13 April 2024 (Monday)
Added more paint to the Foot unit for the New Model army list during the witching hour. Hoping to work on the pikes but not confident it will happen. Maybe finalise work on Butler's Horse later on today instead? Will see if it happens for real although am highly doubtful.
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Did more design work on my B&B Magic User cards, the large version, at the same time as I was painting the minis. Picked the back of the card images taken from the rulebook. Will print out a trial version as and when I can.
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Popped into my local Aldi store to do some food shopping today mid-morning. Ended up walking down the middle section. Big mistake. Saw these items and instantly bought them.
Spotted this first. Keen to see what happens next. AUD4.99 each part. Got the last of the complete set in my store.
Always wanted one. AUD14.99. Still a few left.
Already have this in various formats but this pen dispenser will do nicely for my New Model list, and can be binned thereafter. AUD11.99.
Also bought various acrylic paints (100ml tubes). The same kind you get in those $2 shops that charge up to AUD5! These were retailing for only AUD0.99. Bought several tubes of white and black because I go through those pretty quick. Assorted other colours.
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Finished initial design of the Magic User Spell cards. As intended, I went with a larger card size - 100 mm wide by 150 mm long. I borrowed images from the rulebook, modifying them using Photo before inserting them into graphic image creator MS Paint. Three different images were selected - the Mage/Wizard, the Mad Hatter, and the Toad.
Natural Magic card example. Back (left) and front (right). Showed wife the backing and she preferred the darker green tone version while I preferred this slighter lighter tone. Note: each school spells are in the colour of the banding (frame).
Noble Magic card example. Mad Hatter back (left) and Spell on the front (right).
Unbound Magic card example. Toad on the back (left) and spell on the front (right).
Summary
Backing image are for test purpose only and will change over the course of the design and print process.
Not sure about the sandy colour edging on this first test run given the multi-colours used. It make it look both redundant and pointless. I may just go with the white edging instead as shown with the back of the card.
Differentiating between the various Magic schools by using coloured banding and matching text as follows: Natural (green), Noble (yellow/orange), Dark (black), Wild (dark brown/puce), Unbound (pale blue), and Noble (purple) is an option I am currently exploring.
Given there are six schools of magic each with six spells apiece, that means thirty-six cards in total are required. Hoping to produce a test print run of the above three examples within the next few days. Cheers.
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14 April 2024 (Tuesday)
Clocked into WOWS today for the daily reward and saw that we had lost our Naval Battle against an NA clan. Correction: I did earn the star in De Grasse in the very time I ran her. Relieved because I thought I had failed altogether. Subsequent efforts to raise the next bar failed however.
Yesterday, it was confirmed that Base XP for Naval Battles can only be earned in Co-Op, Random and Ranked battle modes. Not possible in Brawls, Operations, or Asymmetric. Which is a disappointing but then why make things easy?
Ended the day playing one game of Operations in the French premium Tier VIII cruiser Bayard primarily to confirm what I already knew. Ran my Legendary skipper Philippe Auboyneau on her to continue upskilling certain commanders. Surprised myself by having a blast in the Operation Rose night and dawn mission. Sunk 8 ships which is a record for me personally. Tied with the Hatsuharu who also tallied 8 sinkings. Bayard is a DD killer and can handle other light cruisers equally well as she does smacking destroyers.
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Concentrated on printing the game cards today. Two systems under the spotlight today: Victory without Quarter and Burrows & Badgers. Much revision as the sheet system idea did not work at all so had to fall back to doing single page images. Lots of typing involved with VWQ requiring 60 cards and B&B needing 36 cards.
Problem, right from the start, has been aligning both front and back pages in Paint. Difficult task. Tried several approaches by measurement and alignment. However it was generally a big fail when it came to print out to A4 paper.
Then I tried using Word itself to align the images individually (Position tool - top left corner, top right corner, bottom left corner, and bottom right corner). It proved to be more successful that previous efforts but not by much as there was still alignment issues.
