Showing posts with label western gaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label western gaming. Show all posts

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Rules Q&A: Movement rates and attack modifiers

We got a question through the Hawgleg Website last week, and I reckoned it would be a good idea to share it with ya'll, in case this has caused any of you to scratch yer heads.

"When taking an action, I attack 1st then move, do I still apply applicable movement modifier to shot even though I moved after shooting?"

Movement and combat is definitely a tricky matter, and it can cause some headaches unless you pay particular attention to tracking the movement rates for all miniatures during the game.

To the question above, the short answer is no, you would not apply the penalty in that instance.  Let's break it down:

  • Clem is running with a pistol in his hand down the street of the town because Jake is after him. Clem runs the full 12 inches and then stops. At this moment, until the start of his next action (when his name is pulled out of the hat) he is considered to be Running.
  • Jake's name is pulled from the hat. Since he has a rifle, he decides to Walk 3 inches and take a shot at Clem. Let's say they are 8 inches apart. Jake has a TN of 7 and rolls the dice and gets a 5. We now look at the modifiers: +2 for medium range with a rifle, but -3 because Clem is running. 5 + 2 - 2 = 5. It's a miss. Clem considers the range and modifiers and decides it's not worth it to waste the ammo (after all, with the rang
  • Clem's name is pulled from the hat. He is no longer considered to be running. In fact, as far as game play is concerned, he skids to a stop, turns around and takes a shot at Jake. Clem also has a TN of 7. Since he is no longer running, he does not have any movement modifiers. As for range, he is at 8 inches with a pistol, which puts him at long range and a -1 penalty. Jake is walking, so there are no movement penalties in that regard. So Clem rolls the dice and gets an 8. Looking at the numbers we see: 8 - 1 (for range) = 7: which means a hit! Clem rolls 1d6+1 damage and gets a 4.
  • Jake now decides to take his Retaliation Shot. Remember, Retaliation Shots are instantaneous -- so this happens before Clem can start moving again. Jake rolls a 5 (5 + 2 (range) = 7) and gets a hit! He rolls 1d6+2 for damage and gets a total of 8! Clem is now moderately wounded, which will affect his ability to move and shoot.
  • BUT, since all damage is applied at the END of the Action, it does not affect him right now. So Clem decides he'd better skeedaddle out of there as fast as he can, so he runs a full 12-inches away and hopes it's far enough to save his life, because now he's hurting.

Hope that answers the question. By the way, this might vary slightly from what you can read in the book. We've modified things since it was written, and subsequent editions and errata will correct that. The game is always evolving and this is how we actually handle this situation in games we play.

By the way, keeping up with movement can be a bit tricky, which is why we use red & yellow tokens under our minis to indicate movement. The yellow token indicates that the figure is trotting, a red token indicates he is running. This tends to help sort out a character's movement rate at any given time.


As you can see in this picture from an early playtest of Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood, two of the figures have reddish disks under them. These are used to indicate that they are running. The two figures (upper left) are on yellow disks to indicate that they are Trotting. Figures without any disks under them are Walking, and those three guys with the red splats under them are dead. Note that in the upper left corner it looks like two figures are on that one yellow disk (okay, it doesn't look that way, they are both on it), that's just because the zombie on the square base rushed the other figure and kinda knocked him off his disk. That sort of thing happens in games.

Although we do sell these tokens at our Website, you really can use anything you have on hand to help keep track of this. In a game with only a few minis, you can actually just leave it to memory, or have a notepad and jot down the current movement rate of each figure as it changes. But in a big, messy free-for-all like the one above? Movement tokens are probably the best way to go.


Hope this helps clear things up. See ya'll next Tuesday.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

S&S: Why did it take so long? Part 3


The next gap is almost a year long, and it's harder to explain from the news headlines. I was almost put in the hospital again during that time, but was able to recover with bed rest. And Arnica started selling in earnest. And the 10th and 11th adventures we selected were BIG adventures. They were probably overly ambitious because they each included some really cool extras. Dion Duran's "I Hit a Vein!" has a PDF map for a poster-size underground gold mine that can be printed out, one page at a time, on your color printer. And Tom Reed's "White Water, Bloody Boulders!" comes with 13 pages of map tiles to simulate a wild escape on a white water rive raft. Both of these bonuses took extra time to flesh out... But I (for one) think the wait was worth it. These two adventure accessories will turn any game into an ace high fandango!

