Blackstone - Trying to Finishing Stuff Off

[Original Draft - 2020-05-02]
[this will be a WIP post as i finish off painting the models i'll add them on]

I'm down to the dregs of the models to paint (or at least the models i could be bothered assembling and painting... or those which are already made up for painting...) 

Just eight more Blackstone Fortress models to do, not including the following two...

Servitor...

Tech-Priest...

Psyker [2020-05-03 - trying to do one a day]...

Crusader [2020-05-05 - maybe one ever two days for school nights]...

Which completes the last of the explorers for that particular expansion...

Only 6 remaining from the other various batches...

And still refraining from assembling the new set (see below - though they almost got built last night)....

Ecclesiast [2020-05-06]...

Ratlings [2020-05-10 - last of the characters (yhay), just ambull and the unassembled to go]...

It really feels like slow going with these. Full size models, each colour just in a small area, and lots of small areas, and staying in the areas generally.
I guess i've got my batch painting down for Epic scale stuff and i admit that it's far less precise work most of the time. 

It was announced a week or two ago that there was going to be one more expansion/release for this setting then they'd be shutting it down. Kind of a shame in some ways but then again it's also possibly better that they don't over push the concept and have it just ramble on.  

I did manage to pick up the previous expansion which i intended to get for a while but never got around to it. I saw this in a very small FLGS some time ago (before the situational mayhem) and fortunately it was still there the other day. 

I am however doing my best to get the old models painted before cracking this open. there's only 8 or so models in the new box as well as the rules. Will be mostly shades of green, and possibly artist/shading rather than sharply defined blocks from a quick peruse.  Probably a quick kill, but maintaining discipline with the old stuff so far.

The expansions contain extra bits of story and new missions etc so they add more than a different type of enemy to face. It adds to the overall replayability of it, which is nice for games with a finite development and availability period.  There's always the possibility that they'll have a new series in the future, which, to me, seems plausible give the perceived success of this setting/game. 

And i think i'm going to need more acrylic discs for basing these as well as all the necromunda stuff. 


Gold...
My recent painting experiences has really been a workshop in the various ways of painting gold. I didn't really realise how many different ways it could be done or how many results you could get.
The majority of the explorers i did here were all blinged up... the custodes army was mega-bling. The previous blackstone stuff i've done had some gold there too. 
Part of the complexity is that the gold is semi-transparent so it's not like dropping a layer of it is 'final'. whatever is sitting below it darkens or lightens the overall effect.

Ok, so techniques i've tried and used...

i) leadbelcher base + iyanden yellow (contrast) wash + auric armour gold dry brush 
this was what the custodes were done with

ii) leadbelcher base + auric armour gold layer + agrax earthshade wash
i used this on the techpriest for 'darker' items that might actually be 'brass' fittings. more 'industrial'


iii) leadbelcher base + auric armour gold layer + iyanden yellow (contrast) wash

i used this also on the techpriest for really 'bright' areas like decorative trimming, icons etc. it's a really yellow gold effect.

iv) leadbelcher base + auric armour gold layer + plate metal dry brush (bright silver) 

i used this on the crusader for really shiney, white-gold effect. 

btw: i used various combinations of ii, iii and iv on most of the new explorer models.  

v) black base + auric armour gold layer + agrax earthshade wash
pretty sure this is what i used to the new rogue trader. creates a muted or aged gold. 

vi) averland sunset base + leadbelcher dry brush
pretty sure this is what i used to the old rogue trader. also creates a muted or aged gold. a 'gold' for when you don't have gold or want to use gold specifically.  from memory i think i might have done this for all of the first blackstone box due to not having a pot of gold at the time.

anyway, that's about it really. you could add more layers or variations of the above, but yeah, from a dirty low bling, through to bright eye-dazzlers there's something for every occasion.


Enough enough enough...
Ordered some clear acrylics disks cos i didn't have enough for one of the hobbits and the crusader.

Arrived today and a 2 minute job to attach them. So all these guys are now going in the box so i'm calling the post 'done'.

The Ambull is still being painted but i'm really lost with colour scheme... theoretically i could keep going for a while longer or call it 'done' too. Will keep going.

Anyway, all the _original_ stuff/explorers are done.

