A little more success, and some hope.

So I did some work to put together a slightly better rig to hold my leg molds, a pair of leftover pressboard shelves cut to size with a series of clamps along the out edges.  With that done, I mixed up another batch of resin, and set to work trying again.

This time the leg came out much better, and overall the part came out looking more like I expected.  The sharp edge of the leg was a little dull and jagged, this is in part because this is where the split for the mold was made.Also, the blades along the outer side of the leg didn't get as much definition.  The blades were very much expected, I didn't put in the proper venting for them when I made the mold.  I figured I could always just add those pieces on later if I needed, with the number of extra bits in the Raider and Ravager kit I should have enough to finish one titan at the very least.

Titan Leg V2

The bottom tip of the leg saw a little air get captured, so it resulted in a bit of deformity; no big loss though, because one of the things I had wanted to try was putting a metal rod into the leg when I was pouring the resin so there was a little more rigid structure for the titan to stand on, I can insert the rod where the deformity is and the green stuff over top.

The next leg is in the block curing now, I had did a little more research and it was suggested that putting talc powder on the inside of the mold helped the resin reach all the nooks and crannies, so that is the experiment this time, hopefully it will help show an improved result.

If I can get 3 more legs of the above quality, then I'll play with adding the rod for the next 4.  But first, time to get the body finished and get some more silicone rubber to cast the part.  I'd say to expect more updates, but I'm sure we all know I'm lazy and they may be not come soon.

Work has begun.

I'm still working on the flyer, mostly trying to figure out how to get the nice rounded organic feel to a lot of it without leaving it to the symmetry of my sculpting skills(since they don't much exist).  So I started doing some more scratch work on another project I've wanted to try.

The Tormentor Titan

The one thing that bothers about playing Dark Eldar, is as you scale up, there isn't really anything to use.  Apocalypse formations are limited, specialty units are virtually non-existent, and the few Forgeworld offerings are more 40K bolt-ons than Apocalypse vehicles.

So I did some digging into the dark corners of the internet to find out about where the army stands in Epic.  There isn't really anything in the official Epic rules for Dark Eldar, but there is a community who put together rules to expand the game and include Dark Eldar, along with other "lesser races" in the form of the Epic Raiders fandex.  So obviously the cover is as far as I needed to look to know I wanted the Dark Eldar Tormentor Titan.

I've played around with some rules ideas to guide what I want to build, but I'm going to keep those to myself until the project is done and I can fit them to the model.  I've finished the leg model, and have an idea on how it's attaching to the body assembly, so I picked up some Mold Max 30 silicon rubber to cast the part.  I hadn't used the product before, but I liked it being a mix by weight product which made it more exact with the use of a kitchen scale.  I built a mold box, and set the leg into clay, along with some bolts for alignment keys, and cast the first half of the mold, planning on doing a 2 part mold.  There wasn't any real problems, everything went smoothly.  I hit the local Michael's and got some mold release, removed the clay, and hit the part and mold with some mold release.  I then poured the second half of the mold.

Problems occurred!  The mold release either didn't properly cover, or reacted with the silicon mold compound, there was no release between the mold halves, I had a part encased in a block of silicon rubber.  So I went about splitting the block and getting to the part.  I managed to extract it and was basically left with a split mold.  From reading I knew this wasn't going to be as durable or reusable as a 2 part mold, but I figured I'd give it a try.  Now usually I'm using much smaller molds, and often they are placed snuggly into boxes of some sort, but this mold was a bit larger, so I tried using some boards held tight with some elastics and straps.  Once I started pouring the resin, it was obvious these weren't tight enough, because resin seeped out the sides and bottom.  I tightened things as much as I could and finished pouring the mold.

It didn't turn out terribly, I got a lot of flashing and bubbled edges because of the seepage, but it could be salvageable.  I noticed that the mold itself has a couple of major bubbles on the one side, likely the second half, but they should be fixable, the biggest issue with this cast is that the top ball joint and edge of the leg only had the resin harden on the mold while some of the resin seeped out, making them hollow.

