Necromunda - Part 3 - Escher

As duly threatened, this is Part 3 of my Necromunda project.

So we start with some of the preliminary work done on the Escher gang; black undercoat (brushed on, i only ever brush, not spray), then rough blocking in barbarian flesh, and then elshin grey for the bits that will actually end up 'black' on the finished product. Replete with character names so i can put them on the board in the meantime.

Then leadbelcher eq. These models have far less metal than the Goliaths.

Blocking in real colours finally, two watered down coats of averland sunset for all the fabric areas.

Then two coats of watered down screaming skull for hair, skull/teeth/feather decorations etc. Unlike the example from white dwarf all my Escher models will be getting very plain blonde hair (rather than harlequin-esque rainbow highlights) [yep, that happened].

[Update]
... The above bits happened before the weekend, whilst the following happened the following Tuesday.

With the weather being stupid hot it was possibly to wait a very short amount of time before thin washes and dry brushing was ready for next steps... so everything happened mighty quick (yhay). 

The blacks (pants and wristbands mainly) and metal plating got a wash of blue (yes blue)
The black then got a wash of agrax eq though i had originally intended to use null oil. 
The yellows, hair and skin also got a wash of agrax.
After that there was bunch of dry brushing (pretty much the opposite of the Goliaths treatment).
The hair and light browns got dry brushed straight white.
Yellows were brushed flesh tone*.
Browns and metals got slightly lightened too with their shades.
Non-weapon metals (armour plates mainly) got a light brush over with averland sunset which gives it a slightly titanium feel; somewhat unusual and interesting over the blue wash.
And that was it (sans-basing which was the same as Goliaths).

IMO there's enough variation in the colours to make the models interesting (photos don't do them justice really). They're all fairly light in terms of colour palette which i think reflects the 'fast and airy' feel of the gang as opposed to the solid, stolid goliaths.

And that's the Necromunda project done for the time being. We'll see what happens in terms of expansion factions and playing partners.

[* seeing as this is a record of my learnings... i wanted to make a note that pink (or flesh tone) is a remarkably useful dry brush colour. I did all the yellow 'fabric' in the escher gang - as well as actual skin sections. Also i used it as a red highlighter on the goliaths (from memory) instead of a white or red based tink (such as ratskin) which i had used previously. 
It has a slight 'red' feel to it which makes it slightly less stark than straight white... to my eyes anyway.]

Until next time...

Necromunda - Part 2 - Goliath

One of my weekend projects was to get some progress on the Necromunda models.

As per previous post both teams got an undercoat of black, and i'd started the barbarian flesh. At this point the models were looking, somewhat surprisingly, bare-minimum playable.


My goals were:
- quality target  = quick and casual
- just doing Goliaths this session so can stick to one colour palette
- generally uniform (low overall colour count) with slight variations

Just starting work; using the white dwarf pic as a colouring guide.

Everything looking extremely bright and shiny with a fresh coat of leadbelcher (or armyPainter equivalent). 

Blocking in some mephiston red. This was the last of the main block colours. As well as being part of the 'official' colour scheme it really helps in breaking up all the silver and black/grey.

Basically i went through and blocked in everything and then ran washes over everything. 
Before the washes i did a little bit of fixing, detailing and 'small colours' such as browns for grenade handles, handle wraps etc.  I didn't bother with dry brushing after washes or edge highlighting post-washes.   The goal was 'quick and casual' (not 'dirty' but heading in that direction) so a bit dull and grungy is ok.

And... my final results. Quick bit of dry brushing added to the bases, but couldn't be bothered with anything fancy there; just looking to get the models done asap. My camera seems to have made them really stand out on the board (i.e. it didn't look like that with my eyes).

Overall i'm pretty happy with the results. Not studio quality but [shrug]. It definitely helped warming up with the zombie project in terms of focusing on multiple coats and washes. There's not a huge amount of straight edges in these models so 'organic' definitely suits them.

On to the Eshers in Part 3, probably during the week as next weekend is Cancon. Trying to keep my mind off that.

Until next time...

Low-end 3D Printer

A couple of weeks ago I put together a (draft only) opinion piece about 3D printing. With the death of my printer a few days ago I thought I might review and publish it given I'm looking at hardware again...


