I’m scheduled to receive the smaller set next Tuesday and I’ll get photos of the pieces up as quick as I can and will be sure to include an infantry and factory for size comparisons.
Leatherneckinlv private messaged me with the details on the sculpts and I should be able to easily rescale them. I’m still waiting to hear from the other testers to get their feedback. Hopefully if all goes well I can release the set for purchase next week.
Those look good! Have you considered using this roundel for Nationalist Spain? It would match the Global War 1936 board: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spanish_Civil_War_nationalist_roundel.svg
I’d like to second the request for a decal sheet with a mix of minor nations. I’d be especially interested in a sheet with Nationalist and Republican Spain, and another with Communist and Nationalist China; I’m thinking a mix of roundel sizes to cover large bombers, fighters, and tanks would be great.
@Andy, I placed an order from Dom’s Decals back in July and have not yet received it, nor have I been able to get a hold of Dom. My previous order took about 4 months to arrive back in the spring, but then I was also able to contact Dom (after several tries). I did notice that Dom logged into another forum a few days ago, so I don’t think he has disappeared.
Trenacker, I’m releasing the new markers in both the original size and an enlarged size (about 30% bigger on average). So you’ll be able to pick the size (and cost) that works best for you. Every city marker I make will be offered in both sizes.
Leatherneckinlv, I’ve sent you a private message with the links to purchase the set.
All: I am all set now for testers. Shapeways is currently doing their manual review of all the models prior to printing them; so far no issues.
I now have two volunteers for the Victory Cities sets, but I’ll take one more volunteer for the enlarged Capital Set if anyone is interested.
calvinhobbesliker, the sets are not yet publicly for sale. As soon as we’ve printed a test set successfully then I will make them available to everyone and post a link here. Figure about two weeks till they are for sale.
Rand, thanks! I’ll private message you a link to those sets. Once you receive them, please private message me here or on Shapeways with your feedback. Oh and yes, you can purchase them in Frosted Ultra Detail (that’s the only material they’ll be available in due to the high level of detail).
I’ve decided to sell two sizes of my capitals and victory cities: a smaller sized set that is the same size as my existing capital pieces, and a larger set that is about 30% bigger (the one in the pictures above). I’m also splitting the victory cities set into two sets: one set containing the cities on the G40 Europe board and another with cities on the G40 Pacific board. There is no extra cost from doing this, it just provides purchasing flexibility.
I will order the smaller sized sets and verify they print successfully. Can I get 1-2 volunteers to buy each of the larger sets to make sure they print successfully? All I need from you is to tell me if anything is broken on the models when you receive them and if the size looks good. Here are the three sets I’d like to test, you can volunteer for one or more of them. I’ll send the purchase links via private message to the first two volunteers.
Capitals set (10 pieces. All except Taj Mahal are larger than original set. Includes updated US Capitol, Sydney, Tokyo): $35
Europe victory cities (5 pieces): $27 (cost per piece is higher on this set because Ottawa, Leningrad, and Cairo are bigger pieces)
Pacific victory cities (7 pieces): $27
Edit to add: I now have two volunteers for the Victory Cities sets, but I’ll take one more for the enlarged Capital Set if anyone is interested.
I just finished the last model for the first set of victory cities; tomorrow I’ll work on getting them uploaded to Shapeways. I’m going to order a copy of the models for myself to make sure everything looks good before I make the set public, so it’ll probably be about two weeks before you’ll be able to purchase the models.
Regarding the size of the models, I have been making them slightly bigger for this new set; each piece is about the size of two factories (similar to the Kremlin or Taj Mahal in my first set). A picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ve attached a top-down view of all my city models together. In the middle is a factory piece (highlighted in orange). Leningrad, Ottawa, and Cairo are more like 3 factories in size, while the US Capitol is 4 factories wide (I might shrink it down). I’ve also attached a side-view of all the pieces.
Do note that I have redone the US Capitol Building, Japanese Imperial Palace, and Sydney Harbor Bridge. I’ve made all three larger and increased the level of detail. The other capital city pieces are unchanged (Kremlin, Reichstag, Westminister, Arch de Triumph, Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, Colosseum) Correction: I did actually scale up all of the capital pieces, with the exception of the Taj Mahal. The picture on this post is of the new sizes.
