I think I might start painting again - What to do?

I paint in fits and starts, I can paint a colossal number of figures in a short amount of time and produce way more painted figures than most painting sweatshops..... for a time.

Then I get seriously burned out and can't even look at a figure. Then I just want to play video games. Until I start looking at my steam screen and going "I don't want to play anything"

It's a strange circle, but one I have gotten used to. The last project that burned me out was this

I managed to paint a few things after that, but it was really the final straw. 

But now, I have the urge to paint again, and I have so many potential projects. So lets run through them (apologies for photo quality, we had to return the nice work camera, but will likely be getting a nice one for the business shortly). I will be scoring them on quality needed, volume, game interest, bonuses and blockers. 

Descent 2nd edition

Quality: Low to medium, my Descent 1st edition figs are pretty average but speedy paint jobs
Volume: Medium. A good number of figures to paint, but a lot of variety. 
Game interest: Low. Chances of Descent 2nd ed hitting our table soon is low with Imperial Assault and the potential of Seas of Blood 1st ed campaign looming
Bonuses: All the first ed models are painted, and the unpainted figures are just a blot in the box
Blockers: Descent 2nd ed didn't light my fire. I feel Imperial Assault is simply a better game. 

Warmachine

Quality: High. These figures are all solos and should be painted to a good standard
Volume: Low, 5 figures. 
Game interest: Low. 3rd ed is out but I haven't even read the core rulebook. Any brain time on miniatures games is going on X-wing/Armada and Radlandz
Bonuses: Only 5 figures to finish off everything, and I can use them in Radlandz
Blockers: Such fiddly damned models, I think i'll need to re-skill my painting before trying them. 

Imperial assault

Quality: Medium. I painted my previous Imperial Assault figures to a reasonable standard
Volume: Mid to High. Quite a few figs after I just picked up the last 3 expansions, and Jabba's Palace is coming with 20+ more. Plus any booster packs i pick up.... like I have to get Fett. 
Game interest: High. We are still in the Star Wars campaign, and even after that Imperial Assault remains a game I want to play more by itself. 
Bonuses: Would look good in the campaign to have more figs
Blockers: I have a shed load of pre-painted Star Wars figs that have been doing the job just fine so far. 

Spartacus

Quality: Low. The figures are a bit shit
Volume: Low. 6 dudes only. 
Game interest: Medium. Spartacus is a very popular game here and a frequent session filler when we are missing a player or we are too tired to play Star Wars (I.e, i haven't written anything)
Bonuses: Nice simple job to make a popular game look good.
Blockers: The figures plastic is really bad, like just terrible. 

X-Com

Quality: Medium

Volume: Low to medium. 12 Figs
Game interest: Medium. We haven't played it much recently, but its been popular when we have. 
Bonuses: I'm 2/3rds done painting them anyway, this was the game i was doing when I finally burned out
Blockers: Expansion coming soon, could wait until that comes out and do them all at once. 

Rex

Quality: Low. Basic ships

Volume: Low. 5 small ship models
Game interest: Low. I've played 4 games of this, and people were so-so on it. I got a rules tweak from a friend that should fix the biggest grumble people had
Bonuses: Really short job
Blockers: That could sit in the box for a year or two before its played next

Star Wars Rebellion

Quality: Low, small figures needs simple paint jobs
Volume: High. There are a lot of figures in this set
Game interest: High. I've played 6-7 games of this since i got the game 3 weeks ago
Bonuses: Star Wars! Also little painted star destroyers could be cool for the campaign.
Blockers: The last two games i've played have been on Tabletop simulator. It kinda makes painting the game less appealing. 

Relic

Quality: High as all heck
Volume: Small. 
Game interest: Medium, another very popular filler game. Probably the most popular one when everyone is really tired and just wants to roll dice for no real reason
Bonuses: These figures are simply gorgeous, and look so good on the table
Blockers: Magnets.... no seriously. I magnetized my other models and stands and cannot find the rest of them. Also, painting skills need to be sharpened. 

Zombicide 

Quality: High
Volume: Low
Game interest: Low. I want to play more, but I've just not had the urge to play it much lately. 
Bonuses: Most of these figures are at least base coated and probably could be finished off easily enough
Blockers: hard to paint a game you aren't playing much. 

