Post Apocalypse

My predilection for science fiction, disaster movies, zombies and apocalyptic scenarios in general, not to mention the huge impact of playing Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas on my life*, has led me to dabble unsuccessfully in creating a scenario of my own which would combine these aspects, without plagiarising somebody else's (at least not too much anyway). Dangerous Brian has begun posting about his rationale on post-apocalyptic settings here and here, with more to follow. Reading the posts certainly gave me food for thought and I've spent a few idle moments here and there thinking about what background and elements I'd to like to include in my own setting.

I'm not a role player, I'm a miniature gamer**, but I do concentrate on the setting and the 'characters' of my games far more than many wargamers do. The buzz term might be 'Narrative Adventure Gamer' maybe or I might just be OCD, who knows. To get back to the point though, my setting will be somewhat dictated by the figures I intend to purchase to play.*** These are somewhat diverse unusually, as I normally zone in on one manufacturer or sculptor for a period and tend not to have to worry about compatibility problems between manufacturers. Fortunately I can blame numerous things for variances between figures... 'mutation innit' sniff!

There are a few pre-requisites however;

• I don't do magic, psionics, or special abilities over and beyond what could 'conceivably' be possible... Batman good, Superman bad.
• No Super-Mutants, mutants with super-powers, psionics or magical abilities.
• No monsters... Monster creatures sure... giant spiders, scorpions, the full Harryhausen schtick definitely.
• No aliens... probably.
• No zombies as such, feral rabid '28 days later' style infected without a doubt though.
• Fallout style Ghouls for sure. I like the idea of small groups of deformed and shunned original survivors, some of them with lost knowledge, others with, well, lost everyday dull memories to relate. How annoying to run into a 'survivor' of the event and expect some revelation of how to make something really awesome, only to find he was a janitor in the old days. I know you'd go mental right?   
• Robots and paranoid Artificial Intelligences... HAL, Skynet, Colossus, Proteus IV, Marvin the paranoid android, Bender, WALL-E. Okay maybe not the last one.
• No Matrix... seriously. The only thing humans can power is a treadmill.. ah... yes.
• Slavery, bound to happen, it does now.
• Differing levels of tech and patterns of settlement. Tribals, settlers, bottom feeders and vault-dwellers, the usual suspects.           

There are one or two contenders on the 'To Buy' list already and in no particular order they are;

Lead Adventure Miniatures
Real post-apocalypse looking folk. They have a 'Russian' feel to many of the figures a la 'Stalker' in many cases, but I have a plan for that.

Pig Iron Productions
Lots of useful figures here, providing I can find a use for them.

Pig Iron Kolony Militia

West Wind Productions
By and large the Secrets of the Reich/Weird World War Two concept turns me off quicker than the wrestling scene in Borat, but there is one (more than that actually) diamond in the rough in their Incursion range....

Incursion APE... now that's what I call power armour! 

Corvus Belli 
The Infinity range of miniatures, available from in the UK from Arcane Miniatures. This range has some awesome figures in it. Some are a bit too Manga for my taste, but the odd one or two really float my boat. Very pricey (well into the GW end of the market)... but ultimately worth it? Maybe.

There are some awesome figures in the range, like Van Zant here.

Hasslefree Miniatures
Hasslefree's Adventurers range has some great near-future figures, which I might work in as some form of vault-dwellers, as they don't really have that post-apocalypse feel... more like 'as the apocalypse is happening' than anything. Great figures though.

Just one of a very good range.

 Antenociti's Workshop
The G.O.T. range has some vault-like and other figures in is ranges that are quite attractive.

Wales and West Security, just part of a good range.

Crooked Dice
The miniatures that have come out for their 7TV game are some of the most original figures to appear recently. The game itself looks good fun and worth a visit to check it out.

Agent Pandora King with a Vault Suit paint job. 

There are of course so many other manufacturers out there with figures suitable, but these for me are the cream of the crop of the not so often seen figures about.

*Do you know anyone else whose favourite house ornaments are a Vault Boy bobble-head and a Vault-Tec lunchbox? Thought not.
** In the loosest sense of the word, seeing as I am not a member of a club, have no painted miniatures and currently nowhere to play games.
*** This is where I win for once. Unlike most wargamers, who buy stuff on a whim ('Ooh shiny') and have a huge lead mountain of stuff they'll never get round to painting, I just have a huge collection of bookmarks on my laptop connected  to stuff I'd like to buy one day... an electron mountain if you like. It's way cheaper and the painting is far better.