Throwback Project - Spartan Scenics Barracks Accessories

These are from the long defunct Spartan Scenics line of 28mm sci-fi terrain. I'm fairly certain that I picked up this box on clearance after the product line was discontinued, but it was long enough ago for my memory to be a little fuzzy. As the name suggests, this set of bunks and lockers is suitable for a communal sleeping and storage arrangement. Getting these pieces tabletop ready is part of my ongoing effort to get the OOP products in my collection finished this year.

Barracks Accessories pieces and original packaging.

Preparation
The resin casting of the lockers and bunks is good, but not perfect. There are some bubbles, but all are on the reverse side of the pieces where they won't be seen. The locker pieces needed some sanding to even them out and get them to sit on a flat surface without wobbling.

Assembly
The frames for the bunk pieces are clear acrylic, which still strikes me as a little odd. A less brittle plastic or MDF might have been easier to work with. I used an option suggested by the artwork on the packaging - gluing a locker piece to the bunk frame. It looks pretty good and adds weight and stability to the piece. I considered another option seen on the box - gluing the lockers together side by side. Unfortunately, this would hide the detailing on the sides of the lockers. I glued the locker pieces back to back to avoid this and conceal the casting bubbles. Gorilla Super Glue was used throughout - I normally avoid using cyanoacrylate glue on clear acrylic since it visibly distorts the plastic, but that wouldn't be a factor under a coat of primer and paint.

I left one set of bunks without an attached locker so I could duplicate the set up on the back of the packaging.

Priming
I spray primed the assembled pieces with whatever I had on hand. Which turned out poorly.

Painting
I had to scuttle my original plans for painting these pieces. Any paint I tried brushing on beaded up badly. I decided to try spraying on another coat, this time with Krylon COLORmaxx Spray Paint and Primer In One. I laid the pieces down and sprayed them from the bottom up in Flat Black to provide shading. After that coat dried, I stood the pieces up and sprayed them with Matte Grey from the top down. This provides a grey base color while keeping the black in the recesses and underside.

Close up showing how the black in the recesses contrasts with the grey.

I realized something while inspecting the coverage of the second coat of Krylon - I kinda like the flat grey appearance of the pieces. Sure, I could pick out details like the mattresses and pillows in different colors or apply a wash. On the other hand, bunks and lockers like these are supposed to look drab. Maybe it's the part of me that's always ready to be done and move on. Or I could just be getting lazy. In any event, I can always put more paint on these pieces later.

Asteroid Ship Corridor Encounter

Initial test set up of the asteroid ship interior. This configuration ended up as the first area. Note my helpful assistant being helpful.

This post describes a set of encounters that I ran for our Star Trek Adventures campaign a few months ago. My hope was to present the players with an exciting and visually interesting session. My other goal was to provide some motivation to make more progress on the pile of miniatures and terrain that I've purchased over the years.

Background

The player characters' vessel - USS Yamato, an Akira-class starship - was investigating a century-old Starfleet distress signal. The trail led to an enormous sublight ship constructed from an asteroid. The asteroid ship was similar in principle to, but clearly of different origins from, the world ship Yonada from "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" (TOS). The player characters had reason to believe that Starfleet personnel in cryogenic stasis were aboard the asteroid ship. Unfortunately, the dense rock of the asteroid and the materials used to turn it into a functioning spaceship were interfering with USS Yamato's sensors. An Away Team mission would need to board the asteroid ship to investigate further. Naturally, the Away Team deployed from USS Yamato was composed for the player characters - the Captain*, the Science Officer, and the Chief of Security.

*TNG establishes that starship captains do not lead Away Teams, but DS9 and Voyager tend to ignore the idea. Since this was very early in the campaign, I preferred to have the player running the Captain use his character rather than putting him into the shoes of the First Officer or other Supporting Character. My justification for the purposes of the campaign was that the relevant regulation existed, but was sporadically enforced.

Planning phase. Always need coffee for the planning phase.

Rules Overview

Once aboard the asteroid ship, the Away Team found that their tricorders were limited to short range due to the same factors that interfered with USS Yamato's sensors. Tricorder scans also lacked definition - the operator was able to detect that something unusual was in a given location, but could not identify it without further analysis. Communications between the Away Team and USS Yamato were also degraded. It was quickly determined that the amount of static would increase as the Away Team ventured deeper into the asteroid ship, but that contact would not be lost entirely.

The rules were fairly simple. After the corridor board was set up and the miniatures representing the Away Team were placed, the Science Officer would roll for their tricorder scan. The scan would reveal anything of interest within short range. Technological items such as data terminals and cryogenic stasis tanks detected by the scan would be placed on the board. Biological sensor contacts would be represented by "blip" tokens placed on the board. The Science Officer could select a blip token and use each success rolled to determine its exact nature. A given blip could be revealed to be anything from the corpse of an asteroid ship crewmember to a group of alien predators to a type not previously encountered. A new board was set up when the Away Team entered another area of the asteroid ship. There were two boards set up in total.

Data terminals could be accessed to gather information about the asteroid ship. However, extensive security protocols limited access to the asteroid ship's data networks.

Cryogenic stasis tanks could hold a member of the asteroid ship's crew or a long-lost Starfleet officer.

Corpses of the asteroid ship crew littered the corridors. The corpses showed signs of predation.