Cthulhu Wars

Quality: Medium, I could go higher but too much detail on these figures would be a massive time sink
Volume: Medium-high. A lot of figures, but mostly its the size of the figures that is daunting
Game interest: Low-Medium. I really like the game, but I feel like it needs a few more of the add-ons I don't have to really come alive  
Bonuses: Those old one models will be a unique painting experience. And Cthulhu stuff is cool
Blockers: I almost feel like waiting until i get more of the game before really getting it back on the table. 

Fortress America

Quality: Low
Volume: High, loads of figures
Game interest: Low. This has hit the table once, but it got good impressions. Feel we need to revisit it
Bonuses: Its not a game i've seen a lot of painted versions of. So I could almost define what a painted version looks like
Blockers: Its a lot of work, potentially for little return

Twilight Imperium 3rd edition

Quality: Low
Volume: Mega high
Game interest: Low. People like the game, but the time commitment is scary. 
Bonuses: It would look awesome with a painted set. 
Blockers: Are you kidding. I did a list like this years ago and it was on there. This is such a big project, many months worth, I don't know if i'll ever get around to it. 

Conclusion

I honestly have no idea what I will paint first right now. Imperial Assault, Spartacus and a few others are towards the top of the list, and TI3 is probably dead last. I'll see how i feel over the next few days

The Wrath of Cahn - Part 2 - A Talathen Sector story continued

Ok, after the last write up I realized I was about 1/4 of the way through the story. It was a long long tale, so lets summarize the action in as quick a style as possible. So here are the highlights

Discovery

• The team were directed to a local medical facility, where they met Jel Ta'leth, a Chiss scientist who was acting as ambassador from the Chiss planet of Kronos
• Jel explained that Ithkrall was a reasonable man, more reasonable than Malkar, and that this whole spate of violence makes no sense
• He said they were also investigating, and would share information. 
• He started by giving them the list of people who had been killed, and what their jobs were
• Ithkrall's outcasts were apparently living outside the city in some caves
• The team split into two groups, one to go talk to the outcasts, and the other to investigate a chemical factory that three of the dead people worked at
• Ori and Dr Vox investigated the factory, and looked for a way to distract the personnel there to get a good look in. About that time, an explosion occurred down the road and allowed them access (A double triumph for observing a way in) 
• The facility was empty very quickly, and they scouted it out, all seemed normal asides from one very secure room they hacked their way into. Inside they found some vials secured in a bio-security safe. They nabbed them. They also downloaded all the data off a computer system for later analysis. 
• The other team flew in their ship to the outskirts, their pilot reporting a "ghost signal" of a ship nearby, but could not confirm, just a fleeting sensor signal every now and then. 
• They landed, and after a little while, encountered Ithkrall and a small band of outcasts. 
• Ithkrall explained that their faith had major tenants, in order of importance. The second of which was "we do not shed blood", but the greatest of which was "When all the worlds in the devourer's eye are still, the eye will open and pull our souls to heaven. 
• His actions were the only way he felt he could communicate the evil being conducted by Malkar and his cabal. He wanted attention to draw people to question what was happened, as no one would believe him if he said it openly, and it would have been suppressed immediately. Also, the truth would destroy them. 
• Their plan was to create a virus, introduce it to the systems of the sector, and have it kill everyone on those planets, making the worlds still and heaven open. 
• The team arranged for Ithkrall's people to be moved off-world later, and that they would claim to have "killed him" in order to buy time with Malkar
• The team regrouped on the ship and compared notes. They strongly suspected that they had just obtained samples of the virus and the supporting data
• They analyzed the data and it revealed that the virus had already been shipped to most worlds in the sector. Then they remembered a news report from the pre-mission briefing about a rash of deaths on the core worlds. 
• Jel contacted them at this time to inquire about Ithkrall and their meeting. The team informed him of what had happened and he responded with an ultimatum. 

