Making home made Titans

Q asked me a question about making homemade titans and so I thought I'd put this advice up because it's pretty sound:

Something tells me I'm going to have to answer this in my own gaming group pretty soon. You guys starting Apocalypse as well? Anyway, this might be extraordinarilly optimistic, but the truth is, a Titan really isn't THAT big. It's, what, 2' tall? Two things: go hit a Big Lots and go find yourself some little robot things that look like they could be hacked apart for Titan parts. A cheapie store toy aisle is your friend in this project. Because the titan is big, you don't have to worry as much about the detail that you'd have to worry about for little minis. I would say, make sculpi your friend for things like bas relief. Do parts at a time so you're not doing all the detail all at once. As for gears, struts, and hydraulic looking stuff, Three things: Lego Bionacle, there's another lego looking set that's all "gear" looking and never lose the power of a dry wall anchor cut in half. Nearly half of my mechanical shit is drywall junk.

As for weapons, big sized army men (12" tall) will probably help here, but in any case, keep a look at for cheap plastic toys. Try to look past the color. You're going to paint this stuff so what you want is the shape.

Of course, you're going to need a dremel. Get solid cut off wheels and the little sanding drums. They're indespensible. I do recommend that you try testing out the dremel on similiar kinds of plastic before you hit the titan. You never know how quickly something will melt or cut until you're melting or cutting it. Also, do this with ventilation. Burning plastic lets off some nasty fumes. Also, don't put plastic in with the sculpi to dry. Plastic melts.

For spikes on something that big, I'd hit a Hot Topic and try to find the spikes they sell for bracelets. Lastly, I'd find yourself a Michaels and a Home Depot, take a picture from Forgeworld, and walk the aisles for a couple of hours. You wouldn't believe the crap they have that you can use. Unfortuantely, you can't just ask for the Titan Head. The guy in the vest won't know what you're talking about.

New house, same gang

I'm back. The guy whose house we played at moved and so we had to pack everything up. Including, I might add, a top of the line city board as well as 2 or 3 totes of random terrain, 2 Eldar armies, an inquisitor army, and a marine army (all with one army transport kit). We went from having 2 tables set up every Tuesday to the new house with high hopes, but then, we knew we wouldn't have an attic to ourselves.

Having moved it all, we then had about a week off trying to find things to play with. The first game we played, we used drink coasters as drop pods, and allowed that anything big enough to be a dreadnought could be used as one.

But we played. I think it was a total of 4 weeks off preceeded by a 3 week long vacation which allowed a total erasure of all mental faculties Warhammer related. Case in point, I jumped an entire assault squad against a land raider carrying a veteran squad led by a chaplain so that I could attempt to use my power fist against it (3 attacks, 6s to hit). I...uh...didn't kill the land raider and so the veteran squad, with furious charge, reminded my assault squad why it pays to be careful.

I remember thinking, as I was doing it, 'Wow! This is a really bad idea!' but, you know, I'd measured.

Strangely enough, I still nearly won that battle, and here's why. Nothing beats dreadnoughts with Assault Cannons and Heavy Flamers entering via drop pod so long as there's a spot of level 3 terrain that you can use to your advantage. I lost, though, to victory points. I was unable to kill the land raider as it retreated away from me and around a corner and so there were a whole lot of points left on one side (which couldn't have killed my dreadnoughts) and only my two dreadnoughts to stack up against them. Oh well...I prefer games that aren't just "kill 'em all" so I guess you have to take the good with the bad.

Cheat Armies

Every now and again I'll hear something about a particular army being a kind of cheat army--an army that turns out to be so unbalanced as to make them unbeatable. I am not convinced.

I think that my opinion has a lot to do with having played Rogue Trader all these many years ago when there really WERE cheat armies. Orks were useless, marines were about the same, and Chaos could get a greater daemon for 25 points. Eldar Avatars could buy three exarch powers and all of those were better then than they are now. I still remember bounding leap in which at the end of the turn, if another enemy unit was within 6" of the unit that you were attacking the Avatar could jump to the other unit and attack them that turn with its full number of attacks. Swooping hawks could jump over a unit and hit them with 3 strength 8 AP1 attacks (-6 armor save for those who remember) per Swooping Hawk model.

Basically, Orks, space marines, and Imperial Guard could fight. Chaos and Eldar could fight, and Tyranids, once they were invented were pretty much between all of these. There were no Dark Eldar; there were no Tau, Necron, or Sisters of Battle, and Chaos unidivided meant you couldn't get daemons. There were Grey knights but there were only terminators and they cost 1000 points per squad of 5 (and they weren't worth it).

Let's be fair. Since that time, GW has done a pretty good job of figuring out how to make the game a lot more fair. People get into hand to hand now. That never happenned before. I do cringe to think that the Dark Eldar guardians get the same things the Eldar get but at 2 less points and with a dark lance cap at...what...4, four f'ing dark lances in a guardian squad. And yes, I think that's ridiculous, but cheating? No.

