Northampton Warlords

18 Jul 2009 11:15 PM Quote Reply Alert

Our fundamental planfor books has evolved since we did Bagration so that we are trying tocover all three periods in some way every year and despite the late-warschedule driving the bulk of new models we have books on both mid andearly coming as well. I will do this more formally on the website nextweek but to give you the basics of what you will see in the nexttweleve months might help clarify our plans.

Early-War:This is being worked on right now for an intial release in the firsthalf of next year. We have to make over 100 (124 to be exact) new codesto complete the entire range so this has been the part that we have hadto wait for as releasing books without the cool models seemed silly. EWwill get a book a year with the first one focusing on the conflict inFrance and Poland and its appropriate lists. The following years willsee books on other areas with corresponding models out with them. An EWcampaign is also on the list. We have a plan currently that has fouryears of paper and models before we have to try hard to explore newthings for EW and that is more than enough to keep us busy for now. Wealways wanted to do EW well so having a much bigger rolling plan thanpeople were expecting is what we have come up with. EW is not a poorcousin to MW and LW but a whole period and gaming style all of its ownwhen even the Panzer II was to be feared and FOW plays very differentlyto either MW or LW.

Mid-War: Having started in thisperiod when FOW was launched we have already spent years prodcuinglists and models for this period. The next six months sees the updatedversions of both Afrika and Ostfront come out. As you have seen withAfrika we have gone back and added more lists and brought them all upto the new standard making them so much easier to field. We have plansfor several campaigns for the period with the Desert likely to be thefirst out but not until the very end of 2010 at the earliest as MG andEW will be out before that slot opens up. We will be updating thewebsite in a few months to offer the full spectrum of MW boxes andarmies so that getting everything we ever made for MW will be easierthan ever.

Late-War: Our rolling plan for a new theatreeach year is ongoing. MG will be getting two books "Hell's Highway"focusing on the first two bridges and with lists covering 82 & 101US airborne, Guards tank, infantry and 2nd Cav lists with variant Irishand Welsh Guard lists as well. These are stacked against the 6th ans3rd Fallschirmjager and their inetrsting mix of support from SS totaning school troops. Julian Cook and Von Der Heydte are the heroes inthis book with Frost and a few others in the second. Next up you getthe Firestorm campaign box with a massive 130cm x 60cm playing board.Early in the new year you will then get "A Bridge Too Far" coverngArnhem and the forces around there. British and Polish airborne listswith variant 9th and 10th SS lists with support from a varity of troopssent over to stem the tide. As well as MG you will be seeing a book onthe invasion and battles in Italy in early 44 out in mid 2010 as wellso anybody wanting to field Anzio or Cassino lists will finally getwhat they want.

Web Material: We have always had thepolicy that we should be offering free additonal material on on websiteand apart from being dissapointed at the order they come out in therepsonse has always been posotive. Variant lists are always done aspart of work/research for printed books or serious reserch by trustedcontributors. We do so much work to pick the best material for books wealways get left having to make tough choices of what to include or not.Given these lists have a solid framework on which they were based andwe put them through the testing cycle as well we have always felt thatthese lists were great to offer in this format as the alternative wouldsimply be not to do them as our printed schedule is always full. Thesheer number of official ones now does give us the choice to print acompilation of them and that is definitely something we are looking atdoing in the future.

With all of this going on you canonly imagine what the future holds and in trying to give FOW playerseverything they want and come up with some new surprises we are nevershort of things to do. It just goes to show that sitting down in frontof the computer on a Sunday morning feeling all relaxed just led to apreverbial "spilling of the beans" which i am sure will spark someconversation over the weekend and allow those of us who not luckyenough to be at Historicon something to talk about instead.

John-Paul

Can we please continue the Firestorm campaign, as Gary and I would also like to work on a  D-Day/ Normandy campaign after. We have enough players to do this easily.