The first $5 Monthly Mini chosen by it's winter was Raging Annie from Bad Squiddo Games. I've elected to paint her as a tactical goth girl. Needs a few more hours' work, but she's started well!
Next month's draw is coming up, if anyone feels like they want to up their backing to be in with a chance to win their own painted Zero Dark mini!
January's winner's mini is primed and ready for painting, too. I'll show her off another time.
I remember to turn on my microphone at 00:10:30, so skip to there. You miss nothing!
We had a great time on the livestream today, with some of my patrons. I know not everyone can make it, so check out the video! Be warned: it's a long one. I was playing for almost two hours. That is not a typical play length, but obviously I did a lot of explaining and suchlike as I went.
This mission is called Data Grab and is the first of the three missions...
2020-01-26 20:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
An X Team based on requests from Patrons takes on the first mission in Operation Gemini.
Now with two cameras for better sight of the table and less sight of me!
2020-01-26 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
This is your chance to let me know any characters, heroes, upgrades or even rules you'd like me to showcase in today's game.
2020-01-26 14:45:02 +0000 UTC View Post$5 Patrons will be given a link that's good from 1450
Ten minutes to chat and tell me if there are any specific heroes, characters, upgrades or even rules you would like me to highlight in today's livestream. We then go "all patrons" at 1500.
Everyone else will get a link from 1500
It's the same link! So the $5 Patrons will just get the link. Then at 1500 we'll go live on Patreon and YouTube. The hardware and so...
2020-01-26 13:51:45 +0000 UTC View Post
I've had a nice, fresh pile of copies of the Horizon Wars supplement, Over the Horizon. If you've already taken advantage of the offer to buy one from me at the cost price of £11, yours will be on its way shortly.
If you've not ordered a copy from me, you have until the weekend, when the book will hit my website. It'll be covered by the current 20%-off deal, so still cheaper than Wargame Vault, but that'll mark the end of my patrons-only exclusive offer.
I've been a bit slow on keeping up with these blogs. I know most of my patrons have now had a chance to pick through the rules and have probably already seen this stuff, but as I re-post these blogs to forums and my blog after you've had your exclusive previews, I thought it worth continuing.
Synthetic characters are some of my favourite bits of the game.
The first thing I need to point out, because some patrons pointed out that it wasn't immediately obvious, is that heroes ...
2020-01-24 09:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post... This time, he knows what he's doing!
Well, maybe. So I've livestreamed once, to Twitch.tv, via OBS. That went OK, but not great. Then I livestreamed again, to YouTube, directly. That went OK, but not great.
This time, I'm going to try to livestream to YouTube via OBS because that will allow me to send the images from two screens at once, so you can see me and I can talk to you, all friendly-like with our cups of tea and biscuits, but you will also be ab...
2020-01-23 21:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostI've decided to up the ante a bit and add a Monthly Mini Draw for all Patrons at $3 and above.
At the same time as I do the $5 Monthly Mini Draw for a painted mini of your choice, I'll be doing a $3 draw (every patron at $3 or more) and the winner will get an unpainted mini of my choice: something out of my painting backlog, basically! If you absolutely desperately want a 15mm mini rather than a 28mm mini, you can let me know and I'll see what I can do.
2020-01-21 09:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostI've had some amazing feedback and input from my patrons in the last couple of weeks.
First, I've attached the updated aide memoire. It's now double-sided with the bogey activations and complications table (only the advanced one) on the reverse - that should mean less of me poking at the rulebook while I'm playtesting!
Second, I've spent some money to upgrade my livestreaming capability. I now have two cameras - one of them on a flexible armature. And I also buil...
2020-01-20 17:30:39 +0000 UTC View PostThe livestream and subsequent video, despite my general ineptitude, was very popular and I have some new hardware on its way to enhance the experience. What else I will need will depend on how well things go next time.
I wondered whether my $5 patrons might like to have an exclusive 30-minute chat all of their own before I open up the livestream.
