DARKSTAR CAMPAIGN UPDATE: DUCHESS ANNABEL’S WAR IS OVER
Starting new 3D Playing Pieces
It’s certainly been a while since this project has been active. A big reason has been the upcoming Boot Camp. However, some people who’ll be at the boot camp have expressed interest in trying this out at the BoW Studios, so I thought now would be the best time to start making up some enhanced 3D playing pieces.
I’ve talked about this before. Right now, with 11 active factions and almost 100 starship classes in fourteen different category types, the total “fleet” of playing pieces is well over 300 ships. Needless to say, I can’t do 300 ships like this, so what I’m starting is to build a smaller fleet of say … 20-30 ships then using some kind of magnetized attachment feature where I can switch out the actual “miniatures” with the base (where the faction, ship class, and ship number are displayed).
After all, there are almost never more than 10-12 ships on the table at once, even in the biggest game.
So here I have two heavy cruiser, four light cruisers, and four destroyers, ranging from just under 2″ to 1.5″ long. Cut from cardboard, balsa dowels, and small jewelry hobby bits. These will be painted later today, then made “magnetized attachable” to a wide array of bases so I can accommodate whatever players may want to try during the upcoming trip to BoW studios.
And if it doesn’t work out at BoW Studios, no worries. This was something I’ve been wanting to get started on for quite some time, and it feels good to take a brief break from the desert.
More to come, hopefully later tonight!
I can’t wait to get my hands on these! So much prettier targets for my fleet to blow up!!!
Now hold on a sec, @gladesrunner – some of these might be YOUR British or PLN / Panasian Union ships. Are you saying you don’t want to use the nice new pieces, but stick with the old and busted ones? 😀
These look fantastic, kudos on the skill and patience to craft these, can’t wait to see them painted!
If I had known there was a chance to play Darkstar at the Bootcamp that might’ve been just the thing to make me grit my teeth and endure a day and a half of historical gaming 🙂
In all seriousness, I hope people get a chance to play and have a great time!
They are done, @davehawes – I’ll be posting them in a few minutes. I HAD to get them done tonight, I’m putting together the shipping box to send over to the studio tonight to ship out tomorrow to ensure it will get there in plenty of time.
Thanks as always for the comments and the support.
And again, if you’re serious about playing Darkstar, totally doable via Skype call / GoToMeeting remote desktop. Just gotta remember I’m five hours behind you. One of these weekends we should set something up. 😀
I am indeed serious, and it would be great to arrange that. If you know any weekends that would be good for you coming up, send me a message. I tend to be up late, so time difference shouldn’t be a problem!
@davehawes – Epic … what kind of factions would you be more interested in?
US, UK, Russia, Japan, Prussia, Panasian Union would be easiest.
But Arab League, New Roman Alliance, Corporate Consortium, Indian Republic are also possible.
I am all about the carriers, which I think means US or UK, so going to say UK.
Great choice @davehawes! Given the massive leading role that the Royal Navy has always played in carrier development (first carrier, first to launch a plane, first to recover a plane, first to come up with the “landing light” system, first to launch a jet from a carrier, first to have metal flight decks …) I made damned sure the Royal Navy of Darkstar would have a big carrier fleet. Three classes have been designed so far. The Osprey class is destroyer-hulled, carries 8 Supermarine “Starfire” fighters and 4 “Nebula Typhoon” bombers and 2 scouts if memory serves. Then there is… Read more »
Probably wise to start small whilst I get my space legs. From that perspective, an Osprey I think might be a good choice. Sounds like it’s small but perfectly formed and potentially very effective in the right mission. I think carriers have a tendency to be symbiotic with their escort. Insofar as, properly managed, a carrier can provide effective support at a far greater range than any ship that aims to do so by firing at the enemy. This can win the day and even effectively aid an escort ship in a pinch, and in those situations where the carrier… Read more »
Somehow I only managed to learn about this project yesterday, and I am absolutely gobsmacked at the level of detail and “realism” going into this. Especially regarding weapons and damage. The ability to model damage, instead of just being an abstract thing, is looking great.
I’m very excited to see how this turns out, and look forward to the day I can buy a copy of the rules.
Awesome, @sigmundr – glad you like the project! 😀 Yeah, there’s a lot in this project thread, including a lot of the tech, background, and “fluff” – and of course plenty of playtesting. I’ve been putting off writing the rules for years now, they keep changing. This summer was a nearly total re-write (game was WAAAAY too cumbersome and detailed, all you see in this thread is the stripped-down version). When the rules become just a little more stable … we’re closing in on it, I promise (down to “corner case” issues like super-upgraded ships, very large ships like battleships,… Read more »
I’ll have to get round to reading rules at some point
Rules are a little bit in the future, but people keep asking about them, so sooner or later I will have to write them down. The issue is determining what will have to be removed to make the game “publishable” in any kind of practical format.
We do have all the charts and turn sequence and starship record sheets – so we can get you easilyhalf way there.
These materials and a let’s play … and we should be set. 😀
@oriskany. May I suggest a method to mass produce? Once you seal the prototype model, you could use either a mold, or in my case I would use blue stuff from green stuff world. This is an extremely quick way to replicate models. To keep costs low, I would use das clay. It’s all very good saying all this, i’ll See what I can do this weekend as an example & show.
Sounds good, @elpotof – so once you make the mold from green stuff / etc, what do you fill it with to actually make the model? is this the Das clay you mention?
@oriskany, Have a look at this, this explains it well:-
http://www.greenstuffworld.com/en/reusable-blue-stuff/8-blue-stuff-mold-8-bars.html
I use Das as it’s cheap, easy to get hold off and dries pretty quick I used it to make square bases for kingdom death tiles, and it worked well.