The Dark Ages were really dark!

Then I took my shades off and realised that it was still dark, mainly because the light in my house sucks, however I am working on that. I have a secret plan in preparation that I'll just refer to as the buyanewhousebutdon'tletanyoneknow plan of secretness!

Anyway, the hobby butterfly has struck again although this time its all Ash's fault. You see I had these great plans to refocus my attention to FoW and LoTR, but mainly FoW as I've volunteered to be the replacement for Paul's planned team mate for the Panzerschreck tournament this year, who unfortunately had to pull out due to real world issues. So, much practice is required but not a whole lot of painting for me due to Paul's super, super, super secret devious plan of super-ness (more on that later)!

So I find myself de-motivated on the 15mm WW2 front and consequently with some spare hobby time that requires focusing. Flutter, flutter as I drift around in my hobby butterfly madness, then in walks Ash with his ever chipper Sheffield Yorkshireness saying "ere mate, hast tha sin that Vikings telly show, tis proper good!"
"Innit" I reply (I am from Bradford after all).

And blam, I'm digging out my Saxons, and reaquainting myself with the Saga battle boards. Oh and painting up some Jomsvikings whilst quietly chanting "wrath, wrath, wraaatth, wrath" to the jaws tune!

Ok now I've blathered on for a while on various topics without actually saying anything I'll get down to business. Ash and I got together in my cliff top chateaux one cold windy NZ night for a spot of Saga battle board silliness. I'd thrown together two warbands out of my WAB Anglo Saxons, one of them obviously Saxons and the other proxying as Vikings (Ash is waiting for his to be delivered) and we set too! We played a nice simple 4pt game of Clash of Warlords (or "who's dad is the hardest"), mainly so we could both get acquainted/reacquainted with the rules.

I'd actually forgotten how easy Saga is to play, the rules are amazingly basic and simple however after about two turns Ash had figured out the amazingness that is the battle boards. We only got through about 4 turns, although I did manage to smash his Warlord down, however I'm not sure how long my easy wins will last as Ash has played Magic The Gathering before and knows the importance of combos that make your opponent cry, Saga being all about combinations of abilities that make you want to wet yourself in either a) fear because you're on the receiving end; or b) joy because you get to do really unpleasant things to people you consider to be your friends!

Anyway we had a couple of comedy moments - my big hearthguard unit failing to hurt his small hirdmen who then promptly stomped them with some nice combination of viking violence. Oh and my Warlord being suckered into charging his Warlord and then wasting his abilities as Ash had a Bondi unit stood nearby that he could palm the wounds off on to.


For a change all the models are mine along with the terrain, however as previously mentioned the lighting is not mine but my landlords and therefore out of my control (but not for long, mwahahahaha!) Therefore I'm sorry about the state of the pictures, I shall endeavor to rectify before our next game!

The boys go on Holiday!

I managed to organise mailing both mine and Scotts Curtgeld the other day. For anyone not in the know a Curtgeld is the entry fee for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge a yearly online painting competition hosted by Curt over at Analogue Hobbies Blog. Its fun, you get stuff finished and have a bit of fun banter with bloggers all over the world. You also learn quite a bit!

I wonder what they'll find to talk about on the
 way to sunny Saskatchewan?

"I am not sleeping in that!" stated Saruman
"Quit tha's bloody griping lad and ger' in't bag" retorted Beanomir!

Ste, put your money where your mouth is!

In a recent post I espoused the benefits to the gaming community at large of individual creativity and those individuals that work hard for little or no reward to provide some form of content for this crazy hobby. There are many talented and creative individuals out there that are working hard in the background to create new and exciting rules, models, ideas that make our hobby that bit more exciting. In addition there are also many creative and talented individuals with truly awesome and outstanding ideas or knowledge that aren’t creating or sharing anything.

