Buck's Blog

With the recent release of the PDF version of The GASLIGHT Compendium and the upcoming release of the hard-cover edition, Chris and I are planning to run many GASLIGHT games at Historicon.  Two of the games I’m running are “straight” historical games, without any VSF elements.  One is a civil war game that is meant to have one of everything you hear about in Civil War battles, such as a stone bridge, small rocky hill, railroad cut, sunken road, etc.

This is a picture of Sammy helping me put the final touches on the “Devil’s Den” terrain piece.  This started as the hill from two Games Workshop Battle of Five Armies sets.  I added a bunch of rocks I molded in plaster.  With a lot of dry brushing and flocking, it looks pretty good.

The other “straight historical” game I’m running involves Moros in the Philippines.

In this scenario, the US players are trying to capture a Moro fort.  The Moros are trying to kill Americans, capture their baggage train, and take some Filipino prisoners.  The scenario played pretty well.

After the play test, there was a lot of talk about how to allocate victory points.  I didn’t want this to be a slug fest.  That’s why the objectives between the two sides are orthogonal.  The Americans want the fort, but the Moros want the supplies and don’t care much about the fort.  We also had a long discussion about how HAWKs are probably not good for play testing convention games because we tend to be more aggressive, more focused on the objective of the game, more likely to follow the plan, and more willing to cooperate with each other.  I think this will be a fun convention game.

As previously announced, the GASLIGHT Compendium goes on sale as a .pdf download today through RPG Now.

Be the first in your club to get this 190-page book, with color throughout.  The book contains the complete contents of the four previously-released books: GASLIGHT (VSF skirmishes), Battles by GASLIGHT (large VSF battles), To Be Continued… by GASLIGHT (pulp), and Adventures and Expeditions by GASLIGHT (role playing).  In addition, The GASLIGHT Compendium includes rules for fleet battles, detailed rules for aerial vehicles, redesigned vehicle damage charts, redesigned vehicle and unit record sheets, and a full index.

As we wrote the various GASLIGHT supplements, we worked hard to ensure all the systems were completely compatible.  This allowed a group to choose the Battles by GASLIGHT activation system, for instance, to use with their GASLIGHT games.  It also made it easy to introduce pulp elements into games.  This new book is arranged in more of a “Chinese menu” format by topic (e.g., activation, firing, melee, etc.), allowing players to customize their GASLIGHT experience to meet their desires.  The open-ended nature of GASLIGHT is part of what has made it so successful the past 11 years.

The hard-cover edition will be available in just a few more weeks.  The final price of this attractive book will be $49.  The hard-cover edition will be available at many fine retailers, including, but not limited to, Old Glory and Amazon.com.  We’ll post the other distributors as we finalize arrangements.

… And don’t forget all the great GASLIGHT Compendium merchandise available at www.zazzle.com/gaslightstore.

Our early announcements about the impending release of The GASLIGHT Compendium have generated a lot of interest in the book.  By popular demand, we’ve decided to move AHEAD the release of the PDF version of The GASLIGHT Compendium to 18 May, instead of 1 June as previously announced.  When was the last time you heard about something coming out EARLY?

The rules will be available on RPGNow for $30.

We’re still awaiting the proof of the hard-cover edition from the printer, so we don’t have a firm release date yet, but it should be available before the end of June.

Don’t forget about the cool GASLIGHT merchandise at http://www.zazzle.com/gaslightstore.

By popular demand, we have decided to make available merchandise with The GASLIGHT Compendium cover art and with many of our promotional posters featuring “The GASLIGHT Girl.”  This merchandise is available from http://www.zazzle.com/gaslightstore.  There is also a link to the merchandise on the GASLIGHT Web page: http://www.bucksurdu.com/Buck_Surdu/G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T..html

Merchandise includes T-shirts with the front cover of The GASLIGHT Compendium on the front, T-shirts with the front cover of the book on the front of the shirt and the back cover on the back of the shirt, polo shirts with the GASLIGHT Compendium logo, iPhone cases, mugs, eye-popping posters, and mouse pads.

