print your own figures

This post is perhaps not Malifaux specific. OK, it' s not at all Malifaux specific, it's generic and applicable to any figure gaming system.

A quick google suggests a 3D printer is currently available for a mere £15,000. Hmm.. OK, that's a lot of money, but, like any technology it'll start to come down. And I was wondering, does this have implications for our hobby?

Why accept the costs of manufacturing, packaging and distributing figures if you can sell the template for people to print their own in their own home?

You the user would browse the wyrd web site, think, hmm.. I like that one, click a button, order it, receive the template there and then and have a figure 5 minutes later.



Mini figure 3d printed. image by Creative Tools

Now I'm no 3d printing expert, I don't know what the limitations of these devises are, but from what I've seen of what can be printed, I think these machines are more than capable of printing these figures, maybe some of them will need to be printed in sections and glued together, but they could still be printed. In fact, as you can see, a quick search and I've found someone that's already done it.

Also, for those that aren't painting fans, colour 3d printers are also available. Perhaps before too long they will be sophisticated enough to print colour well enough that you could buy a colour template and not need to paint the figure afterwards?

There would need to be a method of limiting the number of times you could print a template. GW aren't going to sell you one orc template and watch you print off 200 of the blighters are they?

Not sure if figure prices would be cheaper for the consumer or not, the manufacturer could reduce their prices as they'd have no manufacturing costs, no distribution costs and no packaging costs. However consumers would need raw materials, and the printer of course.

There are of course implications for game stores too. They sell plenty of things beyond figures, but this could make a dent.

But, at the end of the day, maybe this is all just a rambling pipe dream.

These printers are still very expensive, it might cause too much of an upheaval to the industry, and lets face it, it hasn't happened in an area it could have done already.. the books and manuals our games rely on.

What do you think? Let me know.

it lives!

contrary to recent posts, this blog will continue.  It will not die.


(C) Wyrd Miniatures

Happy days, at least for me.
I don't know how long for, but at least for a few months, hopefully indefinitely.

Calculations were done, cogs whirred, gears crunched, in the end it was found we can continue.

Hurrah.

Now all I need to do is lay vinyl flooring, install a shower and tile a bathroom, re-wire and install a new kitchen, build some wardrobes, clear my shed,  unpack my stuff and get painting.. new posts should be arriving soon then huh?

death of a blog

Regular readers will be aware of various personal issues that have impeeded the writing and development of this blog.

Firstly I lost my job and had to concentrate on finding a new one, then we moved home and my gear was packed up. I had hoped, once the move was out of the way that I could pick things up and get posting again.

Unfortunately my new job is not as well payed as my old one, my child will soon need full priced care, and other issues mean that apparantly, my hobby is depriving my family. As such I can no longer continue with it in the manner in which I would like. Consequently I will be ceasing almost all hobby activities, including this blog. This blog will taken off-line in 2 weeks time.

Meanwhile I'd like you to review my train ride to malifaux page and let me know, what you think, I should keep. One master with a crew size of 35 - 40 ss. This will enable me to continue to play against my friends, albeit in a limited way that won't have them guessing much about what I'll be putting on the table. I will also be keeping SnowStorm as it's such an awsome model and I want to finish it off. In two weeks everything else, model wise, goes on ebay. I'd really hoped to make something of this blog but it seems that I cannot do so.

Thanks for reading.

Moving

3 days away now.  3 days from a new home for me and my family.
Needless to say all my Malifaux models, books and scenery are packed away ready to move, all apart from my rules manual and model cards which are all in my rucsac for lunch time reading at work.

How long I wonder, until it's unpacked the other end.
In theory I get a nice large, powered shed all to myself.  Desks, maybe even a game table, shelves & chairs. There should be room for all of it.. We'll see. 

(c) Wyrd Miniatures

Meanwhile I will soon have another small cash injection heading my way, from sale of some GW items.  So, apart from a LONG overdue copy of Twisting Fates I have to decide what else to get. 
Bits to augment what I have?  Some arcanist minions for Rasputina for instance? 
A henchman?  Kaeris is appealing, Lucius or Collodi perhaps?  
A book 2 master?  I have none and they all appeal to some extent..
An Avatar?  I have none, Rasputina's is available?
Or should I make that move to Ressurs I've been thinking about?  Nico, McMourning and Kirai all appeal..

Anyway, it gives me something else to look forward to and think about.