On the clock

• The team would have 100 hours to solve the issue, as that would be the time the Chiss Fleet would take to get from Kronos to Cahn and annihilate the city and take any information about the virus by force. He also informed them that his ship would now blockade the planet and anyone leaving would be destroyed. 
• Dr Vox said they had samples of the virus and Jel sent a cloaked ship to pick him up from the space port
• The rest of the team set about coming up with a plan to uncover the conspiracy, and replace Malkar as leader
• Vox and Jel worked on a vaccine for the next extended period of time, having the samples of the pure viral agent and the data allowed them to do this at an accelerated rate 
• The rest of the team reported back to Malkar that ithkrall was dead and that they were escorting his followers off-world and in to exile. 
• The team then staged another break-in at the facility and destroyed all the stored virus 
• This set off an alarm and the Malkar reported that the team was now a public enemy. They donned robs and tried to blend with the crowds. 
• Doran the Luxon found them and hurriedly took them to meet Tallarn, the council member who greeted them at the docks. 
• They showed Tallarn the information they had recovered and what was really going on. 
• They formulated a plan to rally the council leadership and to take back the council spire and depose Malkar. 
• Part of this plan was to use the recently returned Pilgrim as a figurehead. The poor kid watched the evidence and very nervously agreed to help over throw the government. 
• Malkar declared martial law, and revealed additional security forces he had kept hidden. Stun sticks were now turned to kill settings, and his forces swept town searching for the team door-to-door. 
• Dr Vox was dropped on the city outskirts with the small batch of vaccines they had put together (10), Doran met him and they evaded security patrols using the sewer network. Doran also donned his battered Luxon uniform for the occasion, and his old service weapon

The uprising

• Many of the leadership turned out, with their people and a mass peaceful movement of people marched towards the council spires, singing songs of praise and peace, all unarmed, but numbering in the tens of thousands. 
• Malkars security forces formed a line to defend the spires, armed with energy melee weapons, and a pair of heavy repeating blasters
• They opened fire on the protesters, killing hundreds, but even centuries of pacifism doesn't stop the fact that Trandoshans, even unarmed, are fearsome fighters. 
• The team focused on taking out security personnel and keeping the pilgrim safe. with Inomo using his force powers to bolster the pilgrims confidence.
• Through sheer weight of numbers, the protestors overwhelmed the security forces and the hevay weapons, but the death toll was considerable. 
• Then a cloaked ship, about the size of a freighter, landed in the middle of the crowd, killing scores more
• A figure emerged, although the team couldn't see them. All they could hear was the sound of a lightsabre and the screams of the dying. 
• The team rushed to engage this figure, who was a Chiss with a mask over his lower face, armed with a red lightsabre, they couldn't land a hit on him. 
• He seemed interested in Inomo, who fled back into the crowd, while Ana, Dr Vox and Oli tried to shoot him dead. 
• The crowd moved away from the Chiss while the team engaged him. 
• The pilgrim was raised high up on the shoulders of Tor the largest Trandoshan anyone had ever seen, who listed his skills as "lifting heavy things and moving heavy things"
• Bolstered by force confidence, the pilgrim said "he is one, he cannot kill us all, we will prevail"
• Even with his skill with a lightsabre, and the force, he knew he was no match for 10,000 people acting with one mind. And retreated to his ship (which Ana was trying to rig with an explosive charge, but failed)
• With the evil Chiss vanquished for now, the vanguard of the team, the pilgrim, Tor, Doran, Tallarn and a few others raced for the council spire. 
• The remaining guards, upon seeing them arrive, lowered their weapons and turned their backs, all the guards in the spire did the same. 
• Malkar was on the observation platform, but when they arrived two council members through him off the spire and onto the ground below. 
• These two members were named in the data as accomplices, so were placed under arrest. 

Aftermath

• The pilgrim was placed in charge of the government, and Tallarn as his cheif advisor. 
• They pledged to do anything to stop the outbreak and to help the rebellion 
• Ithkrall went into exile, knowing that his sins and inaction would always represent a reminder of these dark days
• Jel called off the invasion fleet, and demanded all data pertinent to the virus, it's manufacture and release
• When informed of the Chiss with the lightsabre, he had no idea who that could be, and that his cloaked ship was not one that existed on Kronos records. 
• He asked that the team meet him in Kronos as soon as possible, so they could help him get to the bottom of the conspiracy, find out who the Sith was, and get the means to cure the virus out to as many as needed it as soon as possible. 

Conclusion

This was a long story, and a deep story, with some dark themes and epic moments. The mass protest scene, with the players reacting to the deaths of hundreds of innocents was particularly powerful, and, remarkably, so was the "we are one" moment where the rebels helped unite a community against evil.

I like shades of grey in my stories, but this was one where the bad guys were truly bad, and the people were truly good. And it was a nice story to tell. 

