Wyrd Science 6 - Pre-Order Now!

plus get 3 issues for just £20

Ok, let’s all just pretend that this newsletter didn’t just take another unscheduled unfathomably long break and try to pick up from where we were. We all cool with that? Great!

So, first up, are you seeing what I’m seeing? Is that a new issue of Wyrd Science complete with an incredible new Mat Pringle cover? Well yes it most certainly is, and Wyrd Science 6 is finally available to pre-order now ahead of its release next month.

But what’s in it? well lets start in an orderly fashion and have a closer look at Mat’s cover art… Wonderful stuff! It’s been a huge privilege to have Mat work with us on every cover of this series and I’m fairly confident saying we’re going out on a high here.

Of course unfortunately for me a magazine needs more than just a cover and in this issue you’ll find features on games like Mausritter (hence our little friends there), Pendragon, Fantastic Medieval Campaigns and Dreams & Machines.

We speak to author Dan Abnett about finally completing the epic Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy series nearly two decades after the first book was published, we take a look at the history of the Polish RPG scene (complete with some wonderful illustrations from our friend Łukasz Kowalczuk - see above) and we get out our orb of pondering to consider the importance of 3rd party content to a game’s long term health.

All that plus our Quickstart section covering the latest goings on in the world of tabletop games and in our review section we cast our eye over games like Deathmatch Island, Necromolds, Wyrmspan and so much more.

Wyrd Science issue 6 will ship in late-July and it is available to order now!

A new issue also means we need to make some space in the warehouse. So if you’re new to the magazine, or want to fill a gap in your collection then you can now grab print copies of issues 3, 4 and 5 in one handy bundle for just £20, getting yourself an incredible amount of awesome features to read over the next few weeks and helping us keep the lights on a little longer.

Right, enough about us as we’ll no doubt mention this a few more times in the coming weeks, let’s get on with the rest of this week’s newsletter…

John. x

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False Kingdom

From the creators of Night of the Hogmen (oh yes and the less awesomely titled but still pretty decent Teeth) comes False Kingdom. A Forged In The Dark game set in a suitably awful 12th century England, False Kingdom deposits you in the unruly court of a deranged upstart monarch.

With the true king absent, no doubt busy murdering foreigners, a pretender has seized power. Whilst their reign will be short and savage it’s your job, as a vain and greedy courtier, to make the most of this chaotic period and backstab your way, if not to success then at least something approximating survival.

To do this you must satisfy the ridiculous whims of the upstart, heading into the wild northlands to haplessly enact Prowde Deeds -which range from hunting fierce beasts to building a chapel for frogs- before returning to court, tale in hand.

Once back home you’ll need to recount your adventures, no doubt embellishing your acts, in the hope of becoming the royal favourite with all the benefits that title includes.

Of course whilst rising through the ranks might make life in court a little easier, it does also put you in an awkward position when the true king eventually returns at the head of his army. Think of it as a little like an incredibly lethal version of pass the parcel.

Designed to be played over the course of just a couple of sessions the game includes everything you need to get going straight away including 24 playbooks/characters that range from flatulent poets and drunken lords through to revolutionary peasants.

So if you have the kind of friends who enjoy plunging the knife into each other’s backs then this could be just the ticket and you should head over to Itch.io where False Kingdom is available to download now, pay what you want.

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Warpstormer - Noise Marine Tee

The history of Warhammer and its occasional crossovers with the music industry is a bizarrely interesting one that, if the magazine survives long enough, I plan to one day properly dig into, but for now I just wanted to shout about this particularly awesome t-shirt.

I’ve always had a suspicion that in the early days of Games Workshop you were never entirely safe from an early Genesis album being put on the office stereo. Still, after Bryan Ansell’s palace coup -that saw Citadel Miniatures swallow up Games Workshop- the company and its new flagship game Warhammer would become increasingly linked to music of a somewhat heavier, hairier nature.

It’s not particularly hard to imagine Warhammer’s development being soundtracked by some particularly grotty mix of NWOBHM like Saxon’s Wheels of Steel. By the late 80s though the relationship between Games Workshop and the metal scene was officially set in plastic when, much to the confusion and delight of unruly British kids, White Dwarf 95 came complete with a 7” flexi disc of Nottingham thrash band Sabbat’s Blood For The Blood God.

This was just the start though as the next few years would see Bolt Thrower give us an entire grindcore concept album based on the Realm of Chaos books and Games Workshop even launched the somewhat ill-fated Warhammer Records, that saw D-Rok, Wraith and the aforementioned Saxon all release albums complete with wonderfully ludicrous Warhammer art.

Anyway, that brief history lesson was basically an excuse for me to both listen to a load of old albums and say that whilst modern day GW might be a touch more Busted than Anthrax (and the less said about their current merch the better), the spirit of those times lives on in South London “stoner‑thrash juggernaut” Warpstormer.

