Precinct Omega

Killwager/BLKOUT Minis

I wanted to add something other than yet more Infinity minis to the photography for Operation Kurgan, so I splashed out and ordered some minis from the Killwager shop: UN operators and civilians.

I subsequently realised that there seems to be a different shop for BLKOUT (which is, I think, a different game in the same setting), which is confusing. But I'm pretty sure the UN team is valid in both games and I have the BLKOUT rules, so I'll probably take it for a test d...

New Podcast Episode - Steamforged Games Buys Warmachine!

I was trying to make this a YouTube video, but learning my way around the new software is presenting... challenges. An MP3 with no audible distortions, when I add it to PowerDirector, suddenly has loads of audio distortions. It is to do with "clipping" which I notionally understand but cannot work out (a) where it came from or (b) how to get rid of it. Suggestions are welcome.

However, with the news hot off the press and rapidly evolving, I wanted to get this out there bef...

Atlas

The first Midnight Dark supplement, Operation Plantagenet, is on its way and will introduce some new features to the game that folks have been asking for. I've been teasing a few of these already either here or on the Discord, but there's a lot more to come and a lot of fine tuning that needs doing before some of it will be ready even for beta test consumption.

I've been undertaking some consulting work for the NHS after my last contract ended. But that should be ...

HTP video 0.1 - Command (early draft/proof of concept)

Learning a new software platform is always a challenge and, whilst I don't mind following along a tutorial, I've always found it easier just to dive in and work it out from scratch. Right now, I'm learning how to work with simple animations to graphically show the allocation of orders. This is about half the total length of the video and there's still lots to fix in this, but I thought you guys might like to know that I am working on it and, as I get more familiar with the softw...

Midnight Dark hits Electrum Best Seller!

That means 250 verified independent sales (so doesn't include anything I bought myself or gave away to reviewers). It's not mind-blowing, but it's still pretty cool for a one-man show.

It'll be interesting to dig out my old royalty reports from Osprey to compare how sales of Midnight Dark work against sales of Horizon Wars. First quarter sales for HW were about 2000, iirc, bu...

Horizon Wars: Midnight Imperium #05 - Solar Auxilia Infantry

We come to the Solar Auxilia infantry last in our series looking at the Legions Imperialis boxed set, mainly because they were the last image on Games Workshop's website, but also because these are the elements I'm honestly least familiar with. So bear with my efforts to approximately capture their quality on the tabletop.

Aethon Heavy Sentinel

2024-04-07 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post

Horizon Wars: Midnight Imperium #04 - Astartes Infantry

Finally we get to where a lot of people have been desperate to get. Astartes infantry. The original Horizon Wars did its best to accommodate this, but ultimately failed to really be able to distinguish between the enormous variety of infantry types in miniatures wargaming. Midnight Dark does a little better.

Dreadnought

Starting at the top of the image, let's do the wa...

Playing with PowerDirector

I mentioned on the Discord that I've gone in on Cyberlink PowerDirector 365 (and people give me grief for Horizon Wars: Midnight Dark!) as my new video editing platform and I'm playing with the tools it offers me.

I've downloaded this clip from iStock (for which I get free access included with my PD subscription, which is great), then I added the sticker effect, gave it a shadow and animated it to (kind of) track the one aircraft across the sky.

This is purely a proof-of-...

Well ain't that kick in the wallet

As some of you know, I take intellectual property rights quite seriously. But when I was first starting out, I wasn't as well informed as I am today and, like many bloggers, did occasionally treat anything on the Internet as public property.

I'm much better behaved, these days. But it was a bit of a blow to get a demand for £370 for the use of an image in a blog post I made back in 2020.

Fortunately, thanks to recent strong sales following the release of Midnight Dark, I'm not in...

Horizon Wars: Midnight Imperium #03 - Astartes Tanks

Having previously presented two Solar Auxilia tanks in the form of the Leman Russ and the Malcador, I turn, now, to the Space Marine tanks: the iconic Predator and the newfangled Sicaran.