The Wrath of Cahn - Part 1 - A Talathen Sector story

The wrath of Cahn (Part one)

Well, it seems like forever since I’ve done an update for Talathen Sector. The campaign is ongoing, but life has gotten in the way so we have missed a fair few sessions this year. What we have been doing is the longest story arc of the RPG campaign to date. We have also started the next strategic round, and updates will be coming on that, featuring the Rebellions first crushing defeat and a massive capital ship engagement as the rebels try to evacuate their hidden base and the Imperial Fleet attacks. All those games are in the books and need to be written up.

A lot happened in this story, so I will keep it as brief as possible while conveying the full content of the story as best as I can remember. It was a longish story, so parts will be skipped.

The Brief

Cahn is a planet located near a black hole, as a result of this unusual positioning it has several unique features. First of which is time-dilation, every day on Cahn is 3 days to the normal galaxy. Now, interstellar and people like Neil Degrasse Tyson can do a much better job of explaining the whys of time dilation, this is Star Wars, so it just works.

Secondly, the planet is in a geo stationary orbit relative to the Black hole. This means one side of the plant is charred, and the other side is frozen, but there is a “green zone” across the equator where the population lives.

Thirdly, the planet is ruled, and almost entirely populated by a religious order called the Devourer Cult. This religious group worships the black hole as a deity and despite its name has a reputation for passiveness and charity works, akin to a group like earths Hari Krishna. They can be found all over the sector, living in Spartan conditions and helping the poor and needy. What really surprises a lot of people is that fully 2/3^rd of the movement are Trandoshans who formed the colony centuries ago and have rejected their own cultural mores.

The Mission

The ruling council of Cahn has offered to pledge humanitarian and logistical support to the rebellion if they can solve an internal political issue for them. A member of the ruling council has gone rogue and is conducting terrorist operations, but as Cahn has a strict non-violence policy they cannot retaliate or fight back effectively. They need terrorists to catch the terrorists, so the rebellion is the perfect answer for them.

Arrival

Coming in to land at Cahn city, the only major settlement on the planet, the team were instructed to hold their flight pattern until another ship landed. This ship was a small, badly beaten, ancient looking light freighter, and it landed at the starport safely. The rebels ship landed at the platform alongside.

Waiting at the spaceport was around 10,000 people, quietly waiting. The team thought initially thought it was a welcome party, until the pilot of the other ship left to rapturous applause. While this was going on, an official came up to the team and introduced himself as Tellarn. He was a member of the ruling council and the representative of the local district that included the spaceport. He explained that the Trandoshan who had just returned was a Pilgrim that 100 years ago he had left and flown closer to the edge of the black hole in order to be close to the devourer, and while the journey had taken him less than a month, 100 years had passed for his community. The man would now be treated as a holy figure by the community.

They were led through the city after the procession had moved away. Cahn was mostly mud brick buildings done in a rustic style, while the interiors were modern but modest. One thing the team noticed was that there were no vehicles or droids in the city, with most transportation being done by repulsor sleds pulled by people. Tellarn was proud to say that the city has no unemployment and that people do what is needed, everyone works in one way or another and the community helps together. The team were pretty weirded out by what appeared to be a combination of pacifism, Islamic socialism and communism.

They were taken to the visitor’s district, the only place in the city where “out of towners” are housed. It’s a small area dominated by the guests hotel, a stylishly presented, yet very retro place (think of walking into a well maintained English manor house). Tellarn introduced the team to two helpers N’alla, a Twi’lek woman who’s family had emigrated to Cahn some years ago after being helped by members of the Devourer Cult on Nimbala, and Doran, A former Luxon fighter pilot who’s fighter hyperdrive had failed during the Clone Wars and he had crashed here.

Dr Vox paid special attention to the replacement limbs that Doran had, as it was high quality work and, as a battlefield surgeon, he was fascinated to see how they did it.

The team was left to get comfortable at the hotel before meeting with the council and asked questions about the culture, infrastructure, and the nature of the terror attacks and so on.

Ithkrall  was revealed to have been an idealist and visionary, and both guides were shocked that he had broken one of the greatest tenants of their faith “we do not spill blood”. Five people had been killed during the terror attacks, which is more murders than they had had in the last decade.

Certain members of our crew had killed more than five people in the last week, and the level of naiveté, hopefulness and all-round cheerfulness really weirded them out.

They asked questions about the society, why there were no droids, the justice system and the like. It all boiled down to “we do hard work, and the community helps those in need, but you are expected to help in return, if you are beyond help you get banished”.

