Thursday, February 24, 2011

Update on hte Laffly S-20

As I posted  2 weeks ago, I got my laffly truck wheels rapid-prototyped(additive manufacturing). I finally got around to putting the main wheels on the truck


Truck with main wheels, next to Bolt Action
Early war German

The truck is really starting to take shape.  After the success of the wheels(I was really quite impressed with the detail & smooth surface) , I decided I would try rapid-prototyping the entire engine section. this section has nearly all of the fine detail on it, and is really the part I was worrying about building.  I'm a lot more exact and faster with Computer models then I am at actually scratch building, especially at particularly fine detail.  the engine section took me about 2.5-3 hours total time to do.  I'm not entirely sure if i could have actually have acheived it by entirely by hand, and certainly no to this level.
rendering of the front grill and engine block.



I'm currently using Shapeways to prototype.  I use the White Detail material(a photopolymer) and the detail is pretty good. Also,  unlike their more common(and cheaper) materials  they use, the white detail material gives a nice smooth surface.

Shapeways.com is not the best rapid prototyping business by far(in terms of detail produced), but you can't beat their prices. this engine block will cost me $7.40(USD or CDN, since they are effectively at par now)including shipping.. It helps that I hollowed out the engine compartment leaving ip open from the back(which you cannot see).  If I could could afford to get them done better, I would, but this method (so far) has been surprising good. Also, if it doesn't work out for some reason, I'm only out $7.40, instead of $15-30+shipping  i would be from most other rapid prototyping vendors.

now the one catch with Shapeways.com is that the minimum order is $25. this isn't a huge deal for me though, since i have 20+ star ships of my own design that I can order to fill in the difference. and i have already ordered some of those ships, so i know they will turn out.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

More uniforms of the Electorate of Lustigzollern - Großgesaß

The other day I stumbled upon the Not By Appointment SYW uniforms blog .  This site has a pretty solid selection of  uniforms for the mid 18th century.  I decided to re-do all my uniforms using David's wonderful templates.

Kurfurst Regiment
Kurprinz Regiment
LustigZollern Pandur Regiment



Osterhaagen Dragoons
Osterhaagen Dragoon Horse Grenadier
Artillery Büchsenmeister

















Metzger Kuirassier
 
























 I also re-touched the Kurfurst regiment's flag. I decided it was a little too purple. this brings it more in line with the facing colour of the actual regimental facings.
Old Kurfurst Regimentsfahne

New Kurfurst Regimentsfahne

I ordered the first regiment of infantry( 48 Fusiliers, 8 grenadiers, 2 3Ib cannons, 8 command), as well as the first squadron of the Metzger Kuirassier  from Crusader USA.   I also ordered the last 8  Turkish janissaries and the Regimental Kazan, another 10 sipahis, 24 Tufekcis skirmishers, and a Turkish cannon & team  from TAG to mostly complete my Renaissance Turks/ImagiNation Asarya army. that should keep me busy for a while.  I'll have to wait a bit to buy the artillery train for both nations' Gun teams. if anyone knows a company that produces Turkish limbers, let me know.

Incidentally, if anyone knows were to find information on the colors of the Tufekcis uniforms, please feel free to share.  I have been as of yet unsuccessful in finding pictures of them.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Rapid Prototyping goodies.

I've been working with 3D modeling programs for 7 or 8 years now. I started when my gaming group decided to publish the Space combat game  A Sky Full of Ships. I did the cover and some CG art inside. Ialso 3D rendered the ship counters in hte back of the book.  While these were not fantastic models, they were pretty good for what we had access to, and I had only been using the program for a month before creating them.

I worked a lot over the intervention years on my own background with my Best Friend, Mike Hoyt(son of Dave Hoyt). I created CG models for my 2 main races, and I started working on Mike's Terran fleet as well.  I always wanted to have models of my ships, but Rapid prototyping was in it';s infancy and was way to expensive. I also did not have the necessary skills to do them justice.

We lost interest in it for a few years, then this company, Shapeways started popping up on forums i frequented.   they are a sort of "print on Demand" for  3D modelers. ist started gatehring quite a following. Str Rangers Starship combat forum now has a " Print on Demand" forum in their miniatures section.

At Christmas, when i was building  The Laffly S20 French truck, I figured i wanted to sculpt the tires in Light wave 3D.  So i pulled out the software and reinstalled it.  I also went looking for a plug-in to export the file in the appropriate format(in this case, .stl)  I found it and it worked.   So i started modifying my existing starship models i had to be printed.  i finally ordered some stuff a few weeks ago, na it arrived today.