Remember, you can get all of these adventures for FREE over at our Website: http://www.hawgleg.com/2007_contest_winner.asp



The Last Hurrah
I think the hardest part to explain is the final big gaps. It took us almost a year to publish the 12th adventure, and then another year for the three of us to force the matter and actually vote on who won. That honor, of course, went to Tom Reed's "The Great Dry Gulch Bank Robbery!" Now, part of that delay did come from the fact that we had wanted to print a 13th adventure to make it a baker's dozen. But we finally realized that this had been sitting idle for far too long and we just had to end it. So, end it we did.

And then came the next delay, which is entirely on me. We needed to set up a software solution for people to vote on the winner of the Jury's Prize (that is to say, second place). The problem was, I couldn't find an available solution that we could afford (honestly $99 to run a contest for one month?). And the freebie solutions didn't have the functionality we needed to capture email addresses, or if they did, they limited us to 100 respondents. Since we couldn't find what we needed, we decided that I should write it myself.

The really sad thing is, I got about 80% finished with the coding and back-end tools in two weekends, and then my work schedule went crazy and my computer crashed (my work was safe online but I didn't have an ASP development environment set up on my new laptop). That's when things REALLY slowed to a snail's pace. Countless distractions and other issues just kept putting S&S on the back burner until -- you guys really should thank him -- Paul got me to focus on it again so we can finally put this puppy to bed.

And that's where we are: Finally putting it to bed after starting it five years ago. This puts us 3.5 to 4 years behind schedule. I've got to say... Hawgleg has the most patient fans on the face of the earth. I think they always knew we'd get it done... it was just a matter of when. And, of course, that "when" is now.


Putting it all into a nutshell
I've had time to think about what happened and why. There were some reasons for some of the delays, and hospitalization and hurricanes are darned good reasons as to why we got thrown off track. But (and you decide if this is a reason or an excuse), I think it comes down to this: We underestimated the time and resources we would need to complete all the projects we had lined up and, because of that, we lost momentum on the S&S contest. 

I think we've managed to lasso the momentum right now and will manage to keep it going for the last mile of this journey. We're going to get the prizes awarded and delivered to the patient winners. And then we're going to pull the material into a book for the people out there who would like to purchase a permanent hard copy for their records and, let's be honest, to give one final thrill and some serious bragging rights to the fine gents who entered this contest. When all is said and done, they will have their work printed in a game book that they can show off to their buddies and to woo the ladies (okay, I suspect it will be more showing off than wooing, but you never know...).

By the way, just because we are collecting the Showdowns & Shootouts material into a book does NOT mean we are taking the original adventures offline. Our intention is to keep those up there as free downloads for anyone who wants to mosey by and take a gander at them. After all it's taken to get them up there, it would be a downright sin to do anything else.

Tuesday, come back for a rules discussion on Movement & Modifiers. 

Thursday, March 8, 2012

S&S: Why did it take so long, part 2

I think we really started off well. I had the idea for the Showdowns & Shootouts contest in December 2006 and when I ran it by Murphy and Paul, they loved the idea. I then set about getting the prize support for it and together we worked up the rules and came up with the general guidelines of what we were looking for: Class adventure ideas that would be easy to play with 1-4 teams and didn't require strange miniatures or terrain. We also weren't looking for someone to write high-quality prose that fit our house style; we wanted basic ideas, character names and game set-up (maps, objectives, and other cool stuff). We wrote this up on our Website and opened it up to both the Gutshot community and the general public.

Our goal was always to collect at least 12 high-quality adventures and put them online where they would always be available as a free download as a PDF. The idea was twofold:

  1. It's a reward for the people who have already shelled out their cash to buy our book.
  2. Potential customers might read these adventures and think they were cool enough to invest in buying a copy of Gutshot. (Yes, we're nice guys, but we ain't averse to capitalism!)
When we started, we had no idea what kind of reception we would get. We needed at least 12 good adventures to complete the contest... and in the end, we hand danged near 50 submissions, and there wasn't a stinker among them! Every single person who submitted an idea took our guidelines to heart and wrote something that -- with some level of editing -- could be published as a quality game that would be fun to play. To put it mildly, the only hard part for us was agreeing on which adventure to print next.


