For those who like sci-fi, mech fights, 3d printing or pocket-sized skirmish wargames designed for compact, easy play, we can recommend...

​

It's a 3D print-and-play game, and a pay-what-you-like campaign, born from the mind of a Kickstarter backer who graciously assisted with some stl files for Momentous Issue of War assets.

Here are its key design factors:

• Great for casual and new gamers
  (Easy to learn, fast paced, pretty art)
• Adaptable and varied gameplay
  (Customisable mech, 24 terrain cards)
• Portability
  (Fits in a pocket or bag, designed for cafe tables)

And my personal favourite element:

• Crafted with enthusiasm, professionalism and care out of a sheer love for the game.

Click the pictures for links to the campaign.

There are 20 days left to get in on it (end on 1st of September), and it's already fully funded, meaning your guaranteed to receive the game with any pledge.

And here's a link on how to build your mech!

~ Charles

​

As of today Momentous issue is available on Wargame Vault for £10 / $12!

We're so glad to reach the "end of the road" point with this project, which has allowed us to open up time for other projects. Arthur is powering on with Cretacea (coming back with a fresh pair of eyes is extremely advantageous) and Charles is getting his teeth stuck into the correspondence game Kingdom and Command. 

Today we had a big check-in and got up to date with all the current tasks, principally the writing and the photography. Needless to say, for a while we were telling ourselves "we need a win" for motivation and we definitely got that in this release. 

Looking forward to updating you all on the progress with those other projects this week. 

Regards,
​Arthur and Charles. 

Today the PDF was sent out to all the backers. We're very exicted to start getting feedback. The book will now go off to the printers soon and we will hopefully be ready to upload it to wargames vault soon to so that the general public can enjoy the book. 

For now you can follow the discussion on the release post on kickstarter or feel free to email us using the contact page on this website with any questions. 

We're closing in on the end date for the MIOW kickstarter. We are very excited and are making the final touches right now. We've decided to add a scenario page and a small histroy fluff page to the book to give it some more juice.
​

Check out the page here if you fancy backing and getting a copy before it goes live and saving a few bob (also a signed copy of the book as will only be available through the kickstarter). 

Boys and girls, the day has finally arrived for The Momentous Issue of War. After months and hard and thorough work, discussing, writing, researching, crafting, playtesting, photographing, designing, formatting, reviewing, and redoing it all again, our work is finally complete and prepared and available on Kickstarter.

Click the picture below to go to the campaign! 

​We thank everyone who has waited patiently and are excited to now bring you the finished product.

The last week has been a flurry of video editing, writing, photo editing and lot's of other bits that go into preparing a really interesting and striking kickstarter story. 

We're excited to report that after a year long process of working on different projects we are finally ready to launch one at the end of this month. It's been a long road and we're so ready to get something out to the public now. 

The Momentous Issue of War will be launching for a 30 day kickstarter at the end of the month. People will be able to get hold of a PDF before the book goes to print (meaning they can give direct feedback and suggestions for the book if they have any) and also a copy of the book if they wish. Previous kickstarters have taught us that people always have a say, and they always want to be heard. This is the value of kickstarter, your name in a book isn't just a word, it's a legitimate demonstration of your having been involved in the direct production of a product. In our case we will be hosting threads for feedback on the kickstarter itself so that people can let us know their thoughts and feelings on the game before it goes to the final print. We can make ammendments to any overwhelming factors (though we predict few as the game is extremely ironed out) and people can have that nice feeling of being heard by the community. 

Keep your eyes peeled in the coming weeks, i am sure we will have mroe to report including the uploads of our playtest videos that we are so excited to show you! 

​Peace and love - Wicked Wargames 

It's almost the exact birthday of the business becoming a partnership this time last year.

We've had a long and sometimes stressful journey, but we've also had so much fun. The moments of trial, confusion and overcoming obstacles have always been outweighed by the joy, strengthening of our friendship and working together to create something beautiful.

