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Uruk Hai, Printers, Bathrooms and New Toysm

Earlier today I printed off some more corridors for the meeple game…

They came out okay, took five hours to print the three of them but on the upside the bump in the middle seems to have disappeared, or at least reduced.

The top two are the original ones.

The new bed certainly helped, but to make sure I shoved a ‘post it’ note under the middle to raise it up a smidge.

I had a bit of a stressy day, more if that later, but I did manage to get some more paint on the Uruk.

As for the stress…Today, you probably heard the swearing from wherever you live. My good lady asked me to change the bath taps and I went forward with good humour (okay that’s a lie). I muttered, grumbled and definitely made a fuss.

Good job I did because it became a right bastard. Our bathroom is just wide enough for a bath and a toilet. The sink has to sit at the end of the bath so really not much room to manoeuvre, or take bath taps off evidently. When I replaced the original bathroom, the bath went in first…. therefore getting the taps off was problematic. I managed to get the hot tap off, the one furthest away, but the cold wouldn’t come off. Not sure why but in the end I had to use the angle grinder to cut the thing off. This is where I learned that angle grinders cut through brass taps and into fingers when they jump.

To get into the bath we thought we were going to have to remove the toilet cistern, so we started to undo it, unfortunately the connector wouldn’t come off either so we ended up with a bit of a leak.

All in all the twenty minute job took about 4 hours. Next time I get a plumber out🤬.

But to cheer myself up I managed to blag a copy of this…

Not too bad really £2.99 for thirteen miniatures. Part of me wants to get another one. I am not interested in the stormcast miniatures but the chainrasps are a useful undead addition to various games.

We have eventually finished our Lord of the Ringsathon. It is either going to be Pirates of the Caribbean or the original Star Wars Trilogy.

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Big Nurgle Thingies

So tonight in our final Film of the Harry Potterthon I managed to get some work done on these fine fellows…

They still have a fair bit to go but I am getting there.

I would have got further but this happened!

I would go as far as saying that I might have uttered the odd expletive or thirty. Although evidently I am a pillock, a numpty and no doubt a knob head for not putting the pot in the holder I printed at least I am a stingy one and managed to get a fair bit back in the pot.

The printer was busy again…

Meeple orks to go with the goblins… as can be seen not all of them came out perfectly.

I also printed some stairs and a few doors…

Again there was something up with these prints…

As can be seen there was a load of stringing.

I haven’t used this colour PLA before, it is the same manufacturer, but perhaps the temperature tolerance is different. Either that or there could be some extrusion issues, the bed might be the wrong height or a whole host of other reasons that need checking out. Once the new build plates arrive then I can see what is what a bit easier.

Got mates coming round to see the new year in tomorrow, so if I don’t get to wish you all a happy New Year, then please accept it now. I wish you all Health, Wealth and happiness for 2020 when it arrives…

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Meeples and a Broken Printer

So no painting or Harry Pottering today as my Sister in law visited. But my printer was busy…

Meeple Goblins!

As these were a success, I decided on some dungeon corridors…

Sadly, I think the printer bed has eventually given up the ghost. You can see the residue on the photo above, but the whole centre section is shot…

The pale bits are filament that won’t come off.

I reckon I will be able to print smaller bits around the edge, but the middle is a no go area. I reckon over time the plate has thinned here which is why my raft was super thin as opposed to what I am used to. The corridors have a slight bulge, they were Printed on their edge, hence the need for the raft,the bow was on the bottom. Against the raft.

I have ordered another 4. I could go for glass, but I know how these work.

I will print out my meeple orks tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

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Nothing, Nowt and Sod All

So much for an early finish, get stuff painted…yeah that never happened, but to be honest I am not actually complaining. My wife and I went out with our friends for a meal, in an actual restaurant. We worked it out, that it was the fifth time in 14 years that we had been out together without any of the children. Two of those times were because the friends we went out with tonight did the baby sitting!

It wasn’t a completely unproductive evening as I managed to download a file from Thingiverse then slice and print it off.

I am rather pleased with it….