The S&S Timeline
The contest opened on Jan. 31, 2007. Our goal was to have all of the adventures published by the end of that year and then wrap the contest up by the first quarter of 2008. As you can see, that did not happen. Here's a breakdown of the timeline, as culled from the Hawgleg Website's news archives:

  • Showdows & Shootouts writing contest offers more than $500 in prizes , Jan. 31, 2007
  • First Showdowns & Shootouts adventure ready for download, April 26, 2007
  • Bullets for Breakfast -- New Showdowns & Shootouts Adventure Online, May 25, 2007
  • Sawbones release Mitchell from Hospital, June 26, 2007
  • 1,000 Horses for Helen -- New 'Showdowns & Shootouts' adventure now online!, July 20, 2007
  • Fourth Showdowns & Shootouts adventure released, Aug. 15, 2007
  • Holed Up: New S&S adventure ready for download!, Oct. 4, 2007
  • 6th S&S Adventure: Stand-off at Muckhole!, Oct. 14, 2007
  • 7th Showdowns & Shootouts adventure ready for download, Jan. 8, 2008
  • New S&S Adventure Released, Feb. 25, 2008
  • Hawgleg Publishing acquires Arnica Montana Real Estate, April 28, 2008
  • Klaus needs a Holiday New Showdowns & Shootouts Adventure online!, June 8, 2008
  • Ike Strike -- Hawgleg suspends operations due to hurricane, Sept. 22, 2008
  • Hawgleg reopens after Hurricane Ike, Oct. 22, 2008
  • I Hit a Vein 10th Showdowns & Shootouts adventure released, Nov. 12, 2008
  • Hawgleg announces Draw! RPG, Feb. 5, 2009
  • 11th Showddowns & Shootouts Adventure ready for download, May 4, 2009
  • Arnica Pre-Release Bonanza Sale!, Aug. 12, 2009
  • Pre-Release Sale Closes, Sept. 12, 2009
  • Final Showdowns & Shootouts Adventure published!, July 13, 2010
  • Showdowns & Shootouts winner announced, June 19, 2011
  • Vote now in the Showdowns & Shootouts Contest, March 1, 2012
I've highlighted the 12 adventures' release dates in red.

As you can see, we did really well up until the sixth adventure, and even the seventh & eighth weren't too far off schedule, especially when you consider I spent about a week in the hospital in early 2007 and had a few subsequent relapses of a health issue that kept me bed ridden during that year. No, in spite of that, we were doing okay.

And then we bought Arnica Montana from Mike McGraw. Honest to gosh, we had no idea how much of our time and resources that would take up. This was new territory for us and we don't regret it at all, but it was something new and the learning curve was tougher than we expected. Being honest again, I don't think we're masters of this technology or business model even to this day. But that's another story.

By the Ninth Adventure -- Klaus Needs a Holiday! -- we were almost back on track, and then Hurricane Ike hit. My home was severely damaged and we were without power for 16 days. We left town for part of it (my folks up in the hill country had power and my brother was getting married, so what the heck, we rode out part of the aftermath with my kinfolk). And there was some serious aftermath. 

Hurricane Ike Damage

Yes, that is a tree on the side of our house. If you look closely, you can see the other tree that smashed the corner of our garage... tapping our cars inside (fortunately, our other cars were at my wife's folks' house, so we got a ride over there and were able to drive around the devastated city while Houston limped back to life.

Ike took a lot of wind out of sails and scuttled us for months (hmmm, maybe I should stick to Western lingo and say, this really put us off our feed). There was so much to deal with in the aftermath that we didn't even think about the contest for a while. Hawgleg actually closed for an entire month, and we didn't get our next adventure out until a month after that.


I wrap it all up next Tuesday in Part 3

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

S&S: Why did it take so long? Part 1

Quite a number of years ago, I was working at a newspaper in the upper Rio Grande valley as a layout artist, typesetter and editor (yup, it was a small newspaper and we all did a variety of things). When I wasn't working on the next issue, the shop also took in additional print jobs to fill the time between our weekly editions. One of these projects was a book for a local author.

As part of the design, he asked for separate left/right page footers so the page number would always be on the outside. This was time consuming and ate up more time than was budget for. When he asked us why we were behind schedule, we told him of this reason and he said, "I don't want to hear excuses." I replied that this wasn't an excuse, but a reason." "There's no difference," he said. "You're wrong," I said. "Very wrong. An excuse is trying to explain why something happened or didn't happen and shift the blame around. But a reason is just a statement of fact. If you asked me why I couldn't make it to a meeting 150 miles away on time, an excuse would be that I didn't leave in time or that I had a flat tire. A reason would be that, you only told me about the meeting one hour ago and my Ford Pinto does not drive 150 miles an hour."

