Weekender XLBS: Lloyd Joins The Furries & Games Changing Hands
March 17, 2019 by lloyd
For some website features, you will need a FREE account and for some others, you will need to join the Cult of Games.
Or if you have already joined the Cult of Games Log in now
What difference will having a FREE account make?
Setting up a Free account with OnTableTop unlocks a load of additional features and content (see below). You can then get involved with our Tabletop Gaming community, we are very helpful and keen to hear what you have to say. So Join Us Now!
Free Account Includes
- Creating your own project blogs.
- Rating and reviewing games using our innovative system.
- Commenting and ability to upvote.
- Posting in the forums.
- Unlocking of Achivments and collectin hobby xp
- Ability to add places like clubs and stores to our gaming database.
- Follow games, recommend games, use wishlist and mark what games you own.
- You will be able to add friends to your account.
What's the Cult of Games?
Once you have made a free account you can support the community by joing the Cult of Games. Joining the Cult allows you to use even more parts of the site and access to extra content. Check out some of the extra features below.
Cult of Games Membership Includes
- Reduced ads, for a better browsing experience (feature can be turned on or off in your profile).
- Access to The Cult of Games XLBS Sunday Show.
- Extra hobby videos about painting, terrain building etc.
- Exclusive interviews with the best game designers etc.
- Behind the scenes studio VLogs.
- Access to our live stream archives.
- Early access to our event tickets.
- Access to the CoG Greenroom.
- Access to the CoG Chamber of Commerce.
- Access the CoG Bazarr Trading Forum.
- Create and Edit Records for Games, Companies and Professionals.
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)






























Happy Sunday!!!
I always see your avatar as a 2nd Edition 40k, mono-pose Gretchin with pikelhaube & bolter… lol, happy sunday!
Thoughts ~30secs in – yay Sam’s ba-…why does Gerry have a pipe? O_o
Ireland has mountains? Since when? I thought you only had hills and mounds. ?
Numerous mentions of Japan and hobbits by Sam – anyone playing the OTT Drinking Game is going to need a new liver by the end of this episode aren’t they?
Gerry’s tiny Saga – note to self, check out that project log; something I fancy doing myself some day…
When Lloyd said he was getting in on the furry action, I thought that meant Ben and Sam had lured him to the Burrows&Badgers side, instead he’s talking about actual fur…kinda a let down. ?
I think Gerrys tiny SAGA is actually Gerry’s middle sized SAGA
We do have mountains just not very big ones They used to be big millions of years ago when the Himalayas were just a glint in Mother Earth’s eye
So you’re saying it’s only ‘tiny’ relative to him?
?
Maybe but 15mm is still pretty big
Next to Sam it might be, next to Gerry even 1:2 scale looks small. ?
That being said there didn’t look like there was much height difference between Sam and Gerry, either Sam was sitting on a lot of cushions, or Gerry was sitting on the floor. ?
he had a high chair and a booster seat stolen from Mcdonalds
Did he at least get a Happy Meal with it?
?
he did but @warzan stole the toy
Is that what our backstage passes really fund – Warren’s toy kleptomania?
?
you should see his Beanie Baby collection, I’m just saying.
Pipes are great for pointing and keeping my hands busy
Kind of put me in mind of Bill Bailey when he appears on QI; is that the real reason – you’re trying to become the Irish Bill Bailey?
?
