3D Printing Is Now Ready To Compete In 28mm

by SandWyrm

I've been talking about 3D printing for a long time now, and like most everyone, I'd been wondering when we'd finally reach the point where a 28mm 3D printed mini would be indistinguishable from an injection-molded plastic or metal mini.

Well... That time has now arrived. Not on the home printers, not yet. But in this post I'm going to show you what the high-end printers are now capable of. With some 40K/Necromunda compatible prints from Shapeways that will blow you away.

Want To Create Your Own 3D-Printed Minis?

by SandWyrm

Merry Christmas!

We've gotten an email from Michel Daab, who's working on a website called "Create Your Minis". Where you can design your own minis, have them 3D printed, and sent to you. Cool idea, but how good is the service?

Happy holidays!

By thegravemind

Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!

Spend time with the loved ones and resupply our plastic Crack addiction for the new year.

Some hobby time

By theGravemind

I've been away for a while. Its been a tight year for me, I haven't really had internet for free time. What time I have had, I've spent on the hobby.
The new tyranid release got me back into playing nids. I've been slowly working on my tau as well. My next project is a heresy era night lords.
With up coming xmas money, I've got a barbed hierodule ordered. I'm hope with in a few months things will turn around for me so I can make more progress on the night lords.
Photo dump of some projects.

FFG Just Merged With A Very Big Fish

by SandWyrm

FFG just announced a merger with Asmodee (Big French Board Game Company). Suddenly FFG has solid world-wide distribution, and Asmodee gets a successful US game publisher with solid US distribution channels. Sounds win-win to me.

Oh, and Chapterhouse finally settled with GW. CHS is promising to have their website back up on Friday, so I'm guessing they got a mildly decent payoff (but not a buyout) from GW's new CEO. Who probably just wanted this whole mess to go away before the appeal was set to start.

Some Tank Porn To Brighten Your Monday

by SandWyrm

One of the military blogs I follow turned me on to this cache of ultra-cool tank wallpapers put out by the Russian arms firm "UralVagonZauod". The paintings are amazing, and would look at home in any near-future Sci-Fi game. Head over to the site and you can choose from any desktop or iPhone resolution you like. These are the lowest-res versions they have available.

3D Printing: Would You Play Against This Army?

by SandWyrm

While agonizing over whether to buy in to the Kickstarter for this cool new 3D printer, I came across this pic of a 3D printed Space Marine force. You can see the printing 'layers' if you click on the pic and zoom in, but really... Does it look so bad? Would you even care if it was painted up to a tabletop standard?

Is It Just Me... Or Does This Thing Actually Look Good?

by SandWyrm

You bug players will have to tell me if it does very much to help the rest of the new codex, but I'm actually impressed with both the model and the rules for once. Rare high-five to GW!

Robot Dragon Vs. Giant Spider In Beijing!!!

by SandWyrm

Nope, it's not a scene from a movie. A French company built 2 enormous robot puppets for a performance in China. Too cool!

New Points

by: farmpunk

The Able Kompanie Christmas Battle of the Bulge tournament was announced last week. I'm pretty excited. I'm also surprised. Not by tournament details:

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People: The Game

By CaulynDarr

A few months back Fantasy Flight announced a new set of apocalypse themed role-playing games. They where introduced as having a novel concept in the genre.  You play as yourself.  And you start the game wherever you are when you start playing.  You then take yourself though the scenario of a zombi plague, alien invasion, or the rise of the machines.  I thought the concept had some promise.

Fantasy Flight just put out the first rules teaser.

BAE Demonstrates Hybrid-Electric Tank Prototype

by SandWyrm

Nice little demo video that shows off the internal layout and economy advantages of tanks having a hybrid-electric drive. A development that has been WAY too long in coming. What they don't show, however, is one of the best advantages of HE drives – STEALTH!

