The Road Warrior: The first PAPA has been converted and painted!

This is going to be a very short update in which I will show off my newest paintjob; the PAPA (Post Apocalypse Power Amour). And I also managed to take a few snap shots of some of my favourite Veterans of the MegaDeath/Partisans/Scavengers from Copplestone figures as well. I might just have to purchase another pack and paint them in more desert friendly fatigues than these. Anyway, pictures for your enjoyment:


First off, here's the gang of Scavengers from Copplestone Castings. I really, really like these figures. Together with Kevin White, Coppleston really aces as one of my favourite sculptors out there. A sad shame that he's slowly neglecting the Future Wars range in favour of his WW1 projects.

The PAPA!
This little critter started life as one of the new style Tau Stealthsuits from Games Workshop, and was heavily modified by various bits from my scrapheap.


The prominent features is the bolted on, and very crude, massive blade attached to the left arm; the "targeting computer" added on the chaingun on the right arm; a gastank on the backpack and finally the Riot shield on the other side of the backpack. I hope that the idea of this Veteran of the MegaDeath is prominent through the various bits the pilot has bolted on to his machine.


It even gave me the idea of creating some sort of 'Desert Rat' unit for use in more normal games of No Limits or perhaps Fast and Dirty. Or perhaps just as a lost company of T'au units, short on supplies and with no way to retreat.


The armor itself is plastered with small scrapes and various slogans that the pilot has painted on. I had considered adding some sort of tribal warpaint to the machine, but I figured that since it wasn't that heavily converted that it'd be better to just give a sense of an old vet who has spent too much time on his own out in the Wastelands.


Progress Report from the Desk of The Road Warrior
Progress is definately going someplaces here. Last night I took one long haul of the updating process, smoothing many of the quirks along the way and in general the ruleset went from 27 pages to 35 pages. And I'm still not entirely done yet.

Version 1.0 is going to have a whole lot of layout added, making it a whole lot easier to refer to during the game, and some of the new stuff added will have a tremendous impact on the campaign game. Thus, here are what has been changed and will be changed:

Vehicle Rules
The vehicle rules have gotten a long due overhaul, clearing up some errors and should hopefully be a whole lot more clear now. There's even going to be further additional modules because of this (most prominently I've had plans for making a new version of the Car Wars/Axle & Alloys/Dark Future-genre).

Pre and Post Game Phases
The actual campaign modules have now also gotten an overhaul. This means that there should be less confusion as to when things are done, what you can do and so on during the various stages of a campaign. This has also meant an overhaul of the following:

Income and Territories
I've finally put an old dog to rest, so to say, in that I've scrapped the old table that showed how many caps you earned if you were X gangers. Now instead, each ganger - including mercenaries - will have a fixed upkeep. Normal humans will now have an upkeep of 5 caps to be paid at the end of the game; vehicles will cost 1 cap per Space to represent general maintenance, and the various mercenaries will have varying upkeeps, depending on their skills.

Once this is paid for, then the leftover Caps can be used to purchase new equipment for the gang; and this has also been changed as well!

Going to Bartertown
Now gangers will be able to go and look for items within a specific area. Mostly this will be: Ranged Weapons, Close Combat Weapons, Vehicles, Equipment, Vehicle Equipment and Random Events. The Random Events part are added to provide some flavour to the campaign and can either give you access to Drugs, partake in gambling or a possible case of the stomach flu. The idea behind all of this is that you assign a unit, who wasn't taken out during the game, and sent him to one of the tables, allowing him to roll a single roll on the various trade charts. The leader will have 1d3 rolls on any number of tables of his choice.

The idea behind this was to retain some of the randomness from Necromunda, but without making it all too random. Even though this is Post Apocalypse, then nothing's to say that you won't be able to be on the lookout for something specific. Or that some traders might start specializing in specific areas of merchandice. Also, it means that a lot of new equipment can be added to the campaign as well.

In conclusion:
I'm hoping that Road Warriors ver 1.0 will be out within two weeks, as an early Christmas Present. I'm working at double time because the good folks down at Avalon are wanting to start up a campaign, and I want to play the new and improved version rather than the old version.