Maybe we should all aim to contribute something to our community, because community it is. This hobby can’t exist without the social aspect, the face to face interactions with other human beings are a core part of what we do and how we all enjoy our hobby. Contrast that to online gaming where you can inhabit a virtual world and find great enjoyment out of electronically created environments/puzzles/challenges and yet never have the need to truly interact with another human being. We all have an internet presence of some-kind (this blog is one of mine) and there is no doubt that the internet is an amazing tool for our hobby, however it is just that, a tool to help facilitate that social gathering of dice rolling, chit drawing, card shuffling and general weirdness (Magic the Gathering???) that makes this hobby work.

So with that in mind I challenge all you blog readers and writers to produce something that benefits the hobby. It is very easy to critique what others do and I am just as guilty of it as everyone else however when all we do is critique then a critical mass will build up in ourselves and others that will stifle creativity and we’ll end up with nothing new.

Anyway here’s something that I created some time ago for all your reading pleasure. It’s a campaign pack/supplement for Warhammer AncientBattles – Age of Arthur. 

It can probably be easily adapted to other systems as the structure of it is not dependant on that rules system. In fact I may try and adapt it to SAGA as mate Ashley is dipping his toe into that world of crazy as we speak. So what wacky idea have you got, why not share it with the community and let’s see if we can populate this hobby with ideas that are not tied up in boardroom share value return on investment garbage!

Campaign Day - Doo Ahh Diddy Dum Diddy Doo!

The desert village of Doo Ah Diddy was quiet, the only sound being the buzzing of flies around half cooked food, recently abandoned by the residents who had fled at the approach of the British Armoured squadron. Two platoons of Mathilda II Infantry Tanks took up station to the south whilst the lorried field engineers of the 8^th army moved up alongside, taking cover behind the small stand of palm trees. Good natured rivalry could be heard exchanged between the Vickers machine platoon taking up position on the small hill overlooking the village and the Indian Rifle platoon on the western side of the battle line. This was not echoed on the eastern side of the line as the second Indian Rifle platoon along with a carrier platoon had already spotted the German AT guns dug in on the other side of the village.

The CO in command of the Indian Company had complete faith in his troops, “there isn’t much that can faze these boys” he thought for what they lacked in experience they made up for with a fearless nature. The 8^th army pioneers and MG’s would hold their own, their experience in the desert standing them in good stead. The same could not be said for the Mathilda platoons, their commander epitomising the aristocracy’s outdated cavalry tactics of “Tally ho”. Could the Indian CO keep them in line? Moreover would the now outdated Infantry Tanks be able to stand up to the fearsome Tiger tanks of the Afrika Korp that was reported to be in the area. And how effective would the Mathilda’s 2pdr gun prove against the panzer divisions of the Afrika Korp

Hmmmm, only time would tell.

This was to be game 1 for me in the recent Flames of War gaming day at Chez Bowman, all 6 gamers had congregated nice and early to begin proceedings. There are two pretty good write ups of the action on the day by both Scott and Paul (click the names to enjoy the action!), maestro extraordinaire for the day would be Brett who is the mastermind behind the structure and special objectives and event cards (click here for more info). The forces were chosen from the North Africa and Italian lists with a view that it should fit the mid war theme. As this was intended as a friendly get together and a nice way to spend the day everyone had built well rounded forces that weren’t particularly beardy and fit the theme nicely.

Weirdly the theme for the day was suggested by me and yet I had very little that could be considered mid war! Therefore I had to scrabble and scrape to pull a force together and get it painted in time for the day. I had acquired an 8^th army MG platoon and some field engineers from Scrivs sometime ago so this gave me good reason to get them painted. Now as I have spent most of my life living in the UK and not far from the centre of the wargaming world Nottingham (apparently) I had gotten pretty used to having instant access to miniatures and supplies. However now that I live in NZ I am at the mercy of mail order, with there being very few stockists on our little islands and most of the distributors having to ship from Europe. Luckily a Wellington model shop (Models Crafts and Hobbies) has a tiny box of FoW and I managed to pick up a single Indian Rifle Platoon.