I’m a lot more like Bill’s partner in Black Books, Dylan Moran, bitter, sarcastic and drunk 😉
Yeah but he never had a pipe. ?
he did smoke like a train mind you ^^
I nearly bought an electronic pipe (same as e-cig) but the missus saidxshed divorce me if I did. Bit disappointing as I already had matching elbow patches picked out
Face in Lloyd’s blankie – for me it looked like it was facing the opposite direction to the one you guys photoshopped in. :s
Thoughts on blanket colours – with just the Skellie Bone it looked fairly desert-like to me; could be useful for Gerry’s tiny Saga Crusade project. ?. Anyone else think that with the yellow half (and later one yelllw corner) it kinda looked like it was a field on the edge of a corn/wheat field? 😉
I agree with Gerry regarding roads; it’d be better having them as bits you lay down on the mat rather than making it part of the mat, although if you were to do it, like Gerry says, you just take the clippers to it and bring it back to the underlying brown. At most you might need to dry brush a lighter brown over it for some variety. But stuff that lays on top is better as, like Gerry says, it’d be too restrictive. Also, if you cut it in/paint it on, you’re stuck with those dirt tracks, while stuff on top means you could lay down a cobble road and have it be an old Roman road, or you could lay a tarmac road down for more modern set games.
Tesco blanket – on Lloyd it looks like he’s skinned dalmations to make a fur coat; on Gerry it’s look like a fur mantle on the ceremonial robes worn by someone in the House of Lords. ?
To trim it, if it’s that long, maybe try taking a lawn mower to it. ?
Aww, I feel sorry for Sam, he sounds so hurt to hear Hornby has moved. ?
Hornby CEO changes – sounds like they’ve done the reverse of what GW did a couple years back. Maybe that answers Gerry’s question of where did they get them – GW must have sold them Kirby. ?
@dracs – if you’re looking to play D&D, my group has room for another player and our DM has said he wouldn’t mind someone else taking a shot at DMing to give him a break; we play over Roll20 and Discord – if you’re interested, drop me a PM. 🙂
Happy Sunday Backstagers!!!
For the record, I think Gerry’s idea of OTT creating a ‘Terrain Database’ is fantastic. Inviting all OTTers to take pictures of their landscapes, grasses, hills, mountains, rivers, mud, dirt, and waterfalls. Also general pictures of towns, villages, and burgs.
I’d even be up for a ‘Train Database’ as well.
I’m headed out soon for a ‘research driving trip’ around Kansas to gather pictures of old small town railroad stations. My ‘Dead Man’s Hand’ boards now have the 4Ground train but no small train station. The station that 4Ground now makes is for a very large Western town. The town I grew up in had a classic three room train station set by the tracks. That’s what I’ll be trying to duplicate. Of course I don’t have a Lazer cutter, but I think with w little care I might be able to create a building that will fit in with my other 4Ground building on the table.
have fun on your research trip.
If the OTTer database couldn’t be a feature on the site I would at least be happy to start a project and people could send photos to me and then I could build it in there. not sure how searchable the individual things within a project are mind you.
Happy Sunday indeed! Up with the baby at 5.30am at least there is something to watch!
Wait ….wait … wait …. grass is green????? Really ???? All the grass for 100 km around me is brown ….. Green grass hey ?….. *shakes head * Live and learn
…..Wait … wait … wait … there is ground that doesn’t have cracks in it? Cracks in the ground isn’t normal …. *shakes head* … what a brave new world you lads live in
We are trailblazers on the edge of a pre-apocalyptic country marred by lush vegetation, green as far as the eye can see and an over abundance of water. The irish film Mad Mick didn’t work as well as Mel’s breakout role
😀 … Thanks @gerry … Genuine “Laugh out loud” at that
Mel’s breakout role? I didn’t know TheTerrainTutor was a film star.
?
The Constant Gardener was based on his burma board build
Happy Sunday
happy Sunday
Happy Sunday!
Still waiting to see if Myth is going to go anywhere since MegaCon shifted it to Ulisses. Got such a pile of it wasting space. Ulisses have taken a while but appear to finally be starting to make good on completing some the Journeyman KS. What happens next is anyone’s guess. Rumours of a new Myth KS this year – like that’s going to work!
In our hobby~industry, most companies are founded by people with a passion, and providing they don’t get too ambitious, can either make a living or supplement their ‘real jobs’. Passion will only get you so far before the reality of running a business requires some business skills and discipline:
– business and product strategy
– driven by customer and market research
– underpinned by financial discipline
– not forgetting marketing, customer support and customer experience
The brown stuff often hits the fan for small companies when something like a successful KS or a sudden surge in interest and demand due to exposure requires a different level of capacity and new capabilities.
