In response to requests, I am going to start releasing a Mission of the Month each month on the 1st of the month, starting in May. For May and June, these will be Zero Dark missions and will, at least initially, be exclusively for Defence Mech patrons.
From July, we will alternate months, with a mission for Infinite Dark in July. However, I'm setting a new funding goal for the Patreon. If I can reach $500 per month, I will double up: every month will mean a mi...
2021-04-26 09:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Fancy a chance at sort-of fame?
The Horizon Wars: Infinite Dark manuscript is looking positively glorious, but I have an absolute shed-load of gaps to fill which need fluff text of all sorts. So would you like to appear in the book, patrons? Or to see your OC immortalized in the canon?
All you need to do is tell me the name of your OC (or your own name, if you'd like that to appear) and a little about them. Are they a plucky young pilot? A grizzled smuggler? A pirat...
2021-04-23 08:01:01 +0000 UTC
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I can't lie, I was rooting for "Access", but the patrons have spoken and "Unknown" took it by a nose.
So I'm giving you guys a week's head-start before I post publicly asking for submissions.
These are the rules:
1. Submissions should be in one of four categories: rules, fiction, photography or art.
a. All submissions should evoke the theme "Unknown". There is broad leeway in how submissions evoke the theme, but submissions will be judged, at least in part, on how well...
2021-04-21 13:00:07 +0000 UTC
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I decided to use up a couple of extra polystyrene hemispheres I had lying around but, instead of making them into regular moonlets, I thought I'd combine them with a piece of scrap MDF I had to make a terrain piece that could double as either a jump-gate or a moonlet, depending on my mood and requirements.
But now I've got this far, I can't decide how best to base it and thought I'd seek your suggestions.
Option 1:
2021-04-21 07:10:43 +0000 UTC
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Shooting is a critical part of most tabletop miniatures wargames, but it is frequently given woefully little consideration by designers who think in narrow terms about the experiences of the soldiers they represent. Players, too, often think purely in terms of "hit" or "miss", without engaging creatively with the imaginative space of the tabletop.
In this episode, I think about what designers can do to more effectively communicate the experience of shooting and range combat, be it with ...
2021-04-16 11:00:44 +0000 UTC
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These are sketch concepts rather than finished works, but I thought you'd be interested.
I asked Tan to do illustrations of three sample heroes, including the narrative lead, Klayr Ngana. Coordinating between Tan and David will be tricky to see if I can get both illustrations of her to look the same. I've fed back to him to make her trousers more tailored and less like jeans, but otherwise I'm loving where we're at so far.
Here's a challenge for you. The illustrations ...
2021-04-15 08:58:47 +0000 UTC
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David shared an early sketch of the cover with me, based on my own drawing that I shared with you guys last year.
I love that he's given Klayr a more elegant posture compared to my version. Her left hand will be engaging with a holographic control and there will be a hologram of a ship in the foreground. The three figures represent the three commands levels in the game.
I've got to give David feedback on this quite quickly, so throw any thoughts my way.
2021-04-13 18:38:31 +0000 UTC
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I had some reservations regarding my original printer. The price was very high, and the only available material was white, which was incredibly hard to work with, when it came to QC. So I took the advice of my sculptor and had Mr Lee's Minis take a stab at them.
The overallyquality of the print was about the same, but Kyle (not Lee, confusingly) prints in grey resin and exclusively does minis, so the results are superi...
2021-04-13 08:34:53 +0000 UTC
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OK, I've had a brief brainstorm of the theme for the compendium, and would welcome your feedback.
Access could be about breaking in or out, hacking, or just rules for doors and locks in more detail. It could potentially be broader, dealing with disability in the rules or in terms of making the rules themselves more accessible.
Unknown could be about secrets, mystical forces or aliens. It could be about dealing with informants, or trying to establi...
2021-04-10 15:00:05 +0000 UTC
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My budget ran a little dry on the art front, which led me to have a bit of a stress a few weeks ago (it collided with other things and was a contributor - albeit a small one - to my panic attack). But as I mentioned in my podcast episode on commissioning art, it helps to have spent over a decade fostering contacts.
I've commissioned four pieces of original art for the book - the cover and three interior illustrations from regular contributors David Sondered and Tan Ho Sim. And that blew...
2021-04-05 18:15:11 +0000 UTC
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I'm going to try a thing. I mentioned this idea before, but now I'm fleshing it out somewhat.
The idea is to try to have an annual compendium of fan-created material for Horizon Wars: Zero Dark. Each compendium will have a theme of some sort and submitted material has to have an at-least-loose connection to the theme. Expanding on the original idea, my thoughts are to have four categories of submission:
1. Articles
This is the main...
2021-04-05 12:00:04 +0000 UTC
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A couple of weeks ago, I got to meet up virtually with patron Andy Strauss, whose input into the development of Horizon Wars: Infinite Dark was really insightful and informed from a lifelong obsession with spaceship combat games.
We had a chat about the culture of wargaming in Brazil, and walked through the evolution of spaceship combat games over the last few decades or so.
EDIT - Andy pointed out that I accidentally left in about five minutes of him and me discussing points syst...
2021-04-02 11:00:04 +0000 UTC
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NB: Not an April Fool. ;)
The Patreon has got a bit deep, these days, making it hard for folks to find things that might interest them. So I'm going to do a monthly compendium post with hyperlinks to the most recent and/or most significant content people might be keen to see.
Free Rules!
