A question and an announcement. For me, one of the neatest parts of running a Spelljammer campaign is the ship-to-ship combat using the fold-up model ships that came with the SJ DM screen and the War Captain's Companion box set. They really help with the visualization of what's going on, and look pretty cool on their own. For the longest time I had them all sitting on my TV set. I had always hoped that more ships would eventually be produced, but of course we all know what happened to the published SJ campaign world. I still use those ships when we play, and recently tried an extensive Google search to see if anyone had ever made more. My Web Fu is very strong, yet I could find absolutely no references on the net to the models, except for the RPGNow (and other similar) pages that list product contents where you can buy the pdfs of the SJ DM screen and WCC box. This kinda surprised me. Why has there not even been any discussion on the subject of the models on the net? No mention of them on any webpages?
So, the question is... What do YOU guys use? Do people still have their models from the "good old days"? What do new SJ DM's use?
And the announcement. Since there won't be any more models forthcoming from TSR/WotC, and nobody on the net seems to have done any new models, I decided that "if you want something done, you've got to do it yourself". :-) I've created foldups for ships that I needed based on artwork from various products, and then modified appropriately, and put them up on a new webpage on my site. Please check them out and let me know what you think.
http://melkot.com/mechanics/sj-ships.html
If anybody else has created SJ ship foldup models, let me know... I'd love to see them.
Denis, aka "Maldin"
============================
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!
my campaign hasn't taken to the Void yet.
those are very nice models.
my campaign hasn't taken to the Void yet.
Agreed, very nice models. Heck, at first I thought those were scans from SJ products!
:D Oh, and trolloc, two words: Illithid Abduction... :D
I'd love to see my 3d digital models made into REAL models but it's too expensive for me, iirc $150--$600 to do it, but the idea is certainly tempting!
I'll be uploading my re-done deckplans/designs of some of the SJ ships soon.
So, the question is... What do YOU guys use? Do people still have their models from the "good old days"? What do new SJ DM's use?
'When' we played, we used the same ships (although, we bought several copies of the WCC since we ran a huge chunk of the Vodoni space combat) - but outside of what was produced by TSR, we used some 4-Sided dice for Pyramid ships.
Please check them out and let me know what you think.
Ack!! No Squid Ship present?!? Thats...that is an Insult!! Thats absurd!! Thats.........:D
Ack!! No Squid Ship present?!? Thats...that is an Insult!! Thats absurd!! Thats.........:D
i r confused....
there's a squidship in the original set that he showed (between the armada and the dolphin ship).
why would he need to show it again in a different color? ditto for the hammership...
same reason he didn't show both the green and the blue whaleship he made, i assume.
there's a squidship in the original set that he showed (between the armada and the dolphin ship).
After careful scrutiny (plus changing to me bifocals)...uumm...oops :embarrass
Admittedly, I had forgotten that some were in a different color that the cards themselves...so just completely missed it.
Yup, there's a blue squidship in amongst the original group. Of course I couldn't go without a squidship!
And of course, you have seen the original art before, Nightdruid.
I would especially like to thank the artist who did the double-poster of ship side-views from the Legend of Spelljammer boxed set. Its been a huge help in making the new models.Silverblade... it WOULD be cool to see your digital models milled out by CAM (computer aided manufacturing, for those not familiar with CAD-CAM lingo). A full set of painted plastic full-3D to-scale SJ ship "minis" would be awesome, however, guessing by the traffic this board sees, probably not very economically viable for WotC.
The next batch of my SJ ship cards is behind schedule... damn RealLife(tm)! Messes up everything. Plus, if you've checked out the rest of my website, you'll know I have irons in two dozen fires. Finally the most recent iron (a Dragon article) is out of my hair.
The next two sheets (not sure which order I'll finish them yet) will probably have a couple of dwarven citadels, deathglory, bloatfly, barge of Ptah, and turtleship. Not sure when I can get back to them, though. Then I may start tackling the Vodoni fleet. Those are going to take alot of work because of the nature of the available art.
Denis, aka "Maldin"
============================
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!
Aaahh, now that woudl be nice - some 3-D ships (paper or not) of the Vodoni ships. That I think, I would consider buying, should someone actually make them.
Next week, your dreams will come true, Tavera! ;)
And you won't even have to contribute to my PayPal account. :D
Denis, aka "Maldin"
============================
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
You are doing a great work, Maldin! What about drawing a nice Welkship?
well, given he's producing ship models at a rate of, say, 3 every 1-2 months, and new spelljammer ships are being posted anywhere at a rate of, oh, say, 1 every 1-2 years, by the look of it lately... at this rate he's gonna be rooting around in beyond the moons for new stuff to make models for before too long, since he's gonna run out of official ships :P
i eagerly anticipate lionheart and gammaro base :D
i eagerly anticipate lionheart and gammaro base :D
Lionheart would be a heck of a sight to see...:D
(Oh, and if Maldin is wondering, he's more than welcomed to use my Lionheart, if he so wishes ;) )
(although, i would recommend sticking with a simple regular elven space station design... the multiple man-o-war/armada thing. this could then obviously be printed at a few extra times the size (if you're using nightdruid's version, that is), and you get a two-for-one deal ;)
of course, i suppose you could also do something similar for gammaro base and the turtleship... but it isn't quite the same thing.
seriously though... a small selection of space stations would be really awesome if you ever feel up to it...
). It may be a while before I can get back to ship models again, unfortunately. When I do, the Whelkship certainly was on the list, Arcanda.
As is the Deathglory (basically done already), Turtleship, and Cuttle (that one is gonna take some thinking). I had given some thought to an Elven Armada (see below) but what I hadn't really thought about is an elven station. I know how I could actually do it, and it would of course involve the creating of Elven Armadas first, however there are two big issues... First, there really isn't any good, usable artwork in existence for an elven Armada, which would seriously hamper any such effort. The other question is scale. Armada's are so much bigger then anything else, they really wouldn't fit on the hex map with any of the currently scaled ship models (area or height). Some of the ships already are bursting out of their hex-space.
What do people think would be a usable scale? A to-scale Armada, d*mn the fact that they would be towering far above all other ships on the map that are theoretically "in line" with its hull, and that sucks up far more real estate then it actually should for combat purposes? Or a smaller scale Armada (and hence station) that is more representative of its combat footprint?
Don't get too excited, though. Its gonna be a quite a while before I can turn back to ship-building.
Denis, aka "Maldin"
============================
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more! (including SJ ship models, of course!)