Zona Alfa - Focused Mission 2 - Position the RC Drone

Following on from last weeks mission fiesta, I decided to run the second narrative mission I'd written up.

This time the crew was being hired to guide an RC sensor drone up to the military compound.

I set up a new board, but using the same concept as last time...

...and if we compare last week's map (below), we can see that I just sort of panned the camera up on a larger map (more or less).

Infil point top right - Exfil point top left... the APC moves across as the game progresses. Rolled up 9 turns which was not a terrible result.

The new map had a lot of open space in the middle. A road at the top, an abandoned track leading down toward the centre...   overall it was quite fun.

Mission objective at the military outpost, at the entrance which made the objective point quite cramped (intentional).

Four Hot Spots, one near the Infil point, one down toward the barns (lower right) and two kind of on the way back up to the Exfil Point (left side).

The crew alights and heads into the container depot. Note the RC drone at the rear.  Moving the drone requires a crew members (any) to spend their own activation points to move it, plus they must be within 6" of it when it starts moving (therein the unique challenge of this mission).

Hoping for an easy bonus while everyone is fresh they set a quick overwatch and trigger the Hot Spot. No anomalies, just rats. Blasted quickly.

A Control Turn check at the end of turn 2 saw a roaming pack of dogs enter the board from the South. Their excellent eyesight picked out movement ahead and they tracked towards the crew.

Maintaining forward momentum and also keeping the RC moving, the crew manages to pick off the dogs on the run.

Every 2 turns I was moving the APC forward 12" - could have done 6" per turn but then I'd have to remember more :)

HUSTLE and LEADER rush the MO point to clear it of hostiles. Nothing but rats. LEADER takes one with overwatch, before the other swarm reaches base contact with HUSTLE...

then SNIPER, still perched up on the containers blasts the second swarm to goo from the other side of the board. An excellent but slightly risky shot. Given his equipment and skills he was a <= 9 to hit (highly likely) but being overwatch there was a 50:50 of causing friendly fire.   he rolled odd's  which took out the rats fortunately. Gulp!   A tense but fun result.

The RC trundled into position securing the Mission Objective!

The crew quickly turn their attention to the nearby Hot Spot, set some overwatch and trigger it. Bandits and an anomaly. Some of my new Bandits hit the table (yhay).

Overwatch took out the AK guy (the biggest threat) and one of the pistol guys shot at KNIFE as he ran for cover.

In the new turn the Bandits were quickly outgunned.

With the Hostile Phase now only a turn away the crew boots toward the APC. SNIPER leaps down from the containers and starts sprinting across the width of the map.

Hostile Phase kicks over: Bandits emerge at the container yard...

Zombies and Snorks are spotted near the military outpost...

and another swarm of Rats pops up right by the APC.

As turn 10 ticks over HUSTLE clears the rats expertly, LEADER gives SNIPER a boost of speed, and the hatch of the APC slams shut!

Phew!

The crew managed the mission competently. There were some stages where things could have gone far worse (mainly the hostile rolls; as in i could have rolling up tougher hostiles at the MO or first HS). As it was, no one needed a med kit or became incapacitated - in fact, no consumables were used at all (though i was contemplating giving HUSTLE some eJuice at one stage). 

So about 7.5k of credits once the salvage and artifact were sold off. Didn't need to buy any gear this time around. Gave KNIFE a 1+ combat bonus with the advances and held back the remainder. 

New HUSTLE performed admirably (jumping at just the right time as SNIPER's salvo came in), and this was mission 4 for the remainder of the crew. Next mission, should they survive, they will earn promotions for the older, non-veterans.  Will need to reconsider the crew at that stage to maintain the 12k skill threshold (hence keeping some advances available too).

Oh, and i never got around to collecting a reward from the Scientists... that's two they owe us.

Other stuff... 

These are all the Bandits I've finished. Paint still drying on the non-AK carrying ones (pistols and machetes) as dice were being rolled.

I have another 4 models more or less assembled but i'm not super happy with them (they feel like mutated leftovers). Think i'll just stick with these 2 sets for now. Can always make up more later.

