Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The bases are 75mm by 50mm, and it looks achievable, but it could be more trouble than it's worth.

I need to find my blue stuff and see if a strip of card for mounting the others is a tenable solution to painting (usually I can grip the base, but for the loose minis that isn't an option).

All looking great, like the Hoplite models.

As to bases etc. to paint the middle row, stick them to a popsickle stick, or ( I have just got) try the painting crocodile clip sticks off wish. Couple quid got me something like 40 of them, and yes they took months to arrive, but the idea is sound, and they work well for small parts/people.

As to the trays, I have been toying with an idea for a while ( here is an example, but they have them in lots of different sizes, and come cheaper than this if you get them from the right place. Just sharing a thought I have been mucking about with for ages. Not sure how much yours are costing so may not be worth messing about.

 Camkierhi wrote:
All looking great, like the Hoplite models.

As to bases etc. to paint the middle row, stick them to a popsickle stick, or ( I have just got) try the painting crocodile clip sticks off wish. Couple quid got me something like 40 of them, and yes they took months to arrive, but the idea is sound, and they work well for small parts/people.

As to the trays, I have been toying with an idea for a while ( here is an example, but they have them in lots of different sizes, and come cheaper than this if you get them from the right place. Just sharing a thought I have been mucking about with for ages. Not sure how much yours are costing so may not be worth messing about.

Crocodile/alligator clips are a great idea. I might have to look for some without the teeth.

The bases cost $0.45, so quite reasonable for what you get. I probably should have gone with 60mm by 80mm, to account for some variance in washer size, but oh well.


Over that few days I have been doing some minor conversion work to mount Aventine Miniatures onto Wargames Factory horses. Mostly they fit, and I just have to sculpt a cloth to ride on and a belly band. I did modify the unit leader to be holding a sword.





My green stuff skills are merely passable, but it should look fine painted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Denizens of a wretched hive of scum and villainy, a notorious bounty hunter crew. Red Ryder, the most famous bounty hunter in the galaxy, has hired a motley crew to assist him on his latest caper.





Most of the figures, save Ryder himself, are Khurusan which I have modified in various ways (save the for the guy in beige/green/purple).

Nothing but a man, but he can never fail! Flash, Dale, Zarkov, Barin, and Aura join the fray:

All looking awesome.

I backed Bad Squiddo's female samurai campaign on kickstarter and picked up a couple pieces. That inspired me to dig out some of my Kensei figures and start painting up a number of figures. This will be one of Otomo's daughters and her retinue. I can either use them as unarmored Bushi or as Koryu.

The old man from scene 24 was mildly converted using some wargames factory parts to be holding a sheathed katana. Still all very work in progress.

Very nice , you know how I love samurai.

I printed out the rules for Kensei, and their models look great, but something always stops me from getting into it . Plus they just did a Kickstarter for a samurai football team that looks amazing.

Yep, very nice. Colorful, bright and quite detailed!

When the plan goes wrong....


This past Friday was our regular gaming night. I volunteered to host and come up with a scenario for Saga involving Normans vs Saxons. This was a four player game, with two Norman players and two Saxon players, all with 4 point warbands. The scenario was set as a continuation of past scenarios, which synced up with actual history (yay!). Last time the Normans had captured the treasure chest and foiled the Saxon plot involving it to hire mercenaries and oppose Norman occupation. Unhappy with the continued "disloyalty", William has ordered the Harrying_of_the_North. The Norman players are one of these warbands sent to burn and destroy (remember pillage then burn) Saxon villages as part of a scorched earth policy. The village is just outside the walls of a fort or burgh, and the Normans have arrived early in the morning to the shock and surprise of the locals. Thus there were a number of civilians out and about, including the wife of the thane and the local bishop. The Norman objective was to kill as many people as they could, loot buildings, and capture the bishop or the lady if they can for ransom. The Saxons were trying to get the populace into the fort and stop the looting. Half the Saxon force started in the fort, and half just outside it, spread out around the village. The Saxons could not close the gates to the fort if a friendly model was within 6" of them, potentially letting the Normans storm the fort. To loot the building the Norman's rolled a D3 (1-2 they looted it that turn, 3-4 looted it on the following turn, 5-6 the turn after that) to see how much effort it took to find the valuables. The bishop and lady were worth 5 points, the peasants worth 1 point, and loot was a random selection (outer buildings were 1-2 points, inner buildings such as the church and tithe barn 4-7). Woods acted as light cover and reduced movement by one level (12" to 6", 6" to 4", 4" to 2") as per the standard Saga movement lengths.

I used a fixed turn sequence (mistake number one), Norman player A went first, then Saxon A, then Saxon B, then Norman B. In retrospect I should have randomized it. It let certain players dominate the tempo vs their respective opponent in a way that wasn't intended (Saxon B could always setup a particular way, being closest to Norman B, he knew what the first moves would be each turn). The second mistake was not giving the Normans a free move to start the game. The positioning was right (either end of the main cross road), but letting the game start as normal gave the Saxons too much of an advantage in maneuvering out of the gate.


