Some more Mutants and Death Ray Guns

Work's been hellishly busy lately, but I managed to squeeze in another game of Mutants and Death Ray Guns last night - and to make some progress on the various warbands I've been kitbashing for a big session next month.

This carnivorous plant from Reaper Bones isn't quite finished, but I thought it was good enough for the table, and it played a useful part as an NPC threat. 

I increasingly thing that MDRG is the finest expression of the Song of Blades and Heroes engine; its additional reloading actions and scope for non-combat actions (climbing, smashing down doors, figuring out artefacts) means that the SoBH action economy really comes into its own. And the simple campaign system is great. 

One thing I foresee adding some spice to multiplayer games in October is the fact that only the last band standing on the battlefield gets the chance to tend to their wounded and loot the bodies of the slain. As a lot of scenario objectives are going to be unrelated to that (e.g. carry off plunder or kill an outlaw), I can imagine various situations where the 'winner' wants to get off the table quick and the 'losers' are keen to fight things out for scavengers' rights. 

I managed to get a bit of kitbashing done yesterday too, so there will be some interesting painting in the weeks ahead:

A kitbashed mutant for Mutants and Death Ray Guns

Here's the first of my kitbashed mutants for the forthcoming MDRG campaign. He's made from a GW orc head on a Reaper Bones hellcat body, with a bit of green stuff around the mane. 

This guy's randomly generated profile was this Q4, C3, Bestial (entailing Long Move), Stealth, Powered Hand Weapon. His bestial nature meant that he surrendered the power weapon to the warband's leader as he can't use it.

 

Back to Mutants and Death Ray Guns

I've been playing Ganesha Games' Mutants and Death Ray Guns (MDRG) for well over a decade - with the kids and with friends. But I've never played it properly: that is, I've never used the random-generation tables to create the sorts of motley gangs and warbands that the game is designed for, and I've never used the campaign system.

That is changing, though. I've got a gaming day with some friends next month. In the past couple of years, we've played quite a bit of Mordheim and a fair bit of Frostgrave. And we've all played quite a bit of Song of Blades and Heroes and/or MDRG over the years. So actually playing MDRG as it was intended seems the obvious thing to do. 

I played a sample game last night with my son, and we've decided to keep that going as a mini-campaign. The core Song of Blades engine is just so well designed: as my son said, "it always just feels more tactical". The activation decisions and push-your-luck risk/reward balance are tremendous features: there's very rarely a 'right' think to do. Instead, you have a range of cautious choices, some riskier ones and the opportunity to roll all three activation dice and go for something bold.

The game is very fast-moving compared with most skirmish rulesets: no fiddling with measuring tapes and very few rules that aren't immediately absorbed, so that the rulebook seldom needs to be consulted. When played with randomly generated forces, there's much less firepower than in the points-based games we used to play. And that really works well: it becomes a game of sneaking, stealing and ambushing rather than a shootfest.

I've rolled up a whole lot of random warbands for the October event and have started on some kitbashing to match the fruits of the dice:

This is a complete starting warband (a flying mutant leader with psychic powers; a savage human champion; an android with an RPG; a robot; and a mutated wolf):

 

My son's scratch-build robot

 

Pig-faced orcs!

 This weekend is going to be dominated by that toad. But I managed to kitbash these D&D-style pig-faced orcs before knuckling down. I've given them all Monster Manual-compliant gear. 

These are made largely from Frostgrave cultists and cultist knights, with heads from Wargames Atlantic and shields from Victrix.

Kitbashed EM4 space orcs - and orkish work in progress

A couple of months ago, I kitbashed some EM4 Fantasy Warriors orcs into space orcs through the tried-and-tested route of "stick a gun on a fantasy figure and call it a spaceman". I painted these up for a game in June but forgot to record them. There are many more to come. 

Since playing One Page Rules: Grimdark Future then, I've been putting together some multi-based orks for that game and similar sci-fi ones (e.g. Xenos Rampant). I like the 3/2/1 basing system that some people use for the Rampant games, and I've realised that it would work just fine in Grimdark Future. Here are some WIP bases, both for primitive orks ("berserkers" in GF) and more tech-savvy ones:

I really like this style of basing and might extend it to include some 4s and 5s. For games that involve large groups of figures, it makes movement so much easier and avoids the unsightly spectacle of lots of individually based figures crammed together and falling over each other on the table. 

Edit: a size comparison with first-edition 40K and Gorkamorka orks:

 

A new project: the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in 15mm (and a kitbashed troll)

Heartened by the completion of my Five Armies project, I'm now embarking on another Middle-earth scheme: the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in 15mm (using Hordes of the Things or perhaps DBF - or both for different games, perhaps). 

The Pelennor is an obvious choice for a big battle from Tolkien's works. It has a pleasing variety of troop types on both sides, with notably more varied forces of evil than some other battles, in that there are plenty of diverse human troop types alongside the orcs, trolls and Ringwraiths, along with some that could be interpreted as either wholly or partially human (the "men like half-trolls", who are later referred to simply as "troll-men"). And there are lots of varied goodies too, with plenty of scope for characterful leaders, from Gandalf to Forlong the Fat. 

And the Pelennor also has nice historical echoes, including the Cautalanian Fields (aka the Battle of Chalons) and various sieges of Constantinople. 

Alas, while 15mm is great for affordable historical analogues for Middle-earth troop types, it largely precludes the kitbashing of orcs, which was one of the great joys of the Five Armies project. But it does open up the possibility of kitbashing some trolls. 

 Most obviously, the great battering ram Grond is wielded by trolls. And trolls are mentioned in the rout of the Witch-king's army too, if I remember correctly.

What do Tolkien's trolls look like? Well, the consistent theme - from JRRT's own illustrations for The Hobbit to the cave troll in Moria to the hill trolls at the Morannon (who must be Olog-hai) - is that they're scaly. To that end, I kitbashed one using a Frostgrave snakeman body and various dwarf and goblin parts. I'm quite pleased with how he looks - a fairly original take on a much-depicted monster - and he's bang on scale with 15mm figures (Tolkien indicates that trolls were around 12' tall):