Thursday, December 31, 2015

28mm Miniatures Printed ON Your Smartphone...

by SandWyrm


Here's a very interesting 3D printer design that uses the lit pixels of a smartphone to harden resin as the gantry lifts. Super-simple, cheap ($100) and designed in Taiwan, this may end up being the easiest to use printer yet. Just load up the model, let the screen change which pixels are lit at each layer, and wait for your mini to be created (upside down) before your eyes.

If you go to the link above you can see it in action.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Beyond The Gates Of Antares

by SandWyrm


There have been a number of games released lately that hope to capture some of the disappointed 40K players out there, much as Mantic's Kings of War has made major inroads in sucking away WHFB players who (rightly) hate GW's new Age of Sigmar rules. 

None of these projects though, including my own, have the legendary name of Rick Priestley behind them. The very same Rick Priestley that helped design the original Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and Warhammer 40,000 games. So it was with some trepidation that I picked up a copy of the Antares rulebook some weeks back. Would it blow my project away? Would it be the next big thing in wargaming?

Well... Let me put it this way...

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Team Yankee: The Rules

By CaulynDarr


By Igor Dvurekov (http://russianplanes.net/id53229) [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html), GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I've been waiting for Flames of War Modern since I started playing Flames of War, and finally it's here.  Well, the rules and Americans at least.  The Russians won't arrive till this weekend due to manufacturing delays.  Here's my impressions from a first reading of the rule book.

Friday, August 7, 2015

Talk About Weird War II...

by SandWyrm


Ok, so it's a Russian KV tank that's been tricked out with heaps of 40K-like detail. Cool!

It makes me want to ask GW, and everyone else, some questions though.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Gencon: The Pictures

by SandWyrm


Due to a previous obligation, I was only able to attend the first two days of Gencon this year, and those were almost entirely spent playing in two Flames of War tournaments. So I didn't get to spend more than about 45 minutes wandering the vendor halls after a quick win on the first day. But I did manage to get some interesting pictures that showed what various vendors were up to, including a very curious showing by Games Workshop.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

GW Financials: No Huge Surprises

by SandWyrm


Well it's that time of year again, and once more GW has managed to avoid blowing itself up in any sort of carthartic-ly entertaining atomic fireball. Nope, this is the slow grinding decline of mediocrity folks, and the numbers reflect that.

Monday, July 27, 2015

Kickstarter: The Gift that Keeps On Giving... Disappointment

By CaulynDarr


Except for this, this was awesome.
Consider me off the Kickstarter train.  Two bits of news dropped pre-Gencon this week that pretty much invalidated all the little remaining value I still had out of two of my largest Kickstarter investments.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Dust Dramas Part MCLVII: Only Matthew McConaughey Can Save Us Now

By CaulynDarr



Maybe you thought this was all behind us.  I mean, wasn't Battlefront sending the last check?  What could possibly still go wrong?  Many things, my friends.  Many many things...

Friday, July 17, 2015

Knight Models' Batgirl!

By CaulynDarr


Do I have to turn in my man card if I admit that Batgirl was always my favorite?  Barbara Gordon Batgirl, not that fake, Cassandra Cain.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Relic Knights: Never Thought I'd Miss Dice This Much

By CaulynDarr

Pirates versus Oni
It wasn't the worst table-top wargame I ever played - Farmpunk
After sitting on this game for about a year, I finally got the motivation to force someone to try it out with me.  Sorry Farmpunk.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Our Age Of Sigmar Test Game & Review

by SandWyrm


So I got a call from Uberdark up in Kokomo, who says he's heading down to Sinclair Games (our new favorite game store) to "Spend a $#!%-load of money" on Age of Sigmar. Would I like to come over to the store and hang out while he puts stuff together?

Seeing through his ploy to get me to help him put his new minis together, I told him to head on over to my place, which is only 5 minutes away. I then called up CaulynDarr, who's been wanting to do a proper critical examination of the game. I figured we'd get Uberdark's starter-set models put together, and then do a battle report.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Monkeys Need Love Too

by SandWyrm


For those of you like me, who do enjoy silly games from time to time, but don't want to waste $125 just to make stupid GW-themed farting noises, there's a much better game out there than Age of Sigmar. It's called "Monkeys Need Love Too" from Topwise Games, which I supported on Kickstarter.

