"Maxed Out" Episode 1: Shipjacked

The heavy freighter "Ugly Betty" on route to Ceres was passing dangerously close to the Hilda region of the asteroid belt. The Hilda's were thick with pirates but Captain Matambo consoled himself with the fact they were not actually passing through the cluster and an old freighter like his wouldn't draw much attention. The "Ugly Betty" was a General Space Systems G47 "Durango" class Heavy Freighter. Part of the forward section of the ship had been converted to carry passengers and there were about 30 aboard at the moment. Jennie D. Tam and Roxann "Rocky" Tomson had signed on with the "Ugly Betty" on Titania but they weren't planning on becoming permanent members of the crew. The were working their way to Ceres and back to pick up a very used "Skysweeper" patrol craft they had purchased with their combined savings. The ship was in terrible shape but Jennie was a decent mechanic and was certain they could get it space worthy again. The two had big plans to used the ship for bounty hunting jobs. Rocky was a licensed bounty hunter in the; Confederacy, Empire, and M.S.S.R. Jennie was working aboard the "Ugly Betty" as an assistant to Chief Engineer Wilson and Rocky was part of the two person security team along with another new hire named Joe Smith.

Just as they were passing the Hilda region of the belt Chief Wilson asked Jennie to check out one of the air filtration units located in Cargo Hold 2. He was getting funny readings from it. He also suggested that she take a security officer with her so she called her friend Rocky to meet her to investigate.

When they got there they found Joe Smith looking over the unit. They though it was odd that he was wearing a full face respirator. He waved them over claiming that he as found some evidence of sabotage. They came over to investigate but Joe surprised them with a blast of knock out gas. Rocky hit the deck first as she took the full blast straight into her face. Jennie took a swing at Joe with her wrench but failed to connect. Joe shot Jennie with his tazer and she fell to the deck next to Rocky. Joe then hooked his tank of knock out gas to the air filtration unit. Within a few minutes the crew and passengers of the "Ugly Betty" had all been knocked out by the gas.

When Jennie and Rocky came to they found themselves locked in a large shipping container full of boxes of junk. Some time after that one end of the container opened up. Joe was standing there with three other armed men. The red warpaint and black and red clothing they were wearing indicated that they were member of the "Bloodborn" pirates. The "Bloodborn" were a band of pirates well known to Jennie and Rocky because they were also based on Titania not far from "Station 42" where the two had met. "Sorry Ladies looks like you will be headed back home to sweet Titania". Joe laughed then threw the pair a few packs of MREs just before shutting the door.

When they arrived back on Titania the pirates had landed their ship in a remote part of the Wastelands neither of them recognized. They were loaded onto a truck with 6 other hostages. The rest of the crew were no where to be seen. On board the truck was Karl Mason one of the Geologist who worked at the Venture Star Mining company office on Titania. He knew them both from the bar "Close Encounters" at "Station 42" where they all hung out. The rest of the hostages were unknown to them and kept to themselves.

They were transported several kilometers and unloaded at an abandoned bunker. There were several such bunkers all over Titania from the war between the Empire and the Confederacy. They were popular safe houses for pirates and smugglers. The bunker concealed a small underground facility where the hostages were locked into a small room. Jennie and Rocky began plotting their escape but most of the other hostages other than Karl were not too interested. They were certain they would be ransomed.

On the second day of their captivity Karl was removed from the room for several hours. When he was returned he told them that the pirates had asked him to appraise the value of some gems they had looted on their last couple of jobs. He also told them there were about a dozen pirates at this facility.

On the third day Jennie was taken by the pirates and ordered to repair several small mechanical and electrical parts scavenged for various ships. Rocky was also taken and ordered to clean up the pirates bunk room. Both of them were guarded by a pair of pirates.

While going through the parts Jennie found a small cooling unit that still has a great deal of pressurized coolant she rigged it so that she could spray the coolant out at the pirates if she got a chance.

Ass Rocky was cleaning the bunk room she noticed that the male pirate guarding her was hitting on his female partner. Rocky pretended to ignore them as she cleaned and began searching for something that she could use to help her escape. While cleaning she noticed one of the lockers was open slightly. She saw Jennies tool kit inside the locker. She remembered Jennie used to hide a .44 Derringer inside the kit for protection. She waited until the pirates were distracted with their conversation then she quickly grabbed the kit from inside the locker. Using one of the bunks as cover as she pretended to clean underneath it she searched for the pistol in the kit. Sure enough it was right where she expected it. She took the tiny pistol and carefully moved closer to the pirates. Knowing that the weapon would only be effective at a short range she slowly made her was up next to her guards. As she got up next to the male pirate he turned to her and said "Are you done already?" then she shot him in the face. The female pirate screamed and ducked as she was splattered with blood and brains. She opened fire with her SMG but fired wildly and missed Rocky who quickly dispatched her with the Derringer's final round.