Today we received our first big "win": a test print of our first game, soon to be released.

"The Momentous Issue of War" is an American Civil War block game based on an 8X8 grid with the traditional Kriegsspiel aesthetic.

The first print is gorgeous and we don't want to overshare because soon we're going to bring you a whole load of information (not to mention we've shared a lot already and want to keep some secrets for a bit!).

However, here are some images of the print that arrived in the office today:

Never judge a book by its cover... unless it's a war game, in which case totally do, because you're going to get a strong flavour of the game.

In our case we're going for traditional, old-school and a little fun. The colours are bold, and the new company logo adorns the bottom of the front page with a professionalism that the old logo didn't quite have.

Our commissioned game title is striking and exciting, really grabbing the eye. We may alter some of the colouring slightly, but this is the cover you're gonna get! 

Abe welcomes you to the book with an awesome quote that inspired the title of the book. The layout is two columns a page, and the book includes tables, images and bullet point to break down information to be both easy and visually interesting.

You'll be able to play game by going through the book page by page and learning as you go.

​Much of the layout (we call it the "final format") is meticulously finalised by now. 

Our chosen art style is a collection of beautiful photography to explain rules, and mottled and faded watercolour images inspired by the Civil War. We chose images that inspire us and bring out a feel of humanity.

We also like to include quotes from Civil War era from the presidents and selected generals of the war.

The back cover is simple and exciting, with a dramatic image of the game in play. Smoke rises from a settlement that is the central focus of this dramatic image. 

Our blurb reads: 
The Momentous Issue of War is loosely based on the US Civil War. Easy to learn and play while providing a great amount of tactical depth, high-stakes decisions and dramatic narrative beats.

Visually inspired by the style of traditional Kriegsspiel games, players use block units, abilities and terrain to plan their strategy. A unique activation system that changes throughout the game enables players to feel the tide of battle as it ebbs and flows.

Experience cinematic moments during the give-and-take of capturing and losing ground, and the dramatic tension of regimental combat in a game that leaves you wanting more.

At just 20 pages, the book's cost will be modest. We haven't fully decided (we need to talk to our printer about that cost), but will be start with a run of two or three hundred copies, with more ordered as we need them.

We will keep you in the loop and we guarantee it will not break the bank. We're probably talking the cost of a few cups of coffee at most! And the PDF will of course be even more affordable.

​Keep your eyes peeled for more soon! 

In the lead up to the release of the Momentous Issue of War, we've made some executive decisions regarding the company.

The main one of note is that we've redesigned the logo, going for something more simplistic and sharp. We will still have our tag line "The Devil's in the Dice" in our hearts but we need something cleaner and more professional looking to present on the front of our publications.

Henceforth we will use the above logo and will be implementing it on the site from this week. The home page will be amended soon! 

We also have commissioned an awesome title logo for the front cover of "The momentous Issue of war".

Above you can see the working pages for the front and back of the book. Currently we're waiting on the final piece as the one we've received has one coloration issue. Soon though we will be ready to send this for test print which allows us to do a few things:

1. Finish the trailers!
2. Check colouring, photo resolutions, font scale and readability. 
   
3. The final format. 

Once we have the test print and these tasks completed we will be confident sending this to the crowd funding platform for people to help us get it off the ground and hopefully raise a little funding to support the hundreds of hours we've worked on WW products this last year and a bit. 

Keep your eyes peeled for more, coming very soon. 

~ Arthur

Hey everyone, Charles here, and I want to tell you about my personal thoughts about Kingdom & Command, and, of course, where it is in terms of development.

My thoughts on the game

In the past few weeks we've been running a playtest, and it's been a lot of fun. It's our longest playtest yet, and I've discovered that in addition to being a game, it's essentially writing a short story together. Just like game of D&D is creating and experiencing a story together,  this is writing one together.