Every army has something. There is always some way for you to cause the other player to pull their hair out. Ever played that Necron army with 2 monoliths! They're horrendous. Or what about the Space marine army that can buy Dreadnoughts as both heavies and elites and decides to drop them all on to the table! Six dreadnoughts all with assault cannons and heavy flamers just kicking the crap out of everything. My favorite is, of couse, fighting IG during a nightfight scenario. You might as well just declare them the winners. By the way, how come only the IG have developed the technology of the flashlight? Eldar? Eldar have a number of really good options of how to make them powerful. I wouldn't however call them a cheating army, I'd just say that they are a good all around army. Dark Eldar only have about four types of troops that anyone would ever choose, and I've seen two Necron armies at 1850 points that both looked exactly the same. That's just the 1850 army that really works.

The big one I hear about cheating is, of course, Chaos and in particular either the Iron Warriors or the World Eaters. Well...yes three squads of Obliterators is ridiculous. But then...shoot them! I've noticed with infantry, if you pour in enough shots shit dies. Plus, if they deep strike, one of those squads isn't going to make it anyway. As for World Eaters. Well, yes they are pretty hard core in hand to hand (so are Orks by the way), but there's a draw back...you barely play World Eaters. They just move at the whim of the dice. How's that fun?

I think if you're really concerned about why your army isn't winning, you should think about trying out new tactics or playing a new list. Sometimes the problem is that your opponent has fought your army so many times that they know exactly what it is, and isn't, capable of. One of my friends played Daemon Hunters so often that it was like deja vu every time I beat him. There's always something that can be done, some trick that you might want to pull or play, but you should also realize that a lot of 40k is no longer about tricks. Playing a 40k game is about making solid decisions on how to get as many dice thrown at the same time versus how many dice will be thrown back at you. Play smart and the cheat armies are just interesting battles. Look at your defeats as learning experiences about how to play. I now know, for instance, that when fighting Dark Eldar in Cities of Death, you must destroy those Raiders and as quickly as possible.

You should also think of sprucing your army up less in terms of cheating and more in terms of helping your army reach its potential. I knew a marine player who wouldn't use drop pods for the longest time. I kept insisting that this was why he kept losing. Putting a dreadnought in a drop pod is not cheating; it's the marine's thing! It's what GW gave the marines to make them competitive against the other armies.

molding for beginners- Summer fun

One of the greatest moments one attains while building scenery is the day when you push something out of your first mold. Now, making molds is fun. It can be a bit troublesome at times, but it is incredibly rewarding. Of course, there are a lot of great molds out there to buy. However, for some reason, people still have trouble with all this. Something about making or dealing with molds is simply too intimidating. Believe me, I understand.

So, what I would like to suggest is that you begin with a bit of light work. Okay, here it is. You know those things they sell down at your local Rite Aid or CVS for kids to play in the sand with? Yeah, the bucket and the little thingies to build sand castles out of? Those are molds. Now, if you put sand into them, they will make sand castles. Guess what happens if you put plaster of paris into them?

You can buy the plaster of Paris down at Wamart. Go to the Hirst Arts web page for how to pour the stuff. Spray Pam or some other kind of cooking spray into the mold. Pour the stuff in. Let it dry. Pop it out. Sometimes these molds can be hard to release. I find that a little light tapping with a rubber mallet gets them out quickly.

Now the great thing about this is that these molds are actually designed to build castles. For this reason, if you do this a number of times, you will end up with enough pieces to build a castle. Note, the towers will not be hollow, but hey...You'll have a castle!

Bad day for Ultramarines

This is the army I played last night. You'll need army builder to open it.

So, what went wrong? Well, first of all, I didn't expect to win. I hadn't played marines for awhile. I was trying out the honor guard. There were a lot of reasons that this army shouldn't have worked.

Here's the thing though, I'm not convinced that my fatalistic attitude in playing the army contributed to the loss. I could have won.

I was fighting Eldar. Avatar, two wraithlords, warlock and 4 wraithguard, five harlequines decked out, five scorpions, five dire avengers, 2 big squads of guardians with star cannons, and a falcon.

Here's what I did. I held my Land Raider out of sight for the first turn. On the second turn, everything became available and I did deep strike with everything. That allowed me to surround everything, jump out rapid firing, and etc.. This was my tactic. I pulled it off, and it failed.

The problem in a nut shell is this, a bunch of bolters rapid firing is scary. That's true. But it's not scary enough. I couldn't, for instance, kill an entire squad. I couldn't kill the Wraithlords, I couldn't kill the Avatar. The Assault cannon on the dreadnought is nasty, but it's not going to destroy any of the aforementioned stuff, even in combo with two las-cannons on the Land Raider (one being fired by the machine spirit). The counter attack on all this is brutal. The avatar charges the dreadnought, the wraithlords charge the marine units (who cannot fight back with the lightening claws). It didn't help that the falcon got off a lucky shot destroying the land raider, but even if it hadn't, I'm not sure I could have turned the defeat into victory even with a squad of power weapons re-rolling misses. The problem is strength against a wraithlord, wraithguard, or the avatar, and four strength power weapons just aren't enough.

So, toe to toe, best of possible worlds, I failed horribly.

