26 Reply by nathan

(14 replies, posted in Wardogs)

go0gleplex wrote:

Dude...right now I barely have room for my game books. All my mini's are packed away in storage, along with my tools and paints. smile  Not even enough room to put a table up here until I get my storage/hobby shed built.  :wink:

That would make hobby stuff difficult.  I thought I gave the impression that I was making some big table with all the terrain permanently put into it.  Like the impressive ones you might see at a larger convention or something.  But it's all portable type stuff with individual pieces.

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27 Reply by nathan

(14 replies, posted in Wardogs)

Oh, this isn't going to take a lot of room.  I don't game out of my house.  A friend of mine has some tables we set up once a month on Saturdays when his wife does a split shift.  As well, there's a local club that rents a community centre once a month for big games.  All this stuff (including the terrain) is going to be transported to and from games in luggage converted to the task.  Like those ones with the roller wheels and the retractable handles or something.  It's even going by transit.  Right now I take things in a stiff walled duffle bag and a back pack.  I haven't had any damage from transport over the last 4 years of gaming out of house.

The tracks will get mounted on a base.  My current favorite material for terrain bases are cheap adhesive vinyl flooring tiles.  The ones that are like 3 or 4 for a dollar at Home Depot.  It's strong enough, but still flexible.  The actual floor pattern that you'd normally step on goes down and the stuff gets mounted on the adhesive side.

So the road/rail sections will likely be 3 inches wide and maybe 10 inches long and include straight pieces, curves.  I haven't worked with railroad track before, but I think the challenge is going to be making the ends universally connect and disconnect easily.  Most model railroad stuff is meant to be put down once.

Most of the buildings will be left without bases.  I make my own containers for things like that out of cheap tupperware type containers and cut up sponges, both from the dollar store.  That's how I have my warmachine miniatures for transporting.

The fiddlier stuff will be stuck on bases that are given magnetic boxes.  They'll be stuck to one side of the box and the fiddly part will be suspended in the air inside of the box with nothing touching it.

Trees will be given some sort of socket type design.  Maybe with tiny rare earth magnets.  So the trees will get packed together and their bases will have little holes or mounds with magnets in them.  The ones I have like that for bigger miniatures like 40k/warmachine get transported by putting them face to face with a bit of sponge over each of the mounds and then a big elastic band around the two.  I may make individual tree bases this time.  Probably use the microarmour trick of mounting them on pennies.  Since new Canadian pennies are ferrous, that makes for easy transport too.  A freezer container lined with magnetic strips from the dollar store should do fine.

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28 Topic by nathan

(14 replies, posted in Wardogs)

Well, I've been investigating different smaller scale sci-fi rules and miniatures.  Everything from Epic:Armageddon, to Classic Battletech and miniatures ranging from Germy's 2mm sci-fi to Minifigs 10mm modern/historical stuff.  As well as Heavy Gear, CAV and a variety of 6mm sci-fi manufacturers.  Rules wise, my short list included CAV, Future War Commander, Iron Cow, Epic:A, Prophecy of War, Heavy Gear, etc.,.

I eventually decided on Wardogs and 10mm/N Scale stuff.  The reason is pretty much the design system and availability as a PDF.  There are certain elements I like in a game and while Prophecy of War, Future War Commander, Epic:A and others can handle them, Wardogs is pretty much the only one that does so and doesn't require large numbers of miniatures to be used to get a good game in.  Epic:A, FWC, Prophecy of War and others run at normal levels with 20+ tanks, 20+ stands of infantry and then just a few walkers tacked on if you're so inclined.  And it can get a lot higher as well.  It just seems like an awful lot of stuff on the battlefield given how battlefield troop density has been dropping since the 1800s.

I generally don't game with hexes.  I've done a lot of hard core chit based hex historical consim type wargaming and I generally cringe at hexes now.  So I'll just be doing a simple conversion to inches.  1 hex = 1" should work, but I may also try 1.5 and 2 if I have a larger table for a given game.

For N scale stuff, I'm going to go with DP9's Heavy Gear line for light mechs, Reaper's CAV for the heavy stuff and EM4's nice cheap plastic mechs for middle of the road type stuff.  They might look a bit small for 10mm/N-Scale, so I may also have them be remote operated virtual reality controlled mechs, or entirely AI controlled mechs.  I won't really be able to tell for sure if they'll work with an N-scale person piloting them or not.  I ordered 2 sets of 5 from EM4 to see what I think of them up close.