With no bleed on either side I used the banding on the front to measure off 4mm all round before using the paper cutter to trim it neatly. Not concerned with how it looks at the back, as it's the front of the card that concerns the player. With each faction coloured accordingly when a card is flipped everyone instantly knows.
The corner cutter I'm using comes in three corner sizes: 4mm, 7mm, 10mm. I've used the 7mm but it does not cut clean needing final trimming (carefully) with a pair of hand scissors. I've been searching high and low for the single 7mm cutter (got two) in the studio but I cannot find them.
Magic spell cards for Boris and Beckett. This set belongs to the Natural magic school. Flipped the mage/wizard image from the original, and lightened even further the background colour. As you can clearly see, the back is offset quite a fair bit and thus looks lopsided. It's not helped by the 10mm corner cutter trim. Will revert to the 7mm if I can find it/them. Again, I used the Windows Position tool but this is the end result.
Original card size (100 mm x 150 mm) was reduced 70% giving a more reasonable size. The original large size works, as I suspect, if using thick card stock instead of copy paper. Anyway, this new size I am calling mid and is 70 mm x 105 mm.
I keep forgetting that printing results in darker colours. Just like acrylics.
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15 April 2024 (Wednesday)
Slow casual day of pikes and flags. Didn't mean to but ended up gluing figures to their bases. Procrastinating again. Pickering's Foot. Next lot for basecoating will be Skippon's Foot and Montagu's Foot.
Also ended up gluing Butler's Ironsides (minus standard bearer).
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16 April 2024 (Thursday)
Dockyard Event still happening for another twenty-odd days. Playing it for the steel now that I have the Wisconsin. Ran Groningen, Atlanta, Bayard. Three more tasks to complete this mission series, aptly entitled "Temper, temper".
Update 13.4 happened yesterday. Return of the Azure Lane commanders which is also part of the new Battle Pass for this Update where these characters from part of a collectible collection. The Battle Pass final reward is a special flag. Purchasing the second level access costs 2000+ doubloons, but is it worth it for a flag as the final reward?
No.
Steel, that rarest of commodities, however is worth it so will play the remaining three missions for the Dockyard Event until it ends.
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More figures painted...sorta. Unit of Harquebusiers (gallopers) - Vermuyden's Horse.
Revised the B&B magic spell cards after reviewing the problem of alignment. Resolved the situation simply by removing the banding on the back and extending the background colour to the card edge and bled it beyond. Once printed, I will align the cutter to use the outline of the front of the card. No picture of image as it's on my other PC and haven't bothered transferring it over yet. Will produce the full set first before showcasing.
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17 April 2024 (Friday)
Times and circumstances do change. Change is, like death and taxes, one of the few certainties or constant in life these days.
Nothing much done hobbying-wise apart from tidying a few loose ends from the week's efforts.
I spent the early part of the day session-gaming World of Warships. Upgraded to the Tier X Cerberus, top of the line for the Commonwealth cruiser tech tree line which was made available to grind for free with the new Update. Only remembered it existed while running the Bayard as part of the cruiser mission for the Dockyard event (steel reward).
Had already progressed during the Commonwealth cruiser Early Access event several updates back up to the Tier IX Encounter. I wasn't going to spend doubloons outright to buy the Cerberus preferring to wait until it came out of Early Access when I could get it for free by spending XP and credits which fortunately I had thus completing the Commonwealth line with a simple exchange of resources for ship. Took the same approach way back with both the Spanish and Pan-American tech tree line cruisers - grind the Early Access line for free as far as possible then wait for the remaining ships to come out of Early Access and then grind for free or purchase using XP and credits earned and hoarded.