As many of you will recall from previous posts I work better to a deadline therefore the force listed below was put together and painted in two weeks (except for 5 of the Mathildas which were completed for the painting challenge earlier in the year):

• Indian CiC and 2iC
• Indian Rifle Platoon – Cmd, 4x Rifles, Mortar, Sticky Bombs
• Indian Rifle Platoon – Cmd, 4x Rifles, At Rifle, Sticky Bombs
• 8^th Army Engineer Field Platoon – Cmd, 3x Stands, Transports
• 8^th Army MG Platoon – Cmd, 4x MGs
• 3x Mathilda II
• 3x Mathilda II
• 3x Universal Carriers (Recce)

So without further ado lets begin.

Game 1

vs Ashley (Scary Germans with a Tigger)

Argh, remember this is mid war and therefore the Tigger is ridiculously scary. On the plus side it is also ridiculously expensive so that limits the amount you can squeeze in. The pictures below tell the story however in a nut shell I’ll lay out the action.

First off the random event card removes one of the three objectives placed on the board before deployment. Suddenly Ash’s Tiger is guarding empty sand and my Indians opposing him are chuckling and preparing a nice cup of Darjeeling.

Meanwhile I redeploy a platoon of Mathilda’s who have learnt the hard way that a board Tiger commander can be a deadly thing to mock….Ouch.

My carrier platoon (Pauls models, not mine) make a dash along the far right flank and rain mg fire onto one of Ash’s infantry platoons. Ha, take that Jerry. I then advance my other Indian platoon and some Mathildas towards the objective after smoking the Pak 40’s with my cute little knee mortar (what else is it good for?).

You recall my smug “Ha”? Well Ash made me eat my words after obliterating the carrier platoon with the Pak’s. I really need to remember FoW fire arcs!

To put it bluntly not much happened on the left flank while on the right I tried to pull off an assault with the Indians and Mathilda’s on Jerry infantry and got smacked silly by defensive fire. Doh!

However I think I managed to score a win because I had more objective points than Ash so woohoo for me!

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The quiet of the British forward observation post of Dum Diddy in the Sicilian hills above Catania was shattered by the sound of Panzer engines approaching at speed. “Could this be the reported armoured thrust that HQ had warned them of” thought Captain Farquharson-Fanshawe-Smythe of the 4^th Indian Division. Following the action at Doo Ah Diddy his company had been occupying a rear echelon position, recovering its strength in preparation for the invasion of Italy and now that the campaign was underway he was keen to prove his forces had what it takes to tackle Jerry armour (damn that Tiger!!!).

The mission to secure a forward obs post was perfect for his eager Indians and their 8^th Army compatriots however it did mean that the armour assigned to him would have to stay in reserve, can’t have the cavalry dashing about and alerting the enemy to allied activity now can we!

Coming out of his command post astride the main road down to Catania the Captain received word from Sergeant Khan “Sahib, Jerry is approaching, looks like forward elements of armour only Sahib”.

“Good work Sergeant. Hold positions and lets show Jerry what a rifleman can do shall we”

Game 2

vs Scott (German Panzers)

The luck of draw meant that I started the game sat on top of two objectives with Scott claiming the third. This is ideal for infantry as I could sit in a static defensive position and try and hold off Scott’s aggressive posturing with my oodles of anti-tank weaponry (socks, oil and TNT!). Unfortunately Scott decided not to posture but rather to come straight at me all guns blazing with his CiC 2iC and Panzer Platoon (III’s and IV’s). I stuffed my veteran field engineers in the bushes, Indian platoon one at the cross roads and Indian platoon two sat on the hill. Unfortunately my clever little plan of “dig in and weather the pain” failed for the first two turns as the quartermaster had misread the requisition slip and instead of issuing spades to my men he issued “shades”. Accordingly my infantry looked very cool while they tried to dig holes with their bare hands.

Luckily it would seem that although Scott’s dice were on top form for rolls to hit with his machine guns my dice saw it as a challenge and consequently managed to pass tons of infantry saves.

An assault by Scott’s Panzer platoon on the hill top objective had my Indian’s reeling however they pulled it together and counterattacked, sticky bombing the living daylights of Scott’s tanks. Much hilarity ensued, however eventually Scott’s lone tank managed to slay some of my plucky infantry and push me off the objective.

