to place it in my cart.

A little All Things Zombie Evolution featuring one of the vans. Also, some custom tokens.

What you get: You get 16 urban tiles that are top-down; sort of like the Hero Click maps. You can arrange them in various different ways to suit just about any modern, future, pulp, etc. games. I'm no mathematician but you can probably make thousands of different combinations. The instructions do suggest that you glue them to some foam board to make them more substantial. I may or may not mount them on foam, we shall see.

There are also two tiles that have layered interiors. You can print off the initial building without interiors, then turn off all layers except the interiors so you can just print off the interiors to use separately as your characters go in the door, as seen below. There is an additional floor on the factory but I didn't print it off.

Overlay on!

Bonus Material: I also needed some 2D cars and, to my surprise, it already had a whole selection of cars, vans, etc. No trucks or motorcycles but that's not a big deal. You get 13 different cars, including 2 police cars and 2 vans. I may fiddle around with one of the vans and convert it into an ambulance. No zombie outbreak is complete without an ambulance or two. Also included are top-down crates, rubble, trash bags, upturned trash cans, and traffic barricades, nice touches.

Some of the bonus material in a parking lot.

Visual Appeal: Overall, I'm happy with how they look. Pretty standard urban environment and what you would expect. Details like trash on the ground, manhole covers, skid marks, etc. The only real gripe I have is the square grids. I wish there was a layer where you could turn off the grids but it's not a deal breaker, especially with the two pages of bonus material you get.

Zombies approaching! I may have to back them with foam board but they may just need flattened out a bit.

Final Opinion: If you need top-down views of urban environments, you can't go wrong here! Whether it be zombie apocalypse, modern fantasy, gang wars, futuristic cities, etc. you'll find this set useful.

All Things Zombie Evolution: Another Test Run!

I went back and redid all of my counters and, hopefully, pimped them out somethin' fierce. This time I made them into 1" squares, backed them with 2mm foam, glued them down, and cut them out. They look a lot better!

Trudy, our protagonist, is a rep 5 punk with a pistol (P1).

This time, I'm going to play a month. Each month you must burn a unit of food per person in your band, roll on the involuntary encounter table or "lay low," and then you can go on an encounter if you want. So let's burn that food (or toilet paper!). Next, I see what my involuntary encounter is...Robbery! It's at night and its a single ganger, rep 5 with a BAP (big ass pistol).

I had the advantage and won the action table. Usually, fights can be lethal or non-lethal but as they're both gangbangers, it's lethal!...Plus, I wanted some bullets to fly so I could have some zombies. Anyhow, one shot fired, the enemy ducks back.

The ganger recovers from duck back and passes the will to fight test (I test at the end of each round).

I fire again and miss but the ganger fires back. I take an obviously dead result but use star power. I roll horribly and can only reduce damage by one and get an out of the fight result.

The shots fired dice in the corner. In an urban area, you're likely to have zombies!

With no one else left to defend her and two zombies closing in from the sound of gunfire, she's eaten alive!

So goes the Zombie Apoc, I suppose!

I do like how these photographed and how my new urban maps worked out. I like providing a visual pleasing set up for my blogging viewers!

Okumarts Extrastellar Set Ten: Space Heroes Review

This is a quick review of David Okums' Extrastellar Set Ten: Space Heroes. David's Patreon can be found here.

David continues to expand his paper miniature Extrastellar line with another great set. You get the initial 12 figures pictured above but, as with most of his sets, you get bonus material expanding the set to 24 unique poses. You also get a bunch of different color options too.

The initial 12.

Bonus Material

Two of my favorites!

I did notice a few head swaps from other sets but really, that's not a big deal. Overall, I can't say enough about this set. They can be used for a ton of different sci-fi or even modern genres. They could be armed miners, security guards, spaceship crews, corporate thugs, garbage workers, etc. Combine it with the Bug Hunt Crew and you got a lot of options.

Note: These minis print out way better on something other than my $30 HP printer! :)

The Hawkwind Saga: Enter Miranda

This adventure has Hawkwind searching for a pilot he can hire but first, he rolled a defend encounter as his involuntary encounter.