What should I have done? I think power fists instead of lightening claws for one. I'm not against the land raider (there are those who are), but as it was centralized, there wasn't a real "choose a target" kind of scenario. My new opinion is that I should have made each of the marines a formidable unit on its own--and not because of rapid fire. I should have then dropped them on hard to reach parts of the board opposite that of the land raider. This would have made his forces have to come after me. With a few heavy bolters or missile launchers that would have taken care of much of the problem. I think if you're going to do the whole, "charge out of the land raider" thing, you need to do it and do it quickly. No waiting for the perfect moment because there's just too much risk that the Land Raider will get popped--which is precisely what happenned.

Ultimately though, what I think I did wrong, was I fought the enemy rather than trying to achieve objectives, which I might have very easilly done given the extreme mobility of an all deep striking army.

Armor Cast

Armor Cast seems to be back in business!

Cities of Death- Where it's broke and how to fix it

I am intrigued by how bad the rules are in Cities of Death. They are so incomplete as to be shameful even by GW standards and anyone who plays them will notice quickly that a hand to hand army is likely to win every time and by a margin of victory that makes one wonder how they didn't notice this...flaw...in play testing. I'm going to guess that they didn't play test.

Some minor points that have come up in our games.

• Given the ammount of terrain on the board that's already difficult, is there any reason to put down 3-5 more strips. Come on. Can't we make razor wire do anything more interesting than that?
• Can vehicles just drive through building walls where no opening is indicated on the scenery model?
• Can troops just walk through building walls where there is no door, window, or hole on the scenery model?
• Can troops and vehicles shoot through building walls that look solid for all intents and purposes?
• Does height advantage allow a model to see further into shorter areas of rubble?
• If a hover tank is shot (penetrating) while hovering over a building and it doesn't have the rappelling lines stratagem, are the troops inside killed if forced to disembark?
• Why would anyone take all of the really crappy stratagems?
• Can jump troops land on any level of the building? Can they jump over a building regardless of its height?
• Can deep striking troops land anywhere or do they have to land on the top level of buildings?
• What are shooting troops supposed to do to protect themselves from hand to hand troops? (this one is less a rule thing and more a MAJOR FAILING ON THE PART OF ALL CITIES OF DEATH GAMES)

At a certain point, what can I say. I love City fight terrain, but man these rules suck and games played with these rules just really aren't that fun.

But I think I can fix the problem. Here goes:

First of all. I would require that at least one square foot of the terrain placed on the table be declared dangerous. That's starters.

Second, razorwire should be dangerous terrain for charging troops.

Third, I would litter the board with terrain. I think Cities of Death boards aught to be thought of in terms of paths through the rubble rather than spots of rubble. More rubble means less advantage to hand to hand troops. It's as simple as that. This would mean that you have to be more inventive about paths through the rubble. Overhead walkways and roads become key board features.

Fourth, while all rubble and ruined buildings are at the very least area terrain, I would say that they have this characteristic by default. In other words, if they are nothing else, they are area terrain. If they have walls, then those stand in to block line of sight or stop firing or movement. One cannot walk through walls, and vehicles moving through walls must make a dangerous test on 1 extra dice.

Anything over 6 inches in height is vertically impassible even to jump troops. Jump troops do not have to roll 3s to get up 3 inches or 6s to get up 6 inches.

That's starters. I'll think of more after tonight I'm sure.

To all Ebay Scammers

It's been a while, but then...I've kind of been busy.

So, over the last few weeks, I have learned that one of the major differences between ebay last year and Ebay this year is that the number of scammers has multiplied. So far, I have received four emails from people telling me that their stuff has mysteriously disapeared in the mail. Oh my! Has the federal government collapsed or something? No? Well, then I imagine people are still delivering mail.

The funny thing is that as soon as I say, "I have a receipt proving that I sent the package to you," I never hear from these people again. This is why it is good to keep those receipts.

In any case, listen to me, you various artists of the scam, I use the money I make on ebay to feed my baby. I want you to know that. I want you to have full knowledge that you are attempting to take food away from a baby. I don't know if you believe in karma or hell or cosmic justice or what have you, but believe you me, you are probably not in good with the powers that be for screwing with a child...

...and now you cannot claim ignorance.

Imperium Generatum Sanctus

Hey, letting you all know, I put up a new scenery piece that me and mine will be using. I give a couple of tips on how to build it as well.

Building Tau scenery

In one sense, Tau scnery is extraordinarilly easy to make. In another sense, it's hard as hell.

Let's start with the easy: do you have any frisbees, tupperware, empty containers of sour cream or yogurt, flower pots, washers, and dry wall anchors lieing around? Then you have a Tau city and you just don't know it. I like to take two such things, cut up one and lay it on a complete model of the other so as to make panneling or removable sides so you can look into the Tau structures, but whatever. Seriusly, this is beyond easy and should take you little time at all to get it all going.

Of course, Hirst arts will help you immeasurably with the interior of the building, but that's something else.

Hard? Well, yes, if you listen to anyone who makes Tau scenery. What the hell are those directions? Cut shit out of foam, cover it with spackle, and carefully, over a series of a hundred weeks, sand it down so that it's smooth like plastic? Why not just use plastic? I've now tried the spackle way and here's what I found. It chips. It's uneven. It has the consistency of a birthday cake's frosting, and then when you sand it down, it sands down to nothing before it looks right. I add spackle to syrofoam to give it texture, precisely the opposite affect I want on my Tau structures--which raises the obvious question: why not just leave the styrofoam unspackled and paint that?

