Terrain is everything - Hail the Omnissiah a new STC concept!

With the introduction of the Cetacean 'vent' Tower the other day there was a proposal by Tech Adept First Class Spyrle to create a landing pad platform that could protect larger units of the Emperor's Finest or in certain circumstances provide a forward base for Imperial Skimmers. Ordinarily this kind of outspoken innovation would have sent Adept Spyrle to the flagellants yard for penance - new technology is bad technology progressive thinking is the mark of the Heretic.

Thankfully though before he felt the sting of the arco-flail a sign was sent to one of our more Visionary adepts who is beyond reproach and the Heresy of new thinking that indeed this concept could already be implemented thanks to a 'blessed' Mechanicum Approved STC. By using the Hex Tower 2 and employing a Standard Manifold Coupling on the base it is theoretically possible to combine these two ancient and revered STCs.

Currently there are no examples of this on Ferron Proxima but data scribes have conjured these picts of how the Hex Tower could be employed on the Cetacean Tower and it's Baleen roof extensions. Additional underslung roof support struts could also be fashioned to make use of the emplaced weapon ports but current load simulations do not suggest such strengthening is mandatory for it's current role.

In reward to Adept Spyrle, this will be reclassified as the Spyrle Forward Observation Platform, please update you cogitators forthwith.

Terrain is everything - Hail the Omnissiah a new STC is found!

Techno-archaeologist Avro Vulcan has believed to have been in enforced hiding for months now. The truth is he has not cowed to the shadowy figures out to destroy him or steal his work. His absence has been in the pursuit of more knowledge and to unearth the Standard Template Construct (STC) pattern for what has been described as a 'Vent Tower' by some of his more disparaging contemporaries.

 
In truth, one use for the tower is indeed venting geothermal ground-source heat pumps and in rare cases through the use of Standard Manifold Couplings a Plasma Generator can be installed in the tower.

However, the Cetacean Tower can be used as a multipurpose structure, including an Imperial Shrine, a frontier outpost, a small Bastion or even an Astral Communications Bunker and Navigation Array. The versatility of it's construction is evidenced when the Baleen roof extension is added during the build.

The extension increases the field of view for the tower without compromising the battlement surface area and can be added repeatedly. Additional fireports are present in the extension and can be fitted with emplaced weaponry, should the resources prove available. Thanks to the Standard Manifold Coupling the Baleen Extension is also compatible with the various man-made hill STCs Vulcan has already discovered.

The STC discovered by Avro Vulcan contains some of the most detailed template instructions to date, a crowning glory for the efforts Avro has gone to to ensure his STC will 'stand the test of time'. However, given the modular nature of this STC there are some elements that could not be recreated using Vulcan's arcane data retrieval algorithms. Luckily, this STC comes with links to a number of archival pict feeds of a Cetacean Tower and its Baleen Roof Extension under construction. These visual records are valuable in themselves as they pre-date the Age of Strife and hark back to the halcyon days before the Horus Heresy.

So far only one Cetacean Tower has been built on Ferron Proxima, to stand at the edge of the wastelands in defiance of the newly discovered Xenos threat that is gestating in its uncharted midst. Underfall, as it has been called is a first line beacon of the Emperor's Will - a tower defence that will see the alien scourge as it approaches and, given it's comms array built into the rooftop, will rapidly call force the vengeful retribution of the recently arrived 2nd Tactical Squad of the 5th Company of the Dark Angels. Squads Gideon and Boreas, veterans of the Siege of Vraks, have answered the calls for help raised from their recruitment world and may herald the coming of a larger force descended from the First Legion.

