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mj12games.com/forum → Posts by tnjrp
Well, there are quite a few vocal "anti-pointists" on TMP to be sure, but many of them do go on about how rewarding it is to have an uneven battle...
Critical Mass Games has released their first battlesuit for Protolene Khanate I've mentioned before in the thread, the Ayame:
http://www.criticalmassgames.com/criticalmassgamesforum/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=159
As stated before, the line is nominally 15mm scale but the suit is a tad over 30mm high so can pass for an alien battlesuit or maybe a robot for 28-30mm scale in a bit of pinch. The entire line of the "space doggies" looks nice enough incidentally (apart from their upcoming big mecha previewed some time ago which I didn't like so much), but alas the scale is wrong for me personally, tho works well enough with Defiance of course.
One also notes that the company logo has quite a bit of similarity with the old Starslayer "exploding star" logo also used in the Defiance rulebook -- possible litigation opportunity there too :mrgreen:
You might like to check out Hobby Link Japan (or a similar site, if available) for Japanese Gashaphon collectibles. With some luck, you can catch anime series ship models such as those from Yamato for rather cheap. They are prepainted plastic, but of a different type from GW plastic, which may be an issue if you want to do conversions. Long term availability is also likely to be poor so you'll need to buy what you want pretty much at once.
Another option (of a somewhat long-shot type IMHO) that gets floated around the relevant forums by a group of enthusiasts is a company called Wargames Factory. They have a "Modular Generic Starship" plastic sprue in the works. More info here:
http://www.wargamesfactory.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=40033
A third option might be to ask around on the dedicated forum, if you haven't already:
http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/
I have heard rumors that a very few grognards have spouses that actually enjoy it as much as the male of the species
While this would raise the question "what species am I" (since I don't enjoy painting), the little more pertinent comment would be that I've even heard of one or two females who actually play miniature games. Not personally met any tho, unless occasionally participating in a miniature staged a battle scene in an RPG counts.
I think they're both in "serious" relationships so that sort of thing doesn't probably interest them.
Yep, based on my experiences that does mean you don't have time to paint minis a lot.
Sadly, it appears the grrl is just there to "draw the crowd" but otherwise this might be of minor interest to Dan, Demian & al. if they haven't contributed yet:
http://theminiaturespage.com/news/764712/
Something for the pulp scifi afficionados... Blue Moon has relased its "Supreme Alien Commanders" character figures as well as previously unannounced (or maybe I just missed it) heavy weapons and crew models. The crew models come with alternate heads so you can deck them out for any of the Blue Moon's pulp alien factions, or if you prefer "pinheads with big guns" just leave them as they are.
Here's the news item on TMP:
http://theminiaturespage.com/news/191010/
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In the more singular kind of miniature news, the sociopathic carbosilicate amorph Sergeant Schlock, the eponymous character from the hilarious space opera spoof web comic Schlock Mercenary is now available as a 28mm scale (somewhat limited availability) miniature. Being a collector's item, it is fairly steeply priced (especially for being accurately portrayed as looking rather like a big cowpat) and in any case there's just the single pose available, but anything Schlock is always worth a mention 
News here:
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/index.php/2009/10/26/and-now-theres-a-ninja-in-my-garden/
Khurasan's busy this week, their nonhumanoid aliens ("Cnidarians") have apparently become available. Here's the news on Dropship Horizon:
http://dropshiphorizon.blogspot.com/2009/10/new-khurasan-miniatures-15mm-cnidarian.html
Unfortunately for me, they are in the much-in-vogue 15mm scale, so at only 20mm tall and being slight as well they wouldn't to go well with my 28mm minis collection. I urge anyone who is in 15mm to take them under serious consideration however. One seldom seems nonhumanoid aliens in miniature at all, much less something this well thought out.
Critical Mass Games brought us 15mm canids, now Khurasan Miniatures brings us 15mm felids:
http://theminiaturespage.com/news/233257/
Classic opponents have assembled... Fur will fly!
Just remember -- don't put the minis in the same box afterwards or the paintjobs'll be all scratched ere morning...
