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Dave did another build and paint rundown for the Shaltari behemoth, I like his pose better than the store one. But really, the relevant information is that it has almost 16,000 dots on it, and I'm glad I will never have one of these.
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Sep 8, 2022 14:55
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So glad Dave is back. His version blows the store model out of the water. But that's probably most down to the paint job, the garish colors on the new schemes just grate horrifically with all the parts of the game I like.
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Sep 8, 2022 15:29
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TT is soliciting feedback and suggestions for the next revision of Dropfleet - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y6NBPwk0__dOscDebVBBjtEgEE0g1vkvTYTGLaj6-ik/edit Seems pretty lively. No idea what will actually come of it.
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Sep 13, 2022 15:01
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God if they retire the UCM cruiser model...
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Sep 14, 2022 06:56
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New Dropzone unit updates and errata got posted. PDF I really like what I see so far, lots of good fixes and nothing obviously broken. And thank the gods, they brought back changelogs. Scott Burns (the person that posted this to the TT blog), you are a good person.
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Sep 16, 2022 14:47
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Was hoping to see a bit more for the Hades (and type 4's in general) than a points drop. They were feeling too fragile last time I played, it used to take a lot to remove one and they kinda lost that.
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Sep 17, 2022 01:42
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I'm happy the Persephone looks alright now, always wanted to make it work and it never really did. Now that the indirects have acceptable range it can hopefully impact things while staying out of sight of things like Broadswords, and having the bulk to shrug off smaller units.
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Sep 17, 2022 03:06
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I set my expections to "probably not a worse game overall" so I'm thrilled with the outcome. PHR EM stacking is at least curtailed. The Flail is no longer a steaming turd mocked by all. The alt-broadsword (nee Claymore) is decent now. The Wolf is less useless. Ronin got hit hard with the nerf bat, nearly doubling in points cost, which they deserved every bit of. Mortar Teams no longer outrange dedicated artillery units. The Bomb Bus actually functions again, Hallelujah. I still regret explaining how the original wording at launch had a targeting exploit to TTC, because they broke it in the next update and it's taken 3 revisions and 2 years to arrive at a set of rules and stats that actually loving workings and it looks basically like it did before I opened my fool mouth. But the change I'm most excited about is the CQ Defenders Advantage stuff. I recognize 'no simul-CQ' is a hill TTC is ready to die on, and I think I can compromise with them here. There's still plenty more that could use fixed. They forgot the Osprey exists and still hasn't seen the UCM railgun changes from last revision, the Corruptor is still missing a M&F restriction, the Storm Wagons are still a pale un-fun shadow of their Barrage selves, the Circe can't Dev walkers for some ridiculous reason, etc. Behemoths are done. A good update has been released. OK, let's move forward and see faction command cards now.
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Sep 17, 2022 04:07
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Slyphic posted:
Yeah this feels like a step in the right direction. It gets away from murder infantry just walking into wherever you put your regular stuff and erasing them instantly.
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Sep 17, 2022 22:35
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Dropfleet 1.5 is imminent.. New version of the 2 player box with two of the three plastic cruisers changed to new resin sculpts for each side, which is an interesting combo. New updated A5 rulebook with all fluff moved to a free PDF. Battle for Earth will not be reprinted. Will be interesting to see what impact this might make, although I wonder if they should have labelled it as second edition purely to generate a little marketing hype.
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Sep 27, 2022 20:56
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I'm really confused by the contents. Surely either resin or plastic is cheaper for them (and surely the answer is plastic, right?), so why the mix? But also, there's a silhouette of a humanoid figure there in the layout. ... Are they going to throw in a 28mm model as well? Why solicit feedback on rules a bare week before printing a new book? That's basically 0 time to actually test anything that arises from the feedback. Just so many questions.
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Sep 27, 2022 21:48
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Slyphic posted:I'm really confused by the contents. Surely either resin or plastic is cheaper for them (and surely the answer is plastic, right?), so why the mix? Where are you seeing the silhouette? Yeah I don't get why they went 2/3rds resin then stuck with one plastic cruiser sprue. Presumably the frigates are still plastic. I thought the plastics were made by a partner UK factory but maybe TTCombat shifted production and are having supply chain issues now? They cast resin in house so would be able to make their plastic stock last longer this way. And yeah, I'm not sure why they would pitch for feedback so late, unless they only want it on ship balancing (probably not in the book at all) and have made their own decisions on the core rules.
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Sep 27, 2022 22:42
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Enjoy having whopping great seamlines and mold-slips through all that intricate detail!
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Sep 27, 2022 23:01
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Ugleb posted:Where are you seeing the silhouette?  Maybe they're implying it's a bonus for buying direct? idfk
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Sep 27, 2022 23:18
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Z the IVth posted:Enjoy having whopping great seamlines and mold-slips through all that intricate detail!
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Sep 27, 2022 23:19
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Slyphic posted:
I think that's just the symbol for 'Teaser Tuesday' posts, looking through their posts it's on all those.
