[unofficial weekender] community shattered!

[sundancer 42933xp 1]

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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…

https://www.beastsofwar.com/forums/topic/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:

• Should we care about games any more? It feels like it mostly just “push it out the door, someone will buy it”

And now back to the show.

[blinky465 17028xp 2]

Ok, so I didn’t quite get my football miniatures based – but I got most of the painting done, and it really shouldn’t take too long to glue some static grass to a few bases, sometime over the weekend should it?

I kind of got distracted. Because this little beauty turned up on my doorstep at about 10am this morning:

I couldn’t quite justify getting a new printer to myself (ok, to my wife – I would have accepted any old rubbish excuse to get a new one!). I love my AnyCubic Photo (original) resin printer. It’s a superb machine and I can’t fault the stuff it produces. But I always fancied trying out a mono-screen, just because I kept seeing how much more crisp the detail is (especially from a 4K mono screen, compared to a similar sized 2K colour LCD).

Trouble is, I’ve had my Photon for about three years and I’m still on my first screen (I’m super-particular about cleaning my files before printing, don’t trust other people’s crappy supported files, and always remove every trace of an island before putting the usb stick anywhere near the printer). But because, when I first got the printer, I heard horror stories of people trashing their screens within days of getting them, or screens burning out after a few hours of continuous use, I bought a couple of spare screens.

Even if my screen failed today, at the rate I use it, I’ll probably be good for another six years or so!
I was never going to get my mono 4K LCD at this rate.

So when my son-in-law said he fancied getting into resin printing, but couldn’t afford all the gear to get started, I thought…. hello, here’s an excuse to upgrade my own set-up, and pass on a known, working, well-looked-after printer, knowing I could help him out if he had any printing issues (he lives in Sicily so it’d be long-range remote support only).

So I finally got my mono screen printer.
And it arrived this morning.
So I go no painting and no basing done.
(but I did get the bed levelled, learned how to use an entirely different suite of software for island removal, and set my first prints going on it, before coming on here to tell you all about it, before turning in for bed!)

 

With all that said, did somebody ask a question…..?
Should we care about games any more? It feels like it mostly just “push it out the door, someone will buy it”

Yes. We really should care about games. Not so much the latest Kickstarter. The whole ooooh-look-new-and-shiny side of the hobby lost its appeal a long time ago for me (except if it’s .stl files or new printing machines of course!). I think it’s partly why I don’t really bother much with the actual Weekender show any more – I can surf the internet as well as the next guy; I don’t need to watch a bunch of guys talking about the latest tabletop “vapourware” that hasn’t even come out yet.

I was really excited about @warzan ‘s card-based gaming system a few weeks back.
And, after initial concerns, really got onboard with his whole AI art thing. I’d love to see these games come to fruition. New games, new rulesets, new gaming groups where people can get together and play – yes, we should care about this.

But the latest pretty boxed set that’s looking for a $250 pledge for something that may or may not appear some time in Q2 of 2024? Nah. Absolutely no interest whatsover!

[blinky465 17028xp 1]

Almost forget – a pledge.
Of course, it’s to get my eight human footballers based and ready for some Blood Bowl Sevens.

And to get a successful print off my new mono resin printer (it’s currently underway but still about three hours away from know if the first print has worked or not!)

Here’s your music. I’m learning some new tunes for next weeks’ Blues Jam in Worthing. I only just found this song, but it’s absolutely stunning. Never mind your 80s heavy metal @warzan – when that invite finally comes, I’m bringing my guitar over to Norn Iron and we’re going to be jamming some blues!

[blinky465 17028xp 2]

Woop! First print on my new AnyCubic Photon Mono 4K was a roaring success (I didn’t fill the print plate as much as I usually do, just to see that it was printing ok, before I tried pushing it too hard).

I reckon I might just keep this printer.
And let my other one go – one in, one out.
Now, if only I could apply that to my unpainted miniatures….

 

[sundancer 42933xp 2]

That’s a wall of text for a Saturday morning to read but interesting pattern of thought. And I really am with you on most of it. (And I’m just not saying “all” because my brain is a bit foggy today so I might have missed something I’m not agreeing on so just to be safe “most of it”)

Pledge: I am going to write a longer piece on my thoughts on Star Wars: Shatterpoint and not just my usual “I don’t like it go away” approach. But this will take time and I hope I can make it work today.

So the answer to my own question is: yes but not for the product that is being pushed out the door but for games in general. This too will be part of my longer write up.