So business expertise is necessary, but then problems arise if they end up taking over. Without the passion that drove the offering in the first place it can become a bland, unexciting offering in a very competitive marketplace with plenty of choice. Hornby and dare I say GW are good examples of where that can go wrong, but may be recoverable if the value that comes from the passion is reintroduced.
Games and IP may change hands successfully if there’s the right mix of passion & business to recognise that the most important factor is to maintain and improve the customer experience through the transition, otherwise they’ve moved on and the product is doomed.
Happy Sunday folks!
Nice to see Howlin’ Wolf Lloyd on the show today
I think from memory Corvus Belli just announced one day that they were stopping their 15mm ranges to concentrate on Infinity . The 15mm stuff was still very popular especially the DBA starter boxes they did.
There now produced by http://totentanz-miniatures.com though interestingly still called Corvus Belli 15mm.
Battletech or Battledroids additional was first called was never really meant to be as big as it got as it as always just a stop gap game until the Renegade
Legions games series were ready to release
cheers mate, I knew they were still around but couldn’t remember where for the life of me
Sadly they have still only released the Romans and Celts. The company though does to some nice undead Thirty Years War in 15mm
Happy Sund one and all AND a very Happy St/ Patrick’s day to all 😀
go on ya good ting ya.
don’t forget to wet the shamrock, I’ll be drowning mine 😀
The Genius is chilling in the fridge as we speak. Saving it for this evening’s stream mind. Nice quiet day of painting n the like first 😉
@dracs if you don’t want your Warhammer Fantasy Role Play, I could take one for the team and take it off you 😉
god I wouldn’t it’s beyond shite, the only good thing is that you can set fire to it in a nuclear winter.
Lol, you forget that I have several gaming hobbies, one of witch is collecting games I will never actually play 🙂
I don’t think it counts as a game, a form of punishment perhaps, but nothing about that suggests a game anywhere in it’s heritage except the name.
Happy Sunday..thanks for the mention Gerry.
my pleasure they’re lovely books I’m looking forward to getting a game in
Just finished watching the first episode about Hornby. Excellent show
Happy Sunday all!
Games changing hands – give 40k back to Rick & Alessio 🙂
Now off to the iPlayer…
I wish CMON would sell the Wrath of Kings and Dark-Age games as they obviously don’t care for them themselves. Both great games that are dying from a lack of attention.
Happy Sunday to all!
Come on @dracs, lets see some Uruk Hai! I’ll show you mine if you show me yours!
Great show guys.
Gerry – loved the references that you snuck in.
Thanks for the laugh guys, it’s been a tough couple of days in Aotearoa (New Zealand).
Salam (Arabic for peace) and Aroha (Maori for love) to you all.
You are not alone – feel free to PM me (NB: NZ is currently GMT+13, so please bear that in mind when waiting for a response.)
shite time there matey, thankfully it looks like the country is pulling together and supporting each other. Take it easy and look after yourself.
Cool show guys. I have to disagree with @lloyd in regard to only the older generation enjoying Model Trains. I did think the same thing myself but where I work, we held a Model Railway Show only last weekend and I was amazed by the mix the show attracted. Many of the layouts were aimed at children. There was an interactive “Flintstone” style, some that allowed kids to operate the trains, Lego setups and even ride on trains and miniature traction engine. Not to mention other attractions such as face painting, model making, Lego station, toy and sweet stalls. Now I am not a Model Railway fan myself and do not know if this happens at all Model Railway conventions but I was impressed by the attitude and effort that was aimed at youngsters at this event.