If you're out there, and you make Tau scenery, could you let me know? I'd really like someone to fill in the blanks here.

Here are some pictures of two of the buildings on my most recent job. You'll notice that I didn't use spackling for the buildings, but I did for the ground if that's any help.

Pictures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

My New Tactic

Here's my new tactic and we'll see how it goes. What it relies on is absolute and speedy death. Here's how it works. You need guardian jet bikes and you'll need either shining spears or mounted farseers. The trick is to surround transport tanks up to and including land raiders (especially if you're using the farseers in this tactic).

The guardian bikes are really not there to fire. You don't need to upgrade them. If you do this right, they'll probably either be unable to shoot because of their movement or because they are locked in hand to hand.

Instead their goal...their ONLY goal is to surround the tank and block off all exits. As they can move 18" and then an additional 6" during the assault phase this should not be a problem. Surround the exits.

Now, this means that either the farseer, seer council, or shining spears need only score a penetrating hit on the tank. They don't have to destroy it. On a pen, everyone must evacuate and if the exits are closed off, they die automatically.

Hee hee hee!

The best version of this tactic involves a mass mob of jet bikes, shining spears, and farseer. That way, if they actually do get into trouble, the shining spears can hit and run and come back in with power weapons. Note also how durable this tactic is. On the round that the jetbikes haul ass, they will have a 3+ invulnerable save, and if they are followed by a farseer, they get to re-roll missed saves (fortune). This will lock up any enemy that attempts to hurt them for at least that round.

disasterously fast attack

Bad moves. I got my ass handed to me the other night by Chris and his Space Marine/Daemonhunters which really sucked because I thought my list was pretty good.

It consisted of:
5 fire dragons and an exarch with firepike and tank hunter loaded in a falcon with vectored engines, holo field, spirit stone, and two shuriken cannons

5 shining spears- 1 exarch with star lance, skilled rider and withdraw

Farseer w/ runes of warding, witnessing, spirit stones, jetbike, doom, fortune, guide, mind war

6 jetbikes- 2 shuriken cannons+ 1 jetbike mounted warlock with conceal

9 Dire Avengers- w/exarch: defend, bladestorm, power weapon and shimmer shield
in a wave serpent with twin linked scatter lasers

5 harlequins w/kisses and a shadowseer

3 dark reapers.

Here's what I was hoping to do. I wanted to use the bikes as a meat shield for the farseer who would follow up the shining speers making them a formidable fighting force. The firedragons and dire avengers would be popping around the board to blow up big stuff as necessary leaving the harlequins and dark reapers as mop up.

Here's what went wrong. Everything could get into hand to hand combat in the first round, which turned out to be too fast. Crap blew up, that's true, but then I'd find myself somehow locked in combat with terminators. The enemy troops that weren't engaged could effectively pick and choose what they wanted to get into hand to hand with and the skirmishes blocked line of sight from my mop up crew. It all turned out very badly.

Cool tool

One really cool tool that's likely to slip your attention is the fabric cutter which essentially looks like a pizza cutter (a pizza cutter would probably work just as well). The roundness of the blade makes for really easy straight cuts. In addition, it's absolutely great for scoring plastic (cutting it enough so that it will snap apart) and will cut through the really thin sheet stryrofoam without much difficulty. Otherwise, you have to score plastic with a razor (pretty hazardous) or cut the styrofoam with a hot knife (hard to cut a straight line). It's a $.99 solution to both of these problems.

The bargain bin is back up

Just letting everyone know monstromakes.com has been updated! The bargain bin is up and has been redone a bit. Further re-workings of the page are in place. In addition, I've added some new scenery rules.

Cities of Death question

Does anyone out there have a clue what the difference between difficult and dangerous terrain is for vehicles. According to COD, almost everything is "dangerous terrain" for vehicles, but the rulebook seems to employ the rules interchangably.

The Basics

I just got back from ICon where I kind of sponsored the scenery for the 40k tournament. I brought 3000 dollars worth of stuff in six totes and a few boxes and it was...well...hot. I will have more to say on the subject soon, including pictures I assure you. I will also have pictures of the drop pod I just built. Evidentally the world needs drop pods.

I will also, I swear, continue on with my expose on how to build your own city of death, but before that, I'd like to cover the basics.

You see, here at the Empire, we sometimes discuss scenery like you need special rules to make your stuff work...because you do. Let's face it. 40k was kind of made for 12 year olds. If you're older than that, you can handle a little complexity in your rules, or so I thought.

I found out that quite a few people simply do not get scenery--through no fault of their own, I might add. The rules are vague and well, there's no one to straighten it all out. I decided the best thing to do was to use this space here to discuss the basics of scenery.

1. Can you draw a line between 50% or more of the shooters in your squad to 50% or more of the targets in their squad without going through intervening terrain? If yes, then you may shoot. Line of sight is not blocked, cover saves are not allowed. Casualties can only be removed from the part of the unit that you can see.

