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Black Scorpion makes sone beautiful cowboy figures. I should really look into getting this game at sone point.
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May 8, 2023 23:47
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Despite my trouble with the age of sail figures, tumbling dice, produce some wonderful age of battleships miniatures. I posted a Russo-Japanese war battle report in the thread recently, where I pitted the two forces of the battle of Ulsan against each other in the open sea. Using the grand fleets rules, I had a very enjoyable battle, but almost completely one-sided-the Japanese had five ships to the Russian three. I believe comstar suggested that an additional flotilla for each fleet would make the game a bit more interesting. Each flotilla acts as a squad in an infantry game, and so no matter how detailed the rules are, there is definitely a limit to the tactical options available.  To keep things simple since each ship has individual armour, guns, gun ranges, hit, points, damage tracking, etc - and each flotilla has a formation as well as a commander rating - I decided to get ships of the same class, rather than another historical order of battle. The Japanese have the Shikishima-class (left) and the Russians have the Peresviet-class (right) and a small squadron of destroyers to make up the existing point imbalance. Would anyone like to see another video battle report? Or is it preferable to do a few photographs and a text summary?
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May 9, 2023 08:20
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Southern Heel posted:Would anyone like to see another video battle report? Or is it preferable to do a few photographs and a text summary? Either would be great! I love pre-Dreadnoughts, I've always wanted to do a game with them.
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May 9, 2023 15:19
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Arquinsiel posted:Black Scorpion makes sone beautiful cowboy figures. I should really look into getting this game at sone point. I thought about buying some but then the image of fixing pinholes in lacey frills gave me shakes.
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May 9, 2023 20:09
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I haven't bought a box but I've had my eye on Great Escape Games' Gunfighters I & Gunfighters II for cowboy games.
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May 9, 2023 22:37
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 Peresvet, scuttled at Port Arthur in 1904 after taking shore battery hits I really enjoy most things about Grand Fleets, but there are a couple of things that annoy me and slow down play. For reference, here's an example of one of the data cards I have generated for the new ships I've just started painting:  My first problem is the measuring units used in the game. The default units of range are in 'kyds', i.e. one thousand yards - so the Peresvet-class main guns have a range of 3,000 yards, 6,000 yards and 12,000 yards, and it can move up to 4,000 yards per game turn. The 'kyds' unit is equivalent of Lasalle's MU and are then scaleable to a given board size - it is expected that 1kyd == one hex on a hex mat, or 2" on a plain mat. The second wrinkle is the 'ugly' range numbers and the level at which gun efficacy degrades. The gun ranges are all odd intervals and bear no correlation to each other in the game world, it's pure simulation and very authentic but it means keeping track of a bunch of different ranges since not only do you have to be in range, but the band you're in affects your attack modifier. Ultimately I think this is a combination of using a plain mat and I wonder if this would be less of an issue with a hex mat, because the constant measuring is a right PITA. Has anyone tried playing Fighting Sail on a hex map? I can't seem to find any suppliers of large printed 2" hex even as plain paper in the UK and it's looking like a 50EUR item from DeepCutStudios is required to test this hypothesis... Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 12:49 on May 10, 2023 |
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May 10, 2023 11:35
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Even in backwards America we do not measure artillery ranges in yards (let alone kiloyards which hurts my brain).
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May 10, 2023 12:02
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Dude just make it yourself: http://gridzzly.com Printing a couple of pages these will surely be cheaper than a mat just to try it out.
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May 10, 2023 12:19
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3 Action Economist posted:Even in backwards America we do not measure artillery ranges in yards (let alone kiloyards which hurts my brain). I think the kiloyard thing is just so they don't have to write x,000 for every single figure, and can then place them in stat cards/etc. which then translate directly to hex distances. Springfield Fatts posted:Dude just make it yourself: http://gridzzly.com Each sheet of A4 has a 2" grid of approx 3x4 on it - so for a typical small seascape of 18x18 hexes I'd need 30 pages total which would need to be individually cut and taped together so I don't think that works really? Maybe I can try to co-opt the work printer (A3) but that's till 15 pages!
