There are so many factors to consider. This battle is far from over.
I’ve been playing around with GIMP and Word a lot today. Having a good looking title on your front cover is so important. It’s the first thing players will see, and it will make an impression (good or bad) every time it’s pulled from a book shelf.
I’m starting to think it’d be a good idea to raise some money for original artwork.
@vonuberwald has been helping me design logos and covers for FRAG, the retro FPS tabletop battle game.
The game studio logo by @vonuberwald.
A first mock-up of the front cover. God, did I really write ‘twitch gaming’?
Please note that the artwork above is a place holder I found on Google Image search. I have no idea who drew that picture but I love them to bits. I’ll be looking for an illustrator able to do a similiar colour cover picture at some future point.
The same cover with some WIP logo text by @vonuberwald
Below are some more pictures from the FRAG rule book. None of the artwork is official, all of it dates back to when I wanted to make my home brew look nice for my friends.[[MORE]]
Some of the text is still being gone over, as the story has been altered quite heavily since the first draft (i.e, it’s actually a setting now, not just some text blurbs to give me excuse for me to bang converted miniatures together).
Things I’ve painted this fortnight:
x2 ‘Demon Heavies’ converted from Mantic Games’ Abyssal Moloch (a tankbuster heavy with particle lance still on the to-do pile)
1x Royal Marine Ork lightly converted from Mantic Games’ Deadzone range. They’re old Mantic and huge pain to prep for painting.
16x Skeletal Reapers from Black Tree Designs.
These have all been varnished and are still waiting for a matt coat to dull the shine.
Not so keen on the ‘Imps’ (Mantic’s Tortured Souls on the right of the last picture), I think I’ll re-do them. Perhaps a lighter blue for their loin clothes.
Below is some information and pictures from my 2012 Tomorrow’s War
campaign. I might have shared some of these before. Most of my
collection is quite blurry and so only a few are suitable for public
consumption.
The Pictures
The Campaign – Phase 1
The campaign was set during a civil war in a distant, far-future world called Hypolossia. The majority of the (strongly Greco-Roman) planet is controlled by an aristocratic caste of psychic mutants. Most of these ‘aristos’ are fairly unremarkable, but the two most powerful are the twin sisters Eos and Selene who together rule the theocratic Solar Empire.
When a lunar prison colony rebels, the twins disagree and Selene sides with the (nominally) democratic Lunar Republic, becoming a sort of constitutional monarch. Lunar forces land and quickly secure major port cities, but the heartlands of the Solar Empire stay loyal to the God-Empress Eos.
At the start of the campaign the two opposing armies were functionally identical. The Solar Empire had a more robust supply chain, and so benefited from an extra shooting dice (due to their Abundant Supplies) but the Lunar Republic was more enthusiastic with higher morale (rolling a d10 instead of a d8). The two were evenly matched, with an equal tally of wins and losses, and very similar amounts of killed, wounded and captured.
As the campaign progress, the two forces started to diverge. The Solar Empire began to develop new walker technologies, and fielded fanatical two-man groups of flame-thrower infantry (nicknamed “Warcrimes Division” and always targeted first by Republic soldiers due to how devastating they were).
Meanwhile the Lunar Republic began to field units of jump pack equipped special forces (Selene’s Shadows), and a special group of psychics known as the Menae. The Menae were able to phase through terrain and had a terror aura. Despite having no weapons, they were absolutely brutal to face in close combat. Their models looked like the girl from The Ring.
In addition to this, heroes began to emerge. The Solar Empire had a special officer and the Lunar Republic had a particularly deadly Shadow operator as ‘hero’ characters. Both Goddesses were also statted but not put into play.
At the conclusion of Phase 1, the two armies had an equal number of wins and losses. The Solar Empire’s special officer was captured, but managed to escape. The battle had become a near stalemate. Something was needed to tip the balance of power…
We had to conclude the campaign after Phase 1 because I needed to move away for education/work reasons. The plan for Phase 2 was to introduce some new armies but sadly, we never got a chance to play with them.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I like tabletop games, both RPGs and wargaming. I don’t do much
wargaming nowadays, but I’d like to share one of my last big projects I
did with a friend many many many years ago (it was 2012). We used a philosophy that I call Sandbox Wargaming to make a narrative campaign.
I believe that wargaming is best when it is enjoyed and shared as a collaborative project between friends. I’ve been to lots of tournaments but I’ve never enjoyed the tournament scene in any game. Something that I found particularly inspiring is the pre-Chainmail wargaming of Gary Gygax and his associated gamers in the 70s.
The group, and others
like it, would happily invent or modify rules as needed in order to
produce fun games and stories. It was an age of experimentation with
little set in stone. People were brought together to try out each
other’s games. They bonded from their shared love of fantasy stories,
military history, and writing games. There was no arguing over points
and no list tailoring. The rules were vague, and players made up new
rules on the spot when they encountered something unexpected.
This mentality is what I call ‘sandbox’ play. Players have a set of rules (home written or bought) that forms an agreed core framework which they can build on. It turns war gaming into a collaborative project, with players working together to create cool set-pieces (although a competitive element can still be present to varying degrees).
My friend and I had our 2012 project using Tomorrow’s War. This is a science fiction rule set based upon that kind of ‘sandbox’ approach. You have the rules and example army lists but you’re encouraged to play whatever you want to play.
We designed our own army lists and
played without points costs. It was an “Imaginations” game (the players
create fictional nations / factions) that was VERY tongue in cheek. We
also discussed each game and agreed on how the campaign unfolded based
on the results of the battles. Sometimes one of us wanted to do stuff
not in the rules or do something technically unfair but convenient for
both of us – so we talked about it and played fairly liberally when it
benefited us both.
It was freewheeling and very fun. Sandbox gaming requires everyone to be good sports and focus on enjoying time with friends. It’s anathema to the hardcore tournament mentality but in my opinion, it’s the best way to play. Toxic players simply don’t play sandbox games. The only drawback is that few people play sandbox games at all, but I highly recommend that you try it with a trusted gaming friend.
Check out my next post for some pictures.
Warzone Abridged is a homebrew tabletop project that takes Warzone 1st Edition as a base but removes the more cumbersome rules and streamlines it.
It also adds all of the new material from the Modiphius Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition RPG, including the Russian flavoured Whitestar faction into the wargame for the first time. It also vastly expands the amount of spells and creatures in the game.
The core rules themselves are about 20 A4 pages, and the entire document with full army lists for each faction come to 135 pages. They will soon be available for free online
The Nephrite Games Blog 