Messages

31

General Discussion / Re: Perspectives on progress

« on: September 30, 2023, 06:35:06 pm »

After modeling, the next hobby step in the miniature process is printing / production, and I also have an overabundance of notes on prints.  Beside the basic number of prints I also recorded the slicing details on each, which as they came directly from the slicing softwares, those counts cover the considerations of accuracy and consistency.

As far as usefulness though, I would say the main reason to keep print records is to judge how efficiently a printer is being used.  Each job sent to the printer is wearing out the lcd mask, motors, and UV sources by increments, so there is an upper limit to any machine’s output, but maximizing the pieces included in any job is the best way to get the most value out of the printer.  I have been holding off on printing tests until I can mostly fill the build plate, and was glad to see that my average volume printed by job (mL / layers) has increased by 68% over the years so I am getting as much use out of this printer as I could reasonably expect.  The main increase in volume has come from combining different miniatures from different projects with the spaces in between larger ships being filled with 15mm infantry or tokens.

For the printing again, I am strictly looking at quantitative counts in place of qualitative as the first few prints are generally enough to determine the best settings, and my overall goal is full tables whether those tables are black space, blue seas, or green grass.

32

News and Rumors / Re: Kings of War: Armada (Mantic Games Fantasy Naval Combat)

« on: September 30, 2023, 06:31:40 pm »

A new direction for Armada is out with the release of a Frontier project on MyMiniFactory through next month, covering pdfs of the base game and stls of the original two fleets, Basilea and Orcs.  There is nothing much new on the project that has not already been released through the Mantic Vault, so this is mainly a marketing campaign to introduce Armada to existing users of the MyMiniFactory site, and bring them into the game.
https://www.myminifactory.com/frontier/armada-the-game-of-naval-battles-2156

33

News and Rumors / Re: Armada Campaign: Shadowed Horizons

« on: September 20, 2023, 11:06:41 pm »

The first week’s results of the campaign are locked in, and the next phase of Shadowed Horizons is in progress now…


The player base for Kings of War is orders of magnitude greater than Armada, so it is not really a surprise that the player’s choice and special scenario rules for this phase are designed explicitly for KoW* but they are still including setting descriptions to help with the decision of which scenario would best fit the current progression of the story, i.e. those with islands.



*Though translating movement to speed and unit strength to crew strength to make the new rules fit Armada would be technically be possible, but that would not interact well with most if not all of the scenarios.

34

MBS Media / Re: MBS Podcast Episode 85: Taking Another Look at Star Wars Armada

« on: September 20, 2023, 10:57:47 pm »

Good discussion, and I think something that cannot be overstated is the pre-painted nature of Armada.  The number of ship purchases that were not for the game but for display purposes only by general fans was not anything to be discounted for both Armada and X-Wing, so I could see the line continuing to be distributed and stocked for years to come even if no additional game supports are ever developed by AMG.

35

Space Naval Games / Re: Metaverse (Free Space Combat Game)

« on: September 13, 2023, 07:21:58 pm »

Wow!  There is a lot in here, and I am not even a third of the way through... but I am still reading the rules since they are engaging, even though I will not be at a point to make a decision on them anytime soon.  The designer notes are a welcome addition as they are longer form sidebars instead of just footnotes, and they are spread throughout the applicable sections of the rules.

36

News and Rumors / Armada Campaign: Shadowed Horizons

« on: September 08, 2023, 06:41:49 pm »

This year’s global campaign has launched for Kings of War and Armada, Shadowed Horizons, along with fiction to be updated with the results from the game tracker.

While the majority of the focus is on the land side of the conflict, Mantic has set aside a portion of the campaign exclusively for Armada... the first entries in the story of Shadowed Horizons are broken up into [The War on Land] for KoW and [The War at Sea] for Armada.  There is no detailed map specific to the area being fought over as in the prior campaign Halpi’s Rift, but with each installment they are marking locations of importance upon their world map which should be highlighted as the event progresses across the sea and down the mountains.