This will involve a more detailed breakdown of some of the design stuff: how it works and why and what some of the intentional tac...
2020-01-17 09:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostFollowing the livestream, I had some feedback on bonus actions and also realized that I did them slightly wrong. It used to be the case that bonus actions couldn't generate more bonus actions. I changed this so that they can generate more bonus actions but you can't use the same bonus action twice in one action (unless you have an upgrade that says you can, like Gun Fu). So there was a point when the sniper in the livestream had a great shooting bonus actio...
2020-01-16 09:16:00 +0000 UTC View PostIt's cool that, on the day I did my first livestream (despite having said in the plan that I'd only do that when we hit 20 patrons) I subsequently hit 20 patrons! Welcome, all the new folk. I will send you a personal message in due course if you've not had one already. I am deeply thankful for each and every one of you.
After the last livestream, one of you was so disgusted at my feeble efforts that he sent me a sum of money specifically to put towards improving the ha...
2020-01-15 09:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostAs announced in the livestream, the latest version of the beta is ready. There is at least one small mistake in the Complications Table that we spotted in the livestream. Or rather, it's not a mistake but the explanation isn't as obvious now as when I wrote it because the rules have changed since then.
A few new things. Biggest changes are aesthetic.
2020-01-13 09:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
So, at 1500 today I will try, again, to livestream - this time using YouTube which, actually, seems a lot more straightforward than Twitch.
It will still be via my laptop's webcam, so clunky as hell. I don't have the estimated minimum £300 I would need to set up a second camera and webcast it to livestream simultaneously. But, hey, from small acorns and all that.
We'll be playing a simplified variation of the Rescue special mission to keep things clear. It invol...
2020-01-12 14:50:29 +0000 UTC View PostTaking into account patrons' feedback and, importantly, where I think there's a market to speak of, I think one of the first Zero Dark supplements will be Hero Dark* (Mrs Precinct Omega has suggested an Ancient Rome supplement called Nero Dark, but I'm resisting). The actual first supplement will be a campaign book for the Fallen Earth, picking up the story from the end of Operation Gemini, with three linked operations to play through in solo or coop modes, plus new PvP missions. B...
2020-01-11 21:41:31 +0000 UTC View Post
OK, it's not Zero Dark (more on that later), but the Horizon Wars supplement, Over the Horizon is finally available and I know at least some of my patrons are into that. So to both celebrate and thank my patrons, I'm going to do TWO things:
1. An extra draw on 1st Feb to win a copy of both print and (if you don't already own it) digital editions of Over the Horizon. This will be for everyone, but you'll get a number of entries equal ...
2020-01-11 15:01:00 +0000 UTC View Posthttps://www.twitch.tv/precinctomega
Going properly chatty at 1500 GMT.
2020-01-11 14:42:57 +0000 UTC View PostI got a delivery, yesterday, of the mini that Jonathan won in the Monthly Mini Draw. I have Harley's on order, but the supplier has just recovered from a health wobble, so it might be a little longer (I ordered a few more from the supplier for myself and for Stefan, so there's a few minis coming).
Anyway, I thought this was an opportunity to do a little livestreaming to test out my new Twitch channel. I don't expect anyone to be watching. Frankly, I hope no one will be...
2020-01-07 15:23:13 +0000 UTC View PostThe winner of the second Monthly Mini Draw is...
Jonathan Lupton
Thank you, Jon and all the $5 patrons, for your support. I've had the order in from last month's winner and he's picked a real star of a mini. And I've ordered a mini for Stefan who graciously refused his prize.
I'll be painting up both of these as soon as they arrive and will post pics and, possibly, even some video of me painting, dull as that really ought to be (might make use of...
