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Post by Cardstock Dane on Jul 6, 2018 2:35:23 GMT -9
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Post by Toman on Jul 6, 2018 3:57:13 GMT -9
my nephew has the United states war of rights book. he photo copy's them then prints. they are quite nice. I have been tempted by the buildings before but not enough to buy them.
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Post by wyvern on Jul 7, 2018 6:41:31 GMT -9
I have a couple of these books from Helion's "Battle for Britain" series, those covering the Saxons, Normans and Vikings from 1066 and the Roman Invasion of AD 43. You do get a good range of minis, including things like trees for a Druid grove (complete with gnarled bark that looks a little face-like, for instance), ships and terrain features - if it's on the book's cover, you'll get it inside, certainly - and the artwork's impeccable. However, the layout's not helpful in either, running much too close to the edge of the printed paper for a typical flatbed scan, so you end up either having to do two, or live with losing a small part of the artwork near the page edges. Remember these pages are also A4, not US Letter sized, so that will create more problems if you're not using A4 paper. Of course, you could just cut out the minis from the printed book, but that isn't what even the books themselves tell you to do - copy and print as many as you need is the preferred option. So you're stuck with a lot of work before you ever get to do anything with the minis. I think the wrongly-sized problem may have been silently amended in the more recent titles, but haven't seen any to be sure of that. I contacted the publishers directly when the earliest books were issued to request they also provided watermarked PDFs to get round all these difficulties. They didn't even deign to acknowledge that request, so I have very mixed views about these overall. It's almost like the publisher just wants your cash, and doesn't really care about the product or how it's presented (otherwise, why would they have published a book you can't even copy the pages from at the full size?).
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Post by belisarius2ca on Oct 31, 2018 12:33:14 GMT -9
I have five of the books and like the miniatures. I have a scanner at home that is able to scan a4. I then go up to staples and have what I want printed off. I set it to fit to page. I loose a little bit in size but not enough to make any difference. When you use a photo copier set it to 95 percent and you will be okay. If you have access to a black and white copier play with it to see what percentage you find the best for you. Peter on his Facebook page mentions he is not allowed to do pdf version as long as the publisher wants to sell books.
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Post by wyvern on Dec 10, 2018 11:00:00 GMT -9
Anyone who has one or more of these books may be interested to know there are now paid-for downloadable PDF extras for some of the sets available from this website, run by the artist who prepares all the minis and models, Peter Dennis. Unfortunately, all these seem to be prepared for A4 page layouts only, and cost 1 GBP each (that'll be around $1.26 to $1.30 at today's exchange rates (10 Dec 2018), depending on how you arrange the money transfer). By contrast to the printed books, this is expensive. Of the half-dozen of the books I have here, there are between 29 and 32 full pages of minis and models per volume, plus you also get wargame rules, historical notes and instructions in that, around 48 pages in total. The Helion website price per volume of those I have is currently 15.26 GBP (though the publisher runs multibuy discounts at shows and sometimes online too), which works out around 0.50 GBP per A4 page of minis and models (and ignores the fact almost half the book consists of text and other information which you don't get from these new paid-for pages; using the full 48 pages for this price, the contrast's even worse, at just 0.32 GBP per printed page!). OK, so you don't have to scan these download pages or create your own PDF from them, but there are hundreds of paper mini sets on the OBS sites right now that that's true for as well. It's also not clear from the website information just what you're getting for your money. From the images, I'd guess at one page per purchase. Plus you only seem to get one, one-off download link (sent by e-mail) for each item, so if that fails... Why these aren't on the OBS sites, where at least you'd be able to see a proper preview image without having to save the one from the website first, and be covered for computer failures and the need to re-download (or if the file gets updated) I can't explain. I'd guess the artist doesn't know about, or understand, how OBS works, or is perhaps too terrified of copyright problems to use it. Unlike the hundreds of other artists and manufacturers who make a living this way, that is... I imagine many of us will have run into problems with some of these private download sites before too (let's not mention World Works Games...), as they can come and go without warning. However, as long as you make plenty of back-up copies as soon as you've downloaded these, if any are of interest, it may be worth the risk.
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Post by altfritz on Feb 19, 2022 7:44:17 GMT -9
Just an update to this info: all the Helion Paperboys books are available as PDFs AND this weekend they are having a sale 4.99 GBP all ebooks.
There is also a page of free downloads on the Helion site.
Peter has quite a large range on his won site and just released his RUS2 set with more Mutants, Rus and allies, plus more Mongols and allies.