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May 10, 2023 14:29
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kiloyard reminds me of the aberration of nature american unit for large forces - "kips". kilo pounds. i loving hate when american unit users acknowledge that the power of 10 system in metric is inherently better, but stick with american units anyway. see also: "thou" for thousandths of an inch instead of fractions not historical in any way but it just pisses me off. rant over
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May 10, 2023 14:34
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Southern Heel posted:Each sheet of A4 has a 2" grid of approx 3x4 on it - so for a typical small seascape of 18x18 hexes I'd need 30 pages total which would need to be individually cut and taped together so I don't think that works really? Maybe I can try to co-opt the work printer (A3) but that's till 15 pages! Print one sheet. Glue to cardstock. Puncture corners of each hexagon with a pen / knife. You now have a template. Buy a sheet of blue fabric. Buy a white gel ink pen or whiteout pen. Using this, make marks with your template to create a grid of points until your heart is content.
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May 10, 2023 15:09
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Southern Heel posted:I think the kiloyard thing is just so they don't have to write x,000 for every single figure, and can then place them in stat cards/etc. which then translate directly to hex distances. But they could have used metric, which is what real life navies use.
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May 10, 2023 15:10
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hot cocoa on the couch posted:i loving hate when american unit users acknowledge that the power of 10 system in metric is inherently better, but stick with american units anyway. I have bad news for you about land surveying.
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May 10, 2023 15:11
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Cessna posted:I have bad news for you about land surveying. 
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May 10, 2023 15:13
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 IJN Asama, Armoured Cruiser at Plymouth Springfield Fatts posted:Print one sheet. Glue to cardstock. Puncture corners of each hexagon with a pen / knife. You now have a template. That is a good point, I guess I could also just use a ruler and draw the hexes on by hand? Still a fooking pain in the arse though. I reckon once done it'll be suitable for Fighting Sail and Blood, Bilge and Iron Balls (both Napoleonic-era naval rulesets) and Starmada: Unity (albeit in a dust-belt rather than deep space) so there is at least a chance of re-use. I'm mostly finished painting up those new ships and prepping for the next battle. Before I do anything with mats or ordering custom stuff from Deepcut studio I'm going to play a couple more games. I don't know what the longevity of naval wargaming is as a solo gamer, compared to ground forces where narrative and ongoing campaigns are easily superimposed. I'm a bit torn about the bookkeeping involved in GF3 (hence the interest in FS which uses board tokens/etc. instead) - these early battleship navies were constantly experimenting and there are really minute differences between classes of a give ship-type, which are otherwise almost identical. The ship datacard creation tools allow you to factor in different armour types, gun elevation and velocity, etc. and you end up with a very accurate representation of the ship's capability. From this fidelity properly follows that each class of ship is slightly different - an extra inch in movement here, one extra attack dice at long range there - and since each ship has quite a few stats to keep track of, it's neccesary to constantly reference the sheets. Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 08:33 on May 13, 2023 |
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May 12, 2023 15:13
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Z the IVth posted:I thought about buying some but then the image of fixing pinholes in lacey frills gave me shakes. I have some of them and they're actually really clean casts.
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May 13, 2023 07:53
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I have put myself in a purchasing moratorium until I have got the pile of lead down a bit, and on those lines I was going to return my Pendraken 10mm HYW English / Napoleonic British as surplus - but I just can't bring myself to. They're just so nice, I feel like I would be stamping on a child's birthday cake. I'm in a right pickle with basing them - my gut is telling me 20mm bases with four infantry or two cavalry per, and then either two, three, four or six bases per unit depending on a) the ruleset and needs for formations and base count, and b) how much I have painted up at a given time. If anyone has any thoughts I would gladly hear them. I was going to use 40mm bases as per my ECW but that doesn't play nice with Lion Rampant or To the Strongest! and I'd like to have the flexibility before I settle on a ruleset. Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 18:16 on May 14, 2023 |
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May 14, 2023 15:45
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Btw finished my Russo-Japanese fleets: Russian  Japanese
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May 14, 2023 18:22
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I just got the warlord epic battle pike and shotte set (real excited about that) but I'm not sure on basing and rules. Also, anyone know of a good way to make banners removable, so I can use them for TYW or ECW interchangeably?
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May 14, 2023 18:53
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Southern Heel posted:Btw finished my Russo-Japanese fleets: Cool AF, the pre-dreadnought era had some amazing looking ships.
