paradoxstorm

A) I love the promotion and have lots of "oooo shiney" stuff on my want list. "B)" my wallet is still stinging from my black friday orders any chance I can send in something in March?? C) I will get a pink Malifaux Child!!!!!!!!

You've got the bulk of it. They recommend a bit of petroleum jelly (Vaseline in the U.S.) so that you get a clean release. I have their flagstone base and I seem to be able to work it pretty well--I need to get better about remembering to put some Vaseline on the greenstuff, but most of the time I get a clean release. The good thing for a klutz like me is that if you muck it up you just smooth out the GS and press it again. I think they have a video or two showing their stamps in action. Yep, they do: http://happyseppuku.com/instructionals.html

Watched a video on working with Styrene--looked very promising so I went out in my garage and found what I think is styrene---fiddled with it for about thirty minutes and was still a long way from having something that looks like a dance floor. People who can make such things work have my respect!!! I ordered the Happy Seppuku mold a few minutes ago. Pretty sure I can manage that.

That is what I am finding as well. There are some wood plank inserts out there that I really like for other crews, but I really want Colette on a fairly nice stage/dance floor and I am just not finding what I want. I am also thinking about a stamp/mold that I can use with greenstuff. This one looks promising: http://happyseppukumodelworks.bigcartel.com/product/wood-planking-2-narrow-plank-subtle-grain

Thanks for the thread and photos!!!! I want to finish my Colette crew so badly, but only if I can have nice wooden plank base inserts. I have been trying real wood and the prototypes look good but getting them cut/sanded to size has been a nightmare---I do not have the right assortment of tools so it is taking hours of work to make a single insert Must go buy plasticard. Looks like plasticard comes in different thicknesses....what size (range of sizes) works well for basing?

My guess, and I emphasize this is only a guess, is that Wyrd is struggling with growing pains on several fronts simultaneously. Switching from metal to plastic. Not sure how long it takes to go from concept art to sculpt to mold, but even if the timeline is fairly short, there are a lot of models to redesign and the Wyrd staff is still pretty small. Inventory/production management. If all the molds for all the models were done and sitting in a warehouse somewhere Wyrd still needs to figure out the size of production runs needed to satisfy demand until the next time the mold is used--how much inventory is needed to ensure that demand is met without filling the warehouse with boxes gathering dust. My rather dated memory of molding machines is that it takes several hours to switch molds so you want to do it as seldom as possible. I would be surprised if Wyrd has good estimates of demand at this stage in their development making production planning more of a problem. A situation that is likely worse now than a year ago since my perception is that the game is attracting new followers--probably more than Wyrd was planning for. Growth is a nice problem to have, but if you are small and can't ramp up production quickly it is very much a problem. Rumors suggest that Wyrd is having some of the molds redesigned based on customer complaints about the number of small fiddly parts and breaks that don't always seem to make sense. More time--more production delays. Excessive early acquisition by players. If you are hanging out here or are a regular on the AWP facebook group, you already know that model availability can be hit-or-miss depending on production cycles. If you have the cash you might well buy models because of the fear that they could be sold out in 6-8 months when you will actually want to build/play that model. I have a couple of models where I am debating this with myself right now--buy a model I know isn't going to be assembled for at least two months to make sure I have one or wait two months and hope I can still get it? If I buy it now, do I help to create the scarcity I dread? I've gone on a bit, but the simple point is that I think Wyrd is still suffering a lot of confusion on their production/inventory management side for multiple reasons. If it were just one thing it should be easy for them to fix, but multiple problems often makes it difficult to solve even one of them. And even if you do solve one of the problems, it may not translate into something the customer sees.

Talk about a recipe for misunderstandings--the quote provides a nice starting point for a comment I want to make, but every time I write it, it comes off as an attack on brdparker, when I really mean it as a commentary on the general direction of the thread. Comment: thought exercises can very interesting until they become repetitive and this thread has become that. Time to stop thinking and head into the laboratory to start experimenting. Some of the proposed house rules sound reasonable to me, but I respect the concerns expressed by those who think otherwise. No amount of discussion will resolve this issue---only models on the table under different rules will do that. Does switching from "slow" to "paralyzed" properly re-balance the game at 35ss or does it just lead to a new imbalance? What impact does reducing/eliminating the number of allowed summons on turns 1 and 2 have on 35ss games? We can argue all day about whether a given change will have a 0 - 10 impact, but we will never actually KNOW until we try it on the table.