At (Epic) tournaments I regularly get into conversations that swing around to 3D printing. To date I haven't seen anyone else running a home-printed army (in Australia) *, but as hobbyists who happily make terrain pieces and kitbash from left overs, I think it's natural enough that it's something that may interest us - if only conceptually.

[* ed: at cancon 2018 i met a chap form canberra who was printing some of his army, at least the tanks. they look good and it's pleasing to see someone else exploring the medium.]
[* ed: at castle assault 2018 a gaming buddy from Victoria was running lots of chaos models he's printed and has also produced a lot of fantastic skitarii models (amongst other factions) so the no-printing trend is definitely transitioning]

My own motivations for running 3D armies are mainly about;
- enjoy creating my own/unique pieces (virtual models and then real objects)
- able to easily/quickly/cheaply test out new unit types with actual models rather than cardboard cutouts
- overcome commercial model inaccessibility
and definitely not about;
- wanting to screw over commercial endeavours

If I didn't have a 3D printer i'm about 99% sure that I'd really have struggled to get into this game. Early on I managed, extremely fortuitously, to buy a bunch of 'real'/original Marines stuff off a local chap who was getting out of the game, but aside from the usual routes (ebay etc) there wasn't a plethora of (easy) options for expanding the army.
For the non-printers there are other (ever growing) avenues such as (my favs)
vanguard/onslaught/defeat in detail who do great work, once you know what to look for and where to look for them - and paradoxically know what models you want/need before you use them.

I recently had an, "aldi have a 3D printer next week, I was thinking of getting one" conversation, and i'm always pro that option if you have any combination of hobby time/funds available/inclination/motivation.

My main advice to would-be printers is this; manage your expectations of what you're going to get with a low-end printer and you'll do fine.

From a slightly more technical view point the bottom line is this; with a minimum filament resolution of (commonly) 0.2mm, additive printers simply aren't going to compete with metal/resin cast (or even resin-printed) models. If you can deal with that fact then you're on your way to building expansive Epic armies with more unit options than you'd ever reasonably want or need.

read: GO FOR IT!


Example please...
This was the first epic model I ever printed. I was (and still am) chuffed to have an actual result and excited at the potential of massive armies just waiting to be extruded... but it was also a little underwhelming.

The STL file that was used to print the model was this [below], which clearly has more detail and is not 'blobby'. It quickly became obvious that there was only so much detail that could be added by the little hot strand of plastic. 

History demonstrates that this was something I decided I could live with !!

[My first complete stand of Marines]

I often write that a lick of paint goes a long way in resolving the resolution issue, but perhaps that's a matter of consolation or justification on my behalf. The following pic demonstrates pretty basic paintwork (and i've seen some truly stunning work on 'real models', even at 6mm) and is slightly less about gap/striation filling than it is about giving the printed dudes a uniform.

Invariably my next comment is that at arms-length/game-play-distance the basic paintwork becomes far less important.

This is, of course, entirely a matter of personal opinion and taste... but it comes back to managing your expectations of what you can produce with the technology you have available.
The army in the picture above should easily be made with less than a single roll of plastic (guesstimate $35 AUD). I won't guess how much a comparable army of official models would be, but it's multiple-hundreds of dollars.


Quantity over Quality
At a really, really, really, really rough guess I estimate that I've printed around 464 of just that particular Marine model (approximately 116 stands with 4 tactical marines per stand + 1 missile launcher guy).
Obviously they're not printed out individually; I run 1 stand's worth of models per batch... the printer struggles not to 'edge-lift' with jobs > 40 minutes... re-read that note about expectations and working within capabilities.


Thingiverse
While I'm here I wanted to give a shout out to thingiverse user fractalnoise who's model this is; fractal you're a legend.
Without getting into my thingiverse experiences too much, when I first started printing there were possibly only perhaps half a dozen contributors who had added Epic usable models. 
Since then i've had contact with possibly a couple dozen (new) contributing Epic modellers (some extremely talented and prolific)... and there's an Epic specific group with 92 members (at time of writing). All encouraging stuff IMO.
I guess i could put a list of recommendations on here, but it's just as easily look up my profile on thingiverse and see who I follow.


On the flip side... Resin...
Resin printers are still not common despite 4+ years since becoming... publicly accessible.