Squint, And They Almost Look Like Chimeras...

by SandWyrm

Nice pic of a Canadian live-fire exercise. Could almost imagine those trails being multi-laser bursts. :)

Martian Invasion Footage From WWI

by SandWyrm

Just too cool. Enjoy!

US Navy Video On Autonomous Swarming Boats

by SandWyrm

Obviously this is just a very early tech-demonstration. But it's a glimpse of the future.

Did They Name The Tank Noah's Ark?

by SandWyrm

I've head of giving your enemies the bird, but this is ridiculous!

Was There Ever A More British-Looking Monkey?

by SandWyrm

What does he see, I wonder...

Caption Contest: French African Troops In WWI

by SandWyrm

From a 1914 book I have on the "Great War". Maybe it's the smug look on the French officers' faces , but this thing just demands a funny caption.

SinSynn... What Did You Do Now?

by SandWyrm

So I'm at the local library the other night (free kid activities), going through my favorite blogs on the laptop, when one of them gets blocked. Considering that YTTH (blocked at my church), BoLS, and even some of the crazy/graphic military blogs I follow came right up, the fact that this one got blocked was puzzling.

So Who Wants To Be A CEO?

by SandWyrm

The same day that Scotland decided, grudgingly, to stay married to England (for the sake of the colonies), GW put up it's requirements for a new CEO. Have a look and see if you think you have what it takes!

(SandWyrm's sarcastic snowmobiles will be in red)

Stand By For Titanfall.... Without The Titans

by SandWyrm

Promises Promises...

by SandWyrm

I'd rant about this, but let's be honest. The surprise isn't in GW breaking this promise, it's that it took them so long to break it.

It is your Destiny.

By CaulynDarr

Bet you though this would be an X-Wing post.

I picked up Destiny for the 360 last night, then spent 7 straight hours playing it.  The most succinct way to describe it would be a MMO version of Halo.    Which you may take as being a very good thing, or a very very bad thing.

A Taste Of The 3D Printed Future...

by SandWyrm

I've talked before of how an old college chum of mine was playing around with 3D printing. Well, he's perfected his technique now, and is using his filament printer to create custom toys based on his own artwork. I'd figured on him resin-casting from printed masters, but he's printing all the parts up on the printer in batches instead.

Mind Blown: POV Shuttle Launch Video

by SandWyrm

Skywalker Sound did the audio mix. You DO NOT want to miss this!

I'll Just Leave This Here...

by SandWyrm

Now if only I liked Star Trek: Attack Wing... Oh well.

Gav Thorpe Is Making A What?

by SandWyrm

There's an Inception joke hiding in there somewhere, I just know it!

While forcing myself to finally learn the full wonders of Twitter, I stumbled upon what GW Alum Gav Thorpe is up to these days. It seems that Gav is creating a fantasy wargame... on a computer... that looks like a tabletop fantasy wargame. There's an Inception joke hiding in there somewhere, I just know it.

Brighthouse Responds (Sort Of)

by SandWyrm

I'll say this, Brighthouse Networks (BHN) cares about its reputation (unlike some game companies we all know). Within 12 hours of my last post on only being able to access Netflix through a VPN the other night, I received an email from Gary Doda, a BHN forums manager. Gary is anxious to communicate his company's side of the story, up to a point. But while I'll admit that the issue is more complex than I initially thought, my own stance is largely unchanged.

Screw You Brighthouse!!!

by SandWyrm

So I try to connect to Netflix tonight, and either nothing comes up, or I get an error message saying that Netflix is having a problem. This persists for over an hour.

Suspicious, I then I connect to a VPN service, which encrypts my connection so that my ISP (Brighthouse) can't tell who I'm connecting to. Wanna guess what happens?

Netflix comes right up.

X-Wing: How It Plays

by SandWyrm

After reading Oakenhawk's comments for my post on Star Trek Armada, I realized that I never got around to doing a similar introductory post on how X-Wing plays. Shame on me! Here it is!