Most people are here for tabletop wargames content, so these links are for you:
2021-04-01 11:00:04 +0000 UTC
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A radical new concept in miniatures game design, Pitch Black takes the concept of visibility levels in Horizon Wars: Zero Dark to a whole new level by having players fight in the actual dark!
Deploy your forces, set your timer and turn out the lights! Each player then takes it in turns to hit the table with a hammer, trying to remember where their opponent placed their minis and trying to shake their own out of the firing line with the vibrations of their impact....
2021-04-01 07:00:06 +0000 UTC
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For those of you who aren't aware, Precinct Omega as the company it is today basically began with the purchase of the intellectual property rights to a range of miniatures called "ballmonsters", which are, well, ball-shaped monsters.
Occasionally I get asked when I'm going to release the game I intended to write for them, and my answer has always been "well, not for a while, because I just can't seem to write a game that captures the spirit of cheerfully disgusting violent humour that I...
2021-03-27 14:26:56 +0000 UTC
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I shared the video with you guys already (because that's what patrons are for!), but here's a link to the page where TTG is promoting Horizon Wars: Zero Dark and my little introduction to it. I would really appreciate the signal boost from all my patrons to get word out about this little effort on my part.
2021-03-27 08:01:00 +0000 UTC
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I've noticed that somehow, in a conflict of communication between me and the sculptor, Anya's rifle is two thirds the size of Kurtz's. This will mean having to go through prototyping again, but I'm painting up the demo mini anyway, so you can see how she looks.
2021-03-26 15:10:36 +0000 UTC
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The second of the test prints for the Zero Dark Miniatures project arrived this morning and I did a test assembly as shown above.
I'm still trying to decide whether these prints are adequate to go to casting, but we've got two more designs still in process, so there's no rush. I'm having a look around, though, at industrial printing services that can render at levels lower than 10 micron. So if anyone knows or can recommend any, do let me know.
I'm painting up Kurtz a...
2021-03-23 11:44:09 +0000 UTC
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The first set of prints has arrived, in the form of this four-piece kit.
Obviously, the white SLA makes it very hard to show you, but as far as I can tell, the print looks flawless. I'll be painting this one up as a proof of concept in due course, and some work may need to be done to prep the prints for casting, but I'm moving forward at last, it feels like.
Abdalla should arrive shortly, so I can press on with getting moulds made for her and for Kurtz, while we finish the scul...
2021-03-20 12:15:46 +0000 UTC
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If you ever want to get a group of wargamers talking (like we need the encouragement) just ask them about points systems. It's one of the most controversial and hotly-contested arguments to be had in our world.
In this podcast, I take a look at not only the different approaches to points systems that designers can take, but also at the reasons why designers use (or don't use) points systems. I discuss the alternatives, what both designers and players should bear in mind when...
2021-03-19 13:37:20 +0000 UTC
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This is a follow-up to the draft I posted last month, just for anyone who's interested to check if their favourite question or mistake hasn't been addressed.
If I hear nothing else, I'll post it on WGV at the end of the week.
WOMBAT UPDATE
For those who saw that Livestream last Friday, Wombat (who is a dog, not a wombat) has had a CT scan and the bad news is that his tumour is metastatic. The good news is that it's still operable. The extra bad news is that I nee...
2021-03-15 13:24:47 +0000 UTC
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On 27-28 March 2021, Tabletop Gaming magazine will be hosting a Spring Showcase - a virtual convention, with content from all across the tabletop world and, as an advertiser with their sister magazine, Miniature Wargames, I was invited to contribute a video.
So in a frantic two hours between recording my podcast and going live for my weekly livestream, I made a thing.
I thought my patrons might enjoy a preview. There shouldn't be anything here you don't alr...
2021-03-15 09:00:03 +0000 UTC
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The wargames world - much like the rest of it - seems to be waking up from COVID-19 with a wealth of new miniatures releases ready to swamp us with joy. But that means that now is the perfect time to be thinking about the post-COVID world and what, perhaps, we should be doing and thinking differently based on what we've learned.
Warmonger Miniatures
2021-03-12 12:00:04 +0000 UTC
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[Photo credit to Gav Thorpe]
First of all, an apology to those patrons who got the first batch of notebooks, because I sent them out with no scribbles in by me. If you'd like a scribble, let me know and I'll send one on or, if you're in the UK, come and find me at a future event and I'll scribble for you!
Second, I've reached out to everyone else who expressed an interest in a notebook to ask for their billing details.
If you missed the message, never got around to rep...
2021-03-12 09:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Here it is, folks!
So, a few things about the beta edition before you get into it:
This document is as much a tool for me as it is a read for you. So there are blank pages and other pieces of space. They are there for me either to fill with art/photography to leave adjustment space between sections when I have to move art etc around.
It's not really designed to be printer-friendly, so if you want to print it, you might want to select exactly the pages you want to...
2021-03-09 09:01:00 +0000 UTC
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A quick summary for new patrons:
Back last Autumn, I decided to have a go at commissioning miniatures inspired by the characters in the Operation Nemesis operation manual for Horizon Wars: Zero Dark. Thanks to some time spent consulting over the Summer, I had some leeway in my budget and I found a digital artist to begin sculpting. The project is currently some months behind the original schedule, but that's OK, because it's technically under budget, too.
2021-03-09 08:38:41 +0000 UTC
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This week, in a sight deviation from the usual schedule, I take a look at the last ten months of podcasting and re-visit some of the topics I've talked about, and also bring up some listener feedback for a response.
2021-03-05 12:01:01 +0000 UTC
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