It started out as an full sized anatomical skull, which I shrunk in Cura. It took 4 hours plus to print. It is for my brother in law who wanted a skull to draw. He wants it so that he can see where the light and shade falls. I didn’t fancy printing a full sized version as it was going to take two days to print (well to be fair …one day 23 hours and a fair few minutes).

The filament colour doesn’t actually look too bad off the spool. Further to this, it allows things to be photographed without having to undercoat them.

The first thing I printed in this colour was another couple of lizards, all of which went down really well with my class and my colleague’s girls.

Tomorrow I hope to paint something… wish me luck!

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One More Sleep…

Well that is it, all the preparation for tomorrow’s convention are almost done.

I almost forgot to put the wash on the road, but luckily remembered in time, it has darkened down nicely, but is still light enough to be seen as a road. I found photos that showed really light roads amongst darker desert and this is what I was aiming for.

So here is the finished village…

I also got my display boards done too…

Regarding the firing rules, I have come up with a change that I think will work. Under twelve inches needs a 5 plus to hit, twelve to twenty four inches needs the 6. Up to thirty six is the 7 then beyond that is an 8 on 2D6. To aid with this I have a piece of dowel 36 inches long, this has been coloured in sections to aid distances for firing. There will be photos of it in action tomorrow.

From what I recall, there are the following:

Rapid Fire,

Zombies

Pod Racing

MTG

My Tanker game

There may be more too.

Whilst I remember, I go through bucket loads of superglue sticking things to bases etc. I decided that enough was enough with the 5g pots (sometimes 3G).

On the left 5g of superglue for £3.95 …. on the right 150ml of superglue for £7 posted.

I reckon it should keep me going for a while.

Tomorrow I shall regale you all with tales of our little convention 🙂

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Walls with added Agriculture

Today everything got a second spray with watered down PVA. Once it was dry I added some vegetation of sorts.

I pretty much looked through my tufts to see what might be useful. Don’t ask me what anything is meant to be as I never got round to googling crops in the desert, well okay I just have…

 Crops grown in the desert include watermelons, apples, green onions, cucumbers, corn, hot peppers, melons, bell peppers, radishes, carrots, cabbage, soybeans, pears, tomatoes, squash and spinach.

 Many farmers raise alfalfa as feed for their animals. It uses four times as much water as wheat. But wheat is also wasteful because so much of the plant ends up as straw.

So now I know!

Anyway everything is pretty much ready for Saturday.

I hunted out my palm trees…

The one conundrum I now have is distances.

A player rolls 2D6 and has to get higher than six for ranges up to 48 inches and needs a seven beyond…Now do I half everything as I am playing 15mm. Therefore gun range becomes 24 inches for the six and over 24 becomes the seven. I would keep the movement distances of 2D6 the same.

I think this would work as although range has reduced, it means crews fire at a more effective range. As can be seen below there is no reductions for range apart from the 48 inches.

Therefore 24 inches will work just as well… I hope… I don’t want to go down the inches into centimetres route and thought this would make it easier.

What do people think?.

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Walls, Conundrums and a Christmas Card idea

Well tonight I got some more work done on the walls, they were dry brushed lots and then sand was put on the bases.

These will get some colour variations added then will get a spray with watered down PVA… oh and then I will get some vegetation on there too,.

The following is going to be my Bethlehem scene with Mary, Joseph and ickle wickle baby Jesus…

Still the sand to add, the well is just about visible under the shade of the palm tree.

Sadly I don’t have any 15mm middle eastern civilians, plenty of 10’s but no 15’s.

So onto the conundrum…. drum roll please…..

WaT requires a board to mark everything on, whether a tank is loaded, acquired etc. As I said yesterday I was going to print off the Thingiverse one and here it is…

The hexagonal tokens are the universal tool that shows how far a turret can turn for each appropriate dice. 60 degrees rotation per successful dice. Now Cura, the slicing software, gave a time of 5 hrs 30 minutes to print, it was actually closer to seven. My new roll of PLA hasn’t arrived yet and I reckon I can probably get another one out of the remainder of this roll. This type needs a plasticised sheet behind it so it can have things written on it in the blank boxes, which is again more work.