Music in honor of a recently passed Icon:

 

[demonsub 12746xp 0]

Playing with new toys can be a bit of a time sink in a good way, the hours just fly by. Hope to see some nice minis coming out of it @binky465

 

My pledge is to play more of Zelda Breath of the Wild. Oops, that a video game, and not hobby related. (I’m actually replaying it after my last time about 4 years ago, so it’s high time I played it again).

My actual pledge is to finish painting my Mantic torture chamber and not be too distracted by video games. Also I’m off work next week and plan to play a bit of Five Leagues From The Borderlands. I rolled up a monster lair and I’ve got an ogre to hunt.

 

Should we care about games any more? It feels like it mostly just “push it out the door, someone will buy it”

 

Yes, we should care, very much so. There are so many games coming out all of the time now that we are free to pick and choose the ones that appeal to us. It sometimes seems that some companies just “phone it in” with there newest games but there are plenty of lower key games designers out there creating games for the love of it.

 

 

Wait, where are the other questions? What have you done? You’ve hidden them, haven’t you.

 

[sundancer 42933xp 4]

So I already fulfilled my pledge and did a long write up over on my blog. Since that is all German I used dark internet magic to translate. Here is why I have a bad feeling about Shatterpoint:

Why do I have a bad feeling about this now? Well, that’s partly due to the past few months, when AMG took over the Star Wars games Aramada, X-Wing and Legion from Fantasy Flight Games (FFG). At that time, AMG only had one game in its programme: Marvel: Crisis Protocol. When a company suddenly has to do the support, marketing and development for not just one but 4 games, you can imagine that it would grate a bit. And it did. Very much so. Armada has been “paused” and nothing is being developed for it for now, X-Wing got a V2.5 update and a few new units but most extremely I personally feel a “slump” of new stuff with Legion.

And it’s not just that less is coming. The new stuff that has been released so far has had problems across the board. Gar Saxon was missing a card, the studio models that were painted for the Swoop bikes and stuck as a photo on the retail box are on the wrong base and the new Battleforce boxes (judging by the ranting on the internet) also have various quality control problems.

And Shatterpoint already has problems too. The original video description at the announcement video [2] even said “It’s about Marvel: Crisis Protocol”. If I were a grumpy old man, I’d say: you can see how much attention to detail went into that. Or maybe not. Also, if you look closely at the trailer [3], you’ll see that a lot of lightsabers are crooked. You don’t see that from every camera angle, but often enough. And if that already appears in the promo shots, then I’m a bit pessimistic about the production quality.

On top of that, AMG often takes a long time to get sold-out games back on the shelves, and now they’re adding a 5th game? So unless AMG have just increased their team, they have even less time per head per system.

Then there’s the effect a game like this in the Star Wars universe will have on Legion: Players will leave. Either because they’d much rather play something like M:CP or Shatterpoint anyway, or because they just “go with the herd” and always have the new hot shit. You could now say “many will buy both systems” and that might be the case if the whole world wasn’t struggling with the rising cost of living right now. Hobby budget is finite. Just like leisure time.

But that doesn’t bode well for me now: AMG is *now* looking for playtesters. But obviously it has already been produced (at least the minis). Now testing rules for a game that is supposed to come out in June? (Yes, everything says “summer 2023” but the press release actually says “June 2023” [4]) Just calculate backwards. 06/23 delivery, 03/23 everything packed in the container, 01/23 everything released for production. So even in the best case scenario, AMG still has 2 months to make corrections if the testers notice something crucial.

My concern is simply that AMG will now keep Legion, Armada and X-Wing “on the drip” and drop them if Shatterpoint is a success. Young Mr D from DICED actually summed it up very nicely in his video [5]. I don’t have much to add, except: I have a bad feeling about this.

Sources:

[1] https://www.asmodee.de/news/star-wars-shatterpoint-angekuendigt
[2] https://youtu.be/RGD_SWtjftk
[3] https://youtu.be/PbPkC9-8HxI
[4] https://www.atomicmassgames.com/s/ShatterpointPressRelease_Final.pdf
[5] https://youtu.be/w8F9NL4JXm0

No @demonsub  no hidden questions … not this week.

[panzerkaput 33942xp 0]

I have the feeling that Legion is going the way of the Dodo now that Shatterpoint is coming, why do and support 2 SW mini games instead one that they have developed themselves. With all the stock issues for legion it has never got the taction it should of had, and never got the player bases and I am seriously thinking of getting rid of my collection as no way played it.

