Miniature gaming (tabletop)

For your armour you don't need the grid-cut layers. Layers of deep enough, soft enough foam sheets will hold them adequately. The standing infantry tends to be a bit fragile, though will probably be ok on the top layer.

My best carrier is a purpose-made metal box which holds three 10x30some cm removable shelves, with each shelf having thin steel sheet on top. Each base then has a section of that plastic magnetised sheet stuff underneath. Secure against all but the heftiest of jolts. Cheaper and almost is good is the same magnetised basing but with various square metal biscuit tins. (This for my most of my 15mm ancients).

I've carted and stored lots of stuff loose, though, just being "careful". I've got less precious about it as the years have passed.

I use a BattleFoam case with custom cut trays.

Instead of cutting your own foam, how about pluck foam?

That's what I would recommend. You can get pluck foam with 1/2" blocks. Pull two out and you get a 12.5mmx25mm space. That should hold your minis securely.

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=27713037#p27713037:1c21zyjt said:

ANSDAC[/url]":1c21zyjt]Fascinating stuff, but I think I would feel that it's an inefficient use of space. Also, I can't seem to find any in a suitable depth.

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Well pluck foam is inefficient when it comes to foam trays, that's why I have custom cut trays. Take a look at BattleFoam's offerings, they'll make custom trays for you.

One of those skinny pumpkin carving knives you can get at supermarkets this time of year, sharpened up a bit with a grinding stone, will carve up the foam like butter. Way easier than a custom heat knife (which sounds pretty cool too).

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=27719325#p27719325:16g3bt58 said:

ANSDAC[/url]":16g3bt58]Unfortunately, they don't do pumpkin knives in Australia, any time of year.

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Doh. Sorry, didn't see your tribus.

I've been using these for the past 10+ years and they do a really good job.

http://www.thewarstore.com/sabolarmytransportfigurecases.html

You can buy them from other places, but TheWarstore is my go to place for buying mini gaming stuff online.

Can you post a link of the minis you need to transport? I know people use these for Flames of War, which I thought was one of the more popular WW2 mini war games. Or is it an odd size?

Personally I use this stuff: http://www.saboldesigns.net/figurefoam.html

I love their cases, and the foam trays (pluck and non pluck) work really well for 40k. Which admittedly is a fair size bigger then what you're working at. But you might beable to make that work. Take a look.

Not sure how bad aussie shipping would end up though.

I have a Privateer Press branded Battlefoam bag, it is really nice. Have you looked at their Flames of War stuff? It seems like a similar size to your game. http://us.battlefoam.com/products/Flame ... d-Out.html

In other miniatures gaming news, Hordes: Exigence came out this week. I've got the hardcover and I'm really liking the book. The artwork is really stellar in it. Good book construction.

The painting guide in the back of the book is much better than usual. It does cover some repeat ground with Absylonia2. The skin and armor are not new to Legion. The model gallery has more models in than the past few books that I can remember.

The new models themselves are good and a lot of them bring new options to their factions. Skorne and Minions got great stuff in this book. I'm not sure about the Blight Wasps myself but I want to get them on the table before I pass judgment.

There is a new model type with Warbeast Packs. Sadly, the rules section for them is not up to the high quality of the rest of PP's rules. Its left ambiguous if the warbeasts in a Pack have to be forced to charge. They work like a unit in that they must get the run/charge order to charge, but they are still beasts which much be forced to be able to charge. That still needs clarification.

So one of the games that I've started to collect some minis for and I think looks interesting is a game called Infinity. I guess it's made in South America or Spain ((I've heard both now, and I'm not 100% sure either way)), but the idea behind it is that unlike standard mini games where one side goes, does all their stuff, and then the next side goes, during the other teams phase the non-active teams gets to fire and trade shots with the other team. Cover is massively important because of this, not just where you end your move but the path you take to get there. Also the number of units that you can move each turn is determined by how many units you take. I think all of them give you 1 move per unit, but it might just be most units. Also you can burn multiple moves on the same unit, so scrub units tend to get placed in key sniping points and then you move your best units multiple times.

The style of stuff is anime-ish. The facts are pretty crazy, one side has freaking werewolves that are basically caused by a wolf alien biting a pregnant woman and her off spring then has a human and were wolf form. You have ninjas with sniper rifles and vibro blades on another side. Most factions have robot battle armor that can either be stopped by anti-armor rockets and the like OR if you have a hacker on your side you can hack them. Everything has multiple counters and multiple ways to be used to add to victory. From what people who play say, there aren't any "I win" units or battle lists, and things are pretty balanced.

