First Shapeways Order part 2

Launch Bays have arrived!

In part 1 of this topic, I showed you two different sets of iconography I designed and 3D printed for two of my Battlefleet Gothic fleets. Here we have a piece that replaces one of the original weapon assemblies that came with the game--Launch Bays.

Original Launch Bays

New Launch Bays Re-fit

I am super stoked how this turned out. It is exactly how I imagined it! The new launch bay creates a cleaner silhouette, and I am please with the simpler lines along the hull.

There was a small hiccup in the design--They turned out just a hair wide, but it was easy to sand the edges to fit. I am not worried and do not plan to update the stl file.

This ship is in process of a repaint and a remodel. In addition to ripping out and replacing the launch bays, it has had some other new bits added. The original bridge was cut off and a chaos bridge added. I also added Wing Shields and a Bridge Dome. The latter two are from Shapeways. They came in a set of bits called Cruiser Upgrade Pack 1, created by contributor Armand.

If you missed it, you can see the Launch Bay design file in this post.

Next step it to get some painted models to show!

First Shapeways Order

A new era of my hobby.

I received my first batch of my own custom 3D designed and printed loot today! I am very excited about the prospect of designing little bits and baubles for my own use and then be able to offer them to anyone else who is interested.

First up is a 'Khorne Tower", representing a MoK on my chaos cruisers. Sorry for the poor image, the pic I took with flash was just a white blob. These will look so much better all painted up, but I couldn't wait to share.

Next up is an Aquamarine badge. They will be placed on all of my space marine ships, but I am working on a modified design to use on my space marines.

Launch bays are on their way. I can't wait to see how they look!

BFG Fleet Reorganization

I love charts!

No pics of little painted toys today. I have a bevy of spreadsheet charts showing the progress and layout of my growing Battlefleet Gothif fleets. After quite a bit of research, I have chewed threw the original BFG and Armada rules books, the official FAQ's, and the community driven 2010 FAQ and BFG:R rule set.

Through all of that, I re-evaluated how to assign my Space Fleet collection into my Battlefleet Gothic fleets, and have updated the progress charts from about a year ago.

The Imperial Navy took the heaviest losses, shared about equally (points wise) across cruisers and escorts. I moved the majority of the over 1,600 points worth of ships to my Rogue Trader fleet. All of those ships fit better stylistically and thematically with an exotic and flamboyant space Noble.

The Pirate fleet has been re-christened a Rogue Trader fleet. Actually, I would have rather had a Rouge Trader fleet from the beginning, but I never liked any of the official lists. I am using the fleet list from BFG:R.

I have made the most progress on my Space Marine fleet. I even started to name the ships! The names are Latin names for sea creatures to play off my homevbrew Space marine chapter, the Aquamarines.

The chart looks quite a bit different because from last time mainly because I changed the colors of the final 2 status', 'Repaint in Progress' and '2nd Gen Finished' to stand out better.

I also removed three 'To Get' ships as they are out of my budget for the foreseeable future.

Defense Systems are not a fleet per se. Although I am treating them as a separate planetary defense 'ally' fleet. While the progress chart is new, I already had a number of systems built and painted.

These ships and defense systems will be primarily used for planetary scenarios. However, there are plenty of other uses too.

The Chaos fleet was one of my after thought fleets. I have some ships, but not really enough to field a usable fleet. I am looking for some inexpensive options.

The Ork fleet is the other after thought. But in this case, I already have, or have the parts to scratch-build all the ships.

The Eldar fleet are made up almost exclusively by Space Fleet figures and fit best as Corsairs. I plan on picking up some Craftworld ships to field as allies.

The last fleet in this chart-packed post is not a fleet--These are terrain pieces, or Celestial Phenomenon.

Well, that wraps up today's episode.

3D Design Project

Testing out a new side project!

For the last week or so I have been muddling around with Autodesk's free web ap "Tinker Cad". It has been very easy to learn and use. I will probably move to a more sophisticated (free) program soon, as the control over the shapes/nodes are lacking.

