I have a lot of unfinished projects. Many need MORE purchases to complete them. By complete I mean enough table-ready miniatures for two dies, rules I enjoy, suitable terrain etc.
I decided to tackle two projects with my old Ender 3 - Cruel Seas and Gaslands.
While neither ruleset is particularly appealing, (a) I can find some Manley rules for the PT Boats and (b) my son likes cars and machine guns so it is fun to do together.
I'm not super interested in 3D printing - it's kind a hobby in itself. I just want stuff, I don't want to become a 3D print guru, but unfortunately my cheap ass bought the ultimate DIY customisable (re: stuff around with it a lot) old school printer which is mostly disused, as (a) I'd rather make terrain faster with cardboard i.e. I'd barely print a wall in the time I'd make a complete table full of pizza box terrain, and (b) filament printers are crap for miniatures.
But.... a cargo ship is kinda low on fiddly bits, right?
My 8-year-old loves printing off machine guns and rams for his Match Box and basically ran the printer all day yesterday... Again this was financially motivated. A box of official Gaslands 'bits' from North Star cost $22+ in Australia. Crazy.
Wee lad then visited his sandpit, and armed with a hammer (and a bit of help with dad's bolt cutters) made me some 'wrecks' for terrain. We plan to make a modular track from MDF 12x12" squares.
EDIT: The girls of the family were off at dance, so wee lad and I played a quick MESBG game and painted a few of the cars...
While Gaslands itself is a tad gluggy, it certainly is an inspirational set of rules, merely from the fun of kitbashing cars....
Levelling a printer and ironing out the kinks (it's sat disused for about a year) was fun.... :-/ I'm not keen on the 3D print 'hobby' but if it allows me to finish off projects, I suppose it is worth it.
However it will allow me (unless it screws me around) to wrap up another two unfinished projects for a few dollars of filament.
Some quick Warmachine zombies (low hanging fruit) to keep the painting ticking over... 154 non-LoTR so far the last week. I'm trying to tidy up my massive pile of unpainted minis, knowing if my projects ever fail to materialise the wee lad will be keen on a donation....
So step one is to use what other options (like 3D printer) to solve miniature/terrain issues... which hopefully solves two projects....
...but I now have another idea...
It's awesome that 3d print is solving those missing links. It takes time, but that's just scheduling ahead, no?
ReplyDeleteWRT terrain, have you looked into mixed media, where you use printed bitz to dress up plain cardboard? I seem to recall someone was selling plastic terrain kits with things like doors & windows.
- GG
I have had poor luck with my Orange 30 Resin printer. However, I am not an expert on 3D printing, and it feels like I have a 4:1 print to playable ratio. This maybe because I have not take the time to master making the connection points in the software, and I break a lot of stuff in the cleaning phase of the process.
ReplyDeleteHm, I have yet to buy a 3D printer, and a 26% yield rate doesn't seem high enough vs just buying from the store. Are you still in the learning phase of printing? If you really focused, how much better do you think the yield could get?
Delete- GG
If I really focused? Probably closer to 2:1.5.
DeleteHowever, I doubt I will do that.
I tend to view 3D printing as its own hobby/time sink. If you're not interested in it for its own sake (like say building computers, or forging metal at home) it's a 50/50.
ReplyDeleteNeither is it 'free' - in time or materials. It's just a different way to get stuff.
If I had my pre-child disposable income I'd just buy stuff.
If I lived in say UK where I could easily sell/swap minis I certainly wouldn't be bothering....
In hindsight, I'd buy one of the newer generation plug and play FDMS like this one -> https://bambulab.com/en/p1
Mine was a bit of an old-school 'assemble it yourself like a flat pack Ikea' which I do not recommend.
IF I end up with a resin it will be a very popular brand like Elegoo or Anycubic where there is a vast source of advice online.
-eM
Thanks for the detailed follow-up. Because my current free time has shrunk as quickly as my hobby budget, it would appear that 3D printing is probably not a great fit for me. It'd probably would have been pretty awesome for then single me, though. Going forward, I think I'll just stick with slow acquisition and not stress.
Delete- GG
It's slow acquisition even with the printer!
DeleteThat small 15cm~ ship took 5 hrs. So creating say a table of Infinity terrain (my original intent) would be a process of weeks with the (nonsilent) printer running 24/7.
-eM
Exactly: I've no interest in the 3D printing hobby, I have enough hobbies already.
DeletePlus there's a lot of joy for me in building terrain out of cardboard and crap, and painted up it looks surprisingly good. Since painting and kitbashing IS my hobby, I've no need of a 3D printer.
The only reason would be printing actual minis (not terrain), but for now buying physical ones has served me well. And if I'm honest, I already own enough minis to last me a lifetime.
Interesting: I found Gaslands exactly what you said, a not particularly good ruleset, but inspiring for kitbashing "mad max" cars. I must have played maybe 2 games total? But have kitbashed many cars and enjoyed it. Note you do NOT need to 3D print weapons: kitbashing them out of wire, random bits, cigarette lighter remains (note: I do not smoke, but these are still easy to come by) is as satisfying as building pizza box terrain. By the way: cardboard terrain trumps 3D printing any day, even visually.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Gaslands is the same problem with "flight" wargames: the things don't feel like you're handling a high velocity vehicle, they feel sluggish. It takes way too much time to simulate what in reality takes seconds, and so the proper feel is not really achieved. I truly don't know if this can be solved on the tabletop at all.
