City of Nexus Map Bundle Review

Title: City of Nexus
Author: Seafoot Games  (Luke Seefuss and Rianna Stahl)
Rule Set: Any
Year: 2019
Pages: 5 pdfs, 15 pages each, plus 15 .jpg images. 
Rating: ★★★★★

Since this pandemic thing kicked off, I've been looking at Seafoot Games' City of Nexus bundle. It's been on the hot list for most, if not all of 2020. 

These sort of products give me fits for reviewing. How do I show an image without giving the milk away for free? Well, I'm gonna do my best by showing part of the title page of one of the five books included with set. 

It's impressive. Imagine this image with 300 px detail and multiply by five products. 

The books are nicely designed, with several pages dedicated to the Artist's Patreon following. The next ten pages include a 8.5" by 11" overview map, with nine pages dedicate to sections of the map. In this format, I advise printing one sided pages on photo paper. Every image has a grid for your figures, tokens or models. It's is wonderful with the right paper.

But I suspect that was not what the artist intended you to do. Each of the five maps has 3 jpeg files in 300px, 72px and one 300px poster size. The first two are perfect for virtual table tops and the choice of resolution is there to meet your needs. Sometimes, you don't want to pull up a massive file. 

These maps are battlemats for you to populate. They are extraordinarily detailed with beautiful set pieces, all obviously designed for each map in question. You could either ignore them or write them into your game. The set is ruleset agnostic for ease of use in any type of campaign. They are obviously medieval looking, but that's what 99% of OSR use. 

Back to "massive". The last jpeg for each map is a mighty poster 33" by 23" with a nice white border. It's perfect for framing as art OR to print off and cover with glass for your physical tabletop. Did I mention you get 5 of them? 

The price is great. It's CyberModay today, so I am not sure if there is a sale on right now, but at triple the price this is an excellent set. An easy 5 star product. 

Click the link to order. 

Hottest New Book City of Nexus | 20x30 Battlemaps [BUNDLE]

AT-ST and Snowspeeder in 144 scale Part 1

 I haven't done a modeling post in a while. I haven't had much time. 

I started on my first plastic model in a long. I picked a good one, Bandai's Snowspeeder and AT-ST in 1:144 scale. 

They have good detail, but low requirements for skill.

The "instruction sheet" fits on the inside of the box lid. 

You'd think the parts would be very tiny, but as you can see with the first image, they look "beefy". The pieces come off the sprue easily and hardly require any clean up. 

I left the clippers in view for a sense of scale. That black strip is a piece of sandpaper I used for cleanup. The parts are too small for a file. 

Each part has pegs in the middle so you don't end up with glue blobs on the edges. There are seams visible, but there are more parts to cover them.

Update: I'll be finished tonight and will paint tomorrow. 

This is a jump from the prior image, I forgot where I left off. There are 3 panels that fit on the head. They are wonderfully designed to cover any seams. The tiny body gave me some trouble. The piece on the right (A4 27) needs to go on the large head support deck (A3 17 and 13). Unfortunately, I couldn't SEE how it should go. 

I resorted to enlarging the instructions. The piece has a support that fits into the deck, but it looked like it could go in several orientations. The two "tines" go "down" into the deck. When completely assembled, this part is on the bottom and almost hidden by the two shield guards on A3 13. You could leave it off, but it's great little detail. 

This is what it looks like assembled. At about this point, I started regretting not painting it first. 

The neck that connects the head to the deck has a ball joint. 

You put one side on first. 

Then the other. 

Again, this is another jump in the steps. The legs simply attach to the pins and the ball joint snaps together. If you wanted to place this model on a base, you could adjust the leg positions and the head angle. However, if you are full of gumption to try this, I suspect you'd want to cut the knee joint. 

Notice the hemostat in the image. My sausage fingers are too big to hold the smaller light on the side of the head. Again, the light and the gun mount are on pins, so they can be adjusted, too. 

And, here we are. All done. 

