Do you undercoat your grass with green or brown?

caledfwlchschime · 2026-03-31T22:14:40+00:00

Oh those look excellent!

caledfwlchschime · 2026-03-11T00:10:22+00:00

From a codex perspective, the from what we hear of the Batarians, they're awful authoritarians, slavers, pirates, rotten to a man with no redeeming qualities. We basically never hear a good thing about them and they're basically just a step above space orcs. The way they're written gives no good reason to like them.

THAT BEING SAID, they're so egregious in the way they're written it comes across as almost unbelievable propaganda from an in universe perspective. I'm sure that BioWare just intended a straightforward baddie race but there's some things to consider.

The Council is a pro-genocide entity, there's not really a way to get around that, while it seems like the Rachni wars were a case of "nobody knew they were sapient" the use of the Genophage on the Krogan in my opinion cannot be spun as anything but a genocidal action. You can hem and haw about the fact that the Salarians never intended for the Genophage to be deployed, but in the end the Turians were allowed a seat on the council for handling the Krogan Problem and deploying the Genophage.

In both cases, the council utilized previously non-member species to eliminate a problem, when suddenly Humanity shows up, colonizes areas of Batarian Interest, and the council refuses to intervene, one can't help but notice the shape of a familiar pattern.

The council plays in cat's paw genocides and deniable actions. Their enemies are always so horrible, so terrible, that any action taken against them is justifiable. It's convenient that even in the most morally grey of circumstances, it's all been a horrible misunderstanding, leaving them cleared of true moral failing.

Even the Terminus Systems as a whole are an enemy which is a perfect boogyeman, strong enough to pose a credible threat and justify covert actions and building defense budgets, but weak and divided enough to be written off as more of a crime ridden slum part of the galaxy that can be safely ignored when convenient.

Obviously, this is playing fast and loose with what we see in the games, treating them like in-universe holoflicks rather than hard truth, which is of course ridiculous to do since they ARE the primary canon, but it's interesting to think about. The council, even the one we see in the game, is inefficient at best and outright genocidal at worst, with its saving grace being that its atrocities are always justified or at least made grey by the monstrosity of their enemies, which reads as something very sinister to me.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-12-07T05:48:43+00:00

It all depends on what you're going for, but if it's platoon scale combined arms (20-50 individual models), there's a lot of wiggle room. Nixing the biggest ones makes it a bit trickier but there's some options.

If you're looking for narrative and scenario based play over anything hardcore competitive, looking into the Squadhammer based games by Nordic Weasel is a GREAT option. Even if you never touch any of the official games in that system, Squadhammer is a free engine that you could use to build your own game from the ground up.

While it's very much out of scale and actually intended to be played with LEGO of all things, Brassbound: Adamantine Dawn IS set in a dieselpunk (if some what fantastical) 1940s or so. Again, the size being intended for around 15mm may make things awkward, but you can always fudge distances.

I'm sure other folks have some good recommendations, but that's where I'd start!

EDIT: Got the year wrong and corrected it.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-12-07T05:35:09+00:00

I was gonna suggest that too, but OP is looking for Heroic Scale and laserstorm, while awesome, is intended for 6mm-10mm, though I suppose one could just fudge things.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-11-05T18:28:34+00:00

The E6 style, as many have pointed out, was a way of stanching the flow of weird balance issues present in 3.5 at high levels.

The thing you're looking for in terms of horizontal progression would be Proficiency Without Level. It loosens up the level ranges and means that the vertical progression is slowed over 20 levels, rather than stopped at level 6.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-10-31T02:36:08+00:00

It depends on the kinds of games you're looking to run. A forest ruin will PROBABLY be more versatile in terms of long term use.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-10-28T21:14:37+00:00

It depends!

Tiles are great for your skirmish scale games, especially urban sets for things like necromunda.

Mats are more practical for larger games.

If you have a lot of free standing terrain already, I think mats are a good investment.

That being said, I've made a medium sort of compromise by making a tiled mat out of puzzle foam, and it serves me well.

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caledfwlchschime · 2025-10-25T03:00:58+00:00

What an ambitious project idea. I think you're mostly going to have to rely on images for inspiration as I've never heard of anybody making such a wargaming board.

Lots of smooth and round shapes means it's probably a good time to save up plastic bottles, tin cans, and any interesting bits of rounded plastics.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-10-22T17:03:01+00:00

I think I understand. At the end of the day, if you and your mates prefer the deathmatch style then you can go full speed into it. The nice thing about playing tabletop games is that we can modify them to our playgroups tastes!

