Saturday 1 September 2018

Placement Widgets

Hi all

Firstly my apologies for the lack of post this Wednesday, the usual RL excuses rear their ugly head with lots of late/night shifts that are just soooo draining...

Anyway, during the week I received a little package in the post from Ben Calvert-Lee, the owner/sculptor/caster/dogsbody of Master Crafted Miniatures and all round good egg. This package contained these little "placement widgets"


Ben has asked for them to be reviewed and I am more than happy to do so.

So first things first I guess is - What the heck is a "placement widget"?

Good question guys, good question! 

Well it turns out a placement widget is a cunning little device to help out the placement of models in Bushido.  Ben like myself is a big fan of the Oriental/Fantasy game by GCT Studios and organises the "Daimyo of the South" annual tournament down in Portsmouth. So it was natural that he produced a load of terrain pieces and accessories for the game.

3d printed in hard plastic the widget allows miniatures on the battlefield to be moved leaving the widget to mark their place.  This is ideal for factions that have characters that can use the bodyguard trait, meaning that models swap places with each other.  The atmosphere of most Bushido games is so relaxed that often precision isn't all that important and most players I've met have a very easy going attitude that would horrify "rules lawyer" type players who often haunt other systems.  That said in tournies or other official type scenarios these would be very useful and could avoid some conflict between players and for £1.50 for the pair is very easy on the wallet.  

So how does it work?

Well the widget has three different arcs that coincidentally fits the three base sizes of the miniature range.  Simply fit the appropriate arc to the edge of the base of each miniature and replace the figures. 


here The Rice Farmer (30mm) switches place with Master Ekusa (40mm)
Kenko and Rice Farmer - both 30mm
 Funnily enough the length of the widget is 2" which is the range of the bodyguard trait for most factions...

Overall I think its, pretty nifty. Its cheap, takes paint (if you want to), easy to assemble and use.  I'm not really sure it'll get a lot of use with me but I love these little tokens and accessories so I'm really happy with them.  I do highly recommend Ben's terrain pieces and accessories - I've got a load of his animals as they are cleanly cast and full of detail, so head on over to his website on the link below.


Master Ekusa approves of this product!

hopefully back to some normal scheduling next week
hope you enjoy
dGG


7 comments:

  1. Great review Andy and a handy little tool

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  2. Excellent review Andy, and a useful looking piece if you like those sorts of things.

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  3. I can certainly see how these would prove useful in your "Bushido" games, Andy.

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  4. Niffty idea, and nicely made, reminds me of the little widgets they use at snooker tournaments to mark where the white ball is when the ref picks it up to clean it.

    Cheers Roger.

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  5. It's an interesting bit of kit and I'm sure wouold be seen as useful to many that require better precision in their games.

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  6. That's a great accessory for sure. Genius design to fit 3 different base sizes.

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