GrimDork wrote:
I dunno about you guys, but I think one of the most exciting things about this project for me is getting to crack open the box and start playing with everything. I mean, sure, we have to pop all of the bits out of the sheets. Maybe we even have to ply a brand-new-sharp hobby knife in a few areas, and maybe we'll want to get some markers to blend the white edges away. But still, there won't be any endless sprue clipping or slicing with a hobby knife, no prepping priming or painting. Looking forward to just diving in without all of the extra up front work.

 GrimDork wrote:
Aww no DZ terrain love? Its the very first thing I tore into after I verified I had the right number of baggies of models Granted the second baggy of models I opened had a broken plague dog foot, that was easily sorted with a bit of glue. The terrain is lovely, but if you want to assemble it in a robust manner with the clips... you will need more. Like... double the amount you received. At another poster's suggestion I've been delving into using clips only where absolutely necessary and using hot glue on my "permanent" structures or modules. It seems to work pretty well.

My only concern is that the bunker walls I ordered may clash with my fortifications sprues in terms of aesthetic. I guess the DZ stuff is habtainers and the bunker walls are on-site constructions...

Can't wait for mantic to get my my missing accessory sprues... going to have a veritable mountain of boxes, canisters, and barrels with which to fill up a large indoor warehouse

 Yonan wrote:
Get enough and play 40k >:-) Some of us *may* have gotten enough ; p Wouldn't really require any rules mods I would think. You'd probably want to limit it to 1K or less games and you'd be unlikely to want to take any armour, unless you made a mission where you were attacking an armour depot and the tanks were able to defend inside said depot, but unable to leave the hangar they're in.

 RiTides wrote:

 Yonan wrote:
Get enough and play 40k >:-) Some of us *may* have gotten enough ; p Wouldn't really require any rules mods I would think. You'd probably want to limit it to 1K or less games and you'd be unlikely to want to take any armour, unless you made a mission where you were attacking an armour depot and the tanks were able to defend inside said depot, but unable to leave the hangar they're in.

I only got a Hulk, but I'm hoping to use the walls without the floor tiles as terrain on a spaceship looking board (the Games & Gears anime wars board).

I know the walls hook into the floor, but I'm an engineer, hopefully I can figure something out

Failing that I'll just have really cool Hulk to play something like, er, Space Hulk with at some point

Project Update #50: Samples arrive … Our full technical report to you )
Posted by Battle Systems Ltd ♥ Like

Well well, what have we got here… After much waiting while our manufacturers painfully create every tool we have finally received the first half of the samples and they are fully cut and printed as would be the final product )

Below are our first impressions and review. Quite technical in parts, but essential for every backer ;o)

Arrival

Yesterday we received the first half of the samples. These are not the white copies but the fully printed and cut articles. We unpacked them with the mind set of your good selves and the anticipation of receiving your goodies. I was a little anxious as to the final print surface as we had asked for a more Matte finish to remove a little of the gloss. Also to see the cut of the tools.



We could not wait and unpacked the sheets at the storage facility, helpful staff member Anil is our beautiful assistant manager

Print finish

Well I can say that the finish is very good and the sheets look stunning. If you were happy with the print quality of the ones we made (the ones you have seen on the KS, at shows and in all the videos) then I can confirm that not only are they up to the same standard, but better, more detailed and generally better quality. Also unlike the prototypes that we made, these are protected a little. When we took our prototype to shows we did get the odd rain drop land on it while carrying it from the car to the show hall and the ink just ran. These (while not water proof, they are just card) will not suffer from this as you can just wipe them clean.



Empty sprue after we popped out the parts from the Room Items sheet



All the parts assembled. (plus the Battle table from another sheet as we got excited about that one ) Spot the alternate designs that we agreed to put on the V-Consoles while the KS was running when we got enough backersAll the parts assembled. (plus the Battle table from another sheet as we got excited about that one ) Spot the alternate designs that we agreed to put on the V-Consoles while the KS was running when we got enough backers



The right Wall is our prototype which looks great, but is grainy compared to the finished article )

Penning

The above assembled parts have not been penned and as you can see the finish is great. On the prototype (as seen on the KS) we penned the edges of all the walls and any of the grey parts so that there were no white edges showing (the card we used for the prototype was white). Here the card is already grey (which we knew it would be) and it's perfect as the edge colour. That just saved everyone who was planning on penning the edge of their set some time.

Labels and card

The sheets are named and numbered to help us pack these in the right quantities and also to help you identify which bits go together. The sheet card is of a good density and each sheet is heavier than the card we use in the prototypes by about 30%.