2. Can you draw a line between 50% or more of the shooters in your squad to 50% or more of the targets in their squad without going only through terrain that is smaller than the height of the shooting model? (note models are their own height or the height of the structure they are standing on, whichever is higher) If yes, then you may shoot. Line of sight is not blocked, cover saves are allowed. Casualties can only be removed from the part of the unit that you can see.

3. Can you draw a line between 50% or more of the shooters in your squad to 50% or more of the targets in their squad going into (not through) intervening terrain equal in height to the shooting model? If so, and you may shoot any model that is less than 6" in. They get a cover save. Casualties can only be removed from the part of the unit that is less than 6" in and can be seen.

4. Can you draw a line between members of your squad to targets in their squad going through intervening terrain equal in height to the shooting model? Without playing any optional rule, the targetted player may only take casualities from those members that can be seen (where the line does not go through the intervening terrain). These models do get a cover save so long as 50% of their squad are in or behind the intervening terrain. If no members are out in the open, they cannot be shot.

There it is. These four steps and you have everything you need to know about the basics of cover. And again, rule of thumb: if you're on a level one hill, you ignore level one terrain, if you're on a level 2 or 3 hill, you ignore level 2 terrain. No one gets their cover save, no one gets line of sight blocked. This is the point of taking higher ground.

Cities of Death-- prototyping

I am a big believer in free form features. In other words, crap you glue on. But I think this only really works well when the crap you glue on is sort of already finished out. You don't want to take an electrical wire cap drill two 1/32 holes in it, take speaker wire, strip it, seperate it, create cables comin out of the wire cap and glue them to a perpindicular brace made from some kind of drywall screw contraption...or at least you don't want to do this five hundred times. My suggestion is this: if you see something in a store, it's the right scale, it requires only one moment of glueing (and it will glue with a modicum of attention), then fine: use it as is. Case in point, I find that 3/8" Lagshields with mini christmas bulbs make great sci-fi columns. They're kind of mad scientist-ish, but note: I buy both products in packages of fifty, and I glue one to the other and I'm done. I would not do this if I also had to sand, drill, cut, and or grind, because all of that takes time, space, money. Not to mention it makes a mess, which means you'll need a workshop or have to work outside. In the latter case, inclement weather is sometimes a problem.

"But," you say, "all the really cool stuff looks really cool because of detail." Yes. What I am saying is that you do not attempt to mass produce detail by hand. One building will take you a year. Mass produce easy to produce (or already produced) features by hand, glue those to the building, but for the serious stuff, the various pipes, the various hoses, the skulls, the layers of relief, the vents--these things require cutting with tiny scissors and holding them down as the glue dries with toothpicks. Don't do that five hundred times for the same effect.

Instead, do it once, and then mold the thing. Basically, what I'm saying is have a prototype, a mock up of what you want the thing to look like when you're done, mold that (and possibly make multiple molds of it) and then cast it five or ten times for the desired effect. This is the principle behind the Cities of Death plates that they sell you. They don't give you a sprue of little detail things, they give you detailed plates all ready to be used. I would suggest thinking in terms of prototyping on any piece of detail that takes longer than fifteen minutes to make.

As far as actually constructing the prototype is concerned, you build the prototype exactly as you would build anyother piece except for a few things.

First off, you're going to mold this piece. Yes, it is possible to make two part molds, but they take longer to use. Keep that in mind. The best things to mold have big flat surfaces and no "holes" in them . There's a lot to say about molding, and I'm not going to do it here, suffice to say, that you should think about how molding works when you are designing your prototype.

Second, when you design a piece you are normally looking for a few things that you needn't worry about when you build a prototype. First off, color and paintability are not a problem. What comes out of a mold will be made up of whatever material you cast it in. So, if the material you normally use requires three coats of primer before it will take a drop of paint, don't worry about it: it's replica won't. Also, normally when you construct a piece, you sort of do so under the acknowledgement that someone in your group is likely to break it. So, you don't want to use soft materials or anything that is likely to just break off. When you build a prototype, however, you don't have to worry. At the very least, your replica will be made out of some kind of mineral, possibly stone; it will be one continuous and solid piece. This means that you can (and I have) make something out of wet clay, mold it, and pour out solid versions of it.

Three things, though. If your prototype is too soft, it will probably be destroyed in the molding process. Balsa wood is fairly notorious for this because the mold rubber tends to want to stick to the balsa and...well...one of them has to give. A wet clay prototype isn't going to be around after you scrape it from the mold (but note, one pouring and it will probably clean out the molds details. Second, the preferred material for building is pink styrofoam insulation. Great....but it floats, so you're going to want to anchor it down first with glue or else it will keep trying to get a 1/4" off your tray and will ruin the mold. Third, if you have a prototype that is durable to survive the molding process, it can be re-molded. This allows you to have multiple molds going if you need lots of the same piece. Hirst Arts, for most of their projects, recommends casting a mold 20 or 30 times. I think that's a bit ridiculous. Make two molds, or mold bigger sections. I don't think it's too liberal for you to think that each molding will take an hour. This means that when you're making your prototype, if you want a whole bunch of an item, you should probably make the item out of more durable stuff than wet clay or balsa. At the same time, it doesn't have to be that durable. I use a glue gun for most of my molding stuff--anyone whose used one before knows that it's not the most durable of bonds.