DeleteI got into wargaming via Car Wars, and have been tinkering with the rules since the 1990s, seeking something more "realistic". Over time, I have been pushing on pseudo-realistic physics and/or realistic sub+second decision-making timing. So far, the best overall approximation seems to be the WW1 Wings / X-Wing game, which is why it got super popular. For cars, you need to add friction, and even so, t's still nowhere near as good as the simplest computer game. I basically gave up on it and chose to focus on other projects.
Delete- GG
GG, good comment! I don't own X-Wing but I do own the core box and some expansions of the original Wings of War WWI planes game. It plays faster, agreed! Though it still doesn't feel entirely right to me, if doesn't feel like dogfighting. I prefer Star Wars Armada: it makes sense to me that huge starships move in a lumbering and unwieldy way, while fighters are abstracted and are able to zoom almost anywhere, which actually feels more right to me, even if it lacks detail.
DeleteSo I'm not the only one to think Gaslands gluggy - every other review etc raved over it - I thought I was just a grouchy old man...
DeleteSome ideas:
I think the templates are fine - as you say they worked in the WW1 version of Wings.
a) Remove the tracking of hazard tokens etc from turn to turn. No need for it. Just a dice roll if its a risk maneuver, then it flips. The slow build up of 'stress' is not in any movie or media. It goes from fine to chaos in a second. This is gluggy and not needed.
b) I don't hate hitpoints here as much as you'd expect; as often cars hammer away at each other for ages then unexpectedly flip and blow up. Perhaps instead I'd have a damage threshold (ignore the first 1-3 damage) or saving throws, and go straight to stuff like 'crew killed' 'fuel tank hit' etc with the commonest - 'suppression' results - making the driver test to lose control. Not sure about this, but I'd like each hit to have the possibility of doing something rather than 'this is 1 of 10HP, nothing happens til I lose another 9'
c) Gorkamorka (from my hazy memory of it) was less gluggy than this - it had 45d turns, simple crits (crew, weapons, etc) and might be worth a look.
-eM
Thanks! IMO, a very big problem with car games is that we drive them daily, and have a pretty good idea of how they actually perform in the real world. This makes simulation more difficult, because it is a lot harder to handwave things.
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Yes! Poor Gorkamorka doesn't get the love it deserves! I'm a huge fan of Gorkamorka and I never even considered lifting their vehicle rules for a better gaslands experience.
DeleteThose rules are quick and enjoyable with minimal tracking. Great thought eM!
I never got into Gorkamorka, so I'm not sure to what extent it's a driving game with momentum and friction / traction, vs an Ork-themed 40k wargame that happens to include customizable vehicles. Can someone clarify?
Delete- GG
Gorkamorka "Community Edition" is free on the web.
DeleteIt's not 100% car focussed as you can run around on foot, but I remember ripping around in buggies having fun with 100% less fuss than Gaslands.
-eM
Thanks, I'll check it out.
Delete- GG
I downloaded the GorkaMorka CE rules, and they seem to be bog standard Warhammer 40k 3E-5E. infantry focus, Igo-Ugo turn sequence; Move, Shoot, Fight, Morale; 6" vehicle movement, etc. There's a little thought in limiting each vehicle to 2x 45-deg turns.
DeleteI see the focus on Orks and understand there's a campaign to keep players invested, so it's great if you're into Orks; unfortunately, I never got into Orks, so there's no emotional attachment.
Yes, it has rules for vehicles, crashing, ramming, and so on, but I just don't see it as sufficient to make it a driving game. There's no real sense of speed, momentum, or any of the detail that carries a sense of driving vehicles.
I understand how it can be simpler and more streamlined than Gaslands, but there's got to be a happy medium for driving that's not overly cumbersome.
- GG
I'm more OK with the physics - I base my game expectations on movies not RL - my big issue is just the 'speed of game vs speed of genre' just like air wargames. The disconnect is too big. A 30 second clip of action in a movie takes 30min to replay on the table.
ReplyDeleteThe linked issue is 'teleporting' - you need to keep moves short to avoid cars magically teleporting past each other (ramming/collisions are a big part of the genre). That makes the game feel slow. Adding a reaction mechanic also slows the game.
It's almost an unsolvable problem - the issue kinda contradicts its solution.
-eM
Yes, agreed. I'm ok with "movie realism". Gaslands and most flight games don't provide this, and indeed the problem is simulation time vs the thing being simulated. And this should feel fast -- cars and planes are fast -- but a tabletop game cannot provide this. Therefore I do think it's an unsolvable problem, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
DeleteYeah, early Car Wars is infamous for a 1/10 second phase taking several minutes on a real world clock. Later, CW moved to 1/5 second phases, taking perhaps slightly longer on the clock, but it's still a big disconnect.
DeleteI believe this issue it is NOT solvable (to my personal satisfaction), which is why I abandoned the genre. From a physical mechanical standpoint, you can again look at X-Wing as a reference for the minimum wall clock time required for basic physical manipulation of game components vs in-game simulated time, and see that it just doesn't work for "fast" cars.
- GG