Friday, August 22, 2014

Alejor IV - Painting an Arid Planet for Firestorm Armada

I've recently gotten into Firestorm Armada, in addition to Dystopian Wars. My first foray into making terrain for this game is to create a planet for my Directorate fleet to call home. Alejor IV, the fourth planet of the Alejor system. It's very arid but rich in metals and minerals. A small subsidiary to the Directorate, Tansalus Robotics has claimed this world and it's mineral wealth for their own.
I started the project with a 12" diameter hollow Styrofoam half sphere. I briefly sanded it with a fine finish sandpaper and then coated it with mod podge to try and create as smooth of a surface as possible.
Next I painted the entire sphere a dark marine blue. Once that dried I painted a thin coat of turquoise over the dark blue. The idea being for there to be lots of depth and variations of color in the blues.
Ocean painted

Next I needed to draw in some land masses and then fill them in with an earthen color. 
Filling in the landmasses.

After the landmasses dried I dry brushed a sand color on the lower half of the planet as this is supposed to be an arid/desert world. Above the sand I started to add a little more red and brown to the mixture to create a transitional area. I also added some islands and texture to the coast lines to make everything look a little more realistic.
We have deserts and islands!

Next I filled in the upper portion of the land masses with a dark green followed by a light green to give the appearance of plains and forests. This was painted on lightly as I still wanted to retain a lot of variation between the greens and browns. A mixture of a medium brown and red was also used to further deepen the transition between the desert and the northern plains.
Northern plains painted

Next it was time to start detailing the mountains. Using a detail brush I dabbed/blotted along the desert/plains transition to create the illusion of a mountain range. Many of the islands also got a little blot of white as well where I thought a mountain would make sense. The idea was to try and follow a logical path with the mountains. For me I thought maybe a northern mountain range would impede the encroaching deserts allowing for the small valleys you can see below. After that I tried to add snow along the northern coast of each continent.
Mountain ranges and snow.

I detailed a few more mountains and snow and then decided it was time for my Polar Ice Cap. This was just a white paint. Initially I created an outline and then went back and filled it in with white.
Ice Age ho!

After the snow and ice was finished it was time to go through and add some shallow water to further define the oceans. For this I took the turquoise I used for the ocean and mixed a little white and a little light blue. I then very lightly painted this along many of the coasts and around several of the island chains where I thought maybe the water would be a little shallower. Generally closer to the equator had more shallow water than the areas further north.
Shallow waters, check!

Wanting to further define my deserts I took a sand color and mixed a little brown in. I didn't want to completely cover everything painted previously so I wiped of the majority of the paint each time before I blotted the paint on the deserts. The land looked a little more organic this way and still had a lot of depth to it.
Only the clouds left now!

With the terrestrial part of the planet finished I moved on to the final and scariest step.... clouds. Before I even attempted this I researched several pictures of the earth from space on Google to get an idea of how clouds would look from above. I really wanted to capture the depth that people would get from viewing a planet from space. I thinned some white paint and wiped off the brush before each time, leaving only a little paint on the brush I began to blot areas over the water near the pole. It seemed like from the pictures I had looked at that large cloud formations tended to be closer to the poles. I repeated this process until I was satisfied with how the clouds were looking. I tried to be irregular about it as well to make it look more realistic. Overall I am pretty happy with how it turned out and I am definitely looking forward to doing another one!
Alejor IV

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Ottoman Empire Vs. Kingdom of Brittania Battle Report

Just a battle report of a skirmish between my Ottoman Fleet and my Brother-in-Laws Britannian Fleet. Our objective was to secure a crashed dirigible at the center of the board.

Ottoman Empire (OE) Fleet List
-Effendi Ender Bast
1 Sadrazam (Dawn Star) with Zuhaf Escort
2 Sinop Monitors
3 Fettah Cruisers
3 Arci
2 HEC Phoenician Airships
2 Vulkan Repair Ships

Kingdom of Britannia(KoB) Fleet List
-Commodore James Ponders
1 Ruler with Dominion Escort
1 Vengeance Submarine
3 Agincourt Gunships with Dominion Escort
1 Lord Hood Battlecruiser
5 Valiant Submarines

The game was played on a 4'  x 4' board with 3 pieces of terrain.