I'm not sure if I'll paint tomorrow. I have to teach a class online, so I might be making a template for model building so all of the images are neatly organized and the same dimensions. 

Check back soon for the Snowspeeder. 

Something New, Something Old

I've been following a few other bloggers, mostly for game ideas but sometimes for blogging inspiration. Over on The Other Side blog by Tim Brannan, he is looking to do a Character-A-Day in January 2021. I love his set of books on B/X witches. 

Obviously, I love pre-genned characters. I have over 75 characters for AD&D and B/X on the tab above. 

If you like making characters, I put together a list of blank character sheets I have used over the years. The first is a Google Doc created by Benjamin Connell for D&D 3.5. It is the most searched for item on my site. It's really good. 

The next is a very basic sheet in Google Docs I use for my AD&D and B/X campaigns. It's based on the 3 per page pregenerated character sheets from Ghost of Lion Castle. If you need a bunch of characters, but intend for the player to make it their own, these a good starting place. 

An example of the stat block. 
There is room for Equipment, spells and languages, too.

The last one is my personal sheet for AD&D. It's a scan of a document from back in the 80's, plus a newer version from the 90s. They are not editable, but they print nicely. They are aligned to AD&D with Unearthed Arcana with the seven stat block. 

If planning for 2021 isn't new, I don't know what new is. Up til now, I was just trying to survive 2020. :) 

Now for "old". Over on The 3 Toadstool blog, Shane wrote an excellent piece on how to populate your D&D campaign back in 2019. He worked with Chris Hall to refine the method. By selecting monsters and creatures from 10 different categories, it's super easy to populate your setting with creatures which match the themes you wish to cover. Just 10 monsters makes each setting feel very unique. 

This method is meant for D&D, but I am using it to come up with creatures in my Star Wars campaign. It works that well. 

Aftermath - SW Session 001

"It's not Star Wars without lightsabers," she said. 

True. My campaign doesn't support lightsabers, so I am plugging in an event that allows the players to get their hands on lightsabers. I'm nothing if not adaptable and amendable. Plus, little wacky. 

I'm going to add the kookiest bounty hunter in the Universe. The characters' main antagonist is the former Viceroy of the Trade Federation, Bergel. Bergel is a Neimoidian, who avoids conflict and physical combat like the plague. He has a small band of security sentients and bodyguards. One of them is a Neimoidian bounty hunter. 

What? A Neimoidian bounty hunter? That is so against type, it's insane. 

Yes, it is. This bounty hunter will have to embody the traits of both a hunter and Neimoidian. He will be specialized in taking creatures alive or collecting information. This fits best with his species's tenancy to avoid conflict. He overwhelms his opponents with gadgets and technology to take the fight out of them. He would probably render medical assistance to those he takes before he turns them over as a bounty.

Since bounty hunter is a prestige class in the WotC Star Wars set from 2000, I will make this character much higher level than the party, which means he will have to be amediable to the player's goals. Since he is so "extra", he will have a massive amount of skills the party hasn't seen in one person yet. They aren't going to be able to outfight or outsmart him. At least, initially. 

In true bounty hunter fashion, he has trained on Mandalore. But not to be a bounty hunter, he was there to set up a trade alliance. He gained a lot insight on Mandalore as to what it means to be "independent" on a global level. This is a useful piece of knowledge for Bergel to have access to. The Tankeren are independent like the Mandalorians, but not as hostile. The Mandalorians called him "enchanting" and "charming". Coming from Mandalorians, those are not complements. However, he did make contacts, friends and a few non-violent enemies. 

He has a noticeable lack of Mandalorian armor and weapons. But he does have a ton of gizmos and gadgets that the Mandalorians use. He doesn't really care to kill. Two of these items are lightsabers that he doesn't use. A few of the other oddities use Kyber crystals, like an energy shield, net and entagler cable. In fact, he has a whole collection of Kyber crystal jewelry that he found interesting. This stuff is of low value on this planet as they don't have that tradition of The Force.  

