[unofficial weekender] 4 weeks done…. 48 to go…

[sundancer 42900xp 2]

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First time visitor to OTT? Then please introduce yourself in the New Member Thread and look around in the Project System. Then come back and read on…

Introduce yourselves (New member thread)

https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/

Read all of this before you start as it will save you any trouble later.

First thing you must do is make your “pledge”. It can be anything gaming related, big or small, and you don’t even have to finish it. No, in here, happiness is the road. Have fun doing whatever it is, but it is not a race. Accompany your work with pictures or we might think you are do something sinister and just using us for cover.

You are also presented with a few questions. It is to get the conversation started. Try and keep your answers ‘conversational’, no text speak, and certainly no “basically”. This is how we all get to know each other better. While you are here feel free to tell us a story, show a picture, joke, tales of love or woe, or just add your own little bit. This is the whole point…in here it is just us.

If you have never taken part before we may bark and bite, but we also like a cuddle! It is all done in the best possible taste and it is character building. feel free to give as good as you get.

A few other things to note: NO RELIGION & NO POLITICS! Glasgow pub rules are in effect. If you need to make a better point then it is fine, but don’t take the piss. And always keep it civil.

Play plenty of music to go with your work. Loud and through proper speakers. Write us a playlist of things we might not have heard before.

Now, after all of that there is only one ‘real’ rule in here and it cannot be broken: NO DICKS! (Exceptions may be made for little fighting men with little plastic/resin/metal wieners)

And don’t forget the highlights of the weekend: The Weekender on Friday and XLBS on Sunday. And the little show that is the unofficial Hobby Hangout over at twitch.tv

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Questions:

• What hobby related announcement gets you most excited currently? New game/system? New minis for existing game/system? Rules Update? Sale?
• Have you ever pondered the though of taking a hobby sabbatical? Just put everything on hold for a year?
• Is there anything you’d like to get rid of from the hobby with just a finger snap?

And now back to the show.

[sundancer 42900xp 1]

Pledge: trying to get the Clan Wren box done.

Answers:

• Currently I think it would be “new faction release dates” for SW:L or really the delivery of my Bot War box…
• Looking back I had one around the 2010s… but really leaving the hobby for a year… I would miss you lot!
• Envy and trash talking. “Disable” the reflex most people seem to have (including me). Seeing something they don’t like or agree with and talking shit about it even though there is no real need for it. Annoying. :S

Music!

 

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

Another one:

 

[limburger 21668xp 1]

Pledge : trying to get another update done on my project.
And trying to find a way to get my kickstarter games from the office to my house. Next week there’s a Mythic games kickstarter, not quite sure which one.

1. What hobby related announcement gets you most excited currently? New game/system? New minis for existing game/system? Rules Update? Sale?
   Does the Weekender count ? 😉
   In the past I might have been excited at the prospect of new Eldar minis for 40k.
   These days I’m so dissappointed with the way GW does the rules updates to make their factions work that I have no more fxs to give.
   Purple Haze caught my attention, because it is a solo game first. I hope there is a skirmish level game set in ‘Nam in the future.
2. Have you ever pondered the though of taking a hobby sabbatical? Just put everything on hold for a year?
   Nope. I find it problematic enough to merely think of reducing the number of games/systems I (want to) play/own.
3. Is there anything you’d like to get rid of from the hobby with just a finger snap?
   army lists that don’t even bother with making sure that they match the fluff by removing practically all of the fluff and/or adding silly ‘special’ rules so newbies can’t possibly learn a system by only buying the core rulebook.

 

[demonsub 12746xp 2]

Happy Friday.

Pledge for this weekend is to paint my 8 Crusder Minis war dogs and their 2 Celtic handlers that I got last year (2 of the dogs are already painted for Rangers of Shadow Deep a while back).

Also more Core Space with friends tomorrow evening.

 

What hobby related announcement gets you most excited currently? New game/system? New minis for existing game/system? Rules Update? Sale?