A fresh un-punched sheet- just before I push out all the juicy bits )

Tool cuts

We mentioned in an earlier update that we would have the tools 'Nicked' to keep all the pieces in place on the sheet while in transit and also to help the manufacturing process while being packed in the factory. These have the Nicks in place and they do their job very well. All the samples we got (half of the tools so far) stayed in place well with no separation in transit. Ours were only wrapped in bubble and put in a courier box too. Yours will be in it's own box made to fit your set )

Like when you cut your plastic miniatures off their sprues or when you pop out your miniatures from the blister packs there is a little bit of adjustment to be made on some slots. Instead of using a scalpel to remove and clean flash or mould lines from your miniatures, here you would use a scalpel to remove a tag on a slot where the tool-blade makes its final pass.

So that the parts are perfectly cut with no join lines, we have the blades of the cutting tool terminate in the slot (the slots are where you would put the plastic connector clips or where the room items slot together) this gives you the most accurate cuts on the edges of the pieces, so no wonky walls and corners are right angles. It's all very technical, but does mean our manufacturer can use shortened blade lengths and so have more accuracy and strength in each tool.

Every part popped off the sheets perfectly with no hassle whatsoever, just use a hobby knife to cut any tabs off in some of the slots and you are ready to assemble. It was strange as it was just like separating minis from their sprues… something we have not done for some time now that we are in the trade, ironic really, … we are definitely going to have a nice game of something once we have delivered your goodies…. what shall it be, DeadZone maybe? )




Sheet alignment

As with any printed product that is two sided things need to be lined up. There is a 3mm tolerance on this which is why you always have a bleed (extra image around the edge of every part that needs to be cut) this means that if the blade is off by 1mm there will be no white lines or jarring image issues. We have designed our sheets with this in mind and the samples are great. Occasionally you can see where the cut is slightly off (this is normal and within tolerance) but the bleed lines work perfectly so when popped off the sheet the offset disappears and the illusion is kept. In fact the samples we have received are much better than the prototypes you have seen on the KS video and photos. We made these ourselves by sticking an image to card, then cutting this out, then cutting the image for the other side and placing them on the other side… by hand, we have some wonky ones in the videos I can tell you, but it really does not matter or notice when assembled. In short the alignment is better than our prototype and we are pleased.

Conclusion

Overall we are very happy indeed with these first samples as they really do look great (which is the most important part) and we will be testing them extensively over the next few days. Despite this we are perfectionists… so we are writing a full report to our manufactures of improvements we would like to make…. can they get those slots more accurate, can the sheets line up even better, can the parts magically fly out the box and assemble themselves with a chocolate on a pillow to finish?… shoot for the stars and get the clouds thrown in we have said before and are still saying. The rest of the samples are being packed up and sent today by our manufacturers and so we should get these sometime next week.

We are still expecting to receive the delivery in May. Our target date was always the 5th May and then packing and sending out to everyone throughout May. Now this is still possible, but we could receive the delivery around May 10th- 15th, which means most of you will get your goods around May end, but will keep you posted as always.



Just started by slotting stuff together and bunging it on the table

We (you guys and us) are tooling something that has never been achieved before to this complexity and so far we are winning, thank you all.

Colin & Wayne

 Yonan wrote:
- 30% denser cardboard
- better finish on the surface so water damage much less likely
- higher quality images
- card coloured grey already so less need to pen in the sides to match the surfaces
- "miscuts" won't be problematic as the textures overlap the cut by 3mm so even if it's 1mm out, it'll still be (basically) fine.

iirc

 GrimDork wrote:
Video looks good. Looks like this stuff won't be quite the amazing open the box and zomg there's terrain in it I had in the back of my mind, but it'll be closer than anything else. It'll be like popping models off of a sprue and dry fitting them for poses but then being done. So yeah still super excited, and this is potentially coming mid-late next month?

WE GET OUR LOVELY TERRAIN IN A MONTH AND CHANGE!? I swear it feels like I've ordered normal stuff not from a kickstart that's taken this long, really impressed with the speed of this.

@Yonan I was in TLDR camp, it's better material now? Sick. I also like that they get their storage from Staples, means I should be able to copy cat them!

 DaveC wrote:
@Grimdork you probably could make a good looking set up for Dreadball around the edge of the pitch but as it's just decorative with no game purpose I don't see the point but it would look cool.

 -iPaint- wrote:
If they do a modern day terrain KS at any point in the future (think office buildings, houses, gas stations, strip malls, street lights, etc), I will be all over it like stink on manure. The production quality and layout on each sheet looks like they really know their product, and I'm looking forward to their future ranges.

~iPaint