This is one of those weeks where I made steady progress. I wouldn’t say I got anything done that is sexy but it will be handy in the future as I start to play more games of Fallout Wasteland Warfare.
This is not a great photo because the backdrop is my poorly taken care of hobby desk from IKEA but hopefully you don’t mind! I generally don’t enjoy working on terrain but I thought this was fun to work on. I like terrain tasks that use basing skills. That I always find relaxing for whatever reason. I have a couple more straight pieces of train track in my queue so there will be more of this to come as I get more supplies and have the desire to get more done. I’ll take a better picture of this towards the end of the month for Dave Stone’s Apocalypse Me challenge as well.
After finishing the terrain, I looked around my desk to see what else I could finish this week and saw that I had one more Generation 1 Synth to complete. While I don’t find these particularly fun to paint, I was glad to finish another. I also tried to improve how I painted the gun and I think I made some progress there. The one on the right in the picture below is the one I just completed. I think it looks much more realistic and less flat. One of the challenges of the Synths is that some of the details are soft so there isn’t a lot to work with. This is especially true on the guns unfortunately. Even with those challenges, the scheme I did on that first one is way too flat so I’m glad the new one looks more realistic.
Technically, I have another synth I should paint but I really do not like this sculpt. I love Fallout Wasteland Warfare but I don’t want to give a free pass to Modiphius as a result of that either. The pose of this sculpt is just off… It doesn’t look realistic the way the mini is positioned. I will buy more Institute minis and will have to paint more Gen 1 Synths in the future so I think I can safely skip this one. I just know that if I do paint it, I won’t enjoy it and I won’t want to use this mini in games (because it noticeably looks worse than others) so that makes it seem wise to me to forego this one. That means there is just one more Institute mini to paint in my Core Set and I suspect that I will get around to it sooner than later so I can have those ready for a game in the nearish future.
Finally, I played Fallout: The Board Game (TBG) this week and tried to get the rules right this time. Thankfully, I did much better and I had a much better time as a result. I don’t regret buying the game as it is a nice complement to Fallout Wasteland Warfare. Fallout TBG is about taking a character (or characters, if you’re playing solo) and getting stronger through combat and then completing quest goals. Once I figured out how to properly handle enemies, I found that it is pretty easy to pick and choose what enemies you want to face and you can mostly keep your character safe, but not always! The game has a strong narrative feel and its fun to see how quests resolve which is important.
There a couple of things that I think are challenging with Fallout TBG. One is that it is hard to stay true to the narrative of Fallout because there are only five characters to pick from (and truthfully, each character isn’t massively different from one another from a gameplay perspective) but some of them don’t go well together. A Super Mutant and a Brotherhood of Steel member are not hanging out in Fallout but in this game, it is easy to have that happen. To make matters worse, you need to have three players in the game because from what I’ve seen thus far, two can’t get everything done in the game’s time limit and so the difficulty is just a bit too high. So that is a limitation that will bother some people. I also think having a 200 card deck is a lot to manage. I like how the cards work, you complete quests and each card fills in the story a bit more. Having to rifle through a 200 card deck 10-20 times in a game is not completely ideal. I think Fantasy Flight Games could have maybe made an app to handle those sorts of things and save the player some time but it would probably make the game more expensive and I like cards in board games so this is a minor annoyance. My closing thought is that I had enough fun that I’m really looking forward to trying out more of the missions and seeing how those play out. One of these days I will properly review the game but I wanted to share that my initial reaction was incorrect and this is a good game for those of you who are interested.
Kuribo's Painting 
I definitely see an improvement in the painting of the weapon. I agree with you if you don’t like the sculpt, don’t bother painting it unless it is a vital figure for the game and then just bite the bullet and do the best you can.
I hate to be that person, but ballast on train tracks also goes between the rails.
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Thanks for pointing that out about the tracks. I went back to reference some Fallout screenshots and while it was easy to miss, there is most definitely ballast there in-game too. I’ve already starting to add rocks in the middle of the tracks and shouldn’t have too many issues painting them up. I’d much rather catch this now than later!
If I enjoyed painting the Gen 1 synths more and they weren’t time consuming, I’d probably paint the bad one but all things considered, I feel comfortable skipping this one. Thanks for weighing in on both of these things!
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I’m just we caught it before you had done too many. What I missed by focusing on the ballast is how well you had done the rust!
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Cheers! I actually think I might be able to improve the rust and the ballast a bit for the next piece of track so I’m excited to give that a go now after our conversation 🙂
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Nice work on the synth! 🙂 Sometimes you have to have followers for leaders and heroes to command, so I’d have thought another one of these is just one of things you end up painting. It’d be good to see if you could develop some sort of synergy between Fallout (minis) and Fallout TBG.
