Expo: Looking forwards...

So last Wednesday we had the early Expo planning meeting, where we plan what we’re up to this year and what we’re up to next year, I’ve had a few things on in the last week, so I haven’t had chance to write it all up, and given what we’re up to, it’d be a shame not to let everyone in on it.

This year is going to be the last year that we’re only in the one venue, we’ve grown too much in the last few years to be able to accommodate all the trade enquiries that we’re getting, and if we turn over all the space to trade, we won’t have space for all the things that make the Expo, the Expo...

And that would never do...

The only way that Expo gets better is by listening to the comments we get from everyone, both good and bad.  One of the major problems that we had last year was the food, not only the fact that people had to wait for the food, but also that there was so much food needed that the Subway in the NEC ran out of food halfway through Saturday, even with all the other depots bringing all their food in, so we’ve put additional food on this time, including food vans outside where reasonable priced food will be available at all times with more types of food available than any year previous.

The other thing is that we’ve got more of everything this year, from RPG’s to boardgames and tournaments, we’re running four trade halls and we’re opening for three days, making it the biggest convention to hit these shores in some years, so much so that we’ve had to build more space outside the Hilton to accommodate all the new things that we’re doing.

And that brings us to next year...

Well, to put it in perspective...

For those who don’t recognise it, this is the NEC, Hall one, which we’re planning on making into the main trade hall whilst still keeping hold of the Hilton to use for the tournaments and organised play. It’s difficult to tell the size of things from pictures sometimes, so I’ll put it in perspective by saying that the entire of the current Expo can fit in there and have space left over for spectators, so you can understand just how much of a move upwards we’re planning in terms of space.

I can’t talk about the guests we’re getting at Expo this year yet, not until we’ve got them flights sorted and appearances confirmed, but one of them has been the driving force behind a whole lot of award winning board games, and another has been at the forefront of promoting gaming in general for a good number of years (I really wish I could say who at the moment, but we’ll have to come to that in a short while...), with a number of others just waiting to be confirmed...

So that’s the short update, there’s going to be more coming soon including details of what we’re looking for in the years to come and where we’re going to be taking it... 

Lords of War: Orcs versus Dwarves Magic and Monsters Expansion

Those Black Box nutters are at it again...

One of my favourite games for the last few years, not least because it’s fun to play, but also because the team behind it keeps on coming up with new things for me to throw money at, and there’s a new release that’s just come out following their latest Kickstarter.

Lords of War: Orcs and Dwarves Magic and Monsters Expansion

It can be played by itself, but honestly, it’s not a game in and of itself. To make the best of it you do need a copy of the original Orcs and Dwarves set to play it, although if you’re an advanced player, the cards within can be easily integrated into a multi-race battle force, but more on that later. 

This expansion focuses on the unit types that were introduced in the most recent army packs and goes back to the original army to bring them up to speed.  It also introduces the concept of berserkers, magic, and monstrous units to give the game the additional level of strategy that takes it from an very good game into something that can only be described as excellent.

The first thing to note is the production values, which, as always, are spectacular.  Good stock card with custom boxes, excellent artwork in full colour and well presented rules.  Normally you get two decks of cards to make the armies, but with this box, you get thirty six new units, eighteen of each side, and four push out counter cards to represent the new rules and effects that can now be played within the game.

The second thing is the level of power involved in the new units, there’s a sub note in the rules that playing with these card by themselves won’t give you a balanced game, and in this matter...?

I have to agree...

When you look at cards from previous expansions, you can see that most cards have a reasonable toughness but not good hitting power, or vice versa.  In this, there’s quite a few that have both very high toughness and also hit hard in a lot of directions.  Previous ranged combat units usually hit up to nine squares with a power of up to four (In the case of heroes, five),  and now compare that to the Dwarf Organ Gun, which hits thirteen squares with power four, and if you manage to set one up on either side of the board, will drop almost anything the second it lands on the board.  On the one hand, you’d expect an Organ gun to do this sort of damage, the problem that I have is that as with all things that do this level of destruction, you have to balance them against the enemies out there, and while I haven’t had chance to use this set yet, I do fear that the power of the new units may prove far more than the existing armies can handle.

Which leads me to the only concern I have...

Years ago I used to play warhammer 40k, and it was reasonably balanced on all sides, so much so that most sides could get a reasonably fight out of the game, but then new army lists started coming out, and with each new army, you suddenly couldn’t play anything else because they’d made the new army far to hard...

I’ll be playing these new armies against others, and I’ll report back when I do, because the new units are lovely, they’re beautifully drawn out and you can see the idea behind the ways each of them can move or how they fight, it’s all such a wonderful design, and as long as you can still play any army against any army, there’ll be a win for this man there.

I’m sure that the team over at Black Box will be dreaming up something new even as I write, and to them I have to say only this...

Slow down you bleeders, I’m not made of money J

On Writing...

Last year I wrote a million words of new stories, articles, and opinions, and despite the enormity of this, I found at the end of it that it was one of those things that left me feeling slightly down, a trend that has continued into this year slightly, because when you have a grand purpose, you can get up every morning knowing that you have that grand purpose leading you forwards, your every move goes towards making that purpose, that promise into a reality.

And when it’s done, you wonder what you can do next, but the next thing has to be something bigger, or you just feel like you’re doing not very much at all.  A thousand words a day was the target I set for this year, and I find myself sometimes not writing for several days, just so I’ve got a target to build up to, and that’s just not the way forwards.

Cheerfully, those who know me found the million words a little more inspiring, and took the time to make this picture, made up of some of the articles and stories that I did last year, as a reminder of the things that I did, and the fact that it inspired them to do more themselves. 