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Sep 27, 2022 23:35
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I’ll probably grab it since I’ve never been able to get a 2p starter set for DFC but those new cruisers look ugly and are completely outside the faction aesthetics.
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Sep 28, 2022 00:00
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Slyphic posted:My TTC era Razorworms have their one and only gates IN THEIR FACES. Yeah it's not great. Have the gates underneath then no one will care if it obliterates some detail. I had a carnevale group which was more flash than miniature, and I had a DZC dropship where the gates were positioned right over the detailing on the side when there was a flat area 2mm away that would have served just as well. Their resin casting team leaves much to be desired.
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Sep 28, 2022 10:12
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Z the IVth posted:Their resin casting team leaves much to be desired.
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Sep 28, 2022 14:23
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Slyphic posted:My understanding is this is a conflux of a niche skill (mold mastering and casting) in a low labor pool area (rural South England), low pay and extreme micromanagement (from former employees and the stuff exposed by the SWG exchanges) leading to high turnover and a stream of newbies learning as they go then going just about the time they get competent. I agree that resin casting is very much an art form and even lots of so-called "professionals" produce abysmal work (see Forgeworld). However there are a number of excellent contract casters available that could have done the work. Also it seems to me that the original Hawk castings were superior - probably because they were farmed out to a contract casters.
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Sep 28, 2022 14:37
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Z the IVth posted:I agree that resin casting is very much an art form and even lots of so-called "professionals" produce abysmal work (see Forgeworld). However there are a number of excellent contract casters available that could have done the work. Hawk had a couple of early duds but generally were very good. The resin PHR APC was cast in two halves split down the middle with a great big join line running along the centre when you assembled it for example. If one part shrank more than the other then good luck to you. They fixed that by making plastic APC's and discontinuing the resin version entirely. I don't know if Dave was involved in designing the resin molds or not, but I'm pretty sure he isn't now. On Carnevale, I've only done 15 minis or so but have found the casts to be decent enough. Some bits came with a lot of fine flash but it cleaned off very easily.
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Sep 28, 2022 16:11
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Dave himself, and a couple of the early people he roped into starting up Hawk Wargames, were all former Spartan Games employees. At least one of them was a mold master for them (I believe Dave did the split APC, but this guy came onboard for the plastic sprues). There's a gently caress of a lot more people out there that know how to do molds for 28/32mm models than for the smaller scales.
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Sep 28, 2022 16:42
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Fewer plastic sprues and a smaller rulebook with half the pagecount...seems costcutting is the order of the day. TTC probably are stretching their existing plastic stockpile as renewing tooling etc could be very expensive. Or I could be wrong and this is a production capacity issue, and whoever does their plastic sprues has drastically cut their output or raised their prices. That would at least explain why it took so long to get more starter boxes. It was really frustrating watching all the positive coverage come and go with nothing on the shelves! If you cornered Dave at a convention he'd usually tell a few stories about his Spartan Games days, mostly about early Firestorm Armada sculpts. It sounded like he and his group got out early on to found Hawk, which is why Spartan had such a huge change in art style from FSAv1 to FSAv2. I always wanted to ask him why FSA had so many different Terran cruiser designs.
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Sep 28, 2022 17:32
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Loxbourne posted:If you cornered Dave at a convention he'd usually tell a few stories about his Spartan Games days, mostly about early Firestorm Armada sculpts.
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Sep 28, 2022 17:54
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The UCM cruiser is basically the perfect design in my book and that new poo poo is really really dire.
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Sep 28, 2022 18:31
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Ugleb posted:Hawk had a couple of early duds but generally were very good. The resin PHR APC was cast in two halves split down the middle with a great big join line running along the centre when you assembled it for example. If one part shrank more than the other then good luck to you. The carnevale stuff was fine once the flash came off. Details a little soft and but not really a dealbreaker.
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Sep 28, 2022 21:10
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Dropfleet v1.5 is out - https://community.ttcombat.com/2022/09/29/dropfleet-commander-1-5-update/ A couple clarifications on special rules, a good many and varied tweaks and changes to ship stats and rules, a bunch of new single piece cruisers coming out and some 'experimental' rules for the plastic sprue combinations that were physically possible but not in the rules (like a UCM heavy cruiser with a laser AND turrets). Initial thoughts on skimming the changes: Wasn't expecting quite that degree of doubling down on the Haemetite. "Being able to burnthrough-12 on a 2+ while turning on regular orders is cool and fun and and and you're the ones that are wrong!" Bloom is better than the nothing that is the 25 point increase, but these changes don't actually address any of the repeated problems brought up about it. Also wasn't expecting to see the 6" thrust on the Istanbul without any other changes. Reyk deserved that nerf batting, and I think that was the right amount. I'm reserving opinions til table time. Sig reduction across the board for BBs I'm not a fan of. Makes little sense, a hull increase of a couple points would have been better. Fusillade-2 on the UCM BBs should make them more of the threat they should be, rather than the current meh they represent when they enter the board. All the PHR changes are either minor/ok or nice little tweaks. A little surprised the Belle gets a buff with no points increase. Agrippa seems reasonable. I'm going to assume they Traffic James and completely forgot about the Harpocrates, because that ship is still an unfun coin flip that belongs in a shorter sillier game. Not enough table time with Scourge yet, but they at least addressed the elephant in the room that was the Parasite. Despite a decent number of games against them, I can't readily tell what the changes to Resistance will look like on the table. I wish they'd have simplified the token system on the Galileo. I really wish they'd have waited a couple weeks, or asked for feedback earlier, and done something about the core rules that were brought up in the feedback.
