Messages

1

The Shipyard / Re: Star Wars second pass

« on: May 04, 2024, 01:57:34 pm »

To try and impose some sort of order on my modeling, I now have three dates on the calendar that I have set as goals for themed models.  Too late (last weekend) I realized that the next date up, May the Fourth, was far too close for enough time to finish a Clone Wars design… and then inspiration struck!  If I could not finish a ship design, I could design an unfinished ship.


These Acclamators in progress are a first attempt at a ship-build, I started with the outlines of the original, subtracted a few spaces, and then added beams throughout and a reactor at approximately the right location, thank you SW Cross Sections.  Overall, I am pretty pleased at how these turned out given the time constraints, and hopefully will have a new project incorporating some of these that are larger than an inch soon.

2

News and Rumors / Re: Halo returns

« on: April 19, 2024, 04:38:25 pm »

Just heard an Adepticon interview with Ronnie Renton from Mantic, he diplomatically steered the conversation away from both a fleet scale Halo game as well as Vault stl options, so those two predictions look like they were spot on.

The initial release scheduled is for a small scale skirmish game, heavily influenced by their earlier game Deadzone, focusing mainly on Spartans and Elites, but Ronnie did say all of their plans are accounting for many additional game modes, including Grunts, so that is a slight positive.  Possibly we will see boarding actions in the future, as opposed to replicating just the multiplayer experience.

3

Modeling Q&A / Not 3D printing??

« on: April 19, 2024, 04:31:22 pm »

Through the constant deluge of marketing emails, one occasionally catches my eye and this one from last week* made me laugh out loud.


The careful observer will note that these are not the standard anniversary or birthday photos that are usually the subjects of Shutterfly prints, but these were good reminders of probably the best custom prints I have ever received from them.


I have had Shutterfly do fabric and vinyl prints for backdrops or tables, but these 1.4 inch full color magnets are printed on the reverse of convex glass that are perfect for planet objectives with a reasonably common size; here is another printed set on the left, versus the regular stock tokens  from Homeworld Fleet Command on the right.


Their email was a reminder that I need to keep a set of files on hand and be ready to upload them whenever a free shipping event comes back around because there is a surprising amount of products they now carry, just waiting for game resources.

*The only problem with these magnets is that they have a tendency to migrate to appliances, it took a while for me to track these down, and do not know where the rest are hiding.

4

The Shipyard / Re: World War II

« on: April 08, 2024, 06:42:33 pm »

I see what you did there...

Thank you!  I wasn't quite sure I got the dimensions right...

5

The Shipyard / World War II

« on: April 01, 2024, 12:14:24 am »

New year, new time period… here is my first run at a WWII ship.  I have to say that I was skeptical of Warlord’s integrated bases for Victory at Sea but honestly they do help keep track of where the smaller ships are located on the table, this destroyer escort in particular.

6

Space Naval Games / Re: A Space Mat

« on: March 25, 2024, 07:13:47 pm »

I have not browsed Cigar Box Battles mats for a while, but that one looks pretty good.

Cloth mats are something I considered before yet have never posted on as I have had a lot of trouble stitching my thoughts together, but the otherwise flat expanses of sea or space seam tailor-made for a fabric mat.  Even though I use vinyl mats to dress up my photography (I felt the details on fleeces are too fuzzy) there is nothing more fitting than seeing a table blanketed with quality art, sew my cloth mats have a special place in my closet.  Has this yarn gone on too long, or does it need any alterations?

7

News and Rumors / Dread Not!

« on: March 01, 2024, 03:51:27 pm »

Dread Not! just launched as a Kickstarter campaign for WWI naval battles in 1:2400 scale…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dobbieshobbies/dread-not/

The Battle of Jutland starter set has the largest group of ships included at 26, with the other levels being split between the individual commands involved, and there are also multiple add-ons available for single or groups of ships that allows for a pretty high level of customizing your pledge.

8

General Discussion / AI and Naval Wargames

« on: February 29, 2024, 08:14:32 pm »

While I have never used a language model AI to prepare any writing project, or given any input or prompts to one, I did have an output only tag come up from Bing’s Copilot GPT that may be of interest.  I do disable the predictive assistant each and every time the browser updates, so the below tag was personalized solely from my search history…
What are some popular naval miniatures wargames and their rules and strategies

For the first time ever I clicked on a tagged suggestion, and Copilot then gave me the following recommendations: Victory at Sea, Black Seas, Topside Minis.

Victory at Sea at number 1 makes a lot of sense as it is probably the best selling historical naval game currently, with their drawn source being total searches.

Black Seas at number 2 was again a historical naval game, and the two sentence summary did give an overview of the setting and some of the mechanics, but not the initiative system which was its most innovative one.

Topside Minis was the biggest surprise at number 3, which I thought was a mistake at first but then found their pdf download for WWII actions on the site so there are starter rules available.  All in all, that would be a success for Topside’s SEO that their search presence is large enough to make it into Copilot’s top three picks.