Meeting the council

After getting comfortable and unpacking their belongings, the crew were invited to the mountain in the middle of the city. Cahn city was built on tiers, sort of like Minas Tirath, but far larger.

The 2^nd to last tier heading up the mountain was a massive open space that had been levelled out and concreted. According to N’alla, almost the entire city could gather in this place around the temple and listen to the council of elders speak. It was rare for people to all gather up here, but it happened a few times for special occasions and momentous decisions.

In the center of the plaza was the spire that formed the Temple of the Devourer. It reached high into the sky and was shaped like a tall vase, fatter at the top and bottom, with a flat roof. Presumably, some form of observation platform.

In front of the Spire, the crew encountered the first military looking presence in the city. Around 20 ceremonial guards, armed with shields and what appeared to be long poled stun batons. The guards turned as they approached and unbarred their spears to allow access to the structure.

Immediately inside, the single most dominant feature of the spire was that it was open in the middle, and that the platform above was really an optical lens. The devourer, the great black hole, could be seen through the ceiling in overblown proportions. It made the crew feel decidedly uncomfortable.

Malkar, the leader of the council invited the crew to sit and outlined the issues.

1. Ithkrall is a terrorist
2. Their non-violence religion and lack of weapons make fighting a terrorist impossible.
3. The rebellion has the expertise they lack and no moral compunctions about spilling blood
4. Cahn has great expertise to share and would provide covert support and help to the rebels

Malkar made it all seem very straight forward, and the crew were very very suspicious. They agreed to help but had many questions. 

Was Ithkrall a terrorist or the idealist he was originally described as? What is Ithkrall agenda for their terror attacks, as no one has mentioned motive? Is this culture for real, or are they secretly very nasty? What is Malkar hiding?

These answers would come, but the investigation would require a lot of digging and peeling back a massive sector wide conspiracy that threatened the lives of every sentient being within 100 light years.

To be continued.

Games Workshop and Fantasy Flight Games split

It's official, GW and FFG will no longer be doing business. 

Considering that FFG/Asmodee have blasted past GW in terms of total turnover in the last few years and the decision of GW to bring back specialist games, i'm not hugely surprised.

FFG has been the actual games workshop for Games Workshop for a long long time. And while they have focused on model making supported by badly designed games, FFG have been keeping people who love the settings engaged with really good games.

A lot of these games are relatively early in their development cycle. People who stumped up to get Conquest & Warhammer Quest - the card game - will likely bit put out by not being able to continue to expand those games.

Forbidden stars will stay a 4 faction game, i'm so glad I didn't buy it yesterday (and I was in store, holding the box, debating it)

For me, Chaos in the Old World is the pinnacle of this relationship. It's dripping in GW's IP and theme, but has the great game design of FFG. It's simply a masterclass in game design and I am so glad I have a copy of a game that is likely to go OOP and stay OOP for a long long time.

Blood Bowl team manager is also my favourite "Lite" game, and i'm slightly miffed it won't be getting any more teams. 

I highly doubt the FFG/GW deal will allow GW to lift all the mechanics and start selling expansions for the games, so this could be the death of these lines. Although "REX" type reskins could happen for some of the games.

And looking at GW's most recent attempts at Board Game design, my hopes are not high. Poor mechanics and nice figures don't engage me. Dreadfleet was a terrible terrible game and Warhammer Quest:Silver Tower costs about the price of three decent boardgames in NZ and, asides from the figures, is an average to decent dungeon crawler. But i could also get Descent 2nd edition core set and two expansions for the same price. It also doesn't help that the new Warhammer world is just awful. 

It's pretty, but at $320 you are paying for the models, not the game or bits

Sure GW do great figures, they are a model company after all and they excel at that. But FFG is a games company, and losing the GW IP means that we have likely concluded a 2nd golden age of GW themed games.

The first was GW's glory days as a Games design company, when titles like Space Hulk, Blood Bowl, Warhammer Quest, Fury of Dracula and Heroquest were coming out and were as good as any of the competition. Space Hulk and Blood Bowl still occupy very warm places in my heart and on my games shelf. And boy am I glad that Blood Bowl online is still a thing.

It's possible that GW will eventually return to greatness in the Boardgame field, but it won't be immediately, their game development culture has been focused on flash and models for far to long and Game Design is not easy to do well. I personally prefer a mediocre looking game than a pretty one that sucks.

Power Grid > Dreadfleet in other words. 

