Thing a Week 13

A pretty productive start to the New Year, with a whole squad for All That Remains is up over on the AtR Blog. While I was waiting for various paint sections to dry, I knocked out this wee doggy as a replacement for the dog currently forming part of my initial AtDE band. It also forms part of the attempt to reduce the lead pile and to begin to fill my "threat box" for RPG's.

More AtDE goodies

So these girls arrived a couple of weeks ago.

I've been looking forward to them for a while. I saw the greens and was really impressed. This photo doesn't really do them justice, but they really are good. I'll be swapping out the kneeling figures AKM for an SA80, but they're definitely going to see use. Eventually.

Across the Dead Earth - Wave 3 Biographies

Olivia, Julia and Nancy are the newest additions to the 8th Battalion MI. While DC was hoping for warriors, he instead got survivors. Maybe they'll prove just as useful in the long run.

Olivia

Olivia, originally from Australia, was studying at Durham when the Fall made returning home impossible. Now in her late 20's She's been wandering the UK for a while, trying to work out what to do with her life.

Stats
Yob, Two-handed Axe - 22pts

Nancy

Nancy is older than she looks; a kind soul, now fiercely protective of granddaughter Erin (not pictured). The pair of them have been on the road since their village (more accurately their extended family) was ravaged, first by a water-borne disease, then looted in the middle of the night by opportunistic neighbours. The only two survivors, Nancy is interested in little more than finding a safe place to bring up Erin.

Stats

Grunt, Chainsaw - 38pts

Julia

Julia, originally from Poland, was doing barwork in the UK when she was trapped by the Fall. She and Olivia have been friends for a while as they worked in the same bar in Durham. They have travelled together ever since, picking up casual labour and living off the land. Julia, ever the adventurer, even convinced Olivia to accompany her to the continent. They managed to convince some fishermen to take them, but slipped away when they thought they heard their erstwhile captain plotting to sell them. She's been wary of strangers offering to help them since.

Stats
Yob, Pistol, Small Axe (Yes I know, I ran out of points) - 15pts

Have another group shot:

Across the Dead Earth - Wave 2 Biographies

Charlie and Jaeger are long term civilian associates of the rump of 8th Battalion MI. For obvious reasons the military group picked up its own band of camp followers. These two are all the remains.

"Jaeger"

Jaeger has insisted on being called Jaeger ever since joining the Battalion in it's declining years. No one knows what his real name  is, except possibly Tavitok, who claims it's "Clive". This, along with his trench-coat, sunglasses and katana all help disguise the fact that he has no real personality.

Stats
Grunt, Scimitar - 33pts

Charlie

Charlie was the irritating child of one of the men of 8th Battalion MI and got swept up into the camp followers as the formation settled into its new role as a sometimes mercenary group. Her parents were killed shortly thereafter, an event she seems to have recovered from fairly well. She has grown into, what Tavistok, at least, considers an irritating teenager, but one seemingly well adapted to the Post-Fall world.

Stats
Grunt, Pistol - 30pts 

Thing a Week 11

And here is wave 2 of my Across the Dead Earth band; here the two civilians who were already associated with the remnants of the 8th MI Battalion.

Biographies and stats to follow.

I'm actually quite happy with the flesh on the figure on the left. The figure on the right got pretty badly botched, but I think I managed to save it.

Across the Dead Earth - Wave 1 Biographies

These three men are the core of the Across the Dead Earth group I am assembling for our putative campaign. No doubt it has been replaced of late for obvious reasons, but hopefully, Xander and I will be able to return to it once All That Remains is in a good shape.

Military Intelligence 8th Battalion (reserves) was one of the last units to be called up to police the streets of Fall Era Britain. While many men did not report to their posts - for various reasons - these men heeded the call to arms, for what it was worth, and were in uniform as civilisation as we knew it went through its final death throws.

During the aftermath, as other men made their way home to loved ones, a motley collection of men found themselves alone and coalesced under DC's command. Following their military instincts, they did what they could to survive, living off the land, providing protection for other survivors, raiding groups they found to be... acceptable targets. As the situation stabilised they found work hiring themselves out as mercenaries to the new settlements, again usually as a protective force, but sometimes to break up raider gangs and other assorted malcontents.

These three are all the remain of the original cadre, others having died or settled in the new communities of this new world.