I think Bret’s got your best interests at heart with the comment about ballast – you don’t really want to get to the end of painting loads of track to find out that it needs some more ballast added between the rails. I made up about five feet of OO/HO track and added the ballast and then painted it all and it took ages. You could cheat and cut coarse sandpaper to go under the track and then add some extra ballast around the edges. Of course, a long-disused railway (I’m a Brit, so railroad to you) could have become overgrown and/or filled up with sand and detritus, so you’ve got a lot of flexibility in what you do. And, of course, you can just choose to ignore my ramblings!
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Thanks, as always, John! The model I’m probably skipping is a grunt in the pecking order of Fallout so I think your point is a good one. I had kind of intended to talk about how minis are and are not useful in Fallout TBG as well but forgot about it. I’ll have to revisit that sometime down the road!
In terms of ballast, I agree. I’m thankful to have someone spot the mistake early on and I’m already working towards correcting it. The “ballast” is wildly out of scale but its the best I can do with the supplies I have and I’m not sweating that part too much. It gets the effect across well enough or so I hope 🙂
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I wish there was a love button next to the like button… but then I am an Gen 3 Institute Synth.
The new laser looks brilliant, that white really looks great. It sets a nice contrast to the off white on the figure and the way you did it adds depth to the sculpt compared to the older one.
The Gen 1 sculpt you dislike reminds me of a Warlord Games skeleton I am working on. Indem to have put it together awkwardly and did not realize at first. I have popped the arms off Torrey to make up for how badly I positioned the feet and hips, aiming for dynamic but still possible… otherwise I will have to just rely on “it is a magically animated skeleton, ignore reality” handwaving.
I am glad you are enjoying the game. I am still resisting Fallout since it is expensive and Mrs. GG is not a big fan but boy do I love Institute and Brotherhood of Steel aesthetics.
As for the tracks, I do not know enough about train tracks to comment on that.
And as sappy as it may sound, I wish we lived close enough for us to try gaming together.
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The Institute surely programmed you to like their minis. It only makes sense! 😀 I’m glad there is some improvement with the newer synth too. There’s no doubt you learn as you go when painting. I may even try and touch up the older weapon now that I’ve figured out how best to paint them.
I’ll be curious to see how that skeleton ends up too. It sounds like a tricky one though a reanimated skeleton can certainly bend some rules of gravity, I would say.
I don’t think your sentiment is sappy at all. I’d gladly host a game or two if I could. If you ever feel like coming to the states, maybe you can time it around Adepticon in the Spring as I can surely meet you there for a game. The weather is generally brisk in Chicago during that time of the year but it is an indoor thing so it is manageable 🙂
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I’ve had the same sappy thought of many bloggers.
(Including Jeff)
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I’m going to start a convention where only my blogging friends are allowed to attend. JeffCon is a terrible name so we’ll call it KuriboCon and that way we can all get together and play wargames. I think it could easily displace Adepticon as the big wargaming event in Chicago 😀
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I don’t think it’s at all sappy or uncommon really. We’ve got quite the group of hobbyists here and I’d also be amongst the (probably) most of us who’d be quite happy if there was a way we could all meet in person for regular games and social interation. It’d be quite the gaming club indeed!
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I couldn’t agree more, mate! 🙂
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The synth is a great improvement on the previous one, and you’ve managed to add a lot more detail to the weapon. The weathering on the tracks is excellent, and gives it an abandoned feel to it, the others are correct about the ballast being between the boards, but at the end of the day, it is your scenery and you do it how you want to.
Great to hear that the boardgame version played better the second time around, especially with the amount of investment that went into it.
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Cheers, Dave! When I see a mistake, I’m usually pretty motivated to fix it so I don’t mind trying to address the inaccuracy I made in this case. Its easy to do it now before I make more tracks too so why not invest the time in it and make sure I really like it going forward. That is well said on the board game as well. I’m relieved that I do enjoy it and want to keep around for a while yet.
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Great job on the train tracks; how long is that piece? And Bret is right, you need ballast between the wood bits 🙂 I guess you could add debris to hide the lack of ballast?
Ugh, I hate soft details on models (here’s looking at you, original Reaper Bones minis) and I’ve got a few I just haven’t bothered with because of that. Both synths look great, and I agree that the newer one is slightly better, especially the gun.
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The ballast has already been added and I will have to carefully drybrush the new additions soon 🙂 The track is eight inches long. And you’re going to have to figure out what that is in the metric system on your own because you’re an American as far as I’m concerned! 😀
Thanks for the kind words on the Synth as well. Its always nice to be able to point to some improvement you’ve made 🙂
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Nice work on the figure and base work mate and glad you enjoyed the game too. 🙂
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Thanks, mate! I appreciate your support as always.
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Awesome, I really like what you’ve done there with that Synthetic. The colour scheme just works perfectly.
I’m really glad that the board game was more fun the second time. Now you just need to get together with some friends to play it.
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Thanks for the kind words on the Synth and getting some friends together for a board game does sound like a lot of fun to me too!
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Nice work on the Synths and I know what you mean that one you are not painting just looks weird.
