Ghostbusters roleplaying game - a Halloween one-shot

 

I've been remiss in keeping the blog up to date. But that's been for good reasons. I was developing a homegrown d20 version of the Ghostbusters roleplaying game with a view to running a one-off Halloween game for my roleplaying group. Well, time got away, and we were only able to catch up for the game last Sunday evening.

These pictures are from a critical moment in the opening act of the game. The game began with the lads hurtling down Main Street in Ecto 1B in hot pursuit of The Driver who had possessed a taxi. Being new recruits to The Ghostbusters, they weren't entrusted with using Ecto 1A. As it stood, they and a police car were chasing the taxi as it drove recklessly narrowly missing pedestrians and other vehicles on the wrong side of the road. The police car lost a tyre as it was attacked by mutant spookflies and was taken out of the chase. The lads, hanging out the window with their proton emitters, managed to take out a number of spookflies (the driver also took out a couple with one splatting into the windshield of Ecto 1, and another slamming into the rear window when he slammed on the breaks).

Finally, the lads managed to take out one of the possessed taxi's wheels and it came to rest in a blocked off intersection.

This was where the fun began when The Driver possessed one car after the other sending them careening forwards into the intrepid players. They managed to get out of the way and a car pileup at the intersection ensued. Eventually they were able to make The Driver manifest and hit him with their proton streams before wrangling him into a trap. Job done; they felt pretty good about themselves.

Slimed! Down for 1d4 rounds. Bloody spookflies!

This was Act 1 of the game and meant to teach them how to play using some of the special mechanics for ghost wrangling and capture. But it turned out to go for longer than I expected and was a blast. I have to say that it's the first time I've seen my players actually pull together as a team.

I didn't get any photos of Act 2 of the game. But what was supposed to be a one-shot adventure has turned out to be longer than I expected. The idea to do a Halloween special one-shot was done on the fly, and you can see that I still haven't fully finished basing the miniatures. Nor did I have any decent road terrain, having to make do with an old grid board. Still, everyone enjoyed themselves and felt involved in the action.

Anyway, once I've finished painting and basing the miniatures properly, I'll post some better photos. But these were caught in the middle of the action and so I thought I would share them given how absent I've been on the blog of late.

The cars are all 1:43 scale. The miniatures are all Crooked Dice Miniatures Paranormal Investigators. The lads were all recruits and so aren't the main characters from Ghostbusters. The setting had them standing in with minimal training whilst the main characters all were interstate at a conference somewhere.

Halo for Gruntz15mm - Halo Ground Command

I was fortunate enough in the day to have purchased some of the Halo Ground Command miniatures from the now defunct Spartan Games. These are 15mm metal miniatures. But I wasn't a fan of the game system or the multi-bases for the soldiers. I only prefer multi-bases for 10mm and below.

Finding Gruntz 15mm recently has breathed new life into these miniatures. My test squad is finally finished and ready for the tabletop.

Painting was a very simple process.

• carefully cut off the plug that is attached to each miniatures foot that's used for the multi-base.
• Prime in black spray
• drybrush fatigues in light grey
• paint combat armour in a suitable green colour
• paint the skin
• drybrush the weapon with a gun metal metallic paint
• wash in Agrax Earthshade
• do the base...done!

Sarge!

This is the combat medic

Field comms

Fireteam Alpha

One team down. Just a few more to go.

15mm Ork'ish Stormboyz for GRUNTZ 15mm

For my 15mm Space Ork army I wanted some proxy Stormboyz type assault troops who can jetpack (or rocket) ahead of the main force to harass supply lines and quickly take strategic points. Enter my latest hack creation. These lads are from Ground Zero Games, from their 15mm Stargrunt Humans and Misc. Alien infantry line. Specifically, from their SG15-X05 and SG15-X08 miniatures. The look orky enough and that's good enough for me.

