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Giant Ethicist posted:Although it's hard to follow Bistromatic, I'll jump on that bandwagon - here's my UCM scheme. The plan is for individual ships to have slightly different patterns. Yeah, that looks nice. I am a fan of doing greeblies in a bright-ish silver when against black. Or gold, to be honest; I think doing the weapon and PD barrels in gold would work pretty well there. Black's tough because it flattens things so easily. I can pick out the edges and lines really easily in the black sections of that photo, though. Is that because you picked them out, or is that just the light? (Also the top of the prow is fantastic and I like how you continued the line down on the lower prow. Now I really want an airbrush and some masking skills.)
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Nov 25, 2016 02:58
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Question for the dropfleet folks: what are you using for terrain? I've seen some acrylic templates for marking asteroid fields, but other than that I'm not sure the best way to model them. They seem awfully important on the table, but I'm not really sure what Hawk was intending for folks to do. I know people have done "foam rock on toothpick" for X-Wing terrain, but that seems like the scale wouldn't work quite as well for dropfleet.
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Dec 4, 2016 05:41
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I think they are also distinguishing between packing and shipping. At least, that's what I am hoping because I have a commodore order (with a few add ons) and haven't gotten a shipping notice. I emailed them a few weeks back and they confirmed that they have my info and it was still being worked on. e:fb
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Dec 6, 2016 18:34
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I got my shipping notification yesterday, so I know they are still working through things. Also drat Bistro, you are a handy person. Those re-milled turrets look great.
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Dec 10, 2016 18:39
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One nice thing about magnetizing the UCM cruisers is that there are different difficulty levels depending on what you want and how hardcore you are. The easy mode? Glue your different heavy, medium, and light cruiser hulls as you like. Then magnetize the weapon mounts and weapons, so you can swap payloads. The mass drivers, burn through lasers, troop compartments, and bombardment cannons all can be swapped out on the same mounts with a pair of magnets. That will let you swap between both light cruisers, between both heavy cruisers, and between all but one of the regular cruisers (the exception would be the carrier, which has launch bays on the upper hull). The next step up would be to glue the heavy and regular cruiser hulls, and magnetize guns, but leave the upper wings on the regular cruisers unglued, and magnetize the upper wing halves. It's a pretty snug fit so you might be able to just friction fit the upper wings. That gets you all the prior options plus you can swap between all cruisers and light cruisers fairly easily. Magnetizing the upper wings probably isn't too bad because there are some larger chunks of plastic on those that you can drill if you are careful. Harder would be magnetizing the upper hull to swap between cruiser and heavy cruiser. That's a very thin piece of plastic.
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Dec 12, 2016 23:40
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Where are the pictures of the Shaltari corvette? I didn't see them in a kickstarter update.
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Dec 15, 2016 22:19
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They are among the very few ships with atmospheric capable weapons, right? So if you want to go shoot at enemy strike carriers you either roll 6's on your main guns or use corvettes. It seems like a nice way to contest objectives besides tapping strike carriers before they can dive to atmo.
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Dec 16, 2016 00:35
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That looks like a really nice take on the studio scheme. I'm sorely tempted to steal it, too. What yellow & what turquoise paint did you use?
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Dec 20, 2016 05:12
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Don't build just a solo light cruiser. They have to be taken in pairs, so unless you'll be proxying a New Cairo as a Berlin you'll want two New Cairos or none.
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Dec 30, 2016 18:41
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Southern Heel posted:Am I correct in assuming each force has 5x infantry, armor, fighters and bombers? I'm thinking of using different painted cardamons for ships, cloves for armor (as little self-propelled guns) and rice for infantry Nope, everyone has as many infantry, fighters, bombers, and armor as they can deploy or need. I doubt you'll go over 10 of each in a game, with the possible exception of infantry since you can drop 6 at once from a troopship.
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Jan 11, 2017 15:17
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Ugleb, those sectors look great. They'll really spice up your table. Are you thinking of doing clusters on some sort of foamcore that you can tuck the sectors into? Also, how are you all figuring out when to go weapons free? I'm having a really hard time getting value out of my heavy cruiser in starter fleet games. The Moscow's got a pretty reasonable amount of shots (8 3+ shots, 4 4+ shots) when it goes weapons free, but I feel like I'm always being timid to avoid taking the major spike and immediately getting nuked by the entire enemy fleet. I'm now building an Atlantis (BC) and I'm worried I'll basically just use it like a too-expensive Seattle. Thoughts?