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May 14, 2023 19:13
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Thankfully, I am not triple posting… After having my English Civil War figures mostly painted for quite a few months. I actually got them on the table for the very first time today. I played using the pikemen’s lament rules - a variant of the rampant system. I still have two companies of foot, some cuirassiers and some large field guns to paint and base, but I’m really pleased with how they are looking on the table:  mllaneza posted:Cool AF, the pre-dreadnought era had some amazing looking ships. Thank you, that’s a really nice thing to say. Paul at tumbling dice, is just a fantastic guy to deal with too. I’m a little torn at the amount of bookkeeping required for a battleship naval game though!
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May 14, 2023 21:13
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Britons and Saxons for Saga and Dux are done. I still have some more to do sometime, but these are playable forces for Saga at least, I have some Levy to do for Dux.          
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May 15, 2023 01:24
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I notice I'm not the only one who got some dry stone walls from Fogou miniatures Those all look really great; I'm a huge fan of the Footsore miniatures range for the Dark Ages
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May 15, 2023 05:30
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No need to TIMG here, alg, They all look really good - you've managed to keep them from looking garish without making them look dull. I really like the leader base. -- Here are some action shots of my Pikeman's Lament Battle report: The Bastardly Baron's Army - shooty.  The Cowardly Councillor's Army - stabby, with cannons.  Mid-morning, the forces are slowly wheeling into position. I used two bases per unit and half-inch measurements:  Victory conditions were, the first force to get all of their remaining units across the river, so Brian the Bastardly Baron charges with his horse across the ford, seeking glory in being the first over...  ... and is completely obliterated by the standing wall of Pike, as is tradition:  The Cowardly Councillor's shot finally let loose after half a dozen turns of navel gazing:  In the end however, the Bastard's trotters coming from the rear right flank manage to sweep over the river and into the enemy officer putting half the Councillor's forces to rout and claiming the river crossing:  -- I made one major rule blunder, which was to only test for morale with the casualties inflicted at the time a morale test was required, rather than the sum of all casualties to that point. I made that mistake even handedly, but did mean that units were hanging around for longer than they really probably should have done. I'm really impressed with the Pikeman's Lament rulebooks too, it really is a full game system with multiple INTERESTING scenarios, rules for duelling, 'honour' for your leaders, etc .and I think it would slot into a campaign system very well indeed! The only thing I'm not a massive fan of is the degree at which you can have a series of turnovers with failed activations, but I guess you just have to ignore a typical 'turn counter' approach to measuring game length.
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May 15, 2023 07:27
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proposal: buy a single unit of steppe horsemen mercenaries reality: making a spreadsheet of every comp bow cavalry unit in saga and which models I'm planning to use for them
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May 15, 2023 13:16
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StashAugustine posted:proposal: buy a single unit of steppe horsemen mercenaries 
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May 15, 2023 13:31
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StashAugustine posted:proposal: buy a single unit of steppe horsemen mercenaries lol but also
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May 15, 2023 13:35
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Southern Heel posted:No need to TIMG here, alg, looks awesome man. i picked up some of those henry Turner files and printed some in 15, been experimenting with painting this past weekend. dunno if i'm gonna do enough to play games with but it's they're fun to paint
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May 15, 2023 13:37
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StashAugustine posted:proposal: buy a single unit of steppe horsemen mercenaries god i do this for every game
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May 15, 2023 13:39
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YES. I'm working on Covanenters and a few New Model Army in 28mm.
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May 15, 2023 15:52
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Where I've currently landed on my steppe horse planning is that I'll use Gripping Beast Avars for my Viking era mercenary horse and sort out what I want to use for Mongols, Cumans, Magyars, Turks, etc when I eventually get the crusades book
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May 15, 2023 17:07
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Cessna posted:YES. I actually started in 28mm for ECW and painted up both sides of a Warlord boxed set in 28mm but I had even less chance of fielding those than I do for these guys. Please post when you've got them. I re-played the Pikeman's Lament scenario from yesterday again today and filmed it, but I'm not sure how watchable it is, the birds eye view is great for strategic overview but rubbish for gaming. I'm sure I had a little tripod knocking around somewhere but I'll be damned if I can find the little sod anywhere. Having been talking about grids for Grand Fleets, has anyone tried To the Strongest/For King and Parliament, or Strength & Honour? The former two are measureless and the latter is diceless too! I'm starting to think measuring is annoying.