And this... is all the minis i've assembled for Zona Alfa.

On the left is the 'norWesters' (contractors/independent stalkers), The Scientist HVT and the RC drones.

On the right are (from back to front)  bandits (8), yowies [mutants] (10), snorks [rad ghouls] (4), bloodsuckers [rad ghouls] (4), zombies (12), rats [vermin] (4), and dogs (12).

I still have a bunch of the Eureka military minis to get painted up. I'm sure i'll get to them one day.

Update 2020-11-03

Not worth a post of it's own. finished off the military outpost. Clearly the bolts holding the thing together were subpar.

Just brushed on some rust and weathering washes. Happy enough with how it turned out.

Until next time...

Zona Alfa - A Few Mini-Projects

original draft 2020-10-20

I've started looking at missions a bit more. I modelled up some stolen RC drones which are printing now.

Printing done, painting done, boxed done. Scientist for scale. 

Just a quick and utilitarian paint job. Pretty happy with the result though.

I also found on thingiverse some blind dogs, snorks and bloodsuckers.   printing up one batch of each 6 dogs, 4 or each of the other two.   This way i can add some extra  variety into the hostile table. rad-ghouls could be either of the later two and dogs have been making a few appearances - nice to have extra models.

happy enough with the scale. should be quick and easy paint jobs given they're mainly mono-colour.

update 2020-10-23:  undercoat going on now.

update 2020-10-24:  these were done and even saw some table time!! yhay!

I've also switched over from isopropyl alcohol to methylated spirits. replaced all the liquids in the cleaning tanks.  

So far the results are good. No surface frosting or anything like that. I can also run 4 vats to get rid of more of the resin, so it's a win in many directions.  And with metho sooooo much easier to get (and less than half the price) i can also swap out the cleaning tanks more frequently which would definitely have something to do with eternally sticky prints (aka reusing goopy isopropyl indefinitely).

Until next time...

Zona Alfa - Focused Mission 1 - Escort the Scientist

Managed to assemble a board during the middle of the day Sunday after cleaning was done. Over the last couple of days i've been contemplating missions. 'Real' missions, not the randomly rolled token objectives i've been running out of the rulebook.

Specifically, now that i've assembled some various terrain pieces i wanted to write and run some themed missions for the terrain.  I've pretty much got the drafts all done so thought i've give one a crack.

Today's mission was 'escort the scientist to the abandoned military outpost'.

During the week i'd assembled the outpost and put on some base colours. More still to do in terms of shading and weathering (rust) etc but at a table-worthy state.

The general goal of having a 'specific' mission is to lessen the general 'scavenger hunt' nature of the solo game and have the team working concertedly towards a specific outcome (and presumably a more focused reward).

The military outpost is up at the top left corner, the APC (Infil/Exfil) is at the bottom left corner, and there were 4 Hot Spots also added.

I borrowed a non-weapon carrying dude from my Infinity models. I'd like to create a purpose built Scientist HVT model but didn't have time [see below].

Here's a couple of board overview shots from different angles... 

Didn't use any of the houses or containers - it's nice to have the option to leave things off.

The mission goal is for the Scientist to reach the Mission Objective point at the military outpost, do a search, and then get back to the APC.   The Scientist can move 6" and is not armed.

An extra rule i made for him is that he must always move the maximum distance possible where appropriate (i.e. if he's not making 'Searches' instead) and using the shortest path to his objective - it's up to the crew to clear the path for him. He can be activated at any stage like a crew member, i.e. he doesn't always move at the start or end of turn or anything like that - so you can move him first if hostiles are approaching or move him last allowing the crew to clear existing hostile before moving him up.

For the game i rolled up 8 turns which is not a lot (minimum possible [7+d3]). There was a gap in the (otherwise impassable) wall so there was a bit of a run from the starting position. In general everything of interest was on the left side of the board.

