Saturday 30 September 2017

The Resurrection

Well its been nearly two months, but its time for another post on here.  I've actually got a lot to say.  Even more I have a lot to do at the moment.  This post, in part, is going to be partly a snap shot of the last month, so I hope people don't mind indulging me.  There is, a little bit of a love in at the end as well.  Sorry.

I'm a Dad

So the first thing to note is that in the last 5 weeks I became a Dad.  My life has, for obvious reasons, been a little on hold and Gaming has taken a sensible hit in order to fit everything in.  That post 2 months ago where I planned to do more gaming.. well not just yet hey.  However, Hackett Jnr came along on the 28th August, at a pretty big 10lb 15. 

Yes, it is easily the hardest thing I've ever done, and as of yet I would say the hard times have outweighed the good.  I wouldn't change it for the world though.

Thing is it also has made me set plans in motion which weren't there before, or perhaps have been in the back of my mind.  So, lets start seeing what is now in the pipeline.



Grumpy Gamers

So, at the beginning of last month I said I might like to do a podcast.  Well as it happens I have recorded a podcast, but as it happens it probably won't see the light of day.  I recorded it before the little one was born, so there are a few things which are now out of date in there and I want to change.  More importantly there was some news in there which is now totally out of date.  See more about that later.

So Episode 0 of Grumpy Gamers is on hold for now, but the plan is to record a new episode soon and get it out into the airways.  My original aim was to have two different series, one for Guild Ball and one for Wild West Exodus, but instead I'm going to focus on a single series which can concentrate on Guild Ball, but wander off piste from time to time when the mood takes me (or whoever is on with me, if I get guests).  Now this is partly because I'm probably going to get more time to play Guild Ball than anything else, but you will see soon enough in this post that there are going to be other things I want to talk about.

Paragons of War

Way, way back when I talked about writing my own set of wargaming rules, and an idea I had for how to do the combat.  Yeah, well that went in the bin shortly afterwards, but the idea of writing my own rule set didn't ever go away.

Well, I'm actually writing something now.  I'm pretty much certain it'll fall into the homebrew category, and potentially no one other than me and some nebulous opponent will play it (or even see it.  I am satisfied with that state of affairs, its actually been nice to just come up with ideas and get them onto paper.  I'm going to use the blog to drop a couple of spoilers (rather than my facebook page which has already had some ramblings).  Clearly I'm also going to be looking for a couple of things moving forward.  I'm not going to be able to look at creating a miniature range, all of this has to be based on people using other models from other systems and suppliers.  However, I would like to put together a professional looking rulebook, so some artists would be handy.  I've also got the basic idea of background as well, but fleshing out the world (or as it happens worlds) would be really nice.

The basic idea of background.. well... (I make no claims this is 100% original content, I had to start somewhere).

The Paragons have existed since time began, beings without compare to anything else in the stable realms.  While we have named each of them and their sphere of influence, these concepts mean little to them.  What we do know, is that over time, each one has visited the realms and left their mark in some way.  To them, we are little more than ants, easily pushed aside in the hunt for more power and more control over the unformed mists.

Eons ago the Paragons were held in sway by one of their own.  It was only the Paragon of Life who had the strength to claim the unformed, unstable realms, and weave them into new worlds full of beings both intelligent and animal.  As Life created new worlds its power grew, each realm within its domain feeding it the power needed to subjugate its brethren.  Those creatures it created were cared for, in a way.  We were allowed to spread on our worlds, on our own terms, for all Life needed was for us to Live.  The Immortals of the past, aspects of the Paragon of Life, were granted powers by their mother, and lived forever.

The day the Paragon of Death appeared from the mist changed everything.  Life was cut down, unaware of what Death was capable of, and the balance of power was forever broken.

Spartan

Ok so enough self aggrandizing, now for a little bit of a thank you (to people who have no idea who I am).  When I first started this blog I made a pass away comment about how a small game called Dystopian Wars got be back into wargaming.  It was a lot of fun, reminded me of Man O'War and frankly just wasn't a Games Workshop money making machine.

Sadly Spartan Games went under last month.  This was part of my podcast, and how sad I was about the loss of Dystopian Wars, Firestorm Armada and the various spin offs. 

Now, I personally think a lot of the reason this happened was because they just kept expanding their range without really thinking about the quality of it, if they could support that big a range, and finally if the customer base was there to do it.  In either case, it would appear production capacity wasn't in a position to match requirements, and financial income wasn't being generated by outgoing miniatures and games.

I have to say last month I was disappointed.  I've not played Dystopian Wars for a long time, but it was the game that got me into what non-GW companies had to offer, and my gaming has been better because of it.

Warcradle

Now another game I've not played enough of is Wild West Exodus v2, but the main thing here is that a new company (Warcradle) picked up an older game, gave it a bit of a brush up and frankly came up with a lovely game.  I decided to write a little bit for their blog, which they kindly posted, and then baby (and also moving house) stopped me doing more.

However, I have to now say that Warcradle are one of my favourite companies ever and I wish I could work for them (without having to move, that would be perfect).

See, they very recently announced that they have purchased the rights to Dystopian Wars, Firestorm Armada, I assume all of the Halo titles, plus the various spin off from all of these games.  I didn't spot if they also have the rights to Uncharted Seas (Spartan's old fantasy ship game), but if they have that is also outstanding.

Oh to be able to work on just one of these titles.  Playing games is clearly a passion of mine, but working on a game is frankly a dream.  This is one of the reasons for doing Paragons of War.  However, a game that got me back into wargaming, or at least one of the titles from the first small company I really was interested in...

My two pence worth, not that Warcradle have to listen to me, but cut the range down.  That is on all of the games.  Personally, I wouldn't just cut down each faction I would cut out entire factions.  Well not for Halo, there are only two factions in that.  But DW and FA both had to many models in too many factions.  IF they could be cut back, and then the remaining factions concentrated into very specific and specialised "styles", then I really do think these sorts of games can't do very very well going forwards.

Oh and the rulebooks.. sort out where the rules are in the rulebooks.  They were great games, but you needed a research degree to know how to index the rulebooks.