Random Ideas
The idea also stuck to me, because I just bought Kelly's Heroes that Road Warriors could actually work for a similar campaign module, set during the Second World War. Of course, this is just idle musing right now from an overworked brain.

Happy Gaming!
/Torben

Bartertown: Targeting Computers

After having read this article on the Future Highways website; I immediately became inspired for a lot of new goodies to be had for even more vehicular mayhem!

I kinda figure that the actual skirmish part of the rules are fine as they are; seeing as No Limits have all the rules really needed for skirmish gaming, I have therefore focused on bringing the vehicles to the front of the game. Oh, and expanding the possibilities for the campaigns as well. Most prominently by the use of the Gang Traits mentioned earlier. Such as the Savages trait which gives your gang members +1 ST and T, but decreases the various weapons that they can start out with - most notably because they are now forced to trade at the Savage Trading posts; with the occasional raid at the Civilised Trading Posts.

Anyway, enough ranting; here are the rules for using Targeting Computers on Vehicles!

Targeting Computers on Vehicles
Although no vehicle can start out with this equipment at the beginning of a campaign, then they can be purchased by visiting either the Civilised or the Vault trading posts; although it’s more likely that you’ll be able to get your hands on one at the Vault rather than out in the wastes.

A Targeting Computer may be added to a single mounted weapon onboard a vehicle, regardless of the weapons type or mounting. Once mounted, the Targeting Computer substitutes any gunner present. There is a manual override in case you want a gunner to fire the weapon on its own accord. In this case, then the rules for firing the weapon are worked out normally.

A Targeting Computer is rated as follows:
• Basic; RA: 2
• Advanced; RA: 3
• Complex; RA: 4

Whenever a vehicle is activated, then the Targeting Computer is allowed to fire its weapon at a target within the weapons reach, using the above Ranged Attack value for the attack.

It is important to note that you may fire all weapons, hooked up with a Targeting Computer, during the vehicles activation. This means that the driver – or maybe even a gunner – is free to do whatever they want to do; like shooting their own weapon, driving or trying to recover from pinning.

Do note that the Targeting Computer will keep on working and will keep on firing even if the vehicle is immobilized and abandoned during the game.

Any level of Targeting Computer takes up 1 Space on any given vehicle.

Pricetag, for one-off games, are 200 for Basic, 400 for Advanced and 600 for Complex.

Ideas and comments are, as always, more than welcome.

Happy Gaming!
/Torben

Road To Avalon: My very first conversion!

Going from this:


To this:


In less than 4 hours!

As I promised a few days ago, I was about to embark on creating my very own and very first conversion of a 1:43 car into something roadworthy. And lo' and behold; here is the said article!

Putting it all together -
First up, I purchased a set of three cars to convert into Road Warrior cars. Of these, I chose the Lamborgini-wanna-be to be my first test subject because I had have had almost no experience in converting vehicles before this time around; and this car looked like it would have the best potential for ease of conversion.

So after having looked through my rather large Junkpile or "bitz box" if you prefer; I chose some key components as outlined in this picture.

The parts you can see are: An old Deathwing Terminator Cyclone Missile Launcher Pack, an old VASA Suppressor Shield (for the Missile Launcher Turret base), a cable from an Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons Lascannon, a laspistol cut in half, a targeter from the same Heavy Weapons pack, a VOID Interdict Marine Gauss Carbine, some Plastic Wire Mesh, a Tau Targeter from their Battlesuit set and most imporantly a Rail Cannon from the same pack.

Of course, during the construction of the wolf I found a few other bits to add to the car which aren't included in this photo. Primarily I added a Tau Targeter, some puches and some old smoke launchers from an old-school rhino kit.

So I went to town and added all of these bits and pieces to the car itself. I chose to mount a Wolf glyph, stolen from an old Space Wolves Space Marine Squad on the hood of the car; so as to signify who the local gangers were dealing with here. In addition I added a targeter on the right of the car for the Side Mounted Railgun, and to the left I stuck the forementioned Gauss Carbine in the other frontlight socket. A few other pieces were added to bulk it up - these will have no ingame effect. And finally, the wire mesh was added to the window.
The Wolf, Front, Unpainted.