Custom Cities of Death- use a skeleton

My new feeling is that I want to make my own cities of death plates and mold them so that I can make my own cities of death buildings. The reasons for this is obvious: they'll sell, they won't cost $50 a building, I can do a better job, etc.. But it does bring up some rather interesting points about scenery design that I'm not really sure many people get into and so I thought I'd bring up some of the issues that this project has ultimately brought up.

The first trick is, how is such a thing done?

I'd like to point out an interesting fiasco of scenery designers the world over and that is the assumption that everything designed must be complete in and of itself. Hirst Arts, a company that I believe nigh-god-like, is just as likely to make this mistake as Games Workshop or even Forgeworld. If you read the Hirst Arts page about how to make things, they have directions for how to make flat blank walls. This I do not need. I have foam core, I have sheet styrene, I have pink styrofoam (as well as white styrofoam and Dupont board). I can make, with ease, walls that are unadorned of any sized. Thus I do not need to presss out hundreds of "blank" tiles to fill in the "blank" areas of the scenery. I have that covered.

The problem is that these companies are not thinking with the right philosophy. They are attempting to have you build EVERYTHING using their product. Every bit of your futuristic landscape should be popped out of a Hirst Mold. Every piece of your Cities of Death building should be cut from the GW sprues. Why?

It's much easier to make the basic "no frills" shape of the building out in regular materials that are easy to work with and then dress it up using a piece here from whatever sci-fi scenery set you want to buy. This allows your bit bin to include pieces from various legos sets as well as star wars models, Hirst arts castings, Cities of Death snippits, beads, craft store jewelry making supplies, hardware bits, dollar store items, etc.. In short, you are not thinking of the building altogether, completed with shape, volume and detail. You need only think of the building's shape first and then figure out how you want to spruce it up. Maybe you spruce it up with Cities of Death pieces. That's fine. But with a skeleton of the building already in place, you don't need to cover it entirely. And believe me, a few Cities of Death pieces will go a long way.

To give you some idea of how not in this frame of mind GW is, look at any Cities of Death piece. It's two sided. Why? Wouldn't it be easier to make it one sided and just glue it to some kind of superstructure, be it foamcore or board? Wouldn't that make the piece more structurally sound, and wouldn't that allow the building to have areas of "blank space" so that the entire city doesn't look plastered with those same five frescos (three of which are pretty much the same from any set)"? A ground floor that is composed of skull backed arches would be interesting, but a whole building of such pieces looks odd. Plus, this way, the detail doesn't obviously come in little 3"x2" blocks. You can have molding underneath over which rests a ground floor of high ornamentation seperated by some line of relief with a second ruined story with a continuous brick face.

But GW's design does not allow for such an option. The back, having detail, will not sit flush unless ground down, and of course, you don't want to grind the detail down. The floor tiles of Hirst Arts, I think, betray the problem with their ideas on the subject. You're making a battleship floor plan a square inch at a time. I remember making the plan I have on my home page, it was several dozen castings and it really didn't even cover a quarter of a 40k table. I can do similar things with screen (either nylon or mesh), some flex rex, and maybe a few pieces here and there that look like storm drains. Plus I can cover an entire 40k table with this setup and do so in an afternoon. Hell, you'd be surprised what you can do with just the cheap 1' square lynoleum tile pieces they sell at the dollar store. All with the advantage that nothing has to be ground down to make the floor level.

So, this is step one I think for a builder of their own city fight pieces. Don't think of building the entire urban landscape using only these pieces--it's too much and no set is that versatile--rather, think of your project as an attempt to make interesting bits of detail to add to an otherwise featureless building shape. Then, if you want "inside" detail, you can worry about that after you've already insured your ruins structural integrity.

...into the studio

My photography area is upstairs...above my child's nursury. This is problematic as it means that I cannot take pictures while my child is asleep. Also, as I mostly watch him when I'm awake I can't always pop off and leave him to go up into the attic. Of course, I can't take him with me because, well...it is the attic of a scenery designer. It's full of stuff.

Long story short. It has been awhile since I've had the chance to take pictures, but I've managed. Just FYI, there's a picture of my new hillside bunker up in the gallery. It pretty much dropped my gaming group's collective jaw when they saw it, and I've updated my bargain bin.

I've got tons more stuff and I'll probably be exploding out onto Ebay pretty soon. So, keep an eye out.

There's cheating and then this...

So, the other night, we were playing city fight because, well because I've pretty much built a city and so there's really no reason not to have a Cities of Death game.

In any case, as you all may know, COD is a bit unfair for certain armies, namely the IG because they all of a sudden get good saves where they didn't have them before. That is not the point of this post.

I, Monstro, was fighting the IG and playing my Eldar as is my want these days, and I chose the Sewer rat stratagem. Here's the kicker. Dire Avengers, blade storm, pretty much deep striking without deviation. That's...ummm....not fair.

Now, I'm not saying that the tactic skews the battle a bit. I'm saying that it is absolutly cheating. Like playing with loaded dice really.