A problem inherent in the medium. I joined my first online discussion group long time ago and learned that bite-sized comments in a medium void of inflection and body language makes for a lot of extra misunderstandings.

I wouldn't play Malifaux if premeasuring were not allowed. I have never played other war games but can understand where guessing distances would be an integral part of some of those games. But there is no universal rule about a specific game mechanic applying to all games--even all games in a specific genre. If the mechanic is good for the game it should be included. If not, it should be excluded. Several have already argued that premeasuring makes sense for Malifaux given the other mechanics in use. I clearly agree and I would have quit Malifaux after a single attempt at playing were premeasuring not allowed. (Assuming I had bothered trying to play at all.) If precise distance estimation is a necessary part of the game, I am not interested in that game--there are plenty of other games for me to choose from.

Been reading through this thread waiting for someone to report on play testing this or some other rule modification. As much as I enjoy the discussion, at some point you have to experiment to see which theoretical perspective best matches reality. Go, go, go, and get back to us.

Being in the U.S. I don't have to worry about customs charges, but I did open my credit card bill today Even knowing it was coming I wasn't prepared. Oh well, I should take some time off from buying shinies and work on assembly and painting anyway.

And to think I was feeling silly when I found out I had purchased a 4th set of arachnids. After reading this thread I'm feeling much better! (Still only two of the 4 assembled so I got some work left, but feeling good about it.)

I think if you reread your post you'll find that we agree in all but framing. I say that Nicodem is forbidden to use a gun by the rules that state what he is allowed to do. That is, somewhere there is a rule that only allows attacks printed on the model's stat card--a rule that clearly forbids making use of any attacks not on the stat card. The same with movement. The phrase "may move up to your walk" includes "may NOT move more than your walk." While the wording of the rules is in the affirmative, there is a clear indication of what you may not do. You are not allowed to play outside the rules regardless of whether the rules are phrased affirmatively (you may) or negatively (you may not). The reason for my choice of framing has to do with the OP's question about walking his own model off of a tall piece of terrain and inflicting damage. As I understand it there is no rule specifically permitting this. It is not stated in the rules that you may walk a model off of terrain inflicting damage. If we seek affirmative permission from the rules, then the model may not be walked off the building. If, however, we look for denial of permission and note that there is no rule forbidding a model's choice to walk off of a building we can determine that the action is allowed.

I would suggest the correct interpretation is "if the rules don't forbid it, it is allowed." Sometimes "forbidden" is implied by what is allowed "model may move up to its walk" clearly forbids movement beyond the walk distance. For #1 I cannot imagine a scenario where a model could move out of play/off the board so I don't think you need to worry about it. The rest of this is me thinking out loud to see how well I am doing: #2 For practical reasons I can see problems with climbable walls and such if you do not have enough movement to complete the climb in one turn--placing your model part way up a wall with no way to keep it there would make the game state unclear. I know that we play that your model has to have enough movement to reach a point where the model can be placed -- so a hill with ledges/flat areas on the climbable side could be climbed over multiple turns if you have enough movement to reach a flat area. That said, if you have defined a wall as climbable I can't see a rule based reason that you couldn't complete the climb over multiple turns as long as you had some means of making the game state clear. Perhaps a stack of counters to hold the model part way up the wall. #3 I would certainly think that if I wanted to walk my ice gamin off a tall building, having him drop into a crowd of opposing models so he can die and explode causing damage to all below I can do so, unless the wall is climbable. Then I think that climbing would be part of the walk action. #4 if a marker has terrain traits it seems that it should be treated as terrain for purposes of model movement. If a model can fly over a 5 inch wall why couldn't it fly over a 5 inch marker? Now I'll watch the replies to see if I passed the quiz

I was converted, but much more subtly--first it was "buy a fun looking crew to paint--you don't have to play the game to enjoy painting models." Then came the "well, now that you have models you should look at playing" comments. Finally I was loaned the fluff rule book for a couple of weeks because "painting the figures will be more interesting if you know some of the back story." Now I am on the proselytizing path, but haven't gotten any firm converts yet. A few are looking, at least one has shown up at the flgs to check out the boxes. I'll get a couple.