The game reporting only covers the winning and losing fleets, with point total and scenario book besides, so the data collection set is not as detailed as the prior campaign, but every other piece of the campaign looks a lot more robust than before.

37

The Shipyard / Re: Armada Conversions

« on: September 08, 2023, 06:34:57 pm »

The Dwarf ships are all heavy, single blocks and I thought it might be time to work on something a little lighter…


…like their airships!  These were a little difficult to manage while painting as they are very top-heavy, but the main issue was that they have a heptagonal cross section for some reason (I have another heptagonal project I have been putting off for months) and my plan was to break up the expanse of the balloon.  Seven is impossible to divide, and it was at least a week of trials until I remembered that that multiplying by two will always result in an even number, so here we are with a 14 checker pattern.

No PSBs again, I think all the Dwarves in the setting are smart enough to stay inside when the shooting starts.

38

The Shipyard / Re: Armada Conversions

« on: September 03, 2023, 11:57:58 pm »

I am still reworking my basing plans for Armada, but whatever shape they take, they will have plenty of details added.  My first test pieces for ships' boats are a little over 3/4 of an inch should easily fit around most medium and small size bases.


Also along the bottom are the first debris pieces.  Barrels did not work out as they were far too small, and masts will probably be too outsized for bases, so unless inspiration strikes, assorted plank lengths will be the extent of anything floating.

39

General Discussion / Perspectives on progress

« on: September 01, 2023, 08:45:05 pm »

Yesterday I put the final touches on my 300th model, a token holder for Armada, and I am pretty pleased with how it turned out.


Instead of stacking damages and speed tokens on ship cards, I find it easier to have them next to each base.  However, keeping individual markers lined up with their ships can be difficult when those ships are colliding with each other, and I wanted a solution to corral them in one place.  The most used tokens are double sided, so adding an angle to the speed location was a must, and I have a slight bevel in each damage recess to make it easier to remove and replace them.  I will probably print out more that are color coded for multiple players after a test run or two to see if play is sped up enough to warrant it.

But the main thing that has been on my mind for the past week or two was not this model, or really any other one in particular, but the whole of my modeling progression.  I have kept records of everything since starting the hobby again, and knew that I was closing in this milestone of 300 models, but is it really a milestone?  Is progress quantifiable… is counting even important?

I would say that it is, but with full notebooks and spreadsheets, I can recognize a slight bias.  For anyone who may be considering sinking into the unending spiral of recordage though, I would say three things need to be considered: accuracy of the count, consistency of the count, and usefulness of the count.

On accuracy, counting is meaningless unless everything is counted.  I really started to record print information in detail after some initial issues with my first 3D printer, as I wanted to know what I should expect the actual life of the replacement parts to be, and with that, the overall lifetime cost of the printer.  It took some effort, but I did work back through all of the print jobs and results to get to a total of 305 printed projects with a margin of error of +/- 2 including the final failed print which retired that printer.  Modeling records were an easier task as all of the stl files were on the hard drive, which is where model #300 comes from and this topic.

On consistency, counting is meaningless unless everything is counted in the same way.  I would say I have a system on counting models in particular, but unlike painting or printing, it does not have an easily discernable physical output.  The first ship I designed for my Clone Wars project was the Lucrehulk, 7 different component models, counted as 7; which I later rescaled requiring 9 different component models, counted as 7; while the final version of the Lucrehulk painted and posted incorporated 6 additional models more, counted as 4.  Meanwhile, last week I finished a set of transports with 4 different silhouettes, of which 3 also had alternate surface detail layouts, which I only counted as 1 model given that all of them were designed at the same time in a single evening.  All in all, and my method is honestly not really definable.

On usefulness, counting is meaningless unless it has meaning.  Maybe not the best way of stating that, but looking at my count of 300, what does that really represent?  It is not miniatures modeled, since a good number of my miniatures either require multiple pieces modeled and printed separately, or I have split them for greater variety after assembly.  It is not miniatures or models printed, since I cancelled several before even exporting them to the slicing software.  And it is especially not miniatures painted, as almost everything I paint is in multiples, and to date, only 45 miniatures have been painted of the 218 I printed in that first year.  Looking back through the list I can see that year over year I have increased the amount of different miniature results possible out of any single model file, but I doubt anyone else would be able to glean anything out of these records.