On the right side I added the heavy Rail Gun, aligning it with the rail on the side of the car, and added some pouches to the rear of this gun to bulk it up a little. Then I added the forementioned cable; to signify that the actual worknings of the Rail Gun is on the inside of the car. Finally, I added the shiled as the turret base of the Missile Launcher, and tilted it slightly to the left of the car.
The Wolf, Right, Unpainted.

On the left side, very little was added, save for the Tau targeter. In this case, I went for "Less Is More"; and considering that this was the only door left on the car I opted for it to stay as such - a door.
The Wolf, Left, Unpainted.

The rear had the small laspistol added as a deterrence for any would be gangers sneaking up on Wolf from behind as well as a small camera to help the Wolf stay alert to anything coming in from the rear. In addition, two smokelaunchers were also added as a further deterrent against incoming attackers, and also for means of making a more stealthy getaway!
The Wolf, Rear, Unpainted.

Following this, I gave it a liberal undercoat of black - my undercoat of choice. And then I finally was able to go to town with the actual paint job itself.

Painting the Wolf -
Now, I cannot explain to you why I chose this particular colour scheme other than the fact that I kinda liked the colour and didn't wan't for all of the fast racing cars in the game to be painted red. The main colour of the car itself is GW's newish Foundation Color; Tau Sept Ochre. The Missile Turret was painted with Reapers Muddy Olive, Foundation Darksun Yellow and other parts were painted either Vallejo's London Grey or Dark Grey. So, the paint was sploshed on in a rough fashion. And the end result looked as thus:

More Views:
Front, left, right and rear.

Washing the Wolf -
And this was when the magic happened; heavy and liberal amounts of watered down inks (black and chestnut in this case) sploshed all over the vehicle. I must say that I'm not 100% pleased with the results, but it makes for a very gritty looking car to say the least. It was also the same technique I used to paint the weathering on the Old Crow vehicles posted yesterday.





And there you have it; The wolf is finally road worthy!

A Special Treat -
So, what can you - the reader - actually use this for? Well, as a special little treat for those interested here follows the stats for this very special Mercenary; complete with a price tag and all of the rules associated with this very special Mercenary.

The 'Lone' Wolf; Nomad Mercenary

Few people know of the exact origins of this mercenary. He simply arrived one day at Junktown, selling his services to the highest bidder. This wouldn't normally lift any eye-brows from the local populace except for the fact that 'Lone' Wolf arrived to Junktown in a souped up Fernando 8000, the last of it's kind - equipped with many high-tech devices long thought destroyed or dissapeared...

'Lone' Wolf

AC	RA	CC	ST	T	W	CO	AR
9	4	3	3	4	1	6	-

Equipment: Dual Mini-SMG, Fernando 8000
Skills: Pack Mule

Fernando 8000 (Normal Car)

ACC	BRK	AR	PR	W	HA	MS
4/4	4/5	8	-	5	-1	25

Spaces: 7(8) available, 9 used
Equipment:
- Fixed Forward Machinegun, 120 caps
- Fixed Forward Railgun, 230 caps
-- Targeting Computer, 600 caps (RA: 3, space +1)
- Turret Missile Launcer, 100 caps (+3 space, +200 caps)
-- Targeting Computer, 400 caps (RA: 2, space +1)
-- Frag Missiles, 65 caps
- Rear Laser Rifle, 100 caps (+1 space, +50 caps)
- Rear Grenade Launchers, 70 caps (+1 Space, +50caps)
-- Smoke Grenades, 10 caps
- Heavy Suspension, 120 caps (+1 RA when firing vehicle mounted weapons)
Price Tag: 1905 Recruitment, 953 upkeep.

That's it for now! Stay tuned for more Post Apocalyptic Madness as the Power Armor makes it's appearence in Road Warriors!

Happy Gaming!
Torben

Bartertown: Shields

This first post to the Barterdown section deals with a favored old piece of equipment; shields. Whether made from carbon-dura-alloy or a simple grabagecan lid; the shield will provide the same amount of protection to the ganger in question.

