Publisher Fan Support - Omnihedron Games Update

Posted by: Neil Gow On: Apr 6th 2010

I have a ton of updates that have all come around at the same time, so I thought I would put them all into one package rather than lots of little announcements.

Empire!

For sometime now I have been wrestling with the rather annoying nomenclature that has grown around my games. Its simply not elegant constantly refering to them as 'Duty & Honour and Beat to Quarters' or even 'D&H/BtQ'. After some deliberation, I have decided that the system really needs an identity of its own. So, from now on, I'll be refering to the system as 'Empire!' (thanks to IndyPete for the suggestion).

New Books

I have two books slated for release in the coming year. I'm not giving exact dates yet however!

The first book is 'Duty & Honour: Rise of the Zulu' - taking adventures forward to the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. Playing stiff upper-lipped Redcoats, Boer trackers, Natal native contigent or even civilians (yes, thats right - female characters!) you can take part in the action made famous in 'Zulu' and 'Zulu Dawn' as well as the excellent books by John Wilcox and Saul David. This will be a source book rather than a stand-alone game and will feature the fantastic art of Jonny Gray, a preview of which is shown below.

The second book is 'Duty & Honour 1810 Miscellany'. This year's collection of articles will include material for both Duty & Honour and Beat to Quarters including:

· Rules and background for the British army in India and the escapades of the East India Company
· The HMS Sirius and her crew - a fully realised British frigate
· Rules of customising and combining traits
· My convention adventures from this year, including 'The Irish Rover'
· A guide to politics and patronage in Georgian Britain
· And much much more.

Developers' Guide

It has become apparent over the last year that people love to 'hack' Empire! games to take the adventure into other times and places. I have heard of World War Two games, Goblin games, Traveller games, Warhammer 40k games and many others. I think it is awesome that people are taking the system and making it their own and I wholeheartedly endorse it. In fact, to make it easier, I am going to publish the core rules for the system on the site sometime this year. These will be the stripped down core rules so that you can take them and make the game you want to play.

Con Attendance

As part of the Collective Endeavour, I'll be attending a number of conventions this year, selling and playing my games. The itinerary current stands at:

· Games Expo, Birmingham (June 4-6)
· Furnace, Sheffield (Oct 9-10)
· Dragonmeet, London (Nov 27)
· Conception, Christchurch (Jan 2011)

I'm also going to be attending US GenCon in Indianapolis (Aug 5-8) but as a punter. However, I never travel far without a demo set or two and I fully intend to run a few games.

I am hoping to attend Indiecon and maybe even Concrete Cow but that will have to be decided nearer the time - work issues permitting.

Posted by: Andrew Kenrick On: Apr 6th 2010

Those all sound great Neil - looking forward to both the Miscellany and the Rise of the Zulu.

The Developer's Guide is an interesting idea too, and I hope we'll see lots more Empire! games turning up over the next couple of years. Are you allowing people to publish games using your system, or just hack them for their own use.

Posted by: Neil Gow On: Apr 6th 2010

I'm releasing it to make the process of 'hacking' easier for people who want to hack. However, I have had a couple of conversations with people about possibly letting the system be used in another product or two - we shall see how that unfolds.

Neil