Tag Archives: Slaughterloo

Orcs in the Webbe 2013 Advent Interview

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Another year has passed in my life as a wargame writer and general all around fine fellow and over the previous few years a marker of this passing has been the annual Orcs in the Webbe interview.  Now that the chaos of Christmas is behind me (and a Merry Mithras Day to one and all) I wanted to put up a short posting here on the blog about this year’s interview.  You can read it here and it makes for interesting reading.  Firstly thanks to Craig Andrews for the interview and for carrying on all his efforts into Black Powder Fantasy for wargamers everywhere not least Flintloque fans.   Secondly I often don’t realise just how many tasks I take on during a year and the interview gives me a chance to reflect upon this both for the past and the future.  I seldom take a day off and I think it shows in the loyalty of our customers to Alternative Armies, 15mm.co.uk and The Ion Age too.

I think the biggest thing for me to come out of the interview was that, as I expected, The Ion Age has taken up a lot of my year but also that my role in the company has changed.  We have a larger team on all projects now and where once I was sole creative input there are now several voices in this area.  I hope that this means I will have time for more side projects perhaps even some creative writing.

Lastly an apology to Craig to whom I had promised a piece of lengthy Dracci related fiction for the Calendar this year but due to a combination of atrocious weather which shut us down for several days, personal illness and sheer workload I was unable, the first time ever, to meet the deadline.   Sorry!  Looking at it, its not often I drop the ball but I am only Human.

Have a read at the Interview if you have the time.  Its fun stuff indeed!

GBS

Muskets, Shako’s and Fantasy from the Talented Mr Minadeo

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The Injia Game set up for play!

My good friend Bob Minadeo runs a great wargaming blog of which I am a frequent visitor and sometimes blogger about.  He recently put up a posting with a double claim to fame for it was not only in celebration of his latest published rules set (which he let me look at and is excellent) but also the putting into it the awesome fantasy nature of Flintloque.  Using his newly published rules from 2 Hour Wargames and all pro-painted miniatures from his collection by Alternative Armies Bob has put up a posting with plenty of images and its a fine read too.

I like to think I contributed a bit to the process….I helped with the uniform of his Othari Cavalry as Skinners Gnolls and I sometimes assist in choosing miniatures and bits from the massive World of Valon range to suit his latest slightly demented on table scheme.  Such as the miniature below which featured in the ultimate part of the ’98 Campaign.

A Furry Top O’ the morning to ya!

Well done Bob!

GBS

Salute 2013 for GBS

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The Shirt and the Badge

Well that is Salute by for another year and while others have posted their reviews of the show (very few this year compared to previous years, or perhaps I am missing them) I have just got to it as its a long trek home and the wind down afterwards always takes a day or so.  So how was the show for me and for Alternative Armies?

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The front of the mighty Excel Centre home of Salute 2013

Personally for me I thought that Salute 2013 was down on last year in terms of attendance and that the average spend in the trade hall was lower too.  How do I know this, well I don’t for sure but I can guess at it from the following information.  No que at the gents toilets at 1pm, only a minute’s wait for a coffee at 2pm and a virtually empty hall half an hour before the doors closed.  The crowd was never all that dense at any trade stand.  As always the Warlords were polite and helpful and the Excel staff were excellent.  The weather was lovely and the traffic shuffle out of London was easier than normal too.  Oh and I noticed some of the free plastic miniature sprue that was this year’s entry gift left laying once all the stands were broken down so I have a good half dozen of them!

For Alternative Armies it was a good day considering the above and while the total take was down on last year the overall month of promotion (which ends this Friday) was WAY up on the year before mainly due to a great pulse of SHM, Laserburn, Security Force Alpha and HOT orders on 15mm.co.uk.  So all in all it was a super top month for the company.

I did not purchase anything this year at Salute which is odd and for once I did not get offered any freebies either (not a lot of give away for me awwww!) but it was kind of my plan as what I did want to do with my wargaming budget this month and what I got for doing Salute was to get a brand new wargaming table.   So no new rulebooks, figures or terrain but I did get the table TODAY and its a beauty but more on that in another posting.

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A photo for the Typhon demo game 2013

I have also decided that I will not be doing any more demo games at wargame conventions myself as I did not get to play Typhon myself at all.  My attention was taken up with conversations, hand shaking and other duties.  It seems my infamy is too great just to toss the dice all day anymore.  Thank though to Craig Andrews of Barking Irons and Orcs in the Webbe fame for fielding the Typhon game four times in the afternoon.

Eve Hallow attended Salute for the first time this year and he did an excellent post about it too.  He travelled to London with my good lady wife…but he did make her carry his dirt filled coffin all the way to Excel!

Great to catch up with Edward Jackson, Steve Young, Bob Naismith, Sam Croes, Craig Andrews, Bill Hilton, Sandy B, Rob Alderman, Elton Waters and Russ Grey on the day; you guys make the trip worthwhile alone.  Thanks also to the hundred plus wargamers who spoke with me I can’t name you all but I took all your input and suggestions onboard and thanks for the kind words too.

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Feel the Force in one to one scale!

So good result all in all.  I will see you there next year!

GBS

The 98 Campaign by M C Monkey-Dew

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I had meant to post on this subject a couple of weeks back..but..well you get the point.  Being me is not always a linear experience, sometimes I feel like I am suffering something I like to call ‘timeslip’ as time passes like lightening and a day becomes a fortnight with no effort at all on my comprehension!

