Monthly Archives: March 2014

Wednesday Workbench

Wednesday Workbench 20140326

 

Wrapped up a couple of Deadzone Mercs over the weekend that I should probably photograph.

Now I’m working Wrath and Freya, which will leave just the Chovar to do, as far as Deadzone Mercs are concerned (Recon is an Enforcer).

I also need to finish the Reaper Valkyrie that I started as a priming with gesso test.  She’s actually looking pretty good, and needs just a little more work before she’s done.

Then I’ve got the Hasslefree MacReady.  Hells to the yeah.

Finally, I’ve got a test model.  I’ve mumbled about what I’ll be doing with it on Twitter a bit, but I think I’ll wait a bit longer (at least until the rest of the models show up, Customs) before I talk about it here.

Converting D&D Stat Blocks to WFRP 2E

D&D stat blocks run along these lines:

OrcHD 1; AC 6 [13]; Atk 1 by weapon, usually spear (1d6) or scimitar (1d8); Move 9; Save 17; AL C;CL/XP 1/15; Special: None.

and I need them to look more like:

Ork Stat Block - WFRP 2E

Well; sorta.  A lot of the stuff in that target (WFRP) statblock just doesn’t matter; if it did, it’s significant enough that we wouldn’t be using a quick conversion to get it, or it’d be inferrable from the context the source (OSR) statline is presented in.

Do we really care that Orcs have Ride or Swim, Scale Sheer Surface, etc.?  Maybe… but if we did, we’d probably already know that.


WS, BS, S, T, Ag, Int, WP, Fel – Is this NPC poor/average/above average?  If their HD is < 5, use 20/25/30, set one stat to 40.  If their HD is >= 5, use 20/30/40, set one stat to 50.

A – Calculate W, divide by 10, rounding down.

W – If their is HD < 5, use ((HD-1) *4) + 12 If their HD is >=5, use ((HD-5)*6) + 30.

SB, TB – Derived from S, T.

M – Divide the listed Move by 3, rounding up.

Mag – 0 if not a spellcaster.  Fruity spell-like abilities or whatever don’t count for this; just let that stuff go off.  If they’re an honest-to-Chaos spellcaster: divide their HD by 3, rounding up, capped at 4.

IP, FP – Not relevant.

Skills – Most will be irrelevant or inferrable.  If they’re sneaky, they should have Concealment & Silent Move, for example.  If they’re fighty, they should probably have Dodge Blow (every WFRP NPC certainly seems to).  I wouldn’t even bother writing it down.

Talents – These are all irrelevant or inferable.

Armor Points – (AC-12)/2 for LotFP, rounding up.  (10-AC)/2 for S&W descending, rounding down.  Use your instincts about locations; some locations might have fewer Armor Points than this.

Weapons – Melee , Thrown Weapons: damage is SB + (# dice rolled -1).  Other Ranged Weapons: damage is # dice rolled + (die type/3), rounding down.  Infer whether or not the attack should be Impact (and maybe Tiring or Slow), Fast (and maybe Precise), Shrapnel, or Snare.

This is fuzziest, sloppiest part, honestly.  Use your gut.


Obviously, this isn’t perfect.

Comparing the results of the WFRP 2E Orc statblock to what I get when I convert the S&W statblock gets me:

     WS  BS  S   T   Ag  Int WP  Fel
WFRP 35  35  35  45  25  25  30  20  
S&W  30  20  30  40  20  20  30  20 
     A   W   SB  TB  M   Mag IP  FP
WFRP 1   12  3   4   4   0   0   0
S&W  1   12  3   3   3   0   -   -

Armor
WFRP Head 1, Arms 1, Body 3, Legs 0
S&W  All 2

Weapons
WFRP Choppa (+4 Round 1, +3 after)
S&W  Scimitar (+3, Impact)

The Orc is dumber, slower, weaker, clumsier, less tough and a lot worse at shooting (because, come on, Warhammer Orcs & Orks are bad shots).  The converted Choppa probably does a smidge more damage in the first round.  But that’s okay; If I cared that much about it, I’d build the NPC from the ground up.  All I’m trying to do here is convert one set of stats to another with a minimum amount of effort.

Not perfect, but good enough.

Another example:

Hill GiantHD 8+2; AC 4 [15]; Atk 1 weapon (2d8); Move 12; Save 8; AL C; CL/XP 9/1100; Special: Throw boulders.

     WS  BS  S   T   Ag  Int WP  Fel
WFRP 33  25  69  59  18  14  24  14  
S&W  40  30  50  40  20  20  30  20 
     A   W   SB  TB  M   Mag IP  FP
WFRP 5   48  6   5   6   0   0   0
S&W  4   48  5   4   4   0   -   -

Armor
WFRP Head 0, Arms 0, Body 1, Legs 1
S&W  All 3

Weapons
WFRP Hand Weapon (+6, Impact)
S&W  Hand Weapon (+6, Impact), Throw Boulders (SB+4, Impact, Shrapnel)

I’m comparing a Warhammmer Giant to a Hill Giant.  The differences here are somewhat greater: but not by too much.  The only real problematic (>10%) differences here are in Strength and Toughness… but even then, they’re mitigated by damage and armor; the numbers work out the same.