Aaron Brown of Defiance Miniatures (in)fame has apparently hitched his horse to a new post, so to speak: now teaming up with Spartan Games best known for their fantasy naval warfare effort Uncharted Seas. The new alliance is set to produce Yet Another Skirmish Game(TM) called Domain of Light and Steel, "a fusion of medieval and science-fiction wargaming using 28mm scale pewter figures". The currently available miniatures ( including some new To'oks and their enemies, somewhat insectile retro robots Jakrats) and background info are available through Spartan Games' DLS site:
http://www.spartangames.co.uk/dls_game.html
As a dyed-in-the-wool "pointilist" (?)
That word does not mean what you think it means...
I'm not sure how I feel about the sarcasm implicit in this bit from a post on The Miniatures Page
"Implicit" is another word that doesn't mean what you think it means...
While IIRC this thread was rather about ca. 28mm scale minis, for those who might be interested in going 15mm regardless might find the up-and-coming Critical Mass a line worth watching:
http://www.criticalmassgames.com/ <-- EDIT: link fixed to their current URL
They've got the 3D design whiz John Bear Ross on board doing (at least some of) the vehicles, and the previewed greens of the infantry look quite good too. Here's some piccies of those:
http://dropshiphorizon.blogspot.com/2009/07/critical-mass-games-arc-fleet-wip.html
There's something rather "Defianceish" about some of their models, most notably the humans...
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Meanwhile back in the (apparently all of a sudden less fashionable) 28mm scale world...
This was initially anounced in April, but is now picking up steam for an actual launch... AE-Bounty from Darkson Designs (known for their alt-WWII game) features some ca. 28mm scale alien minis (as well as the perquisite humans). These are described as "retro/comic/Star Wars" in style and frankly the aliens I've spotted so far are, well, just too silly for me. Previewed human (or mutated human, as the case might be) models look nice tho and a promise has been made of many opportunities to custom you minis, which might indicate they are going to sell bitz from the line... Anyway, here's the official board where you can go to dig up pix:
http://darksondesigns.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=bountyinfo
Whilst on the subject of retro/comic, Newbold have circulated their scifi dragonoids, the Grak, back into their charity shoppe:
http://www.newboldworld.com/09CS1/index.html
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Incidentally, both CM and AE-B are going to have an associated game available but I'm sure nobody here will want to bother about those 
All this and even more... Phagon Beastmen, that is! See the above link for latest releases.
Meanwhile on the French front...
Rackham Entertainment keeps moving the Cogs release date (and Red Blok army box) back. I'm having hopes they'll be out for Christmas, the official version is currently August 3rd but it doesn't say which year
http://en-forum.at-43.com/viewtopic.php?t=6695
Still, the first boxes have apparently been done and they've been handed around to cronies, henchmen and various other privileged insiders. Here's one of those with a review for those with French skills or energy to take Babelfish to it to read -- me, I just looked at the piccies, which don't look all that bad even if they did cut down on the prepaint detail to match the price point:
http://www.figouz.net/AT-43/Army_Box.php
While I don't agree random activation removes strategy (tho it introduces "fog of war" and does remove some of the "all-seeing eye and all-knowing mind" advantage of the player over a real-life commander), this is of course very much "to itch his own" kinda thing.
I personally find activation rushing such a serious artefact that I accept random activation (or more specifically "stackable random activation" as in the case of Defiance) as an acceptable solution for removing it. I like to think our method of nonrandom balacing is slightly better (no surprise there), but it's not trivially exchangeable...
If you find the activation rushing a negligible problem at best (some people for example argue that small units are so fragile they aren't a viable solution for pumping up your activation count, thus making it a moot point) there's no reason for not to change it for your private games of course. Just be aware that changes -- possibly surprisingly radical -- in the dynamic of the game are to be expected when you do.
I can't recall an explanation off the top my head although Demian may have mentioned something about it when our group was playtesting and one of the guys was asking the same type of question.
On a side note, the interspersing prohibition is not quite inviolate. Vehicles, Elites and single models ignore it.
Defiance speed seems to be a little odd when you calulate it out (a man moves 4inchs (@ 2m an inch in 5secs) which equates to 5.75..kph)possibly the speeds have been lowered similar to weapon ranges so we're not all running from one side of the battlefield to the other in 1 turn
The weapon range issue most probably plays very much into it, although (assuming your calc above is correct) I don't think 5-6 km/h is anything to particularly sneer at while moving about in rough terrain under battle conditions in full combat gear.
