- USA - 25th June
- Worldwide - 23rd July
You can check your local participating FLGS store on the website https://www.freerpgday.com/
Tuesday, 31 May 2022
Free RPG Day 2022
Freebies Announced
Monday, 30 May 2022
Jessie's Prints - Episode 17 - Resin is the new Black!
This week, I are mostly been printing in resin thanks to me finally summing up the courage to dive deeply into this new technology and buy a resin 3D Printer. My weapon of choice an Anycubic Photon Mono 4K
Anycubic Photon Cube - Thingiverse 213031
The first print should always be the supplied test print (or perhaps a Benchy) and it took 3 attempts to get this model to print. Bed levelling or more accurately the distance between the bed and the FEP film appears to be critical when it comes to getting your print to stick to the bed and not the FEP. I also found an article which recommends that you sand your bed to ensure that it is actually level in the first place. The center of mine is slightly concave which must have been having an impact on the peelability.
This was actually the first resin model I ever saw printed, many years ago, and thought wow I will have to get me one of those someday...
I have tried to print one of these before (much larger of course) on my FDM printer with little success. I guess it has to do with the tolerances involved in squirting hot melted plastic out of a nozzle at 200 degrees celsius. This one came out bloody lovely and is small enough that he fits on the end of a pencil.
Sadly, the other models I had on the bed failed to print entirely. I think this was down to the supports I added in the supplied Photon Workstation not having a thick enough platform to ensure that they made a solid connection to the bed and so they just stuck to the FEP. I have subsequently read that you can spray your FEP with Teflon PTFE Dry Lubricant to make it slippery. I will have to get some of that.
Space Adventurer - Loot Studios Free Miniature
The whole reason for me buying this printer is to print high quality miniatures for tabletop roleplaying games and so I went in search of some presupported miniatures thinking that these would fare much better. I found Loot Studios who do an excellent bundle for $15 a month. As this was my first stab at this I plumped for their freebie Space Adventurer who is almost as cool as Oswald the Overladen.
I downloaded the 32mm but scaled him down by 10% as I hate the GW scale and he only came out bloody lovely!!
Down loading this mini convinced me that the problem I am having with my unsupported minis is the crappy supports in the slicer software. In the same way that I learned the tips and tricks of FDM printing, it will take time to master this new medium and its idiosyncracies.
I'll say this though. Props to all the guys and girls out there that are busy modelling their own minis and going through the laborious task of adding supports. They are an absolute must.
Sunday, 29 May 2022
Pimp My Game - Curse of the Mummy's Tomb
Back in the midst of the Corona Curse, I went about restoring one of my favourite Games Workshop boardgames from the 1980s, Curse of the Mummy's Tomb.
I was never truly satisfied with the result and the ultimate goal was to have a pimped out copy of this vintage classic.
A prayer to the eBay Gods and an incomplete copy of the game was soon in my hands for the princely sum of £20. Why, you might ask, would I part with good money for an incomplete game? Well this one had all 5 of the original minis.
These are much sought after "oldhammer" minis from the Night Horrors set and bought individually carry a hefty price tag of between £15 and £20 each. All 5 minis for the price of 1 is what I call a bargain! If only I could find my originl minis...
The Pyramid of Khonsu
Both my original and this copy had horribly warped boards and an even worse central column. I therefore took it upon myself to model and print a new sturdier version on my 3D printer. I modelled this in Sketchup including all the important game elements such as the start arrows, encounter numbers, pharoahs heads, ankhs and compass, leaving the way too complicated hieroglyphic frescos to someone with better modelling skills than myself.
The goal here was to balance printability (must fit on my print bed), functionality (must fit together and store in the original box) and playability (must have all the major functions of the original). The middle and top floor plates all fit on the bed of my printer but the ground floor needed to be cut up into 4 segments and printed in batches. I've seperated these out as individual models so you can play around
With a bit of trimming on the tabs it goes together easy enough.
In order to print it on my FDM printer I split the central column into 3 pieces and magnetized each piece (16 Magnets in total) with readily available 5mm neodynium magnets.
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| Pyramid of Khonsu - The Floors |
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| The Floors and Columns click together |
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| Floors stacked with the help of magnets |
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| It all fits neatly back inside the original box |
If you want to print your own Pyramid of Khonsu you can download the STL files for free from thingiverse
Tana Leaves
The quality of card stock in these 80s GW games would give the team at Fantasy Flight nightmares. It is so shockingly thin (10 thousands of an inch thick), I imagine you could use it to accurately set the tappets on a vintage car or level the bed of your 3D printer. The tana leaves get a lot of handling during the game and so were another candidate for the 3D printer. Given their size and relatively low number it was not too much of a chore to design and print 55 of the little blighters.
Download your own replacement tokens for free from Thingiverse - Tana Leaf Tokens.