Bubbles in the mold

Rough edges because of seepage

I'm going to build up a proper box that I can place the mold in and tight more uniformly and try again.  The goal is to get 4 good legs out of the mold, and then see if I can manage 4 more.  As was pointed out to me, if I'm going to spend the time and money to cast and mold one, I may as well do 2.  So hopefully over the next little while I can refine my process and get the 4-8 legs I need and move onto finishing the body assembly.

Zone Mortalis some more

So the Zone Mortalis walls are basically done, I have a small 4' length of lumber left that I could make a couple more walls out of, but we took what we had and ran a large game this past Sunday at the club.  Three person teams, each person running 1000 points each.

Everyone loved the quick pace and bloody close quarters feel of the game, it's a nice escape from the mechanized world of 5th Edition.  People got to bring things that wouldn't normally hit the table, notice the Avatar?  He's quite spiffy for this, ignoring melta and flamers.  The addition of the doors made a big difference, with AV13 it was entirely possible to get yourself locked into a room.  Worse still is if you were locked in a room with an entry point, you were a rat trapped in the maze waiting to be eaten (my girlfriend took that literally and decided to add some mouse toys for the pictures).

We played with basically all the optional rules, the Enemy Unknown was too much work, and the Cold Void was only used if added through the catastrophic damage table.  The way we see it, the game is meant to be played with everything, and flavoured by the choice of the Catastrophic Damage table you use, Buried Alive for ground bases, and Void Ships & Stations for space hulk type battles.  The one house rule we added was to modify the 10 man unit limit.  It seemed to hamper those swarm armies that we'd want to see in the halls, like Orks and Tyranids.  So we allowed squads of any size allowable by the codex, however any squad of 12 or more models in the movement phase counted as moving through difficult terrain to represent the close quarters shuffling of so many bodies moving through hallways.  It seemed to work perfectly, allowing someone unfamiliar with the house rule to play with little issues, 10 man squad + 2 HQ ICs.  Only some small issues for armies that can get multiple ICs per HQ slot, or ICs from non-HQ slots.

As you can see there are quite a few more walls, some blast doors, and a few pieces of terrain on square bases to fit into the system nicely.  To begin with I simply made 3 sets of 3 doors in a 2", 3" and 4" width.  The blast doors were just some more particle board consisting of a 1" thick base for a 3" tall door to sit on with just some carpenters glue to hold them on.  They are the most likely thing to break, but they are also pretty quick and easy to fix. 

The only thing I may add is some sort of edge marker, because as you can see some of the edges didn't have walls along the whole edge.  This is partly because of lack of extra straight length walls, and part because the ones that did get placed would get knocked off.  So something in  a similar size to the blast doors, just a simple flat marker representation.

So the overall decree is everyone loves the Zone Mortalis games and we'll probably finish off the club dates playing it.  If you get a chance definitely setup something as walls, even if it's just masking tape on the table, you'll enjoy it I'm sure.

Dark Eldar Flyer Project

So with school winding down, and extra time while I'm job hunting I thought I'd spend some extra time on various projects that I've been wanting to do for a while.  The bigger ones will be posted later, but the first thing I wanted to start with was a flyer.

I've always looked at the Forgeworld Raven and though I could probably make that out of a Raider body, just change the wings because I didn't like the look of them.  The problem was it would cost a Raider body, which I didn't have any extras of.  I had always kept a look out for spares on the cheap, but never saw any.  But with the new codex and new models the old ones, which were pretty beat up, went into a closet.  I pulled a couple out recently, and took the most battered one to be re-built, better, faster, more in line with the new styles.  Early on I decided to make the wings resemble the swept back Skyboard wings.  Then design the body to have a Jetbike look.

