Sedition Wars Project - Terrain

After my last post about table top Sedition Wars, I was really hot to complete some of the terrain sub-projects I have in the queue.  Sedition Wars, and other close tactical sci-fi skirmish games like Infinity, need a LOT of terrain. This prevents the game from degenerating into a static war of attrition, as the sides hunker down afraid to expose themselves.

Accordingly, I spent the balance of the summer working on various terrain pieces. Most of the 18 finished models illustrated are laser cut MDF kits from Conscript Byron's company, SG2 Creations.

Possibly my favourite terrain piece to model and paint was a two-story sushi restaurant, seen below (a couple of my Sedition Wars figs are in the shot, for scale).



The roof and floors come apart, to allow figures to be placed inside.



The building was painted mostly with Army Painter spray paints, and lightly weathered with Vallejo pigments. See here for the inspiration for this structure.



Here's an SG2 prototype for a 3-story building.



Again, the roof and floors come apart. The AC unit makes a useful handle to pull the roof off.



Like Dallas, I also picked up a set of 6 shipping containers. They're labelled with the brands of various evil corporations from TV and the movies, downloaded from the internet.



Warning labels were free downloads from Toposolitario.



A large terrain block is this mall made from 4 separate Modern Strip Mall Sections. Put together they are 2 feet wide. I used warmer colours for the buildings. The various retail signs were brand logos downloaded from the internet. As for the choice of retail establishments, I remember the movie Demolition Man (Sandra Bullock: "...Taco Bell was the only restaurant to survive The Franchise Wars...So, now all restaurants are Taco Bell!"), and I figured that in the future people will still need estheticians, fashion, and booze.



The two end buildings each have a different side window option.



The roofs come off; the "supports" are the handles for removal. For now, I plan on keeping the mall furniture-free (except for certain strategic points), for ease of play. However, various companies make futuristic furniture, computers, shelving, etc. in an appropriate scale.



I used leftover ladders pieces from the shipping containers for roof access. Other small posters and signs were from Toposolitario and the ones Byron used for his 28mm buildings.







I also finished 6 Quonset huts from FSG's Dust Tactics Airfield Accessory Pack. Dust Tactics is a Weird War II game in 1/48 scale, close enough for my purposes. Zenithal highlighting brings out the curved shape of these structures.



These are injected-mold plastic models, with some nice details.



The Sedition Wars Project will be set aside briefly in order for me to paint my Space Station Terrain Project (I finally get to re-create the Death Star Trench run!). However, thereafter I shall return to the Strain and more tabletop terrain. I have also purchased some other kits in foam and  MDF, including a mag-lev train from BP Laser. All of this will go onto a Hawk Wargames Urban Battlefield terrain board.

It's been a year since I started this project. I have been lucky to be able to stay focused on it. There are so many other models to paint!

Sedition Wars Project - Phase One Complete!

A couple of weeks ago I finally unveiled the collected results of my long-gestating Sedition Wars Project. I hosted a few games using the figures and terrain that I have been modeling for the last 19 months.

The Strain 

I had some vacation time this summer, so I finally painted up 28 Strain models of various types. There are 21 Necroforms, basically human corpses animated by the dreaded nano-virus plague, There are 5 2nd-level Exoforms (evolved creatures, like in Resident Evil): 3 Stalkers (close combat types), and 2 Quasimodos (large creatures with an acidic shooting attack). Rounding them out are a pair of 3rd level Exoforms: a Scythe Witch (a kick-ass close combat expert), and a Brimstone (a big creature with a nasty gun in its chest).

I also picked up a couple of zombie paint sets from Army Painter:
Warpaints Zombicide Core Zombie Set
Warpaints Zombicide Toxic/Prison Set

I painted the 21 Revenants as if they were animated corpses, with muscles showing through rents in their greenish-tinged skin. With colours such as "Scaly Hide" and "Crusted Sore", I hope I have given these an adequate aura of putrefaction and fear.

Below, some of what I call "Lefty's" - Revenants with a HUGE left arm and a protruding right eyeball.







"Skeletors" - more traditionally zombie-like Revenants.





"Dunce's" - these are the most disturbing to me; their brains and skulls have collapsed and have basically been absorbed into a tentacle thingy.





Below, from L-R, a Stalker, three Revenants, and a Quasimodo take cover behind a container. The 2nd level, evolved Strain are painted in more traditional human flesh tones as if they are "alive", to help differentiate them from the Revenants.



The Brimstone, mounted on a 50mm diameter base, painted basically like a huge, animated temple dog.



Two views of the Scythe Witch, painted as if she has a chitinous carapace; I did not want to go the metallic route with the armoured plating on her body. She's also very tall, noting that she is mounted on a 25mm base..







