Precinct Omega

Operation Nemesis: Finished! (sort of)

OK, it's a long, long ways from being finished finished, but I've finally finished the manuscript.  I'm giving it a little polish over the next couple of weeks, and then I'll fling it up here at the start of August.  Defence Mech patrons will get it first for a couple of weeks.  Once I've taken into account any observations and feedback I get from them, I'll put it up for the rest of my patrons.

This will be a very basic document.  No bells.  No whistle...

Inspiration comes when you least expect it...

I thought I'd share this with you guys.

I was chatting with one of you on the Discord (currently only for Defence Mech patrons, but this will change in September) about a Heavy Gear Blitz version of Horizon Wars that he's working on and he pointed me toward Shiny Games, who I immediately respect for trading on the fact that they don't stock GW products :D.

Anyway, I was browsing through the Heavy Gear stuff, b...

Antediluvium Help

 OK, guys, so I need six "tribes" for AD.  I've got:

• Police (ofc)
• Hackers (natch)
• Organized Crime
• Wildlings (pseudo survivalists)
• Antimelders (political agitators with an old-fashioned attachment to this "democracy" thing)

I need one more.

I'm mostly torn between robots (runaway AIs who have escaped from the control of the meld), corporations (enforcing the status quo for fun and profit) and cultists (weirdos who will...

Precinct Omega Weekly Miniatures News #12 - The Icarus Effect

 So, Plast Craft Games looks like they're going under.  How did this runaway success and tabletop tech leader get into such trouble?  Well... I can't pretend I really know, but I'll take a good guess in this week's episode.

A new thought...

So I occasionally get hit with the inspiration brick and have to write something down before it escapes, and as I've run out of scheduled posts to keep you entertained while I'm distracted with "proper" work I thought I'd share this one with you:

Zero Dark: Antediluvium

This would be a supplement for Zero Dark, set in the period immediately before the Fall, within the city-states, focused on the non-compliant citizens - people living outcast lives within the citi...

FEAR Tiles v0.2

Given the caveats that I am not an artist, check out what I did!

These are all the tiles you'll need to play the "Tunnel Vision" mission in Operation Nemesis.  Very basic, yes.  A certain amount of repetition among the splashes, I agree.  But for a first try... well, OK, second... no, let's be honest, third...  Look, I've been trying to do this for a while, learning a little bit more, each time I do it.

But I'm quite pleased with this very simple initi...

Weekly Miniatures News Podcast #11 - De-Fund TMP?

There was some excitement recently over a falling-out between venerable miniatures wargaming forum, The Miniatures Page, and respected historical game design partnership, Too Fat Lardies.

You know this stuff always gets my little grey cells pumping, so I thought I weigh in some factual, legal and philosophical analysis.  But it's not just theore...

Infinite Dark Design Blog 7 - New Thoughts

To help better inform my thinking for this game, I've been hanging out on the Starship Miniatures Gaming FB group, getting a sense of the ships people play with, the games they favour and all sort of other little details.  For example, I've been fascinated by the range of different bases you see on starship miniatures, and the different approaches to the use of dice, counters and "terrai...

Ow. My brain. My heart.

It has been a haaard week.  Originally my clients and I though that I'd be working on their restructure project for about three days a week, with room to stretch to four if needed.  But in practice, it's been full-time, 45-50 hours this last week.

My client is in the catering and hospitality sector, with field-based workers all over the UK.  And as the sector has taken a huge hit in the COVID crisis, they are having to cut headcount by about 30%.  Thankfully, the sta...

Precinct Omega Weekly Miniatures News #10 - 3rd July 2020 - Reasons to be Cheerful

Due to the other stuff going on in my life, I pre-recorded this podcast, so it doesn't include some important things I'd like to talk about.  I'll get to those next week!

Companies mentioned:

Artejoal Studios and their awful Kickstarter 

2020-07-03 11:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post

In a slight change to our published plans...

If you've already seen the Fireside chat video, this is a summary of the important points, which I'm repeating here for those who may not have the time or inclination to watch a video.

Those of you who know me IRL or who have paid attention to some of my general media presence will be aware that, before I decided to sack it all in and do this full time, I was a moderately senior and well-regarded professional in the world of small enterprise Human Resources.

A contact from those d...

Experimental Rules #7 - The Long Game

As we grow the concept of Zero Dark to incorporate more complex tabletops - corridors, doors, barricades, sentinels etc - so the desire to take the opportunity to exploit them becomes impeded by another core feature of Zero Dark: the ticking clock of the Control Deck.

As we contemplate the end of lockdown and the easing of restrictions on our ability to meet others and play Versus games with them, so I think this is going to become more important.  Players are goi...

Fireside Chat #3 - June 2020

This one is quite important, to the extent that I will be posting a detailed summary of its key points later today, so if you don't have time to watch this, be sure to read the post later.

Precinct Omega Weekly Miniatures News #9 - Mech Week!

I didn't get to spend as much time doing mech stuff as I wanted to in Mech Week, but I did record this podcast (among other things).