It's still largely a matter of price. An additive print can easily be bought for less than $500. The 'best value' DUP Resin print i've seen recently starts at $500 and only has a print capacity of 120x68x200.... which admittedly, is perfectly fine for 6mm infantry.
[ed: this situation is changing as well. yhay]

A chap on tac cmd has been working resin prints for Epic since 2013, including recently posts and the results are bloody brilliant.

The following is taken from a screen shot of this forum and shows a resin model with pretty much as much detail as (presumably) an 'official' cast.

While the following is not using the same file, my printer struggles to get any detail and certainly doesn't get a crisp finish for what detail it does manage to pick up. The gross details are there however and despite being a low-res rendering it's obviously a land raider.

Bottom line: for people looking at 200-500 buck filament machines you're not going to get resin/cast resolution/quality.


Quick Aside...
When I was originally researching which 3D printer to get I saw brumbaer's blog site and found it suitable inspiring (same guy referenced in taccmd above). It did however set my expectation unreasonably high about the quality of printing in general (yes he's using resin).
If you have a moment check out the beautiful eye-candy (and insight) in these and other posts from his blog:
- Objectives
- Marines
- Goblin snipers


Modelling to Resolution

As a concept piece (model request by a thingiverser) I modelled a 6mm mkIII armour marine, but I knew there was no way the mask grills, backpack or bolter were going to look any different to the model in the previous examples when done on my own printer.

On larger models you obviously have more scope to add decorative bits and pieces beyond the structural form. This doesn't stop the model looking like duplo compared to cast models, but every bit helps.

Modelling an object that you intended to be printed - at small size and low-resolution - is a matter of compromise. Without enough bulk the model will be fragile and break (at least until you sheath it in paint). Detailed features aren't going to print so you can either make a pretty model and not print the detail or make low-detail models to start with with solid, robust (but ugly) planes.

This is not to say don't make nice models (as it's fun), but again; expectations and capabilities.


And in Conclusion
The plus side of having a 3D printer, regardless of its capabilities, is that you will have a table functional army when you're done, maybe even two because plastic is so damn cheap!!

Most people I've played have been complimentary about the look of the army; though it is hard to know whether they're just being nice, appreciate the effort put into making it (even if it has taken a fall from the ugly tree), or honestly do like the look.
In my mind anything that gets new player on the table is a plus for a precariously positioned game.

and so I reiterate: GO FOR IT !!

Until next time...

A week in review

Dear diary,

The week just gone was nothing special, but illustrates the several little this's and that's that comprise a not untypical week-in-the-hobby.


RIP Printer
Firstly, some sad news... my printer is cactus.
Having experienced higher than normal issues over the last few weeks/months this is not a total surprise. The heater/feed mechanism seems to be toast.
The little up!mini has given me reliable service over the last...2+ years (up to it's slightly underwhelming capabilities anyway) so I can't complain;  especially since I have finished all my main Epic armies, plus a whole bunch of other stuff as well.

I am contemplating getting a replacement and am happy just mulling over the options for the time being.
I believe there's a small capacity resin one available now (wanhao duplicator D7), as in 120x68x200 which might be nice for detailed 6mm infantry. At around the $500-800 mark it's potentially worth a look.
Alternately, there's any number of filament/kit printers; i would probably want one that can print at 0.1mm reliably, and a build capacity of 200cube would be ace as well.
Only in the very first stages of research and not really looking at anything for a couple of months at least.


Cancon 2018
Cancon lists we due to the TO last Friday; with the tournament now about 2 weeks away.

Cancon, for non-aussies, is a major gaming convention held in Canberra, our illustrious national capital. It is most likely the biggest gaming convention in the country and as far as i'm aware the largest Epic tournament or gathering in the country too with somewhere about 24-30 players.

This will be my second Cancon as a player, and my third visit in total. 
Back in 2016 i read about the event just a day or two before the weekend. As i was already in Canberra for the long weekend I decided to drop by just out of curiosity. It was there that i saw Epic being played and had one of those flashes that i sometimes get saying, "you should be doing that!" and the rest is history.


