[Thorsten Frank]

John D Salt wrote:

Harry Harison’s “Bil the Galactic Hero”. Also, if one is prepared to stretch to graphic novels, everyone should read “The Ballad of Halo Jones”.

Oh, yes, Bill the Galactic Hero – totally forgotten about that one. I recommend it too.

And since I discovered the 2000AD stuff last year I´m a total fan of some of the strips. You clearly see the influence from Rogue Trooper on a certain franchise. And some of the J.Alpha and Sternhammer stories blew me away. Halo Jones is on my to do list too!

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

A bit of a problem is that many of the authors do give political commentaries in either direction. Finding a rather light-hearted approach is difficult IMHO because of the theme. I read a lot stuff over the decades and I, personally, do actually enjoy the more political books especially due to on experiences plus a hard sci-fi approach.
You should also give standard space opera a chance. (like the mentioned Lensmen or the Blackcolla books).
While I read some of the WH40 books they made me dislike the whole even more. But, however, that´ s my personal view.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Haldeman – Forever War, Forever Peace
Heinlein – Starship Troopers, The Moon is a harsh Mistress
Gordon Dickson – Dorsai series (interesting comcepts)
David Drake´´ s Hammers Slammer´ s (despite you already ruled them out)
Keith Laumer – Bolo books (one of the inspirations for SJG´  s OGRE)
H.Beam Piper – Space Viking (that one was a surprise for me)
Jerry Pournelle – The Mercenary, The Prince and other CoDominium novels (WARNING!)
Pournelle/Niven – The Mote in God´ s Eye (intereting first contact and war comination)
Roland J. Green – The Peace Company series and Starcruiser Shenandoah series (IMHO not on the top of the list)
Eric Frank Russel – Wasp (SOE in the future!)
Peter L. Rice Damned If We Do, Frost Death, Monsoon (the first two are Team Yankee in the Renegade Legion universe and surprisingly good, Monsoon is a collection of short stories on one planet)
Various Battletech novels for sure too.
Antologies:
Combat SF
There Will Be War
The Military Dimension II

EDIT: And if your stomach can take enhanced, nunchaku-wielding, crossbow-shooting Ninja/US Special Forces in space – Timothy Zahn – Blackcollar series (the first one is pretty solid)

TV series: Space: Above and Beyond (for it´ s time revolutionary and I like it still much more than BSG!)

SECOND EDIT: Yes, that´ s a pretty “dark” list and I may add Bujold´ s Vorkosigan books and the Leijiverse animes (Leiji Matsumoto´ s Space Pirate Captain Harlock and Space Battleship Yamato) as lighter entries.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Guy Farrish wrote:

the recent post about Fenris and the discussion about how figure numbers for rules affect purchasing of wargames figures. Also the ‘End of Times’ posts.

Holy…., thought exactly the same. And it´ s only a question of time the other big names will (or better must) follow. And I hope the small ones follow too (even if it´ s bad for me as customer)

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Ich geb jetzt auch meinen Senf dazu!*
I wonder if we should distinguish between skirmish and “real” wargames at all. Both contribute to the hobby and it´s rather irrelevant if 8 sharpshooters skirmish with a patrol of French cuirasseurs, 7 samurai defend a village against bandits or 5 space marines attack a space orc  post. Or if it´s about the 6th Army in Stalingrad.
It´s about gaming, the mechanics are often similar  and there were always changes in currents to the hobby. Maybe a new TV show or movie is displaying the Napoleonic times in a cool way and people may start to play that again, same for ACW, maybe there are currently people playing normally WHFB thinking about doing some WWI project after watching 1917….
It´s a thing of “culture” and those things change. And we talked about a lot about various currents here.
More so GW “internationalized” wargaming in a way others simply couldn´t do. In it´s heyday there was every GW product published in several languages (including the GW-only White Dwarf). And the whole hobby isn´t as much as in previous times a thing of the UK and the USA – even I, living in  wargaming barrens, can easily find players of WH40K (which still doesn´t mean I want to play it)

craig cartmell wrote:

They also cannot afford it in terms of investment of time and money.

