Deadzone Modular Terrain

I have had a large pile of Deadzone terrain sitting around since we received the Kickstarter months ago. I actually acquired a second large pile of sprues, but since I had no plans to play the actual Deadzone board game, I wasn't sure how I wanted to assemble these pieces.

While riding the train to work each day, I pass by a yard full of shipping containers, stacked up and pitted with rust and chipped paint. I used this as my inspiration.

My main priority was to make sure that these pieces were full of usable features. Increased elevation was a primary issue, as we've had a lot of fun with elevated buildings in our games lately.

The bridge between these two watchtowers is removable.

The charred edges were painted using Badger Minitaire Ghost Tints. I airbrushed the edges in black, followed by a halo of brown. I finished it off with a very fine line of black on the interior edge. This was all done after the other details were painted.

Some of the details from bits on the Deadzone sprues, supplemented with Games Workshop bits, plasticard, resin pieces, random odds and ends, and even some ammo casings.

I also used parts from Mechwarrior clix which, if you've never looked at them before, are a treasure trove of industrial bits. And super cheap these days!

I paid careful attention to each addition to make sure it was usable for cover, or as a way to traverse levels.

The colors were based on colors I saw in the container yard on my way to work.

Each interior space is also accessible.

This is my favorite building. Not only is it the tallest...

with cool balconies...

But it is reconfigurable!

This version is quite tall!

Here is a view from the top. Bob Kneely is ready to snipe, and you can see his colleague down below for scale.

I had a bunch of scrap pieces left over, so I made these ruins and barricades.

Here is a cool action shot of Bob Kneely kneeling.

Overall I am very impressed with the Deadzone terrain. The modular clip system is neat, but a bit delicate. I recommend gluing these pieces for best gaming experience. I was having issues fitting the clips until i discovered that there are mold lines inside the connection holes that need filing. A standard square hobby file works perfectly for this.

Keep an eye out for a battle report featuring this terrain in the very near future!

-- Josh, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Terrain: Post-Apocalyptic Shanty Compound & Shed

Ever since I began browsing the wondrous terrain creations over at the Post-Apoc Forums, I've wanted to try my hand at building my very own shanty building. It wasn't until recently that I managed to assemble the critical mass of raw materials to embark upon this effort. A bits order to Ramshackle Games gave me a goodly pile of doors, junk, machinery and smokestacks. To that I added a big pile of leftover Deadzone plastic pieces and scrap plasticard given to me by Josh. Then last weekend, I started building.

I went with a fairly simple design to start with: a two story compound with an overhanging balcony. I basically glued two low, square cardboard boxes atop each other, then wallpapered the structure with a hodgepodge of plasticard, balsa strips, Deadzone bits, Ramshackle bits and other assorted pieces of junk. Here is what I came up with.

It's pretty big! Probably 12 inches by 10 inches. It can definitely work as the centerpiece of any shantytown. I added some gravel, rubble and other junk to the base, then started painting. In the past, this is where my terrain seems to fall down on the job. No matter how hard I try, I always seem to make the colors too dark and muted. That's fine for rubble and ruins, but for this piece I wanted to make it a little more visually interesting. So I took a page from Voark's impressive shantytown called Tull's Resolve, and went with a rusty basecoat followed by some dabs of brighter color, then more rust and dust.

Here's the final product.

I painted up a few pieces of scatter terrain specific for this shanty compound, to create a little bit of cover for the large flat roof areas. There will be sandbags for the topmost roof (near the hatch) an at least one metal barricade on the first level roof.

And just for fun, I used the leftover bits to whip together this small outbuilding. Maybe it's a shed, or a jail, or even the entrance to a subterranean bunker?

Check out the pic at the top of this post for a look at the larger compound with 28mm miniatures for scale. Can't wait to get 'em all on the battlefield together!

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Nuclear Renaissance: Snatch & Grab in Hondon

During last week's Nuclear Renaissance game session, Karl set up a table using most of his newly completed urban terrain. He's been documenting the genesis of this project (almost all using kids toys and playsets acquired for cheap from resale shops) on this blog over the last few months, so it was a real treat to get it all on the table for a big game.

We decided to set this game on the Galactic Frontier, homebrew sci-fi setting we've been playing around with as a club for a year or more. It combines a little bit of everything we love about sci-fi, including colony worlds, deep space combat, urban war, abandoned science facilities, xenos and now, Necromunda-style arcologies.

The game was set on the planet Oxiddon, a so-called "Bridge World" dotted with huge, dense, miles-tall urban megalopolises, many built around the hulls of grounded starships, which are linked to their neighbors by super-strong carbon-fiber bridges many hundreds of miles in length. The desolate landscape in between these Bridge Cities is strewn with the abandoned husks of lesser cities whose bridges have collapsed over the centuries, rendering them little more than frontier settlements populated by outlaws and scavengers.

Anyway, our game was set in one of these feral cities in the Oxiddon wastes: the city of Hondon. Karl jammed all of his awesome terrain onto a 3-by-3-foot table to create a truly stunning send-up to the Necromunda battles that inspired us as teens all those years ago. Here's a look at the battlefield.

A team of scientists from Inverness, a thriving Bridge City, had been inspecting the site when they were ambushed by three gangs of raiders, each intent on capturing the scientists for ransom. Karl deployed his desert scavengers, Tim ran his Neo-Soviets, and I fielded my feral techno-scavengers. It was a race through the gritty concrete jungle of Hondon to see who would capture the scientists first!