(He has freebies on his site as well.)
I have a few of the printed Helion books but bought them all as PDFs the last time they ran a big sale. Being in Canada, I print "to fit" most of the time so I have figures @ 93% drawn scale, but that is fine. I have started printing some of the Mutants at full size to get larger figures.
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Post by altfritz on Apr 9, 2022 9:10:27 GMT -9
Anyone who has one or more of these books may be interested to know there are now paid-for downloadable PDF extras for some of the sets available from this website, run by the artist who prepares all the minis and models, Peter Dennis. Unfortunately, all these seem to be prepared for A4 page layouts only, and cost 1 GBP each (that'll be around $1.26 to $1.30 at today's exchange rates (10 Dec 2018), depending on how you arrange the money transfer). By contrast to the printed books, this is expensive. Of the half-dozen of the books I have here, there are between 29 and 32 full pages of minis and models per volume, plus you also get wargame rules, historical notes and instructions in that, around 48 pages in total. The Helion website price per volume of those I have is currently 15.26 GBP (though the publisher runs multibuy discounts at shows and sometimes online too), which works out around 0.50 GBP per A4 page of minis and models (and ignores the fact almost half the book consists of text and other information which you don't get from these new paid-for pages; using the full 48 pages for this price, the contrast's even worse, at just 0.32 GBP per printed page!). OK, so you don't have to scan these download pages or create your own PDF from them, but there are hundreds of paper mini sets on the OBS sites right now that that's true for as well. It's also not clear from the website information just what you're getting for your money. From the images, I'd guess at one page per purchase. Plus you only seem to get one, one-off download link (sent by e-mail) for each item, so if that fails... Why these aren't on the OBS sites, where at least you'd be able to see a proper preview image without having to save the one from the website first, and be covered for computer failures and the need to re-download (or if the file gets updated) I can't explain. I'd guess the artist doesn't know about, or understand, how OBS works, or is perhaps too terrified of copyright problems to use it. Unlike the hundreds of other artists and manufacturers who make a living this way, that is... I imagine many of us will have run into problems with some of these private download sites before too (let's not mention World Works Games...), as they can come and go without warning. However, as long as you make plenty of back-up copies as soon as you've downloaded these, if any are of interest, it may be worth the risk. Sorry but I don't understand your issues. They seem to be with the PaperBoys site. My experience has only been positive. You make your purchase and they send you an email with the links. BTW, the site also takes you to the downloads so you don't need to wait for the email. And, if you've created and account, you can reference the files. Some of the files are a single A4 sheet which is themed in some way. i.e. Imperial Romans with a particular shield pattern. You get variations for things like throwing pilum or swords drawn. The pages are FILLED with figures. The Peter Dennis product are far better value that the majority of publishers who only offer what - 8 or maybe 12 - figures on a single sheet. I look at those sheets and groan about how much paper I'm wasting! Very little effort to maximize the figures per sheet. But, to be fair, that may be b/c they are trying to optimize for those with automatic cutters. Still a waste of paper IMO.
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Post by Rhannon on Apr 9, 2022 23:35:09 GMT -9
Four years ago ... ;-)
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Post by wyvern on Apr 10, 2022 1:56:30 GMT -9
Sorry but I don't understand your issues. Yeah, as Rhannon noted, it's a bit late to be commenting on the situation as it was back in December 2018, when what I described WAS entirely accurate. The fact things have been OK from your experience since doesn't take away from what the situation was back then, though I'm sure it's useful to know that, especially for anyone who hasn't already picked-up everything they needed from the Helion books and the Paperboys website in the intervening years.
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Post by Rhannon on Apr 10, 2022 9:30:56 GMT -9
Sorry but I don't understand your issues. Yeah, as Rhannon noted, it's a bit late to be commenting on the situation as it was back in December 2018, when what I described WAS entirely accurate. The fact things have been OK from your experience since doesn't take away from what the situation was back then, though I'm sure it's useful to know that, especially for anyone who hasn't already picked-up everything they needed from the Helion books and the Paperboys website in the intervening years. Correct. Even I, who over the years have returned to the historical wargame and toy-soldiers (also historical paper soldiers), bought these helion booklets from the very beginning and then switched to digital products sold directly by Peter on his site. In the beginning there were certainly problems. but nothing that contacting Peter directly or the site would not be resolved in a very short time. Today there is some very small problem every now and then. Nothing in particular now.
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