My next CAV order will wait a while.  I got a bunch of their VTOLs/Gunships off of eBay for a good price and those have arrived.  But no local store carries their CAV stuff and the one I want to deal with just placed an order with the distributor that carries Reaper stuff and won't be doing so again for a while (next month for Christmas releases, I think).  There's one local store that has an account with DP9, but unless the order is over $100, they insist that I pay their shipping charges.  So I may as well save the local sales tax and have it delivered right to my door.

Infantry are a bit harder of a choice.  Both Reaper and DP9 make excellent N scale size infantry (if a bit large).  Very sci-fi looking.  But I think there's nothing wrong with modern or even WW2 style infantry in a sci-fi game.  There's been some changes, but I don't see infantries appearance changing all that rapidly over the last 50 years.  Even the futurist magazine articles about the soldiers of the future don't look that different in their concept art.  So I'm probably going to order some infantry from minifigs.com and go for either their near future stuff or their modern Americans.  A couple packs will be more than enough infantry for both sides.  DP9 is also still a serious possibility.  When I finally do place an order with them, I'll probably add a platoon of their infantry just because.

Another benefit of N-scale/10mm over the traditional 6mm/1:285 (used by battletech and others) is that they're just big enough that some 15mm stuff can work as super heavy tanks and whatnot.  As well, it's just small enough that some larger 6mm stuff can work as well.  For example, the CAV VTOLs/Gunships are actually in 1:285 scale. 

Now terrain is where I'm really jazzed about N scale.  There are a variety of n-scale model railroad terrain manufacturers.  The Japanese stuff has the greatest use for sci-fi stuff and there are some great kits out there.  For example, here's a thread on a guy's collection of N-scale buildings for Heavy Gear (link to Dream Pod 9's forum):
http://dp9forum.com/index.php?showtopic=4072

I have some stuff en route from Japan myself.  An excellent factory made by Greenmax as well as a big pack of shipping containers.  My plan is to make a bunch of terrain pieces that are a transport hub/industrial settlement.  I'm planning on hitting a local model train shop and getting some tracks and some flat bed train cars. 

I'm not 100% sure about the layout yet, but I'm thinking I'm going to make sectional train track pieces.  Since a hex/inch is like 200 metres or something, the train tracks will represent transit corridors rather than just train tracks.  So they'll represent roads/highways as well as train tracks.  Anything can use them as roads.  The buildings will functionally form area terrain that counts as a city.  When you're miniatures are in 1:150 or so and the ground is in 1:8000, fudging is unavoidable.  Even if I want with the 2mm mico-minis, I'm still looking at 1:600 or so.  The vertical scale will be over 10 times the ground scale.

In a way, it's a good thing.  Having the ground scale be looser than the figure scale means you can get away with stuff like using the smaller 1:285 aircraft miniatures.  It basically puts the onus on it just looking right.  The smaller EM4 plastic mechs might end up looking fine alongside N scale buildings and infantry.  Since it all doesn't matter to the ground scale and Wardogs doesn't have silly ideas like using true line of sight with a laser pointer to see if you get cover or not, as long as it looks right, it'll work.

Anyway, if you ever consider using railroad track for terrain modelling and you don't need it to work as a model railroad, go for the lower code track.  Sure, it means that less cargo cars can actually go on it, but having a lower code track means the railroad tines are lower and it'll look less like a toy.  So there's scale (N, HO, O, Z, etc., and then there's code, which is the height of the tracks.  I'm going with N scale, code 55.

The main advantage to having things like trains and buildings, other vehicles and whatnot is that it really makes mechs look impressive.  Infantry help a little, but nothing helps quite like seeing something tower over a bus or a train.  Even smallish trees don't quite have the same effect as seeing a tiny bus or car beside a mech.

So I'm also thinking of getting some N scale construction equipment, maybe a bus or two and some cars.  I'll probably also get some N scale people, which I'll base up on stands as bystanders or hostages or whatever.  I'm going to have to hunt around for miniatures as the railroad people usually come prepainted and are expensive.

So the next step is getting the VTOLs painted as they are what I have.  When the first package of N Scale buildings arrive, I'll start on those.