To access the full STC please point your Cogitators here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B97Rk-BalgZbNWFYbWc2c0NWelU/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-Dp1x31Mt9nmkmxy0xwLzrw

This STC will be uploaded to the full Ferron Proxima STC library shortly. You can access the database here:

http://40kaddict.blogspot.com/2011/02/terrain-is-everything-standard-template.html

A freebie - 45° fire arc template

Sometimes you just have to throwout the schedule and add in a post just because if you tried to fit it in the schedule it'd be months down the line before I could give out some more freebies

You may be aware I'm making a Tyranid Bastion, apparently only the cool kids are doing it but don't hold it against me. One of the key elements of the Bastion is the emplaced weapons and their 45° fire arc. GW doesn't povide a 45° fire arc template and aside from emplaced weapons hull-mounted weapons on tanks also have a 45° fire arc. So I wanted to make a template so I knew what a 45° fire arc was and could use my 45° fire arc template to gauge if my tartget was within the 45° fire arc.

And this is the 45° fire arc template I made

And you can download the 45° fire arc template for free,

 

1. Print
2. Apply double sided tape to back
3. Stick to mounting card
4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
6. Amaze your friends and enemies with this 45° fire arc
7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.

Just in case I hadn't made it clear this is a free 45° fire arc template ;)

A freebie - Dark Angel wound markers courtesy of Chris Gillboy

 

I was doing a search on my computer to find my 4th Edition Dark Angel Codex to see how they paint Dark Angel Librarians in it and the search pulled up an email regarding Dark Angel Wound Markers which I couldn't recall ever reading. I think  the wife, bless her, must have opened it and therefore it never caught my eye. Anyway it was from a guy called Chris and I've posted the email below so you can see what it was all about:

Hi its Chris from the Lost Boys Club, you played my mate Mark last week with his space marines (and kicked his backside). Anyway, I was so inspired by your wound/hull pts markers that I decided to make some Dark Angels counters. I found a picture of the munitorium dice on google and changed it to green then coloured in the numbers using paint. Not as flashy as yours but i'm happy with the result. I only did up to no.6 as nothing in my army has more wounds/HP than that. Anyway here's a copy of the image in case you wanted to put it on your blog.

Hope to see you at the club tomorrow

Chris

So here's Chris's markers for you all to use. I can't say how happy this makes me feel. Chris could have gone the easy route, and I'd have still been happy, and printed out my markers but he's actually followed the spirit of the blog and created something new for the community and is willing to share. That is the true 'hobby' ideal there and I'm pleased to present them below for all you Imperial players out there.

  

Thanks Chris, it's emails like this that make the effort of keeping a regular blog worthwhile.

+++ Data Blurt - The Free Radical Collective bring you a place to worship - Cathedral Tower +++

+++ The Free Radical Collective continue to bring about Progress for Progress! We bring a place to worship for the people of Ferron Proxima! No more do we rely on others to raise up sacred spaces to bring praise and glory to our masters! We bring you salvation! We bring you safety! We bring you the Edvard Henri Memorial Cathedral Tower! +++

+++ Easily erected using a variety of materials from rockcrete to foamcard! Praise the Lords! Praise the beneficent ones! Praise your masters! +++

+++ Uploaded and ready, admech unapproved! Progress is Progress! Praise for the people! Point your cogitators here and support the Free Radical Collective! To hell with the Omnissiah! +++

Other STCs are available

OK, so the Free Radical Collective is a device to get some of the STC's that have been languishing in development hell for months [years]. Essentially I've not ironed out the kinks in the template and they don't always include the whistles and bells, like the foam capping strips [good luck capping all the interior arches!]. Anyway this Cathedral Tower hasn't been touched in over a year so I thought I'd just release it because it's been a while since I released anything at all.

One thing of note is that because of the size of the plan it's actually based on a SRA3 paper size (320 x 450mm). This was another reason for delaying it's release, dealing with the unusual paper size. So when it comes to printing it out you have a number of options - print to fit an A3 Page, so it'll be fractionally smaller than it should be and fractionally different scale to previous templates but the easiest option. Find somewhere where you can get SRA3 printing, not ideal I know. Or lastly print to tiles on A4 and recombine them together, probably the simplest option but maybe requires a bit of fiddling. Anyway be warned, but you knew the Free Radical Collective were dodgy anyways!