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Thank you for the kind words, Mr. Eloth and its nice to hear others thoughts on the bad sculpt too! Not painting it does feel a bit wasteful but the argument for not investing the time is more persuasive for me anyway.
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That synth is looking good, you’ve got a way on painting the discoloured plastic on them that looks really realistic. I can see what you mean about the one you’re not painting though, it looks pretty good except that the pose is all over the place – I think she’s supposed to be lunging but she looks like she’s tripping. Could you convert her maybe, take the rear leg off and stick it back on at a better angle (although then her torso would be weird – so maybe you’re right and you should shove her to the back of the shelf and forget about it, it’s a trick that’s worked wonders for me many times in the past!)
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Thanks for the kind words on the painting! I like that part of the paint job too. Its actually really easy with a bit of glazing to get that kind of effect on a mini.
As far as the bad sculpt goes, I think the same about it looking like its tripping. Instead of looking like she’s taking a big swing and looking dangerous, it looks like something from Tom and Jerry or the Three Stooges perhaps! I actually thought the mini was a bit warped but in checking the box art, mine looks fairly close to the studio mini (unfortunately). Your suggestion is a good one but I suspect the super glue I used will make pulling this one back off its base very difficult. I’ll play around with it a bit and see what I can do. If it doesn’t work out, its no big loss!
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Making tracks! I geddit! Chortle chortle snort.
I didn’t notice the missing ballast either until I read the comments above. Can’t be that crucial in the long run.
“While I don’t find these particularly fun to paint I was glad to have done another “. – said me about every miniature ever. 😀
Glad you got the board game back on TRACK.
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I think the title was written with you in mind, Stew 🙂 And haha, I’m glad the quote was relatable as well! I don’t have any clever puns to contribute so I will just say thank you for commenting as always!
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I see you let them railroad you into adding ballast between the boards… Sorry, couldn’t resist that!
I’d love to see some photos of a game of Fallout Wasteland Warfare in play. All the scenery and figures you dangle in front of us must look great in play.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the board game, I think I’ll give it a miss, though. I think there are better games out there and something on my list has to give.
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The floodgates for puns are now open 🙂 I have played Fallout Wasteland Warfare four times thus far and have written up battle reports for each game which you can access here: https://kuribospainting.com/fallout-battle-reports/
You’re welcome! I’ll have to keep working to convince you to spend money to make up for all the quid you’ve costed me thus far 😉
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Lol, yeah, I remembered once I saw the last one. I thought, I’ve read this before, and sure enough, I’d already liked it!
I’ve now read them all and am mighty impressed. It’s now on my christmas list, though I believe it’s waiting a reprint at the moment.
The only issue I have with it, is all those minis to paint. My ‘to do’ list is already long enough!
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I’m glad you enjoyed reading them as I know they’re quite long! I really have had a blast every time I’ve played and that is how Fallout displaced MESBG to become my favorite wargame 🙂
With that said, it will take you some time to paint the minis (you need about 10-15 for a game) and don’t forget about gathering up some terrain too. That is arguably just as time consuming and certainly very important to gameplay. Fortunately, you live in the same country as Modiphius so you should find it easy to get their products delivered straight to the Black Country! 😀
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Great work on the synths, and I have to echo what Wudu said about the sickly discoloured beige platic look you’ve achieved. As for the unliked model, you could always turn her into an interesting piece of scenery with the use of a scalpel, clippers and some other bits and pieces – perhaps an objective marker?
I’ve read that the New California expansion to the boardgame vastly improves it and also turns the competitive/pvp nature of the game into a proper co-op experience. It might be worth picking it up for that reason alone, and with a few more models as a nice bonus. I know storage space has often been an issue for you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you could fit the contents of both into the core set box, especialy if you were to permanently integrate the two together (which also seems to be the way to go with it.)
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Thanks for the kind words on the synth! I actually have a destroyed or incapacitated synth as an objective marker to paint (that I keep procrastinating on!) but you could be on to something there. Thanks for the suggestion!
New California introduces one co-op scenario to the game and Atomic Bonds which came out more recently lets you go full co-op. The game benefits from each expansion you can add but unfortunately, I just couldn’t get into the game so I plan on getting rid of it down the road. There are other games I’d like to try and I gave Fallout TBG a good run out before deciding that it isn’t for me. More time for Fallout Wasteland Warfare and Arkham Horror Card Game for example 🙂
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Just checked my emails and apparently I also have Atomic Bonds. Bought all three in the same shipment, so that makes sense. I hope it’s not too far away from the other two boxes, but I suspect it’s somewhere else as we reoganized the board games awhile back and I don’t recall a deck of cards anywhere near the 2 Fallout Boxes…
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Atomic Bonds is a pretty small box if you kept the contents in there. FFG used to release quite a few expansions in that size and I think they favor larger boxes now. I bet it makes keeping track of them a bit easier!
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Had a (brief) look the other day but no sign, and it wasn’t in the core set box either.
I’m sure it’ll turn up eventually. Lots of other stuff to play in the interim anyway…
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