S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost to the Zone

[Constable Bertrand]

Fantastic updates Wyrmalla, I've been wanting to see your hind for a while, and you haven't dissapointed.

Smer 1:48 kits are cheap, like  roughtly $10USD on ebay. So that other chopper that RAXXUS put together would be a quick piece, and better than the black shark (too fancy to be used, and probably more expensive)

The patrol boat will look fine!

Cheers
Matt.

[Wyrmalla]

As a rule of thumb I don't like spending more than £10 on a single terrain piece. Admittedly the Hind and boat cost me something like £20 each, but I'll make an exception if they'll give be a good looking piece.

In other news then. I've started on a set of swamp sections similar to the radioactive pits I posted for Fallout. They're fairly simple, just a piece of plasticard with a sand border, so hopefully I can churn them out before Tuesday (luckily that's my day off as well so I can rush a few bits before the game as well). To liven them up a bit I'll add wood bridges across one or two of the sections. For the moment its just three swamps, one A4 sized and the other two A5. Besides the swamps I'm also planning on making a deer stand similar to the ones in DayZ as well. Yes this does mean that I'm setting aside making any more Stalkers for the moment. I already have a ton of those made, its terrain that I'm lacking. =P


Reminds me of the parks around here. Hmn, yes I did say I'm short on static grass, but yeah I'll see what I can do anyway.



Naturally it'll have a removable roof. =P

[Wyrmalla]

Hang on this is what the Scottish country side looks like, not all that fancy greenery. ...Oi, peat bogs are amazing! Hmn, I'll refrain from making any of these however till I start a Pict's blog.



...I spent an inordinate period of time in my childhood almost drowning in those things. 

[Iv.An.]

http://urban3p.ru/

[Wyrmalla]

All righty then (hear that as though spoken by Ace Ventura).

...

What have I been up to? ...Uh, I've been on the phone a lot and spending hours emailing people, but ah you wanted to know about my dollies right? Damn nobody ever wants to hear about the emails...

Well firstly I managed to run my first game in the setting last night. ...I kind of sort of forgot my camera again like I did with my last Fallout game unfortunately (blame it on me rushing out the door most days before a game. I have like an hour to write up all the profiles, pack the terrain and make it out the door unfortunately. Oh yeah and to forget the fecking camera). The other player handily had his phone though, so we were able to nab some sort of picture, even if the quality isn't amazing.





That we were playing on just a plain green board didn't help the lighting. =/

So seen there is all my terrain to date, including a swamp section I haven't posted yet. The road, trees and some of the fences are my club's, the rest's mine. Yes I will make my own versions of all those later (particular the dirt tracks as the ones we were using are warped to hell).

Anyway the scenario's premise was that a Loner had retrieved an artifact (represented on her profile as a bullet dampener of sorts, though she didn't actually get shot at once the whole game ...because I'm a dumbass), but while making her way back to base to offload the thing some bandits had other plans for it. She deployed on one side of the board and had to make it off the other, whilst the bandits turned up on one of the long table edges at the end of turn one. However a patrolling group of Freedomers happened to be in the area and seeing the opportunity to make a quick buck and kill some bandits in the process decided to help the Loner. I made a mistake of having them deploy turn one instead of turn two unfortunately so they were able to get into firing positions ahead of the bandits.

And well that's a summary of where that game went really. The Freedomers had the drop on the bandits (played by me) and I wound up losing a fair few of them before they could even get into position. ...The Blind Dogs didn't help either. Yes I had some of those in the middle of the table with the rule that they would be attracted to loud noises, ie gunfire or someone running. One bandit spent two turns fighting off a pair of them before he came out on top. ...Only to be shot immediately afterwards. Another bandit with a shotgun thought it was a good idea to charge at a SAW LMG with no cover and was riddled with bullets (so many in fact that he was pretty much a puff of red paste by the end of it). The remaining bandits, ie of two of them out of the starting six, made their way back to their Land Rover and high tailed it (or should I say that one of them did. Yeah he left his injured buddy out in the middle of a field).

Meanwhile the Freedomers suffered two losses in the game. One with an SMG didn't fair to well when the bandit leader made it past the crashed Hind she was using for cover and emptied his uzi into her back. The ghillie suited sniper, who I'd note I had real trouble even seeing (you need to make an intelligence test when rolling to hit him), was being nibbled a bit by the other two dogs. Now his concerned sergeant felt bad for the guy, or maybe he just was confused why the dogs were attacking the bush and decided that it was a good idea to try and nail the dogs with his AR-15. ...The sniper killed the first dog in close combat. ...The sergeant shot missed the dog and shot the sniper in the back. Ah, but the dog at least died eventually. ...Woops.