Attribute Cones
This new copy came with a few cones missing. I could have purchased some replacements from eBay, or tried to find some replacements from boardgamemaker.com, but a pretty good alternative is available on thingiverse - Cone Game Piece (Games Workshop style) They are the ubiquitous game tracker pawn used in many GW games of this era such as Cosmic Encounter which used them to represent the ship tokens.
The first outing for the game was as a special finale finale to my recent Judge Dredd campaign. I'll write up the rules for this in a seperate article
Saturday, 12 March 2022
Meanwhile in Mega City 1 - Prog 5: A Cloning Conundrum
Meanwhile in Mega City One is a roleplaying game which takes place every Friday Night at Dragons Keep Roleplay Club in Chislehurst, South East London.
Cast
- Judge Cully - A no-nonsense female street judge with a penchant for heavy weapons - Kat
- Judge Krush - A hard as nails street judge who goes by the book - Steve
- Judge Swiss - A rookie street Judge - Alex
- Psi Judge Pike - A Psi Division rookie Judge - Conor
Seven Young Problems
Confronted by seven vulnerable young girls Judge Cully does not call it in. She tells the kids to be quiet and stay hidden. She then returns to the patrol and tells them that the stairs led to a lab whihc was destroyed.
Pike calls in a meatwagon to bag the perp and they head off to follow up on their other cloning lead Dr Steve Ein.
The Ein Residence - Stallone Block
At 1800 hrs they find themselves outside the door of apartment 118-1. Swiss knocks on the door and Dr Ein lets them in. Krush immediately starts scanning the apartment for drugs and guns. Pike checks out the nearest door which opens into a walkin closet. Swiss and Cully interrogate Ein.
Dr Ein is a very cooperative citizen and tells them that since being released from the isocubes he has not been contacted by anyone to undertake any cloning work. He has done some freelancing for Prof. Ose over at the Felix labs where his knowledge of the Quantum Recombinator 3000 was useful in synthesising some Pineapple DNA but other than that he has been largely unemployed. He offers up a couple of names Dr Hideki Pho and Danish Tokopi who would have been able to clone a cat. Pho died a few months back when he cloned a wooly mammoth which then stepped on him. His assistant Tokopi was arrested and is currently in the isocubes doing a long stretch. Funny thing is that the mammoth was only supposed to be 8 inches tall not 8 metres tall. It survives in the Alien Zoo and is apparently quite the attraction.
He asks who gave you his name and proceeds to go on quite the rant about Dr Rank's abilities in the field and how he would clone his own grandmother if there was a cred in it.
Satisfied that there is nothing of interest in the closet Pike proceeds to mind read Dr Ein and confirms that he knows nothing about Miss Wildenstein or Mr Blofeldt. His story checks out.
On the Balcony Judge Krush spots a perp liberally dousing an aprtment in Chan Block opposite with CHOO2 from a jerry-can. The punk is wearing Cobra colours (a Stallone Block gang) and clearly this is a prescursor to a full scale Block War, so he calls it in.
Pike proceeds to check out the upstairs rooms. As he enters the bedroom he sees a figure dressed similarly to Dr Ein wearing a leather flying helmet clamber over the balcony balustrade and fall with a scream.
On the lower floor Krush, Cully and Swiss see a black shape fall from balcony above and dissapear out of sight. Moments later with a woosh the figure opens his arms revealing bat wings and he floats away gracefully. A batter.
Dr Ein comments "that that was my brother Dave, he doesn't like people and so he often goes batting when I have guests round."
Swiss checks with MAC and confirms that the residence houses two Ein Brothers.
An H-Wagon turns up outside Chan Block.
"Put the can down punk and put your hands in the air, you are under arrest for attempted arson"
"Loose the shooter scum and we'll take you in alive"
BANG
"Wrong move punk"
The H-Wagon strafes the CHOO2 soaked appartment with it's cannon and it promptly explodes. In moments it is reduced to a smouldering ruin. Floating over to the balcony where Judge Krush stands surveying the scene, a head pops out of the commanders cupola, Judge Luminum exchanges words with Krush.
"Good call Krush, we are seeing more activity from these gangers and expect things to get real drokkin dicey in the next couple of days."
As they wrap up their investigation and head back to the sector house a passing advertising train blares out an advertisement.
SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, LIVE AT THE BERLUSCONI COLLISEUM, KAT KITTEN & THE POWER CONVERTERS FREE CONCERT, LAUNCHING THEIR DEBUT SINGLE --- DONT STOP BY ME NOW --- DOORS OPEN AT 3PM --- BROUGHT TO YOU BY SIMON POWERS ENTERTAINMENT
Back to the Sector House
As they roll into the motorpool Judge Belloch greets them and asks Cully and Krush how the new recruits are doing. He also asks if they found any evidence of other people living at the Rank residence as the Forensics team suspects there were 6 or 7 people living there. Cully says no just the one perp who they put on ice. Belloch tells Pike that Judge Quincy is expecting them in the morgue.
