Recent Posts

91

News and Rumors / 2024 Great Wargaming Survey

« Last post by Kelly on August 03, 2024, 08:18:47 pm »

The Wargames, Soldiers, & Strategy survey for 2024 is running this August, and this year there are several new questions and rewritten questions that take naval gaming into account.
https://gws2024.paperform.co/

I will let the entrants discover those welcome additions, and there has been more analysis posted from the 2023 survey at the below link…
https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/wss_gws/

92

The Shipyard / Re: Homeworld first pass

« Last post by Kelly on July 24, 2024, 11:43:02 pm »

Here are the corvettes and frigates from the basic Homeworld Fleet Command set for both the Kushan and Taiidan forces…


The larger ships do have strikingly different silhouettes, so there are not any real confusion issues that would come up with the fighters, but I think their palettes turned out well and will tie each side in cohesively to each other with just a few alterations.  Now I just have to test out colors for the next set of classes from the campaign box.

93

MBS Media / Re: MBS Podcast Episode 87: Star Wars Armada Cancellation Reaction

« Last post by Kelly on July 06, 2024, 12:17:01 am »

There are solid alternatives and variants available for all of the current Armada ship releases (except for maybe the SSD) but I imagine the cards and dice are going to present the greatest issues in the years to come.

Well, with the bankruptcy of Shapeways being announced this week the majority of alternatives I was aware of for Armada ships will be scarcer at least for the time being.  The site is still operating 3 days into the notice, but with noticeable delays and search errors, and I would not trust the two week production turnaround being quoted now.

The chapter of bankruptcy requested was for liquidation, not for restructuring, so Shapeways will not be operating at some point in the future, after questions of ownership and prior asset sales have been resolved, which means the largest distributor of third party printing services will no longer be available for the largest suppliers of Armada designs.  Will those models be available from another printing service... I would say yes, but not for some time and not at the price or quality of consistency they were from Shapeways.

94

The Shipyard / Re: Homeworld first pass

« Last post by Kelly on July 03, 2024, 08:04:19 pm »

The basic fighter tokens from Homeworld Fleet Command and the campaign box come in two forms, bombers and interceptors, for both forces...


Paint really helps recognizability on the table from a distance, because the size differences between the small craft classes are lost when uncolored, especially for the blue tokens for the Kushan side.  Is that enough of a benefit to make up for all of the time being locked up in the project... I have no idea and make a point of not thinking along those lines...

95

MBS Media / Re: MBS Podcast Episode 87: Star Wars Armada Cancellation Reaction

« Last post by Kelly on June 27, 2024, 07:29:02 pm »

Glad to have another episode, just sad that it was under these circumstances...

Really good points, especially on the component issues going forward.  There are solid alternatives and variants available for all of the current Armada ship releases (except for maybe the SSD) but I imagine the cards and dice are going to present the greatest issues in the years to come.

96

Space Naval Games / Re: X-wing and Armada are Dead

« Last post by Easy E on June 18, 2024, 04:51:05 pm »

It feels like Sci-fi space battles (Fleet and Starfighter level) has some commercial opportunities again. 

Here is some stuff I know that is out there in this space still:
Warfleets - OnePageRules
Void Admiral - Paul Bantock
Starfighters - Wiley Games
Horizon Wars: Infinite Dark - Precint Omega
A Billion Suns - Osprey/Planet Smasher
Dropfleet Commander - TTCombat

However, there are no big hitters in this space right now.  Crazy!  Makes me wonder if it is really that big of a genre after all.

I mean is Firestorm Armada, Battlefleet Gothic, and Armada can't make space fleet games work.... who really can?

97

Space Naval Games / Re: X-wing and Armada are Dead

« Last post by Ruckdog on June 16, 2024, 06:28:18 pm »

I'm not really too surprised either to be honest. A bi disappointed perhaps, but then I'm happy to keep chugging along playing Armada with my local group more than anything.

98

MBS Media / MBS Podcast Episode 87: Star Wars Armada Cancellation Reaction

« Last post by Ruckdog on June 16, 2024, 06:27:11 pm »

https://www.manbattlestations.com/blog/2024/06/16/mbs-podcast-episode-87/

99

Space Naval Games / Re: X-wing and Armada are Dead

« Last post by Kelly on June 15, 2024, 11:34:08 pm »

I would like to say that I am shocked, but AMG never treated either of those lines with care or concern since the transfer.  The prepaint excuse rings a little hollow since the Christmas morning / ready out of the box nature of Armada and X-Wing was a large part of the appeal to miniature novices, and there must have been a large number of purchases of Armada especially that were only intended for display on the shelf instead of table use.

All three of the Fantasy Flight legacy Star Wars games sold 100s of tickets this Adepticon, so I can only hope that Legion has a brighter future ahead of it and continued releases.

100

Modeling Q&A / Re: Not 3D printing??

« Last post by Kelly on June 15, 2024, 11:07:16 pm »

I was lucky enough to get some games in today, and we took the opportunity to take out another two dimensional print from Shutterfly.  These are listed as photo fleeces, but are not anywhere close to most fleece mats marketed for wargaming as they are closer to being multilayered felts…


…so they are not stretchable and retain enough stiffness to show fold marks but that weight also keeps them mostly in place on the table.  The felt base is bright enough to keep the colors vibrant and the only real downside is sourcing images with resolutions with pixel counts high enough, but once you have them it is easy to overlay any needed items like this 4 inch hex grid.