5150 Known Space is a 96-page supplement for 5150 New Beginnings that lets you explore and adventure across the broader 5150 universe.
Create your own Star Systems, planets, and cities to visit.Travel between Star Systems, have enhanced space travel Encounters and experience combat in Zero-G. Inside you’ll find:
70 Planet Tiles used to map out the 5150 Nine Rings quickly and easily.
Detailed Encounter lists for each Ring and Sector.
Expedition Encounter to let you discover lost Alien ruins and Artifacts
Zero-G and hostile atmosphere combat rules
Boarding combat rules that use the Ship Tile system that allows you to fight your way across custom ship maps!
A 16 Encounter Mission involving the enigmatic Kabasu Aliens.
As a supporting author on the project, I’m really excited about this Kickstarter! This is a new edition of the solo and co-op ready 5150 scifi tabletop game from Two Hour Wargames. 5150 is a warband-level liteRPG/skirmish game with a built-in campaign system with character and “Band” progression, and set in a large open sandbox universe that lets you generate missions and encounters on the fly.
This is a massive expansion of the older rules and setting and adds more Star and Grunt options, and new rules for things like:
Psionics
More Cybernetic Enhancements options
Robots & AIs
Computer Hacking & Drones
An economic system that tracks your relative wealth level and access to stuff
Expanded weapons options – beams vs bullets, non-lethal, etc.
Rules for quick-play “Battle Board” combat or using tabletop minis and terrain
More Encounters
The add-ons all add more details about alien races (Usual Suspects), a police campaign (Working Grave) and the Known Space add-on charts out the 9 Rings of Known Space and provides:
A map and travel system across the 9 Rings and associated Sectors
A quick and easy system to generate new star systems using the Star System map and planet counters
A new city generation and planet exploration system tied to Encounters
New Encounters – Space Mining, Trade, Expeditions and the like
More combat options – spaceship boarding actions, Zero-G, hostile atmo and vacuum
Older rules will still be useable with the new supplements, all Chain Reaction-base systems are forward & backward compatible, and the rules will mesh also into Star Army and Star Marine.
I hope we make the top unlock for the Known Space add-on, it lets you game across the whole 5150 ‘verse!
Well, since I’m running the Rime of the Frostmaiden (5e campaign) set in the snowy Icewind Dale area of faerun, I decided to make an Arctic themed UDT. While this will eventually be double sided with grassy terrain theme, I rushed this into production as a single sided tile for the next game session. Which you should not do. Unless you have to.
I followed Dungeon Craft’s tile video ((5223) Ultimate Arctic Terrain for Frostgrave/ Warhammer/ D&D – YouTube) with a few changes. I liked the idea of designing the board with an inner area for melee, and outer areas for ranged and distanced areas. But I wanted to make it a little different, so I also carved out a channel in the pink stuff that would represent an icy stream or perhaps a crack in the icepack showing some ocean gleaming through.
After carving in my patterns, and using a lighter to create some hollows and dips in the terrain, I painted the surface with black mod podge (mod podge with some black paint).
After drying, I painted the center icy area a teal blue.
Then I dry brushed the center area with white paint, followed by a layer of turquoise highlights.
Then another layer of drybrushing, and then I put on a layer of snow.
The video uses a commercial snow mix from Games Workshop, but I didn’t want to go to the hobby store (and I’ve heard that the SnowTex textured craft paint is better), so I mixed my own.
1 Part texture putty
3 parts mod podge
2 parts scenic effects snow
This homemade snow came out a little too thick and obscured some of the details of the center icy area, but worked out OK on the whole.
Then I painted the rest of the surface in a grey-blue (grey + aquamarine) followed by drybrushing, and the rest of the home made snow.
For the water effect I just used clear Elmer’s glue. This is less expensive than a water effects kit, but dries more slowly. I always paint the area where I’ll put the glue whatever color pattern I want to reflect the type of water.
Then I made some smaller terrain pieces, though I made the mistake of drybrushing too early – some patches of teal base coat were still wet, which caused some delay and less of the effect I wanted.
But in any event, welcome to the icy northlands!!
The Northern Warband are 28mm Inuit Warriors from Eureka Minatures, modified for a fantasy theme. The Polar Bear is from my son’s old toy chest, and the other animals retouched from D&D pre-painted miniatures I had.
My buddy Brian Cottrell over at Weird War II has been doing a YouTube series where he interviews gamer geeks and authors, and I was up at bat the other day. Brian’s a great guy and a real Weird War gamer devotee. Check it out!
Since this is the 20th anniversary of the release of the movies “The Fellowship of the Ring,” I’ve finally moved my Middle Earth project onto the front burner. It is my goal this year to paint and field several Middle Earth factions and get some games in using the Dux Arda fan mod rules for the Dux Britanniarum Dark Ages rules from Too Fat Lardies. I completed my first faction, the Dwarves, and decided next up would be some Middle Earth appropriate terrain.