DC, Starling and Tavistok find themselves at a crossroads on their new lives - twisting in the wind - unable to settle and unable to let go of the past. So they agreed, one last contract, and then, something different.

"Captain" DC

DC - formerly Captain - when not commanding his men in the field, is a quiet, withdrawn man, a far cry from the imposing figure Tavistok remember stalking the corridors of the barracks. Something seems to be driving him, however, the face of a man in an ageing polaroid he keeps in his breast pocket.
Now in his late forties, DC finds the melancholy of his existence settling heavily upon him. 

Stats
Grunt, Leader, Pistol, Contract - 65pts

"Lieutenant" Starling

James Starling - formerly Lieutenant - is a gentle soul. Two tours in Iraq and the crumbling of civilisation failed to crush him, but his attempts to lift the souls of his comrades since The Fall have not been well received. These days he sticks to heeling peoples physical, rather than psychological wounds.
Now in his late thirties, Starling is thinking of finding a settlement that might benefit from skills and appreciate his less pessimistic view of this new world, and hopefully persuading his companions to settle with him.

Stats
Grunt, Shotgun - 35pts

"Lieutenant" Tavistok

Richard Tavistok - formerly Lieutenant - rounds out this triptych of thoroughly dysfunctional ex-military survivors by displacing his feelings with copious amounts of sarcasm. Those who remember him from before The Fall say he hasn't much changed.
Now in his early thirties, Tavistok lives from day to day, trying not to think to much about the future, and what it once held.

Stats
Grunt, Rifle - 35

Painting British MTP

I'm quite proud of the camouflage I painted on the first wave of my Across the Dead Earth band.

I wasn't able to find a guide I completely liked, but I was trying to replicate the simply gorgeous paint job found here.

I used the paint colours found there, with the exception of the Dark Sand.

I actually tried three slightly different styles; the below is the scheme I followed for my favourite result.

The figure was based with Russian Uniform and then had 'reverse patches' painted onto it with Military Green

Streaks - rather than patches - of English Uniform were painted on top

Patches of Khaki were added, then little squiggles of Iraqui Sand,trying not to overdo the latter.

Finally squiggles of German Camo Black Brown are added

Probably better seen from the rear on this figure

The others were approached in slightly different ways.

My commander - the first attempt - started with 'splotchier' base colour patches, and I attempted to find a place for the Dark Sand, which I think made his trousers too light.

With my sniper, I tried a scheme reminiscent of my Flames of War Para's, in that three main camouflage colours were all painted on top of the first, which itself covered roughly 75% of the base colour.

Like so

Like I should be writing painting tutorials anyway. If you have a good tutorial for British MTP, please share it in the comments.

Thing a Week 10

I have spent the last two weekends in the Deep Nerd.

Last weekend I spent having the first "project meeting" for All That Remains then the next day I was at IPMS Thornbury, where I picked up some spikey death worms and some 15mm ruins.

This weekend was spent doing basically nothing but painting, and my output was so prodigious that I completed a whole 3 models that I'd already started and completely painted 2 others.

I just had to get something out of the paint queue. The thing has been completely inundated by Highland Spring Water Clansmen and something has to give.

So have a pic of my first wave of Across the Dead Earth warband.

This photo is perhaps a little over exposed, but I'm fairly happy with these guys, apart from the flesh. I think I really need a good tutorial for flesh.

I'll post individual biographies for all the characters later this week, as well as the scheme I used for the camouflage, as I never found one I particularly liked.

The figure in the middle has a coloured base due to a comment made by a friend I was playing an introductory game of AtDE with. He said that it would be a great help if the different classes had some way to distinguish themselves.

Here, I've coloured my Leader's base yellow; running on Star Trek rules for now - not that I know much about Star Trek.

More Across the Dead Earth goodies and Paintathon

Some more Across the Dead Earth goodies showed up yesterday. For a moment I thought it was the remainder of my Spectre: Operations Kickstarer, but then I clocked the lack of dinky boxes.

These ladies are very different to the first three gangs that turned up. Either the sculptors style has evolved or there's a new sculptor in town.

New figures compared against the old ones.