As I found myself reading the various subjects, I was cheered greatly, because I can remember every line and what I was doing when I wrote it, and that’s when it occurred to me, the reward I have for those million words is all the effort that I put in, and the knowledge that if I could do that...

I could do anything...

The trick is in not being afraid of the grand purpose, not worrying that you might be able to fail, because there were points last year (particularly towards September), when I really thought I wasn’t going to make it, that the several hundred thousand words I’d done would all be for nothing, and that the year would be a waste as a result, but as I got closer, so the wordcount ceased to worry me, and I began to just do the words every day without having to think about them. 

But when it was done, I had nothing else to do, and not reaching for a massive target this year has left me down, quite severely, and I need to recapture that mood, I need to be that person with a purpose once again, so the offer is out to all those out there, I started last year with the intention of proving that it could be done, and I did.

This year I may be too late to repeat what I did last year, but I’m going to see what I can do without that target above my head, I need to edit a number of books I did last year and get them out into the public eye, and I need to finish off a number of projects that have been held back because other things were more urgent.

Most of all, I need to make time for those who mean something to me, just as they made time for me.

And here’s where it starts... 

A matter of Writing against Typing...

So today was easier than yesterday, not because I wasn’t at work (those who know my thoughts on work will understand why), but because my body clock was a bit messed up and I was busy sorting out all the things I need to do this year.  The body clock is a simple thing, most of the time, I work four on, three off, with two of those shifts being twelve hours and non-stop calls, the first day after my on days tends to be a crash day where I get little done because I’m too busy yawning.

The problem with this week is that I was working new years day, so I got a yawn day on Wednesday and then a second yawn day today, with back to work tomorrow and resumption of regular yawn days after that...

Interestingly enough though, a few things arrived in the post this morning and I considered something else to write about...

Pens...

This may seem to be a normal thing to write about for someone who does as many words as I do, but there’s a difference between typing and writing with a pen, so much so that those who don’t do both might be hard pressed to say anything to the contrary.  I view typing very much as something that I do when I’m working, be it at story writing or keeping trucks on the road at work, the keyboard is something I use because it’s the most efficient way of putting the words on the page, and of things I thought I’d be using from the YTS all those years ago, touch typing was not one of them, but here I am, RSA 2 with honours, typing faster than I ever could then.

But writing...

Writing with a pen and real ink, that’s something I do because I want to, there’s a discipline involved in writing with a pen, because you can’t just delete what you’ve written, and like many who write, I like to keep the page clear of errors, because anything else just shows you up as sloppy.  There’s also a peace of sorts, because it’s just you and the paper, there’s nothing else, this isn’t a group activity, you can’t share it with others till you’re done, it’s not something that others can help with, it’s just you.

So I’m going to start writing on the pens I use and the papers I use, and why I use the different things that I do, and I’ll ask all of you out there who have the same inkling (no pun intended) to share the things you write with and the things you write on, because if, like me, you find peace in the written word, I’m interested.

And so enclosed with this are some of the pens I’m going to be taking a look at, forgive the size of some of the writing, but that’s the size those pens do, and there’s a reason why there’s a range of them in there.

This is John Dodd in the Socialist republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Given that 2014 was a crap year for the most part, it seems appropriate that the blog had 666 entries on it...

Not at all planned, I swear it...

So, 2014, not a good year, between injuries, overwork, car crashes, family illnesses, family deaths, and in general a lack of really good things occurring (there were a few, but they were few and far between, whereas the bad things seemed to keep on stacking up), and it's not just me that's saying this, it does seem that a whole lot of my friends have had really bad years in 2014.

But this of course is a new year, and as I've been asked by a number of people in the last week, last year I did a million words, what am I going to do this year?

Not a million words again, I'll start there...

What I am going to do is work on putting the wrong things right, so I've got a list of things that I'm going to do this year...

Make all the conventions that I run or help run even better than they were last year.

365000 words sounds like a good target for the year, and compared with last year, it should be a breeze, but I've found that today, without a target, I had no drive to write, and that will not do...

Take Tiny Wife to awesome places and there revel in her happiness (Please everyone, make suggestions, I'm running out of awesome that doesn't require going to Panama...)

Continue to take great happiness for my son and his lady, to see them both so happy has brightened my life in ways I did not think possible...

Lose weight, but not strength, and I should quantify this, it's easy to lose weight if you want to, but in doing so, you often (Read: almost always) lose strength when you do, so I'm happy to take a slower rate of weight loss as long as my strength remains, because that's an integral part of me and it's going to take more effort to do it right and keep it right, but I believe I can do it, and so I will.

Begin a game similar to De Profundis, for which I need six people from anywhere in the world who are willing (and able) to write back once a month and have a need to stretch creative muscles. In return, I promise interesting things in the mail...

Publish Quest...

That last one particularly important, because it's been nearly ready for some time, and I've always shelved it because I've had to do so many other things and I couldn't give Quest the time and effort it needed to make it as awesome as it could be, but I want it out there now, I want to know if my vision is shared by anyone else, and so that's going to be one of the first things out there.

Be there for people, I was so busy last year that I didn't get to do the things I wanted to do and in some cases, I didn't get to do the things that other people wanted to do with me, so I'm going to spend time where I should, not just where I need to.

And last, there's a new convention in town (I know, I never learn), running in Sheffield in July, celebrating the enjoyment of the Long game, not just the short scenario, more details coming tomorrow, but you'll have to move fast on that one, because places are going to be going fast...

So a big Hi at 2015, here's hoping you'll beat 2014...

(Preferably with a stick...)