Breaking News - Shapeways.com

[Gijoe]

Hey all,
For those of you who are familiar with Shapeways.com and 3D printing custom pieces, you are probably aware that they offer custom Victory City and Capital City Markers. The pieces are very good quality and I happen to own both sets (Capital and Victory City). The issue (as you are probably aware) is that neither set is compete. The 2 design companies that create them are EBard and Ossel’s.

I have been in contact with EBard to ask if they would consider finishing out the set. Apparently I am not the only one who has been asking:-) I received a response today from EBard saying that they plan on finishing out the set! Of course, this will take several weeks and perhaps a few months. Nonetheless, we will finally have a completed set for G40!

[Narvik]

Both sets are too tiny, should scale them up a bit too.

[Rand]

Great news, I had been going through eBard’s work and been planning on messaging him about additional models to finish out his series of victory cities. I like ossel’s work but not everything is offered in 'frosted, ultra detail" which is the only type of finish I have ordered from shapeways.

Thanks

[EBard5]

Here is the list of city markers I’m currently planning to make. I’m open to making one or two more if there is strong interest in additional cities.

New Victory Cities:
Honolulu: Aloha Tower (done)
San Francisco: Golden Gate Bridge (done)
Manila: Post Office (done)
Cairo: Pyramids at Giza (done)
Stalingrad: undamaged tractor factory (done)
Shanghai: Yu Garden (done)
Hong Kong: Queen’s Building (done)
Hong Kong: Wong Tai Sin temple (done)
Warsaw: St. Alexander’s Church (done)
Leningrad: Winter Palace (done)
Calcutta - Dakshineswar Kali Temple (done)
Ottawa: Parliament Building (done)

Existing Capitals:
Washington D.C.: US Capitol Building (redo to improve quality - done)
London: Westminster Palace
Paris: Eiffel Tower and Arch De Triumph
Berlin: Reichstag building
Rome: Colosseum
Moscow: Kremlin
Japan: Imperial Palace (redo to improve quality - done)
Sydney: Harbor Bridge (redo to improve quality - done)
India: Taj Mahal

Narvik and all: I’ve been trying to keep my pieces roughly the same size as the original factory pieces so that they take up as little space on the board as possible, but I’m certainly open to offering a scaled up set if there is interest in that. How much bigger would you want them to be?

Thanks,
EBard

[Leatherneckinlv]

Outstanding……high 5…finally…much appreciated EBard

[Rand]

Very excited! Look forward to your pieces.

[Andy6049]

Well, I was about to place a Shapeways order, but maybe I should wait.  How long until the new buildings are ready?

Some other cities for consideration:

Instanbul
Madrid
Stockholm
Helsinki
Beunos Aires
Rio de Janeiro
Cape Town
Alexandria
Bucharest
Belgrade
Sofia
Smolensk
Kiev
Peking
Vladivostok
Singapore

(These cities are on the GW36 map in case anyone is wondering where they came from)

[Chris_Henry]

EBard, that’s awesome! May not remember me, but you were awesome and initially created your Sydney Bridge, Taj Mahal, and Arc de Triumph/Eiffel Tower pieces because I and a couple others asked! I’d always wondered about bugging you for others. I greatly look forward to these, I’ve loved using your pieces, airfields, factories, and naval bases, in my games already so will be great to complete the victory city sets!

[Trenacker]

I am really excited by this news. I have the full set of high-detail markers and they make a fantastic accent to any board.

The Hagia Sofia is an obvious option for Istanbul/Constantinople.

For Vladivostok, I guess your options are the Arseniev Museum (formerly The Museum of the  Society for the Study of the Amur), the Vladivostok Fortress proper, or the Voroshilov Battery.

I recommend the Cape Town City Hall for South Africa.

For Brazil, what about the Manaus Opera House? I know it isn’t in the capital, but the building is iconic.

In Buenos Aires, study the Kavanagh Building, the National Congress, and the Casa Rosada?

[Andy6049]

Great ideas! 
For Brazil however, I was thinking the Christ the Redeemer statue.