This is very important IMHO!
Money isn´t the great elephant in the room for the customer but for all those small companies – everything got more expensive, be it rents, raw materials, energy, insurances and and and while the income side for the producers often didn´t keep up with it.  First those things keeps customers thinking twice about on what they spend money on and I observe this with my own buying behaviour. And second it makes it often impossible for the producing side to keep the business running. And both sides together worsen the situation even more.
However, I think time is the prime problem. In my best days I had various time intensive hobbies but they did never interfere really with my wargaming. Even taking care of my parents didn´t keep me away. But what managed to keep me off gaming was my job. First in small chunks working more in less time which had me to decide between different not spare time related activities, later more and more (in my case unpaid) overtime. And there I had to decide about sleeping or any hobby. I don´t know how that´s in other countries but I reguarly observe this here that people simply have to cut their spare time for more relevant things. But I don´t believe, with all my current knowledge, that it´s elsewhere any different. And this is a far worser fact that many may think.
It´s the combination of all those various components many of you already mentioned with my two last points that are critical for any spare-time related activity.

*Literally “adding my mustard to this (discussion)”- meaning: Since I have always enjoyed adding my two cents worth in oneway or another!

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

I really like what you write about weapons!
Ok, I´m a little fanboy when it comes to read about futuristic firearms but I´ve got PLENTY of RPG books for that to choose of.
But the unpredictability of weapon effects, especially grenades, is something I love. I know there are people out there that disagree with me but it gives the whole thing a touch more  of realism (like one thing I experienced one with a HG going off after under one second and feeling the shrapnels flying over me or giving new orders to a LAW guy while he was firing – luckily both cases in ex.).
I wonder if you want to integrate rules for interacting environment (the odd fuel barrel etc) . Ok, it makes the game more or less unrealistic but may add to the fun factor.
What you write about the armor mechanics is good too. This is one of the things I love with HW.

The more you talk about ZeroDark the more it get´s on my wish list (ok – it IS already on the list for a while now but it makes me want it even more)

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Depends on the game. I can´t imagine something more frustrating in gaming terms than to prepare a game and waiting for months to play it because you´ve get only thre, four times a year the opportunity to play and then that….
However, my younger self with plenty of spare-time liked this type of scenario.
And my today self is even masochistic enough to reguarly put my forces in my Silent Death-, Scavengers- and Burning Sands solo games in impossible can´t-win situations.

Example: an annoying series of unlucky rolls put my beloved Erland against six lions of which the last one incapitated our poor barbarian, forcing his shattered self to raid a nearby oasis only to be captured, sold as a slave to the foul sorcerer (Al Kishtar) who was happy getting his runaway back, manage to flee only to be captured again by the Bahadur Keshik. That was a really fun afternoon.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

A mechanic I used a few times is like yours with a difference – I´ve done a simple 2D6 with a 2, 6 and 12 showing there´s a mine. And as extension a D6 with a mine detected on even and exploding on uneven rolls. Worked pretty well and I think it could be modified (for campaigns – like heavily mined areas with higher percentage etc)

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Playing unpainted to get to the table as fast as possible. My painting was always sub par so I waste no more time than neccessary on this part of the hobby.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

@Etranger: Yes, I know all of them and Irregular has some fine Khmer, Burmese and Thai minis to make the list even more complete but I find they aren´t or, to make it a bit clearer, fit well in certain types (like sword and sorcery) campaigns. But that´s from my humble point of view.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

For sure: NO DUCKS! (Just kidding, Glorantha fans)

As I mentioned before*: slavic inspired stuff (for inspiration Wolfhound/of the Grey Hound Clan or, well, The Witcher books, games and telly series) – especially relevant for Burning Sands or RPGs IMHO.
Cilvilized Africans. Think of the Eritrean Christian kingdom with it´s armoured warriors during the crusades.
South and South-East Asia are also underrepresented – and that´s a bit sad. One just has to take a look at the reliefs from Angkor Wat: lot´s of half naked warriors wielding swords and spears! Perfect for the southern sea (oh, and some Polynesians and Maori would be interesting too**)

Oh, and still more desert stuff!!!! MUCH MORE DESERT STUFF!