I intend shortly to add a page that lists which figures I have and what state they are in, built painted etc..
Then when I ask what I should spend my money on you'll have an idea what I already have.
It should also serve to shame me into action and get painting.. yeah right ;-)

So, sorry folks, another mindles rambling post, but, fingers crossed, before long I should get some actual hobby time to report on.  Just don't hold your breath.

playing faster

I noticed a tweet the other day that got me wondering about game length.  Why does it take so long to play a game of Malifaux?  Or, does it take that long to play, really?
My games take hours, start at nine, stop at midnight and we may not be finished.  Why is that?
Surely a game with so few figures can't take that long?  We used to get a 1000-1500 point warhammer game done in the same space of time, so why so long?

(c) Wyrd Miniatures

Well, as per usual with this type of question I believe there are a number of factors.

Firstly I don't think everyone takes this long.  At tournaments there's a set time span and many people are perfectly capable of, and used to, playing to shorter time scales.

So, if it is possible to play more quickly, what can we do to speed things up?  Here are some ideas, they may or may not work for you.

Learn the rules.  Rules queries can take an age to sort out, if you know the rules you'll get fewer queries.  You may not eliminate them but you will reduce them.

Learn the rules. Learn the rules for your crew, as well as you know the core rules, better even.  Study the card on every model, if it interacts or changes core rules do your research on how this will affect the normal resolution of that rule.  If there's anything particularly gnarly I'd suggest you let your opponent know prior to starting, there's nothing will de-rail the progress of a game quite like coming up with some nasty rule mid-game that wrecks our opponents game and seems to contradict what he was expecting.

Learn the rules.  If you can, learn the rules for your opponents crew too.  This won't always be possible but regular reading of the rules books should give at least a passing idea of what your opponents crew can do.

Set a time limit on rules queries, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever works for you, if you haven't found it by then, flip for it and resolve it later, you really don't want to spend 10, 15 or even 20 minutes searching for an answer to a question mid-game.  But make a note so you don't forget to look it up later.

Make sure you know the set-up and game turn sequence off by heart.  What happens next? is a massive slower of games.

Make decisions quicker.  I like to take my time with each and every figure, even if it's obvious what to do, but agonising over each decision will sloooww down a game so much.  Be thinking about what to do whilst your opponent moves, when he's done then.. snap, make that decision, make the move, take the shot.  I believe you can train yourself to do this.  Knowing your crew well will help here, make sure you don't miss anything.  If you have to read every crew members card each turn whilst you decide which action you want to take.. you will have a slow game.

Plan ahead.  Think of the game prior to playing.  If you know which crew you want to take have a general plan, an idea of what you want to do with that crew.  Yes, strategies, schemes and an unkown until you play opposing crew may require a change, but a basic idea of what order your crew members need to go in and what they need to do will help making those decisions.

Play more.  Easiest and simplest answer is that the more you play the less any of these issues will be a problem.  Play as often as you can and you will learn the rules, you will know the turn sequence and you will make decisions faster.

To take it back to WarHammer (sorry), the reason those games took less time was we'd been playing for more years than Malifaux has existed, even though it changed every 4 or 5 years it was still pretty much the same game, so after each change there was a period where games took longer, it didn't last long and we'd be back up to speed again.  Read your books & cards more often, play more often, have a game plan and don't get stuck on rules queries and I think you'll soon be playing faster.

Hope this was of some interest or even help.  Do you have any ideas for speeding up games?  If so, please comment below and let me know.

Blog post - formating lost

Hi,

just a quickie.  Hope you all enjoyed the twitter coverage of the UK's first ranking Malifaux tournament of the year.  Check out #mfauxice for details, and if you don't have a twitter account yet.. why not?  Lots of good Malifaux coverage there.

Meanwhile, apologies for the look of the blog right now.  I was messing around with the template when I lost everything.  Luckily I'd saved the layout before hand.  Unfortunately I hadn't.  All that had been saved was the layout. All formatting, colours and fonts was lost.  Great, what use is that feature google?

Anyway, finding a job and moving house are more important right now, but once achieved I will try and find a better colour set again.  Bear with me meanwhile.

Many thanks.

slow down - a blog announcement

(c) Wyrd Miniatures

Just a quick post.

Just as I get up a head of steam, start posting regularly and decide to move my Malifaux posts to their own separate blog & even start a dedicated twitter account (@MFauxBlog).. I loose my job.

As I'm sure you understand finding work is more important than Malifaux right now, especially as we're about to move house as well in a months time.

Just as soon as I can I'll spend some time modeling and playing and posting, but until then I'm afraid there wont be much in the way of new content.

So, why not head over to Wyrd and enjoy their new look forum.