Rogue Star Wars: Scum & Villainy

Welcome to Rogue Star Wars.

Scum & Villainy, across all Star Wars media, are my favorite faction.  A ragged group of pirates, criminals, smugglers, mercenaries, desperados and / or banditos...take your pick.  I've just always felt more 'at home' among these types, so today we take a look at the third scenario team for our campaign.

Of course, we're going with Pirates.  An interesting bonus they get is access to all Silent and Non-Penetrating weapons.  I'm not really interested in the non-penetration factor, but Silent is what I'm all about.  It allows the wielder to remain hidden while shooting, unless you just fully open up on the target.  Sneaky...sneaky.  It's all about being sneaky.

After I worked this list up, I realized I had something different than the other two teams.  There's far more stealth and melee-focused characters.  The down-and-dirty methodology here is pretty apparent...get close, then get rekt.  To that end, the requirement that one character have a cyberweapon was an easy fit with a concealed vibroblade...somewhere.

Skills play into the style a lot more, and I think a lot more was spent on skills in general with this team than the Rebels or the Imperials.  I actually think this might be the contender list, but then this is my third attempt at a team...but the others definitely have ranged advantage in any contest.  Each melee attack will have to count, so the Pirates get the Brawlers tactical discipline, which lets you re-roll up to 10 failed melee attacks during the game.

Buru Brothers Shipping & Handling, Inc. (Pirates)
Brawlers

• Aqualish Technician (43)
• Free Disengage, Leadership 2, Martial Arts 2
• Force Shield & 2 Knives; Plasma Grenade
• Aqualish Assassin (26)
• Weapon Master 2
• Force Shield & Vibro-Blade; Knife
• Aqualish Spy (37)
• Stealth 3, Tech 1
• Kevlar Jacket & Needler Pistol; 2 Stun Grenades, 
• Whiphid Tracker (33)
• Stealth 3, Perceptive 2, Martial Arts 2
• Force Shield & Bow 
• Kel Dor Bounty Hunter (32)
• Veteran, Danger Sense
• Light Combat Dress & Flechette Pistol; Vibroblade Cyberweapon 
• Duros Scoundrel (29)
• Alert, Free Disengage, Stealth 3, Medic 1
• Kevlar Jacket & Laser Pistol
• 200 XP Total

The S&H company from the Outer Rim definitely have chops up close, but will they be blown to pieces by concentrated firepower or even just a lucky shot or two?  Perhaps their stealth will help, since a few can fire their Silent weapons and remain hidden...but activation isn't guaranteed, and reactions aren't predictable either.  Soon enough, we'll find out...

Junk dealing aliens or ... something far more sinister?

No More Half Measures

Inspirobot can show you a better way.

Twenty some-odd years ago, we didn't have a lot of the hobby stuff we have now available.  I mean in general...pretty much all the stuff that we take for granted in this golden age of the tabletop we never had, and what there was were mediocre supplies that might be harder to get than you think they would be.

Nowadays, there are several COMPANIES who flourish in the industry providing us not just with models and game rules, but with really nice and innovative hobby products.  This ranges from basing materials, to cool play mats that are actually worth investing in and terrain of high quality.  For any one thing, you've got lots of choices.

In general, there's a lot more things readily available and marketed to wargamers outside of the models themselves.  There's a whole industry for modeling out there - paints, pigments and other art supplies made specifically for our hobby and marketed directly to us by companies we might be familiar with.  After painting my very first models with crappy Testors enamel and toothpicks, I'm happy to see this progress and expansion.

Now we have options, and that's kind of my point.  I can't allow anything unpainted or half-crapped on the table ever again.  I just...can't do it.  Not in this age of Hobby Enlightenment, where we can buy cool building kits and all this cool stuff I already mentioned.

Not to knock anyone who likes building from scratch, but I spend most of my gaming time painting, reading and planning.  To some extent even, blogging.  If you're into that and can produce great work, I love you.  I want you to build me cool stuff, so I don't have to and can focus on what's killing who and where.

Invest in your materials, and you invest in your skill as modelers and painters.  Try new techniques and new materials as quickly as you run across them.  Expand your knowledge through research, trial and error.  Practice, as in all things, makes perfect.