Thanks there AMG

 

[fourtytwoParticipant 12847xp 1]

There’s always a lot of gloom and doom in our hobby community, and fear, a lot of fear. Why? Because of lack of information.

When the problem is that players will leave Legion for the new shit, than that’s a problem inherent in our community and we have no one else to blame than our community.

I’ll abstain from a pre-emptive gloom and doom-posting until I see what will really happen. Star Wars Legion is now 5 years old – its only natural that the number of releases per year drops. Also, there was a crisis, remember? And: New stuff for Legion is in the works. To me, it appears that Legion will still be supported and developed, it’s just that AMG had or still has too much on their plate and needs to get a grip on both their communication (still) and their quality control.

 

 

[danlee 22437xp 1]

This weeks pledge remains to keep working on my final bingo box. Progress this past week has been slow but steady. I’m deliberately taking my time so I don’t burn out on it.

 

Should we care about games any more? It feels like it mostly just “push it out the door, someone will buy it” – We should care about everything that adopts this attitude. There’s nothing worse that stuff that’s just churned out to take your money, whether its sloppy TV shows, poorly written books, or anything else. I tend not to dive into games that much these days. I’m mainly just a model painter and with buying a model its very much an up-front, what-you-see-is-what-you-get transaction.

[ced1106Participant 6224xp 1]

> Why do I have a bad feeling about this now? Well, that’s partly due to the past few months, when AMG took over the Star Wars games Aramada, X-Wing and Legion from Fantasy Flight Games (FFG). At that time, AMG only had one game in its programme: Marvel: Crisis Protocol. When a company suddenly has to do the support, marketing and development for not just one but 4 games, you can imagine that it would grate a bit. And it did. Very much so. Armada has been “paused” and nothing is being developed for it for now, X-Wing got a V2.5 update and a few new units but most extremely I personally feel a “slump” of new stuff with Legion.

Spot on! FFG/AMG/Whoever has been doing this for *years* starting with Battlelore. You can’t have multiple “lifestyle games” when your market can’t support it. I don’t think it would be too hard to find out how many “Living Card Games” and other lifestyle games FFG has allowed to die: Keyforge, Android, Legend of the Five Rings, Cthulhu, Star Wars Destiny, etc.. RuneWars miniatures was the FFG poster child, being DOA. WotC’s D&D Onslaught (?) prepainted miniatures game was announced, but haven’t heard of it since. And, besides dropping a product line that customers have spent *hundreds* of dollars on, you’re destroying what community for the game (if it’s one where each player brings their own units) that has to be rebuilt, by both the consumer and the company. If you want to throw plates of spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks, someone else can eat it.

Thankfully, I’m only a casual fan of Star Wars and other IP franchises, and not particularly married to any “lifestyle” games. Painting isn’t exactly a cheap hobby, but, at least for generic fantasy, no company controls what game content you can play, or what miniatures you can play with.

[sundancer 42933xp 0]

it’s just that AMG had or still has too much on their plate and needs to get a grip on both their communication (still) and their quality control.

And that’s why I personally think they should not be filling their plate even more with another game. 40th anniversary of RotJ is around the corner, they hyped ewoks as a release for SW:L but we haven’t seen anything substantial. It’s this “pre order now/fomo” fuckery all over again. @fourtytwo

They could as well have kept shatterpoint as a secret until its release day and surprise everybody with “here is even more Star Wars!” right at the 40th.

I’m mainly just a model painter and with buying a model its very much an up-front, what-you-see-is-what-you-get transaction.

And with that I think you are best of currently. @danlee

why do and support 2 SW mini games

3 my dear @panzerkaput Legion, X-Wing and Armada. Guess only time will tell what happens next.

[sundancer 42933xp 0]

at least for generic fantasy, no company controls what game content you can play, or what miniatures you can play with.

Correct and thank you @ced1106 for making me feel better about my pledge on the Dunkeldorf  Kickstarter XD

[demonsub 12746xp 3]

My pledge is complete, a torture chamber terrain crate from Mantic Games. I couldn’t resist getting a couple of classic miniatures out for these photos.
I used a less harsh for of “slap chop” for the wood (grey primer instead of black) and it works pretty well thanks to the texture.

Also coming back to this thread I noticed that I haven’t been getting emails of new posts, despite the little box being ticked. Another “little” bug with this site, sigh.

[sundancer 42933xp 2]

Very nice looking set of terrain there 🙂

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