Star Wars: Armada - How It Plays

by SandWyrm

How does Star Wars: Armada play? I got to try a 3-turn demo game at Gencon, so I'll tell you what I can about it. But be aware that the game is still in beta, and we didn't do anything but scratch the surface of the rules. Even the turn structure isn't quite final, so don't place too much weight on any one detail. Instead, try and appreciate the direction the game is going in as a whole, which is pretty positive.

More Ships For Star Wars: Armada (and more)

by SandWyrm

FFG was cagey on Friday whenever anyone asked about expansion ships for Armada, saying then that only the base set was planned. But coming back to the display case today revealed that they DO have plans for additional ships that you can buy once the game launches.

Gencon: WizKids

by SandWyrm

The other game (besides Star Wars Armada) that I was hoping to see was D&D Attack Wing from Wizkids. Is it any good?

Gencon: Games Workshop

by SandWyrm

Some line...

Two years ago, GW had a booth that was nothing but blank cardboard boxes. With only the backs of their crew's t-shirts to tell you who they were. Last year, they did much better, with a nice booth, a large Apoc diorama, and a case of new products. This year though, they've fallen about half-way back to the cardboard box level. Gotta cut those costs I guess.

Gencon: Palladium

by SandWyrm

Palladium was all over the map. Average booth, nice models to show off, and the crappiest presentation of those models that I've ever seen.

Gencon: Privateer Press

by SandWyrm

Third up is Privateer Press. While they didn't have as large a vendor presence as FFG or Battlefront, the quality of their presentation was up to their usual high standard. They even had a new video game to show off. In the gaming halls they also had a good number of miniature and board game events. Not nearly as large as FFG, but larger than anyone else (not counting Magic, of course).

Gencon: Battlefront

by SandWyrm

Next up in terms of an impressive Gencon showing is Battlefront. Two years ago, the Battlefront booth was nothing but Flames of War products. Last year the Flames merchandise was limited to one shelf section and an order form. But today there wasn't a single box of historical minis to be seen anywhere. All of their floor space was given over to either Dust, or to their various boardgames. Like Firefly, Sparticus, and the new Sons of Anarchy. I guess these must be selling well!

Gencon: Fantasy Flight Games

by SandWyrm

Here's a pictorial rundown of what there was to see from Fantasy Flight at Gencon today.

FFG announces Star Wars Armada

by CaulynDarr

SQUEEEEEEEEEEE!

Read more here.  Much better direction than trying to fit more huge ships into X-Wing.  I'll take seven please.  Oh, wait.  Retails for $99.  OK, maybe not seven, but definitely getting this.

I think I may be done with games I have to build and paint.    I like the hobby aspects, but FFG is bringing twice the fun with less of a time commitment.  It took a decade, but someone finally figured out how to make pre-paints work.   Quality + Fun + Star Wars == Profit!

Still waiting for that Star Wars ground combat game Fantasy Flight.

Robotech Tactics Gets Held Up by US Customs

By CaulynDarr

Sorry to push your positive news piece off the top of the stack, Farmpunk, but...

AHAHAAAHAHAAAHHAAAHHAAAAA-HA!!!!

That is the most real, authentic, hysterical laugh of my entire life.

Called it.  All that bridge burning with the backers to sell at Gencon, and they won't even have it ready in time.  Really serves them right.  Schadenfreude feels much better than it really should

One week!

by: farmpunk

Gencon is one week away! I'm getting excited. Gencon is North America's largest game convention.

Great War

by: farmpunk

So roughly 100 years ago, Most of Europe was coming apart. After Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in a comedy of errors, and a little over a month of Nervous jockeying and posturing, the Allies and the Central Powers got around to all declaring war on one another.

Amazon Says: "Lower Your Prices To Make More!"

by SandWyrm

Yeeeesssth my preeeshuuus... Looower da priiiices!

