Scratch built Terrain Ideas

Spring is in the air, and my mind turns to spray paint fumes and running and typing. The Long Fog of Winter is lifting and maybe it's time to take up arms and go forth.

Since I've gotten Pinterest on the old digital addiction machine/portable phone set, I have been swimming in ideas for kitbashed Inq28 and Necromunda. First and foremost, need to put some legs on the table so's I can play on it.  That ought to take this Friday evening if The Weather holds.  Then, a mess of movable Trench/Plateau/Dunes/Pyramids 2'x2' tiles. Ought to be easy and can accommodate Necromunda and Mordheim play in addition to standard 40K stuff.

Objective Markers for City of Death (using my scrounged toys from the neighborhood hooligans' children!). I have a Generator-type thing just itching to get finished.

Incorporate my Sandy Bases theme from my existing lazy-man's army, and add the Genestealer Cult in as a techno-Old Worlde machinery/Hive Spire thing

http://pinterest.com/pin/A7CIZQAQAC4HV6L1AC4AAAA/

Just a couple of random thoughts.

By The Imperator's Stones, Pinterest is full of crazy stuff and really gets the old juices flowing.

Solo Space Dungeon - Wormy Bottom Pt. 2

Follow up for the previous post about playing Solo in the Space Dungeon, which kept me up too late to finish it.

These are the various purveyors in the general vicinity of Wormy Bottom, on the dreary surface of the tomb-world of Nebulmor.  Remember, the locals are given to coming and going, so unlike other areas (and contrary to the usual way in Mad Monks of Kwantoom and Ruins of the Undercity from which I lifted this idea) every time you try to find these places and make purchases while you are here, you check for Events (1 on a d6 roll, usually) and then use this previously posted event list to determine what happens.  Provided your band of slag-mutants lives, you then do a Personality Check (with your leader's PER) at the listed DC to see if the purveyor is around.  Then, you nominate the thing you want and check to see with a Luck check (listed DC) to see if that item is there.  'Always' means no need to check - that item is always in stock.

Faragut's Foodstuffs (DC 8)

Cans of Hydroponic Veggies - Always -

Bilk (Bleached Krill dairy replacer) - Always - 5 creds

Mummy Jerky - DC 13 - 15 creds (makes consumer immune to Mummy Rot for the next delve only)

Ash Potage - DC 10 - 2 creds

RadiaKleen - DC 17 - 50 creds, tablet and sanitary wipes remove the effects of radiation poisoning but doesn't prevent anything

Bob's Bits 'n' Bobs (DC 14)

Mysterious Stone Amulets - DC 16 - 100 creds, gives a +1 bonus to the next Will save, then shatters

Runed Tablets - DC 16 - 2d4x100 creds, 50% have a random curse, 25% a map to treasure, 25% a randomly determined Wizard or Cleric Spell (learnable/castable by any class)

Obsolete Software Holodisk -  1d100 creds - check the Star Frontiers  Equipment list; 75% will fail when used, but 25% are better due to some strange alchemy.  1 in 100 is a long-lost AI of randomly determined Alignment

Obsolete biosofts - DC 13 - 250 creds, gives PCs with a biosoft jack (more sometime later) access to a level 1 spell at a d14 spell roll

Vacuum Tubes - Always - 20 creds

AI Modules (Invariably Insane, but hey) -DC 17 - d100 Creds (some interesting effect that the GM will arbitrate; you may want to think hard before connecting to an open terminal)

Khrojang's Weapon Wagon (DC 14)

Stunners - DC 9 - d4x25 creds

Slug Gun - DC 12 - d2x50 creds

Club - Always - 2 creds

Mace - Always - 5 creds

Sword - Always - 10 creds

Laspistol - DC 15 - 125 creds

Faulty Space Knight Laser Sword - DC 19 - d3x1000 creds, any Critical Hit has a d3 multiplier for damage, BUT a fumble will mean a catastrophic overload and discharge of the power jewel, leaving an irradiated hole (possibly a Phologiston Breach) where the character formerly stood, or the same damage to the PC instead of the target.  Only for the daring!

Levko Damage Mitigation Gear (DC 16)

Patched Flak Vest AC 13 - DC 10 - 100 creds

Dented Combat Helmet AC +1 - DC 11 - 50 creds

Various Robot-Dermal Layers AC +2 - DC 17 - 200 creds

Phaser Field (immune to laser hits for 1d3 hits) - DC 18 - 250 creds

Various Forms of Companionship

Pillow Bot - Always - 10 creds

Valtrex Courtesan - DC 14 - 2d100 creds (they will come along and cause a ruckus for this price as a dangerous Plague Infested hireling for 1 delve)

Mongrelman/-woman Porter - Always (1d10 available) - 1d30 creds each

Mongrelman/-woman Thug - Always (1d4 available) - 1d30+5 creds each

Cybermastiff - DC 17 - 1000 creds

Organic Dog - DC 11 - 5d10 creds

Cliff Rooster - DC 14 - 10 creds
Grunkie - DC14 - 5 credits (note: as in ASE, Grunkies grow to become unruly and aggressive)

Irator Mercenary - DC 15 - Morale is generally low (whatever is appropriate for the character's PER - 2) - will accompany the party for a full share.  Armed with a Rusty Bardiche (as Battle Axe) and a Laser Pistol

Linkboy/Torchbearer/Lightbot - Always - 5 creds but Morale will fail at first funny and aggravating opportunity

Fig Loathing

 I have these 3rd edition plastic Catachans. Two 10-man squads.  Sitting in baggies, wrathful.  Giant penis-knives raised in anger.