*Yeah, I know, I keep repeating myself over and over again…
** and Indonesians – have you ever taken a look at the Toraja people, their architecture, burial rites, clothing etc? Southern sea again!

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Uh, Luigi, you are opening a can of worms here. It is very likely that you refer to the occurence and book linked by Whirlwind because it´s the case that cauesd a monster wave (without really changing the problem). Another publication that tackles your question is “Why Defeating Insurgencies Is Hard: The Effect of Intelligence in Counterinsurgency Operations -A Best-Case Scenario” by Kress and Szechtmann but sadly only in an appendix and “Hierarchic parameter structures for military operational analysis by Hämäläinen which sadly vanished from the net (and everywhere else).
And the numbers of papers in Conway´s game-of-life simulating such things are countless (and variations like reaction-diffusion-systems) and given your background you know about them much more than I do.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Simply put, no. I´m a bit too eccentric to fit into the mainstream market in general. Most of the “great names” are either heavily rules laden so the well-liked rules argument will start even before the game. Then was the Gasland case (I´ve talked about my disapointment more than once here) which is in it´s scope a bit too narrow for me.* Having said that, still Battletech, DBA and especially the GZG rules (do those count as defined by you, Mike?) are high on my list. Same goes for the board game discussion a few days back.
What I like with indie products that they are often really “niche-niche”: unconventional rules (in both directions, complex and/or easy), lore that doesn´t describe every detail, not limited to one manufacturer of minis (and which change from version to version. You know in what direction I´m looking now…) and so on.

BTW, and @all, regarding Facebook, I´m always happy to get some new friends there. I can be found there with my (<—-) name and have a, well, eccentric profile pic.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

MattH wrote:

Romani Ite Domum

Now write it one hundred time until dawn.
If it´s not done by sunrise I will cut your balls off.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Sindbad style would be great. IMHO they would come closest to the original vibe. Also fitting may be a Malayan sailor style (Sandokan anyone?).
And a sprinkle of Madagaskarian, Polynesian and Melanesians.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

MattH wrote:

Thorsten Frank wrote:

We had that interesting discussion on this theme back here(at TWW) about Gaslands (easy-peasy style) and then someone brought he missed the complexity of Car Wars.

Yeah, that was me 🙂 It wasn’t so much the complexity that I missed as the whole nostalgia thing really, but I was surprised that it I could still pick it up and play it after all these years, and it was still fun. Besides, I still maintain that Car Wars isn’t that complex.

‘

TBH, I never felt that CW was particular complex too. I really miss guys on foot in GL. I know it´s not in the scope of the game but I still miss them.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Another difficult question to answer for me. And I had to take a walk to think about it. I really love rules that give me an feel of realism and surprising results. We had that interesting discussion on this theme back here(at TWW) about Gaslands (easy-peasy style) and then someone brought he missed the complexity of Car Wars.
However, after taken care of my parents for over ten years (with an daily 10-12hour job as a hobby) I had to reconsider this stance. There was often the time I bought some rules, tried to read them in 10 minute chunks and ended up forgetting the basics of it afterwards. So I ended up playing the rules I already knew without touching the new ones in the remaining time.  In fact it was Robey´s Horizon Wars that really got me back into gaming. ‘
Now, with everything toned down in my life, I got more time to get into more complex rules again – but I don´t really want. I´d rather use light rules and add some changes to them to suit them my purposes.
(And Mike, you may like to hear that, Burning Sands is the only set of rules that I never needed the urge to change anything!).

