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 GrimDork wrote:
Oh by all means take your time! I was just curious and I've still got at least a week to figure it out for myself

Hrmm crumpets... Sounds tasty. Prefer coffee in the morning though!

Mid afternoon tea , Hope this helps.

Notifications are going out to Canada too.
10.5 kilos.
What on earth did I order that weighs 10.5 kilos?
Lol

A weighty first poet indeed!

 Alpharius wrote:
A weighty first poet indeed!

He's a poet and he just didn't know it!

@Chriswaller a small dog?

Ahh thanks for that edlowe That gun is *huge*, and the accessory sprue bits look to be waist high then or so. Cool beans


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh man, pun hell for you Alpharius, pun hell indeed.

FYI, connector pieces are kinda sucky, it's easier to glue the stuff together (clipping off the square pegs on the connector sprue and just gluing them straight on).

Corner connectors are a problem and need to be filed down, but not filed down too much or they'll fall out.

The terrain is still awesome, but don't get your hopes up about being about to take this stuff apart and put it back together.

It just plain does not clip together in the same "easy snap" way as the platformer/ hexagon sets (then again I could never take tht stuff apart either). On the plus side the clips are hardly visible and the terrain looks great (its huge!).

Curses! Double posted, doubled post got deleted, deleting the main post and leaving my "oops double post" post =/

Gist of it... I plan to be optimistic till I've got it all in hand and have had a few days to work on it all.

Having said that, I think this will sort out to be something like the various prefab infinity terrain. Several modules (built from tiles and glued together) that you can stack on top of eachother and re-arrange between games, like 1-2-3 story modular buildings and movable ramps etc.

I'm sure my 2x2x2' "doomcube" was always gonna need some gluing to be stable.

Thanks for keeping us updated

 GrimDork wrote:
Avast! Double post! And I didn't even accidentally double click it either =/

Erm... How's the weather then?

lol, rainy as usual!

After a bit more playing around with the connectors il definitely be glueing together my buildings. Its a rather cool assembly teqnique but I wouldn't want to have to rebuild my buildings for each battle. Id just buy more buildings!

heres a quick test paint, just black, grey and white spray using the salt technique. Then a wash, very easy to do, but not sure now if its the way il go.

Oooh thats not bad for the amount of effort you suggest. I know I've looked up the salt technique before but it's been a good long while. You just spray/glue some salt inbetween coats of paint and scrape it away at the right time?

I was gonna go with clean buildings but seeing all of these nice weathered BZ tiles is starting to change my mind.

Grimdork,

just spray black, while its still wet sprinkle on salt, I use our kitchen salt shaker, then spray grey and repeat the salt, followed by white spray. Once dry wash of the salt by running it under a tap. Really quick and eady to be honest. The metals just boltgun plus army painter strong tone wash.

im thinking id like each building a different shade tho to add some depth to the battlefield.

wonder if its worth starting a dz scenery thread somewhere for what people are coming up with?

Yes, yes it is. Surprised there isn't one over at the mantic forums too already.

My thing with the clips, is like SS said, to file them slightly - about three passes with a file on two sides. They should fit snugly and come apart with a good pull, although i'd still press from the other side.

Also, this might be useful - breakdown of the gun emplacement.
http://whiteswolves.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/happiness-is-big-gun.html

The hexagon sets are certainly possible to disassemble and re-use in different configurations, just a bit of a pain, and you do need to take some care while doing it so connectors aren't ruined. If the Mantic sets are no worse, I definitely can live with that. If they are worse, there's no sugar-coating it, that's a disappointment. In that event I'll probably end up gluing some permanent structures together, as Grimdork and SS suggested, and will still get good use out of them. But I'll want to plan things out very carefully in that event before I just plunge in and start building, and some of my more elaborate ideas - like a Space dungeon - may never happen. I'll definitely try filing the connectors first, as being able to reconfigure the set is a big deal to me.

 scarletsquig wrote:

The terrain is still awesome, but don't get your hopes up about being about to take this stuff apart and put it back together.

It just plain does not clip together in the same "easy snap" way as the platformer/ hexagon sets (then again I could never take tht stuff apart either). On the plus side the clips are hardly visible and the terrain looks great (its huge!).

I'm going to have to agree with this myself. I do, however, don't think gluing is strictly needed.