The Game Board

My Hawk Wargames Urban Battle Board finally arrived last month from Games and Gears. The package contained six 2'-square plastic boards that fit together. I used four in the photo below, for a 4' x 4' table. The streets and crosswalks already came painted. There would have been even more painting and weathering on the boards, but the company lost its entire shipment to a flood in China last year. This was a Kickstarter fulfillment, so they sent out these replacements with the basic paint job. I really like the detail and texture. Some airbrushing and oil washes will set these right in the future.






First Sedition Wars Game 

A couple of weeks ago I hosted my first Sedition Wars game using the new models and terrain. Eight (!) Conscripts dropped by for the inaugural game.

For setup, the Vanguard Samaritans deployed in the street behind the non-burning armoured truck, needing to get to the square blockhouse to the north, and then had to scan the area for survivors for 4 turns. The Strain had to kill or infect all the Vanguard. Below, Conscript Keegan overlooks the board. The long pale rectangular terrain piece is the rail for a mag-lev train.



Below, Keegan and Duncan contemplate a flanking attack by hordes of Strain.



The Vanguard Grenadier bravely sacrificed herself; though wounded and bleeding, she stayed to fire off a grav grenade, which stalled a bunch of Revenants in their tracks. She succumbed to her wounds, leaving behind a corpse counter.



As Duncan and Dallas look on, several Strain converge on the blockhouse, only to be gunned down by Vanguard lasers.



Clouds of nano-virus mark dead Revenants; however, the nano-virus could still move and infect the Vanguard!



Too little, too late. Though several Vanguard were infected, they were able to complete the scan and win the game.



Other dead soldiers that evening. Mmm, beer!




Play Testing

Last week Conscript Mike came by to help playtest the next Sedition Wars scenario in the Outbreak Campaign. We made some errors in the rules during the previous game, which we went thorough carefully for the play test.

This time, the Vanguard have to break through the Strain ranks to catch the mag-lev train, which will arrive at the end of turn 4, and leave at the end of turn 6. The winner is the side with the most models on the train!




Below, a couple of infected Vanguard Samaritans support an advance through Taco Bell.



An incendiary grenade fired indirectly finds it mark, igniting several Strain. Burn, baby, burn!





A Quasimodo guns down a Samaritan with a corrosive acid spray!



Surviving Vanguard grimly carry on.



Several Revenants take cover behind the mobile hospital module.




Infinity The Game

Like Dallas` Stalingrad terrain, this table can be amortized over several games and gaming systems.
To that end, DerekY came over for the first Infinity game on the new table.

Below, some Pan Oceana Fusiliers (proxied by my Vanguard) seize an objective, ahead of Derek`s Nomad in the far doorway.



A Nisse Sniper provides covering fire, as a Trauma Doc approaches another objective.



Automatic weapons fire shredded the hair salon, leaving two unconscious soldiers!



The Trauma Doc managed to hack the objective, despite not having any hacking skill!



The Nomads pulled back and managed to hack two objectives in the final turn, for the win!



Infinity required a denser terrain setup (including another store, another truck, some street barricades, and more cargo containers). I will probably use denser terrain for Sedition Wars, too.




Sedition Wars Project - Phase Two:

In order of priority, the following modeling projects are in queue:

• MDF mag-lev train for Scenarios 3 and 4 of the Outbreak Campaign
• Strain: more Revenants (for tabletop play we need double the number used in the board game version of the game), and bigger nasties including a 4th-level Grendler and a 5th-level Cthonian.
• Vanguard: a resin Gnosis battle-suit from Studio McVey, 6 civilians from Hasslefree and Corvus Belli (also usable as High Value Targets for Infinity), several corpse models to replace the cardboard counters, and more Vanguard Samaritans and A.I. drones
• Other Terrain: More MDF buildings

Nineteen months into this 12-month project (yeah, I know), I`ve managed to finish 52 models and a couple of dozen buildings and terrain pieces. For me that`s a significant amount of effort. I`m glad it turned out pretty well.

Sedition Wars Project Revisited

(Click on pictures to embiggen.)

Sedition Wars is very fun, but is currently a relatively unknown board game. Very much like playing Resident Evil, as the hi-tech Vanguard are pitted against the nano-virus-fueled zombies ("Revenants" in Sedition Wars parlance), and other (d)-evolved creatures of the Strain. Always lots of cinematic events.

A little while ago Conscript Byron and his lovely wife Kim shared side-by-side cabins with Jen and I near Clear Lake. With no WiFi, we hiked and stuff in the daytime, and played board games at night. I had originally wanted to bring out a table of terrain and some minis to do skirmish gaming. With the car already full of luggage and provisions for a week away, I decided to bring Sedition Wars as my figure gaming fix. We had fun playing a couple of scenarios with Byron's friend, Thomas.