Will just post up the Ambull and plague marines here when they're done... whenever that might be. 

Update: 2020-5-22
Finally reached my limits with the Ambull.

There's a bout 20 layers of indecision on that model. I guess it's table worthy. The painting is ok (not shown up on the pic but i'm phoning these pics in). Happy with the quality but not delighted with the colour scheme. was originally hoping for something in the red spectrum (undercoats to prove it), but it kind of evolved into a dark purple. I think it's kind of a utilitarian colour scheme - dark and ominous maybe.

Put them onto clear bases this morning and into the box. yhay.

That just leaves the death guard and zombies which are still on-sprue. i've actually been pretty good with just sticking to one task at a time.

Until next time...

Wrath and Glory... 'n Zeal...

So as part of the whole corona scam i ended up being in contact with some (as it so happens) very local folk (some of whom I've met briefly in passing) who were starting a Wrath and Glory (WaG) campaign.

This is a 'Dungeons and Drangon'-esque Role Playing Game (RPG), which is more about stories, maps, and spoken 'adventuring' than it is about miniatures, dice, tape measures and battles.

Over the years i have picked up some rule books for some earlier (same-universe, different authors/publishers etc) precursor games called 'Dark Heresy' and 'Deathwatch' which i never tried, but i enjoyed the artwork.

This was my first time attempting such a game, though it's something i'd wanted to do for quite some time.

Mainly deciding which (of potentially many) hobby activities i could balance equitably (imo) with real-life probably is the main deciding factor. Like all of my hobby stuff it's not a 20 minutes and you're done activity.

Now, with the increasing prevalence of online... well, everything there are myriad opportunities for playing such games online (even for a technophobe like myself).

In our case we started using discord for chat (text typing and viewing map etc) and voice (VOIP), then moving to the roll20 site which allowed easier and fancier 'map work' and also voice (though noticeably heavier on the data usage).

So, to date, we have had four sessions, all on a Friday night, and in generally it has been quite entertaining.

For those not familiar with the process at all, you create a fictional character and start by setting some stats for in-game interaction (maybe combat, maybe investigation, maybe stealth or scholarly abilities for example).

You can also create things such as background, character motivations or personality, history etc.  basically the 'your guys' stuff but for a single 'your guy'.

Then during they session you decide (verbally) where your characters (usually there's a group of you) are going to go, and Game Master (GM) describes any relevant settings, features or happenings.

There is a combat element to the game (so virtual dice) but this is only a side aspect (imo), though to be fair a lot of the investigation type stuff does direct you toward hostile settings, so it's still very much a part of the environment. It would potentially be possibly to have a non-combat adventure but the nature of the environment (and it's wh40k we're talking about here) is hazardous.  

For the non-gamers...

An example of non-combat activities you might say, "i'm going to investigate that cupboard." The GM says, "do an 'investigation' check." You roll a dice and if you roll better than a certain value you might find something interesting about or in 'the cupboard'.

In this particular system there are degrees of success and if you exceed the required value by 'a lot' then you might find extra clues or stuff as part of your action.

As another example let's say you need to obtain a clue that is in a safe, so you might say "i'm going to attempt to pick the lock." The GM says, "do a 'tech' check."  If you fail you might say, "i'm going to try to break the lock." The GM says, "do a 'strength' check." So there are multiple attributes that you can access and you'd pick either your best option or the option most suitable to the situation.

Generally you don't keep retrying something until you succeed. I don't know why but it seems to be the etiquette [going to ask the question... question asked... answer received - below].  There's also degrees of difficulty within this system, so if you try to 'pick the lock' the GM might say you need a roll of 5 or higher, and if you attempt it again, they might say you need a 7 or higher etc.   Never tried that but it might be an option.

Answer from the GM: "You can do it multiple times but if it was multiple fails in a row as a GM I would personally say you break the locks/set off alarms/force a lockdown/etc. For this party though you're all pretty much capable of kicking in even a heavily secured door, so why wouldn't you try that next."

Great. So?

This particular game system allows the characters to be pretty much any in-universe species/faction you could want (not sure if you can be a tyranid or a necron, probably not, but most others seem catered for to an extent).

However, true to form, i opted for the familiar; Space Marine.