The Normans opened up sending their cavalry in advance of their foot troops and missile support. With no Saxon hearthguard on the table, they assumed the fyrd would be easy pickings (I included no hearthguard, as by this point much of the Saxon nobility was dead/wounded, and it worked better with their battleboard to bulk up on Warriors). Overly impetuous, they slammed into the first block of Saxons without setting up for the charge. The first clash was a defeat for the Norman Hearthguard, who tried to regroup but were quickly over-run by the Saxon warriors. Determined to try and slow the Saxons down, Norman warriors charged into the Saxons who were by now prepared for them, and Clash of Shields (which cut the Norman attacks by 6, due to 11 men in the Saxon unit) saw them butchered to a man.


The doughty Saxons were slowly ground down, but more then made up for it by then chopping up a unit of warriors on foot. On the otherside, the Normans couldn't get their crossbows into position, and were again unprepared when combat started. The Saxons had by now come out of the fort, and seeing the first building go up in a blaze (Wace, you idiot, pillage it first then burn it! Oooh, right...) angrily rushed in to defend. The second Norman Hearthguard was more successful in that they survived their combat, but had only one man left who they rode down two peasants deep in the heart of the rapidly forming Saxon lines before also being cut down. Ivo Talifer's twin brother perhaps?


The Norman bow finally broke cover and shot up some Saxons after looting a house, but otherwise were too late to save that flank. In the end, the Saxons rolled up both flanks, even slaughtering the levy. Only the warlords survived to run away and try and grovel before William for another chance. Odds being high he hung them and proceeded to promote new leaders who could get the job done.


So in hindsight, two glaring mistakes on my part setting up the scenario.

1. fixed turn orders - Norman player B got massacred due to Saxon player B knowing who would go first each time. Saxon B could stack his board to really cripple the Norman player with no risk to himself.
2. Not giving the Normans a free move - this meant the Normans lost valuable time and could not advance far enough up the field before the Saxons started grinding them down

Not mistakes, but lessons learned:

1. The Norman players had not used them in a while. As a Norman player you MUST soften up your foe before you charge in or you must have some potent abilities stacked up. Cavalry are not auto win units. The Normans advanced way to far ahead of their foot and missile troops.
2. Bad dice can't save you, particularly if the plan isn't effective. Norman player A split his forces slightly, bogging part of his men down in the woods trying to setup a killing field. Then proceeded to roll very poorly against a unit of warriors who almost single handedly decimated his entire force. They finally died, but not before crushing his hearthguard, Norman B's hearthguard, Norman A's mounted warriors, and Norman A's foot warriors (at one point actually pivoting after smashing one unit to ram home into the next who had setup right behind them). There are epic songs told about their heroism, let me tell you.

I recognize that fort from the first picture

Thanks for sharing the cool battle report with us with the great pictures. It's great seeing your beautiful work out on the table battling.

Some recent items that I finished up:

An office building/apartment building for 15mm. This had a number of first for me, such as a curved wall, and doing something other than painted windows (GCminis show some cool blue film for this but are out of stock, so I found some foil at Michaels to try out). The original plan was to make it section-able, so that you could play inside it. However, that was way to ambitious for this, and I'll try that on something two story and simpler.



I also finished up the samurai pieces. Some good stuff for a koryu (school) or random hire-able folks for other buntais (plus a peasant for scenarios) I need to make some bandits at some point.

The Samurai look ace!

The building seems to have some rough joints, but paint may take care of that, I like the 70s office building future, reminds me the Gil Gerard Buck Rogers with all these concrete buildings masquerading as the 25th century.

The foil worked well for the windows- I don't know what's being reflected in the top rows, but it looks super-cool!

Kid Kyoto: Plus One for the Gil Gerard reference! twikirwikitwiki what's up Buck!

Yes, I learned a few lessons not to repeat in the future on the balcony walls. Namely on card thickness and how to prep the area under them. There is a little disjointed ness in a few spots.

Those Kensei minis look fantastic , I’ve got to visit their range and do some thinking.

Apartment building is great as well.

Battle report seems like much fun was had.

Loving that lot. Nice mix.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the kind words of encouragement.

Today I finally sat down and went to work on some soda cans. I think I may need to add some more panels, but overall she’s mostly done.





Under the ship is a whip 3’x 3’ board to play on. Martian red, in several sections for storage.

That's a cool looking ship. Is it for infinity, or something else?

Creative... perhaps the wors part of it is realization that this stuff could actually fly on soda as a propellant and reaction mass. Reminds me of some ancient Sci-Fi about using beer...

It's meant to be a moderately sized freighter I can use as terrain for 15mm figs. I am not totally decided yet on color scheme.

I'm torn between light brown with orange accents, or going with something resembling a modern transport ship like:



or



or



Then make it weathered/beat up/rusty. Thoughts?

Like the idea of the tan and orange, though have to say like the last ship as well.

I think I will go with the tan/beige and orange accents, and start work on it this week.

I picked up a new 'toy' recently, and have been experimenting with it. I bought an Anycubic Photon 3D printer, which is a small resin printer, to print minis/terrain/misc. I had some initial failures, and I'm learning a few things with it. Namely it will be a good learning curve on how to get minis to stick to the build plate (the printer has a vat of resin, with a clear film bottom. This sits on a LCD screen which flashes uv into the resin which cures the layers. These then have to stick to the build plate which pulls the mini up). I think I've hit on two items that may help yield success, but time will tell given the half dozen or more failed prints I've been through.