Running into a group of predators resulted in a combat encounter. Curiously, the predators showed signs of a communal intelligence that communicated through the use of natural radio transmitter/receivers. The predators were clearly of different biological origin than the asteroid ship crew.

Test set up of the second area of the asteroid ship. Note the closed doors blocking free movement of the critters (represented by "blips") and the cryogenic stasis tubes.

Inspiration

The encounter was mechanically inspired by Star Trek Adventures' rules for gathering information. Each successful result behind what is needed to succeed at such a Task allows the player to ask a question of the gamemaster. In this case, each additional success allowed the Science Officer's player to ask what each "blip" token represented. Within the context of the game setting, this reflects the Science Officer's efforts to use her tricorder to dial in on a specific sensor contact.

Visually, it was inspired by a certain board game about investigating a massive derelict in space. The board game is based in a certain grimdark space fantasy setting where there is only unending military conflicts and endless debates over what is considered canon. That board game was, in turn, clearly inspired by the second installment of the "Alien" movie franchise.

The full set up of the first area during actual play. The Away Team just cleared this section of the asteroid ship and are preparing to press on.

Miniatures and Terrain Sources

The asteroid ship interiors area single set of Creative Gamescapes Spaceship X modular spaceship corridor tiles. As shown, the tiles are not in a complete state. They are assembled with a silver basecoat and a layer of wash, but still need some work. I intend to write a separate post on them when I finish that project.

The Away Team was represented by Effigy Miniatures' Havoc Girls. They were featured in a post earlier this year.

Litko Scanner Blip Tokens, Fluorescent Blue were used for the tricorder contacts. In retrospect, green might have been more thematic.

The alien predators prowling the corridors of the asteroid ship were represented by the Parasachnid Warriors from Khurasan Miniatures. They are featured in their own post.

The data terminals were Warsenal's Access Terminals. They were featured in a post from April.

The cryogenic stasis pods were a "trash bash" built from bits I had in storage. See this post for details.

The crates and other small terrain pieces scattered along the corridors were Spartan Scenics Warehouse Accessories. They were featured in a post from way back in 2015.


Wrapping Up

The encounters worked as designed and were well received by the players. I was also happy to get a few more painting and assembly projects completed. Having an immediate use for specific miniatures and terrain helped to maintain my focus.

Spartan Scenics Warehouse Accessories

Painted pieces and packaging. I decided against painting them all gray and grimdark.

These are from a set of 28mm scale resin terrain pieces. I'm guessing from their appearance that Spartan Scenics had Infinity in mind when they put these on the market. However, they look generic enough to work as scatter terrain for most science fiction skirmish wargames and RPGs. Not all of the pieces that come in the box are pictured - I lost some due to gremlins between purchase and painting.

The pieces are solid resin and most do not require assembly. The detailing is good. There are handles, security keypads, and other greebles that suggest a functional (but scaled down) object. The casing is excellent. There are no mold lines marring the details of the pieces. There are a few bubbles on the underside of a couple of pieces, but no one will notice once the pieces are placed on the table.

After reviewing my long list of projects, I decided on a quick and basic approach using spray paints for the majority of the work. The first layer is a gray auto body primer. The base coat is a dark brown (Krylon Brown Camouflage Paint Made with Fusion – Ultra Flat). I divided up the pieces into four groups and picked out a color for each group (Krylon ColorMaster Paint+Primer in Aluminum, Iris, Rich Plum, and Pumpkin Orange). In each case, I sprayed at a high angle to leave a little of the brown base coat under the raised areas. This created a shading effect and an overall dirty, worn look for most of the pieces. The biohazard symbols were picked out with red (Reaper MSP 09279 Fresh Blood). The keypads and display panels got a dark green base (Reaper MSP 09011 Leaf Green), followed by a bright green layer (Reaper MSP 09294 Alien Goo), and highlighted in a bright yellow (Reaper MSP 09287 Neon Yellow) to simulate self-lighting. The pieces painted in non-metallic paint were then sealed (Testors Dullcote) to bring down the shine from the satin and gloss finishes of the spray paint.

Sarah Blitzer looking for a clear line of fire through all these cargo containers. She's a little concerned about all the biohazard warning signs.

Functionally, the pieces work well at blocking lines of sight and for models to use as cover. The pieces can be stacked on each other with varying levels of stability. The appearance of the pieces convey a science fiction feel that works well for just about any space opera game. I was most strongly reminded of firefights in the Mass Effect games, but diving behind cargo containers is a staple of Star Trek, Star Wars, and other science fiction settings to numerous to list here.

The back of the box has some interesting suggestions that I couldn't resist expanding on. Using the pressurized tanks as cover may not be the best idea, especially if they contain explosive gases. Using biohazard containers as cover is an even worse idea without protective clothing. Coming up with a chart to determine the effects of shooting these containers with a couple of die rolls should be easy enough in any game system. The pallets could be remotely controlled anti-gravity platforms designed to make forklifts unnecessary. Anti-grav pallets would move around during a fight and complicate planning - a model could find itself without cover as the pallet and its cargo floats away from it. Alternately, some quick hacking into the pallet's software could move them at one player's command. Getting rammed by an anti-grav pallet loaded with heavy cargo containers is bad news even for someone in power armor.

Overall, these pieces look like they will be a staple of my science fiction games for some time to come.