Looks like I have a few expansions for games to procure before they go out of print. Time to finally get "Halls of Terra" for Relic, ugh, so gutted their won't be more Relic, that game was stupid but fun. 

I highly recommend getting the stuff you want for these games now, as they will go OOP really quickly and will likely not come back. 

Post Script:

A friend of mine brings up the RPG lines and raises the point that GW will likely not develop any replacements. Sad day for WHFRP and Dark heresy fans as well. 

The core dice system - Radlandz developer diary.

Well, lets start talking about the core game systems and how they make Radlandz the most awesome little skirmish game out there.

Here are the core concepts behind the dice system

• Radlandz uses several dice, d6, d8, d10 and d12. 
• Dice are rolled against a difficulty number in most cases, the number of dice that equal or exceed this target number are successes
• Target numbers are rarely changed, most effects allow you to stage up or stage down a dice. 
• Staging up allows you to replace a dice with one higher type, say a d8 to a d10
• Charging, aiming and ganging up normally allow you to stage up dice. 
• Staging down forces you to replace a dice with a lower one, say a d8 to a d6
• Wounds, being pinned and other negative effects normally cause dice to be staged down
• A lot of rolls allow you to expend a dice roll of 4 or more that didn't succeed to add 2 to another roll. This means rolling 5,5,5 when the target number is 6 means you can actually succeed, and reduces a bit of the luck element.  

How do i determine my dice pool?

Well, a models stats determine their starting dice pools before any modifications. The three stats that have dice pools are

Fight: Melee pool

Shoot: Shooting pool

Grit: Morale/leadership/special powers pool

Example

Say your model has a Fight pool of 2d8/1d6 and wants to shoot a regular trooper in light cover. That troopers defence in light cover is 7, so you will need to roll 7's to hit. With 2d8/1d6 this is pretty difficult to do. 

So, the model aims gaining 1 dice shift and also has a scope on their rifle which adds an additional shift when taking an aim action.

This is a total of 2 positive shifts which can be added in any way to your dice pool. You could boost a d8 twice to make it a d12, giving you d12/d8/d6, or boost both d8s to d10's, giving you 2d10/1d6. Or any other combination. 

The final choice is to boost the d6 twice to d10, for a dice pool of 1d10/2d8

The roll is 9,5,4 on the three dice. The nine is good enough to beat 7 so scores 1 hit. You then choose to burn the 4 to add +2 to the 6, making it an 7. Also good enough to score a hit. 

A 2 hit shot does considerably more damage than a 1 hit shot, but we will cover that another time.

Conclusion

By making most adjustments in the game dice shifts, and keeping target numbers relatively stable, it makes the game variable, without producing massive swings. Even with all the best modifiers in the game, the average shooting target number will be around 6-8, so d12's, while a lot better, hardly mean you are going to always hit and always kill someone. 

9 Games that inspired me when making a game.

As part of the Radlandz introduction, I want to talk about the game systems that inspired aspects of the rules. I've played a lot of games, and no game system comes from isolation. Its all part of the game development process and every new game stands on the shoulders of the giants that preceded it. 

So in this post I will talk about the games that either inspired me on a gameplay level, or games that I used mechanical ideas from. Some will be obvious, some a little more obscure. 

First up, the most obvious ones. 

Necromunda/Mordheim

In all honesty, their would likely be no Radlandz without these two games. They were the original "warband" level games that I played and their influence can be seen throughout.

Core concepts like group size, rosters, character types, loot, experience, skill upgrade and territory all find their origins here 

The core gameplay mechanics are very different, but the overall feel is similiar. But I really wanted to make a few changes in the overall feel to "fix" what i perceived to be problems with the games.

The two core issues are randomness and loss. Random skill increases always led to big skews in power between gangs, so instead I allow people to select them from a short list.

Loss was a huge deal in these games. If you played your first game with a gang and your heavy died, taking almost a 3rd of your gang value with him, you were actually better off rolling up a new gang. In Radlandz, your group will never drop below a minimum level of functionality. New troops are free and they come with their basic kit, they just have no XP or special upgrades. So even if your entire group is killed in the first game, you don't need to reroll.    

Frostgrave

"A dog made me build Radlandz"

Frostgrave is the game that kicked off the whole process. I really really wanted to like it, but I found the randomness and lack of distinction in the forces frustrating. 