He conceded that there was, in fact, a difference between an excuse and a reason.

What you're about to read here is a combination of excuses and reasons. Some are just saying why we didn't do things when we should have, but I'm also going to state a few solid reasons why it took us so danged long to finish the Showdowns & Shootouts Adventure Writing Contest.

It all seemed like a good idea at the time
For those of you who have met us at conventions or visited the Hawgleg Forums on a regular basis, it won't come as news to you that we've been planning to release a Gutshot Campaign Guide. There were several ideas that we were fleshing out at the time when we published the Gutshot Core Rule Book and, because they weren't finished, we didn't include them. In short, the Campaign Guide in the core book is about one-third of the material we would have liked to include. But, some of it was only half baked at the time and if we had delayed publication in order to work on it, I doubt Gutshot would have seen print until 2007.

So, Gutshot comes out in 2005 and wins the Origins Award for Historical Miniatures Game of the Year in 2006. We suddenly had a lot of interest in our game and, consequently, we had a lot of people visiting our Website looking for game ideas. We needed some additional content to help generate interest in our game and to support the people who had already bought it. We talked about it and decided that we should post some free adventures online for people to download and print as PDFs.

Fortunately, we had a lot of great ideas and they were posted on the site as game reports. I started working on some to put on the site and then it hit me... this was the content for the Campaign Guide. Simply put, the adventures by the Midnight Riders and the Red Leg Gang (which were based actual campaigns) perfectly illustrated the concepts we wanted to include in the campaign guide. So that meant we couldn't use these for that purpose.

So... If we couldn't use the material we already had, then where would we get new material? We decided to have a contest and ask our readers to create some ideas for us. And so, the idea of a contest was born.



We get by with a LOT of help from our friends
What's a contest without prizes? Nothing, that's what. So we asked some of our friends in the gaming community and got a LOT of enthusiastic help from the following fine folks, who promptly offered to donate some very cool stuff to our cause. In all, they ponied up about $400 in prize donations!


Contest sponsors:
Arnica, Montana Real Estate
Knuckleduster
Scale Creep Miniatures
Whitewash City / Hotz Game Mats
Click on the sponsor's logo to visit their Website.


By the way, when we started the contest, Arnica was a separate company. We bought the company while the contest was ongoing, and that was a factor in why it took so long to finish. In addition to Arnica, we also appeared at conventions and started work on two other project in the interim: the Draw! RPG and Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood.

It seems my dad was right all those years ago... you should focus on doing one thing at a time and try to do it to the best of your ability. Excuse #1: We didn't do that. We jumped into new products and projects and didn't always account for the amount of time they would take, nor fully appreciate the impact they would have on our overall progress.

And yet, through all these changes, we just kept plugging along, knowing we'd get it together and have something really great when we finished. And we'll get into that more on Thursday.

Continued this Thursday when we show the entire S&S timeline.
Join us next Thursday for a change of pace with an example of combat movement rates.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Showdowns & Shootouts: Vote Now to Pick a Winner


As I said Tuesday, the time has finally come, mi amigos. We have finally opened the voting for the second-place prize in our long-running and much-delayed Showdowns & Shootouts Adventure Writing Contest. The details are all over on our Website, so you really should mosey over there and read it in detail.

Here's a relatively short version of what's going on:

  • Back in 2007 we started a contest where people would send us ideas for adventures suitable for use with Gutshot. Some were real short (set-up and some loose ideas), others were real detailed with character names, stats, and detailed maps and game objectives. The contest is, of course, called Showdowns & Shootouts.
  • We selected 12 of them, rewrote them into a standard format and posted them online as free PDFs for people to download for free.
  • We got some of our gaming buddies to help sponsor the contest: Arnica Montana, Hotz Game Mats, Whitewash City, Knuckleduster Productions, and Scale Creep Miniatures all donated prizes... in fact, all told we've got more than $500 in prizes! Again, check out the main site for a list of all the goodies.
  • Back in last summer (yup, summer 2010) we finally printed the last adventure. Yeah... there was a HUGE delay, which I'm gonna talk about shortly. Then in Summer 2011 we finally got around to decided who won the Grand Prize (we call it the Judge's Prize). It was awarded to Tom Reed for his adventure, "The Great Dry Gulch Bank Robbery!"
  • Now it's time to select the second prize, which we call the Jury's Prize. This one will be selected by the general public at the Hawgleg Website. It's a contest that's open to anyone who will (hopefully) take the time to read the adventures and pick the best of the group (not counting Tom's two entries -- he's already earned one prize). You can get the adventures for free here:  http://www.hawgleg.com/2007_contest_winner.asp
  • The author who receives the most votes will win the Jury's Prize and get more goodies than he can fit in his saddle bags (again, hit the main site for a full list).
  • Now, here's the cool part, everyone who votes in this contest is eligible to win a $60 prize package. Yup, just for taking the time to vote, you could cash in on some cool stuff!
Everyone who casts a vote in this contest will be eligible for a special Voter’s Prize package valued at about $60. The Voter’s Prize includes:
  • Whitewash City Starter CD ($15 value)
  • One item from the Gutshot General Store (T-shirt, mug, etc. approx. $20 value)
  • One copy of the collected S&S paperback book (approx. $20 value)
  • Gutshot miniature: ($5 value)