Also, although I’m primarily coming at this from an OSR-y point of view (I’ve got some Lamentations & Swords & Wizardry modules I’d like to run and maybe I’d like to run them with WFRP 2E), I think it’d hold well enough for other versions of D&D.  Things probably get a little wobbly with the 3.x stack, but I think it’d hold up okay enough (using Level instead of HD, etc).


I don’t have the time on hand to do this properly, but I feel like I have to at least post a half-assed JsFiddle link that does the calculations for you: here’s the page and here’s the fiddle.

Thoughts?  Comments?

Deadzone – Rebs Booster

Rebs Booster

I wrapped up the Rebs booster at the same time as the Starter (the last two models I painted were the Teraton and Kraaw).

As I said earlier, I’m pretty ignorant of what these aliens are supposed to look like, but that didn’t stop me.

I’m pretty happy with the Judawan. It looks like a Tau, so it got painted like one.  I kinda wish I could pain my Tau with skin like this, but since their armor’s already turquoise, it’d be a mess.

Judawan Medic 1

Judawan Medic 2

 

I’m very unhappy with the way the Kraaw came out.  For some reason, I decided, “I’m going to paint this like a blue jay!”  No idea why: it’s clearly a more reptilian sort of thing than a bird sort of thing.  And, even then, I didn’t really commit to it: just giving it white under its eyes and white under its wings.

This is a bad paintjob, but I wanted to be done with the project and the mini.

Kraaw 1

Kraaw 2

 

I’m half and half on this one.  Hell if I can remember what the sharkperson’s species is, but I’m quite pleased with how it turned out.  The human didn’t turn out quite as well, and I had to reach to get the spot of red on her (it’s a panel on the other side of her missile launcher).

This is a really fun unit in the game, though, for sure.

Weapon Team

 

The Zee turned out okay.

Zee 

And that’s a second Deadzone faction painted and done.  The first one to be fully painted (starter & booster).

I passed on the Plague booster during Wave 1 (which I’m correcting in Wave 2), my Enforcers are in a state (Booster got delayed, and the starter didn’t ship! All I have are the shoddy Warpath ones), and the Marauders are leaving me cold (why, when I love GW Ork sculpts so much, would I used these guys?).  I think I’m going to try to wrap up the Mercenaries at some point near-term, and then be done with Deadzone until after Wave 2 turns up.  (Though I probably need to figure out what I’m doing with, and then paint, the terrain.)

Deadzone – Rebs

Reb Starter 2

Deadzone!  Rebs! Fully painted! (Part I.)

These dudes have actually been done for about a month; most of the ones pictured here have been done even longer.  Wrapping up the last few models had been tough due to being way, way too busy and then finding time to actually photograph them was even tougher.

I hadn’t even planned on painting them; or at least not hot on the heels of the Plague models.  I wanted to assemble them and play with them, but the “flight stands” that accompanied the Drones and that weird floating sphere thing that comes with N32-19 are garbage, so I wanted to use GW flight stands and bases for them.  With priming and varnishing and such complicating any plans to assemble them now, paint them later, I just decided heck with it: paint them now.  Once they were done, pushing on seemed the most natural thing to do.

Reb Starter 1

For the most part, I’m quite pleased with them.  The brown and grey is a neutral base that’ll go with anything, allowing me to do each alien species differently while maintaining a unified, coherent look.  The red spot color also pulls everything together.

Unusual, for me: the grey is all craft-store paint.  I used it on the Drones because I felt like it, was happy with the results, and after the black-armored studio scheme felt like a disaster, I switched back to the Charcoal -> Rain Grey -> Quaker Grey scheme I normally use on terrain.

I did the humans first.  For the most part, I’m very pleased with them, but something about the way the Commander’s face came together doesn’t sit well with me.  It’s actually one of the better minis to come out of the Kickstarter, so that’s a bit of a shame.

Humans 1

Humans 2  

Given that I have less than no interest in Dreadball, I’m pretty uninformed about all of these different Mantic Warpath/Dreadball alien species.  Unhelpfully, where GW drowns you in potential color schemes, it can be really, really difficult to find studio paint schemes for some of these guys.

I think the Yndij are supposed to be orange? Well, I decided they were feline enough and would look painted like lions.  I think I was right.

Yndij 1

Yndij 2

 

The Grogan are kind of forgettable, but they’re not bad.  I think the orange here photographed better than it looks in person.

Grogan

Fuck the Teraton.  This would be a great, distinctive mini, except some jackhole decided it needed stupid looking and, even worse, ultra-fragile blades coming off of its arms.  Three of those four blades have broken off, and one of them has broken off more times than I can count.

All of my hate.

Teraton 1

Teraton Back 

The Sorak’s characterful.  I like him.  I put another one in the Second Wave survey.

 

 

 

Sorak 1

Sorak 2 

Drones.  Nothing special, but it’s their fault I painted the rest of the Rebs.

 

Drones 1

Drones 2

 

I’ve also finished the Booster, as well as a couple of Mercs.  Since this post is pic-heavy enough, I’ll be splitting up the photodump across a couple of posts.