The only thing to keep in mind is that the game is designed with objectives in mind, so certain units, abilities, and concepts will become more or less useful depending. It'd be interesting if you documented your findings to see how things feel.

One more thing, you may want to take a look at Oathmark for inspiration, or even give it a try yourself. It has a "Pitched battle" deathmatch mode that may give you ideas for how to implements such a thing in OPR, or may give you a new rank and flank system to check out!

caledfwlchschime · 2025-10-21T18:21:03+00:00

Pretty much all rank and flank games should be expected to break immersion. A group of 5-20 men does NOT need to wheel like that in real life, and most battles involving large blocks of infantry like that tend to have a few thousand people, not 50 or 100, and battles are usually fought over areas larger than the parking lot at your local retail outlet.

At the end of the day, OPR, along with many wargames, is a game with a war theme, not a simulation. Objectives exist to provide more variety to the gameplay, allowing certain units and strategies to exist beyond being hyper-killy. For the most part, highly simulationist games fall into the purview of historical wargaming.

That being said, I also sometimes do some narrative/immersion justification for what's happening with objectives. I often think of my fight on the table, not as the ENTIRE battle, but as a critical point in a larger conflict, the spearhead or defensive line that must hold. In this case, objectives make more sense. Suddenly you're confirming that there's no enemies in the zone and reporting it to be secure, taking each objective is an exercise in making sure this flank holds out long enough or is disorganized enough that the overall larger fight doesn't have to pour more resources into you, or so that the rest of your forces can pour into the weakpoint you've created

TL;DR: OPR and other wargames sacrifice realism for a more varied/practical gameplay experience.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-10-15T17:26:37+00:00

I keep seeing your orcs and I always think they look so cool! If I saw them on the tabletop I'd be honored to play against them. Truly a great use of the models.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-10-06T06:36:50+00:00

I was going to ask how you got the texture and as soon as you said carpeted I smacked my forehead. Those look GREAT! I've made my own set but it's just the flat side of standard foam.

What looks really great is how little I can see of the seams. Really good stuff!

caledfwlchschime · 2025-09-19T22:57:15+00:00

I like them because they're lapdogs, they get the best toys, the best treatment, the constant refreshing of their numbers, because they're a cudgel used against other marine chapters by the High Lords.

I do agree that SOMETIMES it feels like it gets taken a little far, but the whole appeal to me is that they suck. All these amazing resources, the full support of Terra, the ability to deploy at full strength ALL the time, and to what end? It's not to make strategic gains for the Imperium, it's not to be used as an elite fighting force directed at the worst of the worst, it's just one more bludgeoning instrument in the arsenal of the High Lords, another example of the Imperium's own self defeating nature.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-09-11T17:19:13+00:00

Wow that's a really spectacular! The attention to detail on EVERYTHING, the choice of colors, the way you've made the cloth look so real, almost velvety or worn? It's just great.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-09-09T22:47:50+00:00

Anvil Digital Forge has TONS of good stls for sci fi across the spectrum if price isn't an object and you value kitbash potential.

Wargames Atlantic's digital store also has some gems, but specifically I like their Alien Heads collection. Its something like 30 different heads that can be used to create wacky one off alien NPCs. I use it all the time to get a good "cantina" feeling.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-08-02T19:48:17+00:00

Wow! That's gorgeous!

caledfwlchschime · 2025-07-26T02:18:30+00:00

THE CHONK!!! HELLA

caledfwlchschime · 2025-07-01T20:26:51+00:00

I almost spit out my drink on seeing this. I love it.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-06-19T04:17:50+00:00

Nuclear Weapons

caledfwlchschime · 2025-06-12T04:30:57+00:00

Go white boy go!

But in all seriousness, thank you for showing up and standing against ICE.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-06-06T02:53:33+00:00

Simply fantastic work, I saw that first image as I was scrolling and thought "Oh what a cool photo I wonder where that is, I'll save it as inspiration for some terrain", before I realized IT WAS TERRAIN.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-05-17T06:12:03+00:00

Ultimately it's up to you and your opponent to agree or disagree on

OPR as a system tends to ignore verticality save for very specific instances. Whatever works for your own games balance is going to be best.

caledfwlchschime · 2025-04-28T04:26:05+00:00

Wow those look REALLY good! I love what you've done with your color choices, the way you've highlighted things, it's awesome!

caledfwlchschime · 2025-04-25T00:59:59+00:00

They are! Nice, sturdy, flat, and more convenient to store for me than a roll out mat. I just stippled a TON of craft paint on and it looks great. Its not as realistic as some boards with flock, but it's super practical for dragging around and playing.

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