They're so different, that if I showed them to a third party I'm pretty sure they'd say they were from different ranges. They're much finer (for lack of a better word) sculpts than their forerunners. I'm not a scale nerd, however, and I'm not complaining, I like the new figures. They have a more realistic aesthetic, especially when it comes to the guns (there's a couple of what I think are really well realised M14s) and there's some great detail, except on the faces, which seem to have lost some detail when compared to previous figures.

From left to right, Fetish Nurse, Lady Thor, Cara Loft, Random Corset Woman and Handless Sniper

Unfortunatly the women seem to have swapped cartoonishly large guns for cartoonishly large breasts - not that Skylar was under-endowed... They've also contracted my least favourite post-apocalyptic trope, that thing where the apocalypse happens and suddenly everyone without a Y chromosome suddenly feels the urge to get their kit off and survive the harsh environment in hot pants and crop tops. Fetish Nurse is even wearing heals.

Mind you, if this is your thing, then these are the best figures of their kind I've seen. Not only are they actually more tasteful - most of the girls and gun figures around seem to just plump straight for bikinis - as I mentioned earlier, they're better sculpts than those I've seen in their genre. Lady Thor is also my favourite miniature from Dead Earth so far.

Onto what I am terming Paintathon. I've got tomorrow off, and I plan to spend as much time as possible clearing my painting queue.

Here's what it looks like now

 I've got all of tomorrow - gym and food aside. I'll also do some painting over the weekend, but the main challenge is to get as much done tomorrow as possible.

Challenge 1 - The 15mm Char B1's at the top right. Everything except decals and varnish - the decals are on their way.

Challenge 2 - The yari rabbits at the bottom left. Everything.

Challenge 3 - As much of the AtDE band at the top left as possible - clothes and flesh base colours

I think this will be as far as I can get, but if not:

Challenge 4 - The 15mm R35's at the centre right same rules as the Char B1's

Challenge 5 - Finish base coats for the Urban War Syntha in the centre

Bonus Round - Sculpt a flag onto the bonnet of the 15mm half track (it's been captured - they don't want to be bombed by the RAF)

Bonus Round 2 - Put base coat on the 1:144 Hurricane, centre top

See you tomorrow!

Everything wrong with Across the Dead Earth's Riot Shields (In Five Minutes or Less)

I mentioned in my original review of Across the Dead Earth that riot shields contribute a fair amount of cheese to the game. In fact, if abused properly they can really break the game.

Let me lay some groundwork first. The rules as written appear to confuse riot shields with ballistic shields. The former are strong but lightweight plastic shields used by riot police to hold back protesters and deflect missiles such as bricks, bottles and petrol bombs. They are not, by and large, designed to stop bullets, especially not rifle rounds. Ballistics shields, on the other hand, are less shields in the traditional sense, and more like mobile cover.

The rules appear to confuse the two, leaving us with a shield large and strong enough to stop bullets, while light enough to be wielded effectively in melee. And at 10 points its a steal.

This is mostly because of a convergence of several rules.

1. Weapons may be switched freely at any time
2. You can dual wield shields
3. The bonus vs range attacks stacks with cover

Admittedly, these are less rules, and more omissions on the part of the designers, but again, unless you come to a gentlemans agreement with your opponent, the game can quickly become broken as follows...

At range: The Normandy Beach Pillbox

Take 2 riot shields and a ranged weapon of your choice. For the authentic effect take an LMG, but a sniper rifle or missile launcher will do, if you want range or to impersonate a tank. Sit yourself in heavy cover. During your turn blaze away at the enemy. When you take fire, switch to your shields for a +7 cover bonus. You don't even need the Touche* feat, as it only applies to defending with two melee weapon, not gaining passive bonuses from them. This will make you practically untouchable. As there doesn't appear to be an 'automatic hit on a 12 rule' as there is for wounding, this means that you would need a base to hit of 5 or less, which basically no weapon has, and even then, the distribution curve would keep you safe.

If you feel like going mobile you can up sticks and saunter around the battlefield with a still potent +4 modifier vs ranged attacks.

In melee: The Boss Battle

Again, take 2 riot shields and whatever melee weapon takes your fancy. I'd suggest 2 Saw Edged Swords and the Touche** feat if you feel like cheesing to the max, a chainsaw if you cant bring yourself to work out exactly what a Saw Edged Sword is supposed to be.
 Find yourself a victim, hammer them with your melee weapons, the switch to riot shields to take the return attack with a whopping +10 parry modifier. Pretend to be Pyramid Head as you invincibly render your opponents down to their constituent body parts.