Specifically i stat'ed up a Black Templar to tie in to my totemic Epic army.

I had no particular plan of what, if at all, i'd be able to 'write' with this endeavour but part of the hobby is just trying it and seeing what comes out sometimes.

As the sessions have unfolded i ended up writing some 'diary notes' or communiques between my character and his 'mentor' back in the fleet (i.e. the guy who sent him on this quest). I back-wrote some history and a reason for his deployment at this location etc.

The fiction-writing/mind-work aspects i probably find as, or probably more enjoyable than smearing paint around.  It's something you can come back to and tweak, polish, fix spelling and grammar at any time and at any place, and there's no messy cleanup [ba doom tsh].

[There he is. My BT army's Sword Brethren squads.]

I'm adding links to the articles i've written here, mainly so i can access (and tweak) them from a central location.

A quick summary of the campaign background...

"The campaign(/adventure) is set on a planet called Tagia Prime.

The planet's primary commerce is mining radioactive materials, and is overseen by representatives of the Mechanicum.

The city experiences periodic asteroid storms and structures are reinforced to withstand these.

A local preacher requests investigation of the local population, aimed particularly at the mutants, who are generally tolerated because of their ability to work within the radioactive mines and they provide cheap labour.

Mutants including children are turning up dead with greater frequency (for a 40k setting planet).

Within recorded history the settlement was occupied by a band of renegade chaos marines called the warp ghosts and liberated by forces of the Mechanicum."

Reading between the lines: The planet is something of a industrial backwater of interest only because of the accessibility of minerals. The population is highly irregular but because they're cheap (read expendable) the mining operators don't give a crap as long as the quotas are met... oh, that sounds kinda familiar...

[for the non-gamers: Mechanicum, also called Mechanicus, short for Adeptus Mechanicus  is a 'branch' of humanity within the setting. They tend to obsess about machinery, technology and gizmos. There is a tonne more fluff to most aspects of this.]

WaG - FT - Campaign Background

WaG - FT - Personal History

WaG - FT - Prologue

WaG - FT - update1-81400202M42

WaG - FT - update2-42400202M42

WaG - FT - update3-10500202M42

WaG - FT - update4-80500202M42

WaG - FT - update5-51500202M42

WaG - FT - update6-092500202M42

WaG - FT - update6-192500202M42

WaG - FT - Epilogue

WaG - FT - fleetStatus-01600202M42

Conclusion - 2020-05-29

The last session (postponed by a week) was (probably) the last one for the campaign (Session 6), where we having pretty much reached the end of the plot.

Although we were in a collapsing cavern we escaped just in time (in a raiders of the lost ark moment) and technically avoided the classic 'rock falls everyone dies' conclusion.

However, as we emerged from the tunnels we were greeted by a pack of Grey Knights, notorious for mind-wiping or liquidating anyone who sees them in order to keep their existence secret (nerd fluff explosion). As such i do not yet know the ultimate fate of Fredii Tuulan though hopefully his updates made it back to the fleet - pretty much waiting for the GM to reveal this at some stage.

Epilogue and Followup - 20200610

So our GM gave us a neat wrap up (see Epilogue) with new twists and possibilities for the future. Fun!

In response i just wrote the 'fleetStatus' article (very, very final fluff for this experience). The bottom line being that the fleet sends an advance force to follow up on Tuulan's messages and disappearance, and discovered a Virus Bombed planet but no Tuulan. They suspect Inquisitorial intervention but they aren't going to discover anything worthwhile. With the planet apparently taken care of it's off to find another combat zone.

Tee-shirt

At one stage (around session 2) the GM suggested (possibly heading towards exasperation), "You don't actually have to kill everyone,"   and later posited the term "murder hobos," in our general direction...  something like, "are you done at this location or are you going to punch on like murder hobos?"

Given we were generally new to the mechanics of the game, things maybe migrated towards the conflict side of the spectrum more than they could have - i'd plead inexperience and/or ignorance rather that raw psychoticness.

Anyway i thought an appropriate working title for the group might be "Rizzle's Friday Night Murder-Hobos"   with a catch-phrase "Suffer not the NPC to live."   Which i actually had made up into a tee-shirt.