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Mar 4, 2017 22:28
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Got it. I think I've been way too timid with my Moscow, then. My Berlins/New Cairos I can get good value out of by just getting a shot a turn and avoiding incoming fire, but it seems like I really need to learn how to use the Moscow to protect my other ships. (Incidentally, we goofed our first few games by not using the exploding ships rules.) YF19, the starter fleets are pretty solid for most factions. I think there's usually a slightly more optimal way to build each fleet (e.g. the Bellerophon is arguably better than the Hector most of the time) but the starter fleets are good and will give you a nice introduction to how each faction plays. Arcturas fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Mar 5, 2017 |
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Mar 5, 2017 17:53
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With UCM I build, prime, paint. Works for everything except the carriers (Seattles), since the flight decks are a pain. You can still get some paint in there and have a serviceable flight deck but for my BC and future Seattles I'm going to be doing: build partially, prime, paint flight decks, finish building, finish painting.
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Mar 6, 2017 20:32
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If there's enough demand in the US thread readers and there is free shipping if we hit a threshold, we could order a batch and only need to pay domestic shipping?
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Mar 15, 2017 20:17
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It is kind of funny that the Saratoga looks like it will be battlecruiser-sized, what wth that large prow extension. It's shorter in the back because it has a light cruiser set of wings, but still.
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Mar 16, 2017 14:18
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How are sectors with bonus effects supposed to work in the new ground rules? Maybe I'm reading them wrong, but it seems like you never get into ground fights & just count tokens for VP purposes. But if you do that, who gets control of the military sectors' guns, or the orbital defense guns & such. Do you just use a simplified version of control for those as well? (most points in tokens gets to shoot the gun that turn?) Also, where can I get command cards for dropfleet? I don't see them on the Hawk website for order, and it'd be nice for my admiral to actually matter now that we can get free upgraded ones.
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Mar 20, 2017 04:34
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In thinking about the new experimental rules, aren't they also a soft nerf to bombardment? You can't bombard if both of you have troops on a location, and now if both of you have troops on a sector that'll never get cleared out. So if my enemy just starts landing troops on top of mine, I can't bombard those to clean them up. In the old system if they did that but I had numerical superiority I'd probably kill their troops.
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Mar 25, 2017 15:29
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That would make an awful lot of sense.
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Mar 25, 2017 16:39
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Generally I like the idea of just having ground tokens cancel each other out. I get that Hawk was going for something a little more granular with ground combat & movement, to add another strategic layer to the game in moving ground troops, using strike carriers to clear locations and then bulking in with infantry, etc, but I think it just bogs everything down because the best part of the game is moving spaceships around and saying "PEW PEW."
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Mar 25, 2017 22:22
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Those look really nice. Well done! Are the LVO lists posted somewhere?
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Mar 30, 2017 15:53
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ZachAttack posted:Arcturas, darnon, wdarkk, and Pash Sent you my info. Flipswitch posted:Makes sense but man that's a point value that's always gonna feel like not quite enough. Yeah, 1250 is a tough value to squeeze in a battleship + anything major. It feels like you get one or two toys and then a bunch of utility.
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Apr 11, 2017 01:25
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With the caveat that I haven't played against it, maybe kill the Calypsos with bombers on turn 1-2, then nuke it on turn 3? If you can get 4 damage on a Calpyso you can usually kill it on the cripping damage roll. 3 bombers is close to that, on average. (2 crits, 2 hits, one hit blocked by the 3 PD, the other hit might get through...) Alternatively see if you can bait out the calypso activations earlier in the turn with single burnthrough shots against stuff? (I would suggest a CAW frigate mob since even 10 PD is only 3-4 hits removed, compared to the 50 attacks that 7 Taipeis could drop if you can get them all in range. 17.5 hits and 8.75 crits is enough to cripple the thing with a single round of CAW fire, plus a few more damage from main guns, if you get lucky. But the broadsides everywhere mean I have had a rough time using frigate swarms against PHR. Maybe I just need more practice.) The other thing that I have found very annoying against my Limas, and might work against his Active Scan -> nuke strategy, is running silent on whatever ship he tags with active scan. I dunno, man. They're tough.
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Apr 11, 2017 05:02
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Bistro, I have no idea how you have the patience and skill to get those clean and straight lines with masking tape over the bumpy UCM hills. I did okay on my frigates, but trying to manipulate and stick Tamiya masking tape to a few cruisers, particularly in the front gap between the upper hull and weapons tray, is a huge pain. Edit: also, note to self. When taping, be sure to let paint dry for a good long while before applying tape. The lines are straight enough that cleaning this up is doable but...picking up all the underlying paint isn't my idea of a good time. Arcturas fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Apr 16, 2017 |
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Apr 16, 2017 03:17
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I definitely think the Saratoga looks better than the Athens. That said, it's really interesting to me how much they're doubling down on the UCM light cruisers. I suppose it's because the New Cairo was so popular and once you have the Saratoga the Athens is easy enough to do? I also suppose I need to be taking more light cruisers in my UCM fleets?