My 'first' mini which worked, and where I learned about neededing supports. This is a Mechwarrior Awesome. I didn't know to add supports to the model, and the arms never properly printed (essentially just small puddles of hardened resin at the bottom of the vat). I've replaced them with some parts from a broken wizkids figure I had lying around (I used to customize my Awesome to pack either 2 PPCs, 4 Medium Pulse Lasers or 4 PPCs, so the arms work out fine).



Then some test 15mm/18mm minis. The one on the left I'll have to sculpt a right arm for, which should be easy. K2-SO was originally a much larger model I shrunk way down, and the blue mini is a different batch of resin, of which she is the only model which has printed so far (fingers crossed for today using some things I've learned). Oddly, the arms on the two outside models did not work, even with supports, but K2, with ones I added instead of the automatic ones did.



I've learned there should be a very audible sucking sound when the build plate lifts up, which is it pulling the new layer of resin off the fep film. The other thing was zeroing the build plate with the vat and resin in it, and making it super snug vs using the sheet of paper they recommend. It worked last night, and I have pikachu (for my daughter) curing in the window sill today, and I'm trying it on some Tron lightcycles and a squirtle (for my son).

Cool stuff, I haven’t even thought about these devices, I know some are having great success with them though. Hope it works out for you and we get some cool inspiration from the projects you start.

It is proving a little challenging getting stuff to print correctly. I want to test it out with some terrain here this weekend, but the film on the bottom is not very durable (which the uv shines through to cure the resin). So keeping it ship shape is proving difficult.

I have some small 15mm sci-fi stuff and a japanese castle I want to try. I may have to find a 3D design software or a suitable file, because I think this would be ideal for printing out walls for warmaster. Something about 123-125mm long (to accomodate 3 bases) with a 25mm deep platform (to have it support 3 40x20mm bases.

Oooh. How are you finding managing resin smells and dealing with iso to clean the waste.resin? Very interested In the Photon myself, but don't really have a suitable room for a super stinky and messy chemical process.

Some of the Awesome surfaces look super smooth, but the chest plates look a bit ridged. How are you finding the detail amd surface finishing on it?

Wow! That is very exciting news. Good luck with the prints and getting used to it. I like the look of that mech

 Flinty wrote:
Oooh. How are you finding managing resin smells and dealing with iso to clean the waste.resin? Very interested In the Photon myself, but don't really have a suitable room for a super stinky and messy chemical process.

Some of the Awesome surfaces look super smooth, but the chest plates look a bit ridged. How are you finding the detail amd surface finishing on it?

So, it does smell somewhat. It isn't horrible, but the smelly bits are cleaning the resin off bits and washing. I keep mine in my garage, so it isn't too much of an issue. The garbage does smell, kind of a sweetish smell to it. So if you don't have a closed garbage can it could cause issues.

As to striations, to some degree it depends on the level of layering you set it to. It can go from 0.05 to 0.01. The smaller the longer it takes to print. It is a little messy cleaning stuff up, but not too bad. It has done VERY well with curved surfaces. It does seem to matter how you set things based on the resin. The green did have some minor striations, but nothing too major.

See the following prints with a different resin (the dice are 16cm by 16cm):



I have a print of a small light cycle I plan on using with Galactic Heroes and it is super smooth. The main negative is the supports, which really help models adhere to the platform. They end up requiring that you still have to do a lot of smoothing/trimming like a molded model.

Oh man more 3d stuff, you guys are making it hard not to jump at this.

I've learned a few more things.

1. Sanding your print pad/base with some 150-200 grit sand paper very lightly helps
2. Clean out your resin after every print, successful or not - i.e. run it back through a filter, into the bottle, shake, and repour it out
3. Make sure you have the print pad tightened down far more that you think is necessary (you can see one of the pieces is too warped to use, because the bed was tilting ever so slightly).
4. Supports are a must. This does mean you have to clean the minis much like mold lines, but they fail without it.
5. Going with 4, a good base is key. Supporting just the rifle on the clones doesn't work, their feet don't have enough surface area to hold them to the bed. Adding a lot of supports to build up a solid base meant more cleaning, but enough surface to actually print worth a darn.
6. Have the print bed snugly against the resin tray. Snuggly enough that it won't move without force. Then use that as your zero. Don't use the some resistance with a sheet of paper method.

Any rate, some samples of success using the above:

Clone Troopers at about 30mm scale:



Top to a tower with a radar dish (15mm scale, I have some work to do to print the walls out):


Japanese Castle Keep, first floor (10mm scale):


Japanese Caslte Keep, rock base, warped (10mm scale, you can see the print bed shifted imperceptibly during print, but cause a mashing on one side):


Overall though, very impressive level of detail out of the printer. It does still require cleaning of minis, which is a bummer, but it will be nice to be able to clone certain pieces instead of having to build multiples (such as wall sections), and lets you customize things a little.