So, my conclusion is light rules before heavy ones.  BUT it depends on the mechanics.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Pfffffhhhh. I really like the comic style format. And, tbh, I think doing it that way myself and search for techniques doing it – if and when I get my bandwith problems under control.
I really started wondering why you didn´t post updates anymore. But I understand that´s a lot of work every single time. And considering all the things happening over the last months…. And, what I´ve always wondered about, how the die rolls were in some situations.
OTH, those comic style AAR´s are a really great way to promote the rules and the minis on your website. It´s something different and a real unique selling point on your site. You should consider this.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Oh my gods, I did read recruitment in the 1950´ s first and  then I started to wonder why the post talked about lords and peasants. I need new glasses….
Besides my “little” mishap very intersting. That´´ s very different from the other areas I know of at this time especially various parts of the HRE).

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

That´s quite interesting. TBH, I was never into Runequest and my first contact was King of Dragon Pass two years ago. Interesting, I will follow this.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Following this thread. I look for many years now for something that could be used for Dune as harvester and carryall and the buggies frome the games) stand-ins. Same for a vehicle like the Baserunner from Deserts of Kharak. And the RRU from Revells Robotech:Defenders. All three are some secret projects I wish to do for a while now.
So, there´  s not only a need for “normal-realistic” but others too. Maybe I´ ll try them to sculpt them myself one day.
(on the other hand my wallet is quite happy with this situation)

?

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Stroezie wrote:

They are due for release somewhere around may 2020 so you will have to wait a while. Cheers, Stroezie.

Thanks for this info. I bought some Battle Valor minis a few months ago for my project. Sadly, not yet painted. Hope Dragonfrog will get the new ones too.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

I´m with Darkest Star Games here (like so often). The point is that I experienced even in excercises small unlucky events and I´ve got experiences like a boar hitting our squadron during a tactical change of position causing three 2tons crashing in each other and causing 7 WIA. This allowed the EX-Opfor to exploit an unobserved gap and that would have caused even more losses to our unit. It wasn´t planned that way and some of the brass were seriously pissed off (I think they had to pay a few rounds in the casino….). And this was just one example from many.
The real problem is: you can´t really simulate conflict/war. There are so many variables that´s it´s more or less impossible. Even most video games can´t (think of it, would you charge around the next corner sub-machine gun blazing if your lifes at stake? Or try that split-s at 2000ft with an fighter jet?).  And btw, that´s my personal problem with historical wargames, as much as I like AARs of historical games,  and my preference for sci-fi (and now heroic fantasy).

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Darkest Star Games wrote:

Oddly, it worked last week… hurrah for windows updates!

*rofl* The last win update needed 4 1/2 hours to complete and I did need take me another 5 hours to make my lappie work again. I was used to those things under 7 but now??? Well, at least it works again as good as it used to.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Size is good (enough space for the minis). For the shape I can´t give an opinion (I´ve got not enough knowledge) but it looks nice.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Darkest Star Games wrote:

Wonder if it is a US vs. ROW effect?

Nah, don´t think so. The WordPress architecure is pretty open. I´d rather think that´s a browser or anti-virus thing. Maybe the drop-down plug-in is getting in conflicts (like identifying it as pop-up) and blocking it. Pretty sure it´s the FireOS thing I experience. It works on all my other things, including the Android phone, nicely.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Ok, interesting effect: no drop down on FireOs but you get  directed directly to the forums page.
(besides the fact I needed three attempts to get logged in but that´ s Fire…)

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

The Bra´Sheer are somehow cool. I easily can imagine their heavy units look like The Tripods from the series back 30 or so years ago.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Dropdown works on my Lappy with Firefox. FireOs didn´t work in logout (and persistently refused to log me in – that´s a regular problem). I´ll try it again tomorrow….errh… later today.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Pfff, all three sound good. That´s a tough choice. But being a guy acting generally local I would say Jigsaw may be a slightly better choice.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Mike, you just hit a soft spot in my heart….
Well, I loved them too. And I loved all this early RPG stuff that looked exactly like this (Space Gamer? Even the GDW´s Challenge had, despite being professional products, had this “feel”). Or the Battletechnology? Semi-professional – but my younger self thought it was a true pro product.
A couple of months ago I wanted to throw away some of my old stuff and sumbled over an German language BT fanzine called Heavy Mech. Exactly what you describe. Photo copied, staple bounding, a hell of typos, missing text and all the other things you describe…. and a lot of interesting content (I noticed that I wasn´t the only one dissatisfied with the original CityTech infantry rules) – and just running for a few issues. Has no value today besides my memories (and there they get a lot of value – I couldn´t throw them away).

