Back in the mid 90's, my roleplaying group and I found a book in the local games store called 'Mutant Chronicles'. It was a dark, bleak game, set in the Earth's far future, where the human race had leached the planet earth of all resources of any worth, and then gone forth, spreading out and colonising the solar system.
Nations as we know them were long gone, in their place there were instead a number of Mega-corprations, each with its own specialisation, and cultural heritage; Mishima (Japanese/Oriental), Bauhaus (Germanic/Slavic), Capitol (American), Imperial (British/French) and the elusive Cybertronic, a new corporation with highly advanced cybernetic technology and somewhat dubious ways of obtaining their operatives. Conflict was rife, espionage and even open combat were commonplace between these corporations, but they had a greater battle to fight.
Warzone - 1995
After most of the solar system was colonised, explorers disturbed a mysterious artifact on an until then unknown tenth planet beyond Pluto. It turned out that this 'Seal' (the First seal of Repulsion) had been protecting the Solar system from an ancient evil, the Dark legion; a horde of other-dimensional mutants and undead, headed by five 'Dark Apostles'. With the seal broken, the Dark Legion flooded into our dimension, and aided by the zealots of 'The Brotherhood' (A religious organisation formed to battle the Dark legion, and unify the corporations), humanity began the fight for its very survival...
Doom Troopers (Genesis/SNES) - 1995
The roleplaying game was fantastic, it had a decent set of mechanics, and an intricate and well thought out backstory. There were a number of excellent sourcebooks available for it and it it did well, leading to a spin-off wargame called 'Warzone' (which itself had several expansion books and a number of stand-alone boardgame type additions), and a collectible card game, Doom Trooper (Which in turn had its own Console game spin off!). Both systems and the CCG were very popular from what I gather, the miniatures were good quality sculpts, and just about every different unit type in the roleplaying and wargame was produced as a miniature (Mostly infantry, but some of the smaller vehicles and some of the gargantuan monsters were produced as multi-part, high quality resin and metal models).
Doom Trooper CCG - 1994
In the end, Target Games, the Swedish company that produced the games failed due to its parent company's bankruptcy, but the story and the games remained popular, if unsupported. Interest in the licence/background has always been there and in recent years we've seen a (admittedly short-lived) collectible miniatures game from Fantasy Flight games, and even in 2008, a big budget movie starring Thomas Jane and Ron Perlman, that was released in cinemas (and was fairly good in my opinion).
All this reminiscing aside, when i was recently cruising the boards over at Dakka Dakka, I read that the current licence holder, Paradox Entertainment, is releasing a new version of the miniature wargame, Warzone! It is being released on February 15th, and there's been a couple of images of the models floated so far, and they look GOOD! Personally, i'm very excited about this, and i'm impressed a company has picked this up and produced the game without going to crowdfunding, which seems to be the popular route nowadays.
If you've played any of the games listed above, i'm sure this news will excite you as well, if you haven't, then I will tentatively say, take a look at this game. If it is pulled off well it will certainly be worth your time. Mutant Chronicles/Warzone is so under-appreciated in my opinion. it has such a solid, interesting story to it, and the Warzone rules system was robust as well. This has the potential to be such a good game, and all the things i've heard so far have been positive. I can't wait.....but to bide you over, below is the official trailer.
So, this week, when digging around that web I have found two pieces of juicy Dungeons and Dragons/AD&D/RPG information, although I think i'm somewhat late to the party, and others have known a fair while.
Firstly, this Saturday, sees the release of the first issue of 'Gygax Magazine', a new magazine from the newly formed TSR (It's a new company, not the old one back from the grave, but it seems to have pretty much the same ethos). The people behind this venture? Well, primarily the main backer and publisher is Jayson Elliot, along with his colleagues James Carpio and Jim Wampler, as well as Luke Gygax, Ernie Gygax, (Sons of Gary Gygax), and the Editor of the old Dragon Magazine, Tim Kask!
If this magazine were to be anything like the old Dragon mag, I would be most pleased. I used to look forward to buying it each month, it always had such a varied content, for many different gaming systems. In fact, it got me into a few systems I would likely never have heard of as a 10-12 year old boy in the North of England (I'm specifically looking at you; RIFTS and 'Underground'!). I rarely buy actual print magazines now, mainly the occasional Miniature Wargamer, I just don't see any that appeal to me. This does, and as soon as I find out how to get it to the UK, i'll be getting it!