[EBard5]

Istanbul seems like a very reasonable addition since it is close to Germany, USSR, and UK (Egypt) so all the factions could feasibly contest it, and it is certainly a strategic location. And the Hagia Sofia is a perfect choice to represent it. I’ll add it to my list.

Vladivostok also makes sense to me since it is contestable and would give Russia something important to defend on its eastern perimeter (rather like the US with Honolulu), and it could make Japanese-Soviet relations much more interesting in games where they start out with a non-aggression treaty (when does Japan break the treaty to try and steal that VC?). If I did the Voroshilov Battery, that would be quite easy to make and would look cool, so I’m willing to add it to the list. Plus I could take the model and tweak it to produce a Maxim Gorky model for Sevastopol. Two for one!

Cape Town, Buenos Aires, and Brazil are certainly all significant, and I like the ideas you guys are suggesting, but are they really contestable in the game? Seems like they would just end up being easy Allied wins and would unbalance the game. Am I missing a game-play reason to include them? Or would they just be eye candy? I’m leaning towards not making those, but am open to being convinced otherwise. My though process being that each will take 2-6 hours to make… will there be enough demand for them to justify that cost?

Thanks,
EBard

[Young Grasshopper]

@Gijoe:

Hey all,
For those of you who are familiar with Shapeways.com and 3D printing custom pieces, you are probably aware that they offer custom Victory City and Capital City Markers. The pieces are very good quality and I happen to own both sets (Capital and Victory City). The issue (as you are probably aware) is that neither set is compete. The 2 design companies that create them are EBard and Ossel’s.

I have been in contact with EBard to ask if they would consider finishing out the set. Apparently I am not the only one who has been asking:-) I received a response today from EBard saying that they plan on finishing out the set! Of course, this will take several weeks and perhaps a few months. Nonetheless, we will finally have a completed set for G40!

Welcome to the forums buddy… the beginning of a great membership.

[Trenacker]

EBard, that sounds like good reasoning re: capitals of countries not significant in the OOB game.

I use some house rules and a custom map, so Brazil and Argentina are “in play,” meaning I’m personally interested in victory markers for them, but I agree that it might not be a sound business decision for you to try to sell such sculpts.

For Belgrade, I think St. Mark’s Church is more distinctive than other options, which might too closely resemble the Reichstag.

For Vladivostok, I’m not thrilled about the Viroshilov Battery, but that’s because it seems to resemble a basic coastal gun.

For Helsinki, look at the Helsinki Central Station.

Have you considered anything for Eriteria and Ethiopia or Libya? The Tagliero building would be awesome. So would the Marble Arch.

[Chris_Henry]

EBard, just so you’re aware, they are talking about a game from Historical Board Gaming called Global War 1936. It contains a lot of VC’s, so that’s why they are asking.

That said, I’m sure I’d agree with you that some of those wouldn’t be worth your time. In terms of Axis and Allies, I think you could make an argument for Singapore being a cool one to add. I’m shocked that’s not a VC anyways. It was so important to the British Empire and completely shook them when it fell so easily (and from land to boot!). It’s also an NO for both UK Pacific and ANZAC, so it’s importance is still represented in the game as well.

Just a thought!

[EBard5]

Ok, I’ve spent way too much time thinking about this, but here is my current plan: three city sets.

Set #1 (Capitals):
Washington - US Capitol Building
London - Westminster Palace
Paris - Eiffel Tower and Arch De Triumph
Berlin - Reichstag Building
Moscow - Kremlin
India - Taj Mahal
Rome - Coliseum
Sydney - Harbor Bridge
Japan - Imperial Palace

Set #2 (Official Victory Cities):
Honolulu - Aloha Tower
San Francisco - Golden Gate Bridge
Manila - Post Office
Stalingrad - Tractor Factory
Leningrad - Winter Palace
Warsaw - St. Alexander’s Church
Cairo - Pyramids
Shanghai - Yu Garden
Hong Kong - Queen’s Building and Wong Tai Sin
Ottawa - Parliament Building
Calcutta - Dakshineswar Kali Temple

Set #3 (Expanded Victory Cities):
Istanbul - Hagia Sofia
Vladivostok - Trans-Siberian Rail Station (could be used with any far-eastern USSR territory: Yakut, Irkutsk, etc.)
Rio de Janeiro - Christ the Redeemer Statue
Buenos Aires - Kavanagh Building or Casa Rosada
Cape Town - City Hall
Belgrade - St. Mark’s Church
Kiev - Saint Sophia Cathedral
Stockholm - City Hall
Singapore - Raffles Hotel
Algiers - Basilica of Algiers
Peking - Temple of Heaven
Helsinki - Central Railway Station
New York City - Empire State Building
Libya - Marble Arch

Couple of notes:

• Set #2 is set in stone at this point.