6-15 minis is pretty standard for a game as it's based off of "spec ops" style of play, and runs about 40-44 to get a 6 man starter force box set and then 10-15 or so per human sized mini after that, with the giant robot stuff costing $40-50. The alien werewolves ((can't shape ship and always in a massive 8'-9' tall were wolf form)) for a 3 pack of them + 1 controller was like $45. They also just released a starter box set with 15 minis ((2 factions)) + terrain + dice + min-rule book for $100 or so. There are 5 Main Human Factions, 1 Human Cyborg factions that is sort of the UN for all the humans, and 2 alien factions.

Many of the players who are into it are ex-40K players who got tired of having to spend $300+ just to buy the minis for a small tourney legal army.

http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity/en/

Werewolf pack... I like their faction so I had to get some of these.

http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity ... ult-packs/

And 2nd generation ((sterile in game lore and used as shock troops as 2nd class citizen children of bitten mothers)) at this point they can't shapeshift like their first Generation parent can. These come about by a 1st gen mating with a human.

http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity ... diers-reg/

And of course every game has to have a Scottish kilt wearing themed factions....

http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity ... nder-army/

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=27788071#p27788071:28r4nl73 said:

ANSDAC[/url]":28r4nl73]but I keep looking at every slightly interesting scrap of material I see lying around and thinking about how it would make a nice bit of cover for a space marine or ork...

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Yeah, this takes a while to go away.

14 years is a while. I still do that too, I'll let you know when my brain stops.

Any Warmachine / Hordes players out there? Retribution Space Elf player checking in.

Speaking of battle foam, I have a PACK 720 and it's a great bit of kit. I have some custom stuff cut for my warjacks. That said, I'm actually thinking I'm going to need more space. Not sure if I need to simply change out some trays, or get a bigger bag.

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=27791599#p27791599:3ljl09uk said:

RaveBomb[/url]":3ljl09uk]Any Warmachine / Hordes players out there? Retribution Space Elf player checking in.

Speaking of battle foam, I have a PACK 720 and it's a great bit of kit. I have some custom stuff cut for my warjacks. That said, I'm actually thinking I'm going to need more space. Not sure if I need to simply change out some trays, or get a bigger bag.

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Not a big player, but I've noticed that the price to get into the game has gotten really good. The two starter Box systems Warmachine and Hordes are on sale from Amazon for $65 or so. They include 2 Starter Boxes one from each army + 5 regular infantry for each army. The Starter box sets go for $33-37 so that's the cost right there + you get 10 more infantry the rule book and I imagine dice and the like. Warmachine has the Russians and the Menoth and Hordes has Everblight and Circle of Oroborus.

Warhammer 40K seems intent on driving it's prices higher and higher, while the rest of the industry is doing what it can to make their games easier and cheaper to get into...

Yea, the intro price is great. And then you're hooked... I don't even want to know what I've spent in the last six months. I *DO* know I have a $300 CDN purchase planned out to get into Circle. Right after I flesh out my elves a little more.

One of my primary opponents is a Legion player, and holy carp is his faction full of total bullshit.

I have a Cryx army, but I haven't played in a while. I don't have anything new (except the Cryx warcaster kickstarter mini) so I'd prolly need to update my stuff to be able to play without getting my ass handed to me repeatedly.

While I *agree* with the notion that 40k prices seem to keep getting higher (mostly Codexes and single unit boxes) I can today do something I never could before - buy the Rules (admittedly, more expensive to buy seperately with the fluff and the pictures, then to buy the whole set, but if you just want the rules... its cheaper) and actually find them before page 250 or so for the first time in memory for about 40 bucks.

Codex will cost you Fifty or so. But the hardback codexes are really nice.

An HQ unit, and one Ten man Tac Squad (yeah, I'm going to use Space marines as an example) you *could* theoretically get playable with about another 65-70 dollars.

Total outlay, not counting paint and model supplies - 160 bucks.

That said, you aren't going to find many games played with a bare minimum troop outlay (2 five man squads, and an HQ unit) but you *can* play the game legally with that.

Anyone play dropzone Commander? SF minatures game with futuristic mechs, tanks, and dropships. I watched a game last weekend, and it looks pretty interesting. It's supposed to have a cheaper starting point than WH40K, and the game mechanics seem pretty cool.

I'm a mostly historicals player here. Currently heavily into Flames of War and thinking about Bolt Action. I've had two bouts with 40k and WFB in the past. The most recent caused by Dawn of War.

Any of you guys going to Fall-In in a couple weeks? I'll be playing in the Saturday Flames of War event and wandering around wide eyed and slack jawed the rest of the time. Fortunately the wallet is well prepared, so I'm expecting to return home with a large addition to the paint queue.