Meanwhile I've actually been working on a Manufactorum/Warehouse and an Inquisitorial building that will potentially come in three parts that will allow you to create one building and then add extra bits to expand it to create a structure two or three times as big as the original. Of course those have stalled too but there's been some progress at least. 

Anyway, perhaps now it has been released I may see a version of it that'll encourage me to finish my own off... 

A freebie - Vehicle Damage Markers

Yet more free markers, I know, it's getting old now. Apologies if free stuff isn't your bag and this isn't even stuff I have actual need for, what am I thinking? Anyway it's actual counters for vehicle damage, a double of weapon damage, because who has just one weapon on a vehicle?

And there are also some hull point markers, they're like wound markers, just a bit industrial looking, or Imperial Fist or even Iron Warriors! You could even use them as wound markers should you feel that way inclined to match your markers to your army.

Usual step-by-step:

1. Print
2. Apply double sided tape to back
3. Stick to mounting card
4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.



A freebie - Wound Markers MKII - the square ones

Continuing on with the freebies and as it's my birthday, here's another gift to you all - square wound markers.  The more popular 1s and 2s with a sprinkling of 3, 4, 5s for monstrous creatures and the full 1-10 in blue for random nonsense like the Doom of Malan'tai

It'd be really nice to see these in action if anyone uses them, they also make handy hull point indicators too!

Usual step-by-step:

1. Print
2. Apply double sided tape to back
3. Stick to mounting card
4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.

A freebie - Necron Wound Markers

It's been a while since I did anything for Freebie hunters. This may not be of interest but I was working on some square counters. I noticed that the triangular ones, when cut with scissors, tend to curl at the points. So I figured square ones my bend less when cut. So I made some similar to my normal design but also got the urge to do some Necron themed wound markers. The picture below doesn't quite do them justice.

However, you can see below clearly there's some Necron nodes and circuitry evident on the counters and the numbers glow slightly. Hopefully those who deal with the robotic undead will find a use for them. maybe one day I'll actually see them being used on other blogs or battle reports...

Usual step-by-step:

1. Print
2. Apply double sided tape to back
3. Stick to mounting card
4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.

Enjoy, the normal square ones will be up in a day or two, something to look forward to.

A freebie - Eldar Psychic Power and Webbed markers

More freebies, because who doesn't like free stuff? Naturally these are only going to benefit Eldar players though, but they're people too, filthy Xeno scum, but people nontheless ;) So I did these quite a while back and was convinced I'd shared them because I had them in Picasa. Originally it was for the benefit of both my son and PeteB, back when he had Eldar. The five psychic powers were covered, nothing too fancy, no explanations of their effects either.

The reason I believe I didn't share in the end was PeteB asked me to produce a 'Webbed' marker for models that have been hit by a Night Spinner shortly after I made the psychic markers. I did so but never added them to the pic above. Then, when I did come to add it I discovered the actual marker had disappeared from my Illustrator file - probably failed to save or the file was overwritten at some point. Anyway, it didn't take too long to redraw the marker so find it attached.

Usual step-by-step:

1. Print
2. Apply double sided tape to back
3. Stick to mounting card
4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.



A freebie - Objective markers

Just before Throne of Skulls [G.O.D. you must be sick of me banging on about that weekend, tough!] I decided that I needed some objective markers. Personally I'm happy with the Tyranid models I've got but given the new Mysterious Objective rules and mixed value objectives of 'the Scouring' Eternal War scenario I knew I was going to have to make some of my own.

So below was the first version, however

I also decided to revisit these in yellow and black as the magenta in the orange is making my printouts a bit 'muddy' and also the 'sabotaged' marker doesn't mention the blast template. Once again just print, stick to mounting card, cover in sellotape for instant lamination [though try not to get creases in them like I did :( ] and then cut out.

And I think they probably look a whole lot better in yellow, but you choose, although don't forget you'll need more mysterious objective markers than VP markers [as they're only needed in the Scouring].

