Warband goes live!

After an initial 'pre-launch' at Vapnartak down in York, the Warband rules are now on sale!

Physical copies are available direct from Pendraken.

E-copies ae available through Wargames Vault. 

Support is available on the Pendraken forum.

This new venture for me has been a fun journey so far.  Designing, developing, and working with the chaps at Pendraken to bring a product to market has been a fun, frustrating, exciting, and anxious couple of years.  

I'd like to give out huge thanks to everyone involved so far.  

You know who you are, but in particular thanks go to Graeme, Bob, Mal, Helen, Andreas Modesti for the cover art, and of course, Leon, Dave, and the Pendraken team for taking the risks.  Thanks also to the other play-testers; cheers for knocking off the rough edges guys!

And it's all just beginning.

There's a military axiom, first expressed by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder that, 'no plan survives contact with the enemy'.  

It'll be interesting for me to see if these rules survive contact with the public!

Almost all wargames rules are 'Marmite' in nature so I'm expecting some good reviews and some bad reviews.

As ever, only time will tell.

EDIT:  Well, its been up at Wargames Vault for a few days now and appears to be at number 4 in the 'hottest titles' list.

Up to No. 2!

EDIT (Again): It's holding strong at No.2 in the 'hottest titles' list, but has hit No.1 in the 'miniatures' list today.

Scribblings from a previous life

Many, many moons ago, in what seems like a previous life, I used to do a bit of doodling every now and then.  Truth be told these scribbles were mostly associated with the roleplaying, other gaming, and fandom interests I held at the time.  It's safe to say that it's been many years since i put pen to paper and I dare say a skill neglected is a skill lost, so I doubt I could bash out much worth looking at nowadays.

My creative efforts at this stage in my life are directed more towards words than pictures,  And of course the necessity of painting toys for my wargaming interests.  

I occasionally think I should break out the pencils again, and in a recent fit of nostalgia, I dug out some digitised files of my old artwork.  

So I thought I'd post some up here, as a change of pace if nothing else.

I had a bit of  Klingon fetish for a while.

My grandmother (now sadly passed), used to say 'that boy's been here before'.  She loved this one I did.  I think it reminded her of her childhood.

I drew this one for my good American friend, as a going away present.  He was in the UK because his dad was stationed at Greenham Common (we had the Cold War on then).  I still miss him and his lovely kinfolk.

I did these ones for the defunct company Flame Publications.  They were due to released a Lustrian supplement for the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game (1st Ed.), but Games Workshop pulled the plug.  Shame, Carl Sergeant had me down for a bunch of pictures in the book.  Oh well.  In fact, I think this is when I gave up on the drawing.

Vapnartak 2015

Sunday 1st February 2015, my wife and I headed down to York racecourse for the first show of our year, Vapnartak.

Things didn't get off to a good start as on the door, the chap stared at me and said (referring to my wife), 'is this a hanger-on?  Hangers-on get in free'.

Um.

OK then.

My beloved is a gamer and can out-geek me.

Glossing over the pretty poor 1970's offence we both paid and headed in.

OK, so, we took a few pictures (actually my wife took them as my shaky old hands just snap a bunch of blurred rubbish).

Amazingly there appeared to be a Malifaux tournament underway.  Some interesting looking battlefields and battles on the tables.

Spread over four floors, York racecourse is a great venue offering lots of space for some jolly nice display games.

My wife was particularly taken with the new wave of laser-cut mdf buildings out on the market nowadays.  These offerings are from Sarissa.

The good lady herself indulging in another pack of Magic tG cards to whoop me with (figuratively of course).  The first of our cards from the Fate Reforged expansion.

An overview of the very good, but severely over-pressured cafe on site.

The only reenactors I saw there.  They seemed a bit subdued, but their kit was very impressive - including some evidently sharp swords.  I didn't catch the name of their group either...

My dearest is an utter Whovian, so gravitated almost immediately to the Daleks.

The book says Saga but this is the very good little game - Jugula.  Essentially a gladiators card game with minis on a board to track progress.  I was tempted...but have too many other projects on the go at the moment.

 An exceptionally impressive display.

And of course, who could fail to like a Shaun of the Dead display game?

...complete with a Gruffalo, apparently...

And of course, my rules make their debut on the Pendraken stand.

We headed home exhausted and with our wallets emptied...and having picked up a printed copy I surveyed their magnificence!

Oohh...shiny QRS!  

All told, aside from the sexist hiccup at the start, a great day out at one of the UK's leading wargames shows.