April 2022 review

A mixed month with a lot of 3D Printing of course, I tested out some files for projects where I am going to print the miniatures myself. But it is important for me to not drown in the new possibilities and get some structure in there. I didn't reduce my stock to fill it with printed stuff again, just because I can. So, this needs a plan.

These projects cover a protagonist and antagonist each, basically two forces for each system, so I'm more flexible to host games and such. What are these - well, according to my Tabletop Parking Lot theory, I still have open lots outside of the 28mm department. With my fascination for Adeptus Titanicus, and already having quite the stock here, Epic makes for a reasonable expansion, and covers 6-8mm along with a company level wargame (in distinction to the platoon level that 28mm Warhammer 40k - at least in 2nd edition is).

Then there is Warmaster, covering the mass combat but in a manageable scale, as I repeatedly pointed out, I'm not going to do that in 28mm anymore. I'm struggling keeping my backlog the way it is, without adding 9th Age, Oathmark or so in there having to paint regiments of 20-30 miniatures each (that's pretty close to a platoon level project per regiment!), so that covers 10-15mm "mass combat" in fantasy, as I only want to do 28mm fantasy in warband sized projects.

And number three, after a successful test print, will be Battlefleet Gothic. I do have "naval wargames", with Black Seas and Cruel Seas. With Black Seas covering that pirate / Age of Sail itch in 1:700th scale. Cruel Seas is more of an addition to cover a narrative / campaign play for Bolt Action along with Blood Red Skies, otherwise it is pretty close to Black Seas and with the latest move of the game from Warlord to one of their subsidiaries I would ditch that, if I didn't have already everything, I needed for that project along with the opportunity to simply print what is missing. But Age of Sail being slow paced, Cruel Seas being rather close combat but more shooty, BFG is more dynamic I'd say through the sci-fi component and similar to Cruel Seas/Blood Red Skies/Bolt Action, creates a narrative / campaign chain with Epic/AT and 40k. Each of these projects will receive articles of their own, covering recommendations towards STL files and so on.

Anyhow, I have to calibrate and further optimise my setup, as I had some smaller print fails (not that much of a problem, as I'm going to build a ruin and wreck, so it will work out). But that's the other reason, why I want to plan my printing schedule. I am going to print the first part of each project, gather experience along the road, tweak the settings, move further from free to commercial STLs etc. (yeah, I don't feel happy paying for STLs and then sucking at printing them) and want to get that stuff in order to benefit from it when I tackle the second part of each project.

As for Adeptus Titanicus, I got myself two more of the big walkers for that game. I added a Sinister Warlord Titan and a second Warmaster Titan to my collection, but the later is the Iconoclast this time. Oh, and you remember that I have access to a 3d printer? It's going to be a blast.

As for remembering. Warhammer Fest 2022 does a bad job remembering their releases. 4 days and they missed something so epic?

April was Stargrave month and we will see more of it in May, as I'm on the last touches of the article covering the supplements and will introduce some of the metal codes from the range itself.

And we stayed quite with sci-fi this month, as I've covered the Nachmund Warhammer 40k terrain as well in multiple reviews. As I was asked, I'm not going to cover the Ash Waste box. I think it is not that good value, especially if you keep in mind that Warcry (a solid 4kg / 9 lbs box) was 100 bucks less than it and the box creates its bundle savings primarily from rather marked up individual content - very much like the Nachmund bundle, which is only a "deal" because the individual parts are really expensive. So, if you like it, cool, have fun, if you don't, don't buy it. I would simply need to many of the boxes for the terrain sprues to make something that would really work for me in terms of design and that's just too expensive for what I'd set as budget for that project.

With the Barons War Outremer Kickstarter not that far away, I asked some questions about the Muslim counterpart of my Reconquista project. And oh boy, yeah, those were mostly - very dominantly - not properly answered. A lot of frustrating feedback, that strongly showed, that reading seems to be a big problem for many people. I get that reading the whole article maybe a high barrier to ask for, but I shared it with three sentences summing up what I was looking for (and especially excluding what I didn't want) and that still was too much to ask for as it seems. But one of my readers, Jose Javier, gave me a proper indication for the right direction. So thanks a lot for that and I'm really eager to see, if the Outremer Kickstarter will cover beyond the mostly Ayyubid miniatures, something that I could use for Almohads / Almoravids (and with a bit of historical flexibility Caliphate of Cordoba). At this point, unless some weird non-IOSS and shipping conditions happen, I'm pretty set for that campaign.

HANS! foly huck. Really made me happy. Adds a few things that I can use to round up some of my stock, adding some missing puzzle pieces to my collection. Again, so stoked about Tyrion. He and Teclis are on my expanded wishlist for my small high elf warband, but the eBay auctions at 30 EUR for some broken sword, beaten up high elf prince, wasn't really working for me. Along with the incredible satisfying browsing experience, I'm honestly very happy to had some "basic" wargaming entertainment through this project. Once again, respect to NickRyder for organising it.

And I traded some miniatures and overstock with somebody, giving me these odds and bits. The ogryns were used to bring a bit of variation to my Imperial Guard ogryns, as I only had two poses before for the squad of 5, so this gives more variation. And I am looking into converting these for Necromunda, maybe like a Pit-Slave Ogryn, a themed gang Ogryn (like Goliath Brute or so) and while I was writing this, maybe a Squat for Inquisitor? I got some horses, as you can always use horses. And of course, because, she loves horses. I got my hands on the Imperial Bunker, that I want to use as a patrol house for the Arbites in the underhive. It is compact, sturdy and needs some love, but that's doable. And I got some more classic Chaos Space Marines, because I got the idea of building some 2nd edition styled Havocs (those weren't produced, so I have to kit-bash them, but I have lovely idea for the perfect and very fitting 2nd edition variant of these).

About Pit-Slaves, I was made aware that there were unreleased cyber slayers for the Rogue Trader Squats. And seeing these, made me think of squat pit-slaves. Maybe I can build one or two of these around the old Troll and Giant Slayers.

Buuuut, a missing piece that I was looking for quite some time arrived. A Tallarn seat weapon crew body. What do I need that one for? Well, the Sentinel needs to be properly integrated into the whole project, so having a Cadian soldier sitting in there just wouldn't be right and I'll replace him with this guy.

WarhammerTv released the final episode of the Exodite ... yeah, that story arch really went for three full episodes and stopped there (don't really feels like a finish). After taking about two months to be narrated. And the new animated content, covering The Interrogator is basically SinCity meets 40k ... a Noir Detective story in a very slow pace and again, 10 minutes here, 2 weeks next bit ... that's a nope. But both are production wise well done, Exodite has amazing visuals, and both shows don't have the sound issues that Angels of Death had. It would be great if they used Hammer & Bolter as a filler in-between the releases, to have at least weekly new animated content. The episodes are mostly 10 minutes, often enough incl. in- and outro, so either up the pacing or prolong the episodes. But this way it is just a very thin layer of butter scraped over too much bread. I honestly would be excited to do some ScreenCrush styled content on these, but seriously with half an episode released every two weeks (if they even do it "that fast") is nothing to get your hopes up about.

Let's get into May. Have to see if I manage to post something fitting for Wednesday, but we will see. Stay safe, stay cool, enjoy.