As the bandits and Freedom had a running gun battle (occasionally interrupted by the odd Blind Dog) the Loner hightailed it along the length of the board. Instead of running directly up the open road along the middle she instead made to run through the cabin. This was a good idea, hell the bandits didn't even notice her (and the one sniper that was about to nab her in the back was shot as he rose out of cover), till she tried to make an epic dive through a window. The thing was closed, so she battered at it with the butt of her gun. ...For two turns. Eventually she made it through, giving a Freedomer a high five as she passed him, and made it to the patrol's awaiting vehicles. The Freedomer who was standing at the other side of the window however pointed out that she could have just undid the bloody latch and saved herself the bother.

Heh, so the game turned out well, even if it was a little rough around the edges (the Blind Dog rules need a bit of a revision). I tried to differentiate the game a bit more from the Fallout ones I run, so there was no scavenging, and perhaps in future I should limit ammo jamming a little as well, or at least say you can ignore the first one (not one of the bandits guns by the end of the game hadn't jammed, but I guess that's to be expected given the dodgy ammo). As for scavenging, when the Loner did try and find something useful in the houses I said "you find a dodgy picture of Uncle Stalin and some Russian dolls", ah, because these aren't Road Warriors duking it out with frying pans. I'll look into expanding the rules later, this was just a proof of concept of sorts, particularly in adding items like artifact detectors and containers to host artifacts which can be collected during a game and function as upgrades (with possible downgrades as well). The next game I run will involve more interesting mutants and possibly an blowout, though I'd feel more comfortable if I was just GMing that instead of being a player as its less things to focus on.

...Right.

So I waffled on enough about that game. What else have I been up to? Ok I mentioned all the emailing (seriously does nobody want to hear about those? I think I put a cat .gif in one #professionalism), which has eaten up my time a little. As a result all I have is work in progresses to show you. Well I have one completed marsh tile as well, but its at the bottom of a box with all my other terrain, so ah, I'll leave that till I've finished the set (you can see it in the game's pictures a little).

Here's what I have then. First a deer stand based on the ones from the game DayZ (or rather ARMA II), though a little bigger to make model placement easier. After that my first anomaly. Its probably a gravitational one of sorts. The artifact will sit in the middle of it on a round base, and be removable should a Stalker with an artifact detector pick it up (and only one of those, otherwise its just a regular hazard. Only characters will have these btw). Both are just the usual balsa wood contraptions, though I'll probably add a bit of tat to the deer stand like crates and what not.



That's what I've been up to recently then. What will I be working on? I'll finish the remaining swamp tiles (two A5 ones to go with the A4 one I already finished, but I'll expand these in future perhaps), which frankly aren't too much effort and more of the same in regards to those radioactive pools that I made for Fallout. The two WIPs shouldn't take too much effort either, though I still don't know how much I want to involve myself in with the artifact; it'll probably just be a floating orb. Terrain's a priority as ever, but once that's covered I'll go back to the Stalkers, which are sort of piling up now and that will only get worse once my Empress order turns up. I do have plenty of ideas for more terrain however, and yes I have a backlog of that to work through as well. I'd like to expand the village set a bit though, so maybe expect something along those lines in future (I was looking at the DayZ general store actually, but I'm still trying plan that).

Heh, all right I've waffled on enough for one post (Woo over 1500 words!). Till next time then. ...Ah, have a cat .gif.



The one in my email was so much better.

[Constable Bertrand]

Cool game event. It's always funny when players miss the most obvious thing to do hey Wyrmalla

Those balsa constructions are great!!! I like your handicraft skills!

Cheers
Matt.

[commissarmoody]

interesting report, despite the lack of good close up pics. Maybe do some posed after action photos? 

[Wyrmalla]

@ Constable Bertrand

Stupid bandits!  

@commissarmoody

I would have liked to, but I didn't want to be stealing the other player's phone all night, and the picture quality wasn't really to par. That and I wasn't too happy with how the board looked (definitely needs a mat and my own terrain). I'll see what I can do next time, but that won't be for another few weeks, which yes I suppose that does give me time to finish off more terrain.

Meanwhile I slept all day after spending too long interviewing people this morning. Ah, so nae pictures of anything yet. The other threads here are so much more interesting anyway.