I think they have to do that just to stop the idea that it *is* only old men, also it brings new blood into the hobby. Which is nice
I had a train set before I got into models and Warhammer. Must watch those documentaries. One thing I have noticed is the price of locomotives and rolling stock these days. A 0-6-0 tank engine is like £90 and a coach on its own is nearly £50. You’d want at least 6 coaches for a train. Also watching the same train isn’t fun, you need lots of different ones…
The other thing is as Lloyd mentioned is the time involved in a train set. Myself and my dad basically spent 2 months just building the base boards for a train set and getting it ready for laying the track. The amount of time I spent doing the wiring as well. Also depending on historically accurate you want it, a company like Hornby can’t provide you with everything you need RTR (ready to run). The only alternative is kit building or scratch building. If you want a train with 20 coal hoppers, or boxed wagons, imagine the amount of work there is in that. When done, train sets are amazing (though I don’t think they are ever properly finished) but the time is nuts, as is the space needed and money.
Anyway, I could go on for hours about trains. Lloyd, if you ever want to set up On Train Top, give me a shout!
Wow, what an episode and very interesting on the business background of games companies.
I am in the middle of an order that is taking a week and half of continuous production for my stuff and have no time at all to concentrate on marketing, new stuff, well anything else in fact. For a small design/manufacture setup it’s not easy to get everything done!
Great episode. Thanks for covering the fur based gaming surfaces. I saw some on the interwebs a couple of months ago and was wondering when @lloyd would have a go. Not for me yet but perhaps if Lloyd can come up with a similar “quick” solution to that of the foam rocks we could have a joined up system for epic terrain making in super-quick timescales.
As to game lines changing hands I’ve been impressed with what TTCombat have done with Carnevale. There is a natural psychological negative where any form of change is involved. What they have done by combining with their terrain solutions is create a much more rounded product which appears to be getting better traction in the market as a result.
I’d love to see Warhammer Historical come back somewhere. I’m sure Foundry or someone similar would love to get their hands on some of those games. Warhammer Ancient Battles is still the best mass-battle ancients system I’ve played, despite the giant buckets-o-dice requirements.
I doubt any of the warhammer historical books will reappear they started as a sop to the authors and are all based on GW’s property.
It was one thing to publish them while the authors still worked there, now they’ve all been moved on they have no reason.
Despite having talked about the historical games in the front stage I never even considered them for resurrection it’s a great shout. Especially the old west
Not all were based on GW game mechanics.
Trafalgar and Kampfgruppe Normandy were original designs.
Catalyst is a publishing company and not a game company. BattleTech the game needs a real game company to take over the IP. Sure, then went back 30yrs and that is it, it is stagnant. Many who play BattleTech play the video game. The video game itself did the right thing not only from a technical point view but from a game point view, it modernized the rules and threw many of them away. What Catalyst has give BattleTech is 30yrs of Errata to give you a reason to purchase the same exact book again with corrections over the last 20yrs.
BattleTech is STILL the only game in town for Mechs, but the Mechs are ancient looking. The rules are stuck in the 80s and Catalyst cannot make enough money on the game to make it better. They will take whatever they can get out of it until either Topps is done with the IP which they License or the guys at Catalyst decide to retire.
I for one, would love to see new ownership of the BattleTech IP.
One idea for stopping the “gaming rug” from slipping is to get some of those anti-slip mats you use to stop your rugs and matts slipping on wooden floors/tiles in the house. You’ll get them in the pound shop, and are fairly cheap.
good idea, somthing like this maybe https://www.argos.co.uk/product/9264775?cmpid=GS001&_$ja=tsid:59157|acid:480-316-7430|cid:969859635|agid:65754317687|tid:aud-484139255901:pla-293946777986|crid:311829729297|nw:g|rnd:5266514744482160336|dvc:m|adp:1o24|mt:|loc:1007276&gclid=CjwKCAjw4LfkBRBDEiwAc2DSlN7HzUUdCb2A_LeDvP_iT0qhp-LRtc_TXVdoV06OORLh2fu6DrI92xoCeSYQAvD_BwE
That is fairly expensive compared to what I have at home, which I got from Ikea.