I had some aquarium terrain I picked up at a garage sale, and some friends and family printed up some more iconic fantasy terrain that more clearly say – this is Middle Earth.
Terrain on the workbench – a fallen great statue of the 2nd Age, a fantasy Dolmen, a Dwarven watch beacon and temple ruins
I found 3D print files of a giant fallen statue head, perhaps left from some great work of the 2nd Age, on Thingiverse. A fantasy Dolmen and some smaller statues of kings I sourced from MyMiniFactory, and the Dwarven forge from DrivethruRPG. My nephew and a friend printed these for me. I also had some aquarium temple ruins I picked up from a garage sale.
The Dwarven beacon. (I made a small hill out of pink stuff to better position the Dwarven terrain piece.
A long forgotten King of the 2nd Age
Dwarves examine Dolmen frequented by a hidden tribe
Ruins from the Fall of Cardolan
Next on the workbench – Orcs of the Misty Mountains, using classic Ral Partha figures.
So this is the 20th anniversary of the release of the movies “The Fellowship of the Ring,” so I finally moved my Middle Earth project onto the front burner. It is my goal this year to paint and field several Middle Earth factions and get some games in using the Dux Arda fan mod rules for the Dux Britanniarum Dark Ages rules from Too Fat Lardies. The factions I have on hand to paint up and field include:
The Dwarves of Erebor and the Iron Hills: Dark Ages dwarves from Conqueror Models and older Vendel (Thistle and Rose) miniatures.
Men of the West: Various Romano-British and Saxon figures (Gripping Beast and Artizan) to assemble the Fyrd of Bree and the Greenways, including some Dunadain Rangers and Hobbit archers.
Orcs of the Misty Mountains: Primarily an collection of nice sculpts from Ral Partha that have been sitting around needing some paint and love. I’ll use some Wargames Factory 28mm plastic Orcs for the more “organized” Orcs of Gundabad, Mordor and Isengard.
Dunledings: I would prefer 28mm Dark Ages Picts, but happen to have some 28mm Ancient Germanics from Wargames Foundry that will do nicely.
Custom decals I made up in Photoshop, and then printed by Little Metal Spaceships.
Combo of MDF and 3D printed terrain for villages and Middle Earth ruins and such.
The first completed faction is Durin’s Folk – the Dwarves of Erebor and the Iron Hills (with painting help from Russell Levy!). This force is designed around a Shield Wall of heavy Spear, supported by units of one-hand and two-hand weapons, and some Crossbow figures for missile support.
The Dwarven warband arrayed for battleThe King stands ready!
The Dwarven warriors of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, hold the right flank
A contingent from the Iron Hills holds the Left FlankSkilled crossbow units harass the foe with deadly fire
The overall warband is about 50 figures strong, and I’ll add some extra figures as well, including a Dwarven Sage figure (basically a Wizard) from the Oathmark game line. I was going to use Oathmark shield decals, but then decided I wanted shield designs from Middle Earth, so I put them together in Photoshop (along with other factions) and had Brent Dietrich at Little Metal Spaceships print them out for me.
Custom made shield decals, using a 3mm hole punch to place a hole for a shield boss
And that completes my first faction for Middle Earth! Next up will be the Orcs of the Misty Mountains.
One side of the tile is Martian Surface themed, the other is a Lunar Surface theme. I used a lighter to add some depressions and craters in the pinkstuff foam tile on both sides, added some texturing with a wad of tinfoil, and scribed a few “rocky” areas with a ballpoint pen on the Martian side. After the undercoat of black paint & Mod Podge had dried on both sides, I went to work on the Mars tile surface. I gave it a coat of a mixture of Burnt Sienna, Orange and Red paint – resulting in a deep salmon color.
The Martian Surface tile after the first color coat
Then I mixed some Ochre, Red and Burnt Sienna paint with texturing paste and spackled the surface, to create some feeling of terrain. This was followed with several layers of drybrushing of Ochers and Browns to build up the feel of an Alluvial flow spreading across the surface, creating an area like an ancient dry streambed.
The final Martian Surface tile
After the Martian Surface side was done, I did the Lunar Surface tile. This was pretty straightforward. First I added two types of texture patches — a heavy grit mix, and a fine sand mix, using watered down PVA glue. Once that was dry, I painted the whole tile surface with a dark Charcoal Grey. Then using a sponge I dry brushed on a layer of light grey, and then finished off by dry brushing a light layer of white as a highlight, trying to keep the sponge stroke from one direction to simulate sunlight lighting up the surface.
The Lunar Surface tile
I can see so many possibilities for UDT tiles, and they are fun to make!
Yes, you read the title! As a patreon supporter of Brian Cottrel’s Weird War II channel and Facebook group, I won their Christmas Patreon contest. Woo-hoo! The prize was a really nice 1/56th scale Weird War 2 Soviet T-34/85 turret from Gaddis Gaming with several weird weapon combos, like a chain gun, a blaster and a massive flamethrower.