With some leftover 1/8" plastic sheeting from a recent bathroom reno I started by cutting them out with the jigsaw, then smoothing them down and shaping them with the sander.  The Raider got the platforms and driver wings clipped off and the front was chopped about where the scoop underneath began.  From there the wings were added, and a front nose piece added.  At this point I need to add some thin cardstock or plasticard to add some flow to the tops and bottom of the model and fill out the front cowl, but it's definitely taking the shape I want.

The plan is to use it as a Raven in the end, with the splintercannon underslung.  But  I may hold off adding that and use it as a Voidraven bomber until an actual model is released.

Once it's a little further along with some better contrast pictures I'll post more shots.

Zone Mortalis Project Underway

So with the mechanised and shooting heavy bias of 5th I was really excited when Forgeworld eleased the Zone Mortalis rules.  I loved the idea of close quarters Space Hulk type games.  I wasn't quite as excited about the price of the set and how much a decent size play space would be; although I have heard good reviews about the set.  So, like manyothers I began a plan to replicate the idea, why re-invent the wheel right?  But as I was planning things and trying to determine the best material to use as a base, my girlfriend asked one of those questions that makes me take pause, 'Where are you going to store it?  Couldn't you just make the walls?'  So simple it seemed stupid to do what I was.

 

So back to the drawing board.  I focused on making walls that were durable and space saving.  So I started with a trip to the local DIY store for some supplies.  Here is the current materials list:

• 1x3x8 strapping
• Wood glue
• Foamcore board
• Screwnails

So the design is to go with no base and make 9 wall sections (1 12" wall, 10x10 L-shape wall, 1 8x8 U-shaped wall, and 6 4x4 L-shaped walls) that should come close to replicating the Forgeworld setup but with more flexibility.  The best part is that once I determined the dimensions, I was able to make all of the wall pieces to make just about the equivalent of the Forgeworld set with one 8 foot length.

So I began by cutting the strapping to length, it is important to remember to account for the thickness of your foamcore, as well as any joins in the strapping.  For example, an L-shaped wall that you want to be 10 inches will require 1 9" length( -1/4" for foamcore, -3/4" for strapping), and 1 9 3/4" length.

Once the pieces were cut to length, they put into place, then glued and clamped.  Once the pieces were clamped together pilot holes were drilled long enough for the screws, and then the boards were also screwed together.  You could easily nail them instead of screwing them, but it's generally a tigher fit with screws and I had some extra laying around.  Keep in mind, because you are working with thin boards, pilot holes are important to keep the wood from splitting.

Once everything was together, the next step was to put foamcore on to the wood.  This was done for a number of reasons, to bulk up the walls to give a more bunker like or bulkhead feel, to give us a clean and flat surface to do detail work on, and especially in the case of the single 12" section, to help it sit flatter and without tipping.

So the first set of 9 pieces is almost complete, just a couple foamcore applications for the small L shape pieces.  When I picked up the lumber I grabbed 2 lengths, assuming I'd be just short with 1, and have started a second set of walls.  I haven't added any new shapes, although I am going to look at it, I did however change the number of pieces.  I changed some of the small L shapes into another large L shape, it left a little extra leftover but the benefit was worth it.  As I was placing the shapes for testing and pictures I realized that the combination of the two L shapes gave me a great corner corridor that I didn't see in the Forgeworld setup as much. 

So I'm going to try and get the second set assembled, and hopefully the foamcore walls on tommorow before the club to give it a try at one of our last few dates.

End of an Era?

To begin with, I have to say that I plain and simply have the best girlfriend a gamer could ask for.  Not only is she a gamer as well, and comes up with some awesome paint schemes even if she is still learning alot of the techniques that will eventually make them really pop.  Second, it's long and wordy, but I don't expect there are many of you out there reading it anyhow, lol.

Stompa in progress

For almost the last four and a half years she has been responsible for running our local club, but come the end of April we have to shut it down.  I've spoken a little about it before, but at the time we started the club there were a few of us who were playing and were pretty die hard.  The only local store that had been doing Warhammer had been pretty disappointing over the previous couple years, owner was mad because we didn't buy the stuff he brought in, players were mad because they'd never bring in what the players ordered.  Then they moved to a smaller store and cut out any display space or game tables, so it was strictly basement games.

