Wait, what? Where’s Eomer? Well, I had to wait on supplies to get moving on the base and I thought to myself, if I can get a bit more terrain done for Fallout, that would justify me being able to play again in the near future. So I started another storage crate and managed to get it done this weekend (and only just considering its Sunday). There isn’t too much to say about it other than that it came out fairly nicely and I like the colors I chose for this one. I want the crates to add color to the drab wasteland but not too much color at the same time.
How many storage crates is that now, I hear you ask? Well, its three done and that means I can pull off a real pro wargamer move like this!
Its great to hit a terrain milestone, even if it is a small one and I’d say I’m getting close to the point where I don’t need to worry about not having enough line of sight terrain to throw down on the table which has taken quite a while to get to. One thing that I didn’t understand about terrain until more recently is that a wargamer’s terrain truly is a collection that was built up over a long period of time. You have to stay patient and commit to years of gradual work if you want to have impressive terrain for a given setting. It isn’t my favorite thing to work on in the hobby but I am always happy when I have more toys to use in my Fallout sandbox at the same time. This post serves as my entry into Dave Stone’s Season of Scenery Challenge. If you ever need motivation to get some terrain done, entering in a fun community event like this is a great way to go and I’m glad to be participating. I don’t know if I’ll get any other terrain done or not between now and the end of August but if inspiration strikes, I’ll be happy to do so!
Since we’re on the subject, Modiphius keeps cranking out new content for Fallout Wasteland Warfare. I haven’t talked about it much because I have so many scenarios to play right now as it is but they recently released Into the Vault which provides rules for how to create vault “dungeons” in the game.
There is fantastic terrain out there so that you can create your own custom or randomized vaults like from Black Site Studio room-by-room.
So that is now an even more tempting project to take up in the future, assuming I can find a good way to store everything. They also released Astoundingly Awesome Tales which provides extra rules and scenarios for many of the factions. The game didn’t need them as it has probably close to one hundred already but its hard not love the amount of content the game has had in its reasonably short lifespan. That was always my favorite part of LOTR/Hobbit/MESBG. There are more scenarios to play and minis to paint and terrain to make than you can ever hope to accomplish in a lifetime. There is something comforting about that as you commit time and money into a game. You don’t want to get started only for it to be cancelled and feel like you’ll run out of things to do eventually.
Kuribo's Painting 
Nice bit of work on that container, Jeff! 🙂 Colours of all three work together well I think. I find the Season of Scenery challenge a big help and with it running for two months I can usually build up enough inertia to keep going on it (although it has taken me until today to actually finish something)!
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Thank you, John! I kind of improvised the colors but with this last one, I thought, I had better pick a color that would match the previous two, just to be safe 🙂 I need all the help I can get with terrain so I know what you mean. I look forward to seeing some finished terrain from you soon!
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Excellent looking crate Jeff, nice bit of weathering to it as well, and totally agree that building a great set of terrain to game over, can take a lot of time and money.
Good to hear that Fallout is still supporting the game, and it has new ways to entice you to do more scenery.
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Thanks, Dave! I do find that the terrain for Fallout is more enjoyable and less repetitive than it was to play LOTR. One or two trees are alright, but you have to crank out 10, 20, 30, and that got tiresome for me.
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Great work as usual mate!
Seeing some photos online of Superduper Mart and Vault-Tec vault film sets for the upcoming Amazon Fallout TV series had me filled with amazing levels of Fallout nostalgia. Just like your Fallout game pieces do to me!
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Thank you! That is high praise indeed. I’ve seen a few photos from the show and have been impressed by what I’ve seen. Amazon seems to really nail the visuals for their shows as The Man in the High Castle does a great job of bringing its alternate history world to life. The LOTR show looks like it will have similar impressive visuals too.
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Hopefully the Amazon Fallout TV series is set in a different location not seen in the games. Hopefully it might offer some opportunities for new lore content and possibly new factions. Probably a money maker for Modiphius to produce miniatures as part of a tie in product to the series 😀. Or if it’s Fallout 4 on screen, I hope we finally get to see the one and only, Soup Can Harry! 🤣
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I think it would be cool to see the Fallout show go somewhere new too. I don’t mind if they borrow story/plot lines from the game but we don’t necessarily need a rehashing of the main plot of Fallout 4 for example. I’d love to see Modiphius make more minis as well. There is a lot of debate and excitement whether new LOTR minis will get made from that TV show so its an exciting time all around 🙂
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I agree… I am becoming increasingly, yet still nervously, optimistic.
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Nice work on the crate, Jeff, I like the subtle weathering, it makes a change from my habit of slapping rust paint all over the place LOL!
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Haha, you do better than you make it sound! I do find that a light touch rarely goes amiss in our hobby as well 🙂
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Is this like stacks on stacks on stacks?
Nice job. I do think the three of them together look good. Games with low miniature count always take way more terrain but as it builds up it becomes a cool collection on its own. 😀
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Yeah, I’m well on my way towards making an Egyptian-style pyramid here haha! I would say that your terrain rule is one piece of wisdom you’ve passed on to me. It might be one of the few pieces of wisdom but it is a good one! 😉
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Nicely done mate and a worthy entry too. I know some terrain can be boring to do but every game looks so much better for it. 🙂
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Thanks, mate! And you nailed it on the tedious part. I guess it isn’t so different than having to do X knights to finish a diorama when it comes down to it.