In the game we play, a war dog ate most of my army. Single handily killing 4 characters, a man at arms, an infantry man and two thugs. I rolled no less than a 13 on all 4 combats, but the war dogs player always rolled higher. The difference between a -1 rating war dog at 10 points and a +1 rating Man at arms at 80 points is negligible in a d20 system. I felt the game was pretty damned arbitrary at that point and that units really didn't matter much.

But I saw potential in the game, but figured it needs many house rules to make work. The randomness was too swingy for me, the spell lists full of chaff, the XP system skewed heavily in favour of combat mages, and the cost of losing your wizard was brutal.
What I really liked were the turn order sequence and the idea that Wizards had spells outside their primary disciplines. I've adapted the turn order sequence and am using something similar, and the wizard selection thing has become the "identity system", where a group has a primary identity it can buy characters from, but can also pick up secondary identities and populate their list with skills and troops from there.

A Mutant identity group fields mutants as their primary forces, but if they get some points in the Arcane identity, they may pick up an apprentice spell caster and some magic skills. Hopefully, with 12 identities, this means that there are a plethora of combinations and no group looks completely like another. 

Spartacus - A game of blood and sand

Spartacus was one of the most surprising games I've played. It a really good design, true to the source material, and a great backstabbing fun fest.

The gladiatorial combat system is fun and simple, and represents wounded characters losing fighting capacity really well.

I borrowed a lot of elements from the combat system for the melee system of Radlandz.

Each player rolls their melee pool of dice, then modifies them with parry re-rolls, shields and other tricks. Then they match numbers on their dice from highest to lowest. The more dice you win on the matchup, the more damage you inflict. Tie and you both inflict damage. Strong melee characters are normally either more dice or bigger dice, so will win more often. Wounds reduce the size of your dice in the dice pool.

What this has mean't in testing is that well trained unwounded soldiers tend to butcher wounded ones easily, but not always. Poor quality troops have taken down melee masters as well, one expert melee character was taken down by a group of 4 guys with knives, as each one got a small hit in, reducing the big guys combat skills and making him easier to wound. Gang ups really work well.

It's also led to two already wounded characters killing each other in combat as they both score enough hits to do a killing blow to each other. 

The overall result is a rather cinematic combat system that has already produced numerous classic and memorable moments. 

Melee is the key to the game, shooting is designed to pin people and wound them, making them easier to mop up in close combat. 

Fortress America

Fortress america is an inspiration for the dice shifting mechanic in Radlandz. In fortress america, better units roll a higher sided dice which has a better chance of hitting and doing damage. Defending can shift a units dice up by one improving their chances of hitting and damaging.

In Radlandz I use a similar system. Each model has it's default dice pools for making ranged, melee, and morale checks. But these pools can be modified up and down depending on the models state. For example, Aiming and Charging allow you increase a dice by one size, each wound level reduces a dice by one size. 

The core difficulties to pass most checks are designed around the difficulty required for a d8 to succeed. So having upgraded dice to d10's improves that considerably, without altering the difficulty of the roll. In a way, it allows for more marginal alterations of difficulty than changing a target number, especially in a multiple dice system.

All dice are discrete, so if the target number for a roll is 6, and you roll 8, 6, 4. You score two hits, dice are never added together in Radlandz.  

Dice can go all the way up to a D12, but never below a D6. 

X-wing

A really simple one here, D8's

Looking at X-wing over the last few years I have really gotten to appreciate the D8 in regards to probability. 12.5% per pip is really easy to work with, as a shift in difficulty by one is significant, but not huge. 

Also, the core concept of rolling a number of d8's and marking the number of hits scored is directly linked to X-wing in its original form.

With dice shifting and the like it's now quite different, but the ranged combat system started off with x-wing as the inspiration.  

Flames of war

I've never actually played Flames of War, which seems odd as I know a lot of one of the oldest playtest groups for the game (who I am hoping to co-opt into testing this), i'm a military history nerd, and I own the rule book.

I just never got around to it.

The one thing I did love reading the rules was the idea that the difficulty to hit a solider with a ranged attack is based on their training level. Conscripts use cover poorly, Veterans hug the dirt like its a long lost teddy bear.

In Radlandz, the difficulty to hit a model is based on their Brainz stat. Smart and savvy characters take cover quickly, poorly trained troops do not. As characters get more experienced, they become harder to hit. Also, big dumb killer robots are easy to hit, even if they are hard to damage.