The Campaign Map

My good friend Bob Minadeo with whom I have worked on Firefight 2.0 and HOF Fire-Team is a skilled wargames rules writer and a long time wargamer too.  He is also a big fan of Flintloque, Slaughterloo and the whole World of Valon.  To that end he has brewed up and is currently playing out a whole campaign set in that world under the title of ‘The 98 Campaign’.  Above you can see the campaign map.

The campaign concerns the Ferach Elf forces of the Tyrant Emperor Mordred and their Bog Orc allies in the ‘BGORA’ and their attempt to ‘liberate’ Guinalea from the yolk of King Gorge III of Greate Britorcn and make the nation part of the Empire and not the Grand Alliance.  I am enjoying reading the postings on Bob’s blog and on top of the tale the images showing his terrain set up and the love that he puts into his armed forces on the table top.   The vast majority of the excellent and colourful miniatures on the gaming table are pro-painted from Alternative Armies itself and as I often deal with Bob directly (perks of the job eh!) I have watch him amass this collection with interest over the last year while his mighty mind was musing on the campaign now underway.

Albion Dragoons advance!

As to which side will win the conflict…I do not know…perhaps Bob does not know either at this moment and the dice will decide.  He is using a concoction of his own for the wargame rules and the campaign system too.  Me, well I want the Emperor Mordred to lose as always!

Get on over to the Monkey-Dew blog and follow the campaign if you are a wargamer it is proving to be a riveting ride indeed!

GBS

Slaughterloo is Here!

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My own copy of Slaughterloo

My own copy of Slaughterloo

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Look at the thickness of that spine!

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Having a flick through the pages.

The day is here (well it was yesterday but I do have to sleep) Slaughterloo Redux is in print, in boxes and being sent out to all those who ordered it from Alternative Armies.  You  can find out all about the book on the website and I will not repeat it here (there is also a folder of free files you can download too) as this is my personal blog and I just want to talk a little about the process of the book and the joy of its publication.

Back in the autumn of 2012 when it became clear that the original print run of Slaughterloo 2nd edition was going to run out the decision was made to update it and put it into one book instead of a boxed set.  The process of making one book out of three was larger than I originally though as not only had it to be combined but it had to be updated.  The rules mechanics did not change but the army lists and statistics tables had to be expanded and tidied up along with more new material added.  On top of this there was a new scenario to write and a new way of writing it (based on the Flintloque 3rd edition model) required.  Page after page all the way up to one hundred and sixty eight pages.  The biggest book I have ever worked on.  The authorship is of course split between myself and Alex Draper but I oversaw the digital layouts and artwork editing myself.  Over a hundred and fifty of Edward Jackson’s great ‘world of valon’ images are in the book and each of them had to be sized and rendered.  Topping out at 175,000 words the editing and proofing took three weeks to complete.  Hundreds of work hours but it was more than worth it as the book is a beautiful object in its own right.

You can see from the pictures in this posting, I wanted to show an actual copy instead of digital copy as normal, the quality of the print work and of the paper stock.  The book has a great weight and is a joy to flick through and read at leisure and that is before you get to the actual game (Alex’s rules are superb!).  You can read it as a reference book too.  In a time when prices go ever up for wargaming material and the content gets ever slimmer and font sizes ever bigger this bad boy gives you the works for just twenty pounds.  I believe in giving people a damn good read as well as a good game to play.

Unfortunately the weather in the UK did delay release and shipping by two weeks and by consequence this posting too.  Obviously I did not see this coming but the company has not had a single grumble never mind complaint about the delay.  Alternative Armies has many loyal gentlemen for customers, let me tell you.   Snow and wind did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm though.  Slaughterloo woohoo!

GBS

p.s. you might now ask how I am going to top this book…well 2013 is a long year and there is plenty of time.  Just you all wait and see.

Slaughterloo Boxed Set OOP…something new this way comes.

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 S2 Box Set OOP

Slaughterloo Box Set OOP

I had been watching the shelf for near a year but it finally happened last week…Alternative Armies sold its last stock copy of Slaughterloo; that being the boxed set of three books and card sheets released in 2006.  A while back at a company meeting it was agreed that when the day came we would remove the game from sale for a month and then bring about a new version.  This was going to be a new edition but progress has been halting and there is no rush as the existing mechanics of the game are excellent and vastly more than the old first edition.  I can almost hear you all now reading this and saying ‘what no more Slaughterloo..you devil..why?  We love that big battle wargame’.

Fear not!  Slaughterloo will continue.  In fact it will do so at Christmas of this year for at this very moment I am working on ‘S2 Redux’.  That is a new run of the game.  Same mechanics, same rules, same content but in a different format to the box set.  Coded 5030 Slaughterloo will become a single thick book along the same lines as Flintloque 3rd edition became in 2009.  Bigger than any one Flintloque book this one will contain all three of the box set books with updates in the army stats tables to account for the passage of time.  All of the cards, tokens and so on to play the game will be in the book for photocopy and personal print…but also on the Alternative Armies website as free digital downloads.  Excellent value and all in one place.  Sneak peek below of the new cover with brand new artwork by Edward Jackson and logo by Sam Croes.

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The draft new cover!

More on this on Barking Irons Online nearer the time.

GBS