Shields
Pricetag: 15 Caps
A unit using a Shield gains +1 AR against all attacks from his front arc. This is in addition to any other Armour that he's currently wearing with the exception being the Combat Armour. Essentially, a unit with Pad Armor and Shield would therefore count his AR as 3.

A unit wearing a shield cannot use any two-handed weapons. This includes all Rifles and Special weapons with the exception of the Sawed-Off-Shotgun and the Web-Gun. Furthermore, a Shield counts as a pistol when figuring out how much a unit may carry.

This little item was added when Bjarne wanted to play his old VOID Junkers as a small gang of Roman Reinactors gone bad. They all had shields and shotguns, so we had to devise rules for the use of shields. Thus, I present these rules for adding shields to your games of Road Warriors.

The Road Warrior: About This Blog

Or "What the hell does the title mean?"

Well, as the last post stated, then this Blog is primarily about Our Road Warriors campaign in Avalon (http://www.avalon.dk) where we're just gearing up for a campaign to test the Road Warriors Mod and see if there should be made any changes for the final 1.0 Version. We're even debating wether the mod should be renamed into "City Limits" to show the games heritage to No Limits. But for now, it's split down the middle, although I'm starting to rather like that name.

Anyway, enough about this - that'll be a post unto itself. You see, this post is to explain the posts on this blog, or rather, what each post is all about. To this end, I've divided all of the future posts into the following sections:

The Road Warrior - This section covers my own personal rants, musings and what not. This section will have fresh articles whenever I have something personal to say; something nice to say and, hopefully not too often, something to rant about. This section also covers the general history of the blog and might venture into other areas not associated with PA.

Warriors of the Wasteland - This section will cover all aspects of gang creation as well as gang ideas and possible highlights and spotlights on gangs from around the world. Each article will have a short backstory of the given gang, some future ideas, some pictures, and if they become notorious enough then it will also feature those gangers who have crawled their way from the Newb bottom to the Legendary Top.

Bartertown - This section will cover any new ideas which will, eventually, be implemented into a new version of the rules. This section will cover all those purchasing options that I completely missed in the current version of the Mod, and will allow for players to utilize these new ideas before they're put into the final version. Some items will, of course, be up for international playtesting before they are implemented into Road Warriors.

Whiteline Nightmares - This section is reserved for those players who want a little more bite out of their games. The idea is to cover the options for setting up a narrative campaign, with a GM who launches new and weird scenarios and ideas to the campaign - akin to the Arbitrator campaign system mentioned in Necromunda: Outlanders. This section will be full of GM tools such as Zombies, Road Blocks, Law & Order and a whole lot more.

The Day After - My vision for this section is to invent some sort of "official" fluff for Road Warriors. Although, I will never enforce any such use of fluff on any game out there but it is always nice to have some sort of framework to expand on. It's an entirely optional setting, but it might add a lot of flavor to your games - or help you create your own setting.

Land Scraping - A very basic article, explaining the various types of terrain out there and possible rules for the bits and pieces of terrain that I, the companies or others conjure up. It will also serve as a tutorial to add that Post Apocalyptic feeling to your gameboard.

Vault Dwellers Delight - A complete review section of all things Post Apocalyptic. Ranging from games, to books, to films and even possible choices for soundtracks or simply just music with some sort of post apocalypse feel; it's all gonna be reviewed here. Suggestions are more than welcome for reviews. Already I have a huge line up of EM4's figures as well as Urban Mammoth Figures planned for review.

Road to Avalon - And finally, this section will cover our weekly games down in Avalon. Here I'll post news from the games, gangs and the general going ons for our campaign. The section will be further broken down into various new areas such as "Battle Reports", "Avalon Weekly" a small newspaper for the campaign and whatever strikes the campaigns fancy.

So, with this lengthy introduction I hope you feel safe to check out the blog, and hopefully bookmark it for future use. As soon as I've figured out the whole labels thing, then I'll have everything properly archived on this blog for easy reference.

In addition, it's my hope to have this blog updated at least once per week, and if the tough gets going then my plans are for it to be daily updated, all subject to the whims of real life.

Happy Gaming!