This spring we see three(!) rulesets being released focusing on the theme of creepy, claustrophobic, salvage work in deep space. Black Site Studios has recently published 'Kosmika'; in early March, Patrick Todoroff's released 'Scrapjacks'; and Will RD has just closed a Kickstarter for the Forbidden Psalm spinoff, 'Legitimate Salvage'.
As one can imagine, all of these rules draw heavily from 1979's 'Alien', which depicts a gritty crew of 'space truckers' being redirected by their corporate paymasters to a mysterious planet to investigate a beacon, where, of course, everything go horribly, horribly wrong. This movie is an all time favourite of mine, with fond memories of being scared out of my wits while watching it, knees to chest, through half closed fingers. Glorious.
So I've been very keen to try these various rules out to see how they do in portraying that balance between space horror, corporate salvage and lo-tech combat. Each of the systems require a very low figure count, which is good as I had no appropriate figures or terrain. This quickly needed to be addressed.
The terrain was easily sorted with an order to the good folks over at TTCombat. I picked out a selection of kits from their 'Chroma' Archology and Refinery ranges. These are all pre-coloured kits, just assemble and you're off. Terrific for those who're not keen on painting MDF terrain after spending hours simply assembling the stuff. Highly recommended.
 |
| Stacked examples from TTCombat's 'Chroma' Archology range. |
The figures required a bit of spelunking through MyMiniFactory, but I found these excellent figures from Papsikels Miniatures depicting the void suits worn by the 'Nostromo' crew. I just love these designs. So heavy, ponderous and baroque. Even after over 45 years since the film's release, they still look like something one would wear for salvage/exploration in deep space.
For the spacesuits' colours, I tried to keep it similar to the film, with the faded pink for Dallas, yellow for Kane, and the blue Lambert. I also did up a green suit as an extra, as some of the rules allow for larger salvage crews.
I wanted to mimic the corroded verdigris seen on the original helmets, armoured shoulders and chest plates, so tried out the AK Verdigris paint set, which, with two simple steps, worked a treat. Recommended if you want to go for a similar effect for bells and old brass fittings.
I'll follow-up with more figures (flora and fauna) along with a few short reviews on the rules as we play through them.
Thanks for popping by!
- Curt
