The fall grind has worn me out so I haven't posted for almost a month and half (!). I'd like to blame a specific video game up front which was the beginning of the fateful fall. XCOM, enemy within. This is actually an expansion to the excellent XCOM enemy unknown, which itself harkens back, many years, to an earlier game: XCOM UFO Defense.
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| The blue square is a base. Radar ranges stretch to spain...maybe |
I originally blamed this game back in early highschool. Got the demo on a
high density 3.5 inch and needed to have it. Pre internet, and the
BBS's of any use where long distance calls away (at blistering speeds of
4800baud...maybe). This was a great game, and TOUGH. My gawd did your
men die quickly.
You needed to build bases to launch your jets and troop carriers to splash UFOs, fight terror missions (prevent aliens from slaughtering civilians in major cities), and research and manufacture the tech and items you needed to turn back the incursion. Funding was provided by countries around the world and based on your performance. Aliens would attempt to sign treaties with countries to starve you of funds. Secret alien bases would start cropping up like mushrooms as well.
Your bases would occasionally get attacked and aliens would spill through the lift, as well as hangars. The base to your right would be doomed....DOOMED!
Especially bases that were research or manufacturing oriented, and lacked well trained soldiers. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!
Also, if too many countries signed treaties or you went bankrupt humanity would be destroyed. Not an infrequent occurrence.
XCOM: Enemy unknown.
The new iteration has kept all the fun stuff, and managed to remove the
vast majority of the tedious irritating crap. A huge step in updating a
classic game. The main complaints where about limited maps (not
procedurally generated, instead they are set), and the ability to camp
your soldiers and eventually win each mission without much risk.
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| Nicer graphics. Still turn based though. |
Tons of the tropes of the series were maintained. The skyranger is your troop ship (now only carrying up to 6, rather than about 10 guys), you can build robot gun carrier bots (mini tanks sorta), there are advance power armour suits that allow flight, you work through crappy conventional weapons up to laser and then plasma, the mind raping telepathic ethereals make a late game appearance, and so forth.
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| The base looks nicer. But tile based building still. |
In a nod to new gamers and old hands, the difficulty level was revised to make it more friendly....BUT, they kept a harder level called 'classic'. I still get rocked on classic. Impossible is the next level up.
Enter XCOM: Enemy within.
The updated is easily the beset expansion I've ever played. It added a heap of new maps, new aliens (to both give new problems to deal with, as well as keep the early alien types more competitive into the late game), and a reason to race through maps (to harvest a time declining resource needed for certain research).
A host of extra missions with strange objectives and stories was cool as well. A covert transhumanist conspiracy that is competing with you and needs to be crushed. Human cyborgs strapped into huge battle frames and organic mods (reptile eyes, extra hearts, bio-electric discharges). I haven't managed to get through all the new material.
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| Exalt. Transhumanist terrorist. |
One of the creepier missions involves a hideous life form called a chrsalis that acts a bit like the lifeform in ALIEN. It moves fast, and rips you up in close combat. And then your corpse births a new one. While slightly less lethal than in the original game, it's a good nod to the fear/hassle of dealing with them.
A mission to a sea side town ends up finding a bunch of these bastards, which is bad enough until you find the source of the outbreak. A whaling ship filled with infested whale corpses. They start spawning every turn in a definite to overwhelm you sort of way. It basically takes a sacrificial trooper to plant a homing device on the boat to mark the cooridinates of a massive air strike to win the map. Also your own troops are both running to escape the bombardment and from the nasty lifeforms. A gripping mission. It'd make a good roleplaying session (assuming your PC's are somewhat expendable, like in a one off adventure).
Wargaming
I somehow feel that xcom would give a great scope for some small scale gaming. Small tables with 4-6 agents and a dozen plus aliens. Various terrains (country, rural, urban). You could even come up with covert operations with 'plain clothes' agents which are hinted at in the various iterations of the game.
With low model counts and a small board, it'd be great for focusing efforts on achievable bite sized blocks. Then you can go off and do other projects. When interested again, you can introduce the next wave of aliens, or tech upgrade, or terrain features.
I'd imagine a 2x2 or 3x3 board. There would even be scope for running a solo game. The aliens would be fairly simple to program. The hardest part would be having an element of surprise in what you were facing. 2 hour wargames deals with this well with PEF's (potential enemy forces)....the counter moves according to roles, and when in site there is a check to see if it's a false alarm, so something more....lethal.
Certainly something to consider.
Another contribution to the XCOM project. I feel like this is the 'avatar project' in that it veeerrrrryyyy slowly makes progress....and then is knocked back a few steps. The model has been sitting in my boxes for far too long (do we detect a theme here?) so I'm pretty chuffed it's finally painted.
The sectopod is a tough enemy in the video game, being a walking tank. It uses some faster firing weapons, but can power up for a big area of effect devastating attack. I find it a bit more tough than dangerous....I suppose this would be true for a tank vs infantry.
Loyal Citizens, I stand truly humbled.Today our struggle Ends.
I managed to bury a few figs from my lead pile. These 15mm figs are from Critical Mass games and originally were 'mercenaries' but I believe there was a bit of a kickstarter to expand their range. I grabbed these fellows within the last year when critical mass were closing but hadn't yet been announced as being picked up by Ral Partha Europe. 
I previously had a set of 5 but thought it would be wise to get some extras when it was possible the range might disappear. Looking back at the blog I realized I haven't done anything on this front since late 2014. Shameful. Expect some developments soon. 
A number of people have recognized their excellent suitability as 'snakemen' miniatures to match the some of the enemies in the wonderful computer game series XCOM. So this is what I was channeling. 
I first played xcom in the mid 90's and it was a very cool game. The reboot in 2012 took all the good, stripped out the tedious and made a sweet new package. Sweet enough to do a reimagining where the humans lost and are now the resistance in XCOM2. It's pretty amusing to see how far graphics have come in a side by side placement. 
Having a full blown case of hobby ADD, I've failed to make any progress on the multiple projects under 'progress'. I suspect this is why challenges are typically so hard to do.....many gamers want to flit like gadflies from project to project. I've probably mentioned it before, but I am appreciating more and more that painting whatever possesses you is probably more productive (in volume) than locking yourself into a project and timelines. The latter sounds a lot like work.
I worked on some 15mm figs I've had lurking in the drawers for a while. The snakemen are from critical mass mercenaries range, while the agents/thin men are from 'thesceneuk' authorities range (incidentally, thesceneuk has some create 'not-predator' special forces.