Overall, I would say that given the three goals of a meaningful count as a measure of progression, I am at a clear win, loss, and draw, and so solidly neutral on whether my recordkeeping is showing quantifiable progress in the 3D modeling hobby.  But then again, keeping up lists and looking back through prior years has been an enjoyable micro-hobby so far.  (200)

40

The Shipyard / Re: DW 3.0 Prussian Imperium Project

« on: September 01, 2023, 08:26:11 pm »

Looking good so far!  Will you be carrying over any of the older ships, or is this a clean slate?

41

Firestorm Armada / Re: Firestorm Armada...Not fully dead yet?

« on: September 01, 2023, 08:25:18 pm »

Kinda wondering if I'd rather know that a draft for v3 exists, or that it's been done for a "few months" and it hasn't been released or even officially hinted at.

I am in the same boat, and do not know whether to be excited or not… nothing since 2020, and now an indefinite hold?  I would think there would be enough confidence in the core of Firestorm to compete with anything out there on a rules basis, maybe there will be some reconsideration after the dust settles from Epic / not Epic.

42

General Discussion / Re: Black Seas Demo

« on: August 18, 2023, 04:18:14 pm »

From your pictures, I noticed that the ships were all mounted on square bases instead of individual hulls, which was an import from Black Seas’ second cousin, Armada, and should have greatly sped the gameplay up and tightened the measurements.  With bases, the Black Seas maneuvering is streamlined, and its initiative system is the best I have seen for clarity of activation order since it allows players to somewhat influence the next turn's order while still having a random component.

The hosts ships were beautiful, but I was not going to paint, base, and rig the ships for myself.

As to the rigging, with alternate flats or papercraft silhouettes you can easily play Black Seas without anything apart from the core book.  All of the statistics for ships from that period and the main four national fleet specifics are included in the book so any ship cards with modifiers can be put together with a little effort.  With the Hold Fast supplement, you also get the national characteristics for another half dozen historically smaller navies.

I have been meaning to put up a comparison between Armada and Black Seas breaking down their differences and similarities, but I have too much invested into Armada currently to attempt putting Black Seas proxies on the table anytime soon.

43

The Shipyard / Re: Armada Conversions

« on: August 18, 2023, 04:04:23 pm »

Next ship test for my Dwarf fleet is this Fury.  Again the ship is totally enclosed, so no opportunities for PSB integration, and also no decking options to match the wood from the first ones, the design of the Fury did have good options to spread out the color palette in a balanced way.


My one regret is the rivets on the dragonscales along the side.  They were an ordeal to highlight and they look very out of place as opposed to the armor plating.  I have never been shy about adding to models, but hardly ever remove anything… if I paint another Fury, I’ll be slicing each of those off and may go back to remove these at a later point.

44

The Shipyard / Re: Star Wars second pass

« on: August 11, 2023, 08:17:13 pm »

I'm really impressed with how crisp your black-lining is.

Thank you, the secret is two thin coats...

...followed by 7 to 8 coats of various thicknesses.

45

News and Rumors / Acheron's Fall from Ramper Design

« on: August 11, 2023, 07:48:50 pm »

First teased in the spring, it looks like more information on the naval game Acheron’s Fall will be inbound after next week.  The game is based on the universe of Infinity produced by Corvus Belli, and each player will only command 1-3 ships.
https://infinitytheuniverse.com/blog/acherons-fall-game

Infinity is one of the most granular miniature games on the market, and judging from the HUD displays and vectored movement shown on the first alpha preview from On TableTop that high level of complexity will be reflected in Acheron’s Fall as well, just based on resource allocation instead of action management...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21hg4rOsF7k

First public playtests are scheduled for the upcoming Interplanetario event in Spain with more details to follow afterwards.