I love the quality of the pieces — but all my Soviet tanks are 1/50th scale Solido diecast models I got from Quarterkit in France. This meant that, sadly, at 1/56 scale the turret was too small for the tank I had on hand (painted by my son many moons ago and left to collect dust).
1/50th Solido diecast tank next t the Gaddis Gaming 1/56th Weird War turret and gun barrels
That left me no choice but to embark on a kitbashing project! Been a while, but old instincts kicked back in. I needed to tear down the diecast model and figure out how to get a cool Weird War gun barrel onto my T-34.
Disassembly of the diecast T-34 required a screw driver and other basic tools.
Once the tank was disassembled, including the turret, I had to figure out how to attach the gun barrel to the tank. The original gun barrel rested in a sort of notch that cradled it when the turret was sealed, so I ended up putting small screw into the end of the flamethrower unit, and when I sealed the turret back up it held it pretty securely. I gave it a dose of goopy “Gorilla” brand superglue to help it stay in place
Seating the flame gun into the diecast tank turret
Then I reassembled the diecast tank, which has a few fiddly-but stages, but eventually everything was back together and the Solido T-34 had a brand new turret! But it looked like it was still missing a few things. So I used an oil barrel from my bits box as a fuel cannister for the flame gun, and cut up an old hair scrunchy to use as the fuel hose, and added some green stuff later on to make it look like the hose was entering a metal fixture.
The T-34 with massive flame gun takes shape!Added a bit of track to the bow and made a hull-mounted MG out of green stuff
After finishing a few more little details, it was time to get painting! First I primed it in a medium/dark green Tamiya spray paint I had on hand. It looked good, but too dark for what I wanted.
The first coat — too dark (28mm Bolt Action Soviet figure for scale comparison
OK — looking more like the Weird War 2 tank I had in mind, but I didn’t like the base coat, it was too dark. I hand painted a lighter Soviet green from my Vallejo paint bin, took two coats to get it right.
Two coats of Soviet green – that’s what I was looking for!
With the base coat in place it was just a matter of building up the details. I painted the track, track bit and anything that spews exhaust a rust color, added smoke smudges, detailed the gear, etc. Then once dry I applied the decals, and then finished it off with a MiG Green Armor wash.
The Soviet T-34/AP (Atomnoye Plamya) atomic flametank – ready to rain radioactive fire on any foe!
I really liked how the “Mesmerizing Morel Mushroom Trees” 3D printed underground terrain from Dungeon Artifacts turned out, that and the scatter terrain. So now I needed to paint up some cavern walls terrain. These 3D prints are also from Dungeon Artifacts, the “Grotto Walls” terrain kit. I poked around looking at images of caverns from around the world and then thought of my own experiences with casual caving (not spelunking mind you, just going to the touristy caverns!). Living caves are not just grey — they have all sorts of tan and beige colors from water pulling minerals out of the rock to form stalactites and stalagmites and other formations. Then I found a great video from Fat Dragon games on painting cavern terrain, and it was an ideal fit for my research.
Cavern walls terrain in use on my Ultimate Dungeon Terrain tile
I base coated the cavern walls with dark grey, then built up layers of other color – tans, browns, beiges.
The party explores the caverns of the Underdark!
After some highlights using a Mocha color, I gave the walls a dark wash treatment. When the wash had dried I finished it off with a coat of clear Matte spray.
The party fights a Umberhulk in my brand new caverns!
The final result looked very much what I’d hoped for!
You know what would also be great terrain for the Underdeeps? An abandoned mine! Luckily I have just the terrain in mind from Mantic!
Now that I have an Ultimate Dungeon Tile, I need stuff to go on top. Since the current DND 5e game is going to the Underground, I thought — let’s do some tabletop terrain to match! Brian at Weird War 2 has picked up some sponsors for his channel and using a discount code got some 3D printed underground terrain from Dungeon Artifacts — some “Mesmerizing Morel Mushroom Trees” and cave walls.
I based the terrain, and then added some detail bits inspired by a video by Wyloch’s Amory – clever things like using pushpins and brass tacks as mushrooms.
The Magic Morels are Based
Since this really didn’t seem like enough, I made some additional scatter terrain using odds and ends, including a cavern pool (foamcore base and DAZ Clay rim), a giant skull from a broken dinosaur toy and so on.
The scatter terrain coming along nicely
For the cavern pool I experimented with a water effect made from clear Elmer’s Glue. This should be the last treatment on this piece, since if you spray it with a Clear Matte sealant it will dull the surface and it won’t look like water. I painted the alien cave plant things in bright colors, but kept it within the family of Blue-Green paints. I didn’t have any really bright paints, so I made do with what I had on hand.
The finished Underdark Morel Trees
I was pleased with the end result. Maybe I’ll experiment in future with brighter neon style pigments. These Morel trees will end up pulling double duty as alien trees for my 5150 scifi games.
Here’s my UDT tile covered with the new Cavern terrain with some figures for scale.