• Set #3 is about 80% set in my mind.

• I swapped Stockholm for Helsinki since it is more likely to be contestable by all factions. Decided to do both Stockholm and Helsinki.

• I am not going to do Bucharest, since it is adjacent to Belgrade on several maps and I prefer Belgrade for a variety of reasons. Same with Sofia.

• If you really want Bucharest in your game, you can use the Paris Arch de Triumph model as it is pretty close to the Arcul de Triumf in Bucharest.

• I am not going to do Smolensk because it is so close to Leningrad, Moscow, and Warsaw.

• Trenacker was right about the Viroshilov Battery being a bad choice for Vladivostok; I made it this morning and it did not look right next to the rest of my cities. Going forward all victory cities will be civilian buildings. On the plus side I now have two coastal battery fortress models that will be for sale soon (and could still be used for Vladivostok and Sevastopol).

I will plan to complete set #2 in the next few weeks. I’m not sure if I will keep going and do set #3 immediately, or if I will take a break and work on other things first. If set #3 sells well, I might eventually consider a set #4 with cities like Madrid, Budapest, Bombay, Smolensk, and Novosibirsk.

Chris_Henry, or anyone, does GW36 have rules for victory cities? I’ve got a copy of the bigger version of that map (so beautiful!) but I don’t recall anything in the rules about victory cities… I assumed they were on the map for eye candy, or maybe a future expansion.

Thanks,
EBard

[Andy6049]

In the traditional sense of a victory city not yet.  GW36 has objective cities (essentially capitals, but the list includes Nanking).  The other cities might be utilized in the new 3rd edition that is just entering development.  I will do some checking on that.  Some of the victory objectives involve territories that contain cities within them: KMT objective Reclaim China involves Peking and Madrid is contestable through the Spanish Civil War and the Spanish Civil War Expansion for example (the other examples are already covered by your planned list).

You are correct in that expansions will bring more focus to certain areas of the map and hence the local cities.  Turkey at War is a prime example that brings a lot of focus on Turkey as a power in the Mediterranean.  Winter War brings more focus to the Finland vs. Russia conflict and thus brings focus on Helsinki.  There is an idea floating around of another expansion focusing of the Axis Minors (so as not to hijack this thread, if anyone has any comments, thoughts, or ideas about this, please PM me).

Looking forward to your new sets!

[Trenacker]

EBard, sounds awesome. I look forward to hearing when the new sets go on sale!

For Singapore, I recommend sculpting the Raffles Hotel, which is strongly associated with the British colonial period.

I just want to plug the Marble Arch again, since Tripoli and Cyrenaica are hotly contested in Global 1940, 2nd ed.

[EBard5]

Trenacker, you are a source of great ideas! I like the Raffles Hotel for Singapore; I considered it yesterday but this morning it occurred to me that I could just make the front of the building and keep it very thin, which I think most players will appreciate on tiny Singapore.

I like the Marble Arch, and since it’s easy to make I’ll add it to the list. I didn’t realize the Marble Arch was in Libya so I wasn’t finding it yesterday. I’ll still do the Basilica of Algiers.

Also, I’m going to add Helsinki (Central Rail Station) and New York City (Empire State Building) into set #3. Both are reasonably easy to make and I think there are merits to including them.

[Tjoek]

Thanks EBard for putting in the effort to make these available to the community. I do have one request. Please move Calculatta out of set 3 into set 2, as Calcutta is an OOB original Victory City.

Looking forward to see the models ‘shape up’

[Chris_Henry]

You are right EBard, there is currently no VC rule in that sense for Global War, people just want for eye candy I believe. I like your layout above, good way to keep a focus on AA Global more!