Notable Links:
Germy's Micro Minis (cartoony 2mm sci-fi)
http://www.gtns.co.uk/store1/commerce.cgi?product=gmm&exact_match=on&cart_id=6263066.14818

Minifigs 10mm moderns
http://www.minifigs.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=41_2_43_44&products_id=2290
Minifigs 10mm near future
http://www.minifigs.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=41_2_295&products_id=2610

EM4 mecha (scroll down)
http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Science_Fiction.html

Dream Pod 9 infantry:
http://tyler.provick.ca/?p=220
http://tyler.provick.ca/?p=183

Reaper Gunships/VTOLs I have:
http://reapermini.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=988&cat=0&page=1
http://reapermini.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=998&cat=0&page=1
http://reapermini.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=944&cat=0&page=1

N Scale Track (not mine, just an example)
http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/500/N_scale_test_track_1_.jpg
http://www.larkmodelworks.com/images/weekend/nv03.jpg

N Scale Flatbed Cars:
https://secure.atlasrr.com/mmMOD1/Images/38190A_TQ.jpg

The N Scale factory on it's way:
http://kampfgruppe144.blogspot.com/2006/01/greenmax-factory-diorama.html</r>

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29 Reply by nathan

(18 replies, posted in Wardogs)

For Heavy Gears, I'm thinking of a size 3 unit, 2 for the recon gears, 4 for the bigger ones 4 or 5 for the striders.  I'd definitely use the rules for hand held weapons as most of their weapons are.  Generally only missile pods will be mounted weapons on gears.  I'd probably give them an extra magazine as well.

There are a decent number of gears that have things like light mortars built in, grenades they can toss on infantry, etc.,.  I'd probably handle those as non hand held weapons.

To make it extra agile (hard to hit and fast), I'd spend equipment modules on extra movement and thermal dampers.  I'd keep the armour to a minimum to keep the speed up.  I'd give it some, but not max it out or anything, expect for the heaviest of gears.

The end result would be a small mech, anywhere from two to four times as high as a man, with a handheld weapon of some sort, relatively light armour, but good at moving and evading.  Depending on the gear, I might add ECM/ECCM stuff and any other bits and bobs from the design system that made sense.

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30 Reply by nathan

(18 replies, posted in Wardogs)

Well, I got the PDF pretty quickly and gave it a review based on my initial read through.   The only bad side is that I don't know if I got the wrong file or chose the wrong thing with RPGnow, but my copy is A4.  Not a huge problem scaling that to US Letter size when printing.  I have no idea if RPGnow gave me a choice and I just messed up or what.  No biggy or anything.

I've decided to get things on the table faster, I'm going to order some of the EM4 cheap mechs.  Local stores won't bring in DP9 or Reaper stuff until they get enough special orders and their own restocking to place an order with distributors that gives them free shipping.

I'll post more and perhaps start a thread about what I'm planning with the rules in a bit.  It's Canadian Thanksgiving and I need to get some appetizers prepared in the next hour.

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31 Reply by nathan

(49 replies, posted in Miniatures)

Good morning all.

Thought this might be pertinent:

http://www.taxidermy.net/forum/index.php/topic,39157.0.html

Apparently using cheap silicone and polyester resin to make castings is a common practice among taxidermists.  Not a bad little guide.

Also on the "My Heap" link in the first post, there's a link to an experiment.  Using a naphtha based lighter fluid to thin the silicone.

http://www.myheap.com/book/chapter-07/example-01/example-01.php

Given that this is effectively brush on mould making, I think the same principles apply.  For example, after a coat of the thinned stuff (or two, I see no reason why you could switch to full thickness stuff with paint/glycerin.  And then even make a mother mould.

One thing that naptha experiment doesn't say is how long it took to set.  Some say days if you thin it too much.  Also, it isn't using any catalyst.  What happens if you add paint or glycerin to stuff thinned with naphtha?  Will it work at all or tear apart?

Things to try.  Also, while this is fine for making miniatures, I'm thinking it may have even more applications for terrain.  Terrain is often suited for a single part mould with a flat bottom, whereas miniatures often need a 2 part mould.  I'm thinking I might make some 6mm scale shipping containers and cast a bunch up to make a space port full of such containers.  I think there might even be properly scaled textured plastic sheeting from plastruct or evergreen.  Might be fairly simple.

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32 Reply by nathan

(18 replies, posted in Wardogs)

Well, I bought a copy of the rules through RPGnow.  Just for your info, I bought it for the robust construction system.  There are things other games don't handle (Heavy Gear is missing VTOLs, CAV is missing small mechs) and it's nice to see a set of rules that really is about using the stuff you want in a game.

My laser printer is about to be put to work.

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33 Reply by nathan

(18 replies, posted in Wardogs)

I signed up here.  I'm Nathaniel on TMP.  Now that I'm searching threads here, it looks like most of my questions will be answered.  I'll probably proxy some stuff (don't have any mechs built yet) and give the demo rules a try.

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