Cerberus is an interesting ship although like most cruisers it has paper-thin armour which means it can be easily one-shotted by a Montana or a Schlieffen if you're not paying attention to what's happening around you. It works best hiding behind islands and farming distant ships as its high arcing shells can easily fire over the island cover. It's long-lasting running smoke, reminiscent of Mysore, comes in handy when you want to "sneak" up on your opponents without drawing close attention from focused enemy fire. Its choice of torps (four in one salvo, both sides), although with a 13+ km range, means being judicious in how you use them for it's no Jinan which can flood any area quicker than you can say Rumpelstiltskin. It's a very good DD killer. It works really well as a supporting team player; don't YOLO if you can help it. Its guns are okay and can perform well against all three surface ship classes - destroyer, cruiser, and battleship; both HE and AP can be handy if used properly. You have a choice of hydro or defensive fire AA mode. I am currently running AA which has proven a good choice so far. But it's no specialist AA cruiser like seveal others in the dedicated AA bracket. It comes with the new 8 km-range submarine surveillance radar as a standard consumable which most newcomers use incorrectly as a surface ship detector; so far, I have not played any games against a sub. Its mobility (steering and rudder shift) is also average so be mindful when navigating around island clusters.
Only two missions left to obtain the next lot of steel - both ship class specific. The cruiser mission requires taking an obscene amount of potential damage (30,000,000 worth) over many many battles while the destroyer mission involves contributing (not sure if several hundreds of thousands or millions) to the team's total damage score courtesy of your spotting.
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Tonight I finished off the Orders Cards. Sizes used thus far range (from left to right) from standard small (test run only), custom medium (Victory without Quarter), custom large (Barbeque & Brisket).
Finished laminating the VWQ cards for all four factions currently employed by the garage gaming group I associate with. Roughly between 15-18 cards (some double-ups inadvertently included during the print run) per set so a total of around 60-70.
Learned something tonight whilst trimming the corners of these "cards". The corner cutter I use prefers multiple laminations (depending on thickness used). Kept having to trim the poor cuts on single cards previously so tonight in an inspired moment I tried two cards simultaneously. Problem seemingly solved as there were no further trimming required apart from the odd rare one which I pulled off with fingers. Encouraged, I next tried three cards at once (replicated below). Again, there were no issues, in fact, it was clean cuts all round. So, therein the problem that had plagued my earlier efforts was now seemingly resolved. Still one or two "cards" needs relaminating though which happens.
Planning on using card stock in my next design effort. Cheers.
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18 April 2024 (Saturday)
Tasks this weekend will include finishing off assembling the artillery guns to go with the painted crews. And continue more painting with Vermuyden's Horse (adding over-jackets in leather and buff).
But first I'm going to begin assembling the next two Foot units - Montagu's Foot and Skippon's Foot during this night owl session. Test their look before painting (already primed).
When I purchased the Foot, I wanted variety with the model types (soft hat as opposed to helmets) to easier distinguish between the individual units. Since that brain fart moment though I have since realised I could have easily facilitated that distinction through simply painting different colour uniforms. And facings.
But as this is the New Model army that might prove problematic given that a standardised uniform was being introduced while supply was an issue early on with some units not receiving their new uniforms and forced to wear their former uniforms. And the colour dye was inconsistent across the board.
I also forgot that regimental flags provide the simplest means of identifying any unit on the tabletop. So it was a d'oh moment at the beginning but it is what it is now so I just have to roll with it. And bringing something together from nothing is always the most challenging and fun part of any new endeavour so one can overlook initial failings. Or so I lie to myself.
Montagu's Foot. Interesting choice especially regarding flags. One source states a purple flag with yellow stars. Another says the same colour but with white lozenges. An English reenactment group who call themselves Montagu's Foot use a white flag with purple coloured devices. With such inconsistency happening between various sources, I wondered if I might add to confusion further with my own design? Nah, I'll just pick one and go with that. I could research further into the history to make an educated guess but why confuse matters for me (easy to do these days).
Anyway, uniform will be red with white facing. Purple flag AND white flags for my two standard bearers. Really confuse the enemy and myself.