...but no more bare plastic, primed armies or crapped-up packing foam bunkers on my table.  I'm an adult.

Frostgrave Low Ruins & Walls, Part 2: Gallery

The basic terrain layout for snowy skirmishes!

Since I started this new site, I've wanted to revamp my entire gaming existence.  Miniature games have pretty much been on hold while I've been painting, and even posting on this site has been janky as I've been so busy with so many things.  I wanted to start completely over with something new, and not allow anything unfinished, neither terrain nor miniatures on my table.  Eventually, I'll go back through my old terrain, refinish, reframe and re-photograph each piece and catalog it here, but today's gallery is special as it's the first set of terrain I've finished since moving house.

Ruin sections and smaller scatter pieces make up the core of my Frostgrave table.

So, here's how I built the base ruins.  Now, the finished pieces have had the Woodland Scenics Soft-Flake snow.  I have to say, I'm both satisfied and not-satisfied with how this set turned out.

Melting snow on the tundra doesn't look uniform.  I hope.

 I learned some things about how to apply the snow during all this, and with how cheap they are to make I'm not certain I'll keep every single piece going forward.  In the above picture, on the right, you can see how the snow dried a little strange.  I won't be flocking pieces prior to applying the snow if I can help it from now on...the dye leeches into the water based glue the snow is made of.  This might have also been what caused some of the patterning on the surface...but it does resemble a muddy field after snow and rain.

A good portion of the table is covered with just this basic set.

Now we've got enough pieces to start a good map with.  Anyone who plays Frostgrave knows there's a lot of terrain used for specific scenarios, and I'm going to be adding select pieces going forward to make this set much bigger.  Those pieces will expand the options to setup the board, and in so doing adds to any other games we may play on this board.

The deep, wet snow will hamper movement.  Slippery.

The smaller pieces can fit together to make larger sections.  They can also be arranged around one of the larger based pieces to create ruined buildings with a footprint larger than the footprint of the base.  We'll be using this feature in certain scenarios to make building outlines.

Two different shapes to choose from.  Build-a-Ruin!

Here's the thing though:  I should have applied less snow.  It got pretty deep, and the textures I had applied it to got me some weird patterns.  In retrospect, if I hadn't applied to the flock I wouldn't have had to apply a second layer to cover the bleed of the dye.  Going forward I will apply a light snow residue, like on the smaller blocks, to even the largest of pieces.

I think my Water Effects will yellow.

Another issue I had was that I was originally going to make it much 'wetter' using Woodland Scenics Water Effects and Realistic Water...but I found that these yellowed only days after application to an insufferable degree.  They were in a case, so there's no reason for that.  I must conclude that the supply I have of these products must be...out of date?  Not sure...but they are a few years old.  I didn't realize that age would cause them to yellow like that.  That can't be though, can it?

A Zeus prowls the ancient ruins of a long lost civilization on the polar region of a planet in Prefecture IX.

In either case, I did get a usable setup.  Pieces that yellow or I just can't stand will simply be replaced or refurbished.  At present, I can live with this, but I won't be making the same mistakes going forward.

Imperial Stormtroopers assault rebel positions amidst ancient jedi ruins on Manda's northern tundra.

The cool thing about these ruins is that they are largely scale and setting neutral, even thought I originally built them for Frostgrave.  There will be some pieces that won't really make sense for the table in certain situations, like a 28mm well on a table meant for 10mm mecha.  That would be a really big wooden well, and basically just a large pit.

Just look at that guy's (poorly painted) face. 

Really the worst part is all those air bubbles caused by the glue drying and collapsing into the rough surface of the bricks.  That and the light in my war-room.  I think I may have to invest in a rack or two of LED's to line the walls to brighten the place up for pictures, so I can avoid using up floorspace for a reflector panel.

The Enchanter Orrick Vos prowls the ruins of Frostgrave with his mechanical minions.

It's not perfect, but it was my first try with snow since 1998, and we just used spray paint back then.  I think the biggest concern I have going forward is my water products yellowing on their own in less than a week.  I should find a new set of products for that, but Realistic Water and Water Effects are kind of what I'm used to.  I don't want to use anything that requires mixing, so if there's a comparable product out there that you've used and got good results with let me know so I can pick some up.

Until next time...stay frosty.