HUSTLE booted through the gap and triggered the Hot Spot. The Hot Spot was 'in the Scientist's path' so there was a chance he would have triggered it when he got there and been overwhelmed by hostiles (thus ending the mission if he carked it). HUSTLE was hoping to reduce the hostile force there before he arrived. Unfortunately he hustled a little to fast and didn't have enough backup (just a couple of inches short)... and wound up Dead... My first casualty since I've been playing missions 'proper'.   RIP 'Moran' HUSTLE you SOB.

This this was my first time putting the bandits on the table too - so a little exciting there. Two of them ran for cover, and two of them attacked while deploying. One of those deployment attacks made HUSTLE incapacitated, and an attack during the subsequent unanswered activations (everyone was moving up still so no return fire) finished him off.  The Kelvar wasn't enough to deflect all the hits and he forgot to use his Electric Juice (damnit!) which could have swung the event around. Anyway, that happened.

The rest of the crew poured through the wall gap and finished off the bandits. SCROUNGER searched the anomaly, failing his will check despite the new detector (obviously needs calibration) but passed his armour save.  KNIFE booted fast up towards the outpost to stop the Scientist doing anything stupid. 

LEADER triggered the Mission Objective from long range (inspect and maximum distance bolt toss - guess he must be long-sighted) and a pack of Dogs appeared from within the outpost. Overwatch from SNIPER, and melee from KNIFE took care of them toot-sweet.

Scientist reached the MO, did his Science check and it was time to head back.

With the crew retreating a pack of Mutants spawned during the Control Check at the end of turn 6. With 8" movement and 2 actions per turn they really zip across the field (16" is a third of the board span). LEADER took one out before his retreat moves.

LEADER blasted another one as everyone reached the Exfil point - the Mutants were within pouncing distance as the doors of the APC slammed shut. Sure, they would have got blasted with overwatch but why risk it. This was the end of turn 8 so the Hostile Phase would have been starting and that turns things bad really quick.

So...

The mission concept worked really well. There wasn't a lot of time for dicking around raiding Hot Spots and the one that was triggered was more to clear it than to raid it.  I probably would have avoided it until the return leg if that had been possible.

The anomaly produced a 5k artifact with armour bonus. The crew sold up all the loot obtained, resulting in a tad under 5k of spendable credits once dues were paid etc.

The MO was not 'Searchable', instead a reward was to be received from the Scientists. I didn't bother adding anything because... i just didn't (done with thinking for the day). The Scientists will just 'owe them one' for now - especially since the muppet they sent rushed blithely across the board and caused the crew to lose a member.

With the credits the crew hired a new Veteran  'Carter'  who will be replacing 'Moran' in the HUSTLE role.   All the gear just transfers - Stalkers don't care much for where the gear comes from, especially Veterans - so long as it works (don't mention those armour rolls though). This took most of the ready cash from the mission.

With the mission 'advances' the crew purchased '+1 combat' bonuses for LEADER and (new) HUSTLE.

The mission aspect was worth playing for sure. I'll probably throw it into the mix every few games (along with the other scenarios i've drafted). The scavenger hunts are probably a bit more fun imo, being 'sand box' and allowing you to decide your route better; which is the point of STALKER for me. Having the focused action of a tight mission goal was interesting too.

Update A 2020-10-20

Whipped up a scientist. Used mostly Anvil parts, combined before printing as i was finding assembly to be a real bitch (might say something that assembling with the basic windows 3d program is 'easier'). Bag and console controller modified from thingiverse objects.

Update B 2020-10-20

I often say (and didn't this time around, ironically) that this or that game had a narrative quality. 

Just as a clarification; to me this means that there's more to the game than rolling dice, looking up charts and moving miniatures around.

If the game is immersive (i.e. you can imagine the situation (tension, fear, elation etc) from the model's perspective) then the game becomes more akin to an interactive storybook (VR's probably a stretch, but definitely engages the imagination).

I don't get this way with say, chess - there's definitely a requirement for setting a suitable scene or environment, rather than just playing out a tactical engagement.

Not that this is a desired result, but it would be possible to write up the events as a story; more than a battle report, less than high prose.

