Haunting Thunder – Maurice Walshe’s Blog

Just heard via the D6 Generation of an interesting hybrid between computer based games and more traditional figure based games.

Ex illis uses traditional plastic figures as is now more common ala games workshop or rakham, though these figures are snap together and unpainted.

Bastion games say:

Ex illis is a hybrid miniature wargame that offers the best of the two worlds: the convenience of technology that makes video games so popular and the human interaction that is the essence of tabletop gaming. Ex illis is a large deployment wargame where players engage in battle using 70 to 100 high quality plastic figurines on a 36” x 45” squared mat.

The game board is paramount to any tactical thinking and all your device will display is a single square at a time. Ex illis uses iPod Touch, iPhone, netbook or notebook to resolve battle, it replaces dice, measuring tape and thick and expensive rulebooks!

Internet access is required though they unclear if you need a persistant connection or not to play, they showed the game at gencon running on an ipod touch though they say netbook’s and macs can run the software so it looks like a java client.

Its implied they you have to connect to their servers to upload you army at the start of the game but can then disconnect – how this would work when you have a pc/device for each player  peer to peer or you have to have one pc/device as a master they dont say.

Also i’m not sure how this would work at large shows as big convention centers prices for data can best be described as eye gouging. And and hoc wifi networks have a few interesting security problems – I suppose you could set up a small infrastructure wifi network  – but I would imagine that the intersection between wargamers and wireless networking is quite small.

Its an interesting idea but this has been done before I remembe years ago a  similar computer moderated Napoleonic system that ran on Atari ST’s with then than at the time very expensive hard disks.

A company called shapeways has developed an 3d printer that uses steel powder to create complex 3d shapes. Which could be interesting if they can get the price down – this could be a way for wargamers to print the figures they need rather than to buy cast plastic or lead figures.

3D printers have been used to produce 3d models for a while now but up until now they use fairly weak plastic this system uses a steal power which is held in place by a resin – they say:

This is a completely new technique which deposits stainless steel powder in a very thin layer, combining it with a binding material. Printed objects are built up like this, layer by layer, gradually creating the form just as you designed it on the computer screen. When complete, they are infused with bronze and cured in an oven. After cooling, the models can be left in the original steel finish or tumbled to get a great polished look.

If You don’t want to use metal some people are now producing DIY 3D Printers which for around £500 can produce 3D models in plastic and in fact make a copy of its self. The rep-rap team have a design which anyone can make here. this might make make nice way to make one off or hard to find models. They have a video explaing how the rep rap works.

So could this be the end for Games workshop

Shalamansers blog about the “Pledge” struck a chord with me in wargames terms the “Pledge” is when a wargamer attempts to paint more figures in a year than he/she buys.

Currently MY brought and unpainted score  for 2009 stands at

130 15mm Medieval’s (Free Company) for FOG

2 Uncharted seas starter fleets a total of 20 Ships

1 Hvy Carier plus 8 Fighter Groups @ a civilian Transport for Full Thrust

1 15mm G Carrier

4 Weird WW2 Figures

I should have all the 15mm foot base coated tomorrow.