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Apr 21, 2017 03:25
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Not gonna lie, I'm entirely distracted by the super awesome black and glowing orange paint scheme.
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Apr 23, 2017 04:35
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drat. Something like that with some solid highlighting and detail work would be pretty swell.
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Apr 23, 2017 05:12
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Generally the starter fleets are pretty good (Moscow, Seattle, Berlin, plus 2 New Orleans and 2 Toulons). Some people don't end up using the Toulons in the long-run (Taipeis are often preferred, or no damage frigates and just more New Orleanses). If you have a Saratoga, the other swap to consider would be building a New Cairo instead of the Berlin. It's a minor modeling/painting difference - the top half of each wing - but since you have to take New Cairos/Saratogas in pairs or more, it's tricky to fit with a starter fleet's Berlin. Plus I see a lot of people running New Cairos/Saratogas, so you won't regret having it. (I don't think you'd regret having the Berlin, either, but I think the New Cairos are more popular.) So if you have a starter fleet and a Saratoga ordered, I'd build: Moscow Seattle New Cairo Saratoga 2x New Orleans 2x Toulon The Toulons are certainly the most swappable there. In other news, has anyone looked at/used the Charybdis? (the Scourge bombardment frigate) I've seen some news about people liking Madrids, and the Charybdis seems like it'd fill a similar niche, just more survivable in exchange for less bombardment. Two Charybdis are the same price as a Madrid, and you get 8 bombardments on a 4+ instead of 6 on a 2+. The Madrid will certainly put out more damage (expected 5 hits instead of 4, and 3 crits instead of 1-2), but it's sitting in low instead of atmo. Thoughts?
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May 1, 2017 02:18
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Sojenus posted:Charybdis have to be in low orbit to bombard as per the errata/FAQ. You can still dip them into atmosphere to avoid an attack, at least. Oh, I missed that because I mostly play UCM. That seems a pretty hefty nerf!
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May 1, 2017 03:50
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Bistro, thank you for the tip about panel line accent from Tamiya. That is just magic and makes UCM stuff look so good. And I really like that I can apply it (often way too heavy) and clean up the messes by just loading one of those hard tamiya pointy q-tips with enamel thinner, wiping it on a towel, and then scrubbing the whole drat ship with the q-tip. It leaves the accent in all the grooves while clearing it off any raised surfaces. Excuse the lovely iPhone photos, but here is my Seattle from a few days ago with no accent, and the same ship (in weird light) with the accent.    
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May 2, 2017 01:20
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Yvonmukluk posted:Thanks for the advice - unfortunately I already built the Starter Fleet and just followed the starter guide There's nothing wrong with the basic starter fleet! It's actually really good. You can proxy and play the burnthrough cruiser as a burnthrough light cruiser very easily (I did the opposite because I have been slow to build my light cruisers), so long as your table opponent is at all reasonable. Plus they look very similar on the table so it shouldn't create any confusion.
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May 2, 2017 14:19
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Hot water made a world of difference on mine. You have to be careful the too doesn't get torqued so that it's bent funny, but nbd.
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May 6, 2017 06:13
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Why do you have the Jakartas in with the Moscow? I would have thought to pair them with one of your frigate groups or the troopships.
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May 18, 2017 13:38
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I'm a little confused about the Critical Locations rule. If a scenario has the critical locations rule (take the grid control scenario, for instance), does that mean all of the scoring locations are critical locations? Or that all are eligible to be critical locations if you scan it on a 5+ with something in low atmo?
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May 20, 2017 23:22
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I made the "mistake" of using superglue to stick my unpainted models to sticks while painting them, and using a drill to redo the flight peg holes is so good. It just terrifies my wife that I am going to stab through the mini and mangle my hand. I used hot glue for my current batch and I imagine that will clean out far easier.
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May 24, 2017 21:54
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Played some UCM vs PHR this weekend. Turns out burnthrough lasers are hit or miss (both a Bellerophon and a Berlin underperformed), and corvettes are good but don't quite make up for a severe deficit in drop assets (I am not sure where the balance is on adding a corvette vs taking another strike carrier). We only have pictures from the end of each of the first three turns because we forgot to take more pictures and had to end the game after four turns. Turn one:  Turn two:  Turn three: 
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Jul 4, 2017 03:49
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wdarkk posted:I might have a need for 999 DZC lists in the future. Yeah, it is frustrating not to be able to field two heavy cruisers or battlecruisers without cramming them together (and even then, running into the battlegroup point percentage cap pretty badly). Still, a few extra cruisers are helpful. Based off that one 750 pt game, I think I'll be glad to have at least one San Francisco in most lists even if it gets blown up pretty often. And then I'll still be happy with Moscow/BC, Berlin, Seattle, 2x New Cairo/Saratoga, fill the rest with Santiagos, strike carriers, and frigates.
