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:                                          )  <– Me trying to pick my jaw up off the floor.  Those are gorgeous.

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To be honest there is nothing I won’t game.

I once wrote up a Warsaw Uprising scenario for Steel Panthers – a hexed based WWII computer game. The Jewish forces could not win – my aim was less about the win/lose war game aspect and more about the futility of their position and their willingness to fight in spite of that. I can conceive of a similar game for the Auschwitz uprising. I have played the tabletop game Guillotine where you win by sending people to be beheaded, so I can’t take any moral high ground there. I am also contemplating the role of hostages in a VSF campaign I am planning – They can be swapped back, killed or sold into slavery. The same campaign will also assign support between scenarios depending on casualties with civilian casualties providing a bonus.  I have used IED/suicide bomber like units in SF games. Though these could be fluffed off as robotic, I could see using similar alien or even human units if the context supports it.  Needless to say being a WWII gamer, I have used flamethrower units.

However, I have never since young adulthood, when I didn’t yet know better, fielded an SS unit. Even now for opponents for my Canadians in NWE who went up against the SS, I use generic Heer figures. There was a young FoW player at a convention a few years back who walked around on the first day at least wearing a 12 SS HJ shirt to reflect his army. I didn’t punch him in the head though it was tempting, but instead reported him to management who took care of it.

There is a Ticket to Ride like game with a moderator who, as play develops, gradually reveals to the players that what they are shipping is people to the death camps. It’s purpose is to demonstrate the banality of evil and profoundly disturb its players. As an education tool, this is a good thing.

I think in some ways that sums up my approach to “black” games – their purpose should be to investigate and educate but never to celebrate. IEDs, human shields, and terror bombings are all part of our reality; I see no reason not to game them. It’s important I think to look at the dark side in order to understand and control it  but if I start feeling too comfortable with it, then it will be time to stop.

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Erm – I don’t own any?

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For barely fictional vehicles, how about an ONTOWS? 😉

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Nice find.

Another odd version was the M8 Tow used by Colombia. Conversion by Napco.

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Another great piece!

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Nice work on the ships.

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Congrats Warwell!

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Wow that’s impressive.

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There is an old colonials site now only available through the Internet Archive: Major General Tremorden Rederring’s Colonial-era Wargames Page, that has templates for making buildings just like yours. https://web.archive.org/web/20080116032204/http://www.zeitcom.com/majgen/31hsest.html

Your buildings are great for colonials, Africa and WWII and I would hazard the North West Frontier and Afghanistan.

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I recently sold off (actually traded) some 15mm Ancients and figured about $1 Canadian per figure in bulk. £1 would be about right for a specific character.  Shipping would be the killer.

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I have always been interested in Sam Mustaphas’s rules. I think he has some very interesting mechanics and design decisions..  The problem has always been that I am not interested in (or can’t afford) the periods he has designed for.  While Rommel looks very interesting, I am already committed to IABSM.  Freebooter however sounds awesome based on the M&M review, so please put me down for that.

 

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Not WWII but in a war gaming magazine a while back I saw a beautifully painted, weathered and artfully rusted BMD. Top notch work at all stages of the project except of course, BMDs are made of aluminium and don’t rust. This is less of an issue for WWII of course.

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Great looking table and great AAR.

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I haven’t ordered from warlord, but I have generally found it cheaper to order from the UK and pay the shipping to Canada rather than buying the same product from a distributor in the much closer US. It seems to be a simple “import markup” to me.

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Very 1950’s love it.

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Fire teams of 2 right?

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Angel Barracks wrote:

Not an Orc…

So a Nork then?

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The goblinoid races come in many sizes and “classical” portrayals depict bigger than average members of the species, and reference purposeful breeding. I could see big orcs as shock troops, commanders or as a protection squadron for evil overlords.

Personally, I have never liked the depiction of orcs as stupid.  They are known for their cunning and their ability to build crude but effective weapons.

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Nice work!

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GeoffQRF wrote:

Detail on models doesn’t always scale well… …there is a 1:100 Beaverette armoured car on Thingiverse that I will be scaling up to 1:56… I think you are going to find that especially true there!

Yup that is my expectation.   Peripheral to what you said above, I may print a second copy in ABS, vapour treat it smooth then add detail over top.

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Victoria Dickson wrote:

I’ve been wishing I’d kept my mouth shut so I’d have a new competition to get me doing stuff again… I really need to work on self motivation.

