The Daemon's Claw

Alan and I tried out a second game of Mars Code Aurora, this time Alan used his Inquisition warband as Science, while I used my Gale Force 9 xenomorphs as the Hunger faction. Here are my Sarissa Precision Scifi colony buildings on my FLG asteroid mat and some home made terrain. Here are some scout Xenomorphs. The hunger faction get to redeploy up to 6 level 1 infantry, so I could put these anywhere and then reposition them when Alan had finished deploying. Here are some Xenomorphs ready to go exploring Here are some Xenos and the queen Here we are about to infest the other side of the colony. Here are the inquisition bad boys The xenomorphs advance down the corridors. The queen is inside the buildings but the model doesn't fit A Xenomorph is waiting inside the pod. The grey crates are what in inquisition is looking for. Maybe some valuable administratum paperwork. Alan's death cultist ran around the corner and attacked a Xemomorph Sweeps of its blades killed the xenomorph. I wo...

I have been an Aliens fan since the movie first came out. When the opportunity came out to buy one of the Nerf replicas, I treated myself. This is what it looked like when I opened the box. The shape is reasonably accurate, but the paint scheme is quite different. I decided to repaint mine to look a bit more like the ones from the movie. After sanding the old paint job off and then filling in the parts of the casing that had raised logos and text. I also had to fill in all the screw holes. This was a deciding factor in whether to take it to bits and paint it or paint it in one piece. I modified the magazine to make it more accurate. This meant expanding the top so it blended better into the rest of the casing. I glued blocks of balsa wood around the top of the bottom of the magazine and then trimmed them to shape and filled in the gaps or at least most of them. This is what it looks like after modification. Now some paint. I masked off the black bits and then sprayed the casing olive g...

Here is my party of Apocalypse survivors. They are based on a squad from the Falling Skies series. Here is what lies in wait in the maze.  There is an Alien queen surrounded by her guard and a few eggs. At the start of your turn, you pick up the spare tile and push it into the 2nd, 4th or 6th row or column. This pushes a whole line of tiles and this changes what has been open passages into dead ends and opens new passages. The rooms are barely big enough to fit a whole party into so it's very likely that some characters will be in different rooms and could easily get caught in a shift. This is very like what happened in the pyramid in the AvP movie. A couple of drones arrive in a corner. There is a pathway to the Royal Guard for those that can get there and get in a shot. The Royal Guard are still asleep and don't wake for the first turn. So there is a small window of opportunity to set up a shot. More Drones arrive near the nest. We manage to stun the Royal Guard so it only go...

I have been enjoying listing to the Alien RPG sessions from Garblag Games. They created a new adventure Desolations Edge. This is set in the Union of Progressive People. The whole adventure is kind of like Hunt for the Red October with Xenomorphs. The crew of adventurers investigated a UPP installation full of tight corridors blind corners and pikes leaking steam. It also featured a rendition of "I did it my way!" in a Russian accent. The bees from the Hyrdoponics labs got infected with black goo and started mutating. I got inspired by this title cover to add some pipe detail to the interior of the MDF buildings. I cut up a box of paper straws to make the pipes. Here is a section of corridor with pipes. Alan suggested I keep the candy cane theme, but I think I'm going with something grimier. I cut the ends of the pipes so the parts of the building fit together. Now with some inhabitants from my Gale Force 9 Another Glorious Day in the Core game.

 Here are some shots of how I made my terrain that we used in the last couple of Stargrave mission. I made the walls out of some Polustyrene sheet. It was easy to slice up with the Proxon. I curved the walls.. I also made up some square pillars to be the corners I then rolled out the DAS clay into thin sheets textured it with the Hive World roller from Green Stuff world. To make sure there is a good grip between the clay and the substrate, I applied a layer of PVA glue to the walls. The clay is then draped over the walls and then cut to shape. While the clay is soft you can push it gently into shape. I made an arch and a smaller wall out of some off cuts. I broke off the ends off some of the walls to make them more tumbled down. I then used the pieces to make other smaller walls. Here is another shot of the walls and the arched wall. Making a set of terrain like this was interesting. The rules specifically suggest not making a whole series of narrow corridors.  Once the clay h...

 I bought the Another Glorious Day in the Corps for Christmas. I have been working on the marines. These are nice simple models, usually they are a couple of pieces. They have a nice level of detail I can also use these models for Stargrave. They come in a nice variety of configurations so you can make quite a variety of crew from the game. For my initial crew it will be: led by Gunnery Sgt Apone a Veteran Bishop a Robot "I prefer artificial person myself" tech expert Specialists Hicks - Commando Drake - Gunner Frost - Burner Ripley - Casecracker Supporting cast Goreman - Recruit Newt - Runner Burke - Recruit Crowe - Trooper The supporting cast will likely get upgraded as the team progresses. I have enough marines to replace all the specialists. I have also been making another warband for Frostgrave. I was going for a priests of Set from Conan, but I ended up a bit more House Slitherin. I have a Wizard, Apprentice some warriors and some shanghaied tavern dwellers and urchins....

I have been watching a bunch of online roleplaying groups celebrate their hobby. The players do a great job of getting into their character, coming up with voices and accents. One of the best games to watch is the Alien game. Its a universe I have enjoyed since the movies first game out. With Stargrave coming out soon its likely that our adventuring crew will get into all sorts of trouble seeking out loot counters. I built some terrain that could make a great central objective or a place where you access another part of the game space, such as underground. Several of Joe's scenarios use a special room where players have to get to to meet the main monster and get to the best loot. So with a block of high density foam in my hands and plenty of Aliens podcasts to listen to, here is what I got up to. Here is the first rough carved shape and the initial sanding. I added another part to the curve to create a cave like space that corresponds to the central portion of the ship. I also adde...