look closely in the pictures around borneo, sumatra, new zealand ect. you will see a silhouette of a ship representing the convoys. Actually the convoys are all over the place if you look closely.
Does that suggest that they will work like AAP? Controlling the sea lanes around an island will rob the home nation of its IPCs?
Aside: If AAP40 and AAE40 can be combined… Will there be similar convoy control in the Atlantic / Indian Ocean?
oh well, something different for the Italians. I think the Sweeds designed a turretless modern tank some years ago, but now they use the Leopard II. Upon further reflection, the sculpt should not be changed, but the subtitle of the picture. It’s not a self-propelled gun at all, but more of a siege gun or a tank w/o a rotating turret. Three cheers for me being wrong! :-D
$5000… :-o For each sculpt?!
With the price you sell the dice at, I can’t imagine you make much money off each sale. You must be selling dice by the truck loads.
Oh, and speaking of the dice, I always get comments on them, as well as the dice tower. I did get some green dust on my fingers from the China dice (guess they were “very” fresh from the factory), but the dice themselves stayed unsmuged, and are all, I have to say, perfect. I keep them in the AA50 nation boxes. The old black and red dice I keep in the silver and gold bags.
The most useful thing is the dice tower. I don’t always play A&A, but the tower comes in handy when playing other dice using board games, like Cashflow. Those days of accidentally throwing the dice across the board and knocking over all the playing pieces are over. :-D
Thank you for your review. I think you mis-read the post. It is $50 for each existing sculpt, $500 for each sculpt made from a 3D image. And $5000 for the final creation of the mould.
FMG
Exactly how do you make the sculps? Can you make them from a 3D graphic or to you take a plastic model, scan it into a 3D model, then make the mold from that? Maybe knowing a little bit more about the process might help in having other people provide you with a greater selection of sculps.
We had been collecting Models to use for sculpts. It will cost us $50 USD to miniaturize an existing model and put it into a mould (on top off mould cost) and $500 USD to have a sculpt made in a digital 3D file and put into the mould. If you do the math with the number of units we are tying to give for each Nation ON TOP of the mould cost you can see that this is very expensive. Each Mould (One for each Nation) has a cost of approx $5000 USD on top of these costs even before we pay for PRODUCTION and LOGISTICS to get the product back to us.
We were able to collect 80% of the models but some, like the DiveBombers we had to have made with 3D models.
This is no small undertaking and the sale of COMBAT DICE, TOWERS and AAA Games has been paying for the development costs so far. Once the bill comes for the first mould we will post a page for pre-orders. The speed of production on all 7 nations will depend on the number of these pre-orders to fund the project.
As I’m sure you all know, we are doing this not to make money (that would be CRAZY and a bad investment) but to have the COMBAT UNITS on our own game table and to share with the community.
Thus: all support by making your AAA purchases via FMG is a direct contribution to this project.
Thanks
Jeremy
@Craig:
Our choices were limited by the sculpts we could find that were appropriate. Our goal was to offer two types of Tanks/SPG for variety on the board and possible HOUSE RULES.
If you noticed what he said, the “…choices were limited by the sculpts we could find that were appropriate.”.
So they may have wanted to go with another armor unit but could only work with what was available or good enough to be worked into a mold.
I don’t think that they just randomly chose one model over another. Jeremy is a thorough sort and I have no doubt that the finish product will be quite nice.
Thanks Craig! This is true. If you look at the history of this thread… I had an APB out on sculpts from the community for months. We are happy with what we have found so far and I am sure you will be too when you see the finished product. Your board will never look the same again!
For the Italian heavy tank I would’ve chosen the Carro Armato P 26/40. Other than that, excellent choices.
Our choices were limited by the sculpts we could find that were appropriate. Our goal was to offer two types of Tanks/SPG for variety on the board and possible HOUSE RULES.
@cannon:
That’s great news! Do you have the samples for the other countries? Or will all the samples come out in 3-4 weeks.
We can only afford to do the moulds one at a time so we are doing ITALY first. The speed of the other countries will depend on the amount of pre-orders.
Ok, Looks like we are moving forward. Here is a sneak peak of the line up for ITALY. (I hope to have samples to show in 3-4 weeks)
ITALIAN NAVAL UNITS
BB LITTORIO
CV AQUILA
DD SOLDATI Class
CA ZARA Class
SS MARCELLO Class
ITALIAN Cargo Ship/Transport
ITALIAN ARMOR UNITS
Carro Armato 41
Semovente 75/18 (Really an SPG)
ITALIAN AIR UNITS
Macchi 202 Folgore FIGHTER
Ba.65 DIVE BOMBER
SM 79 Sparviero BOMBER
Set will also include COMMANDER, HALF-TRACK, TRUCK, TASK FORCE MARKER, BUNKER.