Option 2 is to simply print out the ones from the book and cover them with the laminator…

Option 3 is to basically use what I have already

The problem with this last option is that I made them double sided…

The only issue would be making sure things didn’t get wiped off and having somewhere for the temporary damage dice to go…

To be honest for ease, I will probably go for option two or three. I also just remembered that I need to make a crib sheet for all of the different attributes.

Today I had to go and get all of my crap out of the crashed car. It did look a bit broken, however when I was there I noticed this…

All of the other tyres were inflated and this one has run on its metal rim. It looks like it had a blow out on the back driver side. Either way the car is totally buggered.

Tomorrow I will carry on with the village, hunt out the palm tree bases and generally crack on with things.

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DAK… Further Progress

So tonight I painted numbers and crosses on the AFV’s…

I managed to paint the numbers in white without problems, but then had total hand wobbles going over things with a super fine Sharpie. No matter, they are almost done. Still tools etc to paint, but otherwise I am leaving them as is.

Believe it or not, the army painter wash ‘glued’ the turrets in position and it took a lot of force to budge them. I actually thought that one of the 38T’s wasn’t going to move at all.

I also printed a dodge truck, this time I sprayed it with support still in place, just so you can see how they come off the print plate…

I really do need to get the top layers sorted out. I can increase the top layers in Cura and really should experiment a bit more. I could also sand it as well… so lots of experiments need to be had.

This is how it looks with the supports removed…

This was printed on its wheels so it needed support the full length of it. I could have printed it on its rear, but it would still need support in various places. On the wheels means that most of the support is underneath where it can’t really be seen.

As the kilogram of black filament is nearing the end then I ordered another roll, this time I went for a light grey, should make photographing things a bit easier.

The other thing I managed today was to increase the height of my wall…

I pushed it to the back of the base, this means that tanks on the tabletop have a hull down appearance. The one inside the wall doesn’t have as much cover. Which are dealt with in the rules.

My one major criticism with the wall is that the boulders are massive. Now to be fair my rockery is made up of similar sized boulders, and indeed, when I was laying my broadband cable there were some rocks that the digger couldn’t shift. Scale size I do have some pebbles that would look about the right size but they would be an absolute sod to stack up.

Tomorrow I intend to paint the equipment on the tanks, then if fine get some varnish onto everything

I am, shock horror, going to the wargames club again… two weeks running (must nearly be a record). I will also be getting new toys as I bought a pack of the Battle Valour Ninja to see how they fit in with the Tin Soldier ones… fingers crossed .🤞

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DAK … Making a Start

So after a night off yesterday I got back into things again tonight…

That is all tracks and wheels done on the German tanks.

It is quite interesting that some had a white undercoat and a couple of layers of paint and some had a black undercoat and about six layers of paint. I bet you can’t tell which is which.

It’s a bit late in the day to worry about it now. This is the first real time they have been next to each other. Tomorrow they will get a wash and some numbers and that will be them pretty much done. The kubelwagen will get the silver and blue Contrast paint for the windows. Once all of the tanks are painted I will give them a few coats of varnish to help them last a bit longer.

Still a fair bit to go… I have found a 3D printed baseboard on Thingiverse which I might print out. I am running out of both time and filament so I might be reduced to printing them on paper.

I will order some PLA this evening and hope for the best.

I was having an early night tonight, but sadly started watching YouTube

These guys and gals made me laugh out loud. If you have played any kind of computer game you will understand how funny these are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsQyHNTDYls&feature=share

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Allied Tanks… A Night Off

Well sort of a night off… I didn’t get in until 22.30 tonight and was going to have a night off as I had been off to see my Eldest as Pugsley in the school production of the Adams Family. Although I was a proud dad and was amazed at her singing voice ( she never really sings in the house) it was a great night out and would have been If I had been a regular punter.

Anyway when I got back I thought I had better do something on the tanks…

Yeah I know the triangles are a bit thick in places, if I have time and can be bothered then I will go back and redo them.

I know I didn’t need the red triangle on them, but it makes them a bit more interesting and that is my story.