Ooh I did pick up a load of rocks and sticks when I was out though. Yeah I literally walked around with pockets filled with rocks. I did consider at one point that if I fell off the bridge all the rocks wouldn't help me swimming much. Ah, but yeah fen water isn't that deep at least. Heh, I took plenty of notes about terrain building ...primarily that my models need about 300% more static grass on them. Eugh, I'm going to dump so much on that stuff at the show this year (Ainsty will have to only get a quarter of my money instead of half of it this time around).

(this is what the place I was at sort of looked like, there was Highland Cows and everything... Hey I think I've actually been there!)

[Wyrmalla]

Here's the set of artefacts that I've put together. Just greenstuff on top of lengths of wire. From front left to back right: Eye, Compass, Firefly, Meat Chunk, Battery, Soul and Mama's Beads. The little bolts on a couple of them are just bits of wire.



They're larger than the ones in the game obviously (note the Stalker in the background carrying a Moonlight), but if they were realistically sized they wouldn't be functional. In a game I wouldn't need more than one of each probably as Stalkers would pick them up and at them to their profiles. The issues would start if multiple Stalkers carrying the same artefacts died at the same time and dropped them, but hopefully there won't be many carrying containers for that issue to crop up often (in a long campaign however by the end of it there'd be a fair few Stalkers loaded up with artefacts).

To go along with those sits a gravity anomaly of sorts, but it'll do for various artefacts for the moment. The floorboards and piping of a house which have been peeled back by the anomaly. Yup, more loose bolts on this thing as well.



A hazard to most Stalkers, but if they're carrying an artefact detector then maybe they'll get lucky...



Uh, my bad on the choice of artefact above actually. Meat Chunks crop up in chemical anomalies. Souls suit gravity ones (specifically whirigigs). Bugger.

Lastly is a deer stand. With this and the anomaly I've bankrupted myself of most of my static grass. Still they're looking a bit closer to how green they aught to be.




Yeah I have Mosin Nagants, but the Kar-98s I have are hardly being used either. The Coke bottle is a clear plastic one from Meng Model.

And with that some more bits are cleared off my table. Next up swamps and more Stalkers (Monolith, Bandits and a Military guy).

[Constable Bertrand]

You have improved very nice!!! Much better than the "Orange splodges" of old in you fallout thread you have a very thoughtful colour palette going on here.

Keep it up, I like your balsa malarkey.
Matt.

[Wyrmalla]

Funny, the original title for this thread was "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Fifty Shades of Gray". 

[Mr. Peabody]

 

Brilliant. This thread is truly a joy to follow. 

[Wyrmalla]

Throwing it out there a little, and not wanting to stray into the Conflicts that Came in from the Cold board for obvious reasons, but could anyone enlighten me on modern Ukrainian (or even Russian) military squad composition? Not to start up some modern forces no. Nah I'm just curious as to what a military squad in the Zone would include (the ones in the game are all over the place).

Just as a guideline of course. Numbers and equipment would vary I'd imagine based on circumstances.

I'm thinking something like (I'm unsure if the source is very accurate):

BTR-80

Squad Leader...................................................AK-74
Assistant Squad Leader/BMP Gunner.....................AK-74
BMP Driver/Mechanic.......................PM (Makarov pistol)
Machine Gunner................................................RPK-74
Machine Gunner................................................RPK-74
Grenadier...................................................RPG-16/PM
Senior Rifleman.................................................AK-74
Rifleman/Asst. Grenadier.....................................AK-74
Rifleman...........................................................AK-74

Cutting out the second and driver. In game terms the second RPK and RPG could probably be swapped out for AKs as well.

My Empress order turned up today spurring on this query. Predominately these models will serve as Military and Monolith, with the remainder being thrown between the other factions. Ah, but yes I have about a dozen Stalkers to finish off before then of course.

[Constable Bertrand]

Funny, the original title for this thread was "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Fifty Shades of Gray". 

you could rename the fallout one fifty shades of Orange

Serious question though, you are doing a different colour scheme across the two sets? Why not try a middle ground so the figures are all interchangeable? The basings the same colour right?

Sorry I'm still waking up, but that unit loadout looks rather non specialised. They all have AKs. No comms? No sniper? No engineer/explosives? Maybe I'm just thinking special forces, who knows...


Cheers
Matt.

[Dentatus]

This thread is a joy to my gamer's heart.