My clubs voted on playing Paleo Diet Eat or be Eaten for our September game. Unfortunately the only members who could make it were my son Thomas and myself. We ended up just having a good father and son game together.
I set up the terrain and then let Thomas pick what animals, their numbers, and distribution we'd be facing.
The rules have a great set of tables to randomly generate each crew member. You roll to see what their race is, their background, motivation, and class. You also roll to see what starting weapons, gear, and gadgets you'll get, even your starting ship (and how much debt you'll have). You can also randomly determine who the group met. I decided to roll up a 6 person crew and do everything by the random tables. I assigned gear/weapons after and randomized half the names. Once I had the crew built I ended up finding a perfect miniature for each on Reaper Miniatures and placed an order. Below I will introduce each crew member with their backstory. I plan to document each campaign turn.
Ana Maria, Morva Frayne, & Otetiani
The group was brought together by Ana Maria. Though her interests laid else were, Ana's family forced her to follow the family tradition of perusing a medical and scientific research career path. They sent her to the best school in the sector and she quickly showed great promise. Upon graduation she was offered a lucrative job with the R&D department of a well known pharmaceutical company, Biodine Pharma. Not wanting to disappoint her family, Ana excepted the position. It didn't take long before she realized her mistake. She first realized something was up when she and the other new employees where loaded up on an old colony ship and not told of their destination. Her suspicion grew when the ship landed and they found out they would be working at a secretive research outpost on Old Anaanella III, well outside of Unity space. Ana's suspicions were confirmed when she discovered what they would be working one, highly illegal experimentations on sentient aliens. The employees were cutoff from the outside world, supplies was brought in each cycle on the old colony ship. They were told their work was critical to the genetic updating techniques used to extend human life and to think of the aliens as only subjects, not individuals. Their "subjects" were guarded by bots since they lacked any sympathy for what was happening. Ana's first "subject" she was assigned was a Hakshan. She quickly learned his name was Morva Frayne and about his life before he had been abducted and sold to the lab.
Morva had been a skilled technician onboard a long-term space mission. The mission he and his fellow Hakshan's had been on was the pursuit of Truth, the truth of the lost location of the Hakshan home world. Their ship had been attacked by pirates and the surviving crew members had been taken prisoner and sold to Biodine. He was very friendly and held no blame or ill will towards Ana. Together they came up with an escape plan. Morva would help Ana hack and reprogram the Z-Bot guarding Morva. They would then use the Z-Bot to help them take control of the colony supply ship on its next visit. However, they realized that neither of them new how to fly a spaceship. Ana was able to gather some information on the other "subjects" a learned that their was a K'Erin who had previously been a ships crewmen and had some piloting skills.
The K'Erin, named Otetiani, was harder to befriend the Morva had been. Otetiani, true to its race's nature, was extremely aggressive. It held the researchers in the same contempt as the corporation who had hired it to fly the colony ship to Old Anaanella, just to hand it over as a new Subject. K'Erin adhere to a very strict social order and Otetiani was greatly upset, not because of being experimented on, but because of its loss of station. Ana promised that if it would help them escape the she would let it resume its station as the pilot of the colony ship. It could also get revenge on those who had offended its place in the social order of life.
With a plan now in place, the group executed their escape when the ship made it next supply run. Luck was with them and the trio along with the Z-Bot where able to make good their escape with the stolen colony ship. However Biodine was not going to just let them get away. Their was too much risk to the company if word got out what they were doing. They quickly and quietly put out a bounty on the trio's head.
The group was not out of the woods yet. Their ship, unironically named Magnificent Tidings, only had enough fuel to get them to the capital city on planet. The best opportunity for stealing the ship had been right before the refueling process had started. Once in the star port Ana quickly contacted a childhood friend for help. He worked for a shipping corporation, Orbital Interactions, that happened to have a small office on planet. The best he could do was to get the local office to forge ownership records or credit for the Magnificent Tidings in order to prevent the local government from impounding the ship. Their only hope was to find a way to earn some credits to pay for fuel and to get off world before Biodine caught up to them. There had been some weapons onboard the ship but they would need more help in order to taken on a job lucrative enough to afford getting off world.
These are the stock images off of Reaper Miniatures for the models I ordered.
Otetiani
Helena Merckx had been a Bureaucrat in the Unity Government for years. As a shining beacon of Humanity's accomplishment, you would have thought working for Unity would have been reward enough. Not so for Helena. As the years went by she began to loose faith in the super technological world around her. She was unable to find fulfillment and satisfaction in modern society. One day she had enough and walked out of her job. She wanted to find a simpler way of life but their was nothing left in Unity space that was still untouched and whiled. So she sold everything she had and bought passage to fringe. Their she found herself on Old Anaanella III with nothing but a backpack and Hunting Rifle she had gotten before leaving. She needed some work before she could set off to live off the land, after all, even on the fringe their were fees and license that were needed to be paid for. It was here at a local freelance highering office that she saw the odd trio enter, a human woman, K'Erin, and Hakshan. They were looking at some of the higher paying jobs but clearly didn't seem to have enough people to pull them off. What the did have was the correct licensing in order to take the good jobs. She hefted her big rifle onto her shoulder and walked right up to the trio. They were very secretive at first but soon agreed that they could indeed use the extra help. She learned that the human's name was Ana, the K'Erin was Otetiani, and the Hakshan was Morva. She was surprised to see they had their own ship and even more surprised that they had a Z-Bot on board. When Helena asked what they called the Z-Bot the trio didn't have an answer. Helena decided to call it Red since it sported red ceramite plating and the others seemed to agree it was fine.
Helena Merckx
Lain is not exactly a bad guy though no one would ever have called him good either. Growing up as a wasteland nomad on a war ravaged planet dose not instill much of a sense of empathy or sympathy. When he got drawn into gang life he did learn a sense of comradery. He didn't take any pleasure from hurting other or killing others when the gang ordered him to but then again he didn't feel any remorse for it either. He only had one real passion and that was for high tech stuff. His fascination was not about understanding it but about owning and using it. When his gang got recruited by a pirate faction off world, he thought this was his best opportunity to score some high end tech. But he soon found that they were just cannon fodder in a turf war and most of his old gang mates got killed off pretty quick. Lain jumped ship the first chance he got and found himself on Old Anaanella III with decent fighting and survival skills but unsure of how to get work with them. He was hanging around the star port, admiring the different ships when he noticed the old colonial ship Magnificent Tidings. He actually recognized that name as the ship was famous on his home plant for its roll in the evacuations during the war that ravaged the planet. He waited around for the crew to return and was struck by how pretty their leader was. She went by Ana and he asked her if they needed any hired help. Ana and her crew couldn't offer to pay him anything up front, but did offer him a place to sleep and his share of any earnings and loot for jobs he helped them on. Lain eagerly excepted.
Lain
I finished the first unit of Victrix Anglo-Saxons for my Hail Creaser army. The miniatures were a pleasure to paint though I tried to focus a bit more on speed and bit less on detail then I normally do. I have 7 more units this size to paint as well as 3 command bases, and 4 skirmish units.
The shield decals and banner are from the Little Big Men Studios and are the best I have ever used, so easy to put on. The bases and tray is from War Bases and are magnetized to help keep the unit together and for transportation. I have based them individually on 20mm bases for widest rang of playability with multiple rules sets.
Over Labor Day Weekend I got some painting in with my son Thomas (age 6). Every time he goes to a hobby store with me I let him pick out a reaper bones mini for him to paint up however he wants. Recently he has acquired several monsters and this is the first one he has finished painting. I am extremely proud of him. He had a very good attitude the whole time and only got a bit discouraged when he got paint were he didn't intend to. I helped talk him through it by showing him the miniatures I was working on and pointed out some of the mistakes I had made. Once he was finished painting it I put a wash on it (the only help I physically did). The end result is perfect. He really wanted to make a scary looking monster and he nailed it. I need to get him his own case for storing his models in.
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