I have searched for each of the above, but not for several months, so their detection algorithms are good enough to recognize an interest in naval games, but not very specific yet as each of the above are all historical entries instead of science fiction or fantasy.  As far as browsers go, on game searches, the predictors have a long way to go to reach HAL 9000 status, much less Skynet level, but I would start to be concerned if the above recommendations were all Armada and Homeworld though…

9

Misc. Naval Games / Re: Homeworld Fleet Command

« on: February 24, 2024, 03:50:15 pm »

Campaign Expansion – 5060523345939 – MUH052368

Here is a breakdown on the campaign expansion components:
Another 100 ships are included within 8 types, 6 large and 2 small, which does expand the silhouettes available to play over and above the multiple card versions included in the base game.

The campaign supplement is 32 pages and includes 8 more missions that are built around sequential play and customization through fleet upgrades purchased each mission.

For cardboard, another two sheets of tokens are included that allow the use of most if not all of the new ships for very large games, a second board, also for very large games, and card decks which support the new scenarios and upgrades.

In total, the campaign expansion has a fair amount of content, and is a good value that matches the standards of the base box.

10

Dystopian Wars / Re: MBS DW Fan 2.5 FAQ - Working Thread UPDATED 2/20/18: FAQ is Live!

« on: February 22, 2024, 07:33:35 pm »

A question - Does anyone recall the 6 engined bomber that was offered at IIRC Salute one year, the Valkyrie? And would anyone have the stats?

Sorry, did not have anything copied on it from the before times; normally my go-to for missing cards is eBay listing images, but the only thing up right now for the Valkyrie's Fury is one item that is marked as 'Unidentified bomber' so no luck there...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/315148079935

...there was a partial image I found of the promo card, the best of what I could make out are below:
Fore Cannons (P)   10   10   5   5
Wing Guns (S)      6   5
Aft Guns (S)      6   5
Bomb Bay (T)      5

Large Aerial Capital Class Model
Minimum move 4”   Turn Limit 1”
Turn template 45 deg   Squadron size 1

Area Bombardment (Bombs)
Combat Patrol
Hunter (Surface, Bombs)
Squadron Support (PLC SAS fighters 4)
Strategic Value (25)

Model is fitted with an internal shield (2) generator for no add----
Model has the piercing (fore cannon) munitions type
Models has incendiary (bombs) munitions type

Two wing guns (2) have a 90 deg fore fire arc
One fore cannon (p) has a fore fixed channel fire arc
One aft guns (s) has a 90 deg aft fire arc
Three bomb bays (t) have a 2” range and a 360 fire arc

Esmerelda and the Valkyrie’s Fury are available to all Dystopian Wars----
40% Non-Core element of a force.  ----

11

Misc. Naval Games / Homeworld Fleet Command

« on: February 08, 2024, 12:07:29 am »

Homeworld Fleet Command – 5060523345922 – MUH052367

Here is a brief breakdown on the base game components:
First of all, the ships arrive assembled and are a moderately soft and dense plastic, think boxed games from Fantasy Flight, or 1/72 historical miniatures from Hat Industries, not a sharply defined rigid polystyrene.  With that material choice there is less detail possible, but the modelers made the best use of the plastic possible, and the mold lines are well hidden.  At first glance this would seem to be a negative, but as these ships are not intended for stands or bases, in fact the game has them stored loosely in wells, a more durable plastic is a reasonable choice, and if the ships arrived on traditional sprues there would be much less room in the box for less ships.

At 101 total within 11 types, the number of ships is a good amount for variety of play, especially with the different unit cards included.  The careful observer will note that almost half of that total is composed of fighters, but I cannot criticize anyone boosting a ship count by including the smallest options possible.

The rulebook is 52 pages and includes 10 missions that roughly correspond to the events in the original Homeworld RTS game.  The first 7 scripted missions lay out the rules in order of escalating complexity which are in preparation of the final 3 that expect players to select their own fleet compositions.

Almost half of the box is composed of the other cardboard pieces required for play.  The board is hex based, and two decks of cards are used for activations and to track unit statistics.  Multiple tokens for modifiers, objectives, and statuses are included and in enough quantities for regular play.  All of these are good quality cardstock or board, but the one downside is that the molded inserts are tightly sized to their components, so much so that there is no room for card sleeves.

All in all, a good production given the design goals and that fits the majority of the original Homeworld onto the table.

12

News and Rumors / Re: Homeworld : Fleet Command

« on: January 27, 2024, 08:36:24 pm »

North American fulfillment is in process now,

...and now it is finally here!


Several hundred ships are soon to be scattered across the table, with updates following shortly after I hope.

13

Space Naval Games / Re: Played in a SW Armada Tournament!

« on: January 26, 2024, 05:15:52 pm »

Congratulations!  Will we be getting a breakdown of your list, how it performed against the other fleets, or any changes to be made going forward?

14

News and Rumors / Re: Homeworld : Fleet Command

« on: January 19, 2024, 06:08:51 pm »

North American fulfillment is in process now, but included in that last campaign update were details on the current errata compilation and clarified versions of the rules that should be available in pdfs shortly.  Beyond that, they are going to have a process to request a reprinted book after final reviews and the conclusion of the Kickstarter... have not seen that before and I am pleasantly surprised.

15

News and Rumors / Re: Kickstarter for 3D Terrain Files

« on: January 19, 2024, 06:00:40 pm »

Thanks for the heads up!  It looks like they have made it through most of the stretch goals now.