It's a simple concept, but one I had not seen before Flames of War. 

Cthulhu wars

This is an example of how a mechanic in a game can inspire you to make a game design decision, that if you didn't spell it out clearly, no one would probably notice.

In Cthulhu wars, each faction has six spell books that are unlocked as complete objectives. You don't get all your powers and abilities at the game start and must do stuff to get them.

This system inspired the base system in Radlandz. Bases determine what models you can field and how many skills are on your available skill list.

At the start of the campaign, you may only have access to 3 or 4 skills, and 3-4 unit types. But as you progress, you can expand the base and gain more skills to choose from, more unit types to field, and more equipment options from resources.

Civilization 5 
Inspiration doesn't just come from board games. Computer games can also have excellent concepts that you can draw on, and I did that with Civilization 5 and strategic resources.

In Civ 5, you can only field as many tanks as you can supply with oil, or as many cavalry as you can supply with horses. I incorporated this idea into the base and roster mechanics. 

Each base building produces a certain amount of resources that you can use. A lot of basic gear, like swords, rifles, pistols and basic armours don't need any resources to field. But heavy machine guns, power weapons and magic armour do. 

The consumables resource also serves as your "unit cap" and restricts the number of models you can field.

Different bases provide different resources, so a Techno idenity base will get a lot of Energy resource that it can use to field multiple laser weapons, while a Mech identity base will have a lot of industrial resource to supply power armour.

It allows a group to field special weapons, while ensuring that not every model has power armour, a laser cannon and a magic sword when groups get very experienced. 

It also allows for progression, as your base expands you get more options. Base expansion is capped, but can be reconfigured in a long campaign. Decide you want more machine guns, demolish a building providing mystic resource and build one that provides industrial. 

Conclusion
Designing a game is about your own experiences and what you enjoyed playing in the past, and how, in your own way, you want to replicate that experience.
I think it's good to acknowledge those inspirations and sources. No doubt there are things I've forgotten to mention, and other indirect sources. But these are the ones that stood out.

This should give some insight into what the final Radlandz product will look like

Radlandz - A new miniatures game by me

Less than a month ago I decided to make my own skirmish game, using a post apocalyptic setting. 

I set out to keep model count low, action high, cover important, and have huge variety in units and equipment.

Well, its been a success and Radlandz now has a full rulebook weighing in at 64 pages.

Game features include

• Estimated 60-90 minute playtime per game (once up to speed)
• Unique Dice shifting and Dice building game mechanics. 
• 12 group identities
• 60 unit types
• 100+ skills
• 40 odd weapons
• Full combat rules
• 6 Scenarios (more to come)
• Campaign rules 
• Roster and group record sheets.

Alpha testing experiences so far

Testing is still at its early stages, but the first 5 games have been quite an enjoyable experience for all involved. The game seems to have a relatively "epic" feeling to it for a skirmish game, and each game has produced at least one memorable moment.

I attribute much of this to the unique wound system that allows characters to sustain multiple hits, without requiring a "damage boxes" or "hit point" system. When a character is damaged, they suffer a wound penalty, and that adds to later damage rolls. But if the character receives the same type of wound again, it does nothing additional. So a model may be wounded countless times before that final good hit takes them out.  

Glancing shots rarely kill in this system, but they make follow up attacks deadlier. But even the toughest model will eventually succumb to small stabbing blades as well.

And sometimes, you roll enough hits to kill someone outright. Normally an experienced melee fighter vs a mook, or someone standing in open ground in front of a machine gun. While you can survive a number of glancing hits, direct hits are still lethal.

Shooting will rarely win you a game out right. Shooting allows you to injure models and pin them, allow your assault to be more deadly.

This is working exactly to plan, as I wanted a game with tactical shooting, but not one where "planet bowling balls machine gun legion" would be dominant.

Guns aren't just for show, but knives are certainly for pros. 

What is next

A lot more internal alpha testing to come. And I still need to write systems for weather and hazards, neutral creatures, and a few more scenarios. 

I also need to seriously proof read and edit the damn thing. 

I'm aiming to get a couple of beta test groups in my local community to try a blind test of the rules as well. 

Oh, and i'll be doing a series of these posts on the game mechanics and the rationale behind each one.

Thanks to

The initial alpha test team of DJ Ekim, Megapope, Arvald von Kuggenstein and the Millernator, for actually wanting to play this contraption while it is still a horrific mess.