Following is one of the 3D dodads I have been working on . This is a modular component for the existing capitol ships for the game Battlefleet Gothic. I am also working on other pieces for the game such as variant torpedoes, variant fighter craft, and other accessories.

This is a launch bay component. The motivation for this piece came from not liking the bit that comes with the original models, and the inspiration came from the middle section of a transport ship (see below). I always liked the design although it never looked right to me as a transport ship.

These are the components from a heavy transport ship. The second piece from the left was the inspiration for launch bay project. The two types of cargo bays here are 'troops' and 'fuel'.

Here is a sketch for the component I am planning of a 'spine' midsection that will receive modular cargo components. It will also be compatible with the weapon components from the original models allowing for merchant war ships.

Adeptus-B and I discussed making some steam-punk conversion pieces for building and figures. Eventually, I would also like to design some custom game pieces for my Monopoly Omega and Risk Omega projects.

BFG Strike Cruiser Carrier

Been in a bit of a slump of late, and I've had a difficult time getting my hobby mojo back. 

About a week ago, I managed to get a little bit of hobby time in. I filled the weapon batteries off of a Strike Cruiser so I could convert it to a carrier. Here is a mock-up of my first attempt.

The white part on the left is 2 trimmed "I" beams glued to a thin piece of plasticard. The grey part on the right is the cut down upper assembly of an old school las pistol.

BFG BatRep – Space Marines vs Imperial Navy 500 pts

Battlefleet Gothic returns to family game night. 

Deathbot, Mrs Zorcon, and I played a rematch of our last game. Not surprisingly, this game took place over a month ago and I am just setting down to write up the BatRep.

SET UP:

Once again we play the intro scenario 'Cruiser Clash' at 500 points. This time instead of the game box, I used asteroids to mark off the play field boundaries. This will become an issue later in the game.

FLEET LISTS:

We used the same lists.

IMPERIAL NAVY (285pts) - Deathbot

• Tyrant Cruiser
• Cobra Destroyer Squadron x3

IMPERIAL NAVY (215pts) - Mrs Zorcon

• Dauntless Light Cruiser
• Sword Frigate Squadron x3

SPACE MARINES (500pts) - Zorcon

• Strike Cruiser
• Strike Cruiser
• Gladius Frigate Squadron x2
• Hunter Destroyer Squadron x3 

TURN 1:

Everyone opened up the game advancing towards the middle (red arrows) and launching ordinance (white arrows). The Imperial Navy (IN) missed the mark with their torpedoes, but the Space Marines (SM) caused some minor damage with their Assault Boats.

TURN 2:

By this stage, everyone is in firing range. For the first time between this and last game, I split up my Strike Cruisers--This will turn out to be a mistake.

TURN 3:

With ships crisscrossing each other, the IN Dauntless class light cruiser is destroyed by massed weapon batteries and attack craft.

TURN 4:

As the IN sends its main ship away from the rest of the fleet, the SM fleet prepares to surround the lone enemy vessel.

TURN 5:

The SM fleet circles around to attack the IN capitol ship.The mass of blast markers in the lower left shows evidence of the killing blow to the IN Tyrant class cruiser. The explosion took out one of the SM Gladius Frigates.

TURN 6:

Now that both capitol ships are destroyed, the 2 IN escort squadrons regroup and cause heavy damage to one of the SM strike cruisers.

TURN 7:

Here is were 2 previous mistakes come to pass at the same time--Separating my strike cruisers and not clearly defining the battle zone. The heavily damaged strike cruiser captain orders the ship 'all ahead full'. In an unexpected burst of speed, the ship ends up at the edge of the field of battle. Since I did not clarify at the beginning of the game where the boarder actually is (at the edge of the asteroid's base or at the center of the post), it was unclear id the strike cruiser was out of play or not. 

We chose the best way to resolve the situation was to roll a die; 1-3 the ship stays in play, 4-6 it is off the board. I rolled a 4 and lost the ship.

