Gencon 2018 Photo Dump: Venue & Exhibits

by SandWyrm

I spent much of my time at Gencon this year testing my own game, but I did get some nice pictures of the costumes, products, and other cool things that crossed my path as I ran to and fro.

Testing WarStrike At Gencon...

by SandWyrm

(Farmpunk wandered over to photo-bomb this picture after a Flames of War tournament)

Check out my new post over on the WarStrike Blog if you want to see how our game testing went at Gencon. I was very surprised by the results!

8th Edition Impressions: Core Rules

by SandWyrm

Since I now have my 8th Edition hardcover in hand, I'm going to start going through it and posting my thoughts on this new version of 40K. What I like, what I don't, and what I just find interesting.

We'll start with the Introduction and Core Rules.

Upcoming Game Demo Day Here In The Indy Area

by SandWyrm

We've been nicely asked to put up a post about some game demos, including 8th Edition 40K, that will be run locally at the Fishers library, on the north side of Indianapolis, this July.

What The... 8th Edition 40K Is Actually... Good?

by SandWyrm

Ok, my head is officially spinning.

If you've spent ANY time on this blog, you've seen me constantly comparing 40K to Flames of War, as I used to consider the latter to be the gold standard for a well-designed, clearly written ruleset. While I considered 40K (especially the 6th and 7th Editions) to be the opposite.

But then Battlefront, a few months ago, completely crapped the bed with the 4th Edition of Flames, which I now consider to be all but unplayable. While Games Workshop seems to have completely redesigned 40K into an intelligently streamlined game that's actually a lot of fun to play!

3D Printing: Building A Better Miniature Base

by SandWyrm

Games Workshop bases. For better or worse, we're all used to them (or their many copy-cats). But while assembling my large order from Anvil Industry to make a copyright-legal army for WarStrike,   I had to decide what kind of bases to use for the figures that didn't come with any.

And since I've got a nice 3D resin printer... Well, I think I've come up with something much better than the norm.

A 3D Printing Kickstarter That Deserves More Attention (Updated)

by SandWyrm

There's a new company in town offering 3D printable scenery, and it's in just the style I like.... SANDY! Oh man do I want these!

First Look At My New Anvil Industries & Ramshackle Minis

by SandWyrm

In a very unfavorable comparison to the US Postal Service, the Royal Mail managed to deliver my large Anvil Industries miniature order (581 grams) in just one week for £6. While I've recently paid 5 times that to ship about one ounce of 3D printed minis to Belgium, only to have them lost in transit.

But hey, I've got a bunch of new minis that we have permission to use photographs of in our game! So let's take a look at what Anvil, and another company called Ramshackle Games have sent me.

Read the rest over on the WarStrike blog...

(I'm cross-posting this article, because it would probably interest quite a few here who still play 40k.)

ISIS Are Orks!!!

by SandWyrm

If you want some Orky inspiration, you need look no further than some of the crazy vehicles that ISIS has thrown together to conquer the Arab world with. Really? We can't stop these guys?

The Force Nods Off

by SandWyrm

Just got back from seeing Rogue One tonight, and I'm sad to say that it's not nearly as good as it could have been. While it beats any of the Prequels, I'm having a hard time deciding whether it beats out Return of the Jedi or not. Especially when it progresses so slowly that I was actually imagining a much better ending during the actual ending... never a good sign.

Watch These Guys Build A Working Chain Sword!

by SandWyrm

How much does that thing weigh? No wonder they're not swinging it around!

Oh Yeah... GW's Financials Are Out...

by SandWyrm

With all of my preparations for Gencon, and general busy-ness elsewhere, I completely missed when GW released its financials for the year. If you were expecting any sort of big surprise on the financial end, you'll be disappointed. Sales & profits are down a bit (like each of the last few years), and dividends were cut. So you know... Same old same old. Nothing has changed in the long-term trends. Sales are up a little bit in North America & Asia, and down everywhere else. Royalties are back up (covering some for weak sales), and they've somehow found more operational expenses to cut to slightly increase their Operating Profit. Yawn...

The most entertaining bits though, as always, are in the chairman's introductions.

Preliminary WarStrike Test Units

Here's the Fallen/Republic units that I've worked up for testing. There's no points value for balancing yet, and you can pretty much just pick what you want (and even double up if you wish). For our demo game on Saturday each side took 5 units including their officers (those entries have rank insignias in the upper-right).

Rock On Hydra! Rock On!

by SandWyrm

Now I have a 3D Printer.... Ho, Ho, Ho...

3D Printing Is About To Hit Mainstream Gaming

by SandWyrm

Several weeks ago, I got into a conversation with Hight, the owner of Sinclair Games (our FLGS), about 3D printing. Which included showing him my previous post on the female ganger minis that I'd bought from Shapeways. He was pretty impressed and wanted to find out more about it.

Cue a couple of Wednesdays ago, when I walked into the store to see him playing with a brand new filament printer (The Robo 3d above) which cost him around $800 on Amazon. He was downloading terrain models from Thingverse and trying to figure out how best to print them. With mixed results, but much enthusiasm. He's fully on board now with the idea of 3D printing replacing traditional metal/resin miniature production. He's just frustrated at the lack of usable models out there. 

But that's getting ready to change in some interesting ways...

Metal-Jet 3D Printing

by SandWyrm

Ran across this one today. Check out the tiny miniatures at the end.

A Priceless Axanar Lawsuit Parody

by SandWyrm

It's just too good not to share.

Is Trek a Dying Enterprise? (UPDATED)

by SandWyrm

With the recent brouhaha over Axanar, I got to wondering how the Trek franchise is actually doing from a financial standpoint. I mean... The 2009 reboot supposedly revitalized the franchise in a big way, right? Or is the truth, after looking at the historical budgets and gross returns, more disturbing?

Axanar: Round 2, FIGHT! (UPDATED)

by SandWyrm

Anyone remember this classic 1992 3DO/PC game? Clearly infringing!

In our last episode, CBS/Paramount had decided to sue Axanar Productions over their clearly infringing (to some extent) fan-kickstarted movie project to tell a story about a Trek-Universe battle that was mentioned once in passing by Captain Kirk during TOS. Even though there are over a dozen OTHER fan projects out there, from movies to episodic series, that infringe on Trek copyrights and trademarks at least as much, if not more than Axanar does.

But then Axanar countered with the assertions that CBS/Paramount's lawsuit wasn't specific enough in its claims (which it wasn't), that the ownership of certain IP elements is uncertain due to the split of CBS from Viacom (which owns Paramount), and that they can't be sued for an infringing work that they haven't even completed, much less published yet. Fair Enough.

Well, CBS/Paramount has pressed on, and has filed an amended lawsuit (thanks to David Heagney Jr. for the link) that includes much more specific copyright claims. While at least a third of them seem reasonable enough, most wander into GW vs. Chapterhouse territory by ridiculously claiming ownership of ideas, instead of specific expressions of those ideas.

Let's take a look at a selection of CBS/Paramount claims, and talk about what is, and is not defensible under copyright.

Star Trek: Axanar Fan-Film Sued?

by SandWyrm

I'm not sure how I missed this happening over a month ago, but it seems that CBS and Paramount have decided to sue Axanar Productions for the Star Trek: Axanar fan film they've been producing.

"The Axanar Works infringe Plaintiffs’ works by using innumerable copyrighted elements of Star Trek, including its settings, characters, species, and themes," states the complaint.

Well, yeah. Duh. We all knew that. But there's a problem for CBS/Paramount, because they've allowed a legal gray area to form around these fan productions for some time.