Seeing as the battle was getting a bit uncomfortable my CO and 2iC interrupted their Tiffin to move over to the crossroads objective to provide a little support. This was perfectly timed to coincide with Scott’s reserves turning up, 3 of the Wehrmacht’s lovely new Panzers rolled up to my CO and unloaded a whole truck load of MG fire into him and his batman. Luckily you don’t get to be a Captain in the 4^th Indian division without some measure of resilience and he shrugged off this rain of fire and hopped over the wall (actually it was more Scott’s good  sportsmanship reminding me that I can allocate some of the hits to nearby platoons!)

Eager to get in on the battle my Mathilda’s turned up at the far side of the battle and immediately put pedal to the metal, rushing forward a massive 16” (wow, why did I pick these bloody slow tanks with pop guns?).

Not to be outdone the field engineers jumped out of cover and assaulted Scott’s 2iC (I think), proving why they’re rated Veteran tank assault and kicking Jerry something silly, my CO getting in on the action too (although he was really just running for cover from the Panzer reserves that had just made him order some new shorts!)

Scott quite appropriately disagreed with my approach and dashed over with his fresh reserves (which now include two 8-rads) and promptly smacked my field engineers back to blighty

And we called it there. We had racked up an impressive amount of objective points, and morale points. I think I won however it was a hell of a battle and I’m not sure if either of us cared that much. With more time we’d have kept going however there was Game 3 to get squeezed in today……..

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ruined monastery of Doo was reputed to be the resting place of one of the finger bones of an acolyte of the brother of Saint Bernard, patron saint of restorative beverages and big dogs, however to Sergeant Khan of the 4^th Indian division it was just another wrecked building on a hill. Once more the poor bloody infantry had been pitted against the pride of German armoured might, led by none other than Hauptmann Brett Von Brettendorf developer of the Jerry tactic of randomisch objektivisch placementisch.

And yes, once again the British Amour was sat in reserve having a brew, “I’m sure they do it on purpose” Khan thought before walking back to his platoon. “Although Singh’s boys will keep them on their toes I guess” Singh being Sergeant Singh of 2^nd platoon who had been rotated into reserve after the scrap at Dum Diddy.

Just then Captain Farquharson-Fanshawe-Smythe approached through the wheatfield “Ok Khan, lets get cracking”.

Game 3

Thats right my desert boys have got to fight in the lush green fields of Italy proper now however that’s not the worst of my worries. No I’m now facing the architect of the gaming day, random objective meister Brett and his one hit wonder Panzers (those are his own words). Unfortunately I started with half my force on the board which meant my MG’s, rifle platoon and Johnny come lately Mathilda platoon which I decided on at the last minute. Brett then placed his 5 tank panzer III/IV platoon and proceeded to smash the cack out of me for 3 turns, my force shedding morale points like it was college student stripping off at a frat house party. By the time my reserves started to arrive I had lost a rifle platoon, mg platoon and 2 out of 3 mathildas. Unfortunately for Brett I had one of his rather excellent event cards to play, therefore I slapped it out and called in an air strike from those excellent chaps over at the RAF. Rolling my dice I got 3 planes in my strike, placed the template conveniently over 3 panzers and promptly rolled three 2’s. Doh!

However Brett being the rather excellent chap that he is pointed out that with 3 planes in the strike you get to re-roll misses. Woohoo, 2 hits, 2 flaming panzers.

Not as good as it looks. This is the aftermath of the air strike and not the result of a broadside from the Mathildas!

So now things were looking a little better, I had all my forces on the board, Brett’s one hit wonder was starting crumble and I was feeling positive. Until of course I realised that my CiC & 2iC were gone, I had a single Bren Carrier parked very close to Bretts infantry and all he need to force a company morale check (which I would auto fail without any company command) was to take out that carrier.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Luckily I’m very likeable, the allies had already won the day because of Paul and Bryan’s wins, and Brett is very sporting so we agreed to call the game there.