Update C 2020-10-20

Someone on a fb group posted up some models for RC drones they were working on.

Given i want a sensor one i copied then embellished (plus modelled up the two originals as well).

left-right: bomb-bot,  [Scientist],   gun-bot,  sensor-bot {new}

Am yet to print any of them. They're really small at this specific size (only 14mm side-to-side), not sure if i should scale them up a tad.   tba

Until next time...

Zona Alfa - End of the Weekend Mission

I managed to get a solo game in on Sunday.

Given equipment lugging, board and mission setup, play time, and then pack away it's not a super-quick undertaking, so a suitable block of time is needed to make it worthwhile.

The upgraded crew were back for a follow up to their last mission. New forest pieces make an appearance at the infil point.

Ideally i guess i'd like to make half-as much forest again, maybe same amount again. What i have is ok, but it would be nice to have more filler, and it does that quite well.

I actually left the 2 barns off the table so i've now got enough terrain to have a surplus... yhay!

Threat Level 2, Mission Objective near the top right (crashed drone again,  again). Hot Spots generally around mid-top sector (mainly randomly set). One appeared just near the infil point.  Exfil point is top left, so we have to go diagonally up and across the board, then back to the other side again.

An anomaly popped up immediately, along with some mutants (chose mutants over bandits as i didn't want to be dealing with a gunfight straight away).

The crew was fresh out of the APC so overwatch took out the other 2 straight away. The other two made it into base contact with LEADER but melee killed one and an aimed shot from SCROUNGER took out the last one.

* they were so close enough that i was pretty much applying the 'Unintelligent Hostile' rules for them = charge.

I've made a couple of adjustments to the stat lines of the mutants, reflecting their particular characteristics.

UPDATE...

actually i'm modifying the stats of most of the 'melee' hostiles.

Mutants

They have 8" move, up by 2" from 6" as they're lanky and springy.

And they will have firepower 3 (three dice, per attack).    Given they have teeth + claws (grouping both hands/talons as one firepower) + stabby spikers (...one firepower)  they deserve a few more dice. 

I did think about making it 5 (teeth+claws(r)+claw(l)+spike(r)+spike(l)) but that could be a bit over the top. We'll see how firepower 3 goes.

Also, ongoing; Zombies will have firepower 2 (teeth + claws), and Dogs/Rats will have firepower 1 still (teeth).

Back to the mission..

Everyone moves up the board to the MO, sniper takes position near a pile of junk.

Zombies appear and move toward the crew (LEADER made the bolt toss first try for a change!!). HUSTLE is hidden on the other side of that 'memorial', he takes one out with overwatch, and LEADER takes out a second. A zombie moves and makes base contact with LEADER before SNIPER uses an aimed shot to take it out. The final zombie makes base contact with LEADER and KNIFE steps in to base contact and melees it.

The Mission Objective was achieved but produced no salvage (another set of rules i had to reread and work out. So, you DO get salvage from MO but strictly SCROUNGER doesn't get two searches on it. Only on Hot Spots). 

Think they'd only got one set of loot, the crew triggers the other one just to the left of the MO. Mutants and an anomaly (i forgot to place the anomaly, but didn't take a pic anyway).

Overwatch reduced the group to half and KNIFE chopped his was quickly through the other two (man of the match?).

SCROUNGER searched the HS (i also forgot to do the artifact roll, must have been a really weak anomaly). Now at turn 6 a roaming band of dogs appears on the far side of the board. Not a huge threat at this stage (Control Check roll).

Although there was another HS just to the north (up-board) there were only 3 turns until the Hostile Phase started. Having fought off 3 groups of hostiles already they called it a day not wanting a repeat of the last mission where they were actively chased off the board. 

Again, a very fun game and, as more and more rules sink in gradually, i'm able to add more details and clauses as  i don't have to study the basics all the time. Invariably i still forget this or that which i chalk up to 'the luck of the zone'.

The improved mutants will prove more of a challenge next time for sure.

Bandits didn't make it onto the table. I had a new set with still wet paint so we'll likely see them next time. Kind of influenced my choice of selecting mutants over bandits at the HS.