Turn 1
KoB won initiative and activated the Vengeance. It advanced and fired on the Sadrazam. Luckily no damage was scored on the Dawn Star. I activate my Sadrazam and move to broadside the Vengeance. Poor rolls protect the Vengeance from sustaining any damage. The Sadrazam created a storm to block fire from the Valiants and Agincourts when they activate. A KoB Recon SAS is activated. My Phoenicians are activated and move along the edge of the board to fire on the Dominion escorting the Ruler. A critical is scored damaging its weapon systems. My opponents Lord Hood advanced on the Phoenicians and double crits it destroying the unprepared flyer. I activated my Sinops next and fired the bombards on the Vengeance and broadsides at the Lord Hood. The Bombards were unable to damage the Vengeance. The broadsides would have scored a solid critical on Lord Hood unfortunately my opponent rolled quite a few 6s for his shield roll and reduced the damage to nothing. KoB SAW attack the remaining Phoenician damaging it. My Fettahs have some pitiful dice rolls firing at the Agincourts and Valiant Submarines but activate a storm to cover them from fire from the Ruler. The Ruler and Dominion activate next and torpedoes a sinop causing a double crit and magazine explosion destroying it. The resulting explosion crits the other Sinop and destroys and entire friendly support air wing. Firing its turrets the ruler also manages to damage a Fettah. The Arci squadron horribly fails firing at the Ruler, I rolled eight 1s! The Agincourts move to fire on the Fettahs through the storm and manage to destroy the Fettah damaged by the Ruler. To end the turn  the Vulkans fail to repair the damaged Sinop and the Valiants fail their attack on the Sadrazam. All the Ottoman ships pass their disorder tests and the Dominion repairs its weapon damage.

Turn 2
Unfortunately the KoB wins initiative again. My opponent activated his Ruler and Dominion and critically attack the Sadrazam damaging its engine. The ruler also managed to destroy an Arci and damage one of the two remaining Fettahs. On my turn I activate my Sadrazam and turn it so it can broadside the Ruler and Dominion. The Dominion sustains some some damage but Ruler manages to avoid damage due to some more poor rolls. The Zuhaf escort drops a mine in front of the Valiants which is then moved adjacent to the center valiant. At the end of the activation the mine arms and detonates destroy two valiants, damaging one and damaging the Zuhaf above. A KoB SAW attacks the lone Phoenician. The Fettahs swing around the Sadrazam and fire at the Dominion and Ruler. The Ruler doesn't sustain any damage but Dominion takes some damage. The Lord Hood continues to advance on the Sadrazam and fires at the Fettahs. One is double critted causing another magezine explosion and destroying it, the last Fettah is damaged. The Vulkans manage to repair the critical on the Sadrazam. The Agincourts fire through the storm at the Sadrazam and mange to score a hit. The escorting Dominion scores a hit on one of Vulkans. They also torpedo and destroy last Fettah. The Arci move to attack the Valiants but fail to cause any damage. The Vengeance target paints the Arci and fires its torpedoes at the Sadrazam. With some lucky rolls for CC the torpedo attack is mitigated. The Vengeance also captures the objective. The remaining squadron of Ottoman fighers attack the KoB torpedo bomber squadron destroying 4. The lone torpedo bomber attacks the Arci but is destroyed by AA. The Recon planes attack each other but fail to accomplish anything. The Valiants fail to AA the Zuhaf and fails to damage the Sadrazam.

At the end of the turn the KoB retained control of the objective and won the battle. The remnants of the Ottoman fleet slinked away under the cover of their storms. There will be some words spoken with the logistics master back at port. The weapon systems failed miserably and it is very possible that Effendi Bast has enemies in the Sublime Court.

Overall the Ottomans seemed perform well. Unfortunately numerous times when firing at enemy ships I rolled terribly and failed to cause damage which is where the idea of Effendi Bast having an enemy in Court. Hopefully next time my weapons won't be using wet powder.