NEWS & BLOG

•  13.02.2020 00:00

We have become playtesters for PMC 2670, having befriended Marcin while playing the previous edition, PMC 2640. This is the after-action report left by the 2nd Company of the Varuna Legion after their encounter with the Rebels of the Movement Zen on Ariadnne III.

•  29.01.2020 00:00

The military have an expression - The first casualty of any battle is the plan. This might as well have been the theme for my 2019. I made the mistake of checking the project tracker on the Assault Publishing website recently..... What is it that they say about good intentions?

•  23.12.2019 00:00

As you can predict, in PMC 2670, the merc forces are some kind of stars of the show. The army has a lot of minor changes comparing to PMC 2640, but as mentioned in one of the previous articles, our goal was to do not mess with the existing miniatures collections, so if you had Merc army it should be playable in 2670 as it was in 2640. We listened to the players and made the merc army not as conventional as it was before. It's still hard sci-fi style, but some future toys were added and new unit categories was created.Note that this text is more useful for players who know PMC 2640 and is focused mostly on the changes between editions.

•  24.07.2019 00:00

A week ago I played test solitaire (again!) battle in PMC 2670. These time I wanted to try not only the new, improved OpFor algoritm, but also MyMiniReport app installed on my mobile phone. I played "Decapitation" scenario, where players objective is to eliminate OpFor HQ squad and I prepared comic-style report. Enjoy!

•  28.04.2019 12:00

PMC 2670 solitaire test battle report from 2019.

•  02.04.2019 00:00

Nearly 6 years ago, we have boldly released PMC 2640, which successfully found its place on crowded 15mm sci-fi wargames market. Now, it's high time to leap forward!In the last few months, we have worked hard on PMC 2670, which is much more than just a new edition of the game! As you can probably guess, the action takes place 30 years later in the same dirty, gloomy PMC-verse – but it's also indirectly connected to Shadows in the Void, which takes place much later in the same timeline. The story was moved forward: humanity developed new technologies and improved older ones, encountered an alien threat (or rather the aliens encountered a human threat...) and made the galaxy an even more turbulent place.

•  22.03.2019 00:00

I wanted to spin off something from last weeks blog post today - the 'creative process'. Now, I don't pretend to know how 'the great designers' go about writing and setting out their rules... I don't really always understand how I do it. But, I did want to shine a light a little on my own process. Most players have something that they are 'working on'. In most cases, this is a small project such as a new army list for a favourite game, or a new scenario for their local group. I am primarily interested in how rules translate to gameplay, and vice versa how gameplay can be captured by rules. For better or worse, any set of rules - even the most details - are an abstraction. We can't, or simple don't care to, simulate the sun in the eyes of the sniper at 8am or how recent rain has affected the siege engines of Ancient Rome. So, accepting this means that the role of a designer is to capture the most value, in the least rules. What is relevant to you? Do you want your troops to be likely to disobey all orders and flee at the first gunshot? Is that 'more real' or 'less fun'?

•  15.03.2019 00:00

Yes, its true.... I only wrote THAT title, so I could use that picture! Wargames are easy, right? I mean, if you are reading this then I assume that you enjoy them. Probably you have been playing a while, and after time everyone starts writing their own rules or scenarios or background. Well, yes, in a way, they are easy. I mean, there are a lot of worse ways I could spend a weekend, even if I have complained how hard wargames are...... I have a marginally obsessive personality, and a bad habit of turning my hobbies into a chore. I used to volunteer to help out and create and get involved in any number of projects. I learned the hard way that the absolute best way to take the fun out of a hobby is to include deadlines!

•  01.03.2019 00:00

Wargame scale is something that often doesn't get enough attention in my view, and I mean that applied to both types of 'scale' in gaming.

•  01.02.2019 00:00

•  27.01.2019 12:00

A week ago Iain wrote a post about playtesting and now I would like to add a few opinions about this half-mythological subject. Every time we hear about game designing, one of the key words are 'playtesting' and IHMO sometimes it's a kind of fetish. Is this SO important? Today I would like to share my opinions about it.

•  19.01.2019 00:00

Apologies for missing last week, and for the late arrival of this weeks blog article. Beginning of the year has been super busy and not only left me little time to write, but left me little to write about. That said, I wanted to take the opportunity this week to shine a spotlight on one of the most important fundamental tools of games design, and one that is often compromised and minimised..... Playtesting. As most people are aware, playtesting is the process of getting some games in, and checking to see how your rules/army list plays on the table (and I have separated these two categories for a reason. On the surface, it seems obvious. You need to play games to see how things work in reality. But its actually more in depth than this. Playtesting allows a designer to see specifically highlight scenarios or units or situations, and play through a single engagement or a single turn. However, there is an art to the process. Playtesting really needs to be incremental. That is, initial playtesting should focus on the core rules engine, and this is where Dark Portents is currently. I am specifically looking at games with only a couple of units of basic troops armed with simple combat weapons or bows, and a couple of champions. No cavalry, no monsters, no cannons, no war engines......