Whilst the band are busy recording a follow up to 2022’s Here Comes Hell, they have just put this brand new t-shirt, featuring probably one of the most iconically ridiculous WH40K models the Noise Marine, up for pre-order. Surely something that anyone with a passing interest in both Warhammer or metal should want to check out and proving there is a corner of a grim dark battle field that will forever echo to the sound of blast beat drums.

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The Wicked + The Divine: THE COVERS VERSION

Apparently it’s ten years since Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie’s comic series The Wicked + The Divine launched, one of those horrible facts that makes me uncomfortably aware of just how many little things like getting out of bed in the morning seem to hurt these days.

For those who missed it, the series was a typically Gillen’esque tale of wayward youth who find themselves transformed into a new, doomed pantheon of feckless, amoral gods, and which that touched on all the big subjects out there, life, death, power and, of course, pop music.

Anyway to mark the occasion they’re releasing a book bringing together all the covers that graced its 51 issue run, including not just all of McKelvie and Matt Wilson’s originals but the numerous variant covers produced by the likes of David Aja, Cliff Chiang, Becky Cloonan, Stephanie Hans, Fiona Staples,Chip Zdarsky and many many more.

Complete with an introduction from Gillen and a run through from McKelvie on how he planned each volume’s arc, this should make a lush addition to any half decent bookshelf.

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The Illuminated Inferno

Sticking with art books we also wanted to give a brief mention to this new illustrated edition of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno that is currently crowdfunding.

Featuring the work of one of our favourite British artists right now, Sophy Hollington, The Illuminated Inferno is a stunning looking version of Dante’s classic tour of the abyss.

Published as an oversized slipcased hardback and filled with Hollington’s unmistakable linocuts, it’s a gorgeous looking book that like Virgil takes us in hand as we descend through the architecture of hell and breathes new life into this epic work of Italian literature.

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Finally some things, both interesting and inspiring, gaming related and not, found down the back of the internet’s sofa…

• Is Evil Genius Games Doubling Down On NFTs & Blockchain? [EN World]

  Honestly if you do one thing after reading this newsletter please let it be buying a copy of Wyrd Science, if you do 2 then read this as web3 and its adherents continue to unintentionally be the funniest people on the planet.
  

• Dicebreaker’s future remains unclear [Boardgamewire]
  Bleak, if not entirely unexpected news that following its recent takeover by IGN it looks as if Dicebreaker is being shuttered with it appears all its staff made redundant. We have a lot say about this, and the current state of tabletop game media, but this newsletter would probably get blocked by spam filters were I to indulge myself right now. Needless to say our thoughts are with all those involved.
  

• D&D New Edition Latest [ComicBeat]
  There was an absolute flurry of new information (& art) about the forthcoming new edition of D&D disgorged into the ether this week. If that’s your bag then head over to ComicBeat where Christian Hoffer has been rounding up all the major news.
  

• Why Is It Always Apocalypse Now? [The Guardian]
  Mat Osman reviews Dorian Lynskey’s new book Everything Must Go, which looks at the history of artistic interpretations of the end of the world, and catapults it right to the top of my ever growing must-read list.
  

• Perspective and its Consequences in Historical Game Design [YouTube]
  Wyrd Science fave Cole Wehrle (Root, Oath, Pax Pamir, John Company etc) talks to the Georgetown University Wargaming Society about subjectivity, scale and perspective in historical wargaming with, as you’d expect, fascinating results.
  

• Arcs Supra Arcs [SpaceBiff]
  Staying with Cole for a hot minute, another of our faves Dan Thurot takes a second, long, look at the finished version of Arcs, Cole’s latest big title for Leder Games. After maxing out with every Root expansion and then Oath, which for reasons sits unplayed here, I’d given Arcs a swerve, a decision I’m now rapidly reevaluating.
  

• The Incentive to Kill in Dungeons & Dragons [Ludological Alchemy]
  A new substack to perhaps keep an eye on is Luke & Sam Roberts Ludological Alchemy, who kicked off a ten part series back in March titled Motivations in Roleplaying Game Economies where they “discuss how games affect the behavior of their players, using Dungeons & Dragons: Basic Set (1981, Ed. Tom Moldvay) as our example text.”
  

• Art Pressure
  Sam Sorensen blogs about the pressure to fill your RPG with art and makes a call to resist the urge.
  

• Print magazines are thriving in the digital age [Mediacat]
  Probably more of desperate interest to ourselves than anyone else, but Josh McLaughlin looks at the current state of the print magazine market.
  

• There’s a new Warhammer 40K Actual play coming [Polygon]
  Let’s guess what system they’ll be using.
  

• Phantom Cogs {Explorers Design]
  Another regular in this section Clayton Notestine’s blog continues to serve up great ideas about tabletop game design, both game and graphic. Well worth reading through several of the recent articles starting with this one on what Clayton calls Phantom Cogs.
  

• Peasant
  Our near namesakes Weird Walk have just launched a new zine, Peasant, covering music that draws from the deep wellspring of folklore, myths and magic. As ever with all things WW always worth checking out.