Predator

The Predator, thankfully, comes with only one variant in the Legions Imperialis boxed set.

2024-04-03 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post

Midnight Dark Unit Card

Following a question on the Discord, I made a unit card document for Midnight Dark. I really like this design and might look at refreshing all of my player aids along these lines for a nice, consistent set.

You can order 250 from Vistaprint for £21.99 with the attached PDF.

Horizon Wars: Midnight Imperium #02 - Solar Auxilia Tanks

Feedback on the Warhound titan was very positive, so let's press on to the next thing in the core box: tanks!

Two kinds of tank come in the core box and this is where the new edition of Horizon Wars: Midnight Dark outshines its 2016 predecessor, in which tanks in a single army all had to basically be the same. Now, rather than having to just sort of blur them all together, we can make these two distinct. In fact, they even have different weapons that we can distingu...

I got a job offer from Games Workshop!

Those marvellous people at Games Workshop have seen my work on the Horizon Wars range of games and when they heard I was "between jobs", they reached out and offered me the role of Lead Designer on the new edition of Warhammer 40,000!

As you all know, I've been such a fan of Games Workshop over the years, full of admiration for their tight rules and stellar design principles a...

Horizon Wars: Midnight Imperium #01 - Warhound Titan

In response to a number of requests, I'm going to be statting up minis from Legions Imperialis to give players a sense of how to embed their games of Horizon Wars: Midnight Dark in the universe of Warhammer 40,000.

I'll be sharing these here on the Patreon, first, and get your thoughts and feedback. Then I'll make any necessary changes and push them out on my blog. Once I've been through the whole starter set, I'll publish a free set of army lists based on the...

Midnight Dark: Shakedown

I finally got time to finish Shakedown, the abbreviated version of the rules.

Work has been insane and it's been almost impossible to make time for Horizon Wars and Precinct Omega. What progress I have made has been incremental and barely worth showing you guys. But this feels like something worth sharing.

I'll be popping this up on WGV on a PWYW basis this weekend, but...

Midnight Dark - Experimental Rules #001 - Electronic Warfare

These are very rough and entirely un-tested. Have at.

Electronic Warfare Suites (EWS) can be acquired by an element in one of three ways:

1. Any recon element can be made into an EW element for 4 points, gaining the EWS upgrade but as a Trait.
2. Any command element can take the Signalmaster specialism for 5 points, which gives the element the EWS upgrade as a Trait. In addition, any element given an order by the Signalmaster gains ECM to the end of the turn.
3. Any...
   2024-02-03 18:17:27 +0000 UTC View Post

Midnight Dark: The First Month

This is business/money/publishing post, so if you're just here for beta content etc, you can move along.

I thought some patrons would be interested to know what my aspirations were for Midnight Dark when it first dropped, and what my plans were to achieve that aspiration.

Well, my target was $2000 profit - that is, a royalty payment for Midnight Dark in Feb 2024 of $2000 or more. This was a figure I largely plucked out of nowhere, but it was...

My Operation Kurgan Shopping List

For the photography for Operation Kurgan, I'm building a bit of a shopping list for minis that I don't own but which seem like they'll be relevant. I have sources for some of these, of course, but I'd love to hear suggestions from patrons for anything you think fits the bill:

• Spooks

All of our operators are, to some extent, intelligence assets, but the Spook is a little different. They are non-military, separate from their peers. They look and...

Midnight Dark FAQ & Errata v1.0

Dear Patrons,

I've compiled the preliminary FAQs and the mistakes I've either noticed or had pointed out to me. In most cases it's either a case of a wording being a relic from a previous, subtly-different version of the rules. In others, it's just that the rules weren't worded as clearly as they could have been, so I've taken the opportunity to improve things.

There is only one case of a rule actually being absent from the game and, predictably, it involves cover. Elements in bui...

