Update Time!

First, new job is going well, but I'm spending more time in the office than I originally intended. Hopefully should get to work more from home in the next few weeks, which will free up energy and commuting time to make more progress on Horizon Wars: Midnight Dark. Only problem is that, due to a mix up with HMRC, I have been put on a D0 tax code, which means that I'm pay the higher, 40% rate of tax on 100% of my income. Thank goodness, we have the financial reserves to carry that for a few weeks while I get it sorted out, but give the recent interest rise by the Bank of England, if that happened and I had a mortgage, we'd be utterly screwed.

The main obstacle to a release as planned at the end of September is that I can't, currently, pay my artists as I also screwed up my end of year reporting and ended up with a £200 fine for Precinct Omega (no blame to HMRC, that one; totally my fault) which took a chunk out of my reserves that I had earmarked for art. As a result, I've been running discount offers on Wargame Vault to try to recover the loses and it's mostly worked, but I'm about a month behind on income. Normally I would make this up by loaning the business money from my personal account and then recouping it from sales, but... well, see above, with regards to my current income tax issues.

However, all that said, work on the text and photography is going really well. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll have seen that I was working on a load of new buildings. And I've got even more in-hand or done that I didn't bother putting on Instagram.

So Patrons will definitely get the finished book (but perhaps sans art) at the back end of September. The only question is whether the whole thing will be ready for public purchase in time, or whether it'll take to the end of October.

Fingers still crossed!

And also, what about Legions Imperialis, eh?

OK, so it's 8mm to match with the existing Adeptus Titanicus and Aeronautica Imperialis ranges, which was predictable, and so no one can use their old Epic armies to play. But other than that, this is fantastic news for me, because it will boost a lot of interest in smaller-scale wargaming and the boxed set will match into Horizon Wars: Midnight Dark extremely well. Inevitably, I'll have to do an article at some point that converts the box contents to my game...

In other news, if you have Netflix and you haven't watched Yakitori: Soldiers of Misfortune, let me enthusiastically recommend it.

It's not quite perfect. The main characters are crudely characterized national stereotypes with the emotional intelligence of a breeze block and the tactical acumen of a stunned toad. And the big twist at the the apogee of the plot arc is undermined by lazy attention to detail. But the technology design, the military hardware and the setting are all fantastic for Horizon Wars games if you fancy using some anthropomorphic space characters, such as might be available from the likes of Hasslefree Miniatures (still trading, despite Kevin White being tempted back to the Dark Side by the pressing needs of the UK's Cost of Living Crisis) and Khurasan Miniatures on the other side of the Pond (where it's more like a Cost of Loving Crisis, amirite?).

Best of all, the plot and scale of the whole narrative is well balanced between Zero Dark (small squad tactics) events and Midnight Dark (strategic battles) events.