TURN 8:

With renewed morale, the IN went on offence, attempting to repeat its previous efforts. They made a valiant effort to damage the remaining strike cruiser, but the SM fleet was ready and counter attacked. After the end of the turd, the strike cruiser took a few points of damage, but not enough to cripple it. Unfortunately, the IN lost another ship, a Cobra class destroyer.

Game ends with another SM victory. The lad and Mrs are really getting the hang of the game (and I am re-familiarizing myself with the rules). In the next game we will introduce celestial phenomena (terrain).

BFG BatRep – Space Marines vs Imperial Navy 500 pts

More Battlefleet Gothic!! Again I am almost a month late posting a BatRep!

The other day Deathbot wanted to play 40k, but I didn't think we had time. I suggested a game he had never played, but within the same universe... Battlefleet Gothic. He loved the idea. So much so, he talked Mrs Zorcon into playing too!

SET UP:

I broke out my felt starscape, using the game boxes to mark off one board edge to keep the play area manageable.  We played the intro scenario 'Cruiser Clash'. As the name says, the the scenario is meant to be cruisers only, but we included escorts too.

FLEET LISTS:

Each side had 500 points. I decided to give each side 2 cruisers and 2 escort squadrons.

IMPERIAL NAVY (285pts) - Deathbot

• Tyrant Cruiser
• Cobra Destroyer Squadron x3

IMPERIAL NAVY (215pts) - Mrs Zorcon

• Dauntless Light Cruiser
• Sword Frigate Squadron x3

SPACE MARINES (500pts) - Zorcon

• Strike Cruiser
• Strike Cruiser
• Gladius Frigate Squadron x2
• Hunter Destroyer Squadron x3 

TURN 1:

Image terminated by Inquisitor Nicodemus from the source of transmission.

TURN 2:

This was taken after the Imperial Navy's turn, before the Space Marine's turn. Both sides fired torpedoes, forcing the opponent to take evasive maneuvers. 

TURN 3

Image terminated by Inquisitor Nicodemus from the source of transmission.

This is the only image of turn 3 to make it through the communication black out. It shows the miraculous luck of the Imperial Navy's Dauntless Cruiser as 4 waves of Thunderhawks and a torpedo salvo 6 strong slam into its hull.

TURN 4:

The Imperials lost their capitol ship (taking out a Space Marine Gladius Frigate in the explosion), and the light cruiser was crippled. Morale was lost and the Imperial Navy surrendered.

The game took about 2.5 hours--Re-learning and teaching the rules added quite a bit of time. Reguardless, Deathbot, and surprisingly Mrs Zorcon had a good time.  So much so, we have already planned the next game!

BFG Color Test

I've decided to repaint my Imperial Navy.

Here is a test color scheme.

I realize that the last thing I should be taking on is repainting an already completed army, but the current color scheme has never set well with me. Its not the execution--I put a ton of effort and detail into the previous efforts.

BFG Grey Knight Allies Showcase

My Battlefleet Gothic mojo is in full gear!

Way back in 2010 I nearly completed these two Strike Cruisers. Today, I just finished them, along with their Attack Craft.

These will be part of an Inquisitorial detachment to my Aquamarine Fleet... I am working on those ships too!

BFG Terrain & Turning Key Project

I recently played 2 games of Battlefleet Gothic with Deathbot (and surprisingly) my wife. I haven't played for probably 10-12 years so I was *very* rusty on the rules. The first game was pretty rough and took quite a long time to play, but the second game went much better. Basic rules IN vs SM 500 points.