It suits Arthur and me well, given that we're both writers (or at least like to think of ourselves as such!), and world creators in RPG games. Both of us have laughed, gasped and teared up from this game.

Developments on the game

The game is meant to be played by letters. However, to speed up playtesting, we decided to play this game by email. We will faithfully report below what we learned from this, but we nevertheless suggest playing by letters for the physical elements, explained in the first bullet point:

• The game plays perfectly via email instead of letters. Although one cannot use wax seals, letter folding or tea stained paper, the game retains all of the drama and story-based elements, which is the core part of the game.
• Just like with letters, swapping drawings is still totally doable. In fact, it means we could have one "master file" of a map that we exchanged with each letter, and here it is:

Continuing with what we learned:
​

• A "Stuff Tracker" is useful for - you guessed it - keeping track of stuff in the game. As with the map, both Arthur and I would add it to with each letter and send it back and forth:
  

What's next for the game? Not much:

• Commission a graphic designer for a front cover image.
• Finish off a few photographs for the book, just to spice it up, as with the images below.
• Edit in any desirable changes learned from our current playtest.
• Finish the playtest: just one letter left!

Oh, you're still here?...


Okay, I'll tell you one more thing about what makes this last letter special:

I'll be honest here, I'm a little frightened of how it might turn out. It's not just the end of a playtest game, but the end of a story.

Both Arthur and I have become invested in the lives and trials of characters we created together. Although I have creative license to direct the story and its ending, I believe fellow story writers can relate when I say that if a character becomes alive enough, they are no longer in your control.

I don't know how the story ends, but regardless, I adore the feeling of creating a vivid world, and I want to know how it turns out, even if I myself am the one to write it, and this is the feeling I want to share with the players of this game.

When playtesting Cretacea, we've used dinosaur models (painted by Arthur, a professional miniature painter)

When playtesting Cretacea, we've used dinosaur models (painted by Arthur, a professional miniature painter) however, we recognise that not everyone will have dinosaur miniatures at home, and some people will just want to pick up the book and play. For those people we include dinosaur tokens at the back of the book.

This will be a few pages you can print, and they'll have top-down pictures of dinosaurs that you can cut out and play with them as substitutes for models. So to give you the best possible play experience, we decided to outsource creating these tokens to an artist, Naizu.

Here's a picture from the brief we handed Naizu:

And here's a draft of what she produced:

Interesting note: observe the Compsognathus at the far left. For visual consistency, ​Naizu used the same brush for all the dinosaurs, but the difference in the dinosaurs' relative sizes meant that the Compsognathus would end up just a blob, so she'll increase its size a tiny bit to maintain design consistency and showcase the art and colours.

Although it sacrifices historicity, the game gains visual beauty. We often discuss balancing the game this way for things like realism, fun, speed, ease, beauty, etc.

If you like her work, click here for her instagram, Naizu's art is mixed and whimsical but she is working to a specific brief so that we cna bring you some serious and wonderful tokens!

More news soon. 

Hey everyone, Charles here to update you on Cretacea and tell you more about our dinosaurs.

Hey Charles, what's going on with Cretacea?

Well, as mentioned in the post on our Facebook Group, we've decided to relax the focus on Cretacea to allow more time to focus on our two other games, The Momentous Issue of War and Kingdom and Command. To put it simply: those two games are much smaller and easier to create, so even though we've been working on Cretacea for longer, we think we should focus on releasing something sooner to the patient public.

Okay, so is any progress being made on it?

Yes, we've run a few playtests for new dinosaurs, and we've outsourced some work to a hired artist. More on this to come in an upcoming blog post. As mentioned, our main focus has however been on our other games.

Cool! Stuff is happening. What can you tell me for now?

To start, let's talk about what everyone wants to know: the dinosaurs. Which ones are we adding? Well, to speed up the release, we're adding four new dinosaurs to begin with, and the rest will be stretch goals. This will ultimately increase quality by allowing us to work harder on each dinosaur individually.