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/textiles-rugs/rugs/stopp-anti-slip-underlay-art-80227877/
It is like a very light plastic mesh and very effective.
cool will get some of that. it looks like the stuff people use on dashboards for phones.
Look under the sink in the office lloydie I think there’s a couple of meters of it there
Watched the hornby show, used to be into airfix when i was a child in the 70s the 1/72nd scale tanks and soldiers. problem with them is there still the same spues today has they were in the 60s so if you saved yours theres no differance so pointless buying and some are dated in pose and detail
@lloyd did you watch the channel 5 show about teams of railway enthusiasts creating themed boards?
https://www.channel5.com/show/the-great-model-railway-challenge/
Those blankets are amazing for the fields! Where could I get something in Canada?
I think these are the same from Amazon in the states
https://www.amazon.com/Fleece-Colors-Traveling-Blanket-Chocolate/dp/B016U8ZBH2/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=brown+throw+blanket&qid=1552847306&s=gateway&sr=8-5
May the BEEB be with you, It aint with me.
Ben’s basement: it paints the beavers or it gets the hose.
I enjoy James May when he pops up with a model rail documentory, shall have to give this one a look. There’s been a couple of “challenge” series, getting track layed on original routes that were daft fun. Another Celeb with a great train layout is Jools Holland, and finally for anyone who’s a little bit interested in the OO/HO hobby after Lloyd talking about it go and have a look on YouTube for Miniature Wunderland, it’s an incredible layout.
@avernos I’ve made a similar list of my projects on paper and realised I’m probably wore than you lol. I haven’t started to list my 54mm projects yet. I have so many which are in progress or not started.
don’t worry, those were just the projects on my desk as things stand I will be hard pressed to complete probably a tenth of it before I shuffle off 🙂
Happy Sunday all and thanks for the show.
Happy Sunday (and St Patrick’s) to everyone.
Gerry, the click-tech based Mechwarrior Darkage ran alongside CBT, the game was a blast and though the sculpts where often all over the place, it was still Jordan Weismann and one of THE best prepaibted out of all the ‘Clix’ series.
Good memories playing that from high school, before I even played 4th Edition in 04.
My friends are all battletech fans and we’re less than complimentary about it. I never looked near it, I hadn’t noticed that it was ran in tandem though, probably due to not having any gaming shops in this country, it’s hard to tell what’s out there if you’re not actively looking
I think we bought some clicky tech in Replay in Bangor. Soon gave up on it though
Game changing hands? One word… Warzone!
I have been following/playing Warzone since 1st edition and it seems no one knows how to handle that IP. Prodos, the latest company failed after a successful KS. I think they just tried to do much with not enough resources, and the actual IP holder, is apparently a pain to deal with. Now they apparently already have another company in line for warzone, but we’ll see.
As for Wrath of Kings? It’s dead. They don’t support it anymore and haven’t for quite some time.
It seems you mixed a few different things there:
1. A ‘buyout’, wherein the original owners have essentially lost control of the IP, the finances, etc. etc. .
2. A ‘sale of reorganisation’, wherein the orignal owners sell in order to reposition themselves as having a particular role.
3. IP licensing.
I am wary of IP licensing as it seems to be only a matter of time before the IP license is withdrawn regardless of how well the game is doing. A ‘sale of reorganisation’ would seem to me to be the best case scenario for a game that i like because the original creators retain some significant level of input whilst bringing in others to do the things that they weren’t good at.
Lol @lloyd torture’s Justin by vandalising (reworking) a fleece blanket?
if your only using one side of the fleece you could try spray latex to stop it sliding around @lloyd
Loved this show, though nowhere near enough Saga discussion. When I found out about Age of Magic I seriously had a nerdgasm. I suspect if they do a ancients version I will repeat that experience. I’ve been smashing away at 15mm Saga with Forged in Battle miniatures for a couple of weeks now. Did I mention how much I love Saga?
Remakes I’d love to see;
Legends of the Five Rings miniatures game could have been great.
Warhammer if it was simplified to a War of the Rings level rules/dice rolls and went to D10.