In some part, he will be based on Obsidian Maw. He is cocky but calm about his skills and goals. He will announce his intentions truthfully because he believes in what he is doing. Everything he does seems to come out of nowhere, verging on magic tricks because he is an ambush hunter. He is vehicle to grant the party what they desire. 

Once I have his sheet made up, there will be the small matter of getting him into the hero's sphere of influence. I have few tricks up my sleeve to bring in some of that classic Star Wars feeling into this game. One of the better bits about Star Wars is the host of gray characters who don't fall under the categories of good or bad. This hunter will be yet another of those people. 

Tankeren TNK-101B (Star Wars Campaign)

For my Star Wars Campaign, I need a standard ship for a single planet. I have started with a rough design for a transport modified into a warship. There are only a handful of these warships around. They are vastly outnumbered by the standard food hauler version. 

I have not designed any landing skids or jacks yet. This ship would launch like an X-Wing, rising until the main engines kick it up to speed. 

The ship's dimensions are: 11 meters tall (taller with the landing jacks), 34 meters long and the body is about 10 meters wide. It has stubby wings with a span of 22 meters, mostly to keep the hot engines away from the body of the ship. 

At the bottom left is the nose door. It folds down to accept cargo. Directly above that door is an observation station with black windows. This location is the controls for the simple loading crane located in the fore cargo bay's roof. Next, there is also a man sized door port and starboard. The monstrous can-shaped engines mounted on top of the wings about 5 meters away from the body of the ship, so people can board through the side doors while ship is being readied. 

The fore cargo bay ends even with the back of the engines. There is 4 meter long hall that gives access to rear cargo area. This hall also gives access to the densely packed avionics in the waist of the ship's first level. 

The rear cargo vault is meant for food transport and the whole rear cylindrical area can be pulled right out the ship and connected to "shore power" to keep the food fresh. The ship can fly without the cylindrical vault, but it makes the ship "tippy". Pilots tend to fly by repulsor power in this situation, usually no faster than a speeder. In this mode, the ship feels very sporty. There are other variations of vaults to haul other materials, but this is most commonly used as a reefer ship.  

The second deck, the one with the crane controls, gives access to the gun spaces. There is a shower and bathroom on this level, plus a kitchenette and sitting area.   

The top deck has crew quarters behind the control space. The black area on this ship is a wraparound window which gives a breathtaking view or great lines of sight for the gun turrets. The gun turrets are great by local standards and poor by everyone else's standards. Sometimes, ships only mount one or two guns instead of all three. Shielding is just ok. 

You would think there would be a bomber variant and there is. Typically, a decommissioned food vault is filled with rock and dirt and dropped on ground targets. It's devastating. Even at low speeds it the vault can rip through city blocks of buildings. 

There is an actual sleeve-like unit built for bombs, but since most of the warfare on the planet is tribal in nature, there is little need to use something that can drop 100,000 kg worth of explosives on anything. They haven't met the Empire, yet. 

Tankeren missile technology is nearly non-existent, so no variant has missiles. 

The original 101A lack weapons and smaller porthole style windows, instead of the large wrap around window. All of the space saved by not having the turrets allows for an ample living space on the ship. This is by far the most common configuration for the TNK-101. 

While this ship is somewhat smaller than the Falcon, it is configured for family style living and seems very spacious by comparison. Most transport pilots don't own homes and simply live in the ship, either with family or a very cliquey crew. It is bigger than most houses.

The ships handling characteristics can only be described as weird. When hovering on repulsors, it handles like a dream, it's able to make centimeter adjustments easily. At full speed, the ship can barely turn or roll. Acceleration to top speed is incredible, but it can't go as fast as a warship, fighter or even a standard YT transport. Removing the rear cargo vault makes no difference except to make the ship feel off balanced. At low speed, it's fun ship to fly. At orbital speeds, it's like riding a dewback with a jetpack. 

I need to fix the side view of the wings, but to do that I need front and top views. Each view will be used to adjust and improve the other views making this a more complete ship. Then surface details can be added.