A sharply dressed man toiled away at some bad plumbing to his apartments. "No job too small, no job too big" he said to himself wiping some grease off his cheek. "That should do it" Hawkwind said wiping his hands clean of said grease. He turned around and in the light he could see the silhouette of a man with a baseball bat. "I thought baseball went out of style back in the 22nd century?"

5150 No Limits Meet Gordon Hawkwind

5150 No Limits Maiden Voyage. Click here for more info.

This is my new campaign centering around the adventures of "Hawkwind," a combination of Gene Starwind and Jim Hawking from one of my favorite animes, Outlaw Star.

Hawkwind has set up a new freelance business, Hawkwind Enterprises. His motto, "no job is too big or too small!" This is his story.

Rules change: I am playing an all human campaign, at least until he gets off this rock, Earth. For now, I lifted the who are they tables from Chain Reaction 2018 (it's free) and will simply interpret the results as far as what "profession" they are. If, in the likely event, Hawkwind dies, I will use the Cheat Death rule used in other TWH titles.'Cause you know he's gonna get whacked right off the bat!

Gordon Hawkwind Rep 5 Star (5 people, 4 savvy) Attributes: Rage (random), Crackshot (chosen) Weapon: Machine Pistol (A3)

Talomir Tales: Logan the Huge

Age of Fantasy Skirmish: First Game

These rules are free!

I ask you, fellow bloggers, do I need another skirmish set of rules? The answer is...yes! If you're like me, you are looking for that one set of rules that rises above the rest, is simple to play, and provides just the right amount of challenge without taking hours to play.

So what's the next possible rules set? Enter Age of Fantasy: Skirmish. It's part of the One Page Rules family, which consists of five sets of rules for big battles and skirmish battles of both fantasy and sci-fi, all free. As you probably guessed by the name, all the core rules are printed on one three column sheet. Basic special ability rules are printed on a second page with army specific special abilities on each army sheet. There's also an AI system for playing solo/cooperatively and a campaign system. All of this for FREE!? Yep. I advise you to drop what you're doing and go check it out!...Well, after you read my play through post below.

So first we need two armies. I decided to go with the classic orcs and dwarfs match up. I will be using the AI rules.

"Rally ho!"

Dwarfs (played by me):
Engineer (1) equipped with a rifle
Marksmen (3)
Iron Warrior (1)
120 points

"Orc smash!"

Orcs (played by the AI):
Boss (1)
Orcs (3)
Orc Archers (3)
125 points

Talomir Tales: The Northman Part 3

After his last encounter, which nearly ended in disaster, Hellburg finally made it down to the fringes of society. He entered a tavern and strode up to the bar. "Give me the strongest grog you got, tender!" The bartender complied and slid the "grog" to him.

Talomir Tales: The Northman Part 2

Hellburg awakens, bloodied, bruised, and missing his sword. "Dammit!" He got to his feet, dizzy from the loss of blood. He shook his head, piecing together what had happened. He had been beaten to a pulp by some highwaymen.

Talomir Tales: The Northman Part 1

Tonight, I played a game of Talomir Tales: Distant Shores and I wanted to record my play. I also had very limited time to play so no better game than one of the new Two Hour Wargames RPG lite systems. This is, of course, the fantasy iteration.

I also picked up two new titles from THW, 5150 Working Grave a future police RPG lite and Road to Ekra a jousting game. Can't wait to get my hard copies! Ok, on with the game.

The Northman Hellburg

"Hellburg smash!"

Talomir Tales: Snotz the Goblin

Once upon a time there was a goblin named Snotz. He was an eager little fellow and wanted to make a name for himself. He strolled into a run down tavern looking for work one day.

"Tender! You got any work, eh pig face?"

"Hmmm, wot?" The bartender peered down at the little goblin. "Oh, yer can look on dat board over yonder. Any ub dem jobs is on dere." He drooled as he munched a piece of mutton.

Swordplay 2015: No Good Deed Goes Unpaid

What follows is a recap of my latest foray into Swordplay 2015. Not a blow-by-blow report but pictures of the important events. I wanted this to be a blood bath so I resolved all three PEFs as contact. Each PEF is eliminated then the next follows until all PEFs are eliminated or my forces are destroyed outright.