Anyway, this isn't a BatRep. The games really inspired me to make some terrain! Back in the day I scratch built some orbital defenses, a large space station, and a bunch of large asteroids. But I wanted to have an option for all of the table top features mentioned in the BBB. I also liked the GW PDF article "New Phenomena". So I sat down at the computer and went to work. Here is what I have so far:

What you see here is a combination of original creations and modified Google finds. Here is a list of what is there:

Asteroid Field x6 (2 ea of 10 x 5 cm, 15 x 5 cm, 15 x 10 cm)
Asteroid Ring x9 (45° segments @ 30 x 7 cm)
Comet (20 x 5 cm)
Gas Belt x11 (150 liner cm @ 5 of 10 x 7 cm, 6 of 25 x 6 cm)
Gas Cloud x4 (1 ea of 15 x 2 cm, 30 x 6 cm, 20 x 12 cm, 10 x 25 cm) 4-6 more to come
Gas Ring 1 x9 (45° segments @ 35 x 10 cm)
Gas Ring 2 x9 (45° segments @ 24 x 5 cm)
Meteor Shower (15 x 5 cm)
Mine Field x6 (2 ea of 10 x 5 cm, 15 x 5 cm, 15 x 10 cm)
Small Planet (15 cm dia)
Small Planet (25 cm dia)
Medium Planet (32 cm dia)
Medium Planet (40 cm dia)
Large Planet (50 cm dia) Will be cut into 2 pieces
Large Planet (80 cm dia) Will be cut into 4 pieces
Plasma Cloud x3 (1 ea of 8 x 5 cm, 15 x 4 cm, 30 x 12 cm)
Vortex x2 (1 ea of 5 cm dia, 15 cm dia)
Warp Rift x3 (1 ea of 30 x 5 cm, 15 x 10 cm, 20 x 10 cm)
Sun-ward Edge x2 (80 x 4 cm) Will be cut into 2 pieces

I also plan on making a huge planet edge (90-120cm wide, 20-35 cm deep), similar to the sun-ward edge piece above, to place along a table edge including atmosphere, low orbit, high orbit, and a gravity well.  I have ideas for some scratch built planetary defenses and I think this will make a great scenario/battlescape. If it works out, I will probably make something similar to indicate low orbit and a gravity well of each of the 6 planets above.

When playing, I noticed my wife and son really struggled with the fiddly movement process. I sketched out an idea and cut out a prototype during the game. It worked well so I moved to the design process. This is what I came up with:

The "divots" are meant to be placed on the post of the flying stand. I also have a 20 cm version of the Range Key. After a few more games I will decide if I need and additions or adjustments.

BFG Progress Charts

I am an Old Skewl GW fan boy. As such, Battlefleet Gothic is one of my favorite games. Since I just added to my collection in a recent large loot purchase and  showcased some old pictures of my painted fleets, I thought it would be appropriate to create and share these progress charts.

The Imperial Navy is the back bone of my forces. They were originally painted purple with gold trim and a yellow prow. But over the years I have began to think this is too much like a Slaaneshi-scheme. The new scheme will be a battleship grey with a yellow prow.

I have been collecting Space Fleet ships over the years to be used as older ships of the fleet. I am still considering weather of not to paint them slightly differently or not.

My Space Marine fleet is painted up like my 40K home-brew Space Marine chapter--Turquoise with orange trim. I have 2 cruisers painted as Grey Knights in homage to my old opponent, who played chaos. I am considering painting a squadron of escorts on the same scheme and doing the same for the black ship. 

For now I am calling this my "Pirate" fleet, but I envision it like either a planetary defense or Rogue Trader Fleet. The list is currently based on the Wolf Pack list formerly available of GW website. If I choose to make this a Rouge Trader fleet, I will likely find another list to base it off of. I plan on the colors to be an an assortment of reds, whites, greys, and gunmetals--More random and weathering if a planetary defense fleet, and more structured if a Rogue Trader fleet.

Battlefleet Gothic Lookback

Here are a series of shots I took of my BFG figures about 10 years ago. I have made some additions to both fleets over the years in addition to starting the task of repainting both of them.

Space Marine Fleet: 1x Battleship; 4x Crusers; 4x squadrons Escorts

Imperial Navy: 1x Battleship; 4x Cruisers; 2x Lt Cruisers; 4x squadrons Escorts; 16x bases of Attack Craft

Orbital Defense Platforms and Asteroid Base Station

Close up of Orbital Defense Platforms 

Close up of Asteroid Base Station
showing docking ring and launch bays

Close up of damaged Orbital Defense Platform

The Orbital Defense Platforms were made from rubber feet from a plastic storage bin and model/toy bitz. The asteroid base was made for various household, model, and figure bitz. 