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Jul 5, 2017 03:17
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Flipswitch posted:Lists So, my biggest problem with Limas is that my enemies tend to silent running and/or hide behind debris fields on the first turn or two, and then once we're turn three and beyond I don't really need the active scan to be able to hit stuff. If you've had success with them power to you, and please share your secrets. My experience is also based on playing on relatively terrain-crowded center zones. I agree they go nicely with our gunships (especially the Atlantis, since you can weapons free from just barely in major spike range, which can really cut down on return fire). That said, you're only spending 75 pts on them out of 1000, so it's not a big deal. As for the lists, I think you're really undervaluing Berlins/New Cairos. They're so good. Unreliable as all get out, but a bunch of Berlins can be a tremendous backbone for a UCM force. In the second list, I also am on the fence about the Toulons. I think they're good as support frigates attached to other stuff, but I don't know how good a wolfpack of 4 + Jakarta is. For that 172 points you could get two Osakas. They're very comparable. The Osakas are: - More resilient to chip damage (no crippling rolls on 2 damage) - Avoid chain explosions that will rip through the whole frigate battlegroup - Just as flexible on orders - Get slightly more crits and do marginally more expected damage against 3+ armor saves - Able to scan for critical locations and better at holding them The Toulons are: - Slightly more hitpoints (20 vs. 16 if we count the Jakarta) - Slightly better off vs bombers (aegis, but the chip damage problem makes this a wash) - Lower strat rating so better for sniping stuff - Probably do marginally more damage against 4+ and higher armor targets Alternatively, instead of the Toulon group you could take two New Cairos! You'd need to free up 2 points elsewhere, but I think that would be a huge addition to the list. You could swap one of the Seattles for a Berlin to get the points. Or use the points from your free commander upgrade. I'll have to play with the list to see if I can swap in two Berlins instead of the New Cairo. I'm not sure what to think about the first list. The Taipei pack is pretty neat, though I haven't tried one out yet. I think you should consider swapping the New Orleans's from the Seattle group to the Atlantis group so you can put the Limas with the Seattles. I think you'll overall be sitting farther back with the Seattles longer than you will with the Atlantis (not needing to WF gives you more ability to zig zag sideways and duck behind cover just enough to get LOS to your target and nothing else), and so the Limas may be viable longer when cooperating with the Seattles than with the Atlantis. Otherwise the list looks pretty good. Four strike carriers and some bombardment seems a little light for 1000 points, especially without any Santiagos, but it depends how your meta goes.
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Jul 5, 2017 23:40
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On paper I think the Osakas are kinda poo poo and I would almost always rather have a New Cairo. I haven't had a chance to take any yet. I'm very much not sure I'm right about the Toulon group. As I was writing up the post I started to run some numbers and the Toulons come out really favorably. I just had a bad experience with some chain explosions in a frigate/corvette pile this weekend, so I'm probably overreacting against a mixed group like that. I suppose you can spread them out a lot more than strike carriers on round two. I have a hard time building lists because I love the Seattle. It might not be actually that good, but I really like the idea of it. Plenty of firepower, easy order management, and solid launch asset capability. I just wish UCM bombers were more effective.
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Jul 6, 2017 00:14
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Yeah, like I say, I really like the Seattle. I have one and an Atlantis built, and am really happy with each. (Though I need to paint some better rims on the launch bays to make them easier to tell apart at upper table height, since my eyes suck.) I can certainly get behind an all-launch asset list, but it makes it really hard to fit in burnthrough lasers. The other problem is that I keep wanting to add more drop assets. I haven't built a Madrid yet - how is it? Does it perform at about 2/3 of a San Francisco, which is what it's priced at? Also, wdarkk, what do you find separates good use of bombers from bad use of them?
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Jul 6, 2017 04:04
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 15:53 |
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What's the best place to get a 4' x 4' mousepad mat for dropfleet gaming? I don't see a good orbital map on the fat mats website. Deep Cut Studio has some that look good, but international shipping and hassle. Is that the best option? (Please note I have no idea how to go to strange Chinese marketplaces to get mousepad fabrics, so if you have a step by step guide I could do that, but I am fairly incompetent in this space. And I may be asking for a birthday/Christmas present of a mat, so that's harder if we are fussing with strange vendors.)
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Jul 7, 2017 23:23
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