Getting some Hextech stuff is on my todo list once I get my hands on a printer. I've seen pics of someone that hollowed out the STLs so they could be lit that look awesome.
Miniature gaming (tabletop)
- Thread starter ANSDAC
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And that's some of my Imperial Navy Breachers and my converted all-women Space Marine squad for Kill Team photographed, and I'm FINALLY up to date!
For lighting, I picked up Game Envy's Lucent around Christmas and I'm really enjoying it. Price wasn't bad at all and I've been impressed with the versatility of the arms that it has in addition to the lighting levels and temperatures.
gameenvy.net
Game Envy LUCENT Art and Hobby Light
Currently Up to 7 Day Processing Time Introducing the all-new LUCENT by Game Envy – the ultimate art, hobby, and work light that will revolutionize the way you look at illumination. With 5 fu…
gameenvy.net
Almost done with the base... just need to figure out what facing is better before I slap the requisite hazard stripes on it (that still makes me chuckle that's become a thing). Then I'll glue him down and put final touches on it.
Big crystal cluster forward or back?
Big crystal cluster forward or back?
I vote forward. It's the more prominent open space, and has a good contrast with the rest of the mech.
Forward was my initial thought too, but was curious what other people thought. Pretty overwhelming forward. Base done and model glued down, few finishing touches over the next few days and I think we can call it done.
Very happy with where it is so far though:
Very happy with where it is so far though:
The hazard stripes are for gameplay, you can see which way one of my paint jobs is facing from ten feet away.
Also according to some of these Camospecs guys the hazard stripe facing indicator is possibly my fault. So I feel obligated.
Also according to some of these Camospecs guys the hazard stripe facing indicator is possibly my fault. So I feel obligated.
A lot of the guys I play with paint their bases so you can tell which way the mech is facing. One guy paints the front 3 sides green, the 2 sides facings yellow, and the rear facing red. I dont think any of them paints them with hazard markers though, it seems to be a personal thing. Its cuz a lot of the CGL mechs are torso twisted a little making it difficult to tell at a glance which way its actually facing on a hex map. I havent painted any of my mechs like that but Im thinking of starting.
I'd be good with however someone marks the base as long as it is clear. I was going to say consistent, but sometimes you start with one way and you find a way you like better later.
Of course, I don't have any such markings on mine, but considering how many games I've played (and how many are actually painted)... It's not a big deal right now.
X-Wing and Star Wars Armada are now 'officially' a dead game.
Per Atomicgames recent post:
After long and careful consideration, we are here today to announce the end of development on Star Wars™: X-Wing and Star Wars: Armada. We are grateful for the community’s passionate engagement and support. Over the past few years, rising production costs, global manufacturing, and pandemic-related challenges have made it increasingly difficult to produce high-quality, pre-painted miniatures which ultimately lead to the decision to end development. Although development is ending, we are not stepping away from these games entirely. Atomic Mass Games will continue to support tournaments and Organized Play for both games, with OP kits to be found in your local shops, culminating in the Open World Championship at AdeptiCon in March 2025. Thank you for your continued support and dedication.
Per Atomicgames recent post:
After long and careful consideration, we are here today to announce the end of development on Star Wars™: X-Wing and Star Wars: Armada. We are grateful for the community’s passionate engagement and support. Over the past few years, rising production costs, global manufacturing, and pandemic-related challenges have made it increasingly difficult to produce high-quality, pre-painted miniatures which ultimately lead to the decision to end development. Although development is ending, we are not stepping away from these games entirely. Atomic Mass Games will continue to support tournaments and Organized Play for both games, with OP kits to be found in your local shops, culminating in the Open World Championship at AdeptiCon in March 2025. Thank you for your continued support and dedication.
Zero. The number of games of Battletech I've played in years that start with '2' is zero.
I do end up giving half of these things away to people who do play however, and I primarily share them with a player-centric audience. Which, let's be honest, is pretty much the only audience for Battletech. The new models are a huge improvement but they probably aren't going to end up in any competitive painting environments or display painters.
I get that. I will have over 200 minis once I get this latest Kickstarter, and yet... I can count the number of Classic/Alpha Strike BattleTech games I've played on two hands. I've played... I think four games with someone that's not my oldest kid.
My BattleTech purchases will be more limited after this, unless I see a mini I really want.My current interaction with BattleTech is video games, novels, and music. And right now, that's good enough for me.
I'm not surprised. The Embracer breakup was not being very kind to them when I chatted with them last Adepticon, and X-wing and Armada seem like games with a fairly mature lineup that was mostly into the maintenance phase from what I understood, with their audience standing up against issues where you "had" to buy specific boxes to build competitive lineups reasonably well.
And with Star Wars excitement seeming to ebb from oversaturation, plus the licensing costs, I doubt a matured game with most players not making major purchases with any frequency made any sense to keep putting development into, from a solely monetary perspective.
which is a shame, because I played the hell outta first edition X-wing. Armada I play less frequently, but both games were fun and had good quality figures and accessories.
I'd accepted X-wing as being the walking dead for a while now. Hopefully I can still get the occasional friendly game in.
Luckily for me, I think I've purchased basically every Armada unit I was ever going to get. Part of that was to get certain upgrade cards (which of course, the upgrade card pack made moot). The pandemic gave me free time and extra cash to buy all the minis.
It is totally your fault, but it's a great thing and I'm glad to see everybody else jumping on the bandwagon. Though I will say the white outline maybe clashes a bit, but it looks great, so carry on.
Death Ray Designs did several different hazard front face marking decals, as well. So it's certainly a trend.
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I'm a bit bummed, but this felt inevitable. I did pick up a bunch of CIS ships for Armada, they do make nice display pieces.