Monday, July 6, 2015

GW's Pre-Financials Statement

by SandWyrm


Had a look over at GW's investor page, and found this unusually informative statement on GW's upcoming financials. Snowmobiled opinions in red.

Age of Bro-Knights

By CaulynDarr


Come at me Bro-Deamons

Well, I, ah umm....

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Today's Fast Tank Porn

by SandWyrm



When the Blood Angels want to go ice skating, this is what they use. :)

Monday, May 18, 2015

Mad Max: Fury Road

By CaulynDarr

One of the more quite scenes in the movie.
I'm not a big fan of post-apocalyptic movies in general, or the Mad Max films specifically.  Though the reviews where pretty positive, and any excuse to see a movie will do now that Flix Brewhouse is open.  So I saw it.  And well...Wow.  Yeah, it's really good.   

Saturday, May 16, 2015

World of Warships 0.3.1 Impressions

by SandWyrm


In no particular order, here are my impressions (both good and bad) about the latest WoWS update.


Friday, May 15, 2015

Dust Dramas Part XXVI

By CaulynDarr


And like sands of the hour glass, these are the days of our lives.
Dead game is dead at this point.  Last week Paolo sent out a message saying Dust Studios relationship status went from "It's Complicated" to "Single".  Battlefront took their time, but responded with a full salvo using American arty rules.

It looks like both sides are so far in the weeds they don't see their way out anymore.

Monday, May 4, 2015

So THAT Is Why My St. Louis Is Overpowered...

by SandWyrm

(Click to Enlarge)

Can you spot it?

The Codex Problem

By CaulynDarr

"Codex Féjervary-Mayer (Lacambalam 2014)" by Lacambalam - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Codex_F%C3%A9jervary-Mayer_(Lacambalam_2014).jpg#/media/File:Codex_F%C3%A9jervary-Mayer_(Lacambalam_2014).jpg

No, this isn't about the new Eldar Codex(not directly) or possible titles for Dan Brown's next book.   Most miniature game companies still update their game through periodic book releases adding or replacing existing rules for creating armies.  It's a dated approach, and it's time to come up with a better way.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Warhammer: TOTAL WAR!!!

by SandWyrm



This looks like it could be awesome, but I'm still fuming from how bad the last 2 TW games that I bought sucked. So I'm not sure what to think about another game from the same group.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Saturday, April 11, 2015

World of Warships: IN SPAAAAAAAACE!

by SandWyrm


Overdone (and late) April Fools joke, or a new feature? I'm really not sure, but you get to fly the Space Battleship Yamato, so it's all good. :)

Click on for more pics...

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Eye Of The Beholder

By CaulynDarr


These were at the container store today. Trendy storage containers? Or 15mm urban terrain?

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Sinclair Games in Carmel, IN

By CaulynDarr

Pay no attention to the man in the reflection, or the Arby's.
Just wanted to let all the Hamilton County gamers know we finally got a game store north of 465. They've got the best selection of GW and Warmachine in the area; plus they look to rival G2D4 in Flames of War stock.

Monday, March 30, 2015

3D Printing: Better Than Plastic?

by SandWyrm


You know, in all my posts about 3D printing, I've never really considered the notion that it might actually displace injection-molded plastics because of superior detail resolution. But then I saw this print on Twitter today. Read all about it here.

Friday, March 27, 2015

I drink the tears of Phantom players

By CaulynDarr

YEAAAHHH!!!!
So this happened.  Phantoms now have to de-cloak at the start of the activation phase instead of when they reveal their maneuver dial.  This is just enough of a change to keep Phantoms from running the table against everything but PS 10 Han.

Something had to happen.  Phantoms where determining the entire meta of the game.  You had to bid pilot skill and take turrets if you wanted a chance to beat them in a tournament.  The phantom and the counter-Phantom builds where pushing too many other ships out of being viable options.  That should change now.