Let's start with a new dinosaur:

​As mentioned in our last post on the blog and on Facebook, we've revamped the combat system to include more dice, and this will be one of the biggies.

Most of the time, it rolls three attack dice. This is one of the highest rolling dinosaurs in the game. It means that in most instances it could roll in the 3-18 range, whereas some small dinosaurs might only roll 1-6.

Specials are where a dinosaur gets to shine, and we went for a narrative approach with this one, focusing on its supposed amphibian lifestyle, and the strong bite and powerful tail... but you're going to have to wait for release to find out what they do!

Next up, we have fan-favourite:

​We've worked a lot on game balancing, and personally I'm a big fan of tactical and strategic games, which is why the stegosaurus is one of the most interesting dinosaurs to me.

Its attacks are varied, with a deadly tail on one side and an iddy-biddy head on the other (albeit with a powerfully sharp beak). Its attacks reflect this, meaning that you have to play well to use its best attacks, or else be caught out-manoeuvred!

And, of course, it's just an iconic dinosaur. Writing the specials for this one was fun, especially the Flush Plates rule, which was a Wicked Wargames hypothesis regarding intimidating tactics. The special lets it intimidate hostile dinosaurs.

Lastly, I want to tell you about a personal favourite, and one that comes a little bit out of the left field:

Yes, it's not technically a dinosaur, but it's too cool to omit, and we are mixing dinosaurs from different paleontological eras, after all. Also, if your imagination is running wild right now regarding ways the game could expand, imagine what ours has been doing! (We've been thinking an Ice Age expansion!)

This dinosaur will be a stretch goal, so I won't show the stat card, as it's still open for editing, even though it's been through some playtesting.

I just want to say that I love where this creature fits into the game design: a slow, sneaky boi that bites hard when he gets you, giving a sense of approaching danger. It was hard to decide on a special for the sail-fin, but ultimately we decided to go for a camouflage effect.

Okay that's cool, but -

Yes, it is cool.

No, listen, I have a ques-

Did you see the dinosaurs?

Yes, but about Cretacea and upd-

DINOSAURS!

​

Okay, seriously though... We know we've been quiet, but we have been working. More updates are coming. We remain focused on The Momentous Issue of War and Kingdom & Command as our higher priorities, but Cretacea is still happening.

​For example, we're outsourcing creating some dinosaur artwork for tokens to a professional artist, playtesting continuing when it can, Arthur continues to compile miniatures, and lots, lots more. Stay tuned for more on that.

Warmly,
​Charles

Hey, it's Arthur. Co-founder of Wicked Wargames. We have been busy bees and pushing forward on all the games in the business. We both work multiple other job, but we are making time to get these projects done by setting regular, dedicated working hours.

Since our last updates in October we have pivoted slighty and we have taken a new approach to our current targets. 

Here is a summary of the new goals:

1. The Momentous Issue of War
We aim to finish this first. The reasons for this are basic but sensible: it's a smaller project and is simple to playtest. (Quick, simple and snappy games of which we can bash out many in a day) . This means we can develop the game at a much faster pace. We have now gotten this rule set to a fairly complete position and are sending it to printers for test prints very soon. 

2. Cretacea
We are still working on Cretacea (believe it or not) and we have realigned to a larger project (again) with a broader scope. We are creating around twenty dinosaurs (where the original had just twelve) and we aim to provide at least fifteen of them in the core book with stretch goals on the planned kickstarter for more. It's all very exciting. UPDATES COMING TOMORROW

3. Kingdom & Command
We're powering through playtests for Kingdom and Command, our correspondence roleplaying game. It's a low-key favourite of ours due to its communicative nature being that we work remotely so communication is our forte. UPDATES COMING FRIDAY 

​Let's start in this post by talking about: 

We've been dedicating a lot of our time to the creation and playtesting of The Momentous Issue of War, our US Civil War "block game", which uses basic blocks of units and an 8x8 square grid.

