Contemplating Gaming... A Different Perspective - Making A Generic Workshop

I've mainly come at 'the hobby' from a 'traditional' viewpoint.  The minis are plastic, metal (blerk) or resin (blerk blerk) works of artistic sculpture, the terrain is impromptu miniature dioramas,  etc.

However, I'm also relatively opened minded and don't think there's only one way to hobby.  I appreciate paper (character) minis and terrain, computers are another expressions of it from a different perspective, 3d prints are an amazing new approach, store-bought cast minis etc.   aka...  it's all valid.

Recently I bought the 'space station zero' (SSZ) rules which is a model agnostic game system, and I wanted to run some lite-test games in order to play around with/learn the rules.

Aaaand,  I did not want to pull out my 40k minis for... reasons. 

'Space Station Zero' is more or less analogous to the 40k blackstone fortress game based on watching some bat reps etc.   It contains a pretty decent (simple/quick but diverse enough) combat process, and a good way of working out dice resolved situations/tests.

What I was interested in doing was subbing in Lego minis and terrain rather than shelling out to create a whole new bespoke, single-purpose mini set and terrain.

Why Lego?   Because you can easily swap a gun for a sword, or a scanner or other equipment. You cannot do this with trad minis (magnetising is painful and I don't like it).

The equipment side of things in 'space station zero' is mainly non-granular;  you can arm fighters with 'a side arm', or 'a melee weapon' as well as some equally generic advanced gubbins.  Further, unlike even simpler rulesets like OPR,  SSZ is SUPER simple on the crunch.  So having trad models with a variety of weaponry is conceptually overkill.  Lego on the other hand seemed to embrace the super basic approach.

Which made me wonder... why... don't.... we use Lego... to represent ALL of the miniature wargaming experience?   If not for testing out rule sets, as well as just... for all of it.

I decided there is not a great reason.

Minis are super cool or course, I like them.  But there's the building and painting them to your specifications and they're specifically looking like the 'universe' they're meant to come from.  but... ... ... so what?

Lego as a tool seems a great way of trying out a game  in my opinion.  Customisable in terms of wysiwig on a high level.  i.e you can put different weapons or scanners or armour etc on them without a great deal of effort.

You can even, if so inclined, paint them as you want... they're your toys, so do what you want with them.

The ONLY issue I can see from a technical perspective is that minifigs are inclined to line up with pips beneath their feet. I will be putting all the minifigs on 3x2 pip bases for stability as they're a bit tippy just by themselves (analogous of course to bases on 'trad' minis).  I will still being doing the testing etc on a flat table anyway.

By contrast to this simplicity, I have many Necromunda models, each with their own wysiwyg weapons etc, that represent exactly the stats of the loadouts etc.  This is quite a lot of models and I don't use many of them in any given game.  It is nice to have the options but it was a lot of work, time etc to build up this selection of options... and then not to use them frequently (or at all in some cases).  I guess the 'issue' i was having with real models is that they're too fancy, too specific - they're posed and painted to be unique and beautiful rather than utilitarian. You can't have a horde of them without looking 'mono-pose' (to an extent of course).

So... I got myself some Lego and put together a [rolls eyes] gaming 'workshop' box.

And then I ran a quick test battle using just the basic combat stuff from SSZ.  No scenarios, just extracting out the fighting aspect and placing one quick objective.  And my gut feel is that it worked damn well.  I had one side with more numerous but worse fighters, and one side with fewer but better fighters.  An objective in the middle that the more numerous soldiers had to 'shut down' (reaction test stats - a simple 3x reaction successes).

Generic terrain is a cinch to assemble. And limited only to the bricks you have, time you have, and the could-be-bothered that you have.  I wouldn't mind making some full (but small) building structures, but I'm not going all out on this concept - there will NOT be a full table sized, cityscape of structures.  But as demonstrated, basic barricades and/or ruins and/or rubble is super easy...

Similarly, the objective was more of the same...