Epic Day
Epic Day happened on Sunday. Epic Day is our monthly Epic get together in Campbelltown (HOH) on the 2nd Sunday of the month. 
We had 3 players who played 2 games all up (kinda obviously) trialling our Cancon lists:
game 1: Knight Crusade vs Dark Eldar (deldar won)
game 2: Dark Eldar vs Feral Orks (orks won)

Post game it's probably fair to say that I'm kind of nervous about my list; specifically the low activation count and low AC presence. That said, as much as I like Knights, it's also kind of a token list and after Cancon i'm probably going to be hammering the Templars as my major army.

I found a review of all of the Cancon lists from a established player who suggested the list was (to paraphrase) a configuration he hadn't seen before, potentially interesting and (direct quote) "One to watch." 
Given it wasn't a straight up lambasting or ridiculed for any unforgivable omission i'm slightly more confident.
All i wish is not to come last. I'm super-noncompetitive - enjoying the factions, fluff, narrative and game session far more than a win - but coming last is totally demoralising/demotivating regardless. Human nature.

Back to Epic Day, it was really interesting watching the matches between these particular factions; with the lists very much demonstrated the theme of the factions: 
Orks - slow, hard to damage horde, 
Dark Eldar - fast moving guerrilla attacks, 
Knights - ...crappy imperial tech, not bad in close combat if you can get across the board.
That said, i did pull a win vs a similar Ork list last Epic Day so i guess that completes the rock-paper-scissors between these lists in a way.

Was a good day.


Necromunda
Haven't managed to get a game session in with my local gaming buddy as yet due to real-life. Have played a few trial/learning games, which is going well. Also got the add-on book (Necromunda: Gang War), specifically to get the 3D rules (i.e. climbing, multi-level play, real LOS etc).

I had been considering printing up some of the (surprisingly popular) gantry I'd published to thingiverse but obviously that thought has been put on hold.

This evening i decided to start putting some paint on them and so far have managed to complete the matt black undercoat phase; boring but gives subsequent colour something better to stick to.

[Update 2018-01-17: couple of washes of barbarian flesh to start the colour flowing...]


And that's about it.

Until next time...

Necromunda - Part 1

It is an ongoing trend of my hobby life that i can't just start one project and run it to completion.  Instead i need to have several things running at the same time.  This isn't necessarily a problem as it means I can play with this or that project as it takes my interest and at least make some form of progress on something.

Part of my rush to get the Z War One project squared away was Necromunda (aka N17). I got the starter box a few weeks ago with the intention of building it in the new year... which is definitely here... and so N17 is underway.

Add motivation from a pending trial game with a games buddy next week and i now have a deadline, thence excellent cause to get my butt in gear.

All the ganger models are now assembled... mission complete.
Nothing fancy, no conversions or add-ons, just as per the recipe. Usually with a new game and especially with starter boxes i like just getting the basic system set up so i can run demo scenario games etc.

Being entirely new to Necromunda i'm not sure what gang/house i'll eventually run as my signature force so i'm largely indifferent to the starter box models; it's all new and interesting!

The ruleset seems good from what i've read (alternating activations is always a great start), and from what i've heard it's meant to be a decent system. Hopefully N17 will stay around as a system for a long time, so i'll have a 'live' system to be involved with again.

Everything off the sprues and assembled.

Over the next few days i plan to get the models on the board and actually come to terms with the rules in situ, ready for next week.


[Update: 2018-01-10]
well i managed to get some learning in, put the models on the board, moved them around, learned some stuff. reckon i may the have the basics down. 

 

 

From what i've seen and comprehended it's safe to say that i'm impressed. it's certainly easy to compare it to 40k mechanics, elements of space hulk and calth as well, but as i mentioned to a gaming buddy it's... let me quote... myself... derpa... "enough stuff to make it tactical, not too much to bog it down."
...first impressions.

[Click here to jump to Necromunda - Part 2 - Escher]

[Click here to jump to Necromunda - Part 3 - Goliaths]

[Click here to jump to Necromunda - Part 4 - Orlock]

[Click here to jump to Necromunda - Part 5 - Enforcers]

[Click here to jump to Necromunda - Part 6 - Storage and Game Day Game]

[Click here to jump to Necromunda - Part 8 - Van Saar]

Until next time...

Battlefleet Gothic - Chaos Fleet Project - Part 1

Believe it or not, not all of the project I do start completed.