The Quick Fix

Luckily these situations can be houseruled fairly easily:

1. Shields cannot be dual wielded
2. The bonus vs. ranged weapons does not stack with cover
3. To claim the bonus vs. ranged weapons from a shield you may not use a 2h weapon in the same turn (unless subsequently engaged in melee)
4. At the start of melee choose your load out. You may not change weapons until the melee is resolved (i.e. your figure is no longer in base to base contact with any standing enemy models)

The above should fix the egregious cheese. I would personally add the following rules

1. The bonus vs. ranged weapons granted by shields does not apply to firearms

This makes shields more realistic as any shield light or small enough to be used as a shield could not protect against any serious small arms fire.

If I was feeling adventurous, I'd separate out riot and ballistic shields, creating the latter as a new rare item, with bonuses in buildings and enclosed spaces, but that limited the wielder to one handed weapons.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time, when I will have done some bloody painting for a change!

*AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

Across the Dead Earth Exploration Procedure

A couple of posts ago I wrote that I was going to create a custom loot procedure for Across the Dead Earth, as I found the rules as written to be less than convincing. Anyway, its done and you can find it here.

It draws heavily from the Mordheim rules, and it's not particularly pretty, but it should add a bit of flavour to your campaign's downtime.

Simply put:

1. Roll to find salvage
2. Resolve any locations
3. Sell salvage

Enjoy!

Across the Dead Earth and Spectre: Operations goodies

In lieu of doing any actual work (although I have made progress on various painting queue malingerers) I bring you what is essentially a text version of those obnoxious YouTube unboxing videos. Mind you, everyone and their mums has done a goodies review for AtDE, I just didn't want to be left out.

The AtDE moulds are pretty good, zero flash, lines or irritatingly uneven bases. The sculpts are, overall, pretty good. The guns are pretty cartoony and there are some weird proportions, particularly with regards to the noodly arms of snipers.

And whatever SMG type thing the guy on the left is holding.

 The fellow below is the goofiest of the bunch. I don't know what that pose is, it looks like he's been startled by the photographer and is in the process of dropping his gun.

Either that or he likes the comforting knock of a gun barrel against his knees when he runs...

Despite the oddities, a pretty good haul, looking forward to whatever else they produce.

I also finally received my Spectre: Operations miniatures. Admittedly the package was missing a few items and had a few that I didn't order, but the manufacturer's been having trouble, including with shipping and I'm expecting replacements soon.

In this case, it's all about the guns. It's clearly where the majority of their effort went. They're in scale, they're very detailed and they're all very, very bendy. I think the problem with realistically scaled firearms is that the barrels are incredibly weak. While none of them have broken, I had to bend literally all of them back into position. Even so, I've never seen sharper metal casts.

Oh, and they all come in these dinky little boxes. Note to manufacturers, dinky little boxes are awesome!

I don't always fire my weapon, but when I do I blindfire my weapon. Always.

 That's not to say they're perfect. It looks like the sculptor while excellent at weapons, is not to great a faces, which range from good to 'The Innsmouth Look.' I think the main problem is the ways he's sculpted eyes with pronounced eyelids of all things, which makes them look like they suffer from something nasty.

Case in point... The figure on the right. The figure on the left is actually pretty sweet!

The rules for both systems haven't evolved since I first reviewed them. Spectre: Operations is still poorly thought out but pretty and AtDE is still lacking editorial oversight, but fun.

While Spectre: Operations came as an incredibly printer unfriendly pdf, AtDE came, as promised, as a natty little rulebook. At first I was a little underwhelmed, as I compared it to the sumptuously produced full A4 Deep Wars rulebook (which I also got through a Kickstarter campaign) then I realised that AtDE is nowhere near as bloated and rules heavy as Deep Wars, and it would never be worthwhile to produce such a large book.

My AtDE haul has also yielded a rather nice resin post apocalyptic bar - which I haven't put together as I have a moratorium on making terrain, at least until I have my own place - and a pdf novella - which I haven't read as I've just started a part time MSc which is taking up rather a lot of my time.

Not so much time, I hope, that I won't be able to knock out at least one set of miniatures by the end of the weekend, however.