15mm Sci-Fi New Crew Painted (10/1/2020)

[War Monkey]

Great story WM,
Like baking a cake .... 
With loads if ingredients.

Thanks for sharing
Z

Thank You

I wanted to make so I can use other sets of alien figures and creatures. I kind of wanted it to be more of a D&D/dungeon crawl. I just need to make a roll up chart for the what or who they will encounter. I will be working on getting the different sets of aliens that Blue Moon carries,

[CookAndrewB]

I love a good Star Trek "alien encounter" type of setting. "Oh crap, its the Klingons" has a feel to it. You know what you are up against, so to speak. Blue Moon has a nice range. Can't wait to see what you do with them!

[War Monkey]

I love a good Star Trek "alien encounter" type of setting. "Oh crap, its the Klingons" has a feel to it. You know what you are up against, so to speak. Blue Moon has a nice range. Can't wait to see what you do with them!

I truly enjoy the "UH-OH" factor of the unknowns. I think I do need to make some building for facilities like those that "Spacejacker" made.



But I want to had the extra twist that "Warchest" did by adding a little extra corner so one could stack them or add roofs to them.



this could add to the fog of war as well to some degree.



Well this is part of the plan now as well as may other projects 

[CookAndrewB]

Could do with a mix of both?

I have pretty much given up on roofs where I want to play inside a structure. Sure, they look cool in pictures, but I find them to be useless in practicality. I prefer markers to act as the fog of war (Five Parsecs uses this mechanism, among some others) where a token shows the location of "something" and when you get close enough you can reveal what that thing is. Enemies, loot, a new clue, or nothing... but you don't get to see behind the curtain until you inspect it a bit closer. Same general idea as a rooftop, only you can't really hide something from yourself by putting a roof over it after the fact .

I do like the little extra corner idea, though that solves a bit of practicality in terms of stacking for storage more than stacking for play, in my mind.

[War Monkey]

Could do with a mix of both?

I have pretty much given up on roofs where I want to play inside a structure. Sure, they look cool in pictures, but I find them to be useless in practicality. I prefer markers to act as the fog of war (Five Parsecs uses this mechanism, among some others) where a token shows the location of "something" and when you get close enough you can reveal what that thing is. Enemies, loot, a new clue, or nothing... but you don't get to see behind the curtain until you inspect it a bit closer. Same general idea as a rooftop, only you can't really hide something from yourself by putting a roof over it after the fact .

I do like the little extra corner idea, though that solves a bit of practicality in terms of stacking for storage more than stacking for play, in my mind.

Oh your right about the markers and fog of war, it kind of defeat the "Surprise!" if you already know where they are. As far as the roof goes I'm a little OCD  I can't help myself the roofs just look complete 

[CookAndrewB]

No right way about it. You like roofs, buddy, you roof the hell out of those buildings! 

I think that some part of my hobby is an effort to fight OCD and perfectionism. It teaches me to look at something and be happy with "good enough," which is a valuable lesson in life as a whole.

It feels very Pareto Principle, which states that 80% of the effect comes from 20% of the cause. Or, in more hobby terms, 80% of the "looks good" comes from about 20% of our effort. To close the last 80% gap from good to "perfect" requires something like 80% more effort. That is probably why people's "quick and easy" techniques tend to look so good; because they manage to hit the 20% of the effort that matters to get them to an 80% result. There are certainly times when a 100% effort is desired and time isn't a factor, and then there are times when we are better off knocking out five 80% projects in the time that it might take us to do one perfect project. The key is figuring out which situation you are in. If you want to play some games, and you need a table full of terrain, quick and easy rules the day. If you have a table full of terrain and you want to improve what you have, then taking the time on the little details might win the day.

[War Monkey]

Oh your right about that my friend.

the plan now is to make a couple of sets of those buildings, a busy spaceport or industrial center, a basic abandon facility type and an abandon over grown one, I'm lucky for having the space to store them all. I want to do them with just the basic walls and be able to  add drop-in stuff beds, consoles, lockers, and other items. I want the option to be able to have facilities as med center, military outpost, communications hub, Pirate or gang hide-out and the list goes on. Then all I have to do is just add the extras to make them so.

I'm still working on my derelict space ship as well, I will make a three sets of them so I can mix and match them up, as to not having the same ship every time. Plus  I need to make some additional cardboard terrain as well.

I need more of the dessert cardboard rock formations like those I have made, some grey tone ones for mountains and forest and some with some undergrowth as well for forest and jungles. I also want to make a few backdrops for picture taking too. Oh and some more terrain boards too 

Well it's a big to do list so I guess I better get cracking on it! 

[CookAndrewB]

Yeah, get busy! I want to see all those WIP pictures next week!

[Cacique Caribe]

... I will be working on getting the different sets of aliens that Blue Moon carries,

I’ve had my eye on their Vleta Reavers for some time.

https://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/proddetail.asp?prod=15ALN-107

[Parkaboy]

Are those downscaled World Works pieces?

[War Monkey]

Are those downscaled World Works pieces?

Here's a link to Warchest article

http://warchest.co.uk/blog/index.php/how-terrain-building-can-spiral-out-of-control/

It only mentioned that he used different images.

Dan,
Yes those are on my list as well.

[CookAndrewB]

Those Reavers are nice. I am not sure I've seen them before. They have a good alien feel to them.

