CHA: New Thaumatology

Hello, humans!

It's time to test out some new Chrome Hammer rules!

Chrome Hammer: Ascension - R&D

Hello, Humans!

Sorry about the blog lag (blag?)  It's been a while since I've made a post, and even longer since I've done one about minis gaming.  Sometimes hobbies just get "used up" for me and I struggle to find an angle to get back into it.  I'm also in a bit of a creative slump.  But enough about me!

Today, I'm eating my own (soy) dog food and trying out some rules changes that I'm batting around.

Today's Job is what I'm going to call "Smash and Grab".

Space Station Zero: Vorann (The Pod)

 Hello, humans!

Continuing from the previous post, Vorann's crew faces a new Challenge in "The Pod".

As they arrive in a new section of Space Station Zero filled with loose, sci-fi junk, a pod opens up and ejects some kind of device displaying a digital count-down.

Oh no!  I guess we'd better get over there and disarm what is obviously a virus bomb!  Good thing there don't seem to be any other threats in here. [wink]

Space Station Zero: Vorann (Docking Bay Access Port)

Hello, humans!

Snarling Badger Studios came out with a new solo, sci-fi minis skirmish game and it had a great cover so I went ahead and picked it up.

The idea is pretty cool, and it has a sort of "rogue-like" quality that might work well for a video game, but seems to be ruffling some feathers as a minis game.  Maybe it's just expectations?  We'll see.

Regardless, I decided to give it a try.

Squad Hammer: Mech vs. Mech!

 

Hello, Humans!

It's still NovHammer, so here's more NWG stuff.

Today I'm trying out some clever (but still in development) rules for stompy giant robot combat using Squad Hammer Core.  I didn't write this one.  I'm just testing out some test rules that I have access to.

Time to get excited!

Ion Hammer!

 

Hello, humans!

It's November now, which means it's time for Nordic Weasel Games' "NovHammer" event.  What does that entail?  Playing Squad Hammer and it's variants!  That's it!  Pretty easy, right?

To start it off, my first go at it is some good old Squad Hammer Core with my Ion Age minis.  The scenario I've envisioned is several Prydian units trying to defend a war-torn area of a city from Khanate (mostly Malig) forces.

Chrome Hammer: Ascension - Campaign Turns 2 & 3 (Rescue & Astral Pain)

 

Hoi, Humans (and Meta-Humans)!

Last mission was successful, but Sarge (the Ork Shadow) was captured by the Corporation!  Technically, Sarge can sit in limbo until I get around to trying to set up a rescue, but I'm impatient and want my cool Ork back, so despite not getting paid, I'm setting out to rescue our captured Crew member!

There's also a follow up Astral Pain mission.  We'll see how Shuffle does on his own.

So let's get to it!

Chrome Hammer: Ascension - Campaign Turn 1 (Wetwork)

Hoi, Humans (and Meta-Humans)!

It's time to start a Chrome Hammer: Ascension campaign!

I've been building this thing and testing it and laying it out, but I haven't had a chance to approach it like a player, starting from scratch.  Well, no more waiting!  It's time to eat my own (soy-)dog-food.

I've already got the table set up, so let's go!

Five Parsecs: Bug Hunt

 

Hello humans!

An entity on the NWG Discord offered to host a cooperative Five Parsecs: Bug Hunt campaign, and I thought it would be a good way to force myself to actually play a game.  So far, it's working!

Lock and load, Marines!  It's time for a Bug Hunt!

Five Parsecs from Home 3E!

Hol-lee crap!  Five Parsecs from Home got the nod from Modiphius and has come out with a shiny new third edition!  So obviously I had to give it a go.  Maybe this will even be a running thing.

I made a new crew, all Human except for the lone Engineer alien.  The had a pretty good start, too.  Most of my guys had a Reaction score of 2 or 3, which is nice for a starting crew.  The team consisted of Verdun the Captain, Bloo, Flavio, Spiegel, Riek, and the alien Döbler.

Verdun has a sweet Glare Sword and a Hand Laser.  Bloo has a devastating Shatter Axe.

Our ship, the "Profit Margin" is cobbled together out of salvage, but still put us in debt of 25 credits.

Time for adventure!

Chrome Hammer: Ascension Beta (Severance Package)

 

Star Breach

Hello, humans!

I was itching for a game to play, something new to ease my fidgety ennui, so I thought I'd finally try Star Breach, by Elijah M. Kelogg!  (I'm assuming the "M" stands for "Multigrain".)

