Hemigeddon Project

[originally drafted 2018-02-19]

This one is a Theoretical/Words Project... no new models to behold.

It has recently been local Epic Day and as I sometimes do I was in contact with a gaming buddy of mine; 'interested in coming along for a game?' etc.
He's at the tail end of the learning stage and strategically minded, but I think feels perturbed about playing 'real' opponents in a live/pressure situation [ed: if i am mistaken, my apologies].

As someone who struggles to remember stat lines and rule details I can relate; I clearly recall that learning Epic was a case of being overwhelmed with lists, rules, stats, special abilities and scenarios;
'oh, so you get to throw a bucket of dice at me based on those 4 small models?... interesting... ok... and i can't save?... interesting... ok...'
and that was just cancon 2018.   [ed: ba doom tsssh]

We also had some new folk at the FLGS at the end of last year so there was the potential of new blood in the system [ed: yet to bear fruit, but hope is the first step on the road...]. I showed them the basics when they were there and culminated in something less than Minigeddon.

Anyway, all of this got me thinking about the contemporary beginner's experience. Unless you're extremely lucky to have someone with expertise + keen + local + available to mentor you then learning Epic may well look something like this (and is not meant as criticism by the way)...

Phase 1
Start with a single formation of infantry and tanks; learn that there are moving and shooting actions; throw in transports perhaps; touch on terrain rules, try to hide in it; aim for the wrong set of objectives; get thoroughly confused by the Engage action.

Phase 2
Something resembling Minigeddon; more formations but only a handful; thinking about the game as more than a collection of models; have a better idea about what your Units do; aim (correctly) for the objectives on your opponent's side instead; be mistaken about Engage but at least know you have to roll 2D6 at some stage and possibly start to grasp that it's pretty important.

Phase 3
At this point in time it is not hugely uncommon to to get dropped into your first few 3k scenarios. Sure, theoretically it's just scaling up of what you already.

Phase 4
Tournament Mayhem. You're not going to have faced most of the armies you play so just sit back and watch it unfold.

The steep learning curve starting at Phase 2 -> Phase 4 is predominantly a matter of circumstance (hence not a cause for criticism). Epic isn't commonly played, so by the time you've learned the rules and played a couple of full-strength games your local crew might be gearing up for Cancon or Castle Assault or whatever, and you can either miss a month at the FLGS or get aboard for the next Epic road trip as well.

There's really nothing to resolve the game's popularity. It is what it is.

What I was contemplating specifically was the gap between Phase 2 and Phase 3; Minigeddon then onto Full Game.

As mentioned the difference here sounds like it should be a matter of scaling your knowledge to a bigger area and more formations. However i think there's more to it than that.

Not only are you still struggling to remember (your own) basic stats and the basic rules, but you're going to have to learn a lot more rules, plus any army nuance/quirks/tricks for whatever your opponent is playing this time around (and on the basis that they're not playing the same army as you any more).

Additionally, some armies are actually restricted to sub-optimal loadouts via the Minigeddon ruleset (which is not a criticism of Minigeddon, which is a specific purpose tool and good in it's own right).
An obvious example being Marines who are unable to employ air-assault tactics (no aircraft) and forced into ground-pounder mode which is the [shorthand] wrong way of utilising the army.




So where are you going with this?

The concept that resulted from this contemplation was to build an intermediate ruleset: Hemigeddon, which slots into the learning curve between Minigeddon and Full Game. It's intended for use as a learning method rather than a tournament system.

The main focus is on adding back more rules and strategy, not about making the game bigger (thus adding extended logistics into the mix as well).

You can link to the document here.


Features include...

Points
Half (hemi) Full game point limit per player (1500).
This is only 500 points more than Minigeddon; rather than the possibly anticipated 2k point limit (halfway between Minigeddon's 1k points and Full Game's 3k points).
Sure, you can get some extra Formations for the extra points but the focus is more about adding a little (so as not to scare the player) so you can do more strategically, without adding logistic bloat. It may help to point out the importance of force composition, formation synergies and activation count within your force. Now might be the time to add a supreme commanders and boost formation size rather than simple adding more formations.

Unit Types
Less restrictions on unit types; the restrictions are still aimed at super-large units and space craft.

Board
The board is 1200mm square, so bigger than Minigeddon but not yet full size. This allows the player to explore strategic movement and really start needing double and march actions. Minigeddon keeps the players corralled [ so it's harder to lose your units ;) ] but a larger board forces the player to 'scale out', which they will have to do even more so with Full Game.

Aircraft
Allows aircraft. They're common in Full game, but not included in Minigeddon. New comers have invariably asked me 'when do we do planes'?
You can take titans (War Engines) in Minigeddon, so Minigeddon does cater to more than just the most basic unit types (INF, AV, LV).
Hemigeddon introduces AC rules back into the mix; including the more advanced air-assault rules.

Scaled Objectives
Hemigeddon still has only 2 objectives per side; again reducing strategic considerations. By now the player should be keenly aware that objectives are important and be directing their formations to capturing them as appropriate. As the board is larger, the zone of control is 15cm as per Full Game rather than 10cm as per Minigeddon. 