I am not a fan of the franchise shown here (for reasons I won't bother explaining) but there is a glut of Lego sets for this setting available at the moment, and I treat the minifigs as 'generic space soldiers'... with sidearms.  You can tell the factions apart (blues and whites) and you can easily see what equipment they're carrying.

Anyway, that's what I've been experimenting with recently.  Decades later and I'm back to playing Legos. Wish I'd thought of this way possibility back in the day.

I'm enjoying the prospect of exploring SSZ in more depth now that I've resolved or scratched the generic setting itch.  It's something I can use to trial more rulesets should I find something tasty.

A little blurb on SSZ...

You have ship classes that your fighters come from, and different fighter types.  These have pros/cons, boons/deficiencies for facilitating completing the system's  'Challenges' which are about exploring the Station.  You progress from Challenge to Challenge going deeper into the space station, gaining experience etc  which is very much analogous to the Blackstone concept.

My other purpose...

While this exploration is interesting, I'm always on the lookout for a rule system that provides THE most quick, simple, unambiguous combat and play constraints that can be used for all models (model agnostic).  And this one is shaping up as pretty good.

Playing around Later...

I have... extracted the combat aspects of the system and run a couple of Skirmish games.  Still working it out a bit, but over all it was a relatively fun experience, and quick, and simple.... beauty!

I did have objectives set on this but only just cos. Whites were probably better with 7 including a leader. Blues were still a little overpowered with 5 and a leader.  Probably would have been better with 4 blues (plus leader).

Having heavy/weapons and leader variants made for a little difference/nuance to the combat experience.

A bit more to work on but it's a good experiment and I see great promise in the system.

Some short time later...

I've now extracted all the combat basics and got all the mechanics down and smooth.  The result is a quick/light-weight skirmish system and gets a battle story done in no time... in a good way.

There is movement, there is combat, there is tactics, there is purpose/impetus, there is narrative, there is no looking up tonnes of stats and referring back to the rules/army lists.  it just fricken flows.

Last night I ran a basic battle with a totally non-wargamer friend and we got through the game in possibly less than 3/4 hour.  They had 4 blues and I had 8 whites.  I had objectives and they had to stop me. I played the objectives and had (for what it was worth) a victory by activating two minor objectives.  This 3/4 hour included them learning the game mechanics from scratch and included; movement, combat, objectives, retaining, turn precedence... basically all the bits that all skirmish games contain.  We didn't add heavy/veteran/medOfficer but those are all stat'd out for use next time.

I am VERY impressed with this game's mechanics.  It is probably going to remain on my playlist as a quick and easy way of scratching the roll-some-dice itch.

Until next time...

OPR - 28mm new stuff

playing OPR in campaigns at the club i realized/discovered that the forces/armies i have have a number of deficits.  Specifically, i like and have collected infantry largely rather than tanks or big units. 

to make them a big more functional/versatile i had a list of other units i wanted to add to my forces.  this was always a project for the future.

at cancon i had a walk through the bring n buy and found a bunch of cheaper 2nd hands stuff. suffice to say i picked up some this and that, and got actually most of the units i'd hoped to add.  there was not the whole range of things i had on my list but i feel i'd picked up enough.

this is most of them with new base coat...

this is all of them (sans termis) done. yhay...

there are some fleshhounds that will supplement the bloodletters i have.  i don't want to go full out khorne demons, but it's nice to have two options.

two custodes jetbikes to add to the very small number of infantry i have.  probably not enough for a full-strength OPR  but probably enough for skirmish.

a few extra tyranid ripper swarms... kinda just before.

a ridgerunner vehicle for the necromunda/opr inquisitor crew i've got.  this is more narrative than particularly usable.

and two chaos spawn that i picked up ages ago and never got around to putting together and painting. doneski.

there is also a set of 5 chaos terminators which are just black undercoated at the moment.

the termis and rippers i had to paint strip.  not why the termi's aren't done... but they're next up.

all the others are now boxable. again, yhay!

hobby project for a change :D

until next time...