Tag Archives: WIP

Tiny taking of Tinny Pictures

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Today I spent a couple of hours taking photographs.  Not so unusual for me but today was a little different in that the pictures were for the upcoming conversion packs for 15mm miniatures on The Ion Age.  Above is one of the final composed images for one of the pack codes.  You can read about this over on The Ion Age blog.  These pictures were an absolute swine to take for several reasons.  Firstly the sheer size of the pieces in them.  Most are half a centimetre or less in length which means they would rather stick to Human skin than the paper I placed them on.  Then the positioning, even the slightest breeze or knock sends them flying and that includes the ends of my chubby digits (no artist am I!).  Lastly lighting.  Lighting is tricky with all miniatures as shadows can destroy a good picture.  The issue with these tiny white metal pieces is that they suffer shadows in images often not evident to the naked eye due to size.  Solution was a single high powered light source and then taking shots from directly above while staying out of the light cone.

Its not all glamour for me every day!

GBS

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

WIP – The 15mm Duxis Battlesuit for The Ion Age

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Over the next month or so on The Ion Age blog of which I am the ‘webmaster’ as it were there are going to be posts all about the upcoming first major release for The Ion Age in 2014.  As you can see from the picture above the first posting is a bit of a teaser.  It concerns our lead designer Sam Croes and his ‘drinking at work’.  Following on this will be postings of fiction about the Duxis Battlesuit, of artwork, of concept drawings, of the miniatures and then details of the Early Supporter Offers which will be happening on the Duxis.

While I cannot say more just now you should, if you are keen on 15mm science fiction wargaming or you just love fight mecha, have a look at the blog every now and again.  I have the first finished battlesuit miniature on the desk in front of me here and let me just add…its superb!

Dreamed, Designed, Made…in Scotland but not from Girders!

GBS

Bloggy Endus Hiatus!

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Hello All!

I have been gone some time.  Well not gone rather sitting here as always working away but rather working solid in my ‘downtime’ on the playtesting of Patrol Angis as per the last post here some six weeks ago.  Six weeks, gone by a flash aside from the warm summer evenings now dark and stormy.

Just a quick post to say I will be getting back to normal now and to thank everyone in the test group for their efforts.  You can see the six weekly blog posts about it by me over on The Ion Age blog.  They make for some fine reading.  I will be redrafting the rules engine based on the results of the playtest over the festive period for release next year.

A lot has happened with me in the last month and a half so perhaps some retrospective posts will feature plus some movie reviews and books reviews too now that I have time to leisure once more. Perhaps even a wargame or two if I can drum up a foe.

GBS

Bloggy Hiatus – Patrol Angis playtesting

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You all know that I work hard.  Some of you might even know that twelve or thirteen hours a day is not that unusual.  A few know that I work weekends too and that sometimes I just can’t get it all done.  Well one of those times has arisen and I have decided to take a ‘Bloggy Hiatus’ on my personal blog.   This means I will not be posting here unless it is urgently awesome to do so.

Why?  Well I am now in the midst of several projects including the public playtesting of Patrol Angis.  Patrol Angis is the main 15mm skirmish system I am writing for The Ion Age.  Its taking up a lot of my time replying to the thousands of words of feedback and I am doing this at home in the evening, prime bloggy time.  There are other things too but that is the main one.

Head on over to the Ion Age Blog for the latest and I will see you all at the end of the month.  I intend to do Movember again this year so pictures and fun will come from that.

Happy Wargaming!

GBS

“The Jaws that Bite, the Claws that Catch”….

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hot94preview

A snapshot taken moments before a bloody and savage death for an intrepid explorer of the wild ways and places.   Rumour has it that this fearsome beast is no myth and poetic imagining but is instead a white metal reality coming this week for pre-order at 15mm.co.uk.  I could not possibly say at this time but perhaps in a few days time….a more in depth look maybe.

For now gaze and long for it…I know I do.

Now I must go a galumphing back to work.

GBS

USEME Prohibition Gangsters – WIP

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um015cover

Top of the World Ma!

There are some more USEME Titles in the planning stage over at 15mm.co.uk and while I have posted about my own title in the next three (Alien Safari , delayed I know!) I have said nothing about the others; so here it goes!  Provisionally titled UM015 USEME Prohibition Gangsters this booklet presents rules for two scales (15mm and 28mm) in wargaming the period in American history when booze was illegal and tommy guns the norm.  That is the 1920’s and 1930’s.