​About the game
It's a riveting game, it plays like a well-thought-out and traditional board game, and when you play it you can almost feel like this game has existed forever which is such a nice feeling. The game is very tactical and also very quick (on average one hour per game), and one can really feel the magic and momentum of the battle as it ebbs and flows back and forth during the game. 

What's the status?
The game mechanics are done, and we're awaiting feedback from fresh-eyes friends with overall thoughts on book formatting. Test prints will follow that. We have playtested this game to a T and are very happy with the state of play.

We have also recently created a live playtest video. As we want our games at a professional standard, we decided to hire a videographer, and have no regrets. The video edit will be out soon so we can show you the fun and tactical nature of the game more personally.

Here's a snip from the editing program:

What does the book look like?
As seen from the images below, we've gone for a contemporary paper like background and a newspaper font for the titles, splattered with quotes from generals of war.

It features some awesome acrylic paint-style images of Civil War troops in action to supplement the methodical imagery of the gameplay examples.

Lastly, it's a short book, which is how we want it. We may release more parts for it in the future but it's currently very streamlined and quick to skim, which is great when you're at the table.

These previews are fairly small, but you'll have the book in time. For now, we're just showcasing look of it. Soon we'll have test copies in our hands (so excited!), and we'll be able to release better previews.

Come back tomorrow for updates on Cretacea and then later this week for updates on our writing game, Kingdom and Command.

​

The irony of producing a really nice and polished product is that it's hard to call it done. I (Arthur) figure we could work on this for the next ten years and still mull over certain questions and equations; where possible we take a mathematical approach to rules writing and balancing, to maintain a fair and fun probability of success in the game.

This being said, we recently announced the game "finished" and then set a release date, one that we are sure to now postpone. Of course we're a little miffed because we want to release it as soon as possible, and we're grateful for the patience of those who are waiting for the game, but we think it's the right decision.

The game is finished insofar that it's a working system in a streamline and pretty rulebook, but we recently decided that it needs work to add new content to distinguish it as a second edition, rather than as a detailed reskin and update of the first.

Therefore, our project aims going ahead are the following upgrades to Cretacea:

 As of today Cretacea second edition (firrst draft) is finaly finished! we placed the final pages into the book and although there are still test prints and some editing to do the book is officially finished and the first complete final format is done. It's been a long and exciting road, as we approached the end we couldn't wait to get to this stage for the gratifying sense of it, the work that's been done and the final product. We're so close to having test prints in our hands now. 

Below is a four page print screen of the book spread out so that you can get a slightly closer glance at the layout and colors, images and artwork that is going into this beautiful tome. It's truly going to be a beautiful book to have on your gaming shelf. 

It is set in the American civil war (ACW), plays on an 8x8 grid,  uses wooden blocks to represent units, and plays in an I go, you go format. In keeping with our company creed of our games being fun and easy we have boiled down unit types to four varieties: infantry, cavalry, artillery, and command.

Our aims and ideas for this game are to give players:

• Enough variance across your force to scratch that itch for some tactical fun.
• Rules that are simplistic and enjoyable.
• A game playable in just half an hour or so.
• For it to all fit in a pretty and practical sized box. 

The idea came from a forum post on the Wargames Website here:

www.thewargameswebsite.com/forums/topic/slow-mind-small-games/page/2/

Wherein the writer, a man who beautifully expresses his difficulties with gaming and how he prefers simple and small games, approaches the gaming style in his own way.

​Arthur immediately began thinking on the topic and went delving in the free Wargames Rules site for inspiration. He struck gold with a rule set written and released for free in 2014 called "See the Elephant".

Although its core was a fun rule set, it was dated, riddled with confusing passages and writing faux pas, and we just couldn't get it to work. Inspired by Andrew on The Wargames Website and this rule set on on the Wargames Rules site, we started working on our own game.

