Diesel DM

ASP Saber on Stand

A departure from the usual miniature table-top gaming to talk about a package that arrived today: My ASP lightsaber. I kickstarted this about a year ago and they have very slowly been delivering sabers, much to the chagrin of the nearly 2000 backers who have been waiting since the original expected date of November, 2015.

After the Kickstarter ended we were given access to a virtual saber builder to be able to visually design our sabers.  Here’s what I designed:

http://www.saberparts.com/#/configure?code=4.124.1.0-3.88.1.26-2.52.1.0-1.12.1.0-7.152.15.0-6.150.3.0-5.143.0.0-8.154.0.0

Oregon to New York in three days

Contents

• Blade
• Stand (Ziplock bag)
• Lightsaber (Blue taped bundle)
• Electronics, shims and Battery (lower right white bag)
• Battery, belt clip, allen wrench (middle white bag)
• 3 posters of cosplay lightsaber folks

So right to the main attraction the lightsaber hilt:

Pre-assembled hilt, empty

It turned out just like the virtual saber build above, except of the addition of the belt clip knob at the bottom below the grip.  The grip is made of brown leather, which is quite nice.  I was torn between a leather grip and a standard metal one.  Since they are all made out of interchangeable parts, I can always order a metal handle in the future.

Hilt Breakdown

The typical ASP hilt breaks down into four pieces: handle, emitter, switch and pommel (clockwise starting from top).

Bag #1

Here is the battery charger, belt clip and an allen wrench used to tighten the set screws that hold the blade or blade-plug and the LED emitter.

Bag #2

The shims on the left are used between threaded sections to get the rotation alignment you want.  As with other backers, I wished they’d sent more shims, but I got it pretty close.

Electronics

Inside the electronics bag is a large battery (not pictured above), an LED emitter (upper right), the switch (bottom right), switch hole plug (bottom left) and the battery-holder with main electronic board and speaker on the upper left.

Wired Up

Here’s how the electronics plug together: the longer red/black wires go to the LED emitter while the shorter blue/black wires go to the switch.  The battery fits tightly in the holder with a piece of velcro to hold it in.  The bottom of the battery holder is a speaker, so be gentle when handling it to prevent rupturing it.  (Note that I assembled it externally just to make sure it all worked, to actually assemble the saber you have to take it apart again first)  Also, the speaker is very loud when it’s not in the hilt, I started myself when I accidentally hit the switch.

Off

On

The saber is very bright and the speaker is still quite loud in the hilt.

I still have to install the switch plug, but I think I may move the switch button to the bottom hole to make it easier to get at.  Pushing it once turns it on. Pushing it again makes a blaster deflection sound. Push and hold to turn the saber off.

Having just finished up my Cygnar Battlegroup Box (Stryker, Ironclad, Lancer and Charger), this week’s post is an image gallery of the completed models.  I started with the Ironclad (which I also magnetized), then moved on to Stryker, the Charger and finished with the Lancer.  I’m quite pleased with how they all came out.  My great appreciation and interest in the Iron Kingdoms fluff is shown in my adherence to the suggested color schemes.  I did my best to make sure the whole group shared the same theme for colors and bases.  If you like the bases, check out my basing tutorial.  Looking back on it: I enjoyed painting Stryker the most.  He has a lot of nice detail and I think his face and hair came out great.

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The only mistake you can make with this book is not buying it soon enough. When I first started DMing my own ongoing campaign I came across this book and thought “I’ll wait until I know what I’m doing before I purchase it.” Instead, I should have bought this book while I was figuring out what I was doing. There are many points made in this book that I struggled with early on. Sly Flourish’s book, as its name suggests, doesn’t replace the DMG or try to abridge it, this book augments it, especially if you’re new to running the game.

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