Spartan Games: Game Over Man

  

 

Shocking news, Spartan Games are going out of business.  As an outsider they always seemed to be doing so well, what with the Halo game and all.  But reading the announcement here, it's obvious they over extended themselves.  I quote what I  think is the relevant section:

However, despite this it continued to encounter challenging trading conditions and it became clear this month that the company could not continue to service its liabilities, particularly given the burden imposed by the amounts owing to finance companies.

So that's three of their lines going down plus the 15mm Halo game.  And I was only looking at the Halo stuff the other week thinking about what might be useful to buy for my own gaming needs.

I wish all the staff the  very best in this difficult time for them.
  

Gencon BattleTech

  

Over on the BattleTech Facebook page there is announcement about new products from Catalyst Games.  I pulled these four pictures from their post to spread the word.  The one above shows the new box set that will have eight mechs; new plastic designs.  What is of interest to me is the return of William H. Keith to the BattleTech fold with fiction by him called the Golden Rule.

Colour me impressed, as he's my favourite BattleTech author because he had a vision of the universe that resonated with me.  In fact at one point I seriously thought about writing a fan fiction novel based on his Gray Death trilogy, but based from the other side, seeing the story through the eyes of Duke Ricol and his subordinates.

You can read a scene I wrote here.

The back of the box lists the contents.

Next up is a beginners box set with only two mechs at slightly less that half the price of the big box.

I think this is a pretty astute marketing move as $60 is a pretty big chunk of change to slap down for a game.

And the last shot is of the contents.

I'm not quite sure where I stand on buying these for myself, because truly I have more mechs stacked away for a rainy day than you can shake a big stick at.  But I hope I can get a copy of the fiction book, because I'm a big fan of Keith's writing.
  

On My Work Bench

When I'm not out shooting pointy sticks at round things (you've seen the post on archery I did earlier) I've been using Milliput to make a new part for my RAFM Cheetah.  While waiting for the Milliput to harden I thought to distract myself with something else, as I just wanted to sit at my bench and fiddle with stuff. 

I could've done some painting, but conditions are not ideal as the summer heat makes the paint dry faster, which I find rather annoying.  My excuse, and I'm sticking to it!

Anyway, I delved into my stash of Heavy Gear miniatures, and sorted out all the pieces to convert them into combat armour for use in my own Bad Dog universe setting.  So, the above picture shows two combat armour suits nearly finished being assembles, and five more with all the parts sorted out for me to proceed to the next stage.

It was fun, even if it was a distraction from finishing other projects.  A wargamers curse of unfinished projects that build up from being distracted by shiny things.