As mentioned in the verbose intro post I intend for this blog to be a build log (b-log... apt) so i can track my project progress.

Now that the Imperial Fleet is complete I decided to start building the Chaos Fleet. This gives me a second force to practice with/understand enemy tactics etc.

The models are some relatively new ones from thingiverse from two different modellers; Mkhand_Industries and Dockmaster

So far I have the basis for 3 Murder Class cruisers and 1 Infidel Raider.

While the exact Fleet composition at this stage is an unknown it will hopefully have about 2000pts of options, as i'll be looking to play 1000-1500pt games... at least for starters.

To my untrained eye a lot of the Chaos ships seem to be based off the same chassis and swapped out weapons bays.
It's perhaps hard to see from the pics but the prints (especially round the weapons bays) are coming about a bit breakable/fragile. I may end up printing extra turrets etc to help fill the model out.

Each of the larger cruisers took about 2hr:10min to print (single model files including weapons, perhaps not ideal). i found that about half way through (twice) that the printer was failing to feed filament. Might have been something to do with being a super-hot day, new/heavy plastic spool, old crappy printer... anyway i was able to save the second job by getting the filament feeding again (printer doesn't have a 'pause' feature which would be super handy).
anyway, main point here is knowing your printer's capabilities and getting workable results within those parameters.

So that's the start of a project, and probably the first in about a half dozen steps before finished product.


[Update 2018-01-10]
Hmmm, my printer is being problematic, to the point where production could be suspended indefinitely. Have 5 cruisers and 1 raider, so not really ideal timing.

[Update 2018-01-24]

Printer is dead, so project suspended indefinitely. 

Until next time...

Battlefleet Gothic - Imperial Fleet Project

And for something completely different, not an Epic topic again.

I seem to have a thing for dead game systems;   Epic, Halo: Ground Command, Battlefleet Gothic...

Battlefleet Gothic is something I've been wanting to get into for a while (about as long as Epic, maybe more) but never got around to;
- other hobby priorities
- another dead system with no one to play
- rumours of 'new battlefleet gothic' pending from specialist games 

As part of my Black Templars project i put together a model for a Strike Cruiser which was published on Thingiverse. A fellow model artist on thingi then published a series of excellent modular models for several other BFG ships (mainly Imperial but a few others as well... and i'm hoping pensively for Chaos ships in the not-too-distant)... which prompted me to start printing out ships.

Printing commenced on what i'll call a 'Marines'-centric collection (for a fluffy project), which then expanded/developed into a more general Imperial collection. Anyway, i now have the basis for an playable Imperial fleet. yhay! 

These show the full fleet, excluding the strike cruiser (as i only have one large base). All the ships are 3D printed and I've used x-wing bases (for the time being) as they clip together nicely. If I switch to round stands (probably will for rules) I'll probably still use the x-wing sticks.

Although the files for the ships contained a dozen or less parts I found that for the smaller ships it was easier to print the 'full ship' (also provided in the files). As usual the printer loses detail, but after printing out a couple of test pieces i decided I could live with it.

Some Frigates; 3 Sword Frigates and 1 Firestorm Frigate. I have always dug the look of the Sword Frigates. The Firestorm Frigate was more a "let's try something different" than a strategic list inclusion.

Next some Cobra Class Destroyers. I like the shape of these little ships too, they look zippy.

These ones are my stl models. Two Gladius Class Frigates. Generally a 'Marines' list include if my sources are correct. 

Two Mars Class Battle Cruisers. The Cruisers and Battle Cruisers are much the same both having two weapons bays per side. From what i can work out the Battle Cruisers just get extra top-deck (dorsal) guns as well (in terms of model anyway). 

Three Lunar Class Cruisers. I may have the wrong 'prow spike' on for Lunars... though this could be written off as a fleet segmentum quirk.

The fleet's flagship, a Retribution Class Battleship. three weapons bays per side, guns on top and on the wings. It's a pretty chunky model (compared to the others anyway); in metal it would a brick of a thing.

The Retribution next to a Cobra as a size comparison. The Cobra is about as long as the Retribution's wing guns. 

Just finished off the last of the painting today. I guess it's been about 4 months since i started the project with just dribs and drabs of work here and there.

And this means I now need a larger box. 