THe company only ships UPS, and is located in Europe.  that usually means you get outrageous UPS brokerage and COD fees at teh door. this time, on an order of $32.37 CDN(shipping included), the UPS COD charge was only $3.99. that's surprising to me, i usually expect 20-35% of the value.


Anyways, i got 2 Londarian Heavy Cruisers, 1 Falchion Strike Carrier, and the 20 wheels(of 2 types) for my Laffly truck. I grabbed the ships in the " White, Strong, Flexible" material and the truck wheels in the "white detail" material.  the "white, strong, flexible" material has a bit of a gritty texture to the surface, and you can see feint lines where the layers were cured.  the white detail on the other hand has a nice smooth surface and very crisp detail!  the pictures don't do the wheels justice.

So, now i can continue on my Laffly truck!

AAR: first Imagination Game

Last Sunday, Dave Hoyt & I decided to play the first game of Sharp Practice with our Imagination project. so it was to be that the armies of Asarya and Gourmandie would come to blows.

Both armies are starting at poor quality. we will be tracking our armied using Dave's modified campaign system seen HERE .   Because our troopers are starting at poor quality, even a devastating loss is not that bad.  our troops cannot become worse then         poor!

We set up the our armies in secret( some lookers-on held a terrain board down the middle of the table)  and then we began.
Initial setup & playing board

Asarya Commander Zafer Yilmaz

Gourmandie Commander Phillipe Grand-Nez, Comte de Roquefort

the 1st turn saw movement forward to get into musket range.not much happened. the 1er Escadron, Grenadiers à Cheval Boursin surged forward, and my Sipahis attempted to a flanking maneuver on the opposite flank.  

the 2nd turn was a bit more eventful.  my new red-feathered formation of Janissaries opened fire on the  Grenadiers à Cheval, inflicting 3 casualties! luckily the  Chef d'Escadron Langeron was not attached.  the Grenadiers à Cheval  surged forward again in an attempt to get into the cover of the town on my right flank, falling just short. on hte other flank my Sipahi jumped a low hedge and decided to take a nap in the yard. the next time their card came up was 5 turns later!)  the infantry in the center traded fire with little effect.
 
In the 3rd turn, the Grenadiers à Cheval attempted to get into the town, but were foiled when some gold coins were flung into the road(loot! card).  They quickly lept from their horses to scramble after the coins, and failed to move. As they remounted and ordered themselves, the Janissaries loosed another volley, killing a further 2 cavalrymen.  on hte opposit flank, the Gourmandie formation commander saw the sipahis jump a hedge down hte road and detached a  1/3 of his men to cover the flank.  the rest of the raged on, with both sides accumulating a few shock.  

 turn 4  began with the  Gourmandie cavalry making  it to the village. the red-feathered Janissaries broke formation.   Hazbija Backo Took half of the men and entered the village for safety from cavalry and a  for a better firing position. Asil Serhat took the other half and advanced alongside the village toward the road. on hte far side of the table the sipahis lounge in the mid-day sun amidst the ineffectual fire being rained down upon them by the detached Gourmandie flank guards.in 4 turns of fire, only 2 sipahis were felled.

Turn 5 the blue-feathered Janissary formation finally caught a break.  they fired a Crushing Volley  at the smaller formation of Gourmandie infantry, causing 8 shock! one of the red feathered janissary groups also fired, causing 2 kills on the same Gourmandie formation.

through turn 6 and 7  there was mostly just an exchange of fire between the blue-feathered janissaries and Groumandie infantry.  by the end of turn 7, the Red Feathered janissaries has re-postioned to launch another attack from the town.  ove the next 2 turns tehy would cause another 4 casualties and numourous shock the the smaller Gourmandie formation, and force it to retire. 


On the 8th turn, the sipahi finally awoke from their nap and charged the flank guard, routing them.    At the same time, the Blue feathered janissaries  Fired a volley and charged the only Goumandie formation still holding it's ground.  the volley caused  2 casualties  but the charge fell short. on the next turn, the sipahis  charged into the flank of the Gourmandi formation, and defeated them.   after that,  the army of gourmandie retired from the field.
Sipahi roused from their midday nap 

The Army of Asarya won the day.   The accurate fire of the red-feathered  Janissaries made them the deadliest  formation on the table.   with the win, they get 2 points to use for unit advances.  I'm considering giving the red-feathers a +1 on the dice to musketry, and make then the true sharp-shooters of the army of Asarya.
 The Newest addition to my turks, the "red-feathers"

 Dave has finished some grenadiers and a cannon this week, and he has more cavalry awaiting paint in the background. he also is ordering figures for his second nation.  it Looks like I need to catch up!  I'm probably going to order the remaining Janissaries and Tufekci skirmishers from TAG this week, as well as a Turkish cannon and crew. Depending on how things go  in the next 2 weeks, I may also order the first figures for the  Zuztigzollern-Großgesaßische Armee

Friday, February 4, 2011

Enter the Spahis!