(Below) I really like the Vanguard miniatures; the Grenadier is a crisp, resin version from Studio McVey, the other two are restic models from the Sedition Wars boxed set.

Below are three types of undead Revenants (the most horrific is the one with the deflated human head in the middle), and a couple of "evolved" Strain, a Stalker and an acid-firing Quasimodo.

We usually play the game on fully terrained tables, but the cardboard map elements from the game are colourful, and much more portable!

Don't roll low when fighting evil from the depths of space!

Our recent games prompted me to turn back to my (fairly large) collection of Sedition Wars models. I have the contents of at least three basic game boxes, plus some KickStarter exclusives I picked up online, and some very nice resin pieces from Studio McVey before they stopped trading. I decided to tackle the second-toughest Strain model in the entire game, an awesome Grendlr.

ETA: Here's Studio McVey's post about the design and sculpting of the figure: 
https://studiomcvey.blogspot.com/2012/06/sculpting-grendlr.html

To start off with, there were some severe gaps on the restic model, which I filled with epoxy putty . Restic has its own problems, which I outlined when first staring this project some years ago. You can't file it, you can't scrape it easily; you have to cut off mould lines with a fresh, sharp X-acto knife.

The creature has the in-game ability to swallow a human-sized figure whole, and convert it into something else. Bleah!

I pinned the tongue to the mouth, and the feet to the base, with brass wire. I drilled extra-deep locating holes for the tentacles.

Studio McVey also provided their own tutorial on the assembly of this model: https://studiomcvey.blogspot.com/2013/01/grendlr-assembly.html

Below on the right is the assembled figure; alongside for scale is a resin alternate sculpt of Kara Black (in the game, she's a clone of the Vanguard commander, actually).

After initially priming the figure with Chaos Black, I started zenithal highlighting with flat white using an airbrush. Partway through the session, the paint started to spatter. I finished the high highlights with a quick dusting of Citadel Wraith Bone (which is an off-white spray can paint used as a base for GW's new line of Contrast Paints). Project saved!

I started from the inside out, as it were. The various exposed muscle striations, inner mouth, tongue, and tubular bits were highlighted and shaded with various purples, reds, and pinks from the Army Painter Zombicide Warpaints Sets (with apt names like "Crusted Sore" and "Toxic Boils"). I used Citadel's new Technical Contrast Medium to add to the paints and washes, which helped with wetness and flow.

The skin areas around the lower mouths and torso were glazed with Citadel's old Ogryn Flesh wash, then painted with tones from the Vallejo Face Painting Set. The chitinous armour plates got several glazes of Citadel Seraphim Sepia shade. The claws and teeth were highlighted with various P3 and Vallejo cream and off-white colours, then glazed with Army Painter Zombie Shade. The upper face (with the guns) got some NMM work.

The base was glazed with Secret Weapon Stone wash, then finished off with weathering powders and oils.

After the whole figure got a coat of Tamiya Semi-gloss spray, I went back with some trusty Citadel Blood for the Blood God, which provides a suitably viscous, fresh blood effect. This was used judiciously where skin was tearing, and dripping from a couple of claws.

The gaping maw is truly disturbing, as Jen opined.

With this figure I can now run 8 of the 9 scenarios in the included Outbreak Campaign setting.

The only model left to do is the Cthonian, a large, tough model used in the final Boss Fight. I actually find the model to be a little underwhelming, not having the bulk of the Grendlr. I have at least three of these, so I could paint up one as stock for play, and convert another with some GW Juggernaut parts I already have.

Keeping Track of the Strain

I had previously labelled the various identical Vanguard models with etched brass numbers, to keep track of the similarly-armoured and -equipped models during play. From our recent games, it occurred to me to do the same for the Strain. So, I used etched brass letters from Hasslefree Miniatures to label the Revenants, Stalkers, and Quasimodos from, literally, A-Z. The remaining, larger Strain have no dupes, so there's no need at this time to label them (likewise there's no labels on the individual, named heroes on the Vanguard side). I affixed the brass letters with Micro Krystal Kleer, and washed them with a bit of GW Nuln Oil to help pick them out.

Project Progress

So far, it's 53 models (plus a bunch of terrain) for this ongoing project. For immediate carry and play, I got a foam insert from Battle Foam which fits in the original game box. It holds the figures I have completed, plus dice, counters, rules, and the cardboard map boards. It doesn't hold the models' printed stat cards, which I have sleeved to use dry-erase markers on, to track wounds.

With another 30+ Vanguard, including some awesome heavy powered-armour resin figs, and a horde of Strain, I could be painting SW stuff for years to come!

Below, a full squad of Vanguard wearing Gnosis heavy powered armour; resin figs by Studio McVey, painted by Angel Giraldez: