Fallout: Sandbox - Pest Control

The elevator's speakers crackled back into life to life, repeating the message that had sent the Vault's population into a panic:

“CONTSINMENT BREACHED. UNKOWN LIFEFORMS DETECTED ON UPPER LEVELS.”

The elevator door opens onto the topmost level for the first time in generations.

As Elara stepped into the darkened corridor, Vault alarms continue to blare. She was here because there was no option. If something had entered the Vault, that meant that either the door had been opened or...well...something more catastrophic.

She hoped it was the former.

She had been equipped with a trusty 10mm pistol and tasked with three goals: clear out whatever had entered the Vault, ascertain their means of entrance, and fix it, ensuring the integrity of the Vault.

Elara briefly wondered why she had been chosen. The Overseer has been most insistent it was her.

Yes. I've decided to start a Fallout Wasteland Warfare campaign, and this time, I'm not rooting it in published scenarios (although I may adapt some), I'm being a bit more creative.

I say more creative, but I'm taking the traditional starting point of a character leaving a Vault. I'm not sure where this is heading, but I'm going to be using a variety of tools to come up with ideas and build my world.

For now though, I'm beginning with a very simple scenario. Elara Vance (Sole Survivor - Day One) must clear and unknown number of unknown creatures (the blue tokens) out of the top level of the Vault before heading to inspect the door.

Initially, I had laid out a number of searchables (the orange tokens) to help Elara get equipped, but as the game went on the Event 'deck' (the Vault chart from the Capital expansion) I was using three out several more searchables, and so you'll notice that most of the preset ones disappear towards the end as I didn't want her to be too tooled up.

As soon as Elara stepped out of the elevator, she could make out some movement in the darkness. Drawing her pistol, she advance cautiously.

In the gloom she could make out an imaciated form. Elara called to the figure, which turned and began to lumber in her direction and into the torchlight.

It's withered skin, spuless eyes and absent no's gave the figure a ghoulish appearance. A wave of sympathy wash over Elara. This poor person was clearly a victim of the irradiated wasteland outside, and was clearly a threat to the integrity and wellbeing of the Vault.

She opened fire.

The bullets didn't stop the creature, but they did slow it down as it advanced on Elara, its teeth bared. It made two powerful lunges at her and Elara though she was done for, but somehow she evaded its clutches and managed to pump two 10mm rounds into its skull, dropping it to the floor.

As she looked down on the poor wretch who has clearly once been human, her pipboy gave out the telltale click of radiation. Her suspicions had been correct. The creature was radioactive and she had been exposed to it.

(I actually forgot to apply the radiation damage at this point, but I did remember later. You will spot when.)

Pushing on in her search for more intruders, Elara wandered through rooms filled with equipment she had no clue as to the purpose of. What had Vault-Tec intended for this?

Amongst the debris she came across items that might be helpful should she have to mend or replace elements connected to the Vault door: an electric fan and a tube of Wonderglue.

Elara also stumbled upon an unused packet of Med-X. It looked like the painkillers had been dropped years before, when all the critical supplies were being moved down below.

She hoped she wouldn't need them and could just drop them off in the infirmary.

The eerie stillness was unsettling. These rooms must have been passed through by those first inhabitants of the Vault, who had descended below the Earth turning their backs on everything they knew which was about to be destroyed.

Elara wondered how that had felt, how frightened they must have been to shut themselves away.

She was grateful they had. She owed them her very existence.

Suddenly she heard something behind her.

Spinning around and shining a light into the darkness, Elara was shocked to see a six-legged from scuttling towards her.

She was momentarily baffled. She had seen pictures of these insects, 'ants', in books, but as far as she could remember they were usually tiny.

This one was massive!

(I used the Radroach Swarm profile for the Giant Ant, which is sadly lacking from the game.)

Again she fired, chipping its carapace, and she kept firing as it came on, taking chunks out of it until it stopped moving.

She paused for breath.

Didn't ants live in colonies? That was a worrying thought.

Pressing on, Elara found herself in some sort of crew office or storage room. On the shelves she found a pair of binoculars and a hazmat suit.

Although the hazmat suit was slightly damaged, she reasoned that both items would be more than useful if she were required to venture outside.

A sudden noise out in the corridor brought Elara back to the mission at hand. She needed to clear out the Vault.

Creeping out into darkness, Elara spotted another emaciated figure lurching towards her. Were these things common in the irradiated world? Had they 'survived' since the bombs dropped? Or were people living some sort of life out there?

The lurching figure bearing down on her brought Elara back to her senses. Fortunately this one seemed weaker and slower and seemed to missing limbs.

She opened fire, dropping the creature quickly, more quickly than the last one.

As the echo of the shots faded, Elara realised that the alarms had stopped. Standing in the darkness and silence, she realised that the first part of her mission was over.

As Elara moved towards the final door before the main entrance chamber, the intercom suddenly cracked into life with the distorted voice of Overseer:

"Elara, we've run diagnostics and determined that the fault is with the external sensors. A failsafe has tripped and opened the Vault door. You need to got out to fix them."

She had feared as much.

Reloading her pistol before struggling into the hazmat suit, Elara braced herself for the unknown outside world.

Well, that was fun. I learned a little about not putting too many searchables on the table and that I should also glance through the events table during set up to ensure that they won't unbalance the scenario.

I might also pick up the Into The Wasteland expansion which is designed to enhance solo play.

Anyway, expect more of this.

Furnishing The Future

At the start of the year I revealed a massive increase in the amount of models I still had to paint. A large chunk of this number comes from the Mantic Games sci-fi dungeon crawler Star Saga, which I'd picked up for £15 at a show.

The game is fine, but I had intended to sell it on and so never counted the contents of the game until it occured to me that the terrain that came in the game might look appropriate in a Fallout vault.

And so that's what I've done with it.

The terrain is basically the contents of two of the Mantic Terrain Crates, the Sci-Fi Doors and Sci-Fi Furniture sets.

As ever, these are always a mixed bag as they are robust and well detailed, but are prone to warping which sometimes cannot be fixed with hot water, as was the case with several of these pieces.

However, the doors set is pretty good. Made from hard plastic rather than the rubbery stuff that Terrain Crates usually come in, these are 10 totally useable doors with zero issues.

To save discussing this further, most of what passes for painting on all of these models is a sprayed undercoat of silver followed by a wash of Nuln Oil. Partly this is for expediency and partly to capture the brushed steel/aluminium look from Fallout Vaults.

The tables, crates and gun racks are similarly dull in their presentation, with only a few other details being picked out.

Here's where the warping and mould issues start to kick in. The table legs were sorted out with the hot water trick, although it remains to be seen if this holds.

However, one of the gun racks has a curve in it, which I've straightened out a little, but still isn't fjat as the other one, and one if the boxes is just frankly warped in it's moulding. I've used a knife to trim it down a touch so that it just looks damaged.

I had fun with the computer screens as I was able to use white on black washed with Hexwraith Flame technical paint to create the effect of the monochrome monitors that appear in Fallout.

To be honest, it's these screens that convinced me to use this set of terrain as I knew I could create this effect easily.

The lab equipment is a bit more involved, with books, test tubes, papers and other bits and pieces to pick out. The fluid tanks were painted white and given a coat of Nihilakh Oxide technical paint, before painting this section with gloss varnish to suggest glass.

Sadly, one of the desks is really warped with the desktop sitting at an angle on the drawers and this it a mould issue rather than anything that can be fixed.

This sort of thing is the reason that I probably would avoid picking up any more Mantic Terrain Crates, especially given their price. Having got the whole game massively discounted, I don't mind. But if I'd spent £25 on the Sci-Fi Furniture set to discover three unfixable issues, I'd be somewhat annoyed.

However, I do now have a range of scatter terrain for any Vault-based shenanigans in games of Fallout Wasteland Warfare, and I'm also expecting the new Five Clones From Alpha Complex book to arrive any day, and I feel this terrain will also work well in games of Paranoia.

After painting these 36 pieces of terrain, I still have to decide what to do with the 36 other miniatures from Star Saga. Some of them might find their way into Fallout Wasteland Warfare as proxy Enclave troops, some are almost certainly destined for Alpha Complex as well, and the rest will find themselves drafted into a range of other projects as I see fit.

There is certainly some work to do.

Acquired: 6

Painted: 45

Lead Mountain: 722

Predictable Developments

It was easy to foresee that that when TTCombat announced that they were releasing a new starter set for Carnevale, World's Faire After-Party, that I would pick it up.

It was probably also somewhat predictable that they would eventually dip their toes into manufacturing plastic miniatures, as they have done with the two factions in the box, the Patricians and, the focus of this post, the Doctors.

I genuinely never intended to collect the Doctors. Partly this was because with my Guild, Rashaar and Patricians, combined with my proxy Strigoi and Vatican, I had enough going on. I also didn't really respond to the miniatures. The animals were cool, but I found the combination of black robed physicians and lunatics a bit dull.

However, when released turned in a more steampunky direction, I was more fired up, and, pleasingly, the Doctors miniatures in World's Faire After-Party follow in that trend.

The Doctor of Divine Probabilities (Carlotta on the background text) is the leader of this little band, although only a Hero in the game. I suspect that she's meant to be some sort of astrologer, divining future events, but I like the idea that she's battling the horrors and murderers of Venice using the terrifying power of maths.

She was surprisingly quick to paint, despite me thinking that she would be the most complex. The model responded really well to contrast paints and there weren't to many details to pick out when I came to her.

Backing up the Doctor is an Electron Cannoneer, Nicci, bringing ranged fire support. She's actually the second model I have with this profile and along with a few other ranged models, turns my Doctors faction into a little bit of a gunline.

Contrary to what happened with the Doctor, this model took much longer than expected as there was a surprising number of straps and buckles that not only needed picking out, but also divided up other sections of colour.

The handle on the contraption at her side is perhaps the most obvious example of a detail that wouldn't have been included prior to the switch to plastic. If it was made of resin, it would be at risk of snapping off almost immediately.

The design and construction of the models is excellent, certainly equal to anything you might expect from Games Workshop.

The third member of what is rapidly turning into a girls' night out is the Carrion. As a transformed patient from the asylum, she doesn't get a name, but she does get mechanical devices strapped to her head and arms that make her a skilled climber and a repository of Will Points for the Doctor to use.

She was perhaps the easiest to paint, using only a handful of colours. The speed was helped by not being terrified of the claws snapping when I was drubrushing at the end as would be the case with resin. In fact, it was the case, as this is the second Carrion model I own and I was much more careful with the first.

The final member of this quartet is a Monstrosity, a word that serves as both a name and a description. A stitched together golem remiscent of what would happen if Victor Frankenstein hadn't known when to stopp adding bits. The Monstrosity has four arms, three heads and two torsos.

I had a bit of a battle with this model as I initially went for my usual zombie skin recipe, but I think that the the depth of the detail on the model meant that I didn't get the same outcome as I would on a painter model and the skin was too dark.

I therefore went back with some more drybrushing and washes to achieve a more flesh colour, suggesting that although stitched together, the different parts were somehow still alive and have some degree of consciousness of what gas happened to them.

And here are the new models added to my existing forces. I'm really pleased with how this faction is turning out and it's rapidly becoming my favourite.

I'm also pleased that given my initial misgivings regarding some of the representations in the early models (notably the Rashaar Slaves) this collection of scientists is primarily led by women with only minimal objectification in the miniature design.

Well played TTCombat.

Acquired: 6

Painted: 9

Lead Mountain: 758

What Can Men Do Against Such Reckless Numbers?

So, a new year and a new assault on the Lead Mountain, only this time, there's a slight problem.

More on that later.

For now, look! Men of Rohan!

Not an especially exciting start to the new year, but I'm still taking part in Arbitor Ian's Tale of Four Hobbits and these are more of my pseudo Men of the West list that currently includes Aragorn. Legolas and these five.

Mind you, that does make over 400 points out of 500 because Aragorn the King is a beefy boy.

I've gone with Men of Rohan as that's what I had lying around after my second hand purchases several years ago. I still have a few more archers from those lots as there always seemed to be more archers than were necessary...or allowed, with a 33% limit.

I've stuck with the same rather uninspiring colour palette I originally used simply to make these models fit in with the rest.

One of the reasons these models were likely out was due to damage. Both of these two required a bit of fixing up to deal with a bent sword and a broken spear.

Unfortunately, was not able to do anything about the somewhat static poses and large flat areas where the spear meets the cloak.

I have, however, done something about the lack of a banner in my Rohirrim with this very simple conversion: a hand swap, a metal spear and a Wood Elf pennant did the trick.

I have had a go at free-handing a sun motif on the banner. It's not amazing, but it's not awful either. I'm never fond of free-handing, but this is fine.

Anyway, onto the other issue.

I mentioned before Christmas that I wanted to do a recount of my unpainted miniatures as I was sure that over the last couple of years, there have almost certainly been accounting errors and I wanted to see how realistic my running total of 240 actually is.

And so I got everything out. All of it. We'll apart from some Carnevale miniatures I was undercoating and some Dropzone Commander models I forgot about, but almost all of it.

It turns out my numbers were wrong.

Quite a bit wrong.

My current total is, minus the Rohirrim I've painted, 756.

There are several reasons for this disparity:

1) I've included boardgames like Star Saga, which contains 71 minis, that I had intended to sell but have recently changed my mind about.

2) I actually counted things in my bits box which I didn't last time, and I think I've been deducting painted models from bits box from the overall total.

3) When I received the motherload from Will, there are things that were up for sale that aren't now.

4) I've counted things like Flames of War tank crew that aren't getting used unless I buy more tanks...which I won't.

5) I clearly can't count.

Despite the shock this has induced, I have actually been able to tidy things up and get a better handle on what I have. I already have plans for how to use models, and I've tacitly decided to part company with a fair chunk of it.

Let's see how we get on.

Acquired: 0

Painted: 5

Lead Mountain: 756...good grief!

Leaving '25 Behind

And so we come to the point where it's time to emerge from the dark confines of '25 and venture into an unknown future, hoping that it doesn't end up being an irradiated wasteland full of bloodthirsty killer and giant bugs.

In other words, it's time for my review of the year!

I only set three targets for 2025 and there's been a mixed bag of success:

1. Decrease The Lead Mountain - Success

Oh boy have I decreased that pile!

There were 640 miniatures in my backlog at the start of the year and only 240 as of today. It also not as if I haven't been buying and printing new things, it's more than I have offloaded quite a chunk and I've painted a whopping 532 miniatures.

At this rate I might even...whisper it...clear the whole backlog in 2026...dun-dun-durrrrr!

2. Get Out More - Fail

Although I started off the year well by attending a Badab War Combat Patrol event at Warhammer World, I wasn't able to attend any of the other events in the campaign due to scheduling conflicts and the fact that they were held in London.

Additionally, I only managed to get to one wargaming show this year too and the UK Games Expo fell on my 20th wedding anniversary, and we had other plans.

I definitely want to return to this next year.

3. The Path of Damnation - Success

I've had a really good time painting up my old Chairs miniatures into a Nurgle themed army. 

Although I still have about half a dozen miniatures to go, I can field a 1500 point army in Warhammer: The Old World (although it's a bit short on core troops) and I'm really satisfied with how it's come out.

So a bit of a mixed bag, but, on reflection, it seems that I didn't get out more because I was sat at home painting, so that's not necessarily a bad thing.

So this year's targets are likely to look eerily familiar:

1. Decrease The Lead Mountain

The endless endeavour continues.

However, the end is perhaps in sight, which is scary. Mind you, one of the first orders of business in 2026 is a recount as I'm pretty certain my numbers have got messed up over the past decade.

2. Get Out More

Although I failed last year, this was largely due to scheduling issues, so I think I need to be a bit more pro-active on planning ahead.

At the very least I want to get back to going to the amount of shoes I used to attend and maybe build up the courage to attend a few more events.

3. Tie Up Loose Ends

There are few dangling projects that I want to return to and wrap up. Some of these are painting projects that are close to completion and others are gaming campaigns that I started and lost focus on.

Painting Projects:

- Path of Damnation Nurgle Army

- Age of Sigmar Skaven

- War of 1812 British

- Carnevale Venice board 

Gaming Campaigns:

- Five Parsecs from Home - Fortune's Fools

- Five Leagues from the Borderlands - Hawk the Slayer

Doubtless I will distract myself with newer and shinier ideas, but the intention is there.

And do there we have it. I'm really not sure what new projects are likely to emerge this year, but that's actually quite exciting.

Happy New Year!

Protagonist vs Antagonist

In the run up to Christmas I was still in a Fallout mood, but obviously was unable to buy more with festivities around the corner and not knowing what I was going to get.

Therefore, I once again turned my attention to using what I already had: a pile of unpainted miniatures and a 3d printer.

And the result was a 3d printed Vault-Tec Poster Girl and a kitbashed version of a Fallout 3 character, the Antagonizer (the ants are models I already had and are from Crooked Dice).

Both of these models demonstrate a certain amount of ingenuity on my part and I'm quite proud of both of them.

Easiest to talk about is the Antagonizer, who is a character that you can meet in Fallout 3 that is engaged in a superhero-supervillain conflict with the Mechanist in the town of Canterbury Commons. 

Your character can intervene in this situation, taking one side or the other. A third option exists, which was the path I trod, where you kill both of them because you repeatedly say the wrong thing.

Interestingly, there is an official model for the Mechanist in Fallout Wasteland Warfare, but not for the Antagonizer (yet). I suspect this is because whilst there are plenty of robots for the Mechanist to command, there aren't any Giant Ant models, which is odd, as they are a fairly frequent hazard.

However, I did have a model from Crossover Miniatures called Whiskers knocking about from my proxy Marvel project. I liked the model (which is clearly Catwoman inspired) but had not found a use for it. Until now.

The model comes with a range of heads and tails, but the best fit is one with cat ears that needed filing off and antennae (bits of staple) adding. I also filled the hole in the base of the spine for her tail.

It's a fairly good fit, although the mask covers the whole face and the armour is somewhat less spiky. However, a nice touch is the knife strapped to her leg as the Antagonizer's weapon is a knife called the Ant's Sting.

Painting was quite interesting as it's quite hard to get a clear image of the character in Fallout 3 as she's mainly encountered underground. The colour of her armour can vary quite a lot between images. I when for black and gold as I felt it would be in the right ballpark without just being a mush of browns.

I'm really quite pleased with the outcome, although I need to put some though into what profile I am going to use for her in the game, and I probably need to put together a custom card.

The Vault Girl came as a part of a Humble Bundle of Fallout files and STLs I picked up before I had a 3d printer. She's actually the model that demonstrated the limits of my FDM printer when I first got it as its thin limbs small details proved too much for tree supports and even a 0.2mm nozzle could handle.

However, I've found a way around the problem.

Or more pertinently, a YouTube channel called Painted 4 Combat has with a tool called Resin2FDM.

Basically, this is a plug in for Blender that allows you to thicken the supports from pre-supported resin STLs and make them suitable for printing with an FDM printer.

The 'lite' version of the plug in is free to download and obviously required me to download Blender. However, despite never using either program, it was really easy, especially as the channel's guide video walks you through the whole process.

The outcome is a pretty dame good print. Still not as good as a resin print, but definitely better than my previous efforts and certainly good enough to use.

The model comes with a sculpted base that I was able to print more conventionally, although I did manage to clip off the pegs from. The feet of the miniature before realising there were holes for then to slot into, making gluing the whole thing together a bit more awkward.

As you can see, when painted, the details are pretty good. The undersides of arms and keys are a little less good, but, as I said, I'm really happy with it.

Painting was done really simply with bright colours and the outcome is a model that I actually think is better than the pvc miniature of Nora that can in the starter set.

I've not yet had any success with other sculpts as I've been away since Christmas Day and the one miniature I did try was a Carnevale sculpt that hasn't worked, however I'm looking forward to trying out a few more sculpts.

On the subject of Christmas, Carnevale and Fallout, Ive gad a bit of a haul this year. Mrs Cheaphammer took advantage of Black Friday at Element Games in Sheffield to make the pounds stretch a little further and I now have the latest Carnevale starter set, World's Faire After-Party, and the Hollywood Heroes set for Fallout Wasteland Warfare featuring characters from the TV series.

They were also running a paint lucky dip which garnered me a Camo Green that will definitely see use and a Purple airbrush paint which might not.

On top of this I got a haul of Horus Heresy boxes that actually have me pondering whether to start a new army. The Predator and Jet Bikes would fit perfectly on not my Blood Angels army, but the Mk II Assault Troops come armed with chainaxes, which aren't available to loyalist marines in 2nd edition, which we've stuck with.

This is making me consider starting a traitor, specifically World Eaters or Sons of Horus, or Blackshields forces. However, I'm also tempted to create some converted Angels Tears for the Blood Angels.

I received the Ravening Hordes book for Warhammer: The Old World, which contains the army lists for Orcs & Goblins, Beastmen, Tomb Kings and, most importantly for me, Warriors of Chaos. 

This allows me to run my Nurgle army in Warhammer: The Old World, and the Arcane Journal adds rules for Warp Dragons making the whole army game legal.

Finally, as part of this year's 7TV Secret Santa, I received this handful of Robin Hood themed miniatures from David.

It's a sprue of Oathmark Humans, who can easily be kitted out as Merry Men, but might also serve at Rangers of Gondor or Ruffians in MESBG. However , there's also a couple of Norman soldiers carrying a chest and so, given that I've at least one Norman miniature in my backlog. I might very well venture into a Sherwood Forest based project next year.

All in all, it's been a good few days, giving me plenty to be cracking on with.

Acquired: -52 

Painted: 532

Lead Mountain: 246