Compass is really good at sending replacement sheets, though, at least they were for my 2 miscut sheets of Enemy Action: Ardennes.
They did the same for me. Still raises some concerns about the initial production quality though.
Good to see that the problems of the 1970s are still the problems of the 2010s!
How much has die cutting technology really changed? (I have no idea, actually, and would be fascinated if there were major changes in die cutting technology).
The Printing sheet’s layout on the cardboard seemed to be Moe’s problem up there. Which is really a QC problem after receipt from Printer.
Yeah, I doubt it’s a matter of tech per se, though I suppose one could develop a very high-end diecutting system that would work beautifully but would be grossly overpriced for making wargames. It’s always been a human issue, with most companies not being able/willing to pay for top-flight quality control.
Examining batches delivered by the printer via random inspection, at least, usually mitigates that.
And these days we are talking far, far smaller print runs than in 1980-something, so examining a batch of 1000-2000 whole is really not an insane task. GMT and MMP don’t have these endemic issues.
Yeah, I was recalling the days of SPI and what not, but it’s good to hear that such problems aren’t as big a deal now.
The latest 3MA podcast is out, which reminded me at least Mr One Gun wanted me to hear more so here goes:
To reiterate:
The tutorial is terrible (if you believe this to be entry-level fare. It is merely bad if you don’t.)
The new 3D map is mostly wasted effort for a game of this scale. Zooming in doesn’t reveal any more information about the terrain (maybe at least label important geographic features? Beyond the names objectives, the game doesn’t give a good sense of place. What is this river I’m fighting like hell to cross? This unyielding mountain range? People unfamiliar with the campaign might like to know…) This is what happens when a map nerd does a review.
Other stuff
The UI is decent. The text is clear at 1080p. I’ve heard that folks have issues at higher resolutions.
New mechanics: the big change from the original is the “special abilities” that units have. There are feint attacks, suppressing fire, set piece attacks, entrenching, etc, in addition to the “normal” attacks a unit can perform. This is fine and adds a lot of depth without a lot of complexity except… these additional abilities are “rewards” and are assigned at the Corp/Army level. For example, you have spend prestige at the beginning of the campaign to “buy” the ability for US Ii Corps to make a set piece attack. The point (I assume) the developers are trying to get across is the relative inexperience of the US forces, but experience is a measure of effectiveness, not training. The US troops were certainly green, but I’m pretty sure they knew the basics of digging in, artillery barrages, etc.
The campaign: mostly good. Troop losses carry over from scenario to scenario, at least for the Allies. Achieving certain objectives will occasionally improve your starting position in a follow on scenario, though you will often find yourself taking the same ground more than once (I had to take Rome twice, in the most egregious case).
The AI is decent.
At $30, I don’t feel cheated but I’d probably have waited for a sale, or at least for a few more patches.
Do you want an actual answer? Because I can give you as much detail about that as you want, and then some!
Spoiler: I worked in print for over a decade, did packaging engineering, and helped produce and layout more than one game component set in that time.
Yes, actually. How does Legion Wargames make counters that just fall off the sprues?
Honestly if I had a Legion Wargame in front of me, I could probably give you a fairly accurate answer.
At a broad level it is all about the die cut operator, load time, and paper weight. The biggest changes in die cutting mostly have little to do with wargaming chits, but are for large runs where they do what is called ‘blanking’. What that means is that all the waste is ejected separately in the die cutter, and that you get a stack of clean cut material on a palate.
The advantage is obvious, the downside is it does not work for all layouts. You need sufficient clearance between pieces (about 3/8” on our machines) or for them to be edge to edge to blank.
So the reality is that for wargame type components not much has changed, other than the process of making dies, laser cutters and automated rule bending machines are faster and far more accurate than hand jigging dies. And modern machines are better engineered and have less bounce, typically <1/16” total travel. Which is why we use 1/8” bleeds, that means print outside the actual design extending the color, and a border from the cut edge where we would not put text/ fine detail. But it is a tradeoff. The faster you run, the more bounce unless you have tightly engineered dies and heavier stock.
For wargames the challenge is the stock is so thick. It creates a lot of resistance that can dull the blades quickly. This leads to mashed edges and incomplete cuts. You ever pucnch out a chit and get some paper tear on the back? Thats because either the knives got too dull before replacing, or they weren’t running high enough pressure on the die. And they use what are called nicks. The thicker the nick, the better the material holds in the blank. But the harder it is to punch out.
So it is a balancing act. Diecutter operators prefer thicker nicks, and will go excessive on them. This prevents drop out that jams a machine, and allows them to run faster. But the separator stations prefer thinner and fewer nicks. It is literally people with a hand held air hammer chiseling away waste, this makes their job easier.
So if a maker has consistently easier to punch chits, this indicates they are using higher quality lazer cut dies, have good operators who know how to properly set pressure and not overnick the blank, and regularly replace knives. Realistically this has less to do with tech and more to do with a quality source.
Their stuff is sooooooo quality. Like they actually examine each box’s contents and then provide feedback to the Printer or something. :)
Also, Made in "Murica. Made in Minnesota too, @CraigM. You could prolly guess the company, having been in the industry.
If anyone has a close up picture of a sprue I could probably estimate the grade of knife they use and whether they use knicks, or have a solid steel plate and properly leveled die cutter that they back off 2mm to just kiss cut the paper. That is expert level die cutting, and hard to maintain because any variance in plate level will make one section either punch all the way through, or not cut deep enough. This is less an issue for smaller (<20x26) sheets.
Heh, I have some guesses. But we rarely dealt with anyone further than Madison WI or Holland MI. So my knowledge of Twin Cities shops is a bit more limited ;)
It just isn’t Cartamundi, who are a big dog in game components.
They really do quality work there, whoever Randy uses.
Yeah, I had an interesting conversation with Bruce about a year back talking about component quality, and comparing sprues from old 80’s Avalon Hill and modern GMT games to see how much quality control and component quality changed.
The amount of bounce and offset on older games was incredible. You could even see the clamp marks on some, where they struck too hard and marked the sheets.
@CraigM, thanks for that post. As someone who has a job that is about as far as possible from actually producing anything in the material world, I thought it was fascinating.
@cannedwombat Thanks for taking the time to review Unity of Command 2. I bounced off the first game hard, but your review makes me think I should reinstall it and give it another go. I recall thinking the first game was too simple and somehow a bit annoying, but I don’t remember more than that.
Anyway, I think I’ll play around with the first game while waiting for the price of the new game to come down.
UoC1 is pretty *simple, but that was the charm. A simple thesis well executed.
*It does get annoying if you’re trying to get
“Brilliant” victories (or whatever you get when achieving all objectives on time). Then it becomes an unforgiving puzzle game.