Operation Kurgan Update

I thought folks might be mildly interested in seeing the early lay-out design for Operation Kurgan:

I'm looking to make an aesthetic contrast with Operation Nemesis that was presented like a hard-copy dossier, with this one presented more like a digital file. I made the graphic in the bottom left myself and I'm not good at this, so it will likely enjoy some improvements as an...

Example Elements

I posted a short piece on Facebook earlier today about the Dragonfly gunship mini from Microworld Games which I then realized could have been a slightly longer blog post, so I re-posted it to my blog with a few more thoughts appended.

FREE GAME: New Little Wars

If you were paying very careful attention (and I won't blame you if you weren't) you might have heard my interview with Jared Fishman on the 20-Sided Gamified podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-32-inside-the-mind-of-robey-jenkins/id16...

Midnight Dark - Defence Mech Discount Code

Ho, Defence Mech! Here is your special access code to new instructions:

9fe4799afa

Or follow the link below to redeem your discount code for a print copy of Horizon Wars: Midnight Dark at a special discount price just for you guys.

https://www.wargamevault.com/browse.php?discount=9fe4799afa

There are only 15 uses of this code permitted, so be good and only use i...

Cover fixed!

I won't write much now, because there's a lot to do. But old is on the left and new is on the right.

It's subtle, but I think it makes all the difference. I'll be off to release the game, now, but don't rush to buy as Patron-exclusive discount codes are on their way!

Printer Friendly Edition

Dear Patrons,

I had hoped, of course, to have the full-colour, full-flavour Horizon Wars: Midnight Dark to share with you by now but, as you know, we are going to have to wait a little longer for that.

However, by way of a Christmas treat I am very pleased to bring you the Printer Friendly edition of the rules, for every single patron, for free.

This will eventually be bundled with the PDF edition. It contains all of the rules and everything you need to play the gam...

Test Print!

I need you, patrons.

The interior is fine, but take a look at the cover. I've had an awful day so I'm inclined to be down on myself and not at all excited.

Is this OK to release? What say you?

UPDATE 12 Dec 23- I've decided that I'm going to re-do the cover (in fact, I've already re-done it). I've not only addressed the positioning of the components in a way that I think will centre everything more naturally, but I've also had a stab at "unmuting" some of the co...

Midnight Dark - What Next?

While I wait on tenderhooks for the test print of Horizon Wars: Midnight Dark to arrive (any day now!) I have not been idle. I've been working on a printer-friendly edition of the rules, which I plan to make as part of the PDF purchase, so people can buy the PDF and have the full-colour version with all of the rules, and a much shorter version with none of the art, photography, fiction or fanciness, and which won't consume an entire year's worth of printer ink for those who ...

Midnight Dark Final Proofs (Mech+)

OK, Mech-level backers, here is the final print proof for Midnight Dark subject to any last-minute tweaks you can throw my way.

This is a big, big document and it's not laid out for easy reading (this is the print edition layout) so be warned. It's all here. This is literally everything ready for the printers except the cover.

I will do a separate PDF edition that's individual pages and, by Christmas, a printer-friendly version as well. I also plan to ...

Midnight Dark: Credits & Acknowledgements

I'm on the "finishing touches" stage of the manuscript today, and among other things that means sorting out the credits for my patrons.

Everyone at the Heavy Elite level and above gets named credit, but if you don't want it, do please send me a message and I'll excise your name.

By default, I will use the name that you use on Patreon. If you would rather I use some other handle please also let me know and I will amend accordingly.

I'll be putting up a pre-r...

Midnight Dark Cover Art

And there it is! In all it's glory, David has done me proud with a fantastic piece of art that I will now go away and ruin by sticking text all over it.

For those of you who are new to the Patreon (thank you, thank you, for joining - I am a very bad creator and have many overdue obligations, but your contributions are literally lifeblood to this twitching business that main serves to funnel money from you to artists like David), here is the sketch brief I sent originally: 2023-11-15 20:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post