You may or may not have heard, but Amazon is in full hissy-fit war mode with a book publisher called Hachette. The issue? Amazon wants a better deal than their current contract allows, and it thinks that Hachette is pricing themselves too high. Amazon collects all sorts of metrics on what people buy, and it says that if Hachette lowers its ebook prices, everyone involved will make more money. While making eBooks cheaper overall.

GW Financials: The Rains Of Cash-Still-Here

by SandWyrm

Tom Kirby's wobbly-worded pre-ramble may have set us up to expect the worst from Games Workshop's full-year financial report, but what we actually see today is a slight improvement on the half-year numbers from January. Still bad, to be sure, especially from the standpoint of the institutional investors that they're beholden to (hence Kirby's panic), but nothing particularly catastrophic from the standpoint of the customer base.  Call it a slap in GW's face with a large Tuna, but not a shove over the side of the boat.

GW Financials: Pre-Game Show

by SandWyrm

GW posted a link to their full-year financials today on the investor relations site... Without the link to the report itself. But, I went ahead and checked the public FTP directory where the report would be, and while it isn't there either, there is a published PDF of the chairman's preamble, which is itself both foreboding and somewhat bewildering. Here's a few choice excerpts. Including the announcement that Tom Kirby will be stepping down from the CEO spot next year.

Sea Waaagh!!! - Part 2

by SandWyrm

Here's some more video of the UHAC that shows it swimming out to sea. Michael Bay did the filming though, so take your dramamine. ;)

For Korona: Short Take-Off Super Hornet

by SandWyrm

Since Korona couldn't find a link... here's a 2006 video of a Super Hornet making a very short-distance takeoff.

This Thing's Just Asking To Be Ork-ified

by SandWyrm

New US-Army amphibious ship-to-shore connector in testing. All I can think of is "SEA WAAAAAGH!!!". It totally fits the GW design aesthetic.

Stay Classy Palladium

by CaulynDarr

The Admiral is not amused

Man, I sure know how to pick Kickstarters.  This one for Robotech Tactics has turned into a real cluster frak.  One of the implicit understandings of a Kickstarter is that backers get the product first.  We put down money months to years in advance for a product that may or may not live up to expectations.  All because we want to see a cool idea come to life and be part of it.  And, if the implicit promise isn't enough for you, there's also the times when the creators make it explicitly:

In the end, you, our Kickstarter supporters, will be the first to receive a wonderful product that we hope will make you grin and provide endless hours of enjoyment. Thank you for sharing our dream. You, your pledges of support and unbridled enthusiasm are very much appreciated.

Emphasis mine.  So of course what is Palladium doing?  They are planning on selling at Gencon before they ship to backers. 

Cool New Helicopter Concept

by SandWyrm

.

Here's a much less silly video on a future aircraft concept. The all-but-admitted failure of the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey is opening up an opportunity for new innovations on the Army side of things. This one is a leading contender. It has a lower top speed than the Osprey, but much greater lift capacity, more room, more safety, half the cost, much less maintenance, and the ability to land on a carrier deck without literally blowing people over the side. Or melting the deck itself with its downward-pointing exhaust plume.

Future (Silly) Aircraft Technology Concepts

by SandWyrm

If you thought the video I posted on the Russian mini-tank drone was a silly fantasy, you ain't seen nothing yet. BAE takes the cake with this one. The laser idea is the only one with legs at all, but that would require FAR more electrical power than a small aircraft could hope to generate.

More Relic Knights Photos

by CaulynDarr

Marikan To and a Serpent Priestess (Space Marine for scale)

The Noh faction for Relic Knights is turning out to be one of the better executed ones.  It helps that they are the monster faction and are about twice as large as any other model.  I've got all the models from the Noh and Shatter Sword factions assembled(except for one Shattered Sword figure that was miss-packet with two torsos and no sword).

Amelial, the Void Herald

by CaulynDarr

I'm about 85% done.  There's still some clean up to do on her wings and base.  I might also re-do the faceplate of her helmet.  It didn't turn out quite like I wanted.  