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Nice work mate. I also enjoy terrain work. I’m not sure if it’s my favourite part of the hobby like you but it’s probably a close second after converting.
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Cheers, mate. I wish I had your knack for converting myself 🙂
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Just pretend it’s like Lego. Visualise what you want and then find the bits
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Looks great, and a nice little collection you’re putting together! Can’t beat a nice container for flexible terrain, they fit pretty much everywhere, you can stack them, lay them in a line, put them on top of other terrain, the sky’s the limit!
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I’m glad you mentioned it because I had intended to express a similar sentiment in this article and probably forgot! Shipping crates are really the perfect piece of terrain for post-apocalypse, modern, and Sci-Fi. They block sight, are customizable so you don’t feel like you’re seeing the same house or ruin everywhere and they look great on the table too.
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Looks good, and containers are nice versatile pieces as well. The rust weathering is very effective. 👍
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Thanks, mate! These are the type of things that exciting to have when you game and a relief when you’ve got them done and can move on to something more exciting.
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Crates are a must! In any sci-fi setting or modern day wargaming crates are a must for scenery. I just wish I considered getting some crates for my table top some day 😅.
I remember when I got a Fallout Wasteland Warfare set there was a free battle plan where you had to traverse through loads of crates to capture a mini nuke from the Super Mutants. It’s quite a fun game of objective capture and holding an egg whilst being peppered with bullets sort of game.
You’ve done an amazing job so far! Takes ages to get a decent lot of terrain made and painted (since miniatures are 75% of the time a priority for most hobbyists). Even scratchbuilding terrain takes ages to make since you’ve got to account for various environments in the setting.
The latest expansion for F:WW looks great, I saw a bit of WGNR guide to using this ruleset. I was almost tempted to buy it to use as part of a Vault 34 generated adventure. But oof! £15 for a 22 page PDF? The previous expansion PDF, Astoundingly Awesome Tales: Chapter 1 only costed £6 (£20 for paperback) which has 51 pages.
I somehat remember the campaign PDF costed around £7 ish for 20 or so pages? So I’m pretty shocked by the sudden price rise for the Into the Vault PDF.
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You should definitely grab some crates when you can. They get more use in my games than just about anything else I’d say.
I haven’t played that scenario but I know which one you’re talking about. It does sound like a fun one to me. I’m finally done with the tutorial scenarios and I’m eager to branch out and try some of the other ones out there now and to learn the factions and minis beyond what you use in the tutorial. I have a lot of minis to be painted but I can field some Super Mutants, Survivors, and The Institute anyway.
The last two supplements have been really expensive besides Astoundingly Awesome Tales, of course. The Commonwealth one is really bad at around $40 US. For a paperback book, that is way overpriced and there is content in it like painting guides that I don’t really need so I’m a little reluctant to purchase it until I really need it. I do wish the Modiphius produced physical cards for these expansions too. I like the real cards and don’t want to try and print my own but as far as I know, we still don’t have cards for Into the Wasteland which came out quite a long time ago now.
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I’ll have to get some down the road, I think TTCombat do some so I’ll try them.
I think you can get it along with five other battle plans for free as a PDF on Modiphius website in the downloads page. They’ve got a few free battle plan content, some are themed around certain areas in the series.
From what I’ve seen on WGNR, you get cards with the Commonwealth expansion as punch out card sheets, so you get the expansion booklet and the cards with the AI versions that are exsclusive to that product. It’s like the New Vegas wave with how that was done, though the former has significantly improved on removing the cards from the sheet. For £33, its somwhat okay, though tbh I did find the NV expansion somwhat lacking in content for the price tag (especially when the Legate Lanius card has a print error where it doesn’t have the unique character icon on the top left corner).
So I did some research and I find it odd that Astoundingly Awesome is £6 and the campagin booklet was £7, in the range of 20 to 50 pages. I can’t tell why Modiphius thinks a 20 page PDF for Into the Vault would be £15.
What makes it pricey is the fact that previous PDF gaming supplements were under £10, so my worry is if people justify this pricing then I could see it as a norm. Modiphius whilst it’s done a lot of great things that make it less constrictive as a hobby unlike GW, I do think the company can sometimes make some odd decisions.
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Multiverse Gaming is where I got my shipping containers and they’re European based so you may find them a good option if you decide against TTCombat as well.
I am probably being unfairly hard on Commonwealth because it does come with the cards too. I do think its a lot to pay and the cards better be of a good quality for that price! With that said, Into the Vault does stand out as being overpriced. I just watched the WGNR battle report and its cool looking but the scenario that he played seems a little shallow to me. I can see playing vault missions mixed in with other ones but I don’t think you could do a vault campaign as easily which is a little disappointing. From my perspective, it takes a lot of time and effort and storage space to make a full vault needed for those scenarios and I’m not sure if there is enough gameplay variety and fun to justify it. I probably need to buy the overpriced PDF to truly be able to decide for myself!
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Very nice, you can’t go wrong with a few storage containers to decorate your post-apocalyptic wasteland. Terrain, I find, is something you need to be in the mood to work on. It can be very relaxing though – and as you say once it builds up over the years you can end up with a collection that really brings these games to life.
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It always helps to have some versatile terrain that you can add to any game. I completely agree with everything you said about terrain. If the hobby was 60-75% terrain making and the remaining percentage painting miniatures, I doubt I’d be as into it as I am for example. With that said I am starting to embrace the long game when it comes to collecting terrain 🙂
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