Michka's Aliens project (10/23/12, AAR from Rock Con 2012)

[No Such Agency]

The Alien version of 'Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock' never did go well!!!

"Hiss......someone has to stop picking Spock!!.....hiss!"

Oh, the perils of a hive mind.

Great work on everything, Michka.  Really amazing.  I have a few of these WEG Aliens figures and they are a sweet find in this day and age (despite, admittedly, being sculpted to 80's standards)

[Michka]

For the "surfboard Alien", perhaps attach him to a clip that hooks over any wall section and have him represent those weird wall-runners I remember from Ailen 3? (A pretty dire flick, though one I love for the "company meeting" scene in the cafeteria...)

I think I keep him the way he is and just sink the integral base into a slotta base. He is the only one of this sculpt I still have. I must have gotten rid of the other one I had, because I know I had at least two sets of each of the Alien Warrior box sets. I might have thrown it away back in my youth when these figures seemed much easier to find. I just got a chill when I wrote that.

I have a few of these WEG Aliens figures and they are a sweet find in this day and age (despite, admittedly, being sculpted to 80's standards)

I really love these guys. I know someone could make much nicer ones in this day and age, but I like the size of these. I can use them with Star grunt figures and WEG Star Wars minis without them towering over them, yet will still work with most modern figures.
 

[Michka]

I finished re-basing some old Copplestone and Grenadier Future Wars troops that I use for an Op Force in my Colonial Marines RPG games. Since I'm running a continuing campaign that I want the characters to live through, they need to have something to fight other then Aliens and Predators. This first photo is two sets of FW8 Assault Troopers. They've been cut off their integral bases and pinned to the new slotta-bases.



Next is a photo of some old Grenadier Future Wars figures that I had for many, many moons. I believe these miniatures are now sold by EM4, but don't quote me on that.



and here is a shot of the whole bunch of them.

[Sgt. Scream]

Nice, I like them 

[Michka]

I had another chance to run a Savage Worlds Aliens game at the local gaming convention, Rock Con. For this con I decided to improve my building terrain a bit, along with making a shuttle landing pad and some Stalward Bug Field generators, originally from Starship Troopers. The scenario was an eliminate the target mission that goes wrong. (Is there such a thing as a mission that doesn't go wrong in the Aliens universe?) The Marines are sent in to take out a group of religious fanatics who've taken over a listening outpost. Said fanatics want to use the outpost's powerful transmitters to broadcast their message across the network. Why these guys thought a listening outpost would have powerful transmitters was never discovered. The problem is this group worships the Alien, a concept right out of the first Aliens comic book series. Unfortunately the Marines didn't know this at the time.

OK, I'll start with some pictures of the terrain. The first shot is of the whole set up.

   

Next we have a closer shot of the outpost itself. The blue post set just outside the base piece is a force wall generator. I wanted the Marines to work to get at the fanatics. That didn't work so well.

 

And here is the shuttle landing pad. This was meant to be their best chance for an escape. Turns out it was a great place to put the sniper too. The giant caterpillar was sitting in my jungle trees box. My wife decided it would look nice on the shuttle pad. He moved to the base of the pad by the time the game started.   



So our Marines are headed to the outpost when they hit a mine, which flips the APC over, leaving them without a ride home.



My plan was for them to attack the base, wiping out the fanatics before the main event happened. My players decided to be smarter then that. Instead they set up a sniper team on the shuttle pad. Then they approached the base carefully.



The fanatics spotted them right away. (After all they did trip a mine nearby.) I had placed four hatches on the outskirts of the base. These were supposed to be how the Aliens arrived, but the players decided to use them as access to the base. An obvious plan that somehow completely escaped me until they did it. (The lesson here is I need to spend more time thinking about my scenarios and less time painting terrain.) Of course as soon as the Marines start poking around at the hatches they find loads of Aliens milling around in the undercity. At this point the Aliens start coming out of the hatches. The game mechanic for this is a roll of a D6. If the number comes up 2 through 5 a group of Aliens arrive at that hatch at the beginning of that turn. If I roll a 1 there's no Aliens. If I roll a 6 Aliens come out of two different hatches on opposite sides of the base. This is the same rule I used in the other game I posted. 

 

As soon as the Marines realize the Aliens are coming out of the hatches they start welding the things shut. They get the first hatch sealed right away. When they seal a hatch they stop Aliens from coming out of that hatch. By now the fanatics have dropped the force wall and are starting to shoot at the Marines. Of course this means the Aliens can now cross the base, and get at the tasty fanatics, which is what they did.

 

Eventually the Marines got all of the hatches closed. At this point they took a couple moments to check out the base. That's when the comm-tech discovered the cryo-sleep chambers in one of the buildings, along with an unpleasant surprise that dropped from the ceiling.

   

The Sargent decided to take pity on the poor comm-tech...



... by dropping a grenade on his head.



Which of course killed the last Aliens of the game. This ended up being one of the least deadly games of Colonial Marines I've even run. The only guy to get killed was the comm-tech. The Sargent should have died earlier, but I gave him a last minute chance to live. When I get around to running this again I'll have to change a few things. The most important thing is my players all had fun. I had eight really cool guys who really got into the spirit of the thing.   

[obsidian3d]

Looks like the game was a lot of fun. Great table & figures.

[Gun bunny]

very nice table and figures, also i love the fact that i am not the only one hit by the p.c.(player characters)group finding a hole in your scenario to bulldoze your plot.still nice game 

[Sgt. Scream]

Hey, I know its been a while since you have posted this, but what make are those Cryo-chambers? (oh, and thanks for the fantastic AAR!) 

[Elk101]

Sgt. I think they are from Scotia Grendel in the UK:

 http://www.scotiagrendel.com/Products/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=227_220&products_id=2736

[Sgt. Scream]

Excellent. Thanks!

[Viper1959]

Very nice project, the walls are superb, I have a lot of the Leading Edge Aliens stuff but I decided to do this same project in 15mm.

I have all, well 95% of the figures painted and need to make a start on a colony complex, cant decide to do it all in a few large pieces or in space hulk style corridor sections?

I like what you have done, very nice...

[AKULA]

viper - if you opt for the latter, have a look at the new terrain that Fenris Games are producing as its ideal (they will be adding walls to go with the tile sections they already make).

[Viper1959]

Thanks Akula...

[Monstrum]

Amazing job ... I really like it ... I've been lurking on ebay for some leading edge aliens for my next diorama project but in a months time I managed to purchase just one of them ... they are really rare to find and I really envy you

[Machinegunkelly]

This is a really nice thread with lots of inspiration. Where did you get that shuttle?