Summary

Huge fun all round, excellent company, everyone tried their hardest to be nice to each other and Scotts significant other Tracy brought pizza for lunch. So in summary a very good way to spend a Saturday for all involved.

Oh and the Allies smashed the nasty H

un!

Good show, what what. Time for Tiffin!

FoW Batrep - Late War Germans vs Yanks

It would seem that my hobby mojo is having a somewhat of a backlash toward my intensive painting of fantasy LoTR stuff as I find myself getting a tad obsessed with Flames of War. Many of you may think that’s a bad thing however I’ve been enjoying my games of FoW recently, maybe its my opponent, or maybe that I’m mellowing and aren’t that bothered about the tournament nature of the game.

Anyhow enough of the navel gazing and on to business. I recently got together with mate Ashley who had managed to drag himself away from his rather intense job for a spot of dice rolling and panzer pushing. For this game I was taking the role of the baddies, rolling into his gaming room (garage!) with a Panzer company from Devils Charge (no Peiper though):

CiC & 2iC Panzer IVJ, 5 x Panther G, 1x Konigstiger, 4 x Panzer IVJ, 4 x Panzer IVJ, 2 x Mobelwagen, Panzergrenadier platoon in sd,kfz 251

Yes I was taking a hellstorm of armour, big cats-a-mundo! This was an excuse to take a ton of stupid armour and have fun, as well as field my newly painted Panthers (painted over two night which is darn fast for me). This force was fearless trained so probably wouldn’t be able to hit anything but when the stuff hit the fan would stick around…..(hopefully)

So how did Ash counter this ton of dastardly axis armour? Well let’s see shall we:

CiC (Jumbo), 2iC (76mm), Tank Platoon (2x Jumbo’s, 3x 76mm), Tank Platoon (1x Jumbo, 2x 76mm), 3x Priests, 9 stand Infantry Platoon, Priority Air.

Doesn’t look like a lot really does it, so let’s see how it went down then shall we?

We rolled for missions and got free for all, which considering how knackered we were after our respective working weeks was probably a good idea. As the attacker I chose my board edge and we deployed out troops alternately. As Ash had fewer platoons he finished deploying first, we rolled for who went first with Ash winning the roll off. Unfortunately due to the mission rules this meant that he couldn’t take advantage of his artillery and air thereby losing a turn of fire from them both. Oh well (he he he!)

Turn 1

Ash stays put and just opens fire on my left flank, trying to slow down my Panthers and PzIVJ’s however doesn’t manage to cause any damage. He holds his centre while slowly advancing his infantry down my right. With the aim of the game being to capture one of the two objectives placed in each deployment zone this would seem to indicate that Ash is taking the initiative…..Bugger!

So what did I do, well the King Tiger stayed put, fired twice and managed to obliterate a flock of pigeons that were minding their own business in a copse of woods about 4 miles away. The Panthers, not to be outdone advanced forward and proceeded to obliterate the woods themselves, with the PzIVJ’s joining in as it looked like a right good giggle! However on the right my Panzergrens scooted forward and opened fire on the rather foolish US Infantry command stand who was busy lecturing his troops on the finer points of concealment in the open! Blamo, no platoon command equals stuck US infantry. Ha!

Turn 2

Ok maybe I was a little premature with my “Ha” as turn 2 opens up with Ash obliterating 3 of my Panthers, I subsequently fluff the platoon morale check and my left flank is toast! So much for 815pts (yes that’s right, 2 fifths of my entire army in 1 platoon). Dummy!

Meanwhile Ashley scoots his company command over to the stranded infantry and appoints a new platoon commander. So much for my carefully executed delaying strategy. I pull back my Panzergrens but push forward with my CiC, 2iC and 2^nd PzIVJ platoon in the centre. Now if I can only threaten the rear of the Jumbo/76mm platoon that was holding my left flank armoured fist I can still pull this off. Oh and the King Tiger is still offended by the pigeons and continues its bombardment. However I have managed to advance it an exciting 4” using stormtrooper…..oh the excitement.