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Sep 29, 2022 15:05
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Loxbourne posted:Fewer plastic sprues and a smaller rulebook with half the pagecount...seems costcutting is the order of the day. TTC probably are stretching their existing plastic stockpile as renewing tooling etc could be very expensive. Or I could be wrong and this is a production capacity issue, and whoever does their plastic sprues has drastically cut their output or raised their prices. That would at least explain why it took so long to get more starter boxes. It was really frustrating watching all the positive coverage come and go with nothing on the shelves! Well, the 1.5 article says that they replaced the two plastic sprues for one-piece resin ships (4 in total) due to box size. So this is all going into a physically smaller box then. Apparently they have had trouble getting BFE reprinted at all. I'm guessing the original printer is unavailable for some reason? And the original rulebook is getting outdated so tbh I probably wouldn't reprint it. I think the updated A5 is a decent choice.
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Sep 29, 2022 16:03
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I like the idea of dominating a cluster with a Sisyphus + Ganymede group, and glad to see the Pollux get a thrust boost so it can actually keep up with the things it's escorting. Scourge seems like they're being encouraged that much more to get up close, with the Umbra change and loss of detector on Shedu, and the new heavy cruiser needs to get in some faces or you're just wasting points on it versus a Hydra. Don't think I'd ever take it for 200 points.
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Sep 29, 2022 17:34
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Did anything ever happen with the Stellaris game they were looking to develop with Paradox? there was the kickstarter for the models then nothing, at least that I've heard.
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Oct 1, 2022 23:43
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King Doom posted:Did anything ever happen with the Stellaris game they were looking to develop with Paradox? there was the kickstarter for the models then nothing, at least that I've heard. Utter silence. Then I'm pretty sure a different Stellaris boardgame went to Kickstarter after that with no TTCombat involvement, so I don't think it is gonna happen.
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Oct 1, 2022 23:46
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Another embiggened Dropzone dude cometh.... I am wondering if they are going to pull the trigger on a Dropverse skirmish game.
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Nov 23, 2022 14:14
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Randomly saw a new episode of CV1 posted, like 2 years after their last one. Link Third hand and all, but apparently Dave is back in charge of both Dropgame rules. Which got them excited enough to start podcasting again, and has me equally excited for it to be true. Come on Dave, drop v3 and lets put this mess behind us. (Please please please give me an excuse to stop working on porting Sam Mustafa's Rommel system to DZC, I'm making a hash of it, just fix your broken CQ/collateral/game-pacing)
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Nov 23, 2022 16:48
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Ugleb posted:Another embiggened Dropzone dude cometh.... You'd think that, but it's actually going to be a complete range of Pungari for Carnevale. Slyphic posted:Dave is back in charge of both Dropgame rules. Neat, although I can't imagine we're seeing a new edition of Dropfleet with his contributions soon considering they just printed that small rulebook. Zone rules are more in need of a touching up, at least. Anyway, Resistance stuff being worked on right now: 
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Nov 23, 2022 17:12
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Slyphic posted:Third hand and all, but apparently Dave is back in charge of both Dropgame rules. Lewis, who was running their game design department, left the company earlier in the year. While I liked his enthusiasm for Carnevale he clearly wasn't that hot on Dropverse. I always got the impression there was some company politics keeping Dave out of the rules writing circle and it was probably Lewis being territorial.
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Nov 24, 2022 00:04
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TTC needs to take their adderall, focus on fixing zone and fleet. The world doesn't need another 28mm skirmish game, it's the plain chicken tenders of wargames. Behemoths were a boondoggle of a mistake, but at least they were daring. This? This is boring. 
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Nov 27, 2022 16:01
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https://asciolist.org/index.php/2022/11/28/dropzone-resin-buildings/ The resin buildings are 2 pounds of SOLID RESIN I figured for sure they'd be slabs you glue together, but no, it's a monosculpt loving brick of resin.
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Nov 29, 2022 16:22
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That seems terrifying.
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Nov 29, 2022 16:44
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Slyphic posted:https://asciolist.org/index.php/2022/11/28/dropzone-resin-buildings/ Building boxes out of resin slabs is a pain but there are very reasonable ways of putting an insert in there to make them semi-hollow and save on material. It's not like the building needs to be solid for structural strength.
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Nov 29, 2022 18:07
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| # ? May 2, 2024 08:37 |
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Z the IVth posted:make them semi-hollow and save on material
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Nov 29, 2022 18:25
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