I am soooooo glad to know it isn't just me. Purchasing models is easy--too easy--I can do it while watching television so I have more models than I care to count . The good news is that in order to get some older models I have been "forced" to pick up collections on ebay including several painted models. The painting isn't always artistic quality, but so far only one model has been painted so poorly that I dropped it into some simple green for a few days. Assembly is slow but steady and priming is easy enough so I have about two dozen models ready for paint. Painting is a different story. I failed at paint-by-number painting as a kid and while I understand what color theory is I can't really apply it. As if my own lack of talent and skill were not enough, when I see some of the amazing work over in the showcase I am so overwhelmed that I shut down. But after a few long talks with myself I have managed to convince me that I just have to get my painting up to table-top standards. So far I have 8 "finished" models (6 of them being ice gamin) and another dozen or so with a splash of paint on them. The finished models have been rated as "don't suck" by those at the flgs so I am feeling a bit encouraged. The good news is that I am running out of models I don't own so while 2014 was the year of acquisition, maybe 2015 can be the year of painting.

I have only assembled a handful of plastics so far in large part because every time I do I swear I will never do it again. Sadly, with so many models only available in plastic, I know that I will have to continue working with plastics. They look nice, but everyone who talks about them being easier to work with lives in an entirely different world than I do. I have smallish hands and still find many of the pieces too small and fiddly for me to deal with. I've got three different tweezers that I keep trying just to see if I can get one of them to work well, but so far no luck. Give me a pin drill and some wire any day--at least I can get the pieces where they belong. And sooooo many pieces! I do rather enjoy the assembly work, but how many pieces does a model really need to come in? I have yet to even consider whether or not there are assembly instructions for a metal model while I seem to absolutely need them with many plastics. Sadly Mei Feng (my most recent project) doesn't have instructions and the "D," "E," and "F," labels on the sprue didn't always seem to match up with other pieces using the same letter label. (Maybe they did, but it sure felt like I needed to mix-n-match on the rail workers.) A planned project is finding/making a mold for lead weights that I can add to the bases of the plastic models I do have. I hate, hate, hate, the lack of weight in those things. A gaming piece should have some weight to it, like the metal models. And finally, when the zombie apocalypse comes, I'll be melting my metal models down into ammo while the plastic lovers are getting eaten! I too am waiting for the plastics, but in my case I am hoping some of the impossible to get metal models get dumped for cheap by those who love their plastics.

I love psychology and this is certainly one of the factors that impacts how people fail to appreciate appropriate criticism. Another, in the U.S. at least, is the broader societal notion that education should be painless in the sense that students never experience failure. Having never experienced failure/criticism many people are unprepared for criticism. Spending your life being told that everything you did is wonderful/amazing. Having always won a prize in every competition (because everyone gets a trophy) leaves people unprepared for criticism. But there are also people that aren't confused, they simply want to be part of the community and show folks what they've been up to. If I ever chose to post photos of my painting I would be in this category. I am a hack/amateur. I am not now, nor will I ever be, an artist with a paintbrush. I'm not confused about that concept, but I am still having fun with the painting and if I were to post photos it would be in the interest of having fun and being part of a social group. But I probably won't post online because it is devilishly hard to communicate the "hey look I actually have something painted" joy in a text based format while stating that you are not interested in critical feedback. It is fairly easy to put a disclaimer up front declaring that you are looking for critical comments to help you improve. But what about the gamer/amateur who just wants to share their joy at having finished a crew? This is where the internet is hard. In the flgs it is clear to anyone who is remotely paying attention that I DO NOT consider myself a brilliant painter. And they respond to the need that I, and many like me, actually have--the need for some recognition that I am playing models that have more paint than primer on them. For me personally "hey that doesn't suck" is praise and is all the assurance I want. The miniature showcase on this forum seems to be populated primarily by artists or those who are looking to become artists. For them diplomatic critical commentary should be both expected and welcome. As I see it, the AWP facebook group is populated by gamers who are looking for a pat-on-the-back for having gotten some painting done. For the most part they are not interested in critical comments--congratulating them on having gotten two, six, or ten models painted that don't suck is all they are looking for.

Went to Michael's yesterday and found a bag of snow flocked pine trees (8-10, didn't count) on sale for $9 and the last roll (in that store) of the 18" x 36" cobblestone was $10. And now that we have a terrain showcase topic area would it make sense to move this thread over there?

One order received about a week ago. (Wife raided it, took stuff, gave me a check and said something about having finished her xmas shopping.) Email yesterday with shipping info on order #2, which should be here by monday

I've not looked at the Vassal deck, but my "oooo shiny!" goes into high gear for playing cards so if someone can arrange a print run you've got two purchases in the bag.