I've seen the content list for the first episode over at Gamers & Grognards and Greyhawk Grognard here on Blogspot, and along with the following quote from James Carpio himself, i'm not going to lie, I can't wait:
"GYGAX Magazine is an exciting venture from Luke & Ernie Gygax (Gary Gygax's sons who helped create much of what fans know as D&D), Tim Kask, the original editor of Dragon magazine, and Jayson Elliot, publisher and creative director of the project. In the spirit of the original Dragon magazine, GYGAX hopes to rekindle the old school spirit for a new generation of gamers. GYGAX magazine will focus on the entire tabletop gaming hobby and community. The magazine will focus on the overall dedication to the gaming hobby, but will give a healthy amount of attention to the 1st and 2nd editions of AD&D, Pathfinder and D&D Next. Popular gaming systems such as Cortex +, ORE, WH40K RPG, etc. will be featured each quarter, giving GYGAX magazine a well-rounded feel with content that appeals to every gamer."
Secondly, I've read today that WotC have now released a selection of original and classic Dungeons and Dragons, and AD&D products from the various previous systems, over at DriveThruRPG and its various sister sites, and also under the dedicated site http://www.dndclassics.com. Unsurprisingly, immense traffic has already taken most of the sites down, but from what I have seen so far there is a decent selection of 1st and 2nd edition core modules, and plenty of other stuff from the various campaign settings as well, at decent prices.
Our group mainly plays 1st & 2nd Edition AD&D, Primarily in Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms, and although we have the majority of releases for these settings and plenty for many others, there is a wealth of extra stuff on here I am sure we now 'need'. I'm equally as sure that come pay day, i'll be making a few selections!
I'm a big fan of DriveThruRPG and the electronic method of buying modern games, but every other AD&D product I currently have (two bookshelves worth) is in hard, paper format, so this is going to be something of a wrench for me.....
This year, I've decided that i'm going to make a concerted effort to get my existing wargaming and roleplaying projects caught up to date. Since I took a 'break' from playing 40k just after last Christmas, I've gotten into several new games, and although I've hand a handful of games of each, I've spent little time actually painting the models. The result is that I now have a veritable horde of miniatures stacked up waiting to be painted! Although I feel i'm a competent painter, I've started collecting non-28mm scale models now, so this may turn out to be a challenge. New models I've bought this year that need finishing are:
Flames of War: British Airlanding Company and Support, Irish Guards Armoured Squadron and German Bodenstandig Grenadierkompanie.
Firestorm Armada: Directorate Starter Fleet and Carrier.
Force on Force: Various forces for Vietnam, Somalia and Modern Afghanistan.
This is in addition to my existing Blood Bowl teams (three), Epic Space Marine army and a new Dark Angels force i traded with a friend (Four sets of the Dark Vengeance Dark Angels) - Yes, my 40k hiatus lasted just under a year!
So, with all that in mind, my wargaming shelves are already fully loaded, and there is much work to do! My resolutions for 2013 are as follows:
Wargaming
Complete all three Flames of War armies and my Firestorm Armada fleet to at least tabletop standard, and do not buy any more models for these armies until this is achieved.
Play a minimum of 1-2 games per month (of any wargame).
Finishing building up the Epic Space Marine force and play at least one game with it.
Try using the 'Army Painter technique' to paint my Dark Angels up to TT standard ready for the Easter game.
Complete enough models and obtain enough scenery to run a Force on Force campaign (Probably 'Day of the Ranger') for my gaming friends and hopefully get them into FoF.
Roleplaying:
Bring my Conspiracy X campaign up to date (and do so after each session) on the Obsidian Portal website.
Run the Conspiracy X campaign a minimum of once each calendar month (as promised to the players already!).
Finish writing the Call of Cthulhu Campaign I have been writing since last year.
Now I look back, there are actually a few more than i expected, still I feel these are attainable, and I need to make up for this year, where I've managed to convince myself that moving house in January is still a legitimate reason for not getting back to the painting table by December...