What made matters worse is that they popped up in a building that I had bought the Ammo Dump stratagem for and they could re-roll misses.

So, for those of you not paying attention, that's 32 shuriken catapult shots (w/ an 18" range for the Dire Avengers) that can re-roll misses. They already have a BS of 4. The exarch has a 5. I hit an Ogryn squad with 30 shots one round, and destroyed an entire 10 man fire squad two rounds later (who happened to have a 4+ invulnerable).

Cheating.

Two BIG tips

So, I'm crazy in the middle of making about a million things. Seriously.

I've basically figured out how to make monoliths. I'm going to sell them as Necron buildings, but they look like Monoliths. In addition to that, I made a series of Necron powerplants from the Dawn of War game, as well as a greater summoning tower from the same. I've painted up about four necron spires which I routinely sell on Ebay...and that's just the Necrons.

For some strange reason, mainly because I'm not doing this to pay to eat, the pressure is off. As a result I have, and I'm not kidding on this, about thirty irons in the fire. I will share more when the time comes.

Until then, I would like to point out something. I have long believed that whatever GW says you should do in order to make something is a load of crap. Always. I believe I stand vindicated now. I decided to buy some Miliput (Green stuff) to use, and well, a situation came up where Miliput as it is described by GW seemed the obvious solution to my problem. So I used it.

That shit is horrible. Actually, its worse than that. It's useless. And when it dries it will screw up whatever piece you were attempting to reinforce before it falls off of whatever thing it was supposed to adhere to. It is neither an adhesive nor a very good putty whatever. You can buy air dry clay that works twice as well. Or if you really feel the need for something that dries to the durability of porcelain, may I recommend a trip to Home Depot. Look for stuff to stick Kitchen tile down to counters. That shit's awesome and comes in gallon bucket for about three bucks. If you are actually attempting to make things out of miliput--may I recommend sculpy or...geez anything else; that shit sucks, is I guess what I'm saying.

Meanwhile, a long time ago I recommended the plastic that people put in ceiling lights in offices instead of Plasti-card. This is because plasticard is about $8 per square foot and the sheet plastic for the light fixtures is about $3 for 6 square feet. The only problem was how to cut it. I tried an electric knife (shattered), a dremel cutting wheel (melted the plastic to the wheel), the actual tool you're supposed to use (useless and only cut in straight lines after breaking your arm). Solution: scissors.

You're welcome!

Eldar Codex: A re-review

So, I've been playing Eldar since the new codex came out.

First off, Harlequins are just ridiculously bad ass. It is as simple as that. I'm not sure why anyone would ever buy Striking Scorpions instead, and I'm damn confused as to why anyone is still buying the Howling Banshees. I think if you're going to buy the Howling Banshees, buy the phoenix lord to go along, but that's beside the point, which is simply: Harlequins are bad ass.

They took down the star cannon, the bright lance, and the vehicles (no more combat crystal). Okay, that's true. The first two problems with the eldar army are negligible next to the third. If you don't have vehicles, you don't worry about star cannons and bright lances. They made some strange rule in case you're playing two fire prisms, but who in the hell is playing two fire prisms? So, basically, the guardians got taken down a peg, but that's okay, because the Guardians can now have two fields of fire open for one weapon at the same time. Read the rules closely. It's nice.

Keep in mind, I have 15 jet bikes. They gave the jet bikes a major bump. They are sooo hot as to make Swooping Hawks even less desirable, and yes, they still get a move during their assault phase, fire or no, so something still has that Combat Crystal-esque tactic. I love the bikes.

Also, dire avengers, which used to suck are now so tactically powerful as to make any drawbacks one sees in the guardians to be negligible.

Wraithlords and Avatars, not that they needed it, are bumped. In fact, though I play Eldar, I would list the Avatar as a kind of cheating miniature (much like the Chaos Lord, Tau Crisis suits, the entire Dark Eldar army, etc.--every army has a little cheat, so don't get on your high horses, non-Eldar players). It's the point cost. It's so low! I have played about four battles with my eldar now, and have still yet to buy the farseer.

The problem, and I mentioned this before I think, is that the book is divided in two. All the necessary rules are in the front, and all the stats are in the back. That's so fucking stupid as to make me want to slap GW employees (harder than I normally want to slap them). Why in the fuck did they do that! Oh wait, I know. It's to make pirated PDF versions prohibitive. Great GW, I bought your book and it's a pain in the ass for me too!

Finally, and I can't stress this enough, Harlequins kick ass!

By the way, last tuesday, a half strength squad of Dire Avengers (3), plus a full squad of Howling banshees (4+exarch) killed a fully decked/four wound/monstrous creature Chaos Lord. It was so very sweet that I didn't even care when that same squad got mowed down by one of three pie plates the Iron Warriors (cheat army) decided to bring to the battlefield.

Hills re-revisited: It begins

Man, I hate hills. No seriously. As a terrain designer, I suppose I should love hills--the challenge that they represent, the ease with which one can make an okay looking hill, the zen of trying to improve the hills design, but I don't like hills and here's why.