Trenacker, you are a source of great ideas! I like the Raffles Hotel for Singapore; I considered it yesterday but this morning it occurred to me that I could just make the front of the building and keep it very thin, which I think most players will appreciate on tiny Singapore.
I like the Marble Arch, and since it’s easy to make I’ll add it to the list. I didn’t realize the Marble Arch was in Libya so I wasn’t finding it yesterday. I’ll still do the Basilica of Algiers.
Also, I’m going to add Helsinki (Central Rail Station) and New York City (Empire State Building) into set #3. Both are reasonably easy to make and I think there are merits to including them.
Ok, I’ve spent way too much time thinking about this, but here is my current plan: three city sets.
Set #1 (Capitals):
Washington - US Capitol Building
London - Westminster Palace
Paris - Eiffel Tower and Arch De Triumph
Berlin - Reichstag Building
Moscow - Kremlin
India - Taj Mahal
Rome - Coliseum
Sydney - Harbor Bridge
Japan - Imperial Palace
Set #2 (Official Victory Cities):
Honolulu - Aloha Tower
San Francisco - Golden Gate Bridge
Manila - Post Office
Stalingrad - Tractor Factory
Leningrad - Winter Palace
Warsaw - St. Alexander’s Church
Cairo - Pyramids
Shanghai - Yu Garden
Hong Kong - Queen’s Building and Wong Tai Sin
Ottawa - Parliament Building
Calcutta - Dakshineswar Kali Temple
Set #3 (Expanded Victory Cities):
Istanbul - Hagia Sofia
Vladivostok - Trans-Siberian Rail Station (could be used with any far-eastern USSR territory: Yakut, Irkutsk, etc.)
Rio de Janeiro - Christ the Redeemer Statue
Buenos Aires - Kavanagh Building or Casa Rosada
Cape Town - City Hall
Belgrade - St. Mark’s Church
Kiev - Saint Sophia Cathedral
Stockholm - City Hall
Singapore - Raffles Hotel
Algiers - Basilica of Algiers
Peking - Temple of Heaven
Helsinki - Central Railway Station
New York City - Empire State Building
Libya - Marble Arch
Couple of notes:
Set #2 is set in stone at this point.
Set #3 is about 80% set in my mind.
I swapped Stockholm for Helsinki since it is more likely to be contestable by all factions. Decided to do both Stockholm and Helsinki.
I am not going to do Bucharest, since it is adjacent to Belgrade on several maps and I prefer Belgrade for a variety of reasons. Same with Sofia.
If you really want Bucharest in your game, you can use the Paris Arch de Triumph model as it is pretty close to the Arcul de Triumf in Bucharest.
I am not going to do Smolensk because it is so close to Leningrad, Moscow, and Warsaw.
Trenacker was right about the Viroshilov Battery being a bad choice for Vladivostok; I made it this morning and it did not look right next to the rest of my cities. Going forward all victory cities will be civilian buildings. On the plus side I now have two coastal battery fortress models that will be for sale soon (and could still be used for Vladivostok and Sevastopol).
I will plan to complete set #2 in the next few weeks. I’m not sure if I will keep going and do set #3 immediately, or if I will take a break and work on other things first. If set #3 sells well, I might eventually consider a set #4 with cities like Madrid, Budapest, Bombay, Smolensk, and Novosibirsk.
Chris_Henry, or anyone, does GW36 have rules for victory cities? I’ve got a copy of the bigger version of that map (so beautiful!) but I don’t recall anything in the rules about victory cities… I assumed they were on the map for eye candy, or maybe a future expansion.
Thanks,
EBard
Istanbul seems like a very reasonable addition since it is close to Germany, USSR, and UK (Egypt) so all the factions could feasibly contest it, and it is certainly a strategic location. And the Hagia Sofia is a perfect choice to represent it. I’ll add it to my list.
Vladivostok also makes sense to me since it is contestable and would give Russia something important to defend on its eastern perimeter (rather like the US with Honolulu), and it could make Japanese-Soviet relations much more interesting in games where they start out with a non-aggression treaty (when does Japan break the treaty to try and steal that VC?). If I did the Voroshilov Battery, that would be quite easy to make and would look cool, so I’m willing to add it to the list. Plus I could take the model and tweak it to produce a Maxim Gorky model for Sevastopol. Two for one!