[NPC - Non Player Character - characters in the story not controlled by the players, i.e. controlled by the GM. The general denizens of the locale; sometimes people you're meant to interact with, sometimes like extras in movies.]

Pretty sure the issue was actually us...

10 Ways to Deal With Murder Hobos as a GM - Game Master Tips - GM Tips

6 Signs you are a Murder Hobo - Player Character Tips

...though to be fair from then on we did attempt to ensure things were as... civilised as we could manage.

Just an amusing something something...

Murderhobo | 1 For All | D&D Comedy Web-Series

Until next time...

Fuuu-hoton

Low on pictures, big on words. Sorry.

Warning: This is probably only going to be relevant to people with a photon and specifically if you're having issues.

Warning 2: A few hours of developments later this is potentially going to end up a bit rant-y in places, though i'll say in advance that i'm not angry, just frustrated.

So, two days ago i replaced the FEP film (the clear plastic at the bottom of the resin vat) again.

I was having an issue with the model printing ok for a while then 'melting'. So i don't know exactly what was happening but about 1/2 way into the job it misprinted 1 or more layers and then various areas of the print just 'clumped'. So unusable.

This is one reason why i stopped printing a few weeks back. I had successfully printed 3 front-ends of the Storm Eagle (SE) then got failure after failure. Without isopropyl alcohol (or even metho) to clean up i couldn't keep going.

So last week I managed to get price raeped at bunnings for 1 litre worth of isoprop (over 2 days because 500ml bottles and restrictions)... because apparently iso is the cure for COVID... so anyway i could now continue printing.

Everything got a good cleanup and i put on a new FEP film for thoroughness sake. I printed out the last of 4 SE front-ends, 2 SE back-ends and then had a 'melt' failure. Annoying because obviously it CAN work it just ISN'T.

Aside from the wasted resin this is an annoying waste of time as you don't realise the 5 hour print is stuffed until it's complete... more or less.

[Later development comments in maroon] Last was a melty print.

[and for what it's worth 'Blogger' programmers i am hating the latest bunch of changes you suddenly forced on the site. Picture handling is absolute slop. Why is everyone insisting on ruining their sites this year??]

So this is a fairly substantial print. Took between 5-6 hours and weighs about... 2 golf balls worth... maybe as much as a block of butter... slightly less than a cricket ball... a half full mug of tea...

I have no solid theories about this. My number one guess is that the FEP film is bodgy. Alternately it could be current related, such that if an appliance was turned on in the house (the clothes drier might have been put on around that 'layer') that it maybe cause the LCD to open for a layer or two... but i feel this is really grasping at straws.

Regardless, it's clearly a waste of resin, so now i'm not only wasting clean up materials (towels/iso/gloves etc) at an unnecessary rate but need to think about whether i have enough resin to complete this project... or if i actually want to.

Another failure like this and i'll be hard pressed printing off the remaining models with the resin i have and i have no idea as to current online availability. bah!!

In this pic there is a print 'shadow area' loosely stuck on the film.

And here a resin smudge on the LCD screen. So clearly there is also a small puncture on the film. Another FEP film down.... more fuc#ing consumables wasted.

An annoying aspect of this is that i printed literally 2 armies using a single FEP last time, so this batch or thickness or something is really giving me grief.

Alternately something could be awry with the FEP and resin combination [sigh] though i think i printed plenty of Soy resin previously.

Second issue...

At this stage i started getting the 'print one layer then restart' madness that i had experienced previously quite a while back. This is slightly different to the 'memory' error, and totally different again to the 'melt prints'.

This guy had exactly the same thing happening, and there are numerous reports of it on the web...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfYlq4q6onI

I tried starting jobs repeatedly over the course of the day and with different models (well past off-peak hours if such concepts are still around these days). This is annoying because aside from being a waste of time, it's a waste of clean up resources; paper towels and isoprop, both of which are in short supply. I'm not so much bothered by the cost though obviously it gets to a stage where printing is an unattractive option, but more by the unavailability of the resources required.

I went web researching again because time had past since I last looked at this issues - the model is more common now days and perhaps someone had some answers.

A common (and only relative to the small amount of feedback given) response is that it was related to the power brick, and/or motherboard. An usually linked to some kind of (electrical) current issue.