Any time you put a hill on the battlefield, you run into problems. No amount of rule stipulation on the part of Games Workshop has managed to shore up this mess. Honestly, the people I play with now just turn to me and ask with every squad that fires, "Can I see that guy and does he get cover?" I mean seriously, how hard is it to say "things that are X" tall are level 2, and things that are Y" tall are level 3." What I've tried to do here is make hills more reasonable for game play to clear up the confusion.

By the way, if you are part of my game group, READ THIS!!! I'm tired of making terrain that I don't want to set on the table because nobody knows what to do with it. It's a hill, for Pete's sake! It shouldn't complicate game play for longer than a moment.

Hills re-revisited: The Basics

The Basics:

A hill is any piece of terrain that a miniature can stand on top of. A hill may have other characteristics—a bunker is, for instance, a hill for miniatures standing on top of it.

Hills have three levels of height. These height levels do not directly correspond to the height levels of figures (a level 3 hill is not the same height as a level 3 miniature). Hills allow figures on top of them to ignore terrain equal to or lower than the hill’s height, bearing in mind that no vantage point will allow a model to ignore level 3 terrain. Enemy models attempting to draw a line of sight to a model on a hill may ignore all terrain features of equal to or lower than the height of the hill. Models on top of hills do not gain cover from the hill itself though they may gain cover due to bluffs, canyons, or area terrain on top of the hill.

hills cont'd: some strangeness

A hill’s height remains constant and is not relative. In other words, a level 2 hill is still level 2 even to models standing on top of level 1 hills. It is level 2 even to height level 3 models. So, a level 2 hill blocks LOS between 2 level 2 models even if both figures are standing on level 1 hills.

Standing on top of a level 3 hill, because it does not allow you to look over level 3 terrain, confers no real height advantage over a level 2 hill. However, as a level 3 hill it will block LOS against everything not on it (including figures on a level 2 portion of that same hill). In a worse case scenario, one might imagine a 3 step hill with a defiler on the level 2 area attempting to fire upon a Land Raider also on that same level 2 but with a level 3 step between the two models. Despite the gigantic nature of both these vehicles, and despite their elevated position, the level 3 rise between the two figures will block LOS.

As height level 3 figures already ignore level 2 terrain for purposes of LOS, and level 1 terrain for both LOS and cover saves, this size model gains no advantage on a level 1 hill. On a level 2 hill, these models ignore the cover save conferred by level 2 cover as well as the hull down that tanks get behind level 2 terrain. …But the same is true of any size model on a level 2 hill.

hills cont'd: commentary on the strangeness

At first these situations seem counter-intuitive, but correct modeling can make such rules more realistic. As level one does not block LOS between level 2 combatants, it must be shorter than level 2 models; less than 1 ½ inch aught to do it. Level 2 blocks LOS between level 2 models but not level 3, which means 1 ½”-2”. Level 3 must be modeled that LOS must be blocked between two dreadnoughts both standing on level 2 hill. Optimally, this would mean that level 3 should be about 5” tall.
The problem seems to be the grey area between level 2 and 3: 2”-5”. I am inclined to split the difference and make level 2 go from 1 ½”-2 ½” and make level 3 any height greater than 2 ½” with an optimal modeling height of 5”. If one imagines then that level one equals up to 1 ½” with an optimal height of 1”, level 2 between 1 ½”-2 ½” with an optimum of 2” and that level 3 is 2 ½” and up with an optimum of 5”, the board becomes remarkably self evident in regards to what blocks what for everything except the largest of tanks.

optional rule for hills: hull down: Duck and Cover

As the rules stand now, level 2 and 3 hills do exactly the same thing: they allow you to ignore level 2 terrain. Because of this, there is no reason to climb to the top of level 3 hills.
To simulate the increased height advantage, assume that a hill does not negate area terrain cover’s cover save for cover equal to the height of the hill. The hill will still allow firers to ignore terrain of any depth as far as LOS is concerned. Therefore, a figure on a level 2 hill would still be able to see over level 2 terrain and ignore its capacity to grant a cover save unless figures are actually imbedded inside level 2 area terrain. In such a case, they get a cover save, but can be fired at no matter how deeply they are imbedded.
With this rule in effect, level 3 terrain would allow a figure to ignore area 2 cover terrain.

optional rule for hills: hull down

One other way to increase the virility of firers on level three terrain is to allow such firers, and only such firers, to ignore level 2 terrain against level 3 enemies. Thus, enemy tanks attacked by fire from a level 3 hill (and not on a level 2 or 3 hill) would not be able to claim the condition of “hull down.”

optional rule for hills: canopy

Most terrain is “open topped” some terrain, however, is not. In such cases, terrain may have different “game heights” in regards to what it blocks for LOS and when it will provide cover. Terrain with a roof, for instance, counts as level 3 for cover saves, but may be only level 1 or 2 to block LOS depending on the size of the building. This terrain cannot block LOS regardless of depth to enemies that are higher than its “LOS size”. For instance, a bunker that is level 2 in height has a roof. Enemies that take higher ground cannot ignore the cover save afforded the bunker by taking a position on a level 2 hill, though they can ignore its ability to block their LOS. If the bunker is large, and there is more than 6” between the target and its attacker on the hill, the attacker may still draw line of sight to the enemy as he is shooting down and not horizontally, through the terrain.