Not bad, eh? To vote in the contest, just head on over to the Hawgleg Website, kick back and read some great adventures, and then cast your vote for the one you like best.

You know, what, folks? It's late, I'm more than a little tuckered out from getting things ready (wrote the news story at the Website, created that graphic you see above, and even cleaned up a few coding errors I found in the back-end software that tracks your votes). So, I'm gonna sit back and finish my beer and we can palaver about the contest and why it took so danged long to finish during the next blog update on Tuesday.

Thanks fer yer patience, I'm beholdin' to ya. See ya Tuesday.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Showdowns & Shootouts: Get ready to vote!

As ya'll know, the Showdowns & Shootouts adventure writing contest took a LOT longer than anyone ever thought it would. You know, we had the usual delays... work, family, hospitalizations and hurricanes. But even still, we had no idea we'd lollygag so long on this contest.

Still, in spite of the long delay, it's actually been a big success in that it did exactly what we wanted it to do: We got some great ideas for Gutshot adventures. We collected about 50 submissions that are all fantastic. Honestly, there isn't a dud in the bunch. We had no problems at all selecting 12 adventures to develop into complete, printable material. You can find them here on the Winners page at our Website.

We finally printed the last adventure and selected the winner last summer. It was Tom Reed who won by penning The Great Drygulch Bank Robbery! It was a classic blend of cowhands, outlaws and a sheriff desperate to keep the peace. All in all, just the sort of thing that -- if it had been a classic Western movie -- might have starred Gary Cooper as the man with the tin badge. As the Judge's Prize Winner, Tom won a whole slew of goodies:
  • Whitewash City 6 x 4 feet felt game mat (approx. $40 value)
  • $60 Gift Certificate to Scale Creep Miniatures
  • 25mm painted stagecoach with team from Knuckleduster ($80 value)
  • Arnica, Montana resin Main Street Starter (5 buildings: $40 value)
  • Whitewash City Starter CD ($15 value)
  • One item from the Gutshot General Store (approx. $20 value)
  • One copy of the Showdowns & Shootouts collected book (approx. $20 value)
  • Gutshot miniature: ($5 value)
With the adventure finished, the last thing we had to do to finally put a bow on this thing was to have the readers vote on which was their favorite adventure. But there was one thing that had been holding us back. The survey software. I know this sounds minor, but we just couldn't find the right software. As sad as it sounds, we just didn't find the right software to collect the info we wanted. Okay, that's not true. For $25 a month (minimum) we could do it. But... we're cheap. Um, scratch that... we're frugal. We just didn't think it was a good time to dump a bunch of money into something that, in the long run, isn't going to be used that often.

So, I finally sat down and wrote it myself. I finally got it finished (well, except for one or two cosmetic things I may or may not address at this time). And I need to write a reporting module to tabulate the results. But, again, that's a back-end piece that I can do later, or just tabulate the results by hand.

So, at long last, the Voting is open to the public. The voting will open Thursday on March 1, 2012. At that time, I will add a link to this blog, and to the regularly scheduled update on Thursday.

You can cast your vote until midnight March 31, 2012. Oh, and did I mention that there is a prize being given to everyone who votes in this? We'll talk about that on Thursday.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Started working on new material...

I, for one, am very excited that my "day job" schedule has changed enough that I will be able to shift energy back to the various Hawgleg projects we've had sitting on the back burner.