Elf, Ranger, and Dwarf

Sellswords and Spellslingers: First Impressions

Last night for my "Friday Night Fights" I had a game of Sellswords and Spellslingers by Andrea Sfiligoi, the brilliance behind Song of Blades and Heroes. I had played it initially when I picked it up. It was still just called "Sellswords" at that point and there were some confusing explanations of the rules at that time. I tried a couple of games (my wife even played!) but just couldn't get the jest of it.

I finally got around to downloading the updated version and it's way more clear. So much so that I'd say it could be the first game I try with my son when he's old enough (counting the days!). Basically, you roll up to three D20 for activation, anything above eight is a successful action. Anything seven or below means you draw from the Event Deck. This usually means your going to activate monsters but there are other special cards that are actually a good thing.

Of course, your characters have traits that make them special. I like to build my characters in a role-playing fashion, i.e. if I have a thief, they're going to have thief-like traits. Probably why my thief died the second or so turn! I'll definitely have to practice at designing characters but this was just a test game anyway. You can gain experience and buy equipment with silver pieces that you accumulate along the way. You can get assorted useful items like potions and such.

With ten different scenarios, you can go on long campaigns and I'm sure it' easy enough to design your own with little trouble.

So far the game was super fun!

Below are some action shots during the game!

Okumarts Patreon Shout Out

If you've ever wanted to get into paper miniatures, David Okum's Patreon is definitely a good place to start. Lately he has expanded into other genres that aren't covered to well in the paper minis, such as his new sets pictured below. Perfect for your pulp gaming needs!

A T-rex...Now I can finally play "Lost Worlds" by THW!

Of course, he's got a full catalog of other fantasy, sci fi, modern day, zombie horror, and a whole lot more. If you want to check out his other stuff, you can go to his Drive Thru RPG page and have a look.

Paper Miniature Tutorial: How I do it!

 There are many ways you can cut out paper miniatures. Anything from just cutting out a rough shape with a white background to an automatic cutting machine that will cut super close...While I do own the latter, I prefer the method below.

A rogues gallery...Art by David Okum

Paper Miniatures: Why I made the switch?

Paper miniatures are definitely not for everyone but for those who don't have the time, patience, money for a secondary hobby of painting miniatures, or don't want to commit to a rule set just yet by buying a bunch of miniatures, they offer an alternative. While they aren't as impressive on the battlefield as say a fully painted metal/plastic army, they do have their own charm.

Personally, I discovered paper minis around six years ago. I printed some off, glued them together, cut them out, and didn't do much after that. Then in 2017 I had a significant health issue and it changed my life permanently and I really didn't feel like painting anymore but I still wanted to enjoy the games I played. Subsequently, after some searching, I saw that there were many more artists publishing great works and I was hooked. I set aside my painting brush right then and there!

There are benefits to paper minis. One big plus is the price! I can download a PDF of say wood elves and print as many as I need for a few bucks and print them out. You can also find plenty of stuff for free online! One Monk Miniatures is an excellent source for free minis and is where I got my start. Just go to the download section and check out the forum hoards and other free things. They also sell a wide range of Sci Fi miniatures and fantasy figures. Additionally, you can get a wide range of bases here as well for free.

Now for my favorite artist, David Okum! He has many different lines of ever expanding figures through his Patreon projects. He's got fantasy and sci fi all of the way up to old west gunslingers and supers to zombies and survivors. In addition, he has multiple layers for customization of colors and a vast majority of his models contain a full sheet of bonus material. Can't say enough about this guy! He seems to pump out figures at an amazing rate! If you join his Patreon you have access to a mountain of downloadable minis depending on what tier you are at (I do the $5 a month!).

Next up we have the paper miniature line of Darkmook. These are mostly just horror survival based miniatures but they're still fantastic. While he hasn't done any work for a while, it's still a nice source for zombies and survivors. He has several free downloads as well.



As I said, you can get many different sizes and shapes of bases here at One Monk Miniatures for free or you can go on to Litko and buy some plastic bases. I like the Litko bases as they're clear so they adapt to any terrain. Another thing I like about these is that you can write down pertinent information about the figure with dry/wet erase markers. Pretty neat, at least to me!

I may write up a tutorial showing what I use and some tips on properly gluing and folding. We will see!