Spartan Games

Well. I'm really not sure what to say. Dystopian Wars was my brother's and my gateway back into miniatures gaming, I became a fan. Was one of the hosts of the Element 270 podcast for 36 episodes over 3 years or so. Playtested for Dystopian Wars 2.0. Became friends with Neil, the owner. Wrote back stories for some of their boxed sets, as well as working on the Legions and Halo rules. Helped run the playtest groups for Legions and Dystopian Wars. Was one of the writers of the Fleet Action rules. I moved away a little from Spartan the last 6 months, I was burned out playtesting - as happens.

I read today that Spartan have closed their doors.

I'm not really sure what to say. I counted and count Neil a good friend, he was always full of energy, ideas, plans, and worked harder than most people I know. I know he has been seriously ill the last few years, and I know this has impacted. I know Spartan had other difficulties as well.

I'm not really sure what to say. I'm sad to hear the company has closed, and wish only the best for Neil and Francis, for Derek and the staff at Spartan, for all those keen supporters of Spartan who helped the company in so many important ways, and of course, for the gamers who play their games.

I was a big fan of Spartan Games, they made excellent games, wonderful models and hold a seminal place for me in my evolution as a gamer and my gradual transition into freelancing in the game industry. I will sorely miss them.

Hobby Goals...

In 2016, when I wrote up my goals for the year, they were predominantly focused on games and gaming. Since I have already written up my goals in terms of my writing, I am rounding them out with my goals for the hobby...

Table Top Games Played

Last year I had the goal of playing 100 unique games, and managed it with some 15 or so to spare. This year I am going to simply replicate that goal. Having a voice in the back of my mind telling me to try and mix up what hits the game table was enjoyable last year, and made me break out some games I hadn't played in a while, rather than going back to some old staples. This helped me rediscover what it was I enjoyed about those games, and reminded me of some of those classics on my shelves that had been collecting dust for some time. Repeating what I did last year, I will also be recording the different games I manage to get to the table via a geeklist on Boardgamegeek, in fact, you can find the geeklist here, if you're interested...

Role Playing

Writing for both Infinity and Star Trek leads me to the obvious conclusion that I need to play more of both! I am hoping that this year that I manage to get a regular RPG group running. Whether we play Infinity, Star Trek, Symbaroum, Wyrm, MERP, Star Wars, FATE or any one of the dozen other games I have sitting there calling for attention - I don't care! Just something!

Painting

I have a host of unpainted models calling for attention, as well as a significant amount of scenery waiting to be built. My goal here is to build all the scenery I have still in wrapping, and to paint on a regular basis. I am hoping to complete my Heavy Gear army, get paint on some Infinity models, finish my Australian navy for Dystopian Wars, and much more. I think the key here is painting/building regularly more so than aiming to get specific models done. I do tend to push this aside when things get busy, but now I have a dedicated painting area... perhaps I will manage more...

On Miniatures Games

On Minis Games has been a project that a friend of mine (Quinton Sung) and I have been planning for a long time. With the last half of 2016 being as chaotic as it was, we managed to record only two episodes (which are currently available to listen to at the Inverse Genius On Minis Games page.

The aim for this year is to really get On Minis Games into gear, we've had feed issues (and if you have trouble subscribing, let me know at onminisgames@gmail.com), scheduling issues, and lots going on in our personal lives. Without the various excuses and put bluntly, we haven't done as much as we had hoped by now. We hope to remedy this in 2017! My goal is to publish at least one episode a month, and hopefully two... we shall see how we go!

If there is a particular focus, topic or concept you would like to see in a miniatures game podcast, please let us know! We are eager to more episodes recorded and available for download!

Game Design

I am lucky enough at the moment to have had the opportunity to work on a range of games: Dystopian Legions, Dystopian Wars, Fleet Battles, Halo: Fleet Battles, as well as write for Firestorm Planetfall, Firestorm Armada, Infinity the RPG, Star Trek Adventures, and to work as an editor on Firestorm: Taskforce and Achtung! Cthulhu the miniatures game. I'd really like to push this a little further this year, not only by continuing to write for the various games I have an opportunity to write for, but also to design and develop some games of my own. I have a variety of RPG and board game designs in various stages of completion in boxes, folders and on my hard drive. I'd like to aim to work on at least 4 different designs of my own over the course of this year... we shall see!




Well, that about rounds off my hobby goals for this year. Doubtless I have forgotten some things, but this is enough to begin with!

1876 - Dystopian Wars and Legions...

Those who have followed this blog for a while will know that I let it stagnate for just over a year in order to work on the Element 270 podcast and blog. One of my absolute favourite miniatures games is Dystopian Wars, by Spartan Games. I started as a passionate blogger, became a podcaster, started working with Spartan on Dystopian Legions, and have since been lucky enough to work with them on a range of their product lines including Firestorm Armada, Firestorm Planetfall, Firestorm Taskforce, Halo Fleet Battles, Dystopian Legions, Dystopian Wars, and Dystopian Wars Fleet Action (you can see what I've worked, including links, on on my Bibliography Page).

While a lot of work was underway in the background at Spartan HQ on Dystopian Wars, including completing the update to the statistics for every major and alliance nation, and the posting of updated backgrounds for every nation, not much was being released in terms of miniatures. This is changing! Spartan has announced and update to the timeline, the release of the Dystopian Wars Scenery Pack, the new (massive) Sturginium Rigs, as well as teasing of a new Kingdom of Britannia Battleship.

On their website they have also been including a range of scenarios, and these can be accesses from the Spartan Downloads page, I had a lot of fun working on these, and I hope people enjoy playing them!

For Dystopian Legions Spartan have announced a change in how the game will be available, and have also been posting some fun additions to the game in terms of a collection of new Supplemental Rules (available from the Spartan Download page), which the playtest group worked on some time ago, and are designed to add some narrative fun to the game. Spartan will also be posting some Legions scenarios... and again, I hope you enjoy playing through them!

All in all I'm excited by what's coming up, for those of you who play Dystopian Wars or Legions, I hope you get a kick out of the scenarios and extras, the design team and playtesters have had a lot of fun putting them together and we hope you enjoy playing them on the table!