Man O’ War and Battlefleet Gothic if they were simplified like XWing/Armada.
Star Trek Attack Wing if the models were XWing Quality.
Hate. It was a KS only game by CMON based on Adrian Smith’s comic. This could have grown into something with expansions and better rules.
Warmaster in plastic.
Remake failures;
Warzone was a game system that could have been big but the wrong company attempted the resurrection.
D&D 4th Ed was a desperate attempt to create a computer game feel to roleplay.
Warhammer Roleplay 3rd ed was ….. Not sure what the hell FFG was thinking.
FOW 2nd ed. This goes to show what happens when you tell the community that you don’t want their input.
Warmachine/hordes – See FOW 2nd ed.
Dust – too many attempts at too many versions of the same universe. K47 won me over in the end
Let’s ignore the other stuff and focus on your 15mm saga.
What?
How’s it coming on?
Where is the project?
That is all, answer the last question first please ?
Pete waterman started his hone company to make model train parts because no one made the pieces he was after.
love it guys that was nuts what the Airfix board did with the kit masters tools.
It’s a real shame with Dust. Some really nice vehicles and flyers, of which I bought a few. The game system is not for me though, and it’s seriously beyond me why they decided to rip off the Konflikt 47 name by renaming their game to Dust 47. Absolute dick move.
Happy Monday 2AM!
Great show guys, very interesting exploration of some of the classic modelling companies and what happened to them.
I have been nurturing an idea for a long time that i want to start developing and it’s conversations like the one you’ve just had in this show that, not only gives me new ideas, but also allows me to realistically temper and focus what i want to achieve.
Gerry, it has to be said, you rock that pipe like an UBERSTANTFUHRERGROSSUNIVERSEMEISTER! Love it!
Great work guys.
“May, I snag you” punctuation matters XD
First, congratulations to Mel the Terrain Tutor. His Kickstarter funded in seven hours.
Regarding games being bought and sold to other companies, it’s a really mixed bag of results and I disagree with some of your assements.
Take Dropzone and Dropfleet. Hawk was successful when Dropfleet blew up on the Kickstarter. It’s success lead to a huge strain on the company and Dave really wanted to just do the design work and the guy that did a lot of the playtesting, same guy that did the Let’s Play videos with y’all, left Hawk. Hawk did have active forums but it was mostly community driven with occasional official responses from various Hawk team members.
When TTC took over, they announced 2nd Edition was coming. The problem is that it’s been almost two years and very little feedback, even with the beta rules out there. This has had a serious negative impact on the game. In the interest of full disclosure, Dropzone and Dropfleet died in my local area several years prior to the TTC take over.
We are beginning to see a little life out of Dropzone with some teased images of new models and a future release of a new book.
Wild West Exodus is interesting. The game and minis where fantastic but there’s a lot of steampunk games. It’s sale makes sense as even though it was a separate company, it was under the Battlefoam umbrella and I’m sure it was just a realization that they couldn’t do both properly and decided to sell off the part that’s not their core business.
The minis continue to be fantastic but the new rules are just awful. The whole action card combined with action points added unnecessary complications that add no value to game play. Now, the guts and glory cards are an interesting mechanism that I rather like. If we play again, we’ll keep that but probably use our own home brewed rules.
@lloyd I understand how you feel about Dust but if it helps, there is a free official app called Dust Enlist that has all the cards, rules and platoons. I personally prefer the physical card but it’s another option. I personally really enjoy the latest version of Dust and the fact they now have their own distribution system instead of relying on Battlefront or FFG has made the game significantly more available and accessible, at least here in the US.
I think a good follow on topic from this would be where should games be moved, but also why is there a defeatist attitude in community nowadays.
My example being DarkAge. CMON own this, but have run down stock, European stocks are all but gone, no communication from cmon, yet it is one of the best games I have played and an amazing game system.