What the talented person above said.

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I have a Reprap hobby printer that’s a couple of generations old at this point. I have printed some hobby items with it and will be printing more in the future. Yes lines are an issue and a very big one for commercial production. However, if you want a couple of a rare or low commercial value models, a printer is great. In my case there is a 1:100 Beaverette armoured car on Thingiverse that I will be scaling up to 1:56 and printing. It’s going to be ugly but I can’t get one otherwise.

I have also done a line of 15mm SF vehicles of my own design. at .1 mm layer height the lines are minimal for my purposes and again, these vehicles are unique to me (and the one other person I shared the files with). I have had a lot more success in terms of finish with a series of British bunkers, and some VSF/fantasy boats in this case the coarse surface finish adds to the look of the model.

I have looked into making masters of the 15mm vehicles and as Geoff and Michael have said it would cost a couple of hundred dollars each to get a product suitable for production and sales.

Home 3d printers have a niche role to play in gaming but even with the more recent models, you are effectively adding in a second 3d printing hobby. You will be spending time tweaking.

Now the elephant in the room – designs. Recall the programming adage: you only get to pick two of Good, Cheap or Fast. Getting decent objects to print takes time or money and in the latter case, you may still not find the model you are looking for or wind up paying a lot for it (good 3d artists are not cheap). If you don’t want to pay for a custom model or rely on what you find on the net for free, then you are going to have to learn some sort of design program. That for me has been the biggest investment.   And you are not done yet – detail on models doesn’t always scale well, some methods and materials for printing are better for some types of prints than others (resin is great for detail but is very fragile), some free models are oriented in a way that only prints well on a certain type of printer. All of this extra knowledge has to be acquired and assimilated.

That said it is a fun and interesting hobby and there is nothing like taking something you designed in your head and holding it in your hand.

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Basic rocks like this? Probably not.  Tarted up rocks maybe, in fairness I am cheap. 😉

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Simurgh: Goat Pen House and Well not clickable.

Other than that – it looks good.

Edit or rather p.s. these buildings are generic enough that they can also be used for 15mm SF, VSF and possibly moderns and WWII.

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That is beautiful – well done!

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I am ok but I am a gamer rather than a model soldier collector. I generally block paint – dip – matte varnish. I have found that adding in a few details can really make figures pop with little added effort. For example, I added eagles to the sides of my Fallschirmjaeger helmets – it’s just a short “T”of white paint but at table distance it looks great.

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Great work!

 

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Great work – I love me some chariots.

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Good Idea Stroezle!

Edit: Oh great another month – now I really need to up my game…..

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I am torn – on the one hand for contests with a degree of work involved, I don’t always have enough free cycles in a month, and there is always procrastination. On the other, a deadline is a great motivator. While I may not make today’s cut off for the Feb comp, I cannot honestly say that if it had been two months, that I wouldn’t have waited til the end of March to get stuck in.

Concerning remarks on the February competition, there have been a few time where I have not participated because the items on offer, while very nice, were not of interest to me. It wouldn’t feel right to try to win something that’s just going to wind up gathering dust or on E-Bay when there is a TWWer who is going to actually use and enjoy it..

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Lovely work there.

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I may not make the cut off but I have been sculpting. It doesn’t help that I am a) hamfisted and b) using general purpose epoxy putty rather than proper greenstuff, but thanks to TWW and Darkest Star for the push to give it a go.

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Those sir, are amazing.  Please post pics of the resulting game.  The Taku forts were a great small boat action.

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Weekends generally but I am starting a program of working on game stuff for 30 minutes every night during the week. It’s less about gaming and more about decompressing.

 

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Jemima Fawr wrote:

Hi Keith, Tidy! At battalion level, the dismounted 81mm mortar is pretty essential, as unlike most other NATO nations, Canada never bought M125 SP mortar carriers. Instead, they carried them around in normal M113s kitted out internally with mortar ammo racks, so had to dismount to fire…./quote]

4×4 pickups with crew cabs for the reserve mortar units. In my unit we played a few very unofficial 1/300 games at the time based on First Clash. We weren’t too happy with our survival rate. 😉

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Halflings.

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Damn you sir!

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Well done Victoria!

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John – thanks for the input! My interest in the Indo-Pakistan war was limited to west on west armour.

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