Conclusion / Progress
So far (Mar 2018) I've had several games using the Hemigeddon system with good results. For beginners it helps retain focus; for experienced players it keeps the game moving along quickly (a quick game is a good game).
I'd definitely like to hear feedback about other people's experiences if you happen to give it a try.

Until next time...

Vraksians Project - Part 1

Epic.

I'm a huge fan of the Marines faction; the fluff is cool and I despair at the crunch.

When it comes to (especially) contemporary tournaments (and even in the local setting) most other people prefer other factions/armies. This is good, healthy and expected; but, as I've stated previously learning all the ins and outs of other people's armies is tricky (and thence working out strategies to play against them etc) - especially if you're playing at tops 1 game/session a month.

I have a local gaming buddy who may potentially be interested in a more 'standard' army rather than say heavily sci-fi orks, nids or tau. So as an experiment I'm putting together a Vraksian Renegade force.

This is my first time building what is effectively an Imperial Guard army. I've played against them a number of times with varying level of success.
My titan/knight based games vs guard are usually not so good (a prevalence of Titan Killer weapons), but my marines vs guard games have been ok, with the guard being susceptible to heavy infantry and mobile forces... just generally speaking of course.

I'm very much looking forward to developing a well constructed "opposing forces" army.
My Eldar army has sufficient numbers and unit variety, but was thrown together quickly (more-or-less) for my Marines to practice against.
Now, with all my Marines/Titans/Primary forces done and boxed it's a chance to focus on these opposing forces and diversify my armies and knowledge.
In time my Chaos Marines/Demons and Tyranids will be getting a substantial makeover but the IG/Vraks feels like a fresh starting point.

So, enough blither...

The printer had a good workout (yep, a recycled pic) creating specific units for some sample lists.

3mm mdf cut into strips, then into square bases.

Tanks glued to bases. Although bases don't count as part of the unit, i find it easier to measure from one of the 4 corners of the base rather than picking a corner of a hull or some other sticky-outy bit.

Paint table getting busy again.

Everything gets a coat of black.

The Alpha Legion are going to be getting a base coat of 'scarsnik green' and then either 1 or 2 washes of 'blue tone'. 

Here they have 2 coats on. probably close enough to represent Alpha Legion teal. Pics on the web really vary as to the colour of AL, so i'm not hugely concerned.

All the Vraksian force are base coated 'ushabti bone' and will be getting 1 or 2 washes of 'agrax earthshade'.

And a few hours of work later (because my ocd apparently knows no bounds)...

 

Two coats of Agrax then everything gets Leadbelcher features.

The Hell Talons (fliers) are sporting a slightly altered colour scheme, trying to denote their 'ally' status just for shiggles and i think the grey/black makes them a little more menacing too. 

Given the amount of detailing and number of models this is going to roll over into a second post.  Everything is currently at a logical break-point, and i could chuck them on a '3 colour minimum' table if required.    Will close the curtains on Part 1 for now.


In other (brief) news...

Necromunda
Managed to Leadbelcher all the Necromunda terrain pieces. Still need to drop some washes and possibly some edge highlights (but definitely not everywhere !!). Might be able to dry brush the panels and catch the edges that way after the Null Oil is dry.

Loaner Army
Marines; (IMO) they need to be using air assault. So here's a freshly printed Thunderhawk for my loaner army and another for my game buddy's army too. Had a fresh pot of scarsnik, so why not.

and that's it for now, until next time...

Even LowER-end 3D Printer - Part 3

I think it's safe to say that i'm out of the "setup and blind confusion" phase and firmly into the "building expertise and production" phase.

I spent a fair bit of time over the last week working out the ins and outs of the printer; specifically in terms of 'getting objects made'. The software that came with the printer is not to my taste so i've been investing my efforts there in understanding Cura.

At the start of the week it was all about default setting gcode and getting the print bed more or less level and working.  The 'brim' that the software adds before it starts elevating the actual model helps a bit with working out which corners are high or low; and these can generally be tweaked easily during printing with a hex key.

So i cranked out a mess of tanks, some fliers and various bits and pieces. big stuff, easy stuff.

It was then time for infantry. Using the default settings for infantry really didn't cut it, so i tweaked the Cura slicer from 0.2 (draft) down to 0.1 (fine) quality.

This makes a frackHuge difference. I tried some marines and guard and they generally turned out very well. At least as well as my old printer, so that was good.

and now.. some pics...

here we see a couple of infantry samples and a malcador with a portable flame dispenser for scale.

Infantry: printed at 0.1mm z-axis. these were printed without support (except for the autocannon guy) though inevitably required a little knife trimming to remove 'extrusion gribbles'. the guard are very delicate pieces so the result there is extremely pleasing.

Vehicle: printed at 0.2mm z-axis. a bit of knife work required with gribbles and support (usually printed with support). it contains an acceptable level of detail given the 'quality' (tracks, hatches etc).

Things like tank barrels and things that stick out tend to print worse; e.g. the leman russ barrels were really blobby (even with support) and needed lots of post-print work (melted smooth and knife trimming).  this may have been avoided/reduced with a higher quality print... maybe.