So I have a chat about mechs, and why I think they're awesome, even when they're stupid.

Farsight (Warchest)

Monsterpocalypse 2020-06-26 11:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post

#MechWeek!

I've unilaterally decided that the week commencing 22nd June will henceforth be The International Ambulatory Transport Platform Appreciation Period, or #MechWeek for short!!

Patrons are getting a little advance notice that from Monday 22nd to Sunday 28th June, all mechs on the Precinct Omega website will be at 15% off to celebrate.

I'll be posting, blogging, painting and generally geeking out about mechs as much as time allows for the whole week, so if you don't already, follow me...

Weekly Miniatures News #8 - Game-Agnostic Miniatures

There's been a lot of chat about miniatures-agnostic games, lately, so I instead take a look at game-agnostic miniatures instead, this week.

Manufacturers mentioned are:

Puppetswar 

Anvil Industry 

Hasslefree Miniatures 

2020-06-20 15:11:06 +0000 UTC View Post

Corridors & Tiles v0.1

Mission 10 in Operation NEMESIS - as I've previously mentioned - will take place in an underground corridor network.  Although I'm hoping to establish a partnership with an existing designer of corridor pieces, my efforts in that direction have, so far, borne no fruit.

Rather than wait around, therefore, I've started designing my own.

I'm really not sure that I count as adequately competent to be doing this, but at the very least I'll be able to create a moderately g...

How To Play Zero Dark #2 - Basic Shooting

I know all of you already know how to play Zero Dark, but I thought I'd share the latest fruits of my efforts, sans voiceover, but very much avec lots of special effects.

I'd love to know from you what parts of the game you think would benefit from a tutorial video.

More Custom Deck Previews

I'll be honest, although I'm a long way from being a professional graphic designer, I rate myself as am amateur graphic designer.

The layout for Over the Horizon taught me a lot.  I put that to work in Zero Dark, and learned more.  Hopefully Operation NEMESIS will show what I've learned with another step forward.

So, when I struggled to find a graphic designer to work with on the card design process I thought I'd take a stab at it, myself. &nbs...

Op Nemesis - Cover Art Preview - Exclusive!

A patrons-only exclusive preview of the cover art for Operation Nemesis!

I'm not sure what to say about this except "ooooooh!"  I am loving this.  This is far from the whole piece and isn't quite finished yet, but suffice to say that the team looks very cool and very dangerous and I'm only further motivated to commission someone to make me miniatures of these guys, as well as the ones on the core rulebook cover...

Op Nemesis Art Update

My new artist, Tan, has completed work on the first two smaller sketches I've asked for as what I think of as "bumper" illustrations.  They provide context and interest to the book but are also user to shift or "bump" the rest of the text around to provide a more natural fit to the page.

I think Tan's style is a nice counter-point to David's and I'm looking forward to working with him more in the future.

Custom Control Deck - Early Concept

I've discussed before my aspiration to produce a custom Control Deck for Zero Dark.  The idea would be to run a Kickstarter for the product in around November/December for delivery probably by the following April.  This would be a deck of 54 custom playing cards with the imagery of the suits and the face cards themed around the setting and story of Zero Dark.

Stretch goals would then include:

- Two additional Jokers to allow you to add complications to ...

Weekly Miniatures News #7 - Why so serious?

A short one, this week, because I was occupied with an astonishing breadth of other things so had less time for both thinking and recording.

Do we take our games too seriously sometimes?  I ponder where such things can lead, why we shouldn't let it and look at a few new and emerging products that aim to help us keep a sense of proportion when we play with our dolls.

Spellcrow 

2020-06-12 16:09:52 +0000 UTC View Post

Experimental Rules #6 - Doors

To accompany the Zero Dark: FEAR rules for tunnels and other enclosed spaces, I wrote some rules for doors, but these are also a useful adjunct for normal playing surfaces, too.

 Doors

If you play Horizon Wars: Zero Dark using scenery that permits models to be placed inside buildings, you may also want the buildings to have doors that can be opened and closed, locked or unlocked.  Some missions will require such buildings and i...

Experimental Rules #5 - Zero Dark: FEAR

 (Fighting in Enclosed AReas)

Zero Dark: FEAR will eventually be a mini supplement for Horizon Wars: Zero Dark.  I'm going to include these rules free in Zero Dark: Operation Nemesis to allow you to play one of the missions.  But in due course it will also be released as a standalone supplement, with its own narrative, missions and a terrifying new take on the Red Force (prepare for them being properly scary).

I'm not givi...

Zero Dark Tokens v0.2

It is weirdly compelling, creating tokens, once you start.

I've been making a set and colouring in the edges with permanent marker, but I've decided to wait until my shipment of primer arrives (my local dealer was out of stock, so I had to go online and it is taking aaaaages).  I'm just going to prime a bunch of 15mm MDF rounds in black, then glue the tokens on, then gloss varnish the lot.

Anyway, the attached now has tokens for prone, stunned(1-2), stre...