For the most part, my activity on Ebay has sort of dwindled...which is kind of hurting me because business is pretty good right now for selling scenery on Ebay and I'm out of the loop. I took myself out of the loop for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I got a really big custom order and I don't think I realized how big. It's very close to being done so I'm happy about that, but it took a damn long time to build. Teaching three classes and trying to get a Ph.D. is taking more time away from my business than I figured. Maybe I
was a bit too optimistic about the whole thing.
The other thing consuming my time has been the creation of my new web site. I've gone from having 250 mb of space to 2 gigs and so I'm really excited by the possabilities of what I can do. Of course, it's just me and so again, I'm possibly getting a little too optimistic about how much ass it will kick, but nonetheless, all signs point to "major."
My gaming group, thank God, has finally decided to play one on one games instead of the four way (or more) battle that we've been playing week after week after week. for the past year or so. The result is that two of the players who rarely win, won--which I assume makes the game a bit more enjoyable. I mean, it's a friendly game and all, but still, no one wants to lose every week. So, congrats Chris and Russ on your fine victories, and Chris, I underestimated your demon hunters--it won't happen again.
The funniest part about our last game was that Russ, the durability tester in my group, commented on my lack of stuff up on Ebay. I think he may be checking to find out what kind of scenery is going to be in play. I don't know. It's kind of funny. Russ, if you're reading this, I'm bringing the death world again next week. Hurrah for the death world!
I haven't heard anything from Griffon Games, but then I need to take them some better stuff I think. I don't know. I'm a pretty harsh critic of my work so...there you go.
That's it for now.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Friday, September 15, 2006
Busy, busy, busy
Well. Let's see.
I now have a physical place that is selling my stuff. I take the first armload of stuff down to Griffon Games later this afternoon. I am really excited about this because I like the store. its a good place to play, the staff is helpful, and everything looks really good. When I first came to Massachusetts, I went to Griffon games and pretty much slobbered over their display case. Now I will be in it...not for my miniatures obviously, but for my scenery. It's a hell of a accomplishment for me.
Next up, the website is getting re-vamped. My beautiful and wonderful wife has signed me up for enough space to make it much bigger and much better. But even better, it will have a much shorter URL, which I think makes the whole thing more convenient.
Custom orders have been coming in and that's always good. A few small ones, some larger ones. Regardless, it's nice to see that side of the business taking off because I really much prefer working with a customer in mind than anonymously for ebay. Of course, with Ebay there's no deadlines and that's nice too. I will in the future be doing both, don't worry.
Moreover, someone finally pointed out that all the email addresses on my Bargain Bin were wrong. Great! The one part of my website where I sell stuff and I couldn't sell anything offf of it. I kind of gave up on the bargain bin because of this so you can all rest assured that now that the problem is fixed, more stuff will be going up.
Well, that's the appraising of stuff at this point. Keep watching the site, it should be getting a major facelift very soon.
I now have a physical place that is selling my stuff. I take the first armload of stuff down to Griffon Games later this afternoon. I am really excited about this because I like the store. its a good place to play, the staff is helpful, and everything looks really good. When I first came to Massachusetts, I went to Griffon games and pretty much slobbered over their display case. Now I will be in it...not for my miniatures obviously, but for my scenery. It's a hell of a accomplishment for me.
Next up, the website is getting re-vamped. My beautiful and wonderful wife has signed me up for enough space to make it much bigger and much better. But even better, it will have a much shorter URL, which I think makes the whole thing more convenient.
Custom orders have been coming in and that's always good. A few small ones, some larger ones. Regardless, it's nice to see that side of the business taking off because I really much prefer working with a customer in mind than anonymously for ebay. Of course, with Ebay there's no deadlines and that's nice too. I will in the future be doing both, don't worry.
Moreover, someone finally pointed out that all the email addresses on my Bargain Bin were wrong. Great! The one part of my website where I sell stuff and I couldn't sell anything offf of it. I kind of gave up on the bargain bin because of this so you can all rest assured that now that the problem is fixed, more stuff will be going up.