And, of course digging up players will be difficult, though I know that one of my Epic compatriots also BFG's on occasion. Rumour also has it that they sometimes have BFG session in Newcastle - will keep an ear open for that.


[Later] It occurred to me that i've printed but totally forgotten about the 'boarding craft' that launch from the Mars ships.

Until next time...

Z War One

Not everything on here is going to be Epic stuff; just most of it. 

A while back i was researching game mechanics/rules and noticed a game called z war one which took my interest. after downloading the rules i subsequently bought the box set (was a kickstarter project). Played it a few times and found it to be reasonably good [which equates to high praise].

On the recent xmas break (2017) i decided to take it along while visiting family out of town with the vague notion of playing it there. While that didn't turn out to be a thing, i did decide early on that i may as well start painting the models.

So i trotted off to the flgs and bought a 'the army painter' starter box [war paints starter set] and started work. This was my first time using army painter stuff (for more than a specific wash colour) and the paints were quite good [praise].

It would be more than fair to describe this as being an extremely lazy paint job which goes with the incredibly lazy clipping and model work; amounting to a minimum effort project to get rid of the grey models on the table... as the equally lazy camera work will attest.

This was probably the most flesh (or zombie eq) tone that i've ever done, having spent most of my hobby time on armour or xenos dermal-coverings. In part i'm documenting this to jot my notes re painting zombies for future reference.


Painting Results

Zombies were surprisingly fun to paint. Mainly what i refer to as 'artistic' pieces - where you don't need to stick within the lines to get a usable result. the three critters at the front ('diggers' in game-speak) were probably the least fun of this batch to paint.

The ubiquitous 'heroes'; in general the models are ok [praise] though the black clad chap with the machine gun in the centre really bothers me [criticism] for reasons i won't bother going into.

When i originally got the box i had an idea of play the game as a coordinated paramilitary cadre rather than ragtag, post-apoc leftovers - so i got a bunch of specific bitz from anvil and put together this lot. Turns out they are slightly 'heroic' compared to the original game models, but still work though. Theoretically they should/could be re-based onto square bases (the game uses directions/facings).
I started building this team before running the original game heroes, who turn out to be interesting enough anyway.


Models
A final word regarding the models in general (poses/stances) is that i like how they're 'ready', or 'serious' models. 
I've played some other systems where the models are literally checking out their fingernails, with smg pointed casually skyward (yeah, that's the kinda soldier i want in my squad when the sci-fi schwit hits the fan!!).
Suffice to say that anime-heavy stuff ain't my thing, though i appreciate and respect that others dig it.


Zombie Learning
Ok, so what did i learn (and value) from this project, rather than just 'get the models done'?

Zombies, blood everywhere isn't as effect as well placed blood. You want it to stick out on top of the background work you've done (however minimal) with clothing and skin.

I think i manged to get the balance ok by sticking to the following 'what do zombies do?' pointers;

- zombies eat/attack with the mouth and hands (when they still have them)
    = blood on face and hands. some splatter and dribble is ok
- zombies kneel to eat
    = possibly blood on knees and it would run down toward their feet to some extent
- zombies walk through blood and may or may not have shoes, so their feet wear and get damaged
    = blood on feet but not too much as it wears off and dries, plus dirt

- zombies may drip blood either after a feed or if they're still leaking from being killed
    = leave a bloody trail from feet or from drippy extremities (elbows, hands), injuries or mouth.
- zombies don't wash up after eating
    = if they've eaten with their hands then their hands will possibly rub against the outsides of their pants (etc) so put some blood smears there
- zombies will probably have some injury that killed them in the first place
    = blood on the injury (if obvious) and any related leakage/drips

- fresh vs dried
    feeding related bits mouth/hands (fresh) make the red wash a bit redder
    original injuries and feet (old, dried and scabby) add more brown in the wash. 

Probably should note that for most of the 'blood work' I used a drop of red mixed in with raw agrax wash and then watered that down a bit.


Wrap up
BTW i didn't get all of this done while away. I pretty much got the base coat (black) and the basic blocking in of colours done (skin, shirts, pants, weapons for heroes etc). The blood, detail and basing i did when i got home.

Really wanted to get this project boxed away as soon as possibly as i've recently got the new necromunda box set and wanted a clean painting table before starting on that.


Until next time...