Rules Writing, Tabletop Scenery and Other Such Musings

Well it’s been a busy week or so around my place. A move to a new house and some unpacking under my belt, I figured it was high time to get another update done. Shortly before the move I was able to get my simple, quick-play Lego skirmish rules Little Plastic Heroes finished, and started work on a more elaborate set. Writing homebrew rules is very rewarding and I’ve been doing it since I first got into gaming eons ago.

 Another thing I’ve been working on as of late is scenery for Lego wargames. I really love the minifigure for gaming purposes, but not too keen on having my tabletop littered with standard Lego bricks. That said, I started looking into an alternative last year for scenery, but wanted something that still had that “plasticky” sort of look to it. I immediately thought of Playmobil. Their trees and rock formations are virtually scale-free and perfect for Lego wargaming scenery. I was lucky enough to get quite a haul of Playmobil rocks off eBay and painted them to match my tabletop. With a few dozen Lego tan prickly bushes and a few Playmobil dead trees, I was able to put together a pretty good looking table. The plan for this scenery is for modern desert and wild west games. Thanks to the release of the new Lone Ranger sets and minifigs, this period has climbed to the top of my gaming queue. Pardon the bad lighting but below you get the idea of how my desert themed tabletop looks.

 

 

I’ve started doing some work on some jungle terrain and will feature some of that in a further update. Jungle will be used for Lego pirates and maybe even some pulp adventure. Who knows? I’m not the biggest fan of the colors the Playmobil palm trees come in, but I have a good buddy who’s agreed to do some airbrush work and “fix” that issue for me. Stay tuned to see how that works out. I don’t intend to paint all my plastic scenery but rather paint the odd batch of stuff here and there to make it more visually appealing.

Some other forms of terrain/scenery I’ve been considering are urban (for post-apoc and zombie adventures) and some sci-fi. The urban tabletop will double as a desolate planet littered with Playmobil scraggly rock formations and GW/Pegasus blast craters for sci-fi. Of course, that’s a while off and something I’m still rolling around in my noggin’.