2020-01-02 11:27:28 +0000 UTC View PostUpgrades make up a large chunk of the rulebook, but I don't want to spend too long dwelling on them in the design blog. So this will be the last blog talking about them and I'll cover off the remaining categories:
Armour is a simple numerical value from 0 to 8 and it has three effects: first, it makes you harder to hit. This is borrowed directly from Horizon Wars and, although it sounds counter-intuitive, I'm sticking with it and I'll explain ...
2019-12-30 09:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
After three months, we finally sit down with that cup of tea I promised (it was very nice, but I talked so much it got cold). There's even biscuits.
So if you'd like to know the history of Zero Dark, why it took the shape it did and, along the way, hear something about my philosophy of game design, put the kettle on, grab yourself a Rich Tea and make your self comfy for my first patrons-only podcast episode.
At some point, there will be text version of this podcast for non-p...
2019-12-29 12:45:15 +0000 UTC View PostA quick question for patrons:
An important element of Zero Dark's setting and rules is that the game is assumed to take place in at least semi-darkness. But obviously your gaming table won't be dark. And I want to show off the miniatures and terrain I've carefully built and painted for the game.
So how should I approach the question of photography?
2019-12-26 06:45:54 +0000 UTC View Post
'Did you get what you were looking for?' asked Charterhouse. He was an emaciated-looking Siamese cat, black, almost five feet tall at the shoulder, and wearing a pair of brass-rimmed spectacles and an elaborate matching necklace. He lounged at the bar and peered closely into Jaq's face, his gold-yellow eyes looming and strange through the lenses of the spectacles.
'What?' muttered Jaq, still dazed from the experience. 'I - what? No.'
He shook his head and looked aroun...
2019-12-25 09:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
I can't lie. I'm really enjoying the Caterpillar Construction Express toy I found. Painting it up in full post-apocalyptic style is a lot of fun.
In this one, a Terran Survivor from the radical Gaian movement (Ghosts of Gaia, from Bad Squiddo) is supported by her personal remote (Raptor UAV from Strato Minis Studio).2019-12-22 14:56:40 +0000 UTC
View Post
In the Zero Dark setting, it's kind of assumed that your X Team is going to be made up of specialists: serious, military operators who consider the work of entering an area, killing the enemy, securing the objective and extracting to base to be... well, their job. It's a job they are good at and they understand and accept those risks.
It should be said that, for those who want to, you can entirely ignore the setting and create your own. The team could just be a rag-...
2019-12-16 21:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostIn recent chats with the $5+ patrons - who get invited to this sort of thing - it was raised that, whilst they are enjoying the Design Blog, they would love to get more insight into why some things in ZD are as they are. Why, for example, are there no weapons tables? Why can't heroes be mechs? Why are there five levels of wounded?
I would love to go into this stuff. It's partly about game design, partly about my own military experience ...
2019-12-16 11:27:49 +0000 UTC View PostHello, double-secret Top Tier patrons...
One of the things I wanted to do with you guys, given how generously you are already supporting Zero Dark, was to find out if you had any bright ideas - either from your experience of backing other Patreon campaigns or just off the tops of your heads - about what else I could be offering to encourage new patrons, or to encourage more existing patrons to raise their backing up to $5/month.
I already plan to make more videos like the...
2019-12-13 09:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm aware that a miniatures game is sold by the pictures it builds in players' heads, so I'll be finishing a lot of painting over the next few weeks and getting some photography done.
This will serve to illustrate the kinds of miniatures, manufacturers and scenery the game encourages.
This first one shows a Heavy Elite (Evil Bear Wargames) defending an objective (MicroArt Studio) from an adul...
Postponed from earlier this month after patron Stefan Green declined his prize on the flimsy basis that he and I are friends IRL (he's still getting a prize, but to punish him for his hubris, I'll decide what it is - MUAHAHAHA!), I re-ran the draw this morning and pleased to announce the first winner of a Monthly Mini Draw is...
Harley Picurro!
I can't wait to find out what mini Harley would like to get painted for Zero Dark.
As an interest...
2019-12-11 15:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post