Next we see my combined efforts from the last few days (much of which was done on the weekend).

A new Vraksian army close to completion... with only a handful of infantry sticks and transports to go.

[above: 10 leman russ, 10 malcador, 3 basalisks, 6 minotaurs (2 versions), 2 deathstrikes, 4 sentinels, 4 rhinos, 8 marines sticks, 2 hell talons, 3 hydras. todo/underway: 13 guard sticks + 7 chimeras... p.s. all of these are thingiverse models]

The wide variety of models and shapes REALLY helped push the learning curve.  There's a fair bit of experimentation and trail-and-error required in working out the technique for getting this all working but once you have that formula it seems easy enough to repeat the process.

Someone asked me online what minimum specs i'd want on a low end printer for this kind of project, to which i responded that "the 0.1mm z-axis resolution definitely makes a difference in infantry quality. i like the idea of a smaller nozzle (0.3mm) over 0.4mm but i honestly can't say how much difference it makes."

There are still a few fundamental issues to be resolved before i'd say we're business as usual...

- model lift (edge curling) is a (much lesser) issue but still happens with certain models.

Experimenting with the software brim/raft settings may provide a better result, an tweaking bed temperature.

- drift: where the print seems to displace during the job creating an unwanted offset. seems to happen on bigger jobs. nozzle might be dragging or bump a hard, raised bump... dunno, but might be a function of unlevel table.

[late additions 2018-03-20]
a couple of extra pics...

All the vraksians complete. i'm reasonably sure there's enough for a 3k list there, though i've been working at building options for various 1500pt combinations rather than tournament friendly lists. I think for 3k lists i'll need to add some extra formations, possibly doubling up on some.... unsure at this stage. i should possibly put painting off until i decide what else i need :)

The other remaining things i've printed since starting production with the new printer... just for completeness.


[later 2018-03-21... this post may end up being a ongoing piece]
I mentioned previously having issues to be resolved. 

Last night i ran a job to print out multiple small items in a single job (pic below, left object). it was about 75% of the way through the job when it obviously bumped, dislodged and went to schwit basically. quite annoying. part of the reason for looking at these printers was the 'do bigger job/batches' aspect.

not blaming the printer for this. the plate adhesion aspect is most likely the problem. 
After this i tried smaller batches (pic, right object) which printed perfectly... and i then printed 3 more perfect batches.
i should point out that i also tried 2 more small batches this morning and they both had adhesion issues.  this morning was cold and rainy, almost opposite of yesterday's situation, so the environment probably factors into the results.

my old printer used a 'fibreglass-looking plate' which you had to basically hack the object off.  more research on PLA required.


[much much much later] [ed 2018-11-06: it would be remiss of me to leave the story there. Obviously these are just diarizing my experiences with cheaper printers.
I recently saw a post from a chap in Newcastle who had printed off a very nice looking (based on his pic(s)) BF Gothic ship with tonnes of details; and this from an Aldi printer.
The bigger the ship, the more details available. I'm not aware of the settings/setup/model that he used but it appears that the Aldi printers (cheap but not nasty) are capable of very good results.
My aim here is definitely not to bash cheap printers, but (as i've said all along) to manage one's expectations when it comes to this particular medium.]

Until next time...

On Terrain and Inspiration

This is just a some musings...

As I've mentioned in previous posts, a lot of the terrain i've made (buildings and structures) is based around rectangular, 'standard template' panels. It has some handy advantages such as uniformity, straight edges, scalability (just add more panels) and looks ok - if somewhat plain unless you throw your bitz box at them.

When used on the tabletop they appear to me to be quite stark. Not necessarily out of place, but kind of 'immediate' out of the landscape. This is fine and fits my own vision of a grimdark out-post on some gritty imperial backwater. 
Perhaps it's worker housing for a refuelling way station between large settlements. Maybe it's a small administrative settlement for a nearby mine. Perhaps it controls one of a thousand valves for a promethium pipeline that spans the globe. The 40k equivalent of a service station in the middle of nowhere. 

Why am I thinking about this? Well on the weekend i watched 'red sparrow' which was not to my taste ('heavy handed and obvious' i believe was my immediate review upon leaving the theatre; 'jam-packed with stereotypes, ham-fisted and lazily written' with further retrospect).
Anyway there were a couple of excellent camera shots of 'russian apartment buildings' (which i haven't been able to find as yet).

This reminded me of my terrain (or vice versa). The ones in the film really popped out of the flat, snowy ground; obviously the perspective was a chosen one and i'm sure a mcdonalds was just out of camera shot.

Anyway, if i hadn't already made some terrain like this i would have. They're also not entirely dissimilar to some of the old style Epic building, though those are more arch-y obviously.

I was curious whether they had had to really scour far and wide to find these apartments; so i did some cursory research on googmaps. They seem to be a very common; very typical (what i'm lazily going to call) 'soviet bloc' architecture theme.

There's inspiration everywhere; even in lousy flicks.


Update 2020-06-01 (yep 2 years on, time flies): Just watched the 2019 miniseries Chenobyl. Lots of snippets of similar architecture shown in there. So stark.


Until next time...