Sulfurous Fields Rock Spires

Careful flying low when you head south over the ridge.

So, I totally spaced taking "in progress" pics for these.  I had a lot on my table at the time and got into a spot where I needed to photo several projects...and then I started doing this on the side as an experiment.  I neglected to take any photos of the work while I was doing it, but to make up for it I'll tell you how I made them.

Tall and short spires dot the landscape near the fumaroles.

I had a few lengths of styrofoam that was about 3" wide square...but several feet long.  I cut one section out and decided to see if I could make some convincing "spires".  I wanted these to be as if they are forming out of the mineral deposits left by the surface geysers, and have some strata to them.  No doubt these formations are of interest to science-minded parties.

VTOL support is almost a necessity among the tall, dense spire clusters.

Using my wire foam cutter, I simply cut the striations in the blocks after I chopped them down to even smaller sizes - about ten to twelve inches tall.  I decided to place them on foamcore bases, for the same reasons I've done most of this.  That is, I wasn't sure how it would turn out.

Infantry and weapon systems will find the spire clusters favorable positions to get up to all sorts of mayhem.

I had some small styrofoam cube as well, and decided to sculpt them into smaller formations.  They were about the same dimensions, just cubed.  For the larger spires, I used toothpicks to anchor them to the foamcore while the pva attaching them dried.

Somewhere near Kadarasto...

After they were all attached, both the tall and short stacks got covered in a layer of PVA to help strengthen the surfaces and protect against spray propellant.  Some Krylon Flat Grey Primer was applied after it was dry, and that provided the basic texture and color.  I used the same concrete finish and Vallejo Black Lava as with all the Sulfur Fields stuff I've done.  Some Astronomican Grey highlights on the textures finished them off.

Evil magic gathers in dark and lonely places...

It helps that they can be used for pretty much any game set on the table, since they are natural features.  In many ways, they serve the same purpose as forests on other tables.  Certainly this was the feature I was missing on the table...it feels more dense, more complete with everything down.

Watch where you step, there are wyvernroosts amidst these crags and spires...

These were done very quick, and definitely add to the new table.  In fact it was so quick, I was finished with them before I even remembered I was supposed to take pictures.  It's just one of those projects that went easy.  I was just happy I remembered to make it compatible with all the pieces I had made so far.

Powered-down 'mechs can power-up quickly to surprise low-flying patrols.

Fantasy Grounds (and more Traveller)

Initially, I was going to talk about Fantasy Grounds itself.  The interface, how much easier it was as a player, and how much I like how each module changes the UI to a theme.  I could have done that, but I feel like it's already been done.

Rather I'd like to take a moment to show how after the Roll20 experience a while back, I was not interested in gaming online.  Even though over the last few sessions I had questions about the interface, it wasn't anything that couldn't be answered very quickly.  The automation of the rolls, all of that, was very easy.  Most of the time, all the hangups were questions about the system and none of this was outside normal operating parameters.  As far as tabletop games are concerned.

Anyway, the game is fantastic.  Our GM, GameDoc, has been putting together fantastic session summaries for the group.  I've been taking screenshots from the game sessions, so I thought I would share both of those now.  Check out the GameDoc's awesome backstory timeline created during the character creation session.  More sessions to come!

*Update 9/4/20: A Real Campaign Hub!*

The following is GameDoc's written session summary:

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The Retaking of the S.S. MacGuffin

Session Summary

The crew is employed by Baroness Edda to recover data from a derelict ship in a largely unexplored section space. The ship was being used as research vessel by Professor Quentin Warwick, in the employ of the Baroness. They are given salvage rights to the ship, so long as they retrieve the data for her.

The Baroness arranges for scout ship to transport them to the location. There they find the ship in orbit of a small, water-covered planet with no signs of civilization or intelligent life below. The ship is largely intact, but completely powered down. Scans indicate that a section of the cargo hold has been converted to a middle deck.

Donning vacc-suits, the crew boards the ship and restores power, gravity, and atmosphere, but are then assaulted by a security droid. 

They are able to hack into the ship’s security system and locate 3 other droids.

The mysterious middle deck is not connected to the ship’s computer and security systems, but Amadeus is able to use his clairvoyant powers to determine it is a research lab and contains two more security droids.

The crew systematically explores the ship and eliminates the security droids.

 In the cryoberths, they find the body of Professor Warwick. 

Between data from the ships computers, lab computers, and a medical autopsy of the Professor’s body, they are able to determine that the ship came to this location on purpose and rendezvoused with another ship, the crew and research assistants were either captured or killed and disposed of elsewhere, and the Professor activated the security droids then smashed the control mechanism to ensure the lab was not breached. He then appears to have poisoned himself and crawled into a cryoberth as he was dying.

Records from the lab indicate he was in the early stages of research on implanting computer control systems into organic constructs. It is clear he did not want his research falling into anyone’s hands.

It's a Clone War

Inspirobot reminds us not to squander what we have.

X-Wing 2.0 seems to have a lot of issues at the present.

I've read about how folks aren't happy with it (competitively speaking) after recent events.  I won't go into any of that now, it's irrelevant.  It is merely an aside that seems to reinforce my recalcitrance to replace all my X-Wing gear with the exact same stuff but different.

My unwillingness to attempt to liquidate all the cardboard and general recalcitrance to buy all new cardboard to replace the other cardboard doesn't mean I'm a fogey who wants to be stuck in the past.  Instead, I think I've come to a happy medium regarding X-Wing.

For me, the Galactic Civil War will be where most of my current gaming lies.  All those TIE fighters, X-Wings and such...I'm not going to try to update 75+ fighters per team.  By the time I'm done collecting all that, it would be time to trade in the chips for a 3rd asinine edition.  X-Wing 1.0 is a great game though, so we'll just leave that there.

For 2.0...I had thought, well, let's do the Clone Wars.  They didn't release any Clone Wars era ships in 1.0...not with "Republic" stamped on it, anyway.  Certainly, they didn't release and CIS droid ships.  So, it only makes sense to move forward with the new edition, in an entirely new theater.  Basically, it will be a totally different game to me.

For the same price it would take to upgrade one of my factions (maybe) I can pretty much pick up the rules and both faction starters for CIS and Republic.  That doesn't give me such willies, honestly...considering it will be a good handful of totally new ships.  That's kind of exciting.

Yeah...but I'm not going to do that.  

2.0 and Star Wars in general seems - dead.  At least in my part of the woods.  The move to 2.0 absolutely destroyed the 'scene'.  The last movies pretty much guaranteed that everyone has a bad taste in their mouth now, all by themselves.  Throw in a pointless change to a new system requiring everything to be bought again and...well, the worst part is this is well before COVID came along and shut everything else down.

What seemed so awesome a few years ago has lost it's lustre.  All the potential for returning Star Wars to a dominant setting used in games everywhere has been terminated.  I guess that's what happens when every company involved decides to metaphorically shoot themselves in the head.

For now, I'm hunting down the last few 1.0 ships I don't already have.  A TIE Defender and Shadow Caster is on the way here now, via some Ebay.  There's only about three more from the entire 1.0 run that has eluded me so far, so that's something.  Besides, if I really want some clone fighters and jedi ships I can always fire up Photoshop and make something nice for myself.