Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

So lately I've continued with my dabbling in the use of lasers to produce wargaming terrain.

I contacted Crag Gallant from the D6G and he put me in contact with some of his mates who have lasers and sell there designs online. 

I was just enjoying the exchange of information with someone who was interested in laser cut Terrain. Turns out that one of them liked the cut of my jib and offered me money to provide some designs. Who was I to refuse this opportunity? Normally my hobby s just cost me money, usually too much money. So now I had a chance to get payed for something I was literally doing purely for the enjoyment of it. I actually feel a little bit guilty about it. 

The coolest thing about this is my designs are going to be sold online. The image in my head of gaming tables around the world filled with my terrain is kinda ridiculous. 

My stuff is still not ready yet but when it is it will be on Urban Lasercraft  in the meantime they have some very neat looking templates and tokens for X-Wing and Malifaux. Check them out.

So here are some of items I've been working on. They are meant to be street props for generic 28mm SiFi gaming.

All of these designs are protected by copyright.  

Steampunk behemoths turning with laser precision 

I am starting to really enjoy Dystopian Wars. Like a lot of people I noticed in the rule book there is a photo of some acrylic turning templates. The only way to get them was when they were being given away as promos, or to win a set. So I decided to draw up my own and send them to be fabricated. Carlos at Mechanical Warhorse fixed me up and now my fleet is making turns with laser cut precision.

There is nothing wrong with the free cardboard ones spartan supplies in the boxed sets, but the acrylic ones are superior. The raised edge acts as guide to aid in the turning of the models. The transparent nature allows you to see the position of the other models in a fleet to avoid possible collisions. 

There are a few other suppliers of similar templates but they didn't look very steampunk. I am super proud of my cog design.

Pros

Looks cool

Templates with personal design

Transparent

Raised edge to aid model movement

The firing ark template helps when targeting with multiple turrets 

Cons

Not free

Had to draw the design myself

Firing ark template is missing one minor line

The edges have been buffed smooth reducing the sharp look

laser cut goodness

flash+light blue sheet= invisible

they look better on the green

this is missing a line near my thumb

I like design more than the Spartan ones

transparent, I like it

I should have made the top edge 1'' 

helps with using multiple turrets

overlaid on the originals perhaps
a 0.5mm difference 

 edge of the template aids in movement

I like it

When It Rains.

These last two weeks has been a busy time for me. Gaming wise and in the real world too.

I've managed to get in two games of Dystopian Wars land battles, five games of my new hotness Zombicide and my DnD group also ran the lair-assault spiderkiller.  I have really enjoyed them all. The Dystopian Wars games have really invigorated my love of table war-games. I got into DW as a filler game before getting back into 40K, so I didn't just go and drop a load of cash on a 40K army and proceed to never paint it. So far it seems to be working, but I am salivating over the new 40K book and its new rules, so far I like what I have seen.

Britannia surges forward 

Giant Tiberium crystals

Terrain formed a choke point and the center
of the map became a slaughter house

Armored goliaths clash

Zombicide a simple game of zombie survival, full of pop-culture references and lovable tropes. I have managed five games so far and they have all been fun. When I have a few more games under my belt I will post some of my thoughts. 

My character Phil is dragged out of his police car and devoured
  after he had managed  to run over more than 30 zombies

The lair assault was a blast with only one PC killed we managed to kill the evil Drow priestess before she opened the portal to the demon web.
Notable moments include

•  a paladin falling backwards over a underground waterfall as he unleashed a spell that killed two Drow and the giant spider that had dragged him into the waterfall
• the fighter being cursed with slowness and crawling towards the fight arriving just in time to land the final blow on the BB
• the great-bow armed woodelf ranger going blind, but still managing to sneak undetected into the hidden temple and knock the Drow priestess backwards with a powerful bow-shot, interrupting her ritual  
• the DM allowing the boat that contained a pair of dying and immobilised players to make a saving throw to catch on the rocks as it slid over the edge of the water fall, it caught and the ranger made her saving death roll, untangled herself healed the fighter just in time for them to jump clear of the boat as it slid off the rocks and plummeted into the depths. This kind act prevented a TPK it was not really in the spirit of the lair assaults but was a tone of fun. 

I notice that WotC have released another lair assault. This time the party all play as Drow, a race that is renown for its treachery. I hope they include some screw your neighbours mechanics in this encounter.

Other stuff

As well as gaming I have also managed to indulge my love of miniature painting. It's a pity my talent just doesn't match my enthusiasm. I will just have to keep painting until I develop my mad skilz.

I managed to paint a few more of my HeroQuest miniatures. The Goblin with his hand forged sword, four bad ass looking chaos warriors and the evil chaos wizard.

All that is standing between me and my childhood dream of a painted HeroQuest set are four heroes and a gargoyle. I plan to give the heroes the best paint job I can manage and I will try to document the process.

Chaos minions, assemble!

I will blog the process of painting these

My shipment of custom laser cut goodies from Mechanical Warhorse arrived. Some clear bases for Arkham Horror Mansions of Madness for a friend, two sets of DW turning templates, DW firing ark templates and a bunch of sample damage tokens for Dystopian Wars. I will provide some more pictures of this stuff after I have a chance to a play a game with them.

I think my design is better than the Spartan ones

Last but no means least I have slowly been transferring my random scribbles and ideas into Google Docs drive and out of this mess of random thoughts a Rogue Trader campaign forms. I will never take the work my DM dose for granted ever again. Trying to balance encounters and concoct scenarios that provide thoughtful and interesting role-play opportunities is damn hard.

Achievements in ...