Roughly speaking it seems that the cost of a Tourney Legal 40K army vs a Tourney Legal Army from X other game is about 2-3 to 1. IE GW stuff for the most common tourney sizes will run you 2-3 times the cost. 1500/1750/2000/2500 are the most common point values I see around here for 40K Tourney play and most people tend to play that in their pick up games.

Example: 50 points seems to be the Warmachine point size, and you can hit that total with 100-140 worth of minis. $160-175 and you'd have some swap outs.

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=27791883#p27791883:3c8hw7fx said:

rtrefz[/url]":3c8hw7fx]Anyone play dropzone Commander? SF minatures game with futuristic mechs, tanks, and dropships. I watched a game last weekend, and it looks pretty interesting. It's supposed to have a cheaper starting point than WH40K, and the game mechanics seem pretty cool.

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Was looking at that and this game... Planetfall: Battle for Proeus Prime

http://www.thewarstore.com/product95060.html

Which is from the people who do the mini star cruiser battle game Firestorm Armada. Both of them are in a more epic scale.

Honestly I think I'm more into collecting and painting minis than actually playing the games. Or so says my 2 regiments of Battletech mechs/tanks/infantry/power armor/warships/fighters/jumpships and the like... maybe only 12-16 of them have ever been placed on a board.

I haven't played any game sof this genre, but I like spectating. They look really cool, but then I look down the gaping time and money sink they are, and go "Nope"

I don't want to get started on anything new right now, as I have a small Volkswagon full of Robotech minis headed my way. Any time now. Soon. Probably.

Totally agree RD - but at the same time, the two systems tend to describe two *very* different combat types.

40k (and Warhammer especially before the more recent changes) were about the clashes of relatively *large* detachments of massive armys smashing into each other. And Games Workshop decided to go with the more popular relatively large model size for those large armys.

Warmachine is closer to small unit tactics.


So its not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

Though the not insubstantial creep of the single unit boxes, rules and Codexes does bug me.

And we won't even talk about Forgeworld

Chris, don't do the BA thing unless you just really like game systems. It somehow manages to have less reference to anything approaching reality then FoW.

Infinity is indeed from Spain, fantastic minis and they just started shipping v3 of the rulebook and a new 2 player starter. I've really come to love the small format skirmish style games recently.

Also just fell in love with X-Wing, tons of fun and star wars which will always have a soft spot in my heart. Downside for miniatures for me these days is that the nearest flgs' are all 45+ min away, so weeknight gaming is just plain out.

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=27792361#p27792361:3r4dd09a said:

frozentech[/url]":3r4dd09a]Totally agree RD - but at the same time, the two systems tend to describe two *very* different combat types.

40k (and Warhammer especially before the more recent changes) were about the clashes of relatively *large* detachments of massive armys smashing into each other. And Games Workshop decided to go with the more popular relatively large model size for those large armys.

Warmachine is closer to small unit tactics.


So its not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

Though the not insubstantial creep of the single unit boxes, rules and Codexes does bug me.

And we won't even talk about Forgeworld

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Or sure but they are trying to pull in the same sort of person, somebody who is into non-historical wargaming. If larger battles are your thing Warhammer 40K is the big boy, but even in that market companies like Mantic games are pushing the edges with free to download rules and minis that are much much cheaper.

I just know that for friends that are new to the hobby, 40K gets shut down by them almost instantly because of the cost of minis you really need in order to play the battles that they see at the gaming shops or on YouTube. Where as the other games have a much more friendly price point for an army that matches the "real" way to play the game. Again the "real" way being what they see on YouTube videos of either actual battles or people showing off their Tourny legal army.

Of course, if the cost doesn't dissuade you from 40k, the work thats required to paint that 1500-2500 points of army might Probably, after you already dropped a few hundred on it. Happened to a buddy of mine.

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=27792499#p27792499:30e20esm said:

frozentech[/url]":30e20esm]Of course, if the cost doesn't dissuade you from 40k, the work thats required to paint that 1500-2500 points of army might Probably, after you already dropped a few hundred on it. Happened to a buddy of mine.

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I got some flack/rage from the reddit Warhammer 40K people when I mentioned that at the last game day I went to at a near by gaming shop, about 1/2 or so of the warhammer 40K/Fantasy armies had things like Mantic Minis ((about 1/2 or cheaper cost of 40K/Fantasy Battles stuff)) as large parts of them. The commanders were all 40K/Fantasy commanders, but large blocks of normal troops were most certainly not.