Cape Town, Buenos Aires, and Brazil are certainly all significant, and I like the ideas you guys are suggesting, but are they really contestable in the game? Seems like they would just end up being easy Allied wins and would unbalance the game. Am I missing a game-play reason to include them? Or would they just be eye candy? I’m leaning towards not making those, but am open to being convinced otherwise. My though process being that each will take 2-6 hours to make… will there be enough demand for them to justify that cost?
Thanks,
EBard
Here is the list of city markers I’m currently planning to make. I’m open to making one or two more if there is strong interest in additional cities.
New Victory Cities:
Honolulu: Aloha Tower (done)
San Francisco: Golden Gate Bridge (done)
Manila: Post Office (done)
Cairo: Pyramids at Giza (done)
Stalingrad: undamaged tractor factory (done)
Shanghai: Yu Garden (done)
Hong Kong: Queen’s Building (done)
Hong Kong: Wong Tai Sin temple (done)
Warsaw: St. Alexander’s Church (done)
Leningrad: Winter Palace (done)
Calcutta - Dakshineswar Kali Temple (done)
Ottawa: Parliament Building (done)
Existing Capitals:
Washington D.C.: US Capitol Building (redo to improve quality - done)
London: Westminster Palace
Paris: Eiffel Tower and Arch De Triumph
Berlin: Reichstag building
Rome: Colosseum
Moscow: Kremlin
Japan: Imperial Palace (redo to improve quality - done)
Sydney: Harbor Bridge (redo to improve quality - done)
India: Taj Mahal
Narvik and all: I’ve been trying to keep my pieces roughly the same size as the original factory pieces so that they take up as little space on the board as possible, but I’m certainly open to offering a scaled up set if there is interest in that. How much bigger would you want them to be?
Thanks,
EBard
In case anyone is interested, I’ve also been working on some naval supply rules and like Narvik I settled on a naval movement/combat radius of 2 or 3 sea zones from friendly naval bases. Submarines and transports get a range of 5, since they operated at slower speeds which provided better endurance and range.
To go along with that I also am working on rules for oilers that would extend the range of naval units; right now I’m thinking that each oiler gives an additional 1-2 range. This would allow you to combine one or more oilers and a naval base into a long supply chain to your fleet, like the US and UK did in the Pacific. This also allows for interesting side-rules like German secret raiders who can act as oilers to supply the commerce raiding warships, or submarine oilers (the “Milchcow”).
If a fleet is suddenly rendered out of supply, either due to loss of oilers or naval bases, I say that they are not allowed to initiate combat, must retreat immediately if attacked (not sure yet if I’m happy with this), and must non-combat move towards the nearest friendly naval base on their turn until they are back in supply.
I have not yet been able to test any of these rules to verify they are fair and fun, but it seems like they should generally work.
Most WWII-era ships had a designed range of about 10,000 nmi at 10 to 15 knots (typical cruising speed). Bumping up to combat speed drastically reduced that range, down to about 2,500 nmi. I’ve done lots of calculations and in Global War 1936 each sea zone on the map is about 1000 nmi wide, so reducing the combat radius of ships to 2-3 sea zones from a naval base is actually fairly accurate if you assume a fleet at sea is doing a mix of cruising speed and combat speed and either being supplied by a local oiler at the naval base, or maybe the fleet is running back and forth between port and their assigned sea zone each turn. Then each oiler unit would represent a collection of oilers and supply ships able to carry supplies further out to sea.
Sure! I’ve only done the German planes so far, but here is a picture of several of them with 1/300 decals from Dom’s Decals. The bombers and J52 transports have the 48" decals on them, the stukas and fighters have the 36" decals and I’m planning to use the 30" decals for the Me262 and a few other small planes. I don’t have any decals on the fuselages.
I did also verify that I ordered and received 1/300 decals, so that is definitely what is in the picture. And FWIW I use acrylic paints with a layer of varnish on top, then apply the decal, then another layer of varnish over the decal. Seems to work well and gives the pieces a nice look.
EBard
Hi Andy,
I recently purchased a bunch of decals from Dom’s Decals and I’d definitely recommend them. I got 1/300 scale decals and I think they are the perfect size for the Axis & Allies aircraft (edit to add: 1/300 is perfect for the wings, if you want decals on the fuselage then those might need to be 1/600). But 1/300 is too big for the ships or armor, so for them I’d try the 1/600 decals. The quality of the decals and instructions were very nice, but be aware that Dom was dealing with a major backlog of orders in the spring; my (admittedly huge) order took 4 months to get to me, though I don’t think that is the norm for Dom. Still an excellent value and well worth the wait.