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May 15, 2023 20:47
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Southern Heel posted:I actually started in 28mm for ECW and painted up both sides of a Warlord boxed set in 28mm but I had even less chance of fielding those than I do for these guys. Please post when you've got them. Will do. Have you seen/bought/painted anything from Bloody Miniatures? quote:Having been talking about grids for Grand Fleets, has anyone tried To the Strongest/For King and Parliament, or Strength & Honour? The former two are measureless and the latter is diceless too! I'm starting to think measuring is annoying. I own both but haven't played either. I'm moving away from big games and more into smaller skirmishes these days.
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May 15, 2023 20:53
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I’m utterly new to miniatures and tabletop gaming in general really, but I’ve been burning through the Aubrey/Maturin novels the last few months and got the Black Seas starter set. After what seemed in retrospect entirely too long, I painted my first little brig by following Warlord’s guide and watching a few videos. I’m not entirely embarrassed by my first try but despite trying to thin out my paints and trying to start light and add darker details later I still didn’t get that cool looking shading and depth that people who actually know what they’re doing can accomplish. Also it seems a little technicolor for my tastes. I still need to touch up and varnish before I can add the sails and rigging but here it is: I got a basic Vallejo paint set and just mixed those to approximate the recommended colors I didn’t have, don’t know if that’s considered a scrub move by veterans of the hobby or what but that’s what I’m working with right now. I’m going to try a Royal Navy frigate next and I think I’m going to go much lighter for the deck. I already went lighter than the recommended brown for this little guy but it still seems too dark for me. Weren’t British navy decks holystoned until they were almost white? Also I kind of want to make the cannons brass because I know some ships kept them polished, but I haven’t seen anyone online paint their guns that way so I’m worried it’ll look weird.
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May 16, 2023 17:15
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Excellent! I’m making my way through the Aubrey-Maturin books too, just finishing up “Ships Mate”. Mixing your own colours is Gods own work, and nobody is going to look at your models askance at all. I tend to trend lighter and brighter as the models get smaller,so painting your decks in Vallejo Pale sand with a wash of darker colour would work equally well. I’ve got the 3rd rate ship that came on the front of Wargames Illustrated and I’m fairly happy with it, looking not unlike yours, but it is currently sans ratlines and sails and I refuse to pay £5 postage to Warlord!
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May 16, 2023 18:04
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Drunkboxer posted:I’m utterly new to miniatures and tabletop gaming in general really, but I’ve been burning through the Aubrey/Maturin novels the last few months and got the Black Seas starter set. After what seemed in retrospect entirely too long, I painted my first little brig by following Warlord’s guide and watching a few videos. I’m not entirely embarrassed by my first try but despite trying to thin out my paints and trying to start light and add darker details later I still didn’t get that cool looking shading and depth that people who actually know what they’re doing can accomplish. Also it seems a little technicolor for my tastes. I still need to touch up and varnish before I can add the sails and rigging but here it is:
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May 16, 2023 18:53
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Thanks for the encouragement! I can’t wait to get a few little squadrons done so I can play the actual game. Southern Heel posted:Excellent! I’m making my way through the Aubrey-Maturin books too, just finishing up “Ships Mate”. I was going to try Vallejo Buff with a dark wash but maybe that’s too light. Arquinsiel posted:You're well on the way to success here. What might help your sales is getting a grey wash to put over them to imply a bit of depth, but TBH that thing is so small that block colours is probably where I'd stop anyway. I was actually about to do that last night but I was holding the little cardboard sails up to it and got worried that a grey wash might make the plastic folded sails look darker than the unfurled ones. Maybe if I just go with a really light grey.
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May 16, 2023 20:02
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Are you going to add the sails and rigging too? It's a huge pain in the rear end, but looks great once you're done.
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May 16, 2023 20:20
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Class Warcraft posted:Are you going to add the sails and rigging too? It's a huge pain in the rear end, but looks great once you're done. Yeah for sure, the fact that they have the rigging is one of the coolest aspects imo. I just need to varnish it first because I don’t think I want to do that with the thread and paper sails on there.
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May 16, 2023 20:32
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Drunkboxer posted:I’m utterly new to miniatures and tabletop gaming in general really, but I’ve been burning through the Aubrey/Maturin novels the last few months and got the Black Seas starter set. Ah, so you have brain like mine that reads a bit about something or sees a show, movie, youtube video, or game on Steam and goes "Huh, I wonder if there's a good tabletop game for that..." Somehow last week I went from "Hmm, should I pick up U-Boat or Cold Waters..." and now I'm researching rulesets and minis from a bunch of navel periods...
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May 16, 2023 20:53
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