Kerbal Space Program: The Eagle Has Landed

This particular Kerbal Space Program has been running for just over a week and has already seen a remarkable reduction in average life expectancy of kerbal test pilots, astronauts, scientists and engineers. Previous “test flights” have stranded at least four kerbals on the moon, one in lunar orbit in a spacesuit and one in an elliptical orbit around the inner planets. Not to mention many an exploding rocket, parachute failure and crash landings.

It is with much kerbalish pride that we can report that we have finally and successfully designed, built and flown a space rocket to land three kerbals on the surface of the moon; and most importantly brought them back to Kerbin completely not dead. From that achievement we quickly stepped up the challenge level and using the same technology and rocket design managed to achieve the same on Kerbal’s second and much smaller moon, Minmus.

Next then, we will try to open the doors to constructing a space station, only as a stepping stone to the other planets. All shall be in awe of our fledgling space empire!

X-Wing – New Releases Announced

So another game we have been looking into playing is X-Wing, ZombiePirate and myself have some ships, i have both side and he has just Imperial.

So FFG have announced the next wave, wave three.

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the next four single starship expansions for X-Wing™!

The HWK-290™ Expansion Pack, Lambda-class Shuttle™ Expansion Pack, B-Wing™ Expansion Pack, and TIE Bomber™ Expansion Pack are scheduled to arrive in the third quarter of 2013. Each of these expansions comes with a detailed miniature starship, accurately rendered at the same 1/270 scale as the game’s other ships (as always, we worked closely with Lucasfilm Ltd. to ensure the correct sizes of each ship), and includes multiple ship cards, upgrades, a maneuver dial, and all necessary tokens.

Supporting Your Fleet

As a group, these starships allow X-Wing players to pursue a wide range of new, tightly focused, squad-based strategies built around their support functions and system upgrades.

Both the HWK-290 and Lambda-class Shuttle Expansion Packs introduce an array of support options that clever squad leaders will be able to use to great effect. Designed from the ground up as support ships, the HWK-290 and Lambda-class Shuttle are versatile utility vessels that make your other starships better.

The HWK-290 comes with four ship cards for a Rebel Operative and three unique pilots, including the renowned Kyle Katarn, who can assign his focus tokens to friendly ships within Range 1–3. Additionally, each HWK-290 can be outfitted with a turret weapon and a crew member, and the expansion provides you with six upgrade options, including the unique Moldy Crow title card, representing Kyle Katarn’s signature starship.

Meanwhile, Imperial fleets gain the support of the new Lambda-class Shuttle. This starship expansion includes four ship cards, featuring three unique pilots who can each provide powerful benefits to their squad mates. As an example, Captain Kagi can divert enemy target locks from your other ships and force your opponent to fire against his shuttle and its five shields. The Lambda-class Shuttle is highly customizable, too, as each one can carry up to two crew members, one cannon, and a system upgrade. Pair Captain Kagi with a Rebel Captive, and you may discourage your opponent from trying to establish target locks and fire missiles. The expansion comes with a total of twelve upgrade cards.

Also new to this wave of expansions is a new type of upgrade, the system upgrade (). System upgrades appear with both the Lambda-class Shuttle and B-Wing Expansion Packs, and they give players more control over the game by reducing the potential risks inherent in random dice rolls and an opponent’s unpredictability. For example, when your ship is defending against an attack, the Sensor Jammer allows you to convert one of your opponent’s results to a result that cannot be rerolled. Be sure to see our coverage of system upgrades in upcoming previews.

Another exciting group of ships and out third medium sized based ship to add to, Slave One and the Falcon. Interesting to see the first ship not from the classic movies, Kyle Katarn’s signature starship “Moldy Crow” featured in the games and books. This is an interesting turn of events for FFG and fans alike. What will come next??? Until then we have to wait and see how these excellent looking ships with effect the game.

Carabus

Sdkfz 234/2 Puma Action!

Wow, been busy lately… After posting that War was Declared, got a test game of Bolt Action in and have been for a great day at Salute.

It seems that the groups attention has wondered over to Drop Zone Commander which is not a bad thing, I am really looking forward to getting into that game again, or rather make a start. But I still have the WW2 bug at the moment. So I have been painting up some SS miniatures and a Puma.

This is a 1/48 scale kit from Tamiya the old Italeri kit re-boxed. I did some knocking around on the inter-web thingy for patterns etc. I have not done a model kit in 10+ years and was never any good but I thought I would give it a go. 

So here is my attempt at airbrushing:

I have now added 2 coats of filter from AK Interactive and added a pin wash and then tided it up a bit.

The next stage is to add some paint chipping and light scratches, until you are happy with the amount. I have added a fair few I can imagine that the Puma is thrashing its way though under growth  and sneaking into the woods and towns scouting for Allied armor.

The colours should tone down a bit more. I may add rain streaks, still have mud and dust to add. I have not used any of these products before, I normally just did drybrush and ink was but want to try and paint it like modelers do.

Adding the start of the mud:

I don’t want it plastered just some stuck under there from usage.