 Joining the Janissaries that i painted earlier in the week,  these are the first cavalry to be finished since i decided to rebase to the pill hsaped base.  I definitely prefer them to the 40mm bases i  had originally planned on using. these guys will eventually be joined by a mostly lance-armed Sipahi unit.

These guys are lead by Devrim Uzanlar. he is athletic and an  accomplished rider who is universally loved by his troops(so says the Character generation in Sharp Practice). 

I have 2 more groups of 8  Janissaries to paint, and 2 more Sipahis with lances before i run out of figures. but i have to devote some more time to some commissioned War Machine figures. I'm planning to finish 20 figures for Sunday, and then the remaining figures of the commission by the following Sunday.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Imagination Surprise!

OK, so yesterday I told you I had some Imagination Stuff done, but that it wasn't what you would think it was. so here it is:

TAG Janissaries


These Janissaries are from my Eastern Renaissance Collection, but I've decided to use them for this as well. Janissaries didn't change much in the 100 years between when i bought the for and the Imagination stuff we are doing. I almost have enough more figures at the moment to do 16 more janissaries and a unit of 8 Timarli Sipahi with a big man.  I need to grab 3 more packs (8 figs) of janissaries to finish of the second 'battalion' in the janissary regiment, plus another pack of command, and a regimental Kazan(soup anyone?) I also want to grab a Turkish cannon & crew, and a unit of 8 Tufecis as a skirmish screen.

These particular Janissaries are from the Asarya beylerbeylik (adminstrative area made up of several provinces, each having a military governor) of the former Ohtaran Empire. Asarya was one of the Major western regions  in the empire, and had been occupied for several hundred years before the collapse.  Asarya had also been one of the largest sources of Janissary infantry for the empire and had a long, rich Military history.

When the Beylerbeyi (military Governor-general) Saw that the Empire was headed for Open rebellion in other provinces, he made sure to poisiton Military officers Loyal to Asarya in all critical military positions.  only one of his subordinate governors had intended to declare independence, but he "drowned" mysteriously before he could do so. as a result,  the Ohtaran empire lives on in a much smaller form in Asarya.

Geographically, Asarya borders the the Electorate of Lustigzollern - Großgesaß to the southeast. Even though the Beylerbeyi and  Kurfurst Großgesaß are on good terms, some of the Asarya governors like to raid along the Border.




some time in the next month or two I will Acquire and start painting  the Electorate forces. I just decided to start with these guys because i've had them sitting around for 7 or 8 months. plus it starts 2 projects with 1 stone.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Back from Computer crash!

It's been almost a month since my computer crashed. I've spent the last week getting everything up and running again, and I'm finally almost done.  So that's why my blog has been silent for 3 days shy of a month.






I Didn't do alot of painting for myself for teh first few weeks.  I had some commission work that took up about half teh month( Forgeworld Aeronautica Imperialis fightercraft) and i worked a little more on my terrain.  I snapped a few pictures of some stuff, knowing i owuld eventually be back online and able to post them here. I also snapped some shots of my gaming space, the Military Interests and Gaming Society  clubhouse.

Lionel O-scale Bridge.  This has been sitting around 
since awaiting some love the end of November.


28mm Plowed Fields.  These are Dollar Store door 
mats that Mike Hoyt discovered.


I was playing around with the Panorama feature 
on my new Camera. Here is a shot of the Miniature 
gaming side of the club. here you see 9 of our 4x6 tables, mostly in groups of 2, that are a bit taller then standard tables.


And here is my locker full of stuff. I'm lucky because MIGS is one of the few permanent Gaming clubs I've ever seen.  Yeah, it's a basement, but we have a total of  15 4'x6' tables, plus 36+ lockers of various sizes. My locker is the largest size, being about 3 feet deep 4 or 5 feet wide and 6.5 feet tall.



Anyway, I'll have 2 or 3 posts over the next couple of days to get caught up. tomorrow I'll post some thought on my black powder playtest games, and I'll also post some pictures of some stuff I've been painting up for the ImagiNation project(but not the stuff you think!)