The last of the crew got their Load Bearing Vests and Kelvar. Two of the crew got stat bumps SCROUNGER +1 will,    HUSTLE +1 combat.

They're now 2 mission away from promotions (i'm counting the aborted mission too, because combat happened) which will mean a reshuffle of the team. I'll still stick with 12K worth of crew. 

And that was that. Good fun. Good flow.

Until next time...

Zona Alfa - More Hostiles - Bandits and Crew

 Original Draft - 2020-09-21

So i subscribed (for now at least) to the anvil digital forge thingy and downloaded a bunch of stalker-suitable bits. The Anvil models are great (their actual physical models) but very expensive once you add postage and conversion rates etc - also the accessories to make the models individual stack up. I online window-shopped a while back and ended up with crazy expensive crews.

I started with just the parts for a complete stalker at original scale. Was too large compared with the eureka miniatures which are my 'standard' to work towards. I then printed one at 91% scale and this was suitable. In pic below the 91% is on the left, the original scale on right.

This shows the 91% against a Eureka mini in a vaguely similar stance. If anything the model might be a fraction too tall still, but not so much that it bothers me. 

Over the weekend I printed out batches of parts for assembly - printer working beautifully throughout BTW. Waiting for the sun to get up and give everything a final solid curing. 

Basically there are enough parts here to make 24 basic models.

I REALLY need to get a big bottle of isopropyl as the sludge i'm currently reusing is just filthy - so even cured models can end up slightly sticky. 

Over the last few days i ditched the sw legion bandits and also the print 'military' I made. They were both far too large to be convincing in my homebrew meta so they're now gone. adios, thank you for your service [salute].

Given that the Eurekas will be taking any military faction duties on the board i now just need some replacement bandits.

The idea is that i make enough for 2x groups of 6 or combinations thereof - 12 all up. The official rules only ever use groups of 4 bandits, but i thought maybe on the Tier 3 maps groups of 6 might be suitable sometimes... anyway it's good to have options. Even with groups of 4 that's 3 groups available - perfect.

Something that's easy to miss on first reading is that hostiles of the same type can spawn at different points on the board at the same time. So theoretically on a T1 board you could have 3 groups of 4 bandits booting around simultaneously. One group of 4 bandits might not be enough to satisfy the dice rolls, though of course subbing in 'next hardest' hostiles based on what you have is entirely legit and sane (if you can't print off excessive quantities of models).

So 12 bandits still leaves me 12 sets for a new crew. I'm thinking of making a... 6 to 8 person crew... with obviously more 'stalker-aesthetic' than my current 'contractor' crew. The 'stalkers' will probably be my backup set though - the Contractors are still ace.

With the bandits... i'm not 100% sure what to do with the weapon loadouts. options include: a) everyone gets an ak47 and a knife, or b) everyone gets random loadouts (leftovers), c) combination of the above.

I'm actually liking the idea of having random loadouts and then rolling up the bandit crew at random when they're deployed. So you could be facing pistols, snipers, shotguns, aks, even knives... all at random. This actually kind of fits the setting quite well given bandits are going to be using scavenged/stolen equipment and are unlikely to have uniform gear (unless it's stolen of course).

A local gaming comrade of mine has ordered some 'scientist' models too so some interest around which is nice. Plus a different local guy already has a bunch of Eureka minis already painted up.  So hopefully some Player vs Player fun to be had in the future.

Update 2020-09-29

I put together 8 or 9 new crew people.

Will need greenstuff to get it to all stick together nicely. It has a bit of an issue with not assembling super-easily. i mean, it works, but it's fiddlier than what i expect with i.e. commercial plastic models. Then you need to hobby the pieces together, filling gaps, sanding sticky-outy bits down etc.... just yeah, little annoying. 

Might be an alternative to pre-model the pieces together in the windows program and print as a single piece. Saves the assembly hassle at least.