Lots and Lots of Toys

by CaulynDarr

So, yesterday this came in the mail for me:

Only took about 20 months to get it.

I'll save the review for when I get some miniatures painted.  The PVC plastic and soft features led to some mediocre results.  It might not be so bad depending on how the minis take to paint.

But then, this morning I got this:

4 Z-95s, 2 E-Wings, 2 TIE Phantoms, 2 TIE Defenders

So I think I'm set for gaming purchases for a while.  Oh, wait, who am I kidding.

Das Tank!

By CaulynDarr

New Brad Pitt war movie.  Looks a little corny, one 'merican Sherman versus the whole German army for the fate of the WORLD!  Still, hot tank on tank action.

There's A New Tank MMO In Town

by SandWyrm

It's called 'Armored Warfare', and it concentrates on modern armor. Including MBTs, IFVs, etc. Looks as though it plays like World of Tanks, which is a good thing. :)

Interesting Take On The Future Of Drone-Armor

by SandWyrm

This video is likely some marketing propaganda for a Russian defense firm in search of government funding. But I do find it to be an interesting take on how ground drones may evolve in the near future. At least for urban warfare. Outside of cities, nothing that small and light is going to be able to maneuver well cross-country. Nor would it be able to get close enough to an MBT to launch whatever version of the RPG this thing is supposed to be carrying in its scorpion tail. Still, it's interesting to think about.

This Is How You Deep-Strike A Tank!

by SandWyrm

Here's a neat video of some Russian paratroopers practicing their "deep-striking" skills. Check out how the tanks have a rocket-assisted landing rig built into the parachute system. Pretty cool, even if they aren't the size of Land Raiders. :)

Three Vehicles That Would Look Cool In 40K

by SandWyrm

My browsing this last week turned up 3 vehicles that would look pretty cool in 40K. Have a look.

Wizards Of The Coast Sues Over 'Tapping' Patent

by SandWyrm

Evidently Wizards of the Coast is jealous of all the bad press that GW got last year. Because they're suing Cryptozoic Entertainment over their Hex:Shards of Fate game. Which blew past its Kickstarter goal of $300,000. Netting a total of $2,278,255.

X-Wing Top Gun: How to stay with your wing-man.

by CaulynDarr

No, sorry, this isn't a Top Gun based conversion of the X-Wing rules.  Though, now that I think about it, that should be a thing.

In a given game of X-wing, you are only probably going to make 12-20 attack rolls and get usually as many actions.  Missing out on either a single attack or action can have a large impact on the results of a game.  Too many collisions and being out of arc too often can lead to a loss much quicker than any string of bad rolls.  If you have good spacial visualization abilities you can often fly you ships by the seat-of-your-pants, but it doesn't hurt to know a few tips and tricks to predict exactly where your ships will end up after a maneuver.  

This Is What A Healthy Game Community Looks Like

by SandWyrm

Thursday is the official X-Wing night at the North Store, but Farmpunk and I usually game on Wednesdays (or the odd Monday) because of our wives' schedules. Well, I got a rare chance to go out this past Thursday night, and this is what I saw. Five simultaneous games of X-Wing, and one game of Warmachine being played in a packed room. Seriously, I haven't seen the game room this stuffed with players since the heydays of 5th Edition 40K. It was glorious.

X-Wing: Rebel Transport Battle Report

by SandWyrm

I headed down to the North Store last night for some X-Wing, and was greeted by a smiling CaulynDarr. Who had just bought the shop's last Rebel Transport box. So of course we had to play a 300 point Epic-Format game (my first ever) to try it out.

I Hear His Bark Is Worse Than His Bite...

by Sandwyrm

Ok, so it's obviously just a WHFB version of the 40K Eldar Avatar. But on the other hand it's probably the coolest looking Avatar model that GW has ever put out. Especially if you were to model up an Exodite force around it.