Upcoming work includes:
  • Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood
  • Showdowns & Shootouts
  • Draw RPG
Coupled with some upcoming changes to our back-end practices (scheduling, accounting, etc.), things are definitely looking up to make 2012 a very exciting year for us. Keep checking here, and at our website, for more updates.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Getting ready for OwlCon...

Here it is on Tuesday night and I'm starting to gear up for OwlCon this weekend. Has it really been 13 years that I've attended?  Well... at least 12. I think I missed on year because I was ill. However, I'm not 100% sure about that.

Last night I worked on cleaning up my "craft room" so I could sit down and start painting again. I've got about 10-15 minis primed, based and partially painted, just waiting for me to finish painting them. I'd like to bring a few new women characters this year, along with some more "character zombies." The latter are definitely necessary, as I will be running a new game this year: Last THING Standing.

I'm looking forward to giving this a shake-down -- it's a variation of the old "Last Man Standing" game where everyone tries to shoot everyone else. Only this time, half of the players will be running zombies! I hope this is a fun change of pace for everyone (and me).

My game will be at 8 pm, Friday Feb. 3, 2012 at Rice University.

Even though my game says it's filled up, I always leave room for 2-3 "walk-ins," so feel free to swing by and see if I can fit you in.

http://owlcon.com/2012/events_minis.php#Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Arnica: Vacuum Chamber Report

As many of you may recall, we recently bought a 3-gallon vacuum chamber for degassing resin and silicone rubber. I just thought I'd give you a quick report and let you know that I'm VERY happy with this purchase.

RESIN
We're using both 5-minute and 10-minute curing resin, and so far I'm thrilled with the results. I can mix as aggressively as I want without fear of working air into the mix. Once it's all mixed (and looking quite milky), I pop it in the chamber and in less than 3 minutes it rises (bubbling ferociously), then collapses back down. Then it quickly starts a rolling boil (this happens when the chamber achieves a complete vacuum registering -30 inches), at which point I turn it off and slowly let the air vent back in. I remove the lid and my resin looks like crystal clear honey. I'm amazed at how clear it is. I pour it into the molds, run a thin stick or blade through some very tight spots (the cross bar on windows, deep & thin areas around door frames) and then sit back and watch it quickly cure. When I demold, there are no bubbles against the surface, and very seldom any on the back.

SILICONE
The resin is nice, but this is what I really bought it for. I'd been having lots of trouble with bubbles in my silicone. Right now I'm using silicone with a 45-minute pot life, so I've got plenty of time to pour, mix, and pour on the master, and mix more if I need it. Again, I can mix as aggressively as I like. I've tried using an electric mixer, but have not been satisfied with the results.

Now, the resin only doubles in size during the degassing process, so I can really do a lot if I want to (but I don't because I like to take my time pouring). But the silicone more than triples its size. Since I'm using 16-oz disposable plastic cups right now, I've found that I can put in about 130-140 grams of rubber and catalyst. More than that risks a serious mess because the rubber would overflow the container. Even at this amount I've occasionally had to vent the chamber (open the valve to let in a little air) to keep it from overflowing.

I'll tell ya, when the silicone is degassing, it's incredible to watch. It looks like some sort of mutant alien sponge that throbs and pulses with something that looks like it's got a heartbeat. It's really creepy looking, but in a cool way. If I were filming a movie, this is exactly what I would use for some sort of alien life form.

When it's degassed, I add I carefully pour it into the corner of the prepared mold box. Following a variety of advice I've received (including Michael over at www.moldmakingsilicone.com), I take the time to carefully brush the rubber over the master, pushing the rubber into thin and tight spaces. I also work it up in corners and other tight locations. Once I'm sure I've done a good job of pushing the rubber into the details, I think add more rubber. Because I'm using 45-minute pot life rubber, I can easily pour a second (or third) cup of rubber, degas it and then add it to the mold box. This helps me get the proper thickness I want for each mold.

So far, the molds have been amazingly bubble free. In fact, I've only seen three bubbles so far, and I know they came from me pouring the rubber too fast.

I know many of you have not had problems with bubbles, and there's been some speculation that I'm getting them because I live in a very humid part of Texas. I also know that $400 is an expensive tool for anyone's budget. But the fact remains, so far I'm thrilled with the vacuum chamber we bought and I fully believe it will pay for itself by helping prevent bad molds and bad resin pours.

By the way, if you're interested in looking at the vacuum chamber we bought, here's a link to the seller on ebay:
http://shop.ebay.com/pvac-1526/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=