CMON appear to have moved into the hedge fund profit model. A song of ice and fire diverted all resources (imo) from dark age, now admittedly asoiaf is a really good game that I think derserves more respect as a game rather than being dismissed as a license cashin, But this has (quite rightly) from a business perspective mean older systems have been shelved.
Now I love dark age, and what iv’e seen is community members writing new tournament packs and rules and running them at the big shows, one hoping to get CMON attention again and pick the game back up, but also cos people like the game. However the vast majority of posts in forums and FB, ALWAYS start with is the game dead? It winds me up, you can still play a game with someone if you have the rules and minis. You don’t need a company to still be making the game. Darkage rules are free, you can proxy models, you can play the game. But I see so many people saying they are getting out of the game cos cmon don’t care anymore, but that to me means that it is the person who doesn’t care. You don’t stop using a working TV if the company no longer makes TV’s!!!
The other thing I think is when should a game move, I would like to see cmon pick up darkage or sell it on, but the disadvantage of a big company owning an IP, is that they don’t have to. They can keep the rights whilst they make money from newer games, kickstarters etc, so maybe an advantage of a smaller company needing to move a game on is more likely going to lead to positives.
Paranoid have gone under for Mythos, which is a huge shame as again that is a really great system for skirmish level. I would love to see a company take a punt and buy that IP from them and push the game.
A game I’d like to see moved on is perhaps controversially, Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game. I think GW have done a good enough job with the rules, and they certainly look beautiful (although I think the tweaks they introduced since the 2005 edition are pretty much just pointless complications, but I digress…) but their models are the problem. They have some lovely models, it is true, and the metal Perry sculpts stand up against anything produced anywhere by anyone. But all too many of the models are 17 year-old plastics, which are showing their age, Finecast (hawk, spit, gack!!), or lovely but expensive Forgeworld resin. They have produced a couple of lovely new plastics – but really very few and sparse.
My feeling is that this is really a game suffering from not being an “A range”. For any other company this would be the jewel in the crown, but for GW, it isn’t 40k so it isn’t worth the time except to a few dedicated enthusiasts who have really worked incredibly hard to stop its slide into post-Hobbit oblivion. All kudos to them, but one can’t help but wonder if a Warlord or a Warcradle had been able to take on the licence then maybe they would have done something better with it. They don’t have the resources that GW potentially could funnel into the game, but perhaps they could funnel more than GW actually are prepared to because it wouldn’t be robbing another game of production resources.
I can’t see GW ever letting it go, because they don’t want the competition to have it, but if I was given a genie’s lamp, this is what I would wish for!
Hawk/TTCombat is an interesting one. Hawks strength was a focus on a single game world of Dave’s own making, Dave’s sculpting and design skills to realise that one the tabletop and particularly for Dropzone tight rules and a strong internal balance.
Their weakness was that the company seemed overly reliant on Dave splitting his time 5 ways to get anything done and a habit of a ’feast or famine’ release schedule where as bunch of stuff was released all at once then nothing would come out for months on end.
The breaking point was when the Dropfleet kickstarter went into crunch time and the entire company was sucked into a black hole of fulfilment nightmares and work on Dropzones second edition got pushed back as wheels either fell off or ground to a groaning halt.
What TTCombat brought to the table was logistical support and other people to take the project management burdens off Dave’s shoulders along with most of his hats. He has been chained to his CAD workstation/word processor for the past year sculpting and writing in preparation to relaunch Dropzone properly and maybe even Dropfleet to a degree as both games move forward in the upcoming Battle foir Earth book.
Where I feel TTCombat did miss-step was to back away from community engagement until theory felt ready. As Dropzone v2 has been pushed back to become a more ambitious release the silence has grown deeper and longer. They abandoned the forum because their company doesn’t ‘do’ forums, but theory also shuttered the Talon volunteer program leaving established tournament organisers feeling…unwanted? Sadly a once lively tournament scene is in need of reviving.
for a Japanese table top game could they use the miniatures from CMON Rising Sun?
I created a project with the miniatures from the game I painted. it is called Rising Sun board game complete.