Here are the wheels:

So I have now been working on the crew, I wanted a crew of 2 for this one. The commander exposed commenting to the gunner who has just his head exposed, sort of a narrative.

Here are some bad pictures 

Here you can see the excellent decals from Warlord I picked up at the Salute show in London, I used two eagles and an officer rank Untersturmfuhuer. Excellent decals. I used Micro Set and then added a little Matt varnish.

Well I think I am finally there.

I took advantage of the nice weather and took some photos.

I am thinking about adding some foliage? What do you think?

Servitob Goes to EVE Fanfest 2013

Reykjavik – home to 200,000 people wishing they were someplace warmer and the online spacecrime and grief experience that is EVE Online.

So what’s the news? CCP (the makers of internet spreadsheet spaceship simulator) seem to be getting quite heavily in DUST 514. This is a free to play FPS for Playstation 3 set in the EVE universe. Currently they are attempting to integrate the two games. Planetary invasions and battles with alt-tabbing for spaceship orbital strikes are likely to make the initial release; with heavy hints that in future boarding actions may well be part of the experience. Good idea? I’m not a fan of FPS games and I know players can be a fickle bunch which may limit it’s longevity.

Top idea for the week has to go to CCP Soundwave, who in a seminar suggested that you should be able to place bounties from the EVE forums. Hopefully this would lead to bad posters getting big bounties on their heads and the associated infinite grief when they login to play the game!

The big reveal though was the suggestion that CCP are going to build a statue in Reykjavik 5.14m tall to celebrate 10 years of EVE Online with every player’s name engraved upon it. Apparently Iceland has no planning laws!

The big big reveal was the notion that CCP are going to make a TV series a-la Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones etc based upon the shenanigans that go on in the game. A few months back a site was put up collecting stories that they will use as inspiration for the storylines. You can find the site here.

6 Inch Move Review – Hawk Wargames Cityscape

More grist for the Dropzone mill today as we take a look at the Cityscape terrain set from Hawk Wargames. When Carabus and I took a trip to visit Hawk and playtest the game prior to release we got to use the display terrain that we’d seen at Salute and that was in all the artwork. Dave explained about the customisation of the tiles and that they were going to be a premium product not designed for general consumption. I don’t think anyone was expecting it to be quite as expensive as it was, but there we go. Hawk also did release a lot of their terrain as free downloads which is more than a lot of other companies do.

Still, with a 10mm scale game rather than the far more prevalent 28mm we’re used to dealing with getting the right terrain means getting something in fresh rather than reusing something bought years ago. I’d seen the cityscape on Hawk’s website but not really given it a thought, I mean, a 6′ x 4′ battlefield for £30, can’t be all that good can it? As we kind of experience a gaming drought post Salute last year things around the floating citadel just didn’t play out as we’d all hoped. This meant that we didn’t get to see our DzC stuff on the table, nor show it off to anyone else as we had planned to do.

So it was that when we went to Salute this year Dropzone Commander wasn’t really on our radar. We planned on stopping by and checking in with Dave but not much else other than that. Fate it seems like to give us a good nudge every now and again. Gribblin and nBreaker got to enjoy a demo game, suitably impressed they bought in, as we knew they would. However, we also got to see the Cityscape up close and personal. It may only be card but it’s of a very high quality and looked excellent. Free buildings from the kit were being handed out on the stand too so we got to have a quick look at what they were like. For £30 this seemed like a steal now that I’d clapped eyes on the things so I picked one up to give us a battlefield that would be compliant with the scale, the objective based nature of the game and friendly on the wallet.

First up I need to tell you that the thing is heavy! We’ve actually got two of the things so I spent a lot of time with plastic bag handles trying to sever my fingers through the afternoon. This will also mean that we can have more than one game going at a time, or just use a really huge battlefield in a multiplayer game. When you open the box up everything is nice and securely padded with bubble wrap and it does feel like a meaty package. When you open it up you’re treated to all the flat packed buildings, pre-scored to make for easy assembly. I spent a couple of hours on Saturday putting the whole thing together. There’s a large stack of double-sided base tiles to use too. You may be better off choosing a layout and then gluing these to a board to give them some stability and stop them from moving on the table although obviously you’ll then have to store yet more terrain boards.

 

That really is a wad of card you get. Each building just pops open, the roof is then glued down to make the structure rigid, each wall then has a fold on top where you fold down a small flap to “warp” over the top to give you a lip to stop stuff falling off as well as make things look prettier than just having bare white card. I used common, run of the mill PVA to glue mine together. Not watered down, just fresh out of the bottle. I applied this liberally to the roof tabs and also to the flaps. If you want to save yourself a lot of time sat still holding things then I’ll pass on a tip we got from Bex at the show, use bull-dog clips! I put forward exhibit A to show you how I did it;

 

This works really well and I found that the glue stuck very quickly using this method. I only had the one pack of clips, which wasn’t a problem but I’d suggest people get two if they want to try assembly in this way as it would have just been a nicer experience if I wasn’t taking them off and using them again on the same walls of some of the larger buildings.

