September Sun

September is a tricky month. The kids go back to school (or if you are reading this in the future and are currently enjoying Covid-22, maybe they don't) but you can't appreciate it because you are still paying for that time off work you had over the summer.

The days are cold in the morning but still bright and warm in the afternoon, and for about half the month you still have some daylight in the evenings to get things done. And then autumn sneaks in, the rain comes back and you are soon huddled around a fire by 6pm, waiting for the wolves to come and eat you.

When it comes to tackling projects in my hobby closest, I normally need to wait for the perfect storm of need, desire, enthusiasm, time, materials and space in order for that project to miraculously transition from "Something I will do one day" to "Holy cow it is done!". But in September, all of those things can be substituted for desperation.

And so here are some trees, designed to match the mat I will use for Fallout and Gamma Wolves. And some billboards, also for Fallout, though now that I have painted them I've decided I will put them on bases so they aren't really complete. Now that It Is Dark Again, they may not be completed until 2022!

The trees are Woodland Scenic armatures stuck to MDF bases covered in sanded polystyrene and Sculptamold. I messed that up by making too much, so while two of the tree bases are relatively smooth, the other two ended up being clumpy and difficult to work with because it was drying by the time I applied it. I will make it in smaller batches next time so hopefully I will avoid the same mistake.

Also shown is the base for one of my Gamma Wolves frames because I wanted to make sure the colours and style of the tree bases matched. The images I used on the billboards are by Charlie Wilcher and I found them at his ArtStation page here. 

.. and speaking of terrain

Another project finished. Some tiles for Walking Dead, Zona Alfa and Fallout. These TTCombat harbour tiles are 1x1 so six will be enough to create a harbour section on a 3x3 water mat. But in most cases I will probably only use two or three of these on an asphalt / rubble mat. The smaller, angled sections and the stairs are from TTComat's Carnevale line. There is a piece of 0.5mm plasticard on top of each tile section to hide the original texture that was there.

Mind you, you can make a good 'base' for a 2x2 table with these. This is slightly too big for Walking Dead but eh, bigger deployment zones. 

.. and a fountain. Sadly I only had Vallejo water effects on hand, so I expect to be disappointed by the water results in 2 to 3 days..

Teh Wurdz

One of the things that has been keeping me busy over the last 2 years - besides work and family life - has been my participation in the rules and play testing team for Warzone Resurrection. While the future of the game is no longer in the hands of Prodos, there remains an amount of written work (rules, profiles, fluff etc)  that was created by the team but never officially finished. The plan was to collate these pieces of work - or at least, the pieces that made sense to include together - and release them as part of the Kirkwood expansion.

Of course, things went sideways and that didn't happen in the slick and polished manner we wanted (indeed it was super hard to get it published in any manner) but eventually a PDF was cobbled together and released. This was largely the last "official" act from Prodos and the rules team, but the quality (and indeed the completeness) of those individual efforts varies greatly. It is my intention to continue working on several of the documents until they reach a standard that I am happy with and these will be released here.

Warzone is not the only game that I am writing content for. In an entirely non-official capacity I am also working on 'proper' campaign systems for both Mantic's The Walking Dead as well as the Fallout Wasteland Warfare game from Modiphius. I have also been working on missions and house rules for Rangers of Shadowdeep. This means that, alongside my hobby projects I also have a number of 'content' projects in the works, and here is the current state of the queue:

Warzone Resurrection mission "Building Bridges" - Complete.
Warzone Resurrection mission "CSAR" - Complete.
Rangers of Shadowdeep mission "Evacuation" - Complete.
Rangers of Shadowdeep companion customisation - Complete.
Rangers of Shadowdeep mission "Black Hart" - In progress, 80% complete.
Warzone Resurrection mission "Kill the Messenger" - Paused, 50% complete.
Fallout Wasteland Warfare campaign - Paused, 40% complete.
The Walking Dead campaign - Paused, 30% complete.

There is also the matter of Warzone Resurrection Deniable Ops, which is currently 'rules complete' at 111 pages including 19 missions, and is available at version 0.14. In terms of the written effort, it needs testing and balancing, as well as general editing. The next version will be 0.2 but this is way down the queue because the biggest challenge is now in terms of layout and interior art / photographs and the latter is being held up by my lack of painted models and terrain.

(Above) A preview of the hex-based campaign map for Fallout.

(Below) Two of the four maps in the RoSD mission "Black Hart"