However, the terrain is definitely not 'go to a game 5 minutes early and push a bunch of scenery together' as hoped. I've been putting a building together today and it's probably taken about 4 hours so far, with my fingertips rather raw and 1 broken connector (and 2 others pinged off into the ether.) - I'll get some pics up soon, once I finish it off.

The terrain is most certainly a better alternative to the Cities of Death kits, however I don't think this generation of kits is going to quite change the gaming world as Ronnie has hoped.

Hrmmm. Yeah, even being able to put it together, and take it apart months in the future when you get another "the best idea evar!" would be sufficient to make me happy

^ My experience is pretty much the same, spent about 3 hours so far manged to break one connector and lose one. And I'm usually such a dainty fether.

Trying to find a connector that snaps neatly into both parts of 2 tiles is tricky, not too bad for the straights, but a nightmare for corners.

I've given up on the connectors and have started gluing it together instead. Enjoying it a *lot* more, the fit is so much better rather than having the gaps that the connectors leave, and no rage at things not fiitting or having to file down the fiddly connectors so they'll fit but then accidentally filing too much so they fall out.

You probably could get it all together without gluing but it takes longer to put it together with connectors so the advice I'd have to give anyone that intends on gluing it is simply "cut off the square pegs when you're clipping the connectors off the sprue and glue it right from the start, don't even go there with the connectors unless its the flat ones".

Hrmm interesting. This is going to lead me to a long course of deliberation and "figuring" as I determine the best size to set for my modular pieces... Hrmmm.

I've got to be honest - I was going to glue this stuff together anyway...

Heres the bigger landing pad as promised.

So for ive lost or broke a few connectors, I really think il need more sprues of them.

I dont think you'd want to go much bigger than this for a landing pad, this one takes up a quater of the dz board. Id definitely go higher tho at least five levels.

That... Is pretty awesome

So... Has anyone done the math to see if the landing pad and defense line can serve proper as not-aegis defense lines and not- skyshield landing pads for 40k? Not that I still plan to play that game... but curiosity y'know.

The only genuine disappointment in the kits I'm finding is the landing pad sprues. Part of the reason it was taking me so long was that I was trying pretty funky stuff with them (well, funky in my mind) and there just wasn't the right pieces to do what I was wanting to do with them.

For example, I was originally trying to make something that was a bit like this:

| | \_/

With a walkway around the outside (I was calling it a docking bay, actually). However, there were no real triangle bits to make me do that and the angled surface connectors don't seem to be at an angle I'd hope.

 Alpharius wrote:
I've got to be honest - I was going to glue this stuff together anyway...

Same here! My limited hobby time means this goes together once and once only

Yeah, I'm in the boat of figuring out what I wanted and gluing it together. I might not glue levels togeth and just clamp them on but the majority of stuff is getting glued. $25-$50 to just build a new building instead of the frustration of taking one apart and reassembling it just seems better to me. Plus I don't wanna mess up my paint jobs when I start them.

Loving the pics you guys are putting up of the scenery, tiding me over till mine turns up.

Can see me going in big on the second survey......

 Compel wrote:
The only genuine disappointment in the kits I'm finding is the landing pad sprues. Part of the reason it was taking me so long was that I was trying pretty funky stuff with them (well, funky in my mind) and there just wasn't the right pieces to do what I was wanting to do with them.

For example, I was originally trying to make something that was a bit like this:

| | \_/

With a walkway around the outside (I was calling it a docking bay, actually). However, there were no real triangle bits to make me do that and the angled surface connectors don't seem to be at an angle I'd hope.

mmm give me a few minutes, I think I know what you mean

Just got my shipment notification, 18 lbs. MY GOD

Comple did you want this kind of shape? Or vertical?

I wanted something FAR more insane than that, sadly.

But first... Here is my completed first terrain piece! First off, it is surprisingly sturdy. - I did manage to carry it across my flat quite happily without any pieces falling off!

Ladies and Gentlemen... I give you... Fortress Compellicus!










However, as I was saying, the original thing I was trying was for it to be more of a docking bay. (Roughly Inspired by Docking bay 94 in Star Wars). So it was more going to be a hexagon-ish shape as opposed to squared with walkways going all the way around the outside with a less fortified front section and a control tower at the back. But instead I've now got a fort. At least forts are cool.

Dammit. Every time I see a photo of some awesome new structure posted up I go refresh the UPS tracking page, dunno what I'm expecting to happen on a Sunday!

Nice work Compel, I keep taking mine apart and starting again! Ispose il have to settle on a design eventually.