Ultimately, we kept little of the original rules other than the unit types (infantry, cavalry, artillery) and the grid, since 8X8 is very accessible. We've both learned in building Wicked Wargames that the inspiration for any idea need not be its end. It can serve its purpose by merely being a catalyst for something more.

The simple game blocks are easy to make, theraputic and enjoyable in apearence. Something about building a complete army in an hour is extremely satisfying.  

The book is currently speeding along as it's an extremely small rule set with few rules. The idea is to present it as a small pamphlet, likely A5, and the cover is designed to look like an old book with a scaly leather effect. Very exciting. Combined with the mottled pages, old imagery and few necessary images, it really pops and is invigorating to read.

It's a small project and likely will be out soon, and we'll keep you updated as we continue our playtests and iron out the kinks.

Keep your eyes peeled for more information soon. We'll have lots of exciting updates on this in the coming weeks.

Lots is going on at Wicked Wargames. The gradual growth of the company and the games (now several in development!), and the approach to release for more than one game is very exciting.

Because of this and the increasing workload, it's becoming harder to put up regular updates, so we thought we'd throw one up this week and confess also that we didn't send out the newsletter last week! This isn't because of a general lack of information, it just slipped our minds amongst our work. We'll get back on track and send it out next week.

As Charles puts the finishing touches on the final page for Cretacea (the quick-play sheet) we turn our attention to expanding the system. The obvious direction is to cover as many dinosaurs as we can, which we will, rest assured.

The system is strong, reliable and very well-designed now. As such, we think it's time to throw a spanner in the works and see how it handles it... what spanner is that you may ask? How about some pesky little humans!

We purchased an order of Copplestone Castings cavemen and will soon be fielding units of three as little compiled units on the table, as opposed to single "edible" miniatures for those big dino's.

The Kickstarter will likely feature them as a stretch goal. Yes, we are aware that cavemen never crossed paths with dinosaurs, but we challenge anyone willing in the first place to play a dinosaur game to not also think "What if I could play dinosaurs against cavemen?" I mean -- we definitely did. 

We've thrown an hour or two into the initial stat composition and card design of the models, and are excited to announce that they will herald the introduction of ranged combat in Cretacea, something the game lacks due to it essentially being a close combat brawler.

The idea of cavemen desperately attempting to scare, manoeuvre and berate a giant Tyrannosaurus rex, or dart and dodge the horns of a Triceratops brings us great joy, and we're sure it will you as well.

As a lead-up to the Cretacea update, below is an almost complete zoomed out preview of the book.

This kind of zoomed-out preview is an Arthur favourite, as we can fully see the scope of the book, the colour, the contents, and the aspiring nature of it compared to the first edition. The file is so thick and large, largely with high-quality images, that even zooming in and out slows down the computer. 

The game's random event cards have undergone a lot of change already, and we simplified the system to focus on a Hollywood style of lookin' good over realism. For example, we won't get bogged down in the differences between a WW2 German Spandau versus the Bren Gun. We have heavy and light machine guns for everyone and let the players do the story telling.

The unit stats have been similarly universalised, which allows you to come up with stats for any type of model. We've also given an allowance for various weapon strengths by classing them in a three-tiered system, which again gives more agency to the player in their story telling and imagination. It's a universal system, so our aim here is balance and application to any model a player might have.

We also made the decision to use measuring dowels instead of tape measures, the first decision of its kind for the company. They smooth gameplay right out and speed it up too. It's an exciting concept for us, and although it is not new to the industry, it's done less so these days, so in it's own way it's a quaint addition to the game. 

The graphic design of the rule set looks basic presently, so we have a fun idea to theme every page differently: swashbucklers on one, Napoleonics on another, sci-fi on another, etc. Until then, instead of sharing a zoomed-out shot of the plain black and white pages, we share the character creation examples that we currently have:

This post was beginning to get a little long, so check back tomorrow afternoon (UK time) for more info on a new game in development, and also updates on our correspondence roleplay game Kingdom & Command, for which we have some new artwork being worked on by a very talented artist, a brand new layout, and a big addition to the character creation guide.

