Archive for August, 2004

Moving Forward

Wednesday, August 18th, 2004

I’ve been very busy with Black Hat and the Martian Empires Rules over the last couple of weeks. I hadn’t realised that there were so many things to think about in a set of rules!

I have played another two playtest games - you can read the playtest reports on the yahoo playtest group here. Both were enjoyable games, played quickly and gave a result - which is pretty much all I am aiming for.

The miniatures are coming on as well. I received the first three packs of masters from the sculptor today and that has prompted me into setting up a very basic Black Hat Miniatures website. If you look at the news page, you can see the greens for these first 3 packs.

I am finding eveyone else in the industry helpful and friendly when I approach them. At the moment, touch wood, everything seems on track for Black Hat’s first range being available at Warfare…

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Playtesters Wanted

Wednesday, August 11th, 2004

I have finished typing up the Martian Empires rules and edited them into a form where I feel happy about letting other people have a look.

So, if you are interested in a 15mm Victorian SF fast-play ruleset then please join the yahoo group and download the rules. We have 36 members of the group already, so I’m hoping for some good quality feedback.

I have been finishing off some WOTR miniatures but will be missing Guildford Club’s inaugural WAB WOTR game next Monday as I’ll be playtesting Martian Empires with Ian Marsh again. They are planning on an 8-player 4,000 points a side game - so it’ll b interesting to see what people think of the rules and the Armies of Chivalry supplement. My troops will be there as I have lent them to another player to bolster his own forces - without my die rolling they should do all right!

We played through the Wargames Journal Stamford Bridge WAB scenario last Monday at the club and had a good game. Sadly, our die-rolling let us down and despite an impressive start as the Saxons, one panic test lead to another and our Saxon started tailing it back to the river lead by Harold himself!

This was the first time I have tried using Thegns and Ceorls and Huscarls in separate units rather than combining them, but the hammer blow of the Huscarl unit wasn’t enough to break their opponents - still it seemed a good strategy and one I might try again.

Black Hat Miniatures is progressing and apart from releasing the Martian Empires rules for playtesting, I have now had the final set of Martian and British “blanks” back from the caster and they have been sent on to the sculptor. I also have a few samples of the Martian Commander in metal, which is the first completed figure and very nice he looks too! Hopefully Ian Marsh of Fighting15s will be painting one up in the next few weeks as a sample.

The “blanks” for our first historical range have gone to a caster in the USA (where the sculptor is located) and everything is looking good with that range as well. I’ll be posting pictures of greens once we have completed figures.

So, I am now getting used to the idea of writing Press Releases, thinking about publicity, adverts and supporting articles for magazines and starting to put together the Black Hat website. With luck it will all come together for the launch at Warfare.

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First Playtest

Thursday, August 5th, 2004

As mentioned before, I have been working on a set of 15mm Victorian SF rules Martian Empires to accompany the Black Hat Miniatures new 18mm VSF figures of the same name.

The rules take the Oozlum Games’ Huzzah set of Napoleonic rules, written by a close friend Ian Marsh, as a basis. Though there have been extensive changes to produce a fast flowing, fun game rather than any attempt to produce a simulation.

Ian and I playtested the rules last night and were very pleasantly surprised at how well they played (with a number of changes and rewrites during the course of the game). We played a straight forward encounter game with 12 units on the British side (a mix of Infantry, cavalry, artillery and a Walker) and a combined force of 13 units of Imperial Martians and Tribal Giant Martians (Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery and two scout fliers).

As the figures are not yet finished, we used proxy figures mounted on suitable sized stands. It was surprising how quickly we got used to the mix of British and Spanish Napoleonics fighting ECW with 28mm Darkest Africa and Arthurian cavalry! Very quickly we just saw the units as the forces they were meant to represent.

The game was a close one up to the fifth turn and then my British attack faltered and the Martian hordes swept away my disordered British infantry causing them to rout.

I need to tidy up the rules and make the modifications we noted during the game and probably come up with an initial Points system for rating the troops. The rules will have army lists for British Home Service, British Expedition, Martian Invasion, Martian Empire and Tribal Martian forces but could be used for any VSF setting. Once that is done, I will be looking for playtesters through the MartianEmpires yahoo group.

The Martian Empire figures are progressing slowly, with the second set of blanks due back from the caster this week. Things are still on schedule for a November release.

I am also dealing with a sculptor in the USA who is working on Black Hat’s first historical range. More details of this once we have something to show..

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