I’m eagerly awaiting the release of 5 Leagues From The Borderlands from Modiphius. It’s the fantasy solo game from the same writer of 5 Parsecs From Home. Modiphius said preorders should go live at the end of this month when I asked them on Twitter a few weeks ago.

Also I’m excited for this Kickstarter which I backed for miniatures based on Ian Miller’s art.

Have you ever pondered the though of taking a hobby sabbatical? Just put everything on hold for a year?

I kind of did a few years ago, I was playing the games with friends when they wanted to but I wasn’t buying anything or doing hobby work. I wouldn’t consider another one anytime soon, I’m too invested and exited now.

Is there anything you’d like to get rid of from the hobby with just a finger snap?

Ebay scalpers, gate keeping and people telling others that they are enjoying their hobby wrong.

It’s not music, but a short animation and just a really cool Star Wars thing.

 

 

[limburger 21668xp 0]

technically I did ‘leave the hobby’ once, but that was more down to there not being any shops any more …

I kind of rediscovered it when I found Beasts of War and their ‘Flames of war: for the win’ series

[crazyredcoatParticipant 13642xp 2]

Going to be a busy weekend with schoolwork, but I might try and get more building done. I’m tempted to do some priming by hand so I can get more painted, but I just never find that hand priming goes down too well…

Questions!

What hobby related announcement gets you most excited currently? New game/system? New minis for existing game/system? Rules Update? Sale?

Not sure, really. I’m kind of busy a lot of the time, or mentally wandering for the rest of it, so I don’t always pay attention. I guess it’s all sorts of things, though at the moment it tends to be some new design of a mini. I’m liking a lot of the new Eldar stuff that GW’s announced…and I really want that new Murder Girl hero; she would make a find addition to my collection…

Have you ever pondered the though of taking a hobby sabbatical? Just put everything on hold for a year?

I’m pretty sure I’ve done that a couple of times…maybe not for whole years at a time, but I did have a period where I just found no interest in any of it; shit happens.

Is there anything you’d like to get rid of from the hobby with just a finger snap?

I think I’ll just second @sundancer with this one. I’m guilty of it sometimes as well, but it’d be nice with less hostility at times.

 

Some music, maybe? Something a little different from my usual, I guess…

[danlee 22433xp 1]

This weeks pledge is to paint a trio of 75mm minis and get the 3D printer up and running again.

 

1. What hobby related announcement gets you most excited currently? New game/system? New minis for existing game/system? Rules Update? Sale? – New models, as since the pandemic I only paint.
2. Have you ever pondered the though of taking a hobby sabbatical? Just put everything on hold for a year? – But then I’d be a year behind!
3. Is there anything you’d like to get rid of from the hobby with just a finger snap? – Nope. If I don’t like it I can just ignore it. Someone else might like it so why would I get rid of it?

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

Happy Sunday. Just finished the XLBS and I am a bit disappointed. The topic “Kitbashing & Converting – Is It Becoming A Lost Art?” has a lot of potential and I feel it didn’t come through.

Don’t get me wrong I love what @brennon has done to the minis and the amount of work he put in there but I feel there could have been so much more.

I feel kit bashing was a thing 10 – 20 years ago simply because we were not spoiled for choice. You wanted you mini to have a specific weapon? Get the weapon somewhere else and glue it on. Today you search the internet and the chances are high that you find a ready made mini that fits your needs. Especially with 3D printing.

And kit bashing was easier in years past. Example: Orcs from 40k 3rd edition onwards where made from torso, legs, arms and head. And all was interchange- and poseable. No orc needed to look like any other orc! And today most models are “one pose” even when they are not snap fit but modular with keyed pieces. At least it feels this way.

Same for terrain. 20 odd years ago there wasn’t that much pre made terrain that’s why you could go wild with building your own. Today you can choose from resin, plastic and MDF…. and again 3D printing.

So is it becoming a lost art? Yes, kind of. Why? Because we are lazy and take shortcuts whenever we can. Get it on the table and play.

And I don’t know if I feel good or bad about this…

What say you?