I really like how the damaged Orbital Defense Platform turned out. After hollowing out a the rubber foot, I used card board to represent the decking and the crumbled up rubber as the fire/explosions.

Next up will be to make a progress chart. Since these pictures, I have not only increased the Space Marine and Imperial Navy fleets, but added a good sized Rogue Trade/Pirate fleet.

All three of my fleets could fight each other, or better yet ally with each other. Someday I would love to battle against an opponent(s) with all my fleets combined!!!!

Back on the Bench

Well, 2010 was quite a year! Know one had any idea how long my recovery would take-- but I wont rehash everything here (I'll have links to the posts discussing it at the bottom of this post). I've got a lot to share, so I expect this is going to be a monster post.

The only gaming I have gotten in over the last year is a handful of sessions of Dark Heresy (run by Adeptus-B).  I am playing a Psyker and our group is a few hundred XP into our 4th rank. There are 5 players left after 2 had previously dropped out of the campaign. We play about once a month. Here are a few highlighted encounters.

On a forge world, an abandoned platform about a mile off shore. 
We land in an Aquillia Lander to assault the heretics.

(click on image to enlarge)

On a feral world, we set up an ambush in order to capture the
leader of a small group of poachers. I started a detailed
description of the encounter in this post: Ambush!
(click on image to enlarge)

On a frontier world, we approach a disabled wagon on the side
of the road -- as expected, it was an ambush!
(click on image to enlarge)

 

On the modeling front, I started about 1-2 weeks ago putting in some quantifiable time on the work bench. Nothing really to completion yet... its all WiP. Even more than ever, I have a very short attention span-- I'll paint a mini for a few minutes, then grab a different mini to pin on a arm and hand, then dig through a bitz boxes looking for the right piece for something else, then I'll go back to the original mini and add a little more paint. (all this in between repairing my son's toys and organizing the garage!! :) )

The first images are for a squad of Rough Riders. These were in my "to do" pile for a few years, but Adeptus-B recently asked if I had any cowboys on horses for a future encounter-- this was the best I could come up with. Although, I decided to equip them as a unit of Rough Riders rather than random cowboys... which makes them a little less fitting as cowboys. The reason for that decision is that I would love to complete an IG army representing a small out-world "last stand" planetary defense (ie hodge-podge army).

Rogue Trader era Rough Riders as given to me by Laertes.
(click on image to enlarge)

After some minor conversion work (arm and weapon swaps),
and adding 2 Rogue Trader era IG jet bike riders to horses.
(click on image to enlarge)

In a previous post, I have mentioned my small Adeptus Arbites force here: Adeptus Arbites. I managed to mostly complete one of the counts-as rhinos. Again, this was a request from Adeptus-B for use in Dark Heresy. I still plan on adding badging, some recently acquired eBay bitz, and possibly adjusting the placement of the brush guard.

A Dollar Tree toy with some bitz and paint.
(click on image to enlarge)

I have worked on some minis specifically for our Dark Heresy campaign as well-- Version 2.0 for our adept and my character, and a servo-skull. Nothing of note on the servo-skull, but on the two player character minis, this will be the first time I have temporarily mounted the models on something to make handling easier. I will also be attempting Ron's (from FTW) technique of painting "inside out".

This one is essentially done-- just need to spray with matte clear
cote and then gloss the metal bitz.
(click on image to enlarge)

Our group's psyker mk II (a Dark Age Forsaken Leader) and
adept mk II (a Games Workshop Master of Ordinance)
(click image to enlarge)

Well, I think that covers most of it. I did score some OOP Space Fleet minis on ebay to add to my Battlefleet Gothic fleets, but I'll cover that in a later post.

If you want to read more about what Ive gone through, Ive mentioned it in these posts: Going on Hiatus, Back on my Feet... Sort of, Recovery Round 3, and Still Here!