Well I am back after a little break and despite more sickness and a bunch of work stuff I have some minor achievements to talk about. During the previous week I had 5 days off work with some horrible flu-like symptoms even had some crazy fevered dreams. Twisting over a smoke covered battlefield was a maze of industrial walkways and platforms covered in crawling legions of 28mm troops. Walkways that could be disassembled and rearranged at will creating any layout of under-hive madness a gamer could think of. The image is seared in to my mind and I have begun sketching out my ideas. 

Gaming

My weekly DnD group has managed to catch up a couple of times & our quest to obtain a legendary object of great power (the Eye of Morcala) to prevent the certain destruction of the grand city Prohova continues.

Our group consits entirely of strikers Monk, Avenger, Barbarian, Mage & Ranger I have noticed we have been able to kill any group of enemies before our party of glass cannons shatters. Our one weakness is  role play especially decisions and conversations each party member has a different view when it comes to moral choices.

We were down a PC last week so the rest of us tried out the DnD next play-test this was my third session of DnD next and I think they are actually making progress. I never played a RPG before DnD 4e so its not like I have any kind of attachment to the older editions but I like the feel of the new DnD. 4e gives me the feeling of being a bad ass hero, my ranger can punish people with his bow and his dual weapon skill makes sure he can always hack his way out of a tight situation. I told the DM I have never felt like I was in danger of player death from combat. The only PC death so far in this campaign was my half ork Rogue who was killed when a whole cave fell on his head followed by the collapsed cave being flooded by the ocean. Korgul died how he lived, getting rich and with a sword in his hand.

The hit dice healing mechanics of DnD next combined with the very low hit points of the low level characters ensure the players treat every fight as a threat. Without the ability to healing surge themselves back to full health at the end of an encounter makes even a minor encounter a dangerous if someone takes a big hit or you roll low with your hit-dice then it could make an later encounter a lot harder.

Also the new rules seem to place a lot less emphasis on the combat. 4e seemed a lot like a tactical miniatures skirmish game, I do like tactical miniatures skirmish games and the combat rules for 4e were a lot of fun and seemed pretty tight, the lair assaults were always a blast. but if most of the play session is spent in combat then it tends to leave limited time for role play and the strongest facet of DnD should be the role play.

Hobby

I managed to score a copy of Hero Quest from Vinies for only $4! The set is complete and only one goblin is missing a sword, everything else besides the box is in great condition. I have begun the process of painting the miniatures something I never managed to do with the set we had as kids. (long since lost to the passage of time) Worried that my nostalgic treasure would be damaged I got some pluck foam and made a miniatures tray for the box. It worked great now as soon as I finish painting the remaining figures I will need to convince the DnD party to play a campaign of HeroQuest to see if my childhood memories are rose colored of if the game really is as good as I remember. 

One of the friendly local gaming stores went out of business I was sad to here that our town was losing one of the few stores that stocked miniatures and other hobby supply. But I was pumped when I found out that all the remaining stock would be sold at 40% off so like a hungry vulture I feasted on the corpse of the store that for years had provide access to the hobby I so enjoy as-well as providing sound advice regarding painting and modelling projects, a free place for gamers to gather and tables to play on. Some of the stuff I got were blisters of the Dystopian Wars small ships that I was missing from my KoB fleet. I have been slowly painting up. they all have there base colors they need washing and the detail added.

My Dystopian Wars fule counters for my Tiny flyers fave finial arrived, and look great. A big thank you to Carlos at Mechanical Warhorse  these are just the prototypes and he is looking at using small magnets to fix the needles in place these use some small rod. Now to arrange a game to try them out.

The Touch of Nurgle

With two of the DnD party away and the DM wanting an early night, game night was a non event. No problem I will just make up for it on the weekend with some war-gaming. Nope, Grandfather Nurgle has been let lose in my household. Wife, child, baby and myself have all taken turns of role playing a plague victim.

But on a positive note related to gaming, Carlos from mechanical warhorse sent me the good news. That my Dystopian Wars tiny flyer fuel counters were finished and were in the mail. I can not wait to try them out.
More good news he wants to add the design to his catalog, I hope to soon see waves of enemy tiny flyers using these.

I have been looking on the interwebs for some turning templates for Dystopian Wars but haven been able to find what I have been looking for. There are a few sellers but they just don't look Steempunk. I drew these up and sent them to Carlos at Mechanical Warhorse for fabrication.

What I've been up to.

So about a year ago a work mate invited me to play a  game of Dungeons and Dragons. I hadn't rolled a dice in anger in a long time, and had never played a pen and paper RPG before. Within a couple of months I was knee deep in rule books and gamer pod casts, the gamer bug had bitten me hard. I turned back to my old 40K addiction only to find out that two editions had passed me by since I last played. My 2nd and 3rd edition Orks were looking a little dated so a new army was in order. The Imperial guard had always appealed to me but after a quick price check I decided that the new army had to wait. 

In my online travels I discovered that table top gaming had flourished  in my absence. 

Warmachine once a obscure game that no one played was now massively popular as well as a bunch of other games I had never heard of. Infinity, Flames Of War, Dust, Games Workshop even had a new Lord of the Rings game. But the game that entrapped my imagination was the Steam Punk world of Dystopian wars. While playing the V1.0 rules it became apparent that the tiny flyer rules were horribly flawed, all was forgiven upon the release of the V1.1 rule book. The only thing that bothered me was having to keep track of the fuel status of the tiny flyers with dice, I wanted something a little more pimp.

I heard of these guys Mechanical Warhorse while I was listening to these guys 11th Company Pod cast.

So I drew up some designs with my newly discovered Auto-Cad skills and Emailed them to Mechanical Warhorse. Carlos has just sent me a  picture of the prototype I think it looks good soon I will be tracking my  tiny flyer fuel usage in style.