Battle For Dos Angeles

Back in the days, when I started my venture into alternative gaming and my gaming group and I played a lot of post apocalypse style games, we had quite a loose setting where almost everything could (and would) happen. I really think we had a lot of great games and an interesting storyline going on, but eventually things died and we moved onto other genres.

The main problem used to be the rules. Whatever we tried out there always seemed to be something not quite right. But still we had a lot of fun and I always thought it was a shame we never did more in the genre.

It all probably just comes down to finding some rules that basically works out and tweak it to our own gaming needs. So recently I have been reading up on the Nuclear Renaissance rules from Ramshackle Games again and we decided to give it another go.

For this games I set up a Phagon cloning station in the city of Dos Angeles. The cloning station has been working illegally for some time, but the local law enforcement, represented by Inquisitor Gar and his corrupt posse of Marines and Squats, was not satisfied with the amount of bribes and decides to show and example by destroying some cloning tanks in the outskirts of the city.

The Phagon cloning station at Dos Angeles

Inquisitor Gar arrives in a massive Iron Grumbler making a lot of noise and making sure everyone hears him make his entry.

An Ambull quickly pops out of the ground disturbed by the noise.

The alerted Phagons get some Ambull love too.

Ambulls everywhere.

Inquisitor Gar disembarks the Iron Grumbler and runs for cover on the left flank while the Iron Grumbler rams a cluster of smokestacks from the underground facilities.

An abominable Running Ripper chages towards the Iron Grumbler.

And a PSI Wolf try to fend of the Inquisitor.

The Piscean Warrior hide in a building.

Ram!

The Running Ripper was gunned down and as Dr. Brain runs to the aid of his beloved pet he gets run down by the Iron Grumbler.

Meanwhile the Piscean Warrior has been gunning down the Inquisitorial Medic and Inquisitor Gar himself, but the last Marine decides to still blow up some cloning tanks.

This Ambull was beaten to the ground by twin powerfists!

PSI Wolf enters the Iron Grumbler.

In the end only a few models was left on the table and only the Iron Grumbler was left on the Inquisitorial side. Trying to run ram another cloning tank but failing in the attempt. Unfortunately Inquitor Gar and his men had forgotten to close the hatch when they left the tank and a PSI Wolf jumped on the tank, into it and ate the driver.

In conclusion the game was quite fun and the rules worked out ok. We made a few mistakes along the way and I am sure things will be even better in future games of Nuclear Renaissance.

Ramshackle Vehicles

In my quest to finish unfinished projects I recently stumbled upon some vehicles I had lying around. I finished and updated a bit last year and this year I continue the project with a couple of vehicles from Ramshackle Games.

The Iron Grumbler.

The Badger.

The Badger with my water truck.

I gave them both some pretty quick and dirty paintjobs, but considering the sculpts and what I am going to use them for (40K skirmish/Post Apocalypse) I think the paintjobs suits them very well and I am pleased with the outcome.

Also, let's face it, the Iron Grumbler has the looks of a 40K Rhino. So before people ask I already took a scale shot. The Iron Grumbler is quite the brute compared to the old Rhino, but I would have no problem fielding it as a Rhino or reinforced Rhino.

Rhino and Iron Grumbler scale shot.

Some Vehicles, Some Terrain

Lately it seems that I have been doing a lot of random stuff, which is quite okay, since it keeps my busy. But one thing I have been coming back to is the terrain and other small unfinished stuff.

This time I have cut a statue in halves and made it a sunken Buddha statue, build a shack and painted some vehicles and bits.

Savages raid an ARBCO depot in the wastelands.

The Buddha statue with a mix of EM4 and Four A miniatures.

Everything is on the cheap side. The Buddha statue is from a second hand store and the shack is build from old cardboard boxes and glue.

The ARBCO shack.

Also I painted some vehicles and a motor I had lying around. The white pick.up truck is from an unknown company, but I think it ended up pretty good. The red truck is from Ramshackle Games and had an update to an existing paintjob, the motor is from Ramshackle too.

47 Beer Truck.

I added some grafitti to the licence plates, to give the truck some character.

Also the tank isn't glued on, so it can be removed.

Rogue Trader Gaming (With Nuclear Renaissance Rules)

I think it comes as no surprise, if I tell you, that we are a couple of folks who really like the Warhammer 40K universe and the models (at least the old ones).On the other hand the rules doesn't really do it for us at all. I won't get into details about all the things we don't like about modern 40K gaming, but the main problems are the huge amount of models needed, the general tournament oriented attitude and competetive approach towards gaming.

We have previously tried out Rogue Trader by playing Battle at the Farm, the scenario included in the original rulebook. Things didn't really work out that well. The system is great in the ways that it is narative, very open and free, but the rules are heavy and kind of hard getting into. So before going back to Rogue Trader gaming we decided to try and play some games using Nuclear Renaissance from Ramshackle Games.

Priviously we have played some post apocalypse games using Nuclear Renaissance and that worked out really well. We already played these games using a mix off all sorts of miniatures, which also included old Rogue Trader models, so we knew it would be possible to at least play succesful games with the Nuclear Renaissance rules and after the succesful Kickstarter funding of Tome of Tridlins (Nuclear Renaissance expansion) it was time to give it a go again.

Since one of my usual gaming buddies, Thorbjørn, just painted up some Rogue Trader Orks (See more at Dr. The Viking's Miniature Games Hell) it was obvious that we should do a classic Marines vs. Orks game.

After re-reading the rules we worked out some profiles for the Marines, Orks, Gretchin and their weapons and then we plunged right into the game!

"A mysterious space craft has suddenly appeared by a small Imperial research facility in the wastes. Investigation has shown that the space craft was hostile and a small band of Ork pirates have taken over the settlement.

As the station is in posession of some very important research results a nearby scouting squad of World Eater marines is sent to recover the documents and anything else important. They are accompanied by a scientist who has been working on the secret project."

The Orky menace at the captured research facility.

The scientist accompanied by a squad of World Eater marines.

The Orks are allerted and move into positions for taking on the marines.

Marines slowly advancing towards the shuttle.

An ork sentry shoots the marine commander with a lucky bolter shot.

The marines loses his armor and at that point we decided to end the game.

Well, that was ceartainly something else. The game was a test to see if the rules would work out for Rogue Trader gaming and in conclusion we decided that the rules worked out fine. But we still had some troubles with the game. We had already chosen to ignore the part of the rules about how to build up your gangs, so when we when we chose the profiles and equipment of the characters we just chose whatever sounded like it was fitting for marines and orks and this didn't really work out. We made up power armor and bolters by mixing different weapon and armor profiles and upgrades and in the end I think some of those things was just too powerfull.

We have not given up on trying out Nuclear Renaissance for Rogue Trader gaming, but we do need to work on the profiles of the equipment and such.

The problems we did encounter was mainly my fault, since I was in charge of reading the rules and making the chracters, and generally I have no idea if rules and things work out before I have tried out a game or two. But I think this first game has given me a pretty good insight in what things we need to change and I am sure that next time we give it a go it will already be much better.

Doing a project like 40K in another set of rules is always going to be a matter of balancing fluff against what will make a fun game and in the end I hope we will be able to make ourself a Nuclear Renaissance list tweaked for our likings and list of profiles for standard marines, orks, eldar and the classic weapons like bolters, chainswords, shuriken catapults and so on.