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grabnutz 3 years, 9 months ago.
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Well everybody, the day we have worked towards for over 18 months has finally arrived. The book is at our printers in Lithuania!!
With luck, a fair wind, and the Baltic not freezing over, we should be able to release the book sometime in March through North Star (hardback) and SNMStuff (digital).
Over the coming weeks we shall be sharing pages from the book and information about the contents to keep you in the loop about what to expect.
To begin with here are the cover shots:
IHMN2 – Contents Ppage 1
The next thing we shall reveal about the new book are its four contents pages.
As we done in all Ministry books we do not have an index. Instead we have a highly detailed set of contents pages and hundreds of numbered cross-references in the text.
To make finding things easier we not only have clear page numbers at the bottom of each page, but a section heading at the top on the outer edge. This allows you to quickly flick through pages to find the page you need.
In the digital version all the cross-references are hyperlinks making it even easier to navigate through the book.So, onto the first contents page, covering sections 1.0 to 3.7. If you have read our recent books – Blood Eagle and Thud & Blunder – then much of this is very familiar. However IHMN players may notice a few extra or different items.
Cast you eyes down to 3.2 The Movement Phase, and you shall see that there is more detail here including extensive rules for flying, climbing, crossing gaps (perfect for those rooftop chases) and getting on or off mounts and vehicles. This last pone is important because we have a larger section of lad, sea and air vehicles in the Armoury (5.4).
In 3.3 The Shooting Phase we have added clearer rules for grenades, shells and bombs as well has how to deal with structures, vehicles and mechanised walkers. We repeat this in 3.4 The Fighting Phase for attacking vehicles and mechanised walkers.
3.6 is a completely new rule – Heroics. We found in both Blood Eagle and Thud & Blunder that players liked their heroes and leaders to have hero points, which can be spent to give the option of die rerolls.
3.7 Aftermath has been alsoy extended to cover animals, exotic creatures, automata, vehicles and mechanised walkers.
Well, there we are the first page done. Watch this space for more on the other three contents pages.
As always you can fire questions at us on our Facebook page, the Lead Adventure forum, and other fora which we regularly appear on (OnTableTop and The Wargames Website, to name but two).So, onto the second of the four contents pages.
These cover all of Chapter 4.0 and most of Chapter 5.0 and contain many new delights for veteran players of IHMN.
Starting with 4.0 The Playing Area we have the usual, though improved rules on Terrain, in all its deadly forms. Difficult and Impassable will seem familiar, but in Dangerous terrain we begin to see changes such as giving various types of this terrain Danger Ratings which, in turn, have Pluck Modifiers.
Active terrain is that which come at you, such as the Clapham Omnibus, cattle stampedes, avalanches etc. These do not sit around for you to interact with them but make it their business to wreck your best-laid plans. These arose through playing city games, where we had to devise what happens when the numerous steam trucks, hansom cabs and omnibuses came into contact with the player’s figures. I once watched a brewery dray sort out a vicious fight between Black Dragon Tong members and Brick Lane Communards, by simply running them down.
Then it is on to traps. They have always been a home brew rules thing, until we formalised them in Thud & Blunder. Now we have updated them for the late 19th Century and put them in this book for your devious delight and delectation. A mite ungentlemanly if you ask me.
For many years, you have asked us questions on how you can break into or out of buildings and other structures. What weapons are suitable for this? What happens if we set them on fire? So, here we are, an entire sub-section dedicated to this, along with the new term ‘Resilience’ – which is essentially Pluck for structures. Examples of several structure types are also given to assist you in play.
The rules on visibility have been existed since the very beginning, but we have taken these back into the workshop, sharpened them up and given them a new layer of rules varnish.
Sea State and Wind Force are factors that will affect games set upon the high seas or far above in the skies. Not all maritime encounters will take place on a calm sea, nor aerial combat take place in a windless sky. These two subsections show how you can make things much more interesting.
So, Chapter 4.0 brings you many options. As usual you should remember 1.5.3 The Power of Rules and use them as you see fit.
Chapter 5, The Armoury, has possibly undergone the widest range of changes in the book. Most of these have come from your feedback and, the many battle reports that we have read. We have also pooled most of the equipment from the armouries of all the three original books and, made some hard thought through decisions.
Let’s have at it then. Armour will not seem too different, though a number of armour types have been modified. The Magneto-static waistcoat/bodice is now the Magneto-static Repulsor and can be added to most armour types from civilian clothing all the way up to the Patent Kelly Suit.
We have introduced Armour ‘Properties’, and the Faraday and Vulcan armours are now something you add to armour.
We have spent considerable time rationalizing the Fighting and Shooting weapons tables. As you may know we work on the principle of generic weapon types, rather than having hundreds of different sub-types. In addition to these main types, we have added some new definitions such as Wrecking and Precision, which affect how they can be used and allow certain Talents to affect them.
Grenades and, their use in thrown and rocket form, are now better defined. Something we used to get many questions about in the first edition. Similarly, we have carried this new clarity forward into Shells and Bombs as well.
The Equipment section has had a complete overhaul and we have finally clarified the various power sources for weapons, armour, equipment, weird science, vehicles, and mechanized walkers. This shall make it so much easier for you to cost your own weird and deadly inventions.
Some items of equipment and weird science have been sent to the IHMN Museum of Curiosities as being overly complicated, unplayable or never seen played. A fine example is the Edison Beam Translator. We have only ever seen this used once, and it was a game breaker, so now it is an exhibit of our creative hubris.
Those who get to the end of the Weird Science section will find Mystical Wards. These are one of the few items to make it into the main rules from IHMN Gothic (with a nod the Thud & Blunder). You will find truly little kit from Gothic because we still consider that to be a separate game. IHMN is Science Fiction and, Gothic is Horror. Do not worry though because we shall continue to support Gothic and have prepared a pamphlet to guide Gothic players on how to use their game with the changes within IHMN2.
The section on Vehicles has had a major rethink, as we recognise that many of you want to include more of these in your games. There is so much improvement we are not going to go into details regarding all of them here. Just that the design and costing of vehicles has been made much more robust., so you shall be able to create anything you like.
There are eighteen fully developed and costed land vehicles for you to use, thirteen maritime vessels, and four aerial ones. As with the rest of this section we provide generic types but also the rules and options for you to modify them if you so wish.
We shall not be surprised to see high points armoured vehicle clashes in future games.
Well last, but by no means least, is the section on mechanised walkers. We essentially took everything we had written previously on walkers, put it in a wastepaper basket and set fire to it.
The whole concept has been rewritten from the ground up, as we recognised that many of you wanted to play games with walkers, but what we had written before did not give you the tools to do so in a satisfying and logical manner.
Now there are complete rules on how to design, equip, crew, armour, arm and cost mechanised walkers of your own. There are subsections on how to use, damage and, even repair your walkers in the field. In addition, we have created twenty-one example walkers serving each of the Great Powers, and other nations. Many of the companies in the book also list appropriate walkers as options they can deploy on the tabletop.
To give you an idea how excited we are about this, I currently have seven mechanised walkers on my craft bench in various states of assembly and painting, and our friend Duncan has created two 3D print designs I shall shortly print off. Expect to see these dangerous figures featured in future battle reports and at Show participation games.
And that is it. Next week we will reveal more about the Menagerie (which includes Automatons), Talents, Mystical Powers and finally, the Companies.
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