Be the first in your gaming group to get yours!  We are running many GASLIGHT games at Historicon.  Participate in our of our games wearing your GASLIGHT shirt and get 1d4 re-rolls during the game!

We’ve been having fun taking some of the photos of our model and building promotional posters.  This one is designed to suggest that GASLIGHT is an excellent set of rules for Pulp games as well as Victorian science fiction.  I’m learning how to leverage a series of tools in the Mac version of MS Word and iPhoto.  This poster has about five layers of images laid on top of each other.

The release date for The GASLIGHT Compendium was set yesterday.  It will be released on 1 June via RPGNow.  The release of the hard-cover edition will be later in the month of June.  The exact date is still to be determined.  The book is at the printer, and we expect a proof in no more than two weeks.

The cost of the .pdf version of the rules will be $30.  This represents a discount over the hard-cover edition which will follow.  We do not know the final hard-cover price yet.

A couple of years ago, Jamie Davis and I wrote a scenario book on the fighting around Tanga in German East Africa during World War I.  We never had any idea it would be used in this way:

http://gamingwiththegnomies.blogspot.com/2011/04/gnome-wars-battle-of-tanga-0-prologue.html

Look at the cool videos that Chris made:

The GASLIGHT Compendium promotional video: http://animoto.com/play/ZrqPoho1fKVMKmTk1uuWdA

What is the GASLIGHT Compendium?  http://animoto.com/play/hz2VT06Hb8xGAuWvokSZ4A

GASLIGHT Compendium photo shoot: http://animoto.com/play/mfSbyae2QLKzTe0vpze1kQ

Over the weekend I completed the cover of The GASLIGHT Compendium.  We’re giving the book the final once-over and then it’s off to the printers.  The book will be 190 pages, with color throughout.

The G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. Compendium meets all your VSF and Pulp needs, from skirmish and role-playing to large battles and airship fleet actions.

Victorian Science Fiction (VSF) gaming is set in the world in which the predictions and visions of men like Jules Verne, HG Wells, and H. Ryder Haggard are true.  In G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. Main Characters and Extras battle in a world of steam-powered vehicles, fantastic weapons, lost worlds, and terrible creatures.  Pulp gaming pits steely-eyed, flint-jawed, barrel-chested, two-fisted, deadeye, tough as woodpecker lips, stud among studs, no kidding, stuff-of-legends hero-type guys against colorful, charismatic, egomaniacal, dastardly, nefarious villains and their mindless minions.  The G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. Compendium has rules for the creation of characters, the construction of vehicles and weapons, and the generation of fantastic creatures.   This open-ended approach is one of the reasons G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. has been so successful over the past eleven years.

The G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. Compendium includes material from four books: G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. (for skirmishes), Battles by G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. (for larger battles), Adventures and Expeditions by G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.. (role-playing), and To Be Continued… by G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. (Pulp).  All the systems are completely consistent, allowing players to tailor their G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. VSF or Pulp games.  In addition The Compendium includes new rules for airship fleet battles and more detailed rules for aerial vehicles in G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. or Battles by G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.. The vehicle hit charts have been revised and combined, and there are specific vehicle hit results for walking, driving, flying, and legged vehicles. The record sheets used during game play have been completely revised.

For my son’s birthday he wanted me to run a wargame for his buddies.  After some discussion, we settled on a GASLIGHT WWII game featuring the Eureka Jurassic Reich figures — Nazis riding raptors.

The game involved an American patrol in trucks moving along a road.  They run into a secret base where the Germans are constructing a flying saucer.  The base is protected by, among other things, a German squad riding raptors.

Most of the boys just wandered around shooting at people.  This one American squad, run by my daughter, snuck around, scaled the fence, and had two guys get to the saucer to plant an explosive charge.  Unfortunately, the two Americans were killed before the charge exploded, so the Germans won the game.

The boys had a good time and then went out to play tag in the dark until nearly midnight while I awaited angry calls from the neighbors.

In the morning we played Blood and Swash in my tavern.