Tanks on the Moon

 

Tanks on the Moon?  Well, maybe tanks on a moon.  That can't possibly be our Moon with that color.

So, with a little bit of time on my hands I've decided to commit to getting a full table of terrain to go with my little future tanks, which include both my scratchbuilds shown here and commercial armor from the old Future Wars line.

At first I was going to do a terrestrial city board but then decided to do a moonscape instead, figuring it'd be quicker to build and really punctuate the sci-fi theme.

I made the big rocky outcropping piece above as a test piece.  We had some leftover "Lemongrass" house-paint from when we first moved in (8+ years ago) so I tried that out with a tiny bit of black craft paint added.  A quick ink wash left the terrain piece with a decidedly greenish tint.  I may repaint with a more gray-brown tone but as of right now I'm sticking with this shade.  As I said, the terrain represents some arbitrary cratered planetoid and not Luna.

I chose the moonscape option because it also allows me to make "futuristic" buildings, i.e. it frees me from having to make buildings that accurately replicate Main Street in one's hometown.  

Tank is 33mm long for scale

Food packaging, combined with a few techniques from sci-fi model building, like thin plastic panel add-ons and weathering, make suitable lunar outpost structures.  The greeblies and nurnies on this example Administration Building generally came from my bits box, except the rooftop machinery, which I sculpted, molded, and cast.

The building's red color was borne out of necessity.  I bought a defective can of white spray paint and totally ruined another building, as shown in the before-and-after shots below.  I knew the red spray can worked well so I just went with it.  Who knows, maybe the buildings are painted high-visibility to be spotted from space.  

I hate painting terrain.

Before: Color OK but clogged airbrush

After: Thanks Rust-o-leum

Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game Three-shot Recap (Pt 0.5) Timeline

Nine months ago(!) I ran a game of TSR's old Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game (MSHAG), also known as "the SAGA system" or "the one with the cards".  Months later I started a recap on this blog and never got past Part 0, the intro.

So, here I am trying to shift my sleep pattern for an upcoming week of night-work and looking for stimulation to keep me awake... perfect time to knock the cobwebs off the old blog. 

My first recap post mentioned the use of Microsoft OneNote as a campaign organization tool.  One thing I did in OneNote was create a timeline (and update it as the PCs interacted with it).  I've cut-and-pasted the timeline below right out of my notes so it's a bit rough and stream-of-consciousness.  The only changes I've made here were to delineate which parts of the timeline are canon (i.e. actually published in comic book form or real-world events), versus non-canon.

Text in bold indicates canon material (with source).  Text in italics indicates background material created by the Narrator (the MSHAG equivalent of the game master, me in this case).  Underlined text indicates events that happened in-game.  Brackets around the name, i.e. [NPC name] indicate non-canon non-player characters; <PC names> sit between wedge symbols.  Any other character (and place, organization, etc.) is canon.

The timeline in my OneNote is actually much longer than this but only because I updated it after each session to keep myself straight.  In the presented timeline below, I've included only that portion prior to Session 1.

Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game January 2022 Three-shot Recap Timeline    

1960 Wakanda scientist blasts off a full year before Reed Richards' crew and encounters the same cosmic rays.  Brother is stowaway in the capsule and also is altered.  Capsule crashes into the Atlantic and scientist falls into suspended animation, her body altered to become sentient water.  [Evil brother] becomes serpent-like and near-mindless, using crashed capsule as lair.

1971 (Iron Man 36-37) The Changers come, IM destroys "Ramrod", one of five robots but four scatter around the globe; one in China, one in Africa, one in the Arctic, one in Central America.  The robots' controller, "the Foreman" dies in NYC, freezing the four remaining Changers in their far-flung locations; his spaceship is abandoned where IM's fight with Ramrod took place in Midtown Manhattan.  What happened to the spaceship and control-helmet?? (Project Pegasus got the spaceship (or parts) and helmet).  The robots are still frozen at their locations (except... see below). 

1972 The African robot mysteriously reactivates in a border-nation to Wakanda, wreaking havoc as it approaches that country.  Wakanda scientist, [Dr. Nsansa] deciphers the technology and deactivates the Changer after Wakanda armed forces manage to subdue it.

Spring 1980 Low-security portion of Project Pegasus (think display case in the entrance lobby) broken into; thieves steal Atlantean weapons, which were captured from Atlantean soldiers during a previous invasion (Fantastic Four Annual 1). 

Summer 1980 Members of Atlantean colony find the Wakandan capsule and drive off the [serpent-being] but only after it wreaks havoc.  A delegation from Atlantis sets off for the UN in NYC to argue for compensation, bringing the capsule.

Unknowingly the Atlanteans also released the Wakanda astronaut from her suspended animation, and she becomes the unintentional superhero known as the [Aquanaut].

Wakanda genius [Dr. Nsansa] dispatched to NYC to examine the capsule.

The B-grade supervillain known as the Atom Smasher hatches a plan to kidnap [Dr. Nsansa] and take him to site of the Central American Changer to activate it in a mad scheme.

Not having the resources to directly attack the Wakanda Embassy (and wanting a diversion), the Atom Smasher stokes a racially-motivated gang war.  Using the Atlantean/Wakanda relations in the news, Atom Smasher plays on paranoia and temporarily unites the Russian, Irish, Italian, and skinhead gangs.  Perpetuates the "Black and Blue" takeover myth by stealing old captured Atlantean weapons from Project Pegasus and giving them to non-white street gangs.

13 August 1980: Atlantean delegation arrives at the UN; Democratic National Convention wraps up Primary selection of Jimmy Carter as candidate.

Evening of 14 August 1980 (Campaign Present day):  Fate brings PCs together, beginning the events of Session 1.