I use acrylic paints, so I can’t give much advice about enamel painting, but I will say that I’ve used a lot of tans and browns for the UK, greys for Germany, dark green for the US Army/Airforce as well as Russia and China (the standard US Army/Russian Army dark green is probably my most commonly used color). You’ll want a nice wood color for the decks of aircraft carriers and ships. And a few shades of grey for aircraft undersides, tank tracks, and ships.
Also I’ve found that it usually takes 3-4 colors on any given piece before it looks really good: a base color, two or three highlight colors, and possibly a faction color. It’s surprised me several times when I had two colors on a piece and wasn’t thrilled with it but then as soon as I added that third or fourth color suddenly it all came together and looked fantastic. I especially notice it on the ships, where I usually do camouflage patterns with a base color, a camo pattern color, a wooden deck color, plus a smokestack or mast painted the nation color (red, yellow, green, white, etc.).
EBard
I’m tired of knocking over all my infantry every time the table gets bumped. Has anyone had any success attaching some sort of weight to the bottom of the infantry bases? I’m thinking some sort of washer or nut maybe?
Thanks,
EBard
I don’t want to hijack the thread but I’ll just briefly mention that I can customize my Shapeways pieces upon request. If there is interest in larger or wider versions of any of my models, such as the carriers, just shoot me a message here or preferably on Shapeways and I’d be happy to give it a go! Just let me know the dimensions or scale that you want. I’m also happy to create magnet friendly versions of my carriers if there is interest in that; I presume all that would be needed is a certain diameter and depth hole on the flight deck?
Thanks,
EBard
I ended up buying the global set leaders, I already painted them. The detail on the sculps isnt anything extraordinary, but they look nice, and you can use them in the game as leaders. The only bad thing they all came in a zip bag, and it was really hard to tell which sculp for each country. I think the naval leaders are all the same sculp.
Thanks for sharing the photos! Yes, there was an initial problem with the global set naval leaders sculpts; there were supposed to be three different sculpts (dress whites, dress blues, and Japanese admirals) but instead only two made it into the set (dress whites and Japanese admirals). I fixed that about three or four weeks ago as soon as I discovered the problem, so any future sales will receive the proper set. I’m sorry for the mix-up on your order! And yes, I agree it is hard to tell the pieces apart when they are received from Shapeways. I’ve thought about putting some sort of nation or unit identifier on the bottom of the base, but am waiting to see if sales or interest picks up on them before I spend any more time or money on them; thus far sales to anyone not named EBard have been very underwhelming, which doesn’t entirely surprise me given Shapeways costs and the need to paint the pieces.
EBard
I would definitely not go to Shapeways for something like that. It is very hard to get per-unit costs low at Shapeways due to the way they charge you both material volume and handling fees ($1.50 per model piece on WSF and $5 per set on FUD, I think). I tried once to produce something similar to what you are describing and it was very cost prohibitive.
Bottom line: Shapeways is awesome for a few custom pieces, but for large scale production there are better options out there.
EBard
For rules for the leaders, I’m thinking they should allow you to re-roll one to three dice each battle or even each round of battle. That to me says that the leader has the potential to impact a battle in a meaningful way, but it is not a guarantee of victory, nor should it rule out the possibility of a leaderless enemy beating you through better luck (i.e. roll of the dice). This also allows for different levels of leaders if you so desire; for instance, maybe Patton lets you re-roll two dice each battle while Eisenhower gives you three re-rolls. I intentionally tried to provide multiple sculpts where possible so that this sort of rule would be possible.
Imperious Leader, if you can share what sort of fortification or coastal fort you are looking for I’d be happy to try to make it. Please send me a private message over on the Shapeways site and we can talk specifics (it’s easier for me if the conversation happens there as it keeps all model design related talk in one place that I can refer back to when I’m doing the actual work).
Tall Paul, I’d love to see what the rest of the capitals look like painted! I haven’t gotten around to painting my own set yet, though I’m hoping to in the next few weeks.
Thanks,
EBard