Well, that's the appraising of stuff at this point. Keep watching the site, it should be getting a major facelift very soon.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Thinking about levels of height for terrain in 40k
Because people use space marines as the basic unit of measurement in the 40k game, level one is an inch or less. Level two is an inch to three inches, and level three is three inches or more. This is, of course, absolutely wrong, and what's worse, it makes boards look like crap. Chances are 90% of your terrain is going to be level one; it provides cover for level two minitures but it doesn't block line of sight. That means, 90% of the stuff on your table should be an 1" tall. Does anyone have a board where that's true? If so, how does it look? Like crap? Yes, I imagine it does.
Now, I know that there are a lot of people out there who assume that if a building or structure has holes in it at less than an inch then it's considered level one terrain. Great. So, a ten inch tall building is level one because you can peek through a window.
This all seems to me to be badly worked out solutions to a common game problem. Here's a better solution. First of all, don't use marines. Marines are one of the smaller of the level 2 miniatures. A better idea is to use something like a wraithguard, a Tau crisis suit or a Tyranid ravener. If you use a Tyranid ravener for instance, you'll find that level two really starts at about 2 1/2". Level one is below 2 1/2" and level three starts at about 4 1/2" or 5". Well, why not? I mean really, if I put something down on the table that's 5" tall, very few players are going to have trouble believing that it can provide cover for most level 3 models (except the Defiler, of course). 3"?....Not really. Put something down that's 3" tall and put a Land Raider behind it. Hull down, yes; blocked LOS, no.
Keep in mind that this is also extremely useful for terrain designers like myself. If 3" is level three, than a 3" hill is level three and there's really not that much room to do much in terms of sprucing that hill up. You can't carve out interesting symbols in a 1" space--at least, you can't carve them out so that they look interesting from 5' away. But if a level one hill is up 2 1/2" tall, and a level two hill up 4" tall, all of a sudden there's more room on the board to move upward without having to get weird about it, or without making pieces on the board look out of scale.
So, final results or me are: level one hill 1 1/2"-2" tall. Level two 3" tall minimum. Level 3 about 4 1/2 or 5" tall. Of course, this coincides nicely with the basic unit of scenery building: the styrofoam sheet which sells in 3/8", 3/4" or 1 1/2".
How's that for convenient
Now, I know that there are a lot of people out there who assume that if a building or structure has holes in it at less than an inch then it's considered level one terrain. Great. So, a ten inch tall building is level one because you can peek through a window.
This all seems to me to be badly worked out solutions to a common game problem. Here's a better solution. First of all, don't use marines. Marines are one of the smaller of the level 2 miniatures. A better idea is to use something like a wraithguard, a Tau crisis suit or a Tyranid ravener. If you use a Tyranid ravener for instance, you'll find that level two really starts at about 2 1/2". Level one is below 2 1/2" and level three starts at about 4 1/2" or 5". Well, why not? I mean really, if I put something down on the table that's 5" tall, very few players are going to have trouble believing that it can provide cover for most level 3 models (except the Defiler, of course). 3"?....Not really. Put something down that's 3" tall and put a Land Raider behind it. Hull down, yes; blocked LOS, no.
Keep in mind that this is also extremely useful for terrain designers like myself. If 3" is level three, than a 3" hill is level three and there's really not that much room to do much in terms of sprucing that hill up. You can't carve out interesting symbols in a 1" space--at least, you can't carve them out so that they look interesting from 5' away. But if a level one hill is up 2 1/2" tall, and a level two hill up 4" tall, all of a sudden there's more room on the board to move upward without having to get weird about it, or without making pieces on the board look out of scale.
So, final results or me are: level one hill 1 1/2"-2" tall. Level two 3" tall minimum. Level 3 about 4 1/2 or 5" tall. Of course, this coincides nicely with the basic unit of scenery building: the styrofoam sheet which sells in 3/8", 3/4" or 1 1/2".
How's that for convenient
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