The max move of 14S for ground equates to roughly 20kph, 40kph and 60kph not to bad, but considering some sci-fi vechiles can exceed 100kph even over rough terrain seems a little slow?
Obviously vehicles ought to be faster in some cases, but for the game purposes many of the frames are quite fast enough as it, perhaps even a little too fast for the scale.
Is their some sort of rule of thumb or logrithmic progression to use when converting a vechile who has known top speed of X to defiance inch movement
Not that I know of, and in any case you are limited by the listed frames as there is no public formula to calcutate arbitrary points values from the stat lines. I've certainly never considered this a problem but then again I've never converted a vehicle with a known top speed.
Generally, tinkering with activation mechanic is less safe than one might think, especially if it jumps the random/nonrandom border or overloads some unit stat. In any case I wouldn't really go with a trivial alternating activation scheme in any game as I've found it too prone to activation rushing, but of course that's just our group (we spend some years developing and testing a non-random system to alleviate the problem and it's still open to debate...).
Technically, I suppose there isn't much it'll directly affect tho, except for making Commanders rather overtly expensive. The rest of the effects such as individually fielded models gaining usefulness beyond their points are results of the activation system artefacts.
EM-4 has added more Phagon Beastmen to their line-up of Spacelords figs. Old skool sculpts in old skool scale (real 25mm) but may be good for the gronards among us
http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Beastmen.html
If you want to publish the lists on the 'Net once they are done I have a modest portal side I can either upload the files on or link to your site from...
On the subject of army building, again like I said before, if you tailor the hand-to-hand skills of a basic Clone Trooper or Droid to a negligible level, then you can fairly easily fit in a Jedi frame that can do nasty things to other frames in close combat. Add a serious field save for Force abilities and "the sword trick", and limit Commander levels to that frame and you are pretty far along given your premise that most Jedi aren't singleghandedly going to win battles.
I haven't heard of any tho there was discussion about doing Star Wars with Defiance a while back:
http://mj12games.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1391
I suppose the OP decided to go with another game.
That said, Clones and Droids lists shouldn't be too difficult to build. Like I said in the other thread, things start to get dicey once you bring in the Jedi, depending on what you expect them to be able to do on the field.
Oh, I'm rather sure it'll get made. Only just as with Energia's previous production, it's going to come out when it's ready -- or with luck, a little sooner
I'm guessing that it's a jab at the way that Chekov would pronouce "Star Trek: In the Beginning"
It's a pun on "In the Beginning" all right, but doesn't derive from pronounciation.
given that it's done by some group that's composed of Slavs (Czech?)
Not all that close, so definitely no banana. Sorry.
that obviously havea sense of humor
Nope, we "Slavs" have none of that here. None at all
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Anyway, by some accounts Iron Sky ought to come out as early as next year. I wouldn't bet on that yet (it took the guys 7 years or so to make In the Pirkining...), but I'd say 2011 is a possibility.
I suppose it's worth a try tho I'd suggest making it as low maintenance operation as possible. Pretty much Thedugan said about just grabbing stuff off the forums. Of course my Defiance army lists are also available if there's lack of material, at least those that don't break copyright laws (unfortunately, a lot of them do and are thus best left "unendorsed" by MJ12).
Black Hat has announced Martian Empires starter packs. Along with human invaders from Earth, they include various aliens in the form of the Martian factions. So those leaning towards the Victorian side of science fiction (eminently doable under Defiance rules, of course) may find them of interest, tho they aren't perhaps quite a good a deal as you might think if you don't intent to use the included rules -- and why would you
Anyway, here's the news item via TMP:
http://theminiaturespage.com/news/292858/
AFAIK there is no fully functional version of such a tool. It's not quite straightforward to build one either, which is why I haven't bothered with completing mine (I did start with an Access version once). I figured my time was better spend with actually producing results i.e. force lists. Actually it isn't all that difficult for human to do once the said human gets the hang of the process. Obviously minor errors can and do creep in which would be eliminated by a computerized tool but it's not like somebody's gonna croack if that happens...
All that said, Demian should have a "demo/beta" of an Excell sheet that does some of the work. Last I saw it it wasn't complete and IIRC had some minor errors but you could spot them easily enough and correct by hand.
mj12games.com/forum → Posts by tnjrp
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