As the process of formatting Cretacea closes in on its end, we now come to the meticulous part of the work, such as compiling attributions and final formatting so the book looks lovely and neat, but that's not what we're here to tell you about...

Today we want to talk about the starter set stat cards. Every backer of the Kickstarter campaign will get a set of starter cards, and we'll be selling them separately, in herbivore and predator packs, and hopefully individually, as per people's needs and printing practicality.

We'll print them on shiny and hopefully drywipe plastic., and if our third party printer can't do that (though we're sure they can) then we'll also sell card sleeves in the appropriate size. 

We'll soon be sending the book off for a test print, and we can't wait! It's so exciting to be this close to having books in our hands after months of work!

Keep your eyes peeled on the blog for more info and make sure to fill in the newsletter form on the home page for fortnightly updates!

We are extremely close to our test prints for Cretacea. The process has been long and exciting and we are now close to finishing.

As a finishing touch, we purchased some amazing illustrated imagery for our cover and to upgrade some images in the book. Note the new cover image: iconic and memorable for sure. (The actual layout of the cover is pending.)

Our main obstacle at this late stage is exporting the Word file to PDF. Although we have it saved in high-res. Word won't let us export it and we are working to find a solution. The file is massive, over a few gigabytes, comically large for a book. We are however on the cusp of achieving this. 

As mentioned in some blog posts, the new version of the book is more of a re-molding than a re-write, although we've implemented many big changes and revamped some sections completely, we've strived to retain the look and feel of The Game of Gargantuan Survival.

These last few weeks have been a meticulous attention to detail and layout. For example, the new background of pretty salmon pink sand adds a soft touch, and the newly-coloured rules boxes to go along with it now match the gradient direction of the designers' notes; it's all coming along, and we're really excited to show you!

The new clarification pictures are gorgeous. They add so much flavour, detail and streamlining to the originally questionable rules in many sections of the 1st edition. In the 2nd edition, simple but effective graphics line its pages. 

We've cut down on vector art. Although we enjoy it thoroughly, we ended up leaning into a more finessed art style, as seen on the cover. Regardless, we kept a few, such as this awesome Theropod roaring over our turn phases page. Just beautiful. 

Some of the new rules in the book, though simple, add much to the game in way of depth and narrative, such as the entrapment rule, given life with this exciting graphic. 

The new stat cards, one of the longest and most detailed updates for the book, are now finished in their entirety.

This allows us to get a breather on that very long process and look toward new dinosaurs. It's our aim to provide stretch goals for some of the most iconic dinosaurs that we didn't get room to feature in the book. The original 11 dinosaurs from the first book make a revamped return but on the horizon we have Spinosaurus, Stegosaurus and more!

We've upgraded and added to the painting section (although the page on the right requires final lighting and colour adjustments.)

The crafting section of the book is extensive, with almost as many pages as the actual rules. It's hefty, crafty, and full of fantastic content. 

At the moment we're stuck in a wrestle with technology. We want Cretacea released as soon as possible and we've done the majority of the work. There is no new writing to be completed, just a render/export of the book and a test print.

We're very close and we aim to get more news in the next week or two. We simply can't wait to hold the finished version in our hands. It's a very exciting time. 

Check back for more soon.

​The first playtest of our new game concept was a blast (at three separate incidents it literally was) and we learned a lot.

The game plays in an “I go, you go” format but you roll initiative rolls for every proposed miniature until all miniatures on the board have acted, if they can.

Once all miniatures have moved, it's the next turn, at which point cards are drawn. There are negative ones, like Jam Gun and Collapse Cover, and neutral ones, like changing weather and erratic civilians. Both these types must be played immediately.

After that, you can play your positive cards whenever you want, giving you effects like extra shots, actions, and heals.

