Patreon Wednesday

Wednesday mornings are dedicated to Patreon content, but that doesn't always mean I necessarily post something. But I thought I'd let you know what I *am* up to.

First, Zero Dark FEAR is, in text form, basically finished. I've got a little fiction still to add, and I'd like to add a Versus mission of some sort, but the main body of the first draft is completed and I'm now doing the maps, running light playtests and adjusting the rules to try to make the missions actually achievable.

I'll include print-and-play tiles (I've actually reduced the number of different designs needed substantially and improved the look of them over the examples you've seen in the past), but the idea is very much that the layouts are simple enough that anyone with their own collections of tiles, be they from Space Hulk, Imperial Assault or Star Saga, can use what they already own without worrying that the mission will be substantially affected.

Meanwhile, progress on Operation Kurgan has slowed a little - mainly because of a bit of writer's block. I've pretty much written the first six missions, and Defence Mech patrons have access to five of those already. After consulting with you guys, it looks like the final act will consist of two sets of three missions each, depending on the choice made by the player(s) in the course of mission six.

I'm also working on a standalone mission based on a proposal by Sascha Stand. Sascha sent me a mission of his own invention in which the heroes fought their way through four storeys of a building to an extraction point on the roof. Sascha's design is very cool, but I can't resist tinkering, so I'm making some amendments to his concept and will post it up when finished. It might end up being September's Mission of the Month.

In September, I'll be getting to work on the first Infinite Dark supplement, too, and patrons will see that in the form of new missions for CL3, plus new rules and content specifically for CL3 vessels and missions.

Zero Dark: Most Wanted remains largely in pre-alpha form for now.

Fact is, various things have been affecting my mental health, recently, which has made it hard to be as focused as I would like. Depression is one of those weird things that comes in waves for no obvious reason. Stuff affects it, in the sense that specific events or experiences will intrude and prey upon my mental processes, but it's fundamentally a biological experience. Nevertheless, the experience of depression can be deepened or extended by outside stimuli. It is my very great fortune to be surrounded by people who love me. But events in Afghanistan are taking their toll on veterans everywhere. I was never even boots-down in Afghanistan, but I worked on effectively deploying hundreds of military medical staff into the country and one of my best friends was killed there in a roadside bomb attack, while accompanying an injured soldier to hospital in an ambulance, leaving a widow and 3-year-old son.

I see a great deal of despair online regarding events in Afghanistan.

When the mission that would become known as Operation HERRICK to UK Armed Forces was launched, my route to my office every day passed by a memorial to the lives lost in Afghanistan the last time Britain tried to interfere there. But I refuse to see the withdrawal of international troops and the return of the Taliban to power as a military failure. The military mission was deployed to prevent the ability of anti-Western groups in the country from being able to launch terrorist attacks outside their borders. The political and diplomatic mission creep that saw neo-conservatives spearhead the idea that Afghanistan could be crafted into a liberal democracy was always ludicrous to anyone who had ever studied the history of Afghanistan. We cannot know to what extent the ability of Islamic terrorist groups to continue attacking targets outside Afghanistan was hampered by the military intervention. I choose to believe that, by harassing and attacking them in their bases and by disrupting the routes to traffick people, drugs and weapons into and out of Afghanistan, thousands of lives - perhaps tens of thousands - were saved. If you are or know a veteran struggling with this same dichotomy, please keep this in mind and share it with those who need to hear it.