Finally painting (actual cowboys) again

August 8, 2012 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Well after far, far too long using my old figures and collecting many unpainted cowboys I finally sat down and cranked out two figures. Both are from the Chronoscope line from Reaper Miniatures. They aren’t “heroic scale” like Games Workshop so all the weapons look realistically sized for once. The Chronoscope line has a TON of great figures and movie parodies and stuff.
The thumbnails are a bit grainy so I recommend clicking for the full size. Also the matte protective spray I use is TERRIBLE. I think it settled too much since my last painting night and now sprays on a fine white fluff sort of like grainy snow. Really annoying and it’s especially noticeable in the solo shots below. I used to have a great protective spray but it ran out, and I’ve been trying various brands ever since. Still no luck recreating that thin, even matte covering.
Anyways here they are:

The cowboy with two machine gun pistols is based off the character Tallahasse in the movie Zombieland. I went with an orange shirt to brighten him up, since I find it’s very easy to fall in a rut of “brown + green + black” for a figure. I tried for a worn look on the jean knees and upper thighs, gave him a cool bowler sporting jacket, and went for subdued black + metal drybrush guns.

Then we have Preacher Pike, who I’ve had mostly painted for a while now, aside from finishing up the stand. Pretty simple look for him and he’d be great as a double in a Cthulhu game. I went for a more ornate bright silver hand shotgun, simple but dashing red shirt, and a worn look to his outstretched book. In hindsight I probably should have painted the facial features, but that’s easy to say when the figure is blown up to large size in the picture.

After these I have a khaki wearing safari explorer, a Victorian era British rifleman, a Clint Eastwood “Man With No Name” imitation, a space sheriff, and a few more good ones just waiting to be used on the table.

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Force Fields and Ropes

August 1, 2012 — Dinosaur Cowboy

Just knocking around some variant ideas.

The first and simplest is additional rules for Ropes and Ladders. Basically if a rope or ladder is by a cliff face then a character doesn’t need to use double movement to climb (much like the “Climber” Trait). This would allow for some fun scenario scenery with ladders, or just bonus special abilities for some purchasable equipment. Hemp Rope and Micro Rope would fit in this case, and could be slung down a cliff from the top by a character in their Action Phase (to help anyone following them). If they have a Grappling Hook then they could throw the rope up from the base of the cliff in their Action Phase.
This gets back to my earlier idea of having equipment with additional special rules. Like instruments that inspire, or drinks/drugs that boost stats, etc.

The second idea is Shields, not in a “buckler on the arm” sense but more like an Force Field. Or Energy Shield, or Force Shield, or Power Field, or any of the other terms I could use. I think I’d stick with Force Field since that’s kind of pulpy sounding. There are two ideas how these would look, either a personal shield generator that surrounds the person in a globe or a thin layer of shielding, or the “modern buckler” idea of a holdable energy shield. Basically either of these (I would have loved to have found better pictures but I didn’t have much luck!):
Holding:

Globe:

The rules would be simple. Force Fields would have a Power and Frequency rating. Power would be a number of D12s to roll, Frequency would be an X+ value. Any Power rolls greater than or equal to the Frequency would negate 1 point of incoming damage. If the number of Critical Hits on the attack exceeds the Power rating the Force Field is overloaded and cannot be used for just that attack.
For example:

Small Force Field: Power 3, Frequency 6+

Peter is equipped with a Small Force Field and is fired at by Hank with an 80kW Six-Shooter. Hank hits for 4 damage. Peter rolls 3D12 for his Power, hoping for 6+. He gets a 10, 8, and 4, so two successes. That means the incoming damage is reduced from 4 to 2.
If Hank instead got lucky and rolled 8, 12, 12, 12, the 3 Criticals would overload the Power rating of 3, so the Force Field would not take effect. Peter would take his 7 damage.

Simple enough. I would make several such items with varying Power and Frequency ratings. A very basic Force Field would probably be Power 1, Frequency 8+. There are a couple of other options too, such as only having Force Fields block weapons with an “Energy” type. Or even Force Fields for each type of damage. Maybe Kinetic Fields for “Projectile” and “Grenade” types. There could be extra Traits to support this, or new weapon types with a “Piercing” or “Forcebreaker” special property that helps reduce the effectiveness of shields.
Although more complex (ie: additional rolling and tracking) I think these are a pretty neat idea. I had mentioned a while back wanting to play a robot/android invasion and I might use these Force Field rules for the invaders.

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