The other types of Phantoms may also see more play now that Whisper isn't such a obvious choice anymore.

Isn't it great when a game's designers see a problem and fix it.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Book: Things We Think About Games

by SandWyrm


Some of the commenters in my last post were quite taken with the quote in the picture I chose, and wondered where it came from. Well, this is the book, written by a couple of well-known game design veterans (with a lot more contributing).

I've gone through it and lifted five more choice quotes, and if you find those interesting too, you should definitely buy the book, because there's loads more wisdom to be found inside. It can be had as a PDF for as little as $8.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Today's Bit Of Truth

by SandWyrm


As the inevitable conflicts rage over what the 'true' way of 40K is these days, I would remind TOs of this simple truth. The problem isn't the players who aren't having fun. The problem is the game itself, and how the leaders of the 40K community are responding to its many problems.

Don't evade, deny, and cajole. Step up and unite instead! Form a counsel, decide what's kosher, and get every event out there on the same page. Otherwise your efforts will only further fragment what's left of the community, and keep your potential attendees in their basements.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Yeah, We're Playing World of Warships Now

by SandWyrm


With the rollout of the closed beta (and the lifting of the NDA), I finally got my invite to help test the beta for World of Warships. Farmpunk's been on there a bit longer, as he remembered to log in for the first alpha weekend. Anyway, the game is more fun that we thought it ever would be, and I had a VERY good game tonight with the St. Louis class cruiser after the rest of my team folded against an enemy team of bots. Killing all seven enemy ships myself.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

This 3D Printer Will Kill Resin & Metal Casting

by SandWyrm



This is a time-lapse video (7x normal speed), but you're still talking about 6 minutes for a mini the size of a 40K figure, with extra-crisp and smooth detail.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

The Scum and Villains of X-wing's New Faction

 By CaulynDarr


I totally phone it in when I work for the Empire.

I've had a few games with the new faction.  The new ships are pretty fun, and they've rekindled my interest in the game after a few months of disinterest.  Phantoms and fat turret ships where dominating the game, and I prefer Rebel jousters.  It was a good time for a dedicated spoiler faction to shake up the meta.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

First Stand Alone Star Wars Movie is Titled Rogue One

By CaulynDarr

Sorry to be flooding the blog with AWSOME today, but this could not be overlooked.  The first standalone Star Wars movie to come after Episode VII is a called Rogue One.  Given that everyone who's gone by Rogue 1 in the Star Wars universe has been a total bad-ass, I'm geeking out. Some actress named Felicity Jones has been cast in the lead role. I'm not familiar with her work, but I guess she's the future Rogue Leader.


Paul Allen Finds the Musashi with his Super Yacht

by CaulynDarr




The former MS co-founder and probably current super villain found one of the last great missing WWII wrecks,  Ya'know, if I had his money, that's most likely what I'd be doing.  In addition to launching rockets into space or something.  Oh, wait, he does that too... So cheers for him for living the dream.

Edit: There will be a live stream of the exploration tonight at 9 PM Eastern

Edit 2: Looks like the ship is in pretty bad shape.  Worse than the Yamato.  The bow and stern are intact, but most everything else in between has been disintegrated by magazine explosions.  They found the bridge tower mostly intact, so there's that.  Still a significant find.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Has World Of Tanks Jumped The Shark?

by SandWyrm


Over the last year, I've noticed a lot more deals being offered to players to keep interest up, but this one just plain smacks of desperation. 50,000 credits a day just for logging in? Uh Oh...

Monday, March 9, 2015

Should Battlefront's Fulda Gap Actually be in 6mm?

by CaulynDarr

Solving the case of the hidden rebel base was his last great mystery.
I googled "Flames of War"+"Fulda Gap" the other day looking to see if any news about Battlefront's new game has snuck out.   Curiously, one of the top results is a micro armor scenario out of Wargames Illustrated called Fulda Gap: The Bear Stikes.  While you could just write that off as coincidence--the Fulda Gap is a well known strategic area in cold war battle planning--it got me thinking.  Could Battlefront's new game actually be in 6mm and not 15mm as assumed?   Sources are saying no.  But I think my reasons are still good for why they should.