[War Monkey]

The Planet of Saharamanji

Saharamanji;
Is a large planet that one could compare size to the Earth's System of Neptune, it has an atmosphere very much like Earth's in many ways. The surface is 65% water with the rest being land mass, the gravity is 5 percent greater then that of earth so not very noticeable at all and easy to adjust to in a short period. The land masses starting at it's poles and moving to the equator consist of thick large jungles at each of it's poles, transitioning to thin band of savannas, before turning into deserts which bands a very wide section on both sides of the planet's equator. This is believed due to two yellow binary suns in this system, Saharamanji is in just the right orbit for these two suns making it just hot enough for it's surface conditions to be as they are. The planets rotation is a 144 hour cycle 72 hours of daylight  followed by 72 hours of night, the days get very hot and the night are cool but are warm due to the heat adsorbed during the planet's day cycle releasing it's heat slowly during the night cycle. There is a region in the southern hemisphere that is still unstable with volcanic activities and lava flows and minor earthquakes.

Rotating around Saharamanji are three moons, one of which is in a stationary orbit around Saharamanji which appears as a consistent full moon during the planets three day night cycle, the planet there for is never really in total darkness. This moon is referred to as the "Stable Moon" due to it's consistent position one could use it to navigate if one becomes lost or in case of navigational equipment failure. from time to time generally once a year there can be three full moons which really lights up the planet on both of it's sides, more often it only likely to have just two full moons about every three months

The planet is pock marked with meteor craters from very small to massively large craters made during it's earlier development when it was pounded with asteroids, creating massive rings of very tall and rugged mountain ranges, many of these mountain are so tall that respirators are need to function in these areas. From orbit you can see the rings of mountains everywhere with some over lapping of these rings even in the oceans rings holding water in them like crystal blue bowls to rings of islands positioned in deeper waters. The only areas to which no craters can been seen is the very deep ocean areas but it is suspected that craters are there just that their covered up by the ocean.

There are two types of deserts on Saharamanji. The one outside of all the craters is rough rocky flats spotted with shrub bush, the rocks littering all over were tossed from all the impact craters ranging from massive boulders to pebbles and sand, most of the rocks are fist size rocks as scattered covering, the rest is a pebble carpet covering the rest of these desert ground flats. Deserts within the mountain rings, containing sand, a very white sand from the air they look like massive large bowls of milk with a catch, in these white sands lives a species of creatures called "Snarks" for a lack of a better imagination from the only surveying team to ever visit this place. "Snarks" basically a creature much like the water creature of Earth's sharks just these live in the sand. The survey team using the two words of Sand and Shark they came up with Snark and of course each of these bowls of sand could hold a different variations of Snarks, not much is known with the limited survey. These pockets or bowls of sand as they are and are referred to as "The Bowls"

In these bowls the sand shifts around a lot exposing different areas of the rocky bottoms with pockets of a black based plant with thick blue reeds, these areas are safe from the Snarks until the winds shift and begins to refill these areas in like an incoming tide, this is how it is believed the Snarks survive with the constant shifting of the sand, trapping other desert creatures that come in to eat on the plants.

The jungles at each of the pole were roughly surveyed from space showing the rough and rugged mountain rings with large lakes of water pooled in the middle, to large areas of mangroves and their twisting winding canals going down to the oceans, to jungle swamps, to include jungle mountain rings in the oceans holding their own bowls of water, plus rings of islands in the deeper waters. Nothing is known about the plant life or the wildlife in these areas. It's  believed that the two jungles being so separated by vast amount of desert and oceans, would have their own different species of plants and animals.

The oceans again covering 65% of the planet surface. All of the coastal areas have shallow flats of water stretching out some three hundred Kilometers or more, the depth of these waters is roughly one to three meters deep making them a clear crystal blue with sanding bottoms containing lots of small plants and aquatic life. People started to refer to these areas of water as "The Shallows"  until it starts sloping downwards to the deeper waters of the oceans.To which nothing is known about these waters or it's depth let alone what it totally contains.

There are lakes as well from large round lakes with crater center peaks as small islands, to very small oasis spotting the deserts and savannas here and there, looking like tiny little emeralds from space. Here to it is believed that each of these oasis are to have their own micro eco system. This speculation is from aerial observation of what is to believe are game trails going in and out of these areas. This is also including the jungle mountain lakes as well.

The region of volcanic activity is a very large area, thought is that an asteroid impact this area creating a large lava lake in the middle of this section with a large mountain range around it. From there long and wide fissures with lava flows within them, from orbit it looks like a fractured mirror with red glowing light behind with a glowing red hole in the middle. Around this region are volcanos as well adding to the lava flow. Ash clouds in this area make the region below them very dark under them, making some of this region looking like some form of hell in reality.

The only surveying team to ever come to this place only did a very rough and short survey due to the lost of a couple of their surveyors and researchers to the Snarks in The Bowls and a few other creatures cutting their stay short. Due to the location of Saharamanji and it's small limited system being so off from the path from shipping lanes there was no reason to send any survey teams to be dispatched to the system. So there is very much left to understand about this place and that around it. Saharamanji is the largest planet in this system with five other smaller planets with moons with a large asteroid belt surrounding the everything in this system like a very large ring. Nothing is known about those planet and moons to include the asteroid ring as well.

Saharamanji sat in space for a few years drawing no interest from anyone, in fact many space charts don't even have it placed on the maps, most map makers didn't even bother to place it on their maps for is was to much out of the way to be of any interest. Then one day it was bought some years back from the Galactic Government Real Estate and Survey Office for a fraction of the cost of the original survey by a man name Alvin "Al" Styler a man that no one knows anything about.

Shortly there after a small spaceport was established everyone there started calling it "Styler's Point"

[CookAndrewB]

Well thought out fluff for your game. Thumbs up!

[zrunelord]

Great writeup Wm.
What do you guys have for breakfast to come up with these ideas ? 

Keep it up
thanks for sharing
Z