Personally, I'm really bummed about the TTRPG, but that's its own thread. They haven't specifically said they're EOLing that, too, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.
I wish they will get a different IP and continuous to work on dogfight and ship based wargame systems. There are not that many dogfight or ship systems are there. Something that based on Mass Effect or Expanse would be great. May be they can also write their own IPs?
It would be nice to see, but I don't know if there's a ton of room in the market for that, considering that of the legacy licensed games that the communities are still propping up, we have Halo, Starfleet, and now X-wing and Armada, we have Battlefleet Gothic, Dropfleet commander, wings of glory, Aeronautica Imperialis, Blood Red Skies, and more that I'm forgetting.
There's not a lack of game systems, it's that most don't get traction, from what I've seen.
There's not a lack of game systems, it's that most don't get traction, from what I've seen.
Finished up decals on my Jade Falcon Delta Galaxy test mechs. Some of them didn't turn out too great, but it was a learning experience, and I'll be better at it next time. Hopefully, anyway. Applying Liquid Decal Film to the FPG decals before cutting them out makes them a lot less fragile. Now for a spot application of gloss varnish over the decals, and a final check for any enamel wash that needs to be cleaned up. Then a coat of matte varnish and any paint work cleanup that needs to happen. Full gallery available here.
I shouldn't have gone with numbers that were black outlined, but I think most of them turned out okay. Still need to figure out what I'm going to do for basing.
I shouldn't have gone with numbers that were black outlined, but I think most of them turned out okay. Still need to figure out what I'm going to do for basing.
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What dont you like about the black outlined numbers? I think plain white wouldnt have shown up as well on the yellow.
I think a black outline is fine, it's just a little bit thick on those.
Final set of pictures for the Supernova. Lot of fun on this one, keeping all the red based off a single paint was a challenge. I could probably dump another 20-30 hours into it pretty easy and smooth things out more, add secondary reflections to the metals, etc... but the deadline on this was last week so this is where I called it. Overall pleased given the time limitations though:
Now back to the Horus Heresy Thousand Sons, got the shields for the breachers done over the weekend.
Final set of pictures for the Supernova. Lot of fun on this one, keeping all the red based off a single paint was a challenge. I could probably dump another 20-30 hours into it pretty easy and smooth things out more, add secondary reflections to the metals, etc... but the deadline on this was last week so this is where I called it. Overall pleased given the time limitations though:
Now back to the Horus Heresy Thousand Sons, got the shields for the breachers done over the weekend.
This was going to be a test mech for an SLDF scheme (they favored olive drab, generally). But the olive green artist ink was much more translucent than I'd anticipated. I've done a bit of undershot shading with Tyiran Navy speed paint which looks okay. and I'm debating going back over the green with a darker one.
Jade Falcon salvaged Highlander for one of their mechwarriors that had the audacity to get old?
I got impatient and messed up the Highlander. So I started over with a Guillotine:
As I said before, the Olive Green artist ink ended up being much more translucent that I thought it would be, but I thought I could make it more what I wanted by using some thinned speed paints for color filtering and undershot shading. So I thinned both Camo Cloak and Tyrian Navy down 1:1 with speed paint medium and went back over it with the airbrush, the Camo Cloak to filter the green and the Tyrian Navy for undershot shading:
I also went over it with a VERY light drybrush of a 50/50 mix of Yellow Green and Bright Yellow Green from Pro Acryl, but I may do that again with just the bright yellow green straight to help re-establish highlights and edges. I've yet to be able to do edge highlighting worth a damn, but I may have another go at it here as well assuming my hand will cooperate. Darkening it up overall brings it closer to what I was shooting for for the SLDF scheme, so we'll see what I think about it once I'm done. I may try another one with just Camo Cloak on it straight and see how that looks too.
As I said before, the Olive Green artist ink ended up being much more translucent that I thought it would be, but I thought I could make it more what I wanted by using some thinned speed paints for color filtering and undershot shading. So I thinned both Camo Cloak and Tyrian Navy down 1:1 with speed paint medium and went back over it with the airbrush, the Camo Cloak to filter the green and the Tyrian Navy for undershot shading:
I also went over it with a VERY light drybrush of a 50/50 mix of Yellow Green and Bright Yellow Green from Pro Acryl, but I may do that again with just the bright yellow green straight to help re-establish highlights and edges. I've yet to be able to do edge highlighting worth a damn, but I may have another go at it here as well assuming my hand will cooperate. Darkening it up overall brings it closer to what I was shooting for for the SLDF scheme, so we'll see what I think about it once I'm done. I may try another one with just Camo Cloak on it straight and see how that looks too.
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Went back to a mod I started ages ago and got much further along with it. It's a conversion of the standard BLR-1G Battlemaster to the BLR-1Gb Royal version or the Battlemaster C2 version (basically the same, but with Clan-spec everything). I've never been a fan of pistol style weapons on mechs, so I decided to go with forearm mounts for the PPCs to make it visually very distinct from a stock model. For the Royal grade model I went with larger/chunkier looking weapons and for the C2 version I went with more streamlined and compact versions. I added magnets to the forearms and to the weapons so I could swap between versions as needed using 3mm x 3mm rare earth magnets.
I still need to decide what I'm gong to use for the CT Large Pulse Laser, but I have several options in my various parts bins I can try out for that.
Before I started cutting on it:
The BLR-1Gb Royal Battlemaster:
And now for the C2 version:
The BLR-1Gb Royal Battlemaster:
And now for the C2 version:
I still need to decide what I'm gong to use for the CT Large Pulse Laser, but I have several options in my various parts bins I can try out for that.