Since the scientists (yellow jumpsuits) were scattered across the battlefield, many tucked away in nooks, crannies and towers, the warbands split up their forces to track them down. This led to sporadic gunfights as isolated scavengers came into contact with each other deep in the city. In this pic, my Killdozer (a fun little resin model from Ramshackle Games) collides with one of Tim's Neo-Soviet mutants, with predictable results. SPLAT!

Across the battlefield, Tim and Karl's factions came to blows in a subterranean tunnel running underneath a multi-level building. Karl's truckload of warriors slammed headlong into one of Tim's Neo-Soviet bikes.

Their private little war only escalated when Karl attempted to seize the upper floors of the structure, only to be met by a snarling, slavering horror straight from the Neo-Soviet chem tanks.

While Karl was busy fighting off ankle biters, Tim sent his leader down into a secluded area along the riverbank to secure one of the scientists, who had been cowering by some industrial excreta.

We really enjoyed how the battlefield setup prevented big clumps of troops from moving around en masse. Individual actions were the order of the day! Here's another perspective on the battlefield as the warbands crept through Hondon's cityscape.

Over on the left flank, near the high-rise tenement building, I sent a truckload of techno-scavengers toward a functioning elevator, hoping to use it to ascend to the elevated train station that spanned the river.

Karl's foot troops were got there too, prompting a nice, tidy little firefight. I got support from my leader and hero, both of whom had ascended some stairs to pour fire down onto the street battle below.

Grendel, the leader of my techno-scavenger tribe, then shuffled off toward the scientist hiding atop the train platform.

Nearby, a hulking techno-barbarian fought his way through a cordon of Tim's mutants and seized a scientist near an air intake station.

The game was fun, but somewhat grueling, as we were still focusing on learning the rules. By the time we had to call it for the night, we had played out three turns and things were beginning to hum along quite nicely. As each faction had captured a scientist and was threatening to seize at least one more, we decided to call it a draw. The three factions left the battlefield with their captives, already anticipating the hefty ransom they could expect from the more civilized Bridge Cities.

Aside from a great game full of fierce action and surprising outcomes, the best part was certainly Karl's epic tabletop, which represents many hours of hard work on his part. Here's a look at the battlefield toward the end of the game. You can see Tim's Neo-Soviet guys atop the ore processing station in the lower right, ready to seize a yellow-suited scientist.

Nuclear Renaissance gave us another fun game, and we are excited to play it again (especially now that most of the club's post-apoc regulars have at least one game under their belts). Look for another Nuclear Renaissance game at next week's game night!

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Nuclear Renaissance: Leggy O'Gee's Watering Hole

Last week we gathered at Karl's house to play some more Nuclear Renaissance. We set up two battlefields, and Mattias and I faced off in a scenario from the Tome of The Tridlins expansion called "Leggy O'Gee's Watering Hole."

Leggy O'Gee (the chap with the sweet suit in the photo above) is a flamboyant entrepreneur running a bar in the post apocalyptic wasteland. Here's a look at the battlefield. The Watering Hole is the fortified structure in the center.

 Plenty of room for hijinx, right?

My group of ragtag farmhands has been hired on as enforcers to protect the bar during the crop offseason. They were tasked with preventing any undesirables from entering the bar. They were also all "drunk," which in this scenario gave them penalties to shooting and driving, but bonuses to stumbling out of harm's way.

Here are the undesirables, the Slagscape Conservation Collective. This community of anarchists makes their home in the molten wild, and will do anything to protect the 'natural' beauty of their homeland of twisted metal... but sometimes they get thirsty, you know? Mattias' crew was prepared for the attack and started every turn with the initiative.

As the game began, Professor Percival Blythe, the hyper-intelligent primate (specialist in critical deconstructivism!) charged forward brazenly.

Starla Kneely takes careful aim and...

Headshot! Starla quickly eliminates the raiders' sniper, Lucy Havoc. Starla was taken down shortly after, but was revived by Doc miner. In fact, she died and was revived 4 times during the course of this battle. Don't leave your doctor at home, kids!

The slag raiders' driver, Stripe Dreggs, revved Tar Eater forward, and Strag Moxie advanced, using the car as cover.

Bob Kneely took careful aim and...

Another headshot! Bob Kneely was one of the two MVPs of this game. He never missed a shot!

Here is another Kneely casualty, brawler Hard Joe Grubber.

Moxie flew into a rage, and ran out of cover into the middle of the road, flamethrower spitting hot death.

Steve Dave jumped off the cliff face, into combat with Janx Moogin. Tell 'em Steve Dave!

Well, he told 'em.

Meanwhile, Commander Pitchfork and Sloth snuck out of the bar and hopped into the bambulance and roared off, heading straight for Strag Moxie. Luck was with the raider, as he rolled into the dust, then miraculously stood up!

Spritely Jyles, manning the Tar Eater's HMG, poured firepower into Steve Dave, but he dodged every round, Matrix style.

Commander Pitchfork jumped out of the bambulance to deal with Moxie, while Sloth slammed on the gas to ram into the Tar Eater. Unfortunately, the driver was drunk and slammed into a pile of tires.

Meanwhile, Steve Dave prepared to unleash fury on a car... He hit his target, but caused no permanent damage. At this point, we had to call the game.

Since neither of us managed to officially complete the scenario requirements, I'm calling it a draw (ed.- I had three guys left and Josh had eight. I'm calling it a loss--Mattias). Even though we only played 6 turns, so many exciting cinematic events happened! It was a great game.

I really enjoy Nuclear Renaissance. We are discussing some house rules to help speed the game up a bit and resolve some questions that came up, but overall, it is a smooth playing game. I am planning on exploring more of the options in the Tome of The Tridlins expansion for our next game.

-- Josh, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member