(And yes we will add more in future if this is successful)
More News to come as soon as I have it! PRE-ORDER WILL BE WITHIN THE NEXT MONTH.
Off topic: How did I get -1? You know who you are!
On topic: I will complete a list of sculpts this week and post.
Thanks
Jeremy
Guys,
What part of first edition don’t you understand? It took us from March 2009 to today to find out about the first edition.
If there are others that need to be added, it can be added later…
Also AAP40 and AAE40 news came out to recent, most likely FMG will add it later… Let’s not add things that might delay this release even longer.
@Brain:
The first Edition will have USA, UK, GERMANY, USSR, JAPAN, ITALY.
We will do CHINA to a larger extent later if they have a large production role in AAP40
We will not take pre-orders until we run out of funds for the project. Currently, COMBAT DICE sales are keeping the project funded and alive.
What about France and ANZAC?
This is correct. The project is already being prepared at the fatory. The molds are being designed. We had to make a call…. We held out just long enough to ensure Dive Bombers were included. We can sit and wait for the next news but this will just delay. delay, delay…
We had to move forward. We can always make new molds later. It will also be easer as the First Edition can fund the second, third etc etc.
The first Edition will have USA, UK, GERMANY, USSR, JAPAN, ITALY.
We will do CHINA to a larger extent later if they have a large production role in AAP40
We will not take pre-orders until we run out of funds for the project. Currently, COMBAT DICE sales are keeping the project funded and alive.
Yes we have. The first Edition run will include the following for each Nation (Italy included)
Naval Units:
Transport
Submarine
Destroyer
Cruiser
Carrier
Battleship
Task Force Marker (Similar to AAP)
Air Units:
Fighter
Bomber
Dive Bomber
Air Transport
Army Units:
Infantry (Two Sculpts each)
Armour (Two Sculpts each)
Artillery
Half Track (Priest for Commonwealth units)
Truck
Commander Unit
Other Units Bonus:
Bunker Unit
Naval Base Unit-Marker (Like AAP)
Air Base Unit-Marker (Like AAP)
Army HQ Unit-Marker
This is what we have so far…. (We also are working on a BATTLE CHEST to hold these units… This may come later)
Hey FM It sounds like you are already making a molded part, but for future reference have you ever seen this technology?
Stereo lithography:
http://www.3dsystems.com/products/sla/iPro/ipro_8000mp.aspI’m pretty familiar with these machines, and normally its considered an expensive technology, but for small parts like that you would be using so little material it might be cost effective. I’m not aware of any colored resins, but you could paint them.
Thank you for the post. Yes we are familiar with 3D printers. Our factory uses them to make the prototypes. When I post pictures, the first ones will be from models from one of these machines.
That is a great idea. I will see what I can pull together. If we do pre-orders I will create a web page with updates and information including pictures of proto-types and 3D printed samples.
More to come soon….
NEWS
The mould Maker now has all our sculpts and our directions for the project! He is formulating a quote for me and I should have the answer in a few days. The COST he comes up with will determine how fast this project moves forward.
It may come time soon to place pre-orders to fund the project.
WE ARE NOW IN A NEW PHASE ON THIS PROJECT - PRODUCTION DEVELOPMENT
Maybe in a month or so… Our factory a few sculpts ready and will be making me some ship samples… So I can see their quality and detail.
When I have anything worth showing I will post a pic.
I hope Italy has many territories going “up the boot” to represent the different lines the Germans used to slow the allied advance. Gothic Line, Hitler line… etc.
Ofcourse Italy will get a jab in at France once the real shooting has stopped in 1940 also.
But honestly…. About France. I imagine it would be closer to the AAE map with Vichy in the south(unlike map above). Western coast and Normandy being one territory, Vichy as one, Dunkirk/Calais as one, Paris/Sedan being another. Four altogether.
Also, who would control FREE FRANCE once Paris falls? England?
WOW!! Thank you for making my day! +1
@coachofmany:
I have been calling too,
Never answers phone, no matter what time I call.
That is a phone message machine. No real phone attached to it. Have you e-mailed me or sent me a PM here with your issue/details?
Our site is now up and running again, e-mail is working fine.
Sorry for any inconvenience.
Jeremy