As the oven was running in the house and also the dishwasher, i thought this might be plausible. My previous successful prints were during times of low draw. However, i tried after all the big current draw was off and no joy still. I would also have thought that any current issues would have manifested in other appliances before something as light-weight as the printer which has a low-draw uv lamp, a smaller stepper motor and an (eq-)arduino.

I also noticed a reply suggesting that the vat being in contact with the main (red) plate of the printer was creating (to simplify) a 'short circuit'. It suggested putting some tape under the vat to stop the metal on metal contact. Doesn't explain the previous successful prints but i thought i'd give it a try.

Got a pic since i had to abort the session and clean everything up. This is standard electrical insulation tape rather that the ultra-thin specialty tape recommended in the article i read.

This (pic) is kind of the same but 'in reverse' (and also done for a different purpose). Here the tape is stuck on the main plate and the vat sits on the tape not directly on the plate.

I may end up doing this method instead anyway as the idea is to stop resin spilling into the guts of the machine if the FEP film has a major rupture.

I noticed when putting on the tape that the bolts holding the FEP frame to the vat were slightly loose and probably just protruding beyond the vat's bottom 'face'.

BTW This shouldn't affect the printing functionality if you already have the build plate face already 'zeroed'. You won't be able to do the 'paper test' because of the tape (which you can remove obviously to do the test), but it shouldn't really affect the z-position of the build face.

So with these two modifications/fixes/just setting it up correct finally, i have managed 3.x successful prints (the AT 'coin' as a quicker test print, then 2 more SE back-ends) and another (different model - which worked) on the way (meaning i did a power off and usb swap, which seems risky for the memory error... so many little niggles).

It is possible that tightening the bolts so they are flush or inside the vat face resolved the issue. perhaps it was pushing onto the main plate and pushing some electronics or something (dunno). 

Similarly perhaps the bolts were making the 'short circuiting' connect from the vat to the main plate (dunno).

Alternately maybe the tape was stopping a 'short circuit' from the vat body to the main plate (dunno). 

Either way, so far the mod seems to be helping... though i totally expect to jinx myself and have the thing stop print next job [hahaha, well i called it but for a different error]. Anyway i will continue printing as much as possible as quickly as possible while the house of cards is in it's precarious balance. I know it's 'hobby' level stuff (where you 'expect' niggles and an amount of tweaking not required with 'commercial' grade stuff) but it's still annoying when you're paying for a product that should be capable (and proves itself so... sometimes) and is now a mature enough technology to be capable of what it's advertised to do.

I haven't heard a lot of feedback from other people i personally know who have the photon, and i'm aware of 4 with them. One person sent theirs back, thought i suspect they didn't have any patience whatsoever for tweaking. The other 3 haven't reported any 'issues'. Maybe they're already tightening the screws already.... dunno.

Anyway, there are now more cases and suggested solutions for this (and other) niggles on the web which I can at least try. I'm not convinced that my machine's motherboard is dodgy - due mainly to successful jobs. Though perhaps there is 'extra strain' pulling off the first set layer and perhaps some current drain from the metal bits too. 'bad wiring' appears to be the smoking gun at the (always) early stage of the print, but it could be a combination of a dozen different variables... egad!

BTW the 'memory' error generally happen by about 8% into the print. 

So tomorrow i'll replace the FEP film and have another go. Just sick of wasting resources with this sub-par gadget. I have a feeling that the newer versions are getting more reliable... or at least i hope that's the case.

I guess the 'rant' part is aimed toward people considering resin. Be aware that these gizmos can give you a lot of grief. In hindsight i'd potentially consider outsourcing the actual printing of stuff to someone else given it's so fricken frustrating. I like being able to produce the models of my choosing but there's no reason you can't make the models and get some printer co. to actually do the shitty part. printing is no ecstatic joy-fest - it's a crap job.

While there are 3rd party manufactures that are probably on par (given so much wastage) in terms of model value, one of the advantages of model/print-your-own is being able to have multi-pose infantry, rather than the ranks of same-same models. It really makes a difference to the visual composition and individuality of the army... however... if you can get your stuff printed elsewhere PLEASE do the research and work out whether it's really worth the frustration. Previously there weren't printers available, but that's now changing and it's worth keeping an eye on.

