*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 05:18:22 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Donate

We Appreciate Your Support

Recent

Author Topic: 3mm Hover and Grav Combat Teams by National Cheese Emporium  (Read 1581 times)

Offline Macunaima

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 246
3mm Hover and Grav Combat Teams by National Cheese Emporium
« on: November 09, 2014, 03:16:46 PM »
As I mentioned last week, I received a package from Andreas Udby, AKA “Javelin98”, proprietor of The National Cheese Emporium shop on Shapeways in mid-May. In it was a nice selection of Andreas’ 3mm science-fiction stuff, which I have finally gotten around to painting up.

As I also explained last week, TNCE’s stuff varies wildly in quality. Andreas’ began making figures years ago in 1/900 scale for Ogre Miniatures players. When Oddzial Osmy’s 3mm (1/600) stuff started becoming popular, he re-sized some of his production and started in on new lines. As the years have gone by, his 3D sculpting skills have drastically improved. So you can kinda say Andreas has sort of a “the good, the bad, and the ugly” dynamic going on.

Last week, I presented the vehicles of TNCE’s Wheeled Taskforce, which I found to be quite good. These, of course, are a relatively recent sculpt. I thus decided to do some “ugly” vehicles this week: the hover and grav task forces.

These are “more recent” sculpts: not as nice as Andreas’ newest stuff, but not as basic as the re-sized 1/900 line. I do not like these sculpts, but I must say, the hover vehicles  ended up looking much better than I thought once they were painted! I am still not into the grav vehicles, however.

Let's take a look…





The hover vehicles are obviously inspired by David Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers series, so I painted them up as if they were from that universe. I think the silver paint scheme turned out quite nicely! I am not so sure about the grav vehicles, however. I wanted to go for a US Air Force basic gray paint job. It doesn’t seem to have worked as well as the silver scheme and that might be one of the problems  with these vehicles.

The main problem with both lines, however, is that I think they are too small for 1/600 scale.

Here we see the hover tank and grav IFV models in relation to an O8 Caesarion (from that company's sci-fi line) and a TNCE wheeled AFV. See the difference? It is particularly noticeable in the grav vehicle. These figures need to be at least 25% larger, in  my opinion.



To top it all off, the packs have the same problem as the earlier vehicles I reviewed: they come in  a pre-established mix and you can't buy the sculpts you want seperately. This is particularly problematic for the hover line. O8 has also produced some (much superior, IMHO) hover tanks based on the Hammers’ franchise, but they stopped expanding the line, apparently due to fears that they were infringing on John Treadaway’slicense for HS miniatures. We thus only have the blower and combat car for that line. It would be nice to get artillery, command cars and maybe some other vehicles and TNCE’s figs could fill that niche… if we could actually buy only the figures that we need. As it is, we have to buy the whole selection at 3-4 times the O8 price.

TNCE’s combat car is particularly bad in my opinion. I’ve stuck one of O8’s Heavy Infantry troopers in there, just so we can see how it scales. Not very well, as it turns out. There’s barely room for two troopers in the back, let alone the canonical three. And where is the driver and engine on this bloody thing?


This brings up another point: far too many GEV-style futuristic tanks - from almost all the companies producing them - don’t make adequate space provisions for the vehicle’s drive train. Many manufactures seem to think that the way to model an air-cushion vehicle is to chop off the treads and stick on a ground effect skirt. GEVs, however, need air intakes and enough space UNDER that skirt for fans or jets or what not, not to mention what needs to be a pretty robust powerpack. They thus shouldn’t be lower to the ground than treaded or wheeled vehicles. TCNE dosn't sin particularly worse than other manufacturers here, but it's still annoying.

My grades for these vehicles are: B- for the hover combat team and C for the grav combat team. Resizing the hover vehicles and making their mix geared to the kinds of models we can’t get from O8 would raise that team’s grade to a B+ for me. Resculpting them slightly to let them fit in better with O8’s vehicles (i.e. higher chassis and add intake fans) would move them into the A range.

The grav vehicles, however, aren’t worth redoing, most particularly because TNCE has recently sculpted two far better grav lines, so why waste your money here?

We will look at those new grav lines in a future installment!

 
More photos can be seen on my blog: http://leadnobleed.blogspot.com.br/2014/11/3mm-gev-armored-task-force-and-anti.html
 

Offline von Lucky

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 8796
  • Melbourne, Australia
    • Donner und Blitzen Wargaming
Re: 3mm Hover and Grav Combat Teams by National Cheese Emporium
« Reply #1 on: November 09, 2014, 08:18:20 PM »
Detailed review - thanks for taking the time.

I think 3mm in wargaming is going to see a few more manufacturers in the next few years as 3D printing allows you to do something that small. But as you say, you have to understand that scale.
- Karsten

"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Blog: Donner und Blitzen

Offline YPU

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4255
  • In glorious 3D!
Re: 3mm Hover and Grav Combat Teams by National Cheese Emporium
« Reply #2 on: November 10, 2014, 01:12:16 PM »
Interesting, personally I far prefer the look of the grav vehicles, not sure why tough.
3d designer, sculptor and printer, at your service!



3d files! (here)

Offline Macunaima

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 246
Re: 3mm Hover and Grav Combat Teams by National Cheese Emporium
« Reply #3 on: November 12, 2014, 01:36:06 PM »
Well, everyone's tastes differ. Wait until I do TNCE's new grav stuff, however. It's the bee's tits!

 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
34 Replies
12123 Views
Last post March 14, 2010, 11:48:01 PM
by Predatorpt
28 Replies
12069 Views
Last post January 16, 2013, 05:43:47 AM
by Grimmnar
10 Replies
2790 Views
Last post October 25, 2013, 07:07:19 PM
by beefcake
0 Replies
737 Views
Last post July 09, 2014, 11:18:06 AM
by Rebel Minis
2 Replies
1506 Views
Last post November 03, 2014, 05:09:12 AM
by dijit