Turn one was mostly moving, which helped us to understand that the game probably needs to take place on a smaller board than the 50"x80" one we were using. This is the beauty of early playtests: by playing we work out kinks in the game early one, rather than those kinks tripping us up down the road, and having such a domino effect. All future games will be swifter and easier now. 

TURN ONE

In turn one the Germans moved up the board and their sniper positioned himself with a good view across the battle on a hillside. Some of the Brits moved cautiously into the battlefield, with a few setting up cover behind a wall in the village. We also drew the neutral card “Weather”, which meant it started raining. We’re still working out many rules, like the effect of rain, but it was cinematic and useful!

TURN TWO
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The German's sniper laid down supressing fire on a distant British cover position. This was our first try of the supressing fire rules and they worked well straight off the bat. We tweaked them a little (range and damage to cover) but ultimately it was an exciting opening to the game. 

We also drew two civilians cards, which means that civilians enter the battlefield and run across the board. We're still working out how they react to fire, and what exactly their effect is on soldiers, but it definitely added a tactical element; the Germans had to move into a better position to prepare fire because they were too close to the civilians.

Keep in mind we are not aiming for historical accuracy with this game, we're making it as a multi-genre/-period game. The Germans and Brits are just skins for the model types, not actual historical armies that we’re playing. 

​We also drew a few unseen explosives (mines), and the Germans lost a man to one but the Brits were luckier, only having the cover of one troop (a tree) collapsed in the explosion. 

​The Brits continued their cautious advance by edging into the battle and setting up defensive positions as they went. This tactic paid off in the end as they ended the game with all their models. 

Taking cover against the incoming attack as the Germans move aggressively.

TURN THREE
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Turn three is where the action really started coming in, but we had to call it at the turn end as had lots of notes for development and we were burning midnight oil by that point.

The civilians continued their obligatory move across the board, again coming within proximity of the German gunners. I drew two “Jammed” cards for the German side, so it made sense to jam their guns since they couldn't fire anyway.

This turned out to be a hasty decision, as they could have repositioned instead of unjamming their guns, but we live and learn.

​Our sniper on the German team finally managed to pulverise the cover of the Brits behind the wall. This exposed them and prompted a snappy firefight between sides that was exciting to play, mainly because of the way the turn order works: as one model shot or moved another dove in to provide support or take his place. It was rapid and riveting. 

At the end of the turn, the Brits came in heavy weaponry and shot a missile launcher at the Germans, obliterating one but missing his allies nearby.

At this point we'd tested all the mechanics and had a lot notes and plenty of ideas to work with, and called it as a victory for the Brits.

It was a fun experience and exciting to be playtesting a new game.

END GAME POSITIONS: 

Germans - Red
​Brits - Green

Hey, Arthur here. I've long wanted to write a game that gives me the feeling I get when I play "Brothers in Arms" on the original Xbox. The game was a "shoot and move" type suppressing fire and cover kind of game, and it really emulated the feel of World War 2 squad combat well. It always stuck in my head, and I have thought about how it would work on a tabletop for a long time.

​Although I am aware there are many games like this, I wanted to bring my own flavour to it, and my own sensibility. So born is this new game. Or at least...so drafted are the concept notes. 

I drafted the initial notes the other day on the train home, after purchasing some 15mm models for playtesting. The name Shooty Shooty Bang Bang is not permanent, don't worry. 

I also created 15 different cards for random events. We think this is about the right number, and multiples of the existing cards will be provided for people to use in a deck.

Some of the Germans I painted up from the 15mm collection so far. 

The thing that inspired this process was the purachasing (and discovery) of the Steve Jackson Games army dice the other day, which spurred me on to thinking how cool it would be to use those dice to play our own military game.

The game is meant to be used for multiple time periods but regardless I imagine we will do a breadth of playtesting in the world wars. 

Check back tomorrow for updates on our first playtest, Brits against Germans in normandy!