This is not a period I know much about really so I was delighted when Bob McAlister over in the USA told me he was keen to write just such a title.  With some assistance from his good lady and playtesters UM015 has shaped up as a solid and themed set of rules.  Its the first set of wargame rules Bob has written that has made it to published stage and he is rightly proud of this achievement.

Skirmishing is the name of the game and the idea is that small groups of Cops, G-Men, Molls, Gangsters, Hooch Runners and others fight it out over objectives such as hidden stashes, nightclubs and speak easies, warehouses, the open street, flop houses and more.  As with most USEME titles its ten or so characters a side but you can use more plus the solo rules engine is attached.  In fact Bob handed in a manuscript that was too long when his two scenarios were included so these will be given away free on the website and also included in the paid for PDF version.

As USEME’s are budget titles for gaming fun I opted for public domain photographs and so on for the internal pages of the book and the cover is a clever bit of dress up fun on a sunny day from the creative commons licence on Flickr.

I feel that in terms of the way it plays this vision of USEME is most like UM003 USEME WW2  written by Omer Golan but without the armoured vehicles and aircraft of course and a lot more car chases.  This title will be published later this summer.

GBS

USEME Zombie Dawn makes a return from the dead…

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um009cover

I wanted to do a quick shout out about one of my own titles from the highly successful USEME series of Wargaming Titles; UM009 USEME Zombie Dawn.  It is now back in print after a gap of a couple of months and I am greatly pleased to be able to say that its second print run is larger than the first.  At the weekend I went to see World War Z at the cinema which was good but the book version (rather different…well actually REALLY different to the film) was what was in my mind while I wrote this title a couple of years ago.  It was actually down right funny to see Glasgow portrayed as Philadelphia in the film.  St Georges Square is very familiar to me and with its, as far as I know, unique bright red tarmac surface it looked sod all like America!  🙂

The 2nd print run features only an update to the listing of top sources for inspiration and an update to the list of available titles on its last page.  When the book went to print originally its ninth position on the list was the end of the list but now it goes up to number fifteen and Zombie Dawn is nearing the middle of the listing of titles.  More on the new titles when the time comes.

Because of the new movie being at cinema’s now I asked for and got permission to put up a special ‘Z Deal’ this week.  So until Monday of next week you can go to 15mm.co.uk and get a print copy of UM009 and a pack of 15mm Zombies (sixteen of them) for just 6.25GBP saving thirty percent off list.  Excellent eh!

Shameless self promotion finished!

GBS

Tabletop Wargamer Blog is no more…

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Its a sad but valid day today for its time for me to retire the Tabletop Wargamer blog that I had begun in an effort to show everyone my own personal efforts in wargaming at home away from work.  I got a collection of Ion Age and Flintloque miniatures, I got a fine gaming buddy, I got terrain and even a spiffing table upon which to play…but… Time was not on my side.

As it happened the wargamers who provide me with a living were far more keen on me penning and testing rule systems and fiction than they were on reading about me playing!  That is fine as I have to add that I have found it hard to get the time for focusing on my own efforts and I do not want my own efforts to compromise the happiness that my work brings others.  Lastly exciting projects have developed that will need more of my time and involve blogging so you will all see me on another blog soon enough.

So Tabletop Wargamer is no more.  Thanks to all those who contributed comments, emails and more to the fifteen thousand views it built up.  If anyone wants any of the content from the blog, pictures, scenarios and such I have them but most are already on Barking Irons Online for you to read free.  They are in the HOF Fire-Team and Flintloque pages on the whole.

‘I am numbers not a free man!’  To paraphrase ‘The Prisoner’.

GBS

May Day Fun!

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mayday_freeship_ws

May Day is one of those days in the year when things seem more possible than not.  What do I mean by this?  Well simply put that on this day depending on what you believe its time to:

  • Smash the Capitalistic System
  • Go on Strike
  • Celebrate a Pagan God or two
  • Dance around a Maypole
  • Lick the dew from the morning grass
  • Run about kissing random people

While I may have done some of these things (not telling you!) it did put all me in the mind to suggest a ‘free postage’ weekend at Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk.  Its a holiday weekend in the UK so I think across four days, Friday to Monday, it will do a lot of bored and itchy wargamers good to know they can cash in on my ‘urge to splurge’.  It will be interesting to see the results.

As for the image in this posting, that is what will be on the two websites and associated email campaigns too.  I knocked it up…like it?  I am no artist, not like Mr Jackson or Mr Croes but I like it plenty.  Its like me…blunt!  🙂

GBS