Down in the morgue Judge Quincy leads a team of dedicated pathology lab full of Med Teks who are skilled in Foresensic Science. He claims that the Wildenstein woman was attacked. She had signs of mild strangulation possibly by a pearl necklace and that under her fingernails were skin fragments which suggest she may have scratched the face of her attacker. It's definitely murder.
Swiss opines that maybe Wildenstein had an agent and proceeds to scour through her email records. He comes up with a name Jerry MacGuire and the address 483-26 Trump Tower.
Cully suggests that tomorrow they go back and see what Slute and Flute have uncovered. She retires to her dorm room and looks for possible orphanages to turn over the seven girls to. Miss Hannigan's Home for Waifs and Stray's looks promising and is nearby in Ozzy Apts.
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Sunday, 6 March 2022
Meanwhile in Mega City 1 - Prog 4: Pet Food Shenanigans?
Meanwhile in Mega City One is a roleplaying game which takes place every Friday Night at Dragons Keep Roleplay Club in Chislehurst, South East London.
Cast
- Judge Cully - A no-nonsense female street judge with a penchant for heavy weapons - Kat
- Judge Krush - A hard as nails street judge who goes by the book - Steve
- Judge Swiss - A rookie street Judge - Alex
- Psi Judge Pike - A Psi Division rookie Judge - Conor
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
The patrol spends the next two hours investigating the aftermath of the boinging attack.
Considering their possible leads in the Wildenstein murder case they:
- Investigate Felix Pet Foods to see if there was a possible motive.
- Go back to Sector House and
- Go to The Jungle and interrogate the apes
Swiss contact Control and orders that Wildenstein's email accounts are sanctioned for evidence. Felix Pet Foods is located in Elon Tusk Industrial Park A-235. An unexpected hailstorm occurs at 15:30 lasting approximately 5 minutes.
They arrive at the factory at 16:00 and are met by the Operations Director Victor Froome who proceeds to give them a tour. When he hears that Miss Wildenstein is dead he is visibly moved. Pike only reads his surface thoughts which seem to back up his body language. When quizzed about the exact details of the prize contract, Froome confirms that the prize winner could purchase any felix cat food product for free with the presentation of an ID card for the lifetime of the cat. The cat was subjected to a regular barrage of tests including a DNA test.
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| Prof. Dexter Ose |
Froome is excited to tell his team of crack lawyers of Miss Wildenstein's death and tells them to come up to the lab. A few moments later a community of chimpannzees wearing suits and carrying typewriters bursts into the room. The Judges leave but Pike and Scully suspect that Professor Ose has an ulterior motive.
Pike contacts Control for a list of know cloners in the sector. Moments later a list appears on his HUD.
- Dr. Eff Rank - 571-49-Benny-Hill-Block
- Dr. Steve Ein - 118-1-Stallone-Block
- Prof. Xero X - Isocube
- Dr. Hideki Pho - deceased
- Danish Tokopi - Isocube
They decide to pay Dr. Rank a visit.
Benny Hill Block
An hour later the judges are knocking on Dr Rank's door. They can hear multiple quiet voices inside. Dr Rank unlocks the door but keeps it on the chain preferring to have a conversation through a two inch gap.
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| Dr Eff Rank |
He tells them that he doesn't do cloning anymore and that he wouldn't waste his time on pets in any case. That is the preserve of crazy people like his closest rival Dr Ein. The fate of the human race hangs in the balance and if we don't solve the problems of human cloning then we will be unable to survive The Great Barrier and colonize the Galaxy.
His obsession with space colonisation is apparently the reason his wife and children left him when he returned from his time in the isocubes a few years ago.
After a short and frustrating conversation Krush kicks in the door smashing Rank in the face and making him stumble back into a glass topped table whihc shatters.
Rank is helped onto the sofa to recuperate whilst the Judges continue to blitz his apartment. They find 8 toothbrushes in the bathroom, a pair of childrens shoes in a bedroom and food in the fridge labelled with the days of the week.
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| Professor Eff Rank's Apartment - 571-49 Benny Hill Block |
Krush checks out Bedroom 3 and in passing switches off the TV which was advertising a live concert on Sunday by the latest Simon Powers girl group Kat Kitten and The Power Converters.
Swiss discovers a secret hatch under the bed in the master bedroom and calls everyone to come and look. Krush makes his way out of a bedroom and narrowly avoids being blown away by Rank who is wielding a sawed off stub gun. Krush shoots a 3 shot burst and catches Rank in the guts. Pike runs in and tries to psychic blast the scientist which stops him from reloading and Krush shoots him in the chest, dead.
"You all saw him, he had a gun"
The bed concealed a set of synthicrete steps leading down to a landing which doubles back and further down ending in a locked metal security door. She shoots off the lock with a High Explosive round and the door swings open revealing seven young girls aged about 8. She asks them their names and they reply
"Monday... Tuesday... Wednesday... Thursday... Friday... Saturday... and Sunday."
You can read more about the game characters, NPCs and locations on it's Obsidian Portal page, please consider becoming a Fan.
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