Today? You could be lucky if some anarchist groups still do such things (stumbled over one which looked like a pro publication lately)
Or, well PDFs… and there we have some interesting examples. Like this one:

Archive

which looks pretty good and it´s free….

So, earning money? No. Or at least not much. But cleverly promoted and/or produced it could be for sure a good way to spread word around.
However, if done a bit system agnostic, with some clever ideas, it can get something interestng. Especially considering the fact that sword&sorcery doesn´t get much love in modern fantasy. And I´ve looked in many many sources over the last couples of months. Or certain sci-fi themes.
There may be still a place for something like that today.
And I hope there are some people here making suggestions.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

John Treadaway wrote:

It was fun playing a game with Joe and Kevin Dallimore: I just love the system from the first time I reviewed a copy three decades ago. I mention in the article that I’m working on a card driven ‘AI’ for a robot ‘Betafortress’ (or similar) that allows on or more ships/players to cooperate against a non player ship. When I have it finished I’ll do an article on that as well and make it available for folks.

Fell in love with SD buying a box of the TNM edition. Sadly, I can count on my two hands the games I´ve played since then. It was always hard to find players and since the US decreased their forces it´s near impossible to find anyone even knowing the game.
Don´t know if I recall that corrrectly but didn´t you write Hammer´s Slammers rules based on the SD rules 20 or so years back that were published in the MW?

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Looks like another interesting issue. And thanks for doing something on Silent Death. I started a new project last year that gone in hiatus and maybe this brings me back on track with it.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Robey Jenkins wrote:

Thanks, Olaf! It helps to know I’m not crying into the wind. R.

What? I actually wait for your take on skirmish gaming since you first announced this project a few years ago on the HW group.
Actually I used Horizon Wars much more then I intended first over the past years.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Currently doing my own, still heavily Hyborian influenced, world* and try to keep it on a more “realistic” side – so my vote would go to the inland sea.
However it´s still fantasy so I go with anything coming.

I don´t know if you are interested in it but the Hyrkania (eastern steppes)  and Vendyha  (India) regions aren´t much covered in many of the novels neither in many fantasy at all. Same goes for real life Himalaya region (Nepal, Tibet) which has some interesting implications (Hyborian Age Gurkha).
And speaking of units – in the Conan Unconquered game one of the most dangerous units is the Shem Ashuri Warrior.
So , lot´s of desert/southern stuff still to be explored. (Yes, punting for coming decades!)

*Think of it as Hyboria and GoT had a baby with all the political implications. Kane is it´s uncle and Lankhmar it´s aunt.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Ha! Another thing we don´t get over here. TBH, I´m a bit fed up with their standard christmas offers by now.
And worse, a couple of years ago they sold small auto-guided telescopes from Meade for 99 Eurons which was really cheap (sadly was pretty broke back then and hoped for the next year….).
Same goes for the primer you mentioned a few months ago – they don´t sell it here.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Uhhh, different paint scheme for the guards….
Hm, that´s a very subtle way for hunting my money 😉 🙂

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Sadly, not in the Huns motherland…. 🙁

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

Darkest Star Games wrote:

I don’t know, they look cobbled together. … I’ll get my hat and be going now

So, quite realistic.  😉

Really, I don´t make any fun now – we got a really lot cobblestone streets where I live and they mostly look like that.

(Ok, don´t know if you were ironic now or not)

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Thorsten Frank]

@Geof: Thank you for all your effort. That´s quite an interesting article!

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

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