So i have another bits left for easily my 12 bandit models. i started despruing the legs and then realised i didn't have enough of my mdf bases. order 100 in but not sure when they'll get here so the project is on a bit of a hiatus.

update ends

Update 2020-10-12

The bases arrived and the bandit assembly started.

First set of complete bandits, boxed and ready for the table (a day late). These 4 will be the 'default' batch if I don't want to think. The other 8 will have a mix of weapons (leftovers).

In general i'm happier with them then the SW legion minis. The models are... not anywhere near the quality of the eureka: specifically the clothes are quite 'bloaty', so they're not specifically 'heroic scale' but they're just modelled 'fat'.  And obviously the weapons are huge - not a huge fan of that. They will suffice.

As more bandits and the crew are completed i'll add update pic on here, but this project has a start and an end so i'll call it done. 

update ends

Until next time...

Zona Alfa - Forest

Origin Draft 2020-09-21

On one of my trial games it appeared that i probably needed a bit more space filler terrain. 

This put it into my head to make some trees. I bought a roll of wire and started twisting.

Update 2020-09-25

While this seemed like a fun idea at the time the following step was going to be far too annoying and costly. Namely covering the wire with 2 part epoxy (kneadit) to make it not 'wirey'.

After binning these i left the thought alone for a while. I had a look at this or that site looking for scale trees and didn't really find anything that grabbed me.

Today I happened to think of a bitz trader I know of and had a look at their site.

Picked up two of these...

2 lots of 20 x 10cm high trees (so the pic above x 2). They didn't have any variety in the range (just these) but I quickly came up with a plan. models are (nominally) 28mm tall so the tree will be high enough to be effective.

They're not going to be tall forests, more like an xmas tree plantation - younger trees basically. While I'd have preferred a mature forest I was kinda concerned that there would be a lot of clear sight between the trunks and the foliage quite high if I went that route.  This approach should negate that concern.

update ends

update 2020-10-01

Didn't make as much as i'd had hoped for (based on no science), but it will do.  Still 8 stands, just smaller stands.

as anticipated i was able to make some height variation by cutting away some lower trunk.  they're on 2x glued together 3mm mdf bases which seems to make them quite stable. sand down the top edges so they're not quite so blocky. 

can paint/shade the trees to create some colour variation.

can also chop away some segments of the circles of foliage.

for the bases i'm probably going to flock them and i have some cork 'rocks' which i used a little bit on the epic tall hills projects.    might also get some sheet cork and play with that.

and i also have some 'birch' foliage which i can lay on or around the trees. also used that in the tall hills.

once they're finalised they'll be getting a spray of clear sealant to stop all the fricken flock dropping off..... ggrrrrrrrr 

update ends

update 2020-10-02

i put some dollops of epoxy on the trunk bases so they're locked in.   then some wood glue and cork 'bobbles'.   then some cork 'grit'.    all of this will get a coat of texture paint so it's just about adding random texture.

Once that's done i'll look at flock and foliages.

update ends

update 2020-10-05

Got a little debris, tufts, and paint on the bases. Light spray highlight from above. Minimal effort involved, then some clear spray.

From afar and under real light they look fine. Not entirely what i had in mind but i don't mind them - sometimes the surprise of how a project turns out is a good thing.

Will drop a pic when i get around to putting them on the table, but otherwise calling it a day on this project.

update ends

update 2020-12-02

I ordered a bunch more of (what looks like) exactly these same trees. Off of ebay this time so there's going to be a massive delay coming in from 'china' or wherever (out to late February was displayed).

2x 40 tree lots.  Figured I wanted the same tree type so i can expand the forest, rather than making something stylistically different again.

So that's 80 trees at 5 trees per stand (average) is an extra 16 stands, giving me 24 all up.  which surely MUST be enough for a full forest effect... and probably overkill.

Will allow me to do some variety in the stands.  at the moment there is 1x 3-tree stands and 2x 6-tree 'J' shaped stands.  Can lash out and make a few more of these non-standards, probably more smaller ones than larger ones as they allow greater flexibility... we'll see. 

A bit of work, but a far distant project at this stage. Should be fun again by the time it rocks around.

Until next time...