I hate them.  I mean, I hate them. They were on the discount rack at Bobe's Hobbies in Pensacola maybe in 2007, untouched and still with the shrink wrap for like 22 bucks.  Not bad for 20 figs!  the upshot, though, is that they are ugly!  They are chunky and look like Stallone and Arnold given some combat steroids and they are just ungainly. The poses are kind of cool and pretty dynamic, but overall I have put off priming these figs for like 8 years because I just don't like them.  I have some great metal Catachans sergeants that I love to pieces - they will probably become the Command Squad, somehow.

They represent legs and resources to make some fun nonsensical conversions, and so they will probably get turned into veterans and the HW teams I made will be saved for use on the board with my Cadians.

Mostly, they will become Genetealer Cult Brood Brothers and Inquisition crew for Inq28; the arms are just that weird that I think they would look at home with some 'Nid heads glued on and at bad angles.

we'll see.  Until I started checking out Pinterest for Inq28 stuff my thoughts on kit-bashing were pretty conservative but since I found and started my first real experiments with green-stuff, seems like the possibilities are endless!

I'll get the camera in gear to show te process of breaking them down, again.

The Shadow of the Hivefleet Doth Approach

2 things (possibly more)

A) I will never ever make a 'Nid army, just because.  I dig the models and even like the fluff, but I'm hip deep in debt and can't drop money on a whole new thing. That said, I love Genestealers to pieces.  Always have, since about '91 or '92 and then Space Hulk on the PC ruined me forever. In my fevered dreams I hear the sound of a Terminator readying for overwatch, and the click-clack of impossibly dense chitinous claws resounding down the corridor until CHUFF CHUFF CHUFF JAM and then static.

2) I do have the time and interest to dick around with terrain and mixing the Armies I have with the GS and termagants from the Macragge set. It's impossibly chilly, now, and I cannot prime nor paint any figures.  My other models are all based with sand, since I'm a cheapskate, so I'd like to keep everybody fairly similar in that regard.  But I think I will mix some sand and tile and junk from the drawers to base the 'stealers I'm putting together, now.  You know, bolts and wire and pipes and such. The Space Hulk GS are almost painfully elaborate and the poses are sort of ONLY ON A HULK (naturally!) but I think I can sort something out.

3) a powerful urge to convert a patriarch - the Space Hulk broodlord is cool, but something else is needed, I think.

4) The terrain/fortifications and special rules of the 6th edition list I'm using scream for a Cities of Death thing

DCC Monster - The Alzabo

Voracious, ghost ridden, carnivorous, and strangely polite - the Alzabo is alien to Severian's Urth of the New Sun.  This is a little more than midway through the Urth of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe; I highly recommend it and it's getting a good deal of traction in the community these days.



Alzabos have the peculiar habit of partially subsuming the personalities of those they eat, on a very rudimentary level. This allows them to speak in the voice of their former victims, ostensibly to gain the confidence of new prey - especially family members who they appear to relish devouring afterward.

It can be quite unnerving to be faced with a wily and canny predator who not only knows your habits, but can also speak with the manner of your father who it ate the day before.  A common Alzabo ruse is to complain of chills or hunger outside the doors of huts and inns, in the hopes that some unsuspecting rube will open the door and allow it free entry.

They are rendered down into a concoction that, when used to embalm the dead, will allow those that consume the cooked flesh of the corpse to know the memories of the deceased.  In this way Severian the Torturer, Lictor of Thrax, came to be haunted by his dead lover's memories.

In the original, they are covered with red fur and have uncannily intelligent eyes.  They are prone to be as honorable as those they have eaten, and to chase down associates and loved ones of previous prey - the Alzabos' ability to acquire memory this way drives them to want community within themselves.

In the DCC Space Dungeon game, I gave them a stout head filled with multi-hinged jaws, razor sharp teeth, scaly green hide, and 4 eyes.  Long, spindly legs for terrifying bursts of speed, the ability to snip off a head in one bite, and crushing mastication that can destroy a helmet in a few moments of pressure.

The Philosopher's Stone Foundation in Fed Station rendered down two Alzabo heads into Potions of Reincarnation.

Alzabo: Init +5; Atk bite +6 melee (1d8+2); AC 15; HD 3d10; MV 40’; Act 1d24; SV Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +1; AL Lawful (but malevolent!)

If very badly pressed or wounded, a sapient Alzabo will bargain and parley to avoid imminent death; non-sapient ones are still savvy enough to mimic speech in a convincing and unnerving way.  All who hear an Alzabo use the voice of someone they know must make a DC 13 Will Save or be charmed for 1 turn, acting as it suggests.  The simple mimicry ability still requires a DC 11 Will Save to resist, with a +1 bonus if the victim can see the beast.