The only problem I see with the whole thing is that the buildings are probably going to easily be knocked about a little when gaming. Now this is nothing new but as this terrain is so light in individual pieces I can see this being more of an issue than with other, heavier terrain pieces, but for the price I’m not sure you can really argue against it.

We’re hoping to have a game using it very soon, if I’m feeling generous I might even take some piccies of it in use. However, from an assembly point of view and seeing it all together I must say that this really is a bargain and a very nice set, for the price you’d pay for a single kit from other manufacturers you have a full battlefield to play over. I am really looking forward to using it. Although I might let some of the other guys have a go at assembling the other set so I can get on with getting my army painted.

 

Shaltari, Salute and my first painted model

Well, it’s been a week since those of us here at the floating citadel went on our outing to Salute.  As had already been stated we all enjoyed the show and (some of us anyway) spent more money than intended.  My own bank account was somewhat lighter by the end of the day.  There was the usual displays and shopping opportunities, participation games and people dressed up as Imperial Storm Troopers.

For me the most influential event of the day was a participation game of Dropzone Commander.  Our regular readers will remember the excitement that this game created after last years Salute.  Despite two of my co-writers buying into the game when it was first released, I decided to wait until I’d played a demo game.  Unfortunately due to one thing or another one hadn’t happened, so last Saturday was the first time I got to see the game in action.  My overall impression…I see why so many people have been raving about it.  It is game unlike anything I have played before, being based on a 10mm scale sci-fi world with the emphasis on dropships, battlegroups and rapid insertion & extraction.  The game is fast pace, easy to pick up and yet very tactical.  Myself and nBreaker were playing the Scourge, and enjoyed the sheer destruction (between us and the UCM we took down 3 rather large builds, not bad for a beginner game), eventually wining by a single tank and dropship.

The game was fun enough for me to part with some money, and I bought the Shaltari Large Army deal with case.  Being Salute and a special event day the rulebook was included for free with any Large or Mega army so woohoo!  Then came lunch, and looking over my purchase whilst eating a sandwich I noticed that there was too much in the box…I been given a Mega deal by mistake.  Being a nice guy I went back to them and told the folks at Hawk Wargames.  The situation was resolved to our mutual satisfaction and I am the proud owner of a Shaltari Mega Army, so a big thumbs up to the guys at Hawk Wargames for their customer service!  I will be buying more in the future…just give me time to paint everything else first.

One and off this week I have started painting the miniatures, and above is the first one that is finished; a Shaltari Warspear fighter.  I look forward to my first game with my associates here at 6 Inch Move.

6InchMove does Salute 2013

As servitob has already so eloquently described the 6 Inch Move crew descended from our sky fortress this past weekend. As is familiar to gamers everywhere we recruited our 5 man party, journeyed without any summoning stone shenanigans to the capital of our great nation. As is also familiar when we reached our destination we found out that three fifths of the group hadn’t yet done the required attunement quest. Carabus and I therefore joined the queue for the Salute instance while the other three went off to make suitable supplications.

This meant that Carabus and I got to spend a little over an hour in the show before things got really busy. First order of the day was to find me a TIE fighter to finish off my X-wing army. However, within seconds of the event starting all the X-wing stuff sold out at every stand simultaneously. There was some on one stand, but the Machiavellian stall owner had rapidly repriced all his TIEs with a 33% increase over the RRP (despite the other ships still being RRP). Unsurprisingly I bit my thumb at him and snorted deridingly before walking off in righteous indignation.

It was nice to get in as part of the “Priority” queue for having pre-purchased our tickets. We got to see a lot of stuff before the show really got busy, although we didn’t really do much detailed searching as we wanted to check out lots of stuff as a full group.

I’m always a little hesitant when going down to Salute. In 2010 I didn’t think there was much there, it certainly wasn’t as good as when I was there in 2006, however, both 2012 and this year I have to say that the show was excellent. It really does showcase how big the industry has gotten, there is so much to see there across numerous genres and you can see the direction things are going. There are a ton of terrain stands now where there wasn’t really anything of the quality we can get now. I’ve included a couple of photos of the cityscape from Hawk Wargames. It’s a full 6′ * 4′ gaming table for £30. We’ll be doing a full review of it shortly and it’s rather impressive considering it’s just card stock.

We probably spent longer outside the Hawk stand than anywhere else, probably because of Gribblin and nBreaker getting a demo game. As Servitob also said we got a quick demo of the Mantic game Dreadball, seemed quite good however we picked up the rules faster than the Mantic guy demoing it could explain it and he was getting a couple of things wrong from his own explanations which was kind of off-putting.

I think that the main thing that I took from the show (other than the couple of things that I bought) was a reinvigorated feeling towards my gaming after what has been a very quite year for me. Real life definitely has been a curve ball but yesterday I got my DzC stuff out again and have set about actually painting some of it and working on getting the army finished and ready for the tabletop. Now we’ve got the proper scenery too I’m starting to feel really good about where we’re going now.

Watch this space to see just how that all pans out.