 

Of course I then add my Tyranid objectives next to them so they look cooler, large Synapse Node for the 4VP, 3 Node for 3VP, twin node for 2VP and Spore Mines for single VPs.

Meanwhile I shared my wound markers on the dakkadakka forum and actually got this request:

Not bad, but they would be better in black and white.

White backgrounds black numbers. Simple is better.

Now I could have been mightily offended that my not inconsiderable time and, all modesty aside, talents had been summarily dismissed in favour of something anyone could do in Microsoft Word but I was prepared to listen to the critique of one of my 'customers'. So I cranked up the old Illustrator and in 5 minutes I gave my punter exactly what they wanted:

To which I got:

Now that rocks!

So clearly there's a market for simple stripped down markers so I thought I should share them with you also, if that's your bag. @ 100% each square should be 9mm Anyway, I can't say I understand the preference but I'm all about giving the hobby what it wants so if there's anything you think I can do to help out with I'll certainly look to try and do it. Just drop a note in the comments here, or the Freebies page and I'll promise to get around to it [eventually].

Usual step-by-step:

1. Print
2. Apply double sided tape to back
3. Stick to mounting card
4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.

Terrain is everything - Hail the Omnissiah a new STC is found!

Techno-archaeologist Avro Vulcan continues his research in the Ferron Proxima badlands. It has been months since he revealed a newly discovered Standard Template Construct (STC) to Tech Adepts at the Adeptus Mechnicus Oversight Cohort on Ferron Proxima. This does not mean he has been unsuccessful in his discoveries, in fact the opposite is true, his very success has been his undoing by malicious data attacks by the group known only as the Free Radical Collective!

The Free Radical Collective have been targetting Avro Vulcan's data banks and releasing his discoveries prior to aproval by AdMech Overseers. Th people of Ferron Proxima have seen benefits from this, technologically speaking but wanton disregard for testing procedures and the free distribution of advanced technology has caused the Adeptus Mechanicus to bring in a specialised unit of Tech Inquisitors to discover the true identities of the FRC.

Meanwhile Avro Vulcan brings us another innocuous, but perhaps revolutionary STC, the Standard Manifold Coupling, aka the Modular Plug Socket. The details of this coupling has been kept secret by Vulcan due to the interest from data-hackers who have sort to gain control of this valuable information to share outside Adeptus Mechanicus control. Once private enterprise can access this information they will utilise it to gain control of all Mercury Plateaus suitable for Plasma Generators, thus reducing their need to pay tithes to the Ad-Mech administration. The Modular Plug Socket is more than just a connector for Plasma Generators, it also functions as an underground storage portal, watch tower base, heavy weapons turret mount and lift shaft. In time these STCs will also be shared with the world.

To access the full STC please point your Cogitators here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B97Rk-BalgZbUm1VQ3hKNF8xNDQ/view?resourcekey=0-ZT2qov4nLJ-2ojJ3gGkybw

This STC will be uploaded to the full Ferron Proxima STC library shortly. You can access the database here:

http://40kaddict.blogspot.com/2011/02/terrain-is-everything-standard-template.html

A freebie - Biomancy Psychic markers

The more games I play the more markers I find I need, latest is Biomancy psychic power markers. Constantly rolling for Warp Speed and Iron Arm each turn and adding D3 I&A or D3 S&T to the psyker means you really need to keep track of what's doing what. Of course there's other rules attached to these powers so I've included an asterisk to remind you to check out the full rules but each marker has +1, +2 or +3 respectively so you know what your psychic monstrosity is doing.

Additionally there are some Enfeeble and Endurance markers, three of each in case you have a few psykers. As per usual my suggestion is print 'em out, mount 'em on mounting card, sellotape for faux lamination and cut 'em out neat and tidy like. Bob's your Uncle [he actually was] and Fanny's your Aunt [she wasn't, it was Joan].

Enjoy!

Usual step-by-step:

1. Print
2. Apply double sided tape to back
3. Stick to mounting card
4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.