Hearing the shots Jennie decided it was time to act. She unleashed the pressurized coolant and sprayed both pirates guards in the face. The guards went down clutching their frozen faces and screaming. Jennie then picked up one of their guns ad finished them off.

Confused as to what was going on the rest of the pirates in the facility ran out into the hall way. Jennie and Rocky were in rooms at opposite ends of the hall. They both peaked out from their doorways and opened fire on the pirates.

Caught in the crossfire the pirates were gunned down in short order. Jennie took a round to the shoulder during the fire fight but Rocky managed to come out unscathed. The two quickly disarmed the pirate bodies and went to free the other prisoner's.

Only Karl and one of the other prisoners agreed to help them. Jennie and Rocky gave them both a pirate SMG and they quickly moved to the ladder to the bunker upstairs.

The combat in the underground facility had ended so quickly that the pirates up in the bunker were not aware of the escaped prisoners.

Rocky and Jennie burst out of the hatch and engaged the pirates. Rocky got hit twice in the close counter engagement but the managed to gun down the other pirates.

Rocky then used one of the pirates communicators to call the Nova Securities office at Station 42. Nova Securities sent out a squad and a medic to assist them.

Jennie and Rocky received a hefty bounty for the pirates they had killed or captured and the other prisoners also rewarded them for their lives. They were both taken to the Hospital in Titania City to have their wounds tended to. They had managed to escape from the pirates but their ship was still on Ceres. This time however they would be able to afford much safer passage than as crew aboard a tramp freighter.

Note: This was my first episode of my new campaign "Maxed Out" which is set in my home brew science fiction setting "3031". The "Station 42" spaceport project I've been working on for the past couple of years will be featured in the game quite a bit. We used the Savage Worlds role playing game for this adventure but we also use the setting for other Sci-Fi games like AE Bounty. My wife and daughter were the PCs for this adveture. Further episodes of "Maxed Out" will follow their bounty hunting adventures across the solar system.

Wolfhound Friekorps painted!

Way back in August 2010 I put together a group of Wargames Factory Shock Troopers as my "first" crew for AE bounty. Then they set on my shelf for over a year. We played several games of AE bounty and we even painted up crews for the game but I didn't get these guys painted up until a couple days ago. I painted them up with combination of drybrushing and washes mostly. I wanted them to look dark and germanic. I decided to muddy up their boots and coats which I think worked pretty well to add some interest to an otherwise grey/green paintjob. Over all these arn't fantastic paintjobs but they get the job done and I think they make a decent looking crew.

New Project: "Underworld" game

I'm starting a new project and RPG campaign based on the Underworld series of movies. Underworld Revolution will focus on the time period just after the events in "Rise of the Lycans". I will be using the Savage Worlds Deluxe edition rules. The player characters will be a party of "Death Dealers" the warrior cast of the Vampires. "Revolution" will be the first chapter of what I hope becomes a Death Dealer campaign that will run up to and beyond the events portrayed in "Evolution".

I'm pretty excited that I will be able to use so many different historic miniatures with of course some fantasy, science fiction, steam punk, and pulp adventure thrown in.

Orcs rule Elves drool!

I've taken to playing Orcs or Half Orcs quite frequently in RPGs that allow them as playable character races. This has prompted some of the people I've been playing with to ask me why I play Orcs so often. Granted these are the people who play elves pretty much whenever they can as if the advantages to playing an elf should be obvious. In fact when I come back with "well why do you play elves all the time" they always seem confused and taken off guard.

To me nothing says Fantasy RPG Munchkin like someone who always plays Elves and what makes it worse is that these players always consider themselves great roleplayers. Typically they play their elves haughty and roll their eyes when other players initiate combat but then try to kill steal and out damage every one else in the party usually from somewhere in the back ranks either with magic or absurd elf only archery bonuses. Elf players almost always play against elven type. Their characters are never wise or polite nor peaceful. Orcs aren't either but the elf players never sees their characters as; brash, rude, and violent. They always still think of their characters as typical elves.

I tend to play my Orcs typical. Brash, rude, and violent. To me that is an Orc. It's fine to go against type now and again and play an Orc who is an articulate negotiator, or an artist, or a magic user but typically Orcs are tanks. The Orc is usually one of the tougher and stronger of the races in any fantasy setting. Usually the toughest race that doesn't need specialty; clothing, armor, and weapons. They also fit through the same doors as most people and can use the same furniture. If you want to play an Orc fighter/warrior type you dump your "points" into things they are naturally good at like being tough and strong. If you want to play anything else you dump your points into the needed stat then count on your natural toughness and strength that still make you tougher and stronger than the average human and much more than the average elf since those are always their weak points.

