Below are screengrabs showing a first pass at my next rulebook FRAG. FRAG is a simple d6 based wargame where squads of FPS heroes fight hordes of monsters. The artwork is just stuff found online and added to look pretty for my gaming group, so I’ll be looking for commissioned pieces of art closer to final release.
Current armies are: Space Marines, Hell, and the Old Ones. The Old One list is only half-done, and the list is already so huge it’ll probably end up pruned or split off.
Work on the system is ongoing. Future updates will add The Order (Heretic/Hexen) and the SS Paranormal Division. I also want to make a list of themed NPC-type characters who live on the worlds each faction visits, like cops/guards/WW2 GIs, etc.
You can make Doomguys pretty easily using Maelstrom’s Edge plastics and Pig Iron’s system trooper helmets. I’ve gone one step further and used Hasslefree weapons to equip mine with shotguns, chainguns, plasma rifles, rocket launchers (minor converting required) and super shotguns. There are also engineer and medic variants, and an officer with an oversized pistol. I’m still painting the 7 objective markers – 3 skulls, 3 key cards, and a small pet rabbit.
These guys are being used for my wargame FRAG, a mass battle system inspired by 90s FPS games.
I run Mutant Chronicles tabletop campaign. Sometimes I write things for it. Sometimes I make new monsters for it. About six months ago I replayed Quake 1 for the first time in years, and a new threat for my players was born.
Vorare (Elite) A tri-legged spideresque horror. Drawn from arcane dimensions, they are parasites that feed on raw Dark Symmetry flowing from enslaved universes– though some inhabitants of those haunted realms claim they are birthed from the Empress of the Void herself. They are sometimes summoned by the greatest scholars of the Dark Symmetry to serve as eldritch guardians.
Not just the gameplay (which is fast and fluid, with a healthy roster of distinct enemies), not just the graphics (aged but still effective) but the atmosphere. Quake has some of the best atmosphere I’ve ever heard. Heard is the word – the lighting and the theme of the graphics are part of this, but it’s the sound and music design of Quake that really make it shine.
Everybody likes to talk about Quake’s multiplayer, but I’m not that interested in Quake as a multiplayer franchise. It’s fun, but for me the real high point of Quake is in the single player. There’s simply no other game quite like it. We have a lot of brown shooters, but there’s only one Quake.
You’re a sci-fi military soldier, from some kind of brutalist retro-futuristic Earth, making his way through countless arcane dimensions and fighting against evil eldritch monsters. The worlds you visit are bleak, dark and very hostile . You are constantly made to feel like an intruder in a strange and darkly oppressive place, waiting for the next eyeless abomination to jump out from the shadows or teleport into the room with a distinct PING sound
Playing
through Quake’s E4M2, with the lighting set just right and the sound
turned up, was one of the best and most memorable shooting experiences I
had last year.
The thought of a modern Quake reboot going back to the series’ dark fantasy Lovecraftian roots is tantalizing, though I wonder if it would be possible in today’s market. You never know though – Doom 2016 happened
Until then – get a sourceport, get the files, and play some Quake.
I can get quite anal about texture alignment in levels, so it’s nice to spot even minor errors in the commercial Id games. Quake’s e2m1 has a fairly infamous misaligned wall, but Doom and Quake both have lots of tiny, barely noticeable instances of textures misaligned or cut off due to awkwardly sized or sloped rooms.
Some WIP 15mm Space Marines. The infantry are sold by SLAP Miniatures, while the rhinos are Flames of war M113s. The trucks are Zvesda models that will be converted into Ork trukks. I’ve written my own rules for playing 15mm 40k games.
Not pictured: 90 15mm orks, more vehicles, and a 4×4 jungle board.
The Doom community is full of fantastically creative people and the above pictures are one example of this. These two characters are from TerminusEst’s mod Demonsteele. It turns Doom into 1st person Devil May Cry.
The first picture was originally posted on Tumblr by a user known as greenlegacy. The second picture was posted on Tumblr by a user known as nankakurashiki.
The Nephrite Games Blog 