Turn 3

Ash’s air support kills another PzIVJ in my centre, again weakening my armoured force even more. The Jumbo’s and 76mm trade shots with the PzIVJ’s on my left toasting one, I manage to get a shot on the annoying Priests, knocking one out ( I couldn’t get a line on the Jumbo’s this turn!). As they say down here “its all turning to custard”. The US infantry get moving and angle in towards the hedgerow bordering the village, I pull my Panzergrens back again and disembark, awaiting the inevitable assault (lots of defensive fire….).

Oh and the King Tiger finally realizes that the load noises outside are coming from the pretty green tanks in front of it, opens fire and manages to scratch the paintwork on one Jumbo….

Turn 4

The final turn (we ran out of time). Ash by now is within about 8 inches of one of my objectives with his infantry, he’s advanced his CiC Jumbo and 2iC 76mm in support and is slowly pummelling my armour to bits. I’m pulling back like mad whilst the enormous King Tiger struggles to turn round and go home for Brotwurst and schnapps. This has not been my day at all, my armoured fist got negated after the Panthers were smashed, Jumbo’s lead the way really stuffed the effectiveness of the PzIVJ’s as I couldn’t get the volume of fire needed to harm the other tanks in the platoon. Its clear that with 2 more turns Ashley would be on the objective and there’s nothing I can do to stop him at this stage. Even worse I’m running out of guns big enough to hurt the Jumbo’s

Conclusion

Another great game, Ashley was aggressive with his infantry whilst holding with his armour. I got to run a full size Panther platoon which always looks fun (I’ve just finished painting them too!) and lots of PzIVJ’s. It was hard trying to get any effective shots off against veteran tanks in concealment whilst my armour was pretty fragile. I was hoping that the sheer volume of armour and fire would overwhelm Ashley however losing all my Panthers in one round of shooting really put me on the back foot. Ouch.

So there was more learning, lots of dice rolling and a good natter, therefore a good game overall irrespective of who won!

Musings on the state of the hobby

Ok its been a while since I had a post that could be described as a general musing on the hobby however here’s one that’s been mulling over in my mind for a few days now. Beware this is quite wordy, has no nice pictures of toy soldiers and may annoy a few people (or not).

Many many years ago I was introduced to a rather niche game called Warhammer. It involved painting little metal toy soldiers, putting them on a table covered by a green sheet and rolling dice. Apparently the people that made the game (and the toy soldiers) really liked doing it, so much so that they kept working on it in their free time, writing new rules, background, stories and artwork, so much so that it could probably be referred to as a labour of love.

This struck a chord with me as not only was the game set in the Fantasy genre (which I loved) but the writers and designers genuinely seemed to be having fun whilst at work (I know, weird).

Slowly but surely this little niche business became more and more successful, the money started to roll in (in small amounts) and it became a proper business, at least in the sense that they started to attract investors who saw it as a sound way to make more money.

Then it hit some kind of invisible threshold, I’m not sure exactly when but there was a tipping point where it changed from being a group of hobbyists running a company to a company employing hobbyists.

Boom, the end of a golden age (at least for me) when the purpose of the company seemed to change. It stopped being a group of stereotypical cardigan wearing geeks choosing to write games or make models because it was fun (and what they did in their free time), and turned into a return on investment, how does it look on a balance sheet, must wear a suit and attend board meetings company.

Meanwhile in the background the historical side of the hobby was quietly continuing on its merry way, cheerfully hand writing rules and printing them on photocopiers or producing limited print runs for the sheer joy of it. One or two hobbyists would form companies that would see limited success, enough so they could do it as a job and as such devote more time to perfecting their art (so to speak).

Then BLAMO – the internet arrived and the giant of the fantasy side of the hobby expanded dramatically, however so too did those hobbyists who had hand written rules who could now share their ideas beyond their immediate gaming groups. Production values went up and so did sharing of genuinely innovative ideas. As this was happening so too was the departure of some of those individuals that had contributed to what had made that fantasy company great, as the direction and goals of the company seemed now to be about share prices and satisfying investors.

