Apparently sharks die if they stop swimming. I don't know if that is true but it is an interesting thought. As a trained metallurgist, I do know that if you let a blast furnace cool down too much, it is 'gubbed'. And then I realized that I need to find the next project or.....
Of course, Clarence and I are well advanced with Mad for War, but the 4Play scenarios combined with the proof of concept project A Taste of Victory, has opened up the field for the next book. Scenarios are very useful to gamers as they are the oxygen which keeps us breathing and playing.
A Taste of Victory was like a pelagic trawl - I spread the net across a wide variety of theatres in a relatively tight time frame of a mere seventeen years.Commercially it floated which means, the next project is viable. Always good news.
There are other ways to do scenario collateral. 4Play is about focus - each pack majoring on a single campaign, theatre or battle.
What are the other options?
I could go large or small; Neerwinden or Norton St Philip. So focusing on scenarios by size. There seems to be a trend in the hobby in general - away from Waterloo, Gettysburg, D-Day, Fontenoy and Malplaquet which require thousands of miniatures. The move is towards quick to set up, get a result, fewer models. So this is one option - smaller battles.
Henry Hyde was interested in why I chose the 18 picks for ToV and those particular moments in the larger battles - the juicy bits more or less - that's the simple answer. That is also a possibility. So taking a large battle and breaking it down or expanding on the 4Play format is also an option.
Another is to go theatre - I have at least 50 unpublished scenarios for the wars in Ireland between 1688 and 1691.That is just an example.
I could jump period into The War of Spanish Succession or Great Northern War. I have deliberately avoided the former but the arrival of Warfare Miniatures War of Spanish Succession models in 2021 may change that.
I could do 17th century colonial. My rummaging has uncovered an almost limitless supply of scenarios on both land and sea covering every corner of the globe and some not even involving European nations.
I will continue to produce 4Play packs. That is working and is proving popular. The next book though..
That's where your thoughts count. We are a relatively small section of the larger wargaming community (but growing). We know what we like. We know what is difficult to get hold of in terms of data. This blog brings together many of the 17th century addicts even if it is only to browse and not comment. I am genuinely interested in your views on what might be welcomed as the focus for a next scenario book. I of course have my own ideas but am always interested to hear what you all think.
Feel free to chip in and I'll mull it over.