One of the local guys had been back and forth between here and Southern Ontario and gotten Grey Knight status somewhere along the line.  He really pushed to try and get something going that he could support.  We ended with him securing a place about 45 mins outside town to play.  Price was good, free, but location was a bit of a pain.  At the time, I was probably one of the most avid hobbyists we had going, but I knew I didn't have the patience to run a club, even though I had lots of ideas.  My girlfriend is an organized and excited player and stepped up to start organizing.  Within a few weeks she had found us a great location in town, only $20 for a huge space for about 6 hours.  The bonus was the kitchen that allowed stuff like potluck lunches.

Original Game Space

For the first year and half we were in that space, we ran a number of tournaments and events.  We regularly had about 10  people showing up, though for a while there were only 4 of us on a normal basis.  Because the price hikes we eventually moved to space in the local college. We've had a few bumps with the location, poor communication on space being available, locked out of the room, throwing out half our terrain that was stored in a locker, and the administrative fun that dealing with any education institution seems to bring, but it's been a good home for us and provided the backdrop for a number of the videos and pictures I've shared, as well as a number of the battle reports from Kris at Riders of the Cosmic Serpent. 

The last couple years attendance has dropped, all the normal reasons, people move, people have family and lives, people just can't make it.  The last couple tournaments we held went alright, and after a few stressful large events like Apocalypse games we cut back on the size and scope of anything we do (although Spearhead has been a recent favorite). 

The fate of the club had always seemed kind of hazy.  But personally life hasn't been the greatest for us, when the economy crapped a few years ago I got laid off, so just as my girlfriend graduated University, I returned with a plan to make myself more employable.  She didn't find much but eventually got contracted at the local lottery building.  The project still looks great, and there is a good chance that she may stay there through the summer.  The problem is the Ontario government is talking about closing one of the two head offices,the cushy CEO positions are in TO, not here, we can mostly read between the lines.  So now she's at a job with a very uncertain future, and I'm a little over a month from graduating, and with a couple local businesses closing and the threat of a major employer leaving in the lottery building jobs are scarce.

So that leaves us in our toughest spot, we ran the club because we got a benefit out of it and we could afford it when times were good.  For a while at the beginning, it was just part of our hobby budget to run the club.  Slowly over time though, as things got worse the club supplanted our hobby budget, so it was run the club and have a place to do the hobby or put off buying those new models.  Now we've come to the point where we really have to evaluate where we are going and cutting things like our hobby budget anticipating having to save for potential moving costs to find work.

My girlfriend made the final call today, she knows that it's my social time(and I really don't have much of it) and she knows that some of the other players are in the same boat socially so she feels bad.  It's just the mark of a good person to feel bad for others when you have to do something for yourself I guess.  Softening the blow somewhat is the fact that over the course of the last couple years a new game store openned.  It's not the perfect solution, the owner is pretty young and his lack of business experience and saavy is apparent  and some players have become pretty disillusioned with the place in a short amount of time.  Hopefully we can provide some push to get players into his space and help him convert them into happy customers.

Almost

So it's a long winded drama story, but I really just needed to vent and even though she will probably not read it, I needed to voice that my girlfriend has done an amazing thing for the local gaming community.  I don't know if anyone else will voice it but I admire and respect her for doing that, and love her dearly for the concern she shows for the people who have become her friends. 

I seriously anticipate that there is a move coming in my future, and the part that tears me the most is because of commitments she may not be coming with me right away.  The worry with those last two words are self apparent.

Dark Eldar vs Eldar Corsairs

So a bit of shared content that's going up a bit late, I did a battle with Kris from over at Riders of the Cosmic Serpent.  We were testing out the Eldar Corsairs list from the latest Imperial Armour book.  Mostly because it gives him a reason to play with the planes in normal games.  Overall it wasn't that bad, the army felt alot like the normal jetbike/grav tank army.