[limburger 21668xp 0]

yeah … in the past you had to kitbash, because like you said … there were no alternatives.

Today we don’t have to kitbash, because we got the options to avoid it.
And to be honest … not everyone is in the hobby for the modelling aspect. Some of us just want to play a game.
Preferably straight out of the box.
I suspect that’s why minis with boardgames are so easily funded on crowdfunding platforms.

I do miss not having the options at times, but when I do I also remember why I don’t miss them because I get stuck as I can’t figure out what to build (or which configuration is at least playable).

Ideally I hope there is a balance between both extremes. Games that give you options, but that also provide instructions on how to build a basic squad that works with the game/scenario provided are the best.

I don’t mind monopose figures *if* there’s plenty of variety so my one squad won’t look like a clone army should I decide to add a second squad (or increase the size of the squad itself).

In theory even monopose models can be kitbashed, but the level of skill needed to make that work tends to jump up a few notches which makes it less accessible to beginners.

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

I do miss not having the options at times, but when I do I also remember why I don’t miss them because I get stuck as I can’t figure out what to build (or which configuration is at least playable).

That usually just affects you if you play WYSIWYG. Yes it looks nicer if the heavy gun on the model is the heavy gun from the data sheet but after all it just needs to look different from the others.

I guess we well see more and more versions of 3D models to buy and print (or even adjust when you go into the software for that) and only old farts like me staying on the “If I will build it they will come” path

[crazyredcoatParticipant 13642xp 1]

I think the move towards ‘posed with options’ (which is deff the direction GW is going with the newer releases) has a lot to do with IP protection. You don’t find it much with historicals because…well…you can’t copyright that. But with copyrightable material like, for example, GW, the easier you make it to interchange pieces the more likely you are to find people who will try to take their IP. We can do that back and forth with how good/bad that idea is, but you notice that, again with GW mainly because they are so big, people are trying to limit what 3D printing is ‘allowed’ at official events. In that regard, you don’t really see much rules encouragement in some games for a need to kitbash. I’ll admit, it’s annoying when you have a mini then they release a new one with a new weapon that you thought should have been there the whole time as an option *cough* power sword on an ancient *cough*, but I found a sword hand to kit bash the one I have…just need to paint it now… In that regard, for me I tend to kitbash as a means of saving money these days; I have left over bits, so I’ll use them.

[limburger 21668xp 0]

@sundancer
With the average GW kit you can only ever build 1 heavy weapon dude, because there’s only ever one in a squad. The assembly instructions are also very clear in what type of squad you’re building (follow 1-10 for variant A and 11-20 for variant B).

As such it is next to ‘impossible’ for someone to make something that wouldn’t work with the average GW kit even if it does have ‘options’ (unless you deviate from the instructions and forgot what type of squad you were building … and even then you can’t build two leader characters by accident).

I’ve noticed that the Deadzone starter set would allow me to build several and that may or may not be ‘legal’ depending on how many ‘normal’ troopers you’ve got.

Bolt-Action is a bit of both. You need to decide who is going to be the officer before building the squad, because it is possible to build multiple figures that could count as an officer within a squad. Heavy weapons tend to be limited to whatever is on the sprue, but regular trooper options can vary. Some armies have more squad variants where things that are ‘illegal’ for one are ‘legal’ options for the other, which means you need to know what you want to build before assembly starts.

Less thinking makes it easier for players to create the ‘correct’ squad without having to worry about doing anything ‘wrong’, which can be a good thing for starter sets.

// — edit —

Until @torros mentioned it on discord server I kind of had forgotten about the one game that had peaked my interest recently :
‘Divisions of Steel’
Created by the same author as MeG this could be a nice alternative to both Flames of War & Battlegroup.
It’s digital only at the moment, but the rules and army lists are for sale already

 

[demonsub 12746xp 0]

That’s my pledge done, hounds and handlers painted and Core Space played.

Next I’m going to paint a Scorpion bold thrower for my SPQR Roman force.

 

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

Nice work.

Bolt thrower…. BOLT THROWER!

 

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