The supply market for the fantasy side of the hobby became larger as the internet fuelled this ability for anyone with an idea to market it. This is in a way was a return to the age when hobbyists developed a product not because they could make money out of it but because they genuinely enjoyed it. So now there are wide number of players (no pun intended) in the fantasy wargames market, some of which are doing it with the old ethos of “because its fun”. And this isn’t just fantasy, the historical wargames market is in the same position (however it got there in a different way), great games and ideas being made available on a wide scale and produced by one or two individuals. The barriers to entry have been reduced dramatically by the medium of the internet and once again I can see hobbyists producing games because they have a passion for it.

Weirdly I started writing this post with a goal in mind and have managed to wander into a much deeper train of thought. However I’ll get back on track now and highlight a set of wargames rules that I think highlight exactly the passion and ethos that I alluded to in my first paragraph:

Images borrowed from Simon's Blog - 
bigredbat.blogspot.com

To the Strongest has been written and developed by one person, Simon Miller, a historical wargamer and hobbyist who wanted to play large scale historical battles in a single evenings play but couldn’t find any system that satisfied that need. So what did he do? Well he sat down and started to write his own rules, then conducted playtesting, redrafted them, playtested, redrafted, etc, etc.

Image borrowed from Simon's Blog -
bigredbat.blogspot.com

This wasn’t an overnight process, several years of his time has gone into developing the system along with countless hours of his friend’s time in playtesting. Now he could have then just sat on the rules and used them with his gaming group however he (presumably) feels that he has a game that others will enjoy, something that gives a slightly different experience to other systems out there. So through the magic of internet and computers he produces an electronic version of the rules, sets up some webspace and sells them for a small fee. Then through feedback from the wider gaming world he tweaks the rules, adds a few bits, works with another hobbyist on the other side of the planet (there’s that internet magic again) with some design skills and produces a high quality, high res version 1.1 of the rules, distributing them electronically freely to anyone who has already got version 1.

Now if you were to conduct this activity in the aforementioned large gaming company there would be significant analysis on return on investment, the resulting price would be set based on how to recoup costs over a period of time, what profit levels need to be achieved, the products longevity, subsequently related products that can leverage further profit and a whole miniatures range that would be tied in to the system (in fact you wouldn’t be able to play the game with anyone else’s models!).

I highly suspect that Simon will never recoup his costs when you factor in the hours taken to develop his system. In fact he’ll probably be happy to recover his overheads, the return on investment for him arguably will be the fact that he did it. He wanted to write some rules that satisfy his gaming needs, his sense of fun. And he did it! Yes he is selling them rather than giving them away however there are one or two studies that support the idea that if something is free people don’t actually value it as much as if they have to pay for it. Weird!

I followed the development of his rules through his blog (bigredbat.blogspot.com), purchased them from his online shop when they were released (bigredbatshop.co.uk) and yet have never actually played them. I don’t know if I’ll like them, I have no connection to Simon at all, as far as I am aware he doesn’t read my blog, I’ve never met him and most likely never will.

However I bought them because of a feeling, that feeling being that here was a hobbyist creating something, this being the very heart of the hobby. That you are able to suspend belief and imagine that you are commander of armies trying to defeat your opponent in (usually) make believe setting. There are too many examples of spoonfed imagination out there, where all you need to do is take your hard earned dollar/pound/euro and hand it over to some organisation in return for instant imagination and enjoyment. Unfortunately this can then lead to laziness on the part of the buyer who then becomes indoctrinated into the idea that they need to buy imagination when its sat there for free inside their heads.

I want to contribute to the enjoyment of this hobby, I don’t believe that what hobby companies are doing is bad, in most cases they want to make money to pay their mortgage thus giving them more time to do something they love. However the scary part, the bit that I think is the slippery slope is when they see an idea, a product, as a way to make more money before they consider whether the thing they’re creating is! Because that’s when you become a slave to the idea of profit and the risk is that those genuinely great ideas don’t get developed because they’re a risk to profit.

I’m not sure whether this was a rant or just a stream of consciousness however I’ll sign off now – rant over!