This is an attractive book with glossy pages and nice illustrations and photos of minis.  It's something I could probably convince a friend to play if I had friends.  I mean, friends nearby that I could hang out with.

Anyway, here's what I did.

Gaea Prime: First Defense or "X-COM Please Don't Sue"

 

Let's face it, whenever I see a new sci-fi skirmish game, it seems like the first thing anybody asks is "Can it do X-COM?"  If for some reason you're not familiar with X-COM, it was an old computer game of tactical skirmish combat that explored fending off alien infantry, raiding their crashed ships, and researching the remains to reverse-engineer all of their cool tech to use against them.  Great game.

Gaea Prime: First Defense is basically that: GP's first encounter with alien slavers raiding the Earth for resources, and the adventures of GP's armed forces as they kill the aliens and loot their bodies for research fodder.

Here's how my first game went...

Weasel-Hammer: White Scars vs. Orks!

 Hello, Humans!

This September is Weasel-Hammer month!  What does that mean?  It's a loosey-goosey campaign set in a lost corner of the Warhammer 40k universe, but mostly played with Nordic Weasel Games games.

In the fractious and war-torn Mustelida sector, some kind of Warp disturbance has cut off that region of space from outside communication and travel while dark forces begin pouring in.  Whatever Imperial elements that happen to be trapped there are the only hope for Humanity!

"In the grim derpness of the far future, there is only w... weasel!"

Laserburn: Nostalgia Kills

 Sometimes you can't truly appreciate what you have, or what you've lost, without going back and (re)discovering it for yourself.

Laserburn is one of those things that bears experiencing. It's a sci-fi game from 1980, which if you're reading this in 2020, was about 100 years ago.  This was apparently before the time of common word processors, or technical writers or editing I guess.  Clearly this was type-written and then copied to make books.  But who am I to talk?  I was alive in 1980.  How many beloved games did I write? :)

I actually didn't get into minis games until much later, so I don't have any nostalgia for the game, but I'm also kind of a gaming hipster, so I at least had to try it.  Here we go.

Knyghte, Pyke & Sworde: Objective Battle

 Hey!  It's minis time again!  Finally!

I asked some folks what I should play next, and they said KPS again, so don't blame me.  Unfortunately, the short notice prevented me from painting up new guys, which really is a shame, but I decided instead to mix it up by playing an "Objective" battle this time.

I'm playing both sides, as usual, Blue vs. Red again.  To get objectives, each side rolls twice on a table, in the open, but then secretly chooses one of the two objectives.  The objectives are then revealed, and both sides roll for deployment type.  Blue ended up with "Find the Loot" (secure one of three random tokens) and Red got "Slay the Leader" (kill best opposing Captain), and for deployment I rolled the relatively boring "All Forward", which is just a normal "everybody starts on their side" setup.  The game will only last 4 turns.  That doesn't sound like a lot, but man, there was so much blood in so few turns!

Knyghte, Pyke and Sworde

Mud and Blood!

Nordic Weasel Games came out with Knyghte, Pyke & Sworde a few months ago(?) (Has it been months?  Stupid Eternal Thursday Virus!) But I hadn't gotten around to playing it because I couldn't get to a printer to print it out, and honestly, my collection of "historical" type minis is sparse.

Eventually, though, I painted up barely enough guys to get a tiny little game going, and just took things slow so I could read the game from my phone.

And of course I'm glad I did.  I'm more of a sci-fi gi, but I'll bet a big game of this would be fun.  Maybe one of my friends will have a couple of good-sized era-appropriate armies to bash together.  (Or I'll just have to paint a lot more guys.)

Chrome•Hammer: //Grid Lock

Another Chrome•Hammer playtest!  This time it's a VR mission, with the goal of controlling all four Stacks on the table.  Forgive me for not being particularly clever here.  I'm just trying to log this for posterity. :)

The Department: Seventh Mission

Mission Seven: The Nightclub

Sorry.  I've been sitting on this one for quite a while now because I didn't have the "nightclub" terrain I needed.  Sure, I could have faked it, but I was also looking for an excuse to do some crafting.  So, after a long time, I finally built my nightclub set, and I'm using it for this mission.  It's not perfect, but it's pretty good, I think.

Ok.  Let's get on with The Nightclub.

Chrome•Hammer: //Virus Upload

This weekend I had a chance to playtest some cyberpunk minis beta rules.  Welcome to:

In the first mission, FOZ Pictures Corporation fought Meyerdyne Corporation over a resource extraction site.  Despite Meyerdyne's ED-2099 droid turning more than once on its own units, the pharmaceutical corporation came out on top, dropping FOZ's stock.