Skippon's Foot, by comparison, is much simpler prospect in terms of flags and uniforms. Green flag is well known. One source says yellow stars while another cites yellow discs. Uniform is red with yellow facings.
I'm going to go with mostly red for both units given my timeline is around 1645 (circa Battle of Naseby) with the odd or occasional different colouring for variety and, oddly enough, adding that splash of colour to their display come tabletop time.
Okey's Dragoons (dismounted). Two stands at the moment. Will add more eventually but for now, the basecoating stage is almost done except for the drummer figure. Not including the horse at the moment but will do so when I purchase more dragoons. Different coat colours because the unit was formed from various dragoon units already existing within the Parliament forces.
As with everything ECW thus far, this is just the BASECOAT stage. I cannot stress that enough. Much more to do before I will happily declare them done and ready to go tabletop. Much like Monty prepping before the battles of El Alamein. This will do for the night owl session. Cheers.
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Continue grinding the cruiser mission for the Dockyard Event steel after having a brief kip. In the process of grinding, I opened up a received Supercontainer (part of the daily loot crates available for grinding: Supercontainers pop up every 100 standard crates opened) and actually received for free a ship, the Tier VI Pan-Asian premium cruiser HUANGHE. Woah! What a surprise...
In over five years of playing this game, this is the second time it's ever happened - a Supercontainer actually being Super. I was surprised in good way. Usually these days you receive "nothing stuff" such as signal flags, useless camo, or lower-end economic bonuses (greys and greens).
Anyway, played Huanghe multiple times to see how she plays. Decent smoke but one needs to keep angled in order to survive pummelling from ships like the Bismarck or Scharnhorst. And other cruisers. Torps are 8 km (if memory serves well). Has hydro. AA is not so great but is serviceable. Good damage inflicted at closer ranges. Maneouvrability is not bad. Dispersion is a worry at longer range; recall targeting the Emile Bertin at mid range in one game; it was on very low health (sliver of a health bar showing) and yet I couldn't finish it off despite repeated hits with both HE and AP.
New Naval Battle began yesterday afternoon. Different ship allocations for the bonus attempts - thankfully, no CVs or subs this time round. Same old situation though; being hammered by an NA clan. Got tomorrow to help out. Monday 4pm (local Oz time) is when the battle competition ends. Going to give it a run; got fourteen attempts to earn stars; the higher the bar, the more stars earned. I will target those categories offering the +2 bonus clan-wide first. So, it will be either Random or Ranked.
My Upskill-21 program is simple and straightforward. I will utilise the captain being upskilled usually on lower-tiered PREMIUM ships by subbing in and out. Costs you nothing. Only works with PREMIUMS only. And the captain can be any kind - standard tech tree line, event commander, seasoned or legendary (of Lujtens or Halsey Jr calibre). It's a slow given given I play Co-Op exclusively with the occasional forays into other battle modes as needed. And having to use economic bonuses when I'm usually poor in that area. Got five captains upskilled this way however - two German, one Japanese, one British, and one US. Next US one is at 20-point. Aiming to upskill my remaining legendary commanders from Italy, France, Pan-Asia, and Europe. No legendary captains for Spain, Pan-America or Commonwealth...yet. Planning on having every nation fielding at least two 21-pt captains. Thus it's an ongoing long-term project.
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Started painting the two new Foot units for the New Model after logging out from WOWS session. Slow progress however.
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19 April 2024 (Sunday)
Night owl session productivity results. Had to push myself a little.
Montagu's Foot...
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World of Warship. Started grinding the cruisers to complete task. Did so but took a long while. During the grind, jumped into Random to chase the elusive stars for the clan's Naval Battle. Got close but not good enough. Got a star though when I spotted a chance running British cruisers for a single star. At least I contributed. Moreover, others in the clan earned the +2 bonus attempts twice over so now the good ones can advance our tally against our opponents.
Just two more Dockyard missions - the DD one and the achievements one.
Tired now...gonna chill out now and have something to eat whilst chilling out to music. Take care.
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