A good way to set up as well rounded Orc character is to choose to be a fighter type and bump up your; strength, toughness, and quickness but still leave a few points for other things. When choosing skills and talents (feats ect) choose to be really good at one type of fighting and competent at one or two others but don't forget some points for other things. Your natural attributes will boost up lower skill numbers to make your an above average fighter while still leaving you points to be good at other things like tracking or knowledge or poetry or what have you. You can have skills the party can use while still being the anvil your foes break upon.

If your a non fighter type make sure you have at least as much armor as you are allowed and a weapon that takes advantage of your Orc advantages. That way you can still do what you do but use your natural fighting abilities to kick butt when you need to. That fire ball that nukes the Elf wizard will still certainly hurt the Orc shaman but he'll get back up more quickly and if he's unable to use his magic he can still smack people around with his staff or even bare hands.

And remember anything that drops your Orc in one shot will drop three of the parties elves in the next round. I'm sure Orcish heaven if more fun too.

Making the best of cheap Battlemechs!

A couple of months ago I picked up the new Battletech Introductory Boxed set for Classic Battletech produced by Catalyst Games. Now I have Battletech "Total Warfare" and a number of my own Mechs but the boxed set came with really nice board game style map sheets made from heavy cardboard as well as 26 Battlemechs. 24 Inner Sphere mechs (that's two companies) and 2 Clan Omnimechs. It also came with a slimmed down rulebook and even some quick start rules as well as record sheets and some other odds and ends.
The Mechs in the boxed set are really poorly made. They are cast out of cheap plastic. I'm talking toy army soldier cheap. This is nothing new. The plastic mechs that came with the old boxed set put out by FASA were pretty much the same quality and I would much rather have 3D plastic mechs than 2D cardstock flats that FASA used in a few versions on the introductory set.
Still they are pretty bad so I've come up with a way to paint them quickly and make them look nice. Nothing stellar but nice enough for my table.
I've chosen to paint all my mechs in camo paint schemes. The box comes with two companies so I'm going to paint the two companies in two different camo patterns although I am going to paint all of the mechs to represent units of the Hanseatic Leauge Regional Defense Forces. That's really not that important. I chose to do a camo paint job because not only are they fast and easy they also look the best on these crappy mechs. The camouflage pattern mask the flaws in casting and the fact that I did a rather hasty job of cleaning these mechs up before painting. The soft plastic also makes removing lines a pain. As you can see in the picture I started by painting this Assualt Lance with primer grey then I added a simple brown camo pattern.

Next I took some light sand colored paint and drybrushed the entire mech. This is a great way to paint figures using camo quickly and easily. I've even used this technique on 28mm military figs.

Next I painted in markings and added some weathering using some dark metallic paint to add damage to the mechs paint jobs.

Next up I added a wash of Burnt Umber with some Dark Blue mixed with water and Future Floor Wax. This was done to add detail to the recessed areas and tone down and blend the drybrushing.

After the Wash dried I detailed the Mechs adding cockpits and bringing out some of the scratches in the paint job with a bright silver. After that I finished the bases and gave the lance a matte varnish. These Mechs only took a few hours to paint a good hour of that was waiting for the wash to dry. I think they are a pretty effective looking unit despite the fact that the minis themselves are pretty poor in quality.

Quick and Dirty Power Generator and Miners

A couple weeks ago I posted some quick and dirty com stations where I used the tops of cheap razor handles for the arms supporting the dish. Well I took the rest of the handles glued them together and sanded the bottoms flush then mounted that on a soda bottle cap to make this small power generator.

Here it is painted up. I think this will make a nice power generator for small farm or outpost. The project took less than two hours to complete and went together fairly simply.

I also finished the Venture Star miners. These minis were giving me trouble due to a bad primer job but I'm fairly happy with the way they turned out especially since they are basically NPC types.

Ork Shadowrunners WIP

I've been working today on some Ork Shadowrunners. The frist two are the characters my wife and I have been playing in our Shadowrun group for the past 3 years. The last one is just one I did for fun.
The first one is Jager my Street Samurai depicted here in his "business" suit wielding his Ceska Black Scorpion submachinepistol. I'm planning on making another combat version of this character. This figure was made using the head of a Reaper Halforc Monk with the body of one of Juno's Crew from the Foundry Street Violence line. The gun is from the Malifaux Modern Weapons pack.
The lovely image of beauty on Jager's right is Jo my wife's Ork Street Samurai. The figure is a Halforc Pirate figure from reaper with an AK-47 taken from a RAFM terrorist. I need to do a fair amount of putty work in the back of this figure where we cut the cutlass that the figure was holding away. The hand will need some touch up as well.
The final guy is just some Ork. I have an Ork character in limbo named Bulldog who this mini would work well for but I have no idea if I'm ever going to play in that game again so for now he's just a spare Ork. He's made by swapping a Reaper halforc barbarian head with a Starship Trooper Mobile Infantry body. When I get these guys a bit further along I'll show them compared to some typical height sci-fi humans. These are all big minis perfect for Orks.