I'll probably endeavour to finish off this army. And i have a queue of at least 2 others i wouldn't mind building. but i'll be giving serious thought to how that these builds are executed. Depending on how much the hardware tests my patience there might only be one option if the printer ends up smashed to small pieces on my garage floor. 

Ok consider it this way: If you had a microwave and you put in a meal to cook for 10 minutes, then at 9 minutes in it decides to really nuke the hell out of it for no obvious reason, but then you couldn't tell because it was in an enclosed container. That kind of frustrating, but this meal takes 5 hours to cook... and the ingredients in your dish are currently rare and/or unavailable... and you're hungry. 

[2020-05-11-a] Replaced the FEP just now. Took half and hour and managed not to puncture the film. Made sure the screws were all recessed below the vat edge, and applied tape to the bottom of the vat.  Am waiting for the temperature to warm up a bit because it's bloody cold and i don't want to give this jalopy any excuse to waste my resin.

[2020-05-11-b] Set the print job off at 10:30am. There was an extra set of 'beeps' after the first layer but it looked to be printing. Turns out that at 1.5 hours it had a memory failure. Had 'print shadow' on the failed print. Cleaned up and triggered it off again around 2pm, currently waiting, at about 48%, at 5pm. Made sure not to over-tighten the vat screws (holding it to the main plate) in case there's some kind of pressure on the plate causing an electrical failure. Reset the usb and so on obviously. Just so frustrating because i can physically see a perfectly printed version of this model on the shelf. Hence the practice of when things are working just trying to bang out as much stuff as possible before 'failure season'...

[2020-05-11-c]

Sadly my patience is not infinite, so here ends my journey with the photon printer.

the previously running model failed (uv spill/mutation). i tried other models and got memory failures and then power failures after 1 or 2 layers. just too damn hard to waste my hobby time on.

i'm out of gloves, i'm out of paper towels, i'm low on resin and isopropyl, and i'm out of patience. so it's back in the box.

i don't know why it's just turned into a complete dog now. i guess at some stage i might unbox it, pull it apart and see if there's 'loose wiring' or something. or i might just poke myself in the eye repeatedly instead.

no idea how i'm going to finish off the current project...

if i do start printing again it will be with a different printer and company.

this might seem harsh after 'successfully' building 1 large (templars) and almost 2 small (custodes/deathguard) armies with it, but it has repeatedly been a struggle to get it to operate (my version of) correctly and consistently, and the 'success' came with cycles of failures and annoyance.

it had memory and printing issues almost from the start, which have degraded further over time. i don't think i've treated it harshly or really pushed its limits or capabilities.

i would not recommend them. imo, it's just a bit of lemon. [redacted, awaiting replacement part]

[2020-05-12] found this...

https://github.com/Photonsters/anycubic-photon-docs/blob/master/known-issues/photon-known-issues.md

...that's 22 main/highlighted issues. Imagine if that was for your household microwave instead.

Based on this list (and that it comes with some suggestions) i will probably try a couple of things in the future sometime. Can't really afford to spring for a new printer at this stage. Regretting ordering a new pot of resin early yesterday... oh well. 

Just checked and it is about a year (to the month 2019-05-15) since i got it... here. It spent a lot of that time in the box, either awaiting resin to arrive or between projects. just musing.

[2020-05-13] i started trying a couple of other new 'fixes' i found on the new list, but nothing helped.

on a 'why the hell not' whim, and with two days do go on (maybe) a year warranty... i sent an email to the anycubic support place.

their very quick response - "we'll send a new motherboard...what's your address?"

can't really complain about that type of support, can you?

guess they've had quite a few and are done trying to talk you through fixes. easier to throw a replacement bit at it.

Am actually looking forward to seeing if it work. And, if it work that really changes things because - aside from these electronic niggles - it's actually a pretty solid and simple little unit to use.

[2020-05-19 a] new electronics arrived as promised.

[2020-05-19 b] installed new board and fired off a print. first print didn't stick to print face, cleaned up, restarted. second job completed but had the phantom debris throughout the print.

my conclusion is that the memory issues are resolved (hopefully) but the mutant prints are not related. will try removing the tape and putting on a new FEP transparency (without the extra play, might have started once i started doing that).

Until next time...