Thursday, March 5, 2015

Flames of War: Modern Combat?!

By CaulynDarr


Let's do this...
Battlefront just put out their state of the union update.  And it looks like they are finally doing a Cold War era NATO vs Warsaw Pact game.  In plastic!  It will be a full release with multiple books and is coming this October.

Friday, February 27, 2015

Leonard Nimoy, Rest In Peace

by CaulynDarr

He died today at the age of 83.  This one's a lot more upsetting for me than the average celebrity death.  This feels more like loosing someone you actually know.  Spock is such an important character in sci-fi fandom, and Nimoy always seemed to be a really cool guy.  He will be missed.

Monday, February 16, 2015

Kingsman Ascending

by CaulynDarr



I saw Kingsman this weekend and Jupiter Ascending the weekend before.  Both movies actually had a pretty similar core story(1%'ers suck). One was spectacular; the other passable. See my thoughts after the break.

Monday, February 9, 2015

Kickstarters, maybe not so great a thing for gamers

By CaulynDarr


Long story, start reading here,
Last summer when I saw that Battlefront was running a Dust Tactics Kickstarter, I went into immediate nerd rage mode.  I wrote a nice flame post on it, but deleted it before posing.  I was fairly sour mood when it came to Kickstarters at the time.  Robotech Tactics was quickly approaching a BS singularity, and I was getting a bit jaded about the whole concept.

But I figured it was Battlefront.  They'd have their backers backs; the Warstore pre-selling all the SKUs at a better price DURING THE KICKSTARTER thing notwithstanding.  All my bluster would look like another negative hit piece by an angry fan boy who just likes to piss in peoples' Cheerios(it is cathartic).  Well, I guess to paraphrase the great Captain Sparrow; there will be no living with me after this.  Thanks, Battlefront. 

So what did I almost say 8 months ago? 

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

What's Up At Battlefront?

by SandWyrm


Because they're a publicly traded company, we have the privilege of digging through Games Workshop's financial reports every six months. As such, we all have a reasonable idea of how well or badly GW is doing each year. But what about the other major miniature game manufacturers, like Battlefront, Wyrd, or FFG? Are they doing better than GW? About the same? Worse? Unless some scandal breaks and airs some dirty laundry, we generally have no idea.

Well, some laundry is now being aired in regards to Battlefront, Dust Studios, and their latest Kickstarter. We're mostly hearing from a very mad Dust Studios, who have not yet been fully paid from the nearly $470,000 that was raised for Operation Babylon. Battlefront isn't saying much, but their actions indicate that they may be experiencing some severe cash-flow problems, and have used that money to pay old debts instead paying for the completion of the Kickstarter.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Games Workshop's Problems: LEGO has been there.

by SandWyrm


Many people have noted interesting parallels between the business models of Games Workshop and LEGO. But did you know that LEGO almost went bankrupt a decade ago, and for many of the same reasons that Games Workshop is struggling now? How did they turn it around? They re-connected with their fans.


GW Half-Year Financials: More Of The Same

by SandWyrm


The GW Half-Year numbers are out. The company is still bleeding revenue and profits, though not as badly as they were in June. GW's new CEO, Kevin Roundtree, can at least be given credit for clearly breaking out the numbers for Independent (Trade) Store Sales, GW Retail Sales, and GW Website (Mail Order) Sales. Which are interesting to finally see.

Very Cool Aircraft Concept

by SandWyrm


Got this from the Conceptships Blog after seeing it elsewhere. Is it practical? Maybe not, but it's 100x cooler than any other Sci-Fi aircraft I've seen. Were I a large multi-national games model company, I'd be very keen on producing kits for something similar to this.

More pics follow...

Friday, January 9, 2015

9th Edition WHFB Preview

by SandWyrm


The Old World hath been torn asunder by the End Times Apocalypse. All that remains is bubbles of chaos-contaminated reality that collide with one another in the aether of what was. Some of which are groovier than others. :)

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