Meeples & Miniatures – Episode 175 – Halo Ground Command & Historicon 2016
Download Episode 175
Welcome to Episode 175 of the Meeples & Miniatures Podcast
In this episode, hosts Neil Shuck Mike Hobbs & Mike Whitaker discuss Mike W’s recent trip to the USA, including a day at Historicon.
Our main feature in this show is an interview with Neil Fawcett, owner of Spartan Games, as we discuss their new release: Halo Ground Command.
All this, plus the usual discussion of what they’ve been doing Hobby-wise for the past couple of weeks and some of the latest hobby news.
We hope you enjoy the show
Show details:
- 00:00 – Intro
- 06:37 – What we’ve been up to
- 30:30 – Hobby News
- 1:04:20 – Historicon 2016
- 1:09:30 – Intro
- 1:10:15 – Joe Piddington
- 1:12:00 – Phalanx Consortium
- 1:20:00 – Byron Collins
- 1:23:35 – Bradden’s World
- 1:31:10 – Footsore Miniatures
- 1:36:45 – Warlord Games
- 1:39:50 – Historicon wrap-up
- 1:48:45 – Review – Altar of Freedom
- 2:09:20 – Neil Fawcett interview
- 3:40:20 – Outtro
Hobby News
- Streetscape Terrain
- Game Terrain
- Battlegroup Data Cards
- Star Trek RPG & Miniatures
- Battle of Britain boardgame
- Quartermaster General: Victory or Death
- Doctor Who Warlord Games
- Gringo’s 40s Napoleonics
- Deep Cut Studio Terrain Mats
- Dreadball 2
Tales of @NeilTheDwarf 
Thanks for the shout out Mike and thanks for visiting us in Williamsburg!!
RE: Dreadball 2 rant
I completely agree.
I was, for a few years, a huge Mantic fanboy. I played Dreadball, Deadzone, and Kings of War a lot. I was the biggest Dreadball booster in Southern California. People would criticize Mantic, and I would always defend them.
No more.
They took Deadzone, a great, unique game with lots of character, and made it into a boring, generic shooter. They’ll do the same to Dreadball, just wait. This “rules committee” crap is for the birds. Let a great game designer have his head, and leave the committee out of it.
Serious, name one thing a committee has made better. Wikipedia’s Design By Committee page says:
“Design by committee is a disparaging term for a project that has many designers involved but no unifying plan or vision.”
and
“The term is used to refer to suboptimal traits that such a process may produce as a result of having to compromise between the requirements and viewpoints of the participants, particularly in the presence of poor leadership or poor technical knowledge, such as needless complexity, internal inconsistency, logical flaws, banality, and the lack of a unifying vision. ”
Banality is what you get with a rules committee. Banality is the perfect word for what happened to Deadzone, and it will happen to Dreadball, as well.
Loved the Historicon discussion. As I’ve said before, I’m fascinated by the differences in US and UK gaming culture.