em4 Future Skirmish Savages and Micro Art Studio bases

Here are the seven em4 Miniatures Future Skirmish "Savages" figures I painted over the past couple of weeks. They were passed to me by fg (along with several other post-apocalyptic type figures) when I asked if he had any figures suitable for the short Gamma World RPG campaign I had planned. As usual, he had many. I went through his box of figures and picked out seven I liked, and as it turned out they all came from the same range. Despite their age, these sculpts are still some of the best I have seen.

I painted them as a gang with some sort of a Native American theme, dressed in ripped jeans or military surplus, and using red as a gang colour, either in the form of a red bandana tied somewhere on their persons, or as face paint.

Other than serving as the bad guys for my Gamma World campaign, they may also form the core of a Necromunda gang. Fg has bought the new Necromunda box set, so as soon as he has a gang painted and we have learned the rules, we should be ready to start a campaign.

Other than the figures themselves, one of the things that I was rather excited about were the Mirco Art Studios "corregidor" bases I bought for the figures. As you can see from the photo above, they are an interesting match for the Battle Systems Shanty Town buildings I bought. Sure, the hatching on the metal plates are different, but it would have been too much to ask for for them to be an exact match.

You can't really tell from the photo (I certainly couldn't when looking at the photos when shopping for them) the bases are more 3D than they look, as in there is a "drop" of around 2mm between the "floor" part of the base and the "grille" part of the base, which can present a bit of a problem when basing "slotta" figures, which have both feet at the same level.

Now seven figures may not be enough for a Necromunda gang, at least not if I expect it to expand, so if you know of any Native American-themed futuristic/post-apocalyptic figures, so let me know in the comments.

Thanks!

2017 in Review and Looking Ahead

2017 was a poor year for wargaming - we only met for a total of seven sessions. During the same year, I played in at least 28 sessions of RPG, which included a 10-session campaign, two two-session old school dungeon crawls, and GMing two convention games.

Things may yet pick up in 2018 though. Martin has hosted our first naval game at his place, and I certainly hope to redeem myself after our poor debut performance. Meanwhile, I hope to get a few Franco-Prussian War games played at my place.

But the value of the sessions lies not in gaming alone; I have known Martin, fg and wahj for more than a decade (I have been friends with wahj for more than two-thirds of my life, actually), and our gaming sessions are more about talking about old times, life, and everything under the sun than the games themselves, really.

By contrast I have known the players in my RPG group (excepting fg) for less than two years, and most of them I have met only since April last year; while a common hobby can kickstart friendships, it will still take time.

For most of the year we played through the Savage Worlds space opera campaign, which I enjoyed tremendously. So much so that I ran the first scenario from that campaign as convention game twice. I may in fact continue to use scenarios from that campaign for convention games this year.

The monthly mini-convention is likely to be a regular thing, but the venue is rather far from my home, and as I utilise a lot of terrain boards, figurines, and models for my games, traveling to and fro can be quite a strain. I still want to do that though, mainly as a way of giving back to the hobby and bringing newbies into the hobby, perhaps quarterly?

I did manage to start a Lone Wolf campaign as I planned. The campaign is scheduled to run until the end of March, after which a three-session Gamma World campaign is planned for April. From June I plan to run a new long campaign (around 12 sessions or so); I have not decided on the setting or the rules yet, but there are a few potential candidates lined up.

There is a synergy between wargaming and RPGs, of course, and one example of this may be the seven 'gangers' figures I hope to paint up over the next few weeks: these will serve as the main antagonists for my players in the Gamma World mini-campaign (where they will be the evil Pure Strain Humans who want to wipe out the player characters, who/which are all mutated humans, mutated animals, or mutated plants), and perhaps as the start of a Necromunda gang.

Experience has taught me not to put too much faith in my own predictions, but what's the hobby without ambitious plans?

Have a good year ahead.