Some of the miniatures are wearing goggles in the style of WW1 goggles worn by pilots and motorcyclists. So, they look like they would suit to be the kind of insane ork willing enough to strap a rocket to their back and hope for the best.

The lad with the two guns a blazing is their squad leader and there are two specialists carrying heavy weapons to support the boyz. This permits the group to be split into two smaller teams of four gruntz with an attached specialist and the squad leader. I do have some more of these and will likely make another fully fleshed out squad of ten.

The rockets are from Agents of Gaming and are their miscellaneous missiles and torpedoes items. There are even some plasma torpedo type options there somewhere in their shop and I purchased two of these to see if they could be used as flame coming from the rocket. Hence the dude lying on his back. This last model I intend to have airborne to make a nice visual peace.

Anyway, there you go. I'll get on to painting them and mounting the airborne rocket man er... rocket ork soon so I'll post about that when they are done.

Spoils of MOAB 2024

 

Gale Force 9 Gothic Sector Orbital Relay.

Some of the spoils I purchased at MOAB last weekend were for my Gruntz 15mm games. I purchased them with only the box size and art to go by. But I took the conservative punt that they would be usable at the 15mm scale despite the fact that one item was aimed at the 28mm scale and the other at the Battletech (epic) scale.

The Orbital Relay is a 28mm scale piece of terrain. However, it does work with the 15mm scale as well. As can be seen below. For comparison, the Stalker with the AK is a 28mm miniature I use for Zona Alfa. The smaller figure of the two is a Khurasan 15mm Felid Alien Warrior.

I didn't unwrap the additional parts that go onto the building. But these come with magnets for easy connection and disassembly for storage. Without the additions fitted, the Orbital Relay does look like a futuristic Conning Tower on a submarine.

Gale Force 9 Hextech Power Station Battlefield in a Box.

Hextech is designed with Battletech in mind and makes some very nice scenery. The good news is that you don't have to apply the hex base to the terrain piece if you don't want to. So, this scale can fit nicely with some other scales. Above is the power station from Hextech that I purchased with a view to use it as a power generator at 15mm scale. These generator's tunnels representing power conduits at 15mm rather than elevated walkways at Battletech scale.

I believe that my bet has paid off. These nice terrain pieces would be able to be used as terrain at 15mm scale and I will likely get some more similar terrain in future.

MOAB 2024 - Mother of All Battles is on this long weekend - part 2

 

These look familiar

Well, MOAB is over for another year. In the last post, I showed off what was going on. This post will be about what caught my eye. There weren't many sellers there this year and much of the floor was taken up with gaming. But those sellers I did see, I spent way too much money at.

I had no idea that Gale Force 9 were producing a set of scenery products from the excellent Dawn of War video game. I have MDF versions of some of these from eBay at 15mm and I purchased the Orbital Relay to see if this is compatible with 15mm sci-fi. These were being sold by Aetherworks who are a regular at MOAB.

Slave2Gaming were also present. They are another stable of MOAB.

I was hoping to see if there was any 15mm sci-fi miniatures around at MOAB and I certainly hit the jackpot with Slave2Gaming. Their MA.K 15mm range is incredible. I spent a fair amount with them and got some excellent miniatures for Gruntz 15mm. Below is a plethora of photos from their MA.K 15mm sci-fi range and a few 15mm from their other ranges. These are really nice sculpts.

I got two of these wheeled vehicles. I couldn't resist.

The Afghans are from their 15mm Cannon Fodder Modern Range and would make useful insurgents.

I got one of each of these also.

I picked up a unit of these. Really nice and I'll probably use them for Moongrunt (Gruntz 15mm on the Moon).

I got these too.

These are also Gale Force 9 and are from their Hextech range for Battletech. I purchased the Power Station for the photo below to see if it would work in 15mm.

Hextech Power Station

Had to buy this one.

MDF anyone?

Mick's Metal Models was also at MOAB and is another stalwart of the convention.

Well, that's it from MOAB this year. Now I have a LOT to get painted.