The secret is out! ;-)
Looks cool - I've been waiting for something suitable & inspiring to get my WSS Armies started - having boxes of Plastic Wargames Factory Figs sitting around in-limbo!
Congrats Sam - look forward to seeing the product 'in the flesh'!
Mycenius wins the "first post on Maurice" award.
Hehehe! Do I get a free copy?! ;-p
I hate to say this Sam but I 'think' there is a wee typo on your front cover (maybe) - in the subtitle...? But it might be intentional of course...?
P.S. Do I get an award for first blog post too?! ;-)
I was concerned that people might think it was a typo, but in fact I intended to write "Philosophes," as in the French word.
For the actual book, I'll probably have to eschew any foreign words, or else I'll be answering this question thrice a day for the next five years.
Yes - I wondered if that was your intent... ;-) And yes you may do unless you do something like put apostrophes - so 'philosophes' to make it clear it's intentional... :-)
Interesting! Do you plan to to use the same distribution model as with LaSalle? Oh, and thanks for the potential of forcing me into yet another period!
Edgar
Well .... :)
That's an interesting looking game you might have there Sam, well done.
I'm not sure how the so called purists will like it, but to me its a refreshing change of concept to how to play a game :)
good luck and i for one will pick up a copy to check it out when the time comes.
cheers
This looks really interesting and "refreshing" as Scruff said.
Will definitely be picking this up and getting the full colour set of cards to impress the ladies.
Well done Sam - it appears the wait was worth it.
Does the rules cover the French and Indian War? Or is it for more formal European conflicts?
Just received the flyer, and the perfect excuse I needed to begin a 10mm pendraken army for the period and enlist my gaming mates into it!.
Any chance of a "deal" involving the printed AND electronic version? the PDF is much of a resource for "computerized" users, but I really hate printing when the book has such a good look (In lasalle I ended with computerized english and spanish printed)
Hi Sam
Card based game mechanics - any Piquet influences here.
Good period coverage as well - 1690 - 1790
BTW I wrote the Piquet Cartouche 2 supplement that covered the same period. Will you be covering pikes for the nine years war and GNW.
Great news.
"Magic our Maurice!"
Reminds me of 'Oh No! It's Selwyn Froggitt.'
It is a period that I have never jumped into yet... I was close to with Might and Reason, but didn't... but I guess now I will have to if only just to get to play the system with the campaign options and the cards...
It seems like a great original idea to come up with a new style of play...
Eagerly looking forward to it... and for sure I'll pre-order my copy at my LGS, and I'm also certainly in for the cards...
PS. agree with vilcum on the "deal" plus I'll most likely also jump into the 10s :)
Francisco
Great news Sam. You'll be getting my guinea's from the northern colony by dispatch in exchange for the the cards and rules when the pre-order is put up.
I'm starting a Might and Reason 6mm army or two in the next few months this falls perfect for also using those troops for this game as well.
Nice one Sam and a Happybirthday:) ....a nice bit of timing as well, Maurice will hit all the hotspots and yet again introduce players to the period just as Lasalle as done:)
Cheers Paul:)
Great news Sam, I really find interesting the WSS period, so with this new ruleset, I think I'm going to begin to collect my armies, maybe 10mm o 15mm, I need yet to decide the most suitable scale for me. I really like Lasalle, so I know for sure that "Maurice" won't disapoint me at all.
BTW Happy Birthday Sam!
A few (admittedly vague) answers:
1. Yes, you can certainly use M&R armies for Maurice, and vice-versa. Maurice units are twice as big, though: four bases each.
2. The card play is quite different from Picquet, in that you've got a "hand" of cards, from which you are free to choose in each round, and can play multiple cards for multiple effects. You're not bound as heavily by the "luck of the draw."
3. The scale is completely flexible, so Yes, you can use it for French-and-Indian battles, too. The rules for "irregular" units will come in handy with all that rough terrain.
4. With regard to the precise types of books/PDFs, etc... that's something I'm still working on. I'm sensitive to the fact that I'll be asking people also to buy a pack of cards, so I'm looking for lower-cost alternatives to the classic hardback, full-color book like Lasalle. Needless to say, there are a lot of options. But I do plan to offer the game simultaneously in more than one format.
Sam, but in Maurice will be some Examples Armies? Because some people maybe is new with this period and don't have any ideas in how to create an army like Frederick The Great, or maybe the lazy people just want to play using the system but not think too much in which skills of capabilities their armies must have to be historically right.
Yes, there will be some historical scenarios.
Sam, personally I'm happy for a hardback like lasalle and cards, as long as there is a PDF option as well for those on a budget. Rule books are something I buy once and use often (if they are used at all of course). Having nice content fluff pics as well as being able to stand up to usage is important, to me at least.
For the M&R troop re-use would there be the option of using half the M&R true base width as the game BW?
So using 3cm as a BW for standard 6cmx3cm based troops. This obviously would effect march formations as they would be twice as wide as they should be, but as mostly this is linear combat era so I would think the lasalle attack column formation would not be often used in the period. So that may be the biggest impact, and allow play with some compromises. Of course there may be other impacts and only seeing the rules would truly show if this might work.
Otherwise, I (and others I guess) need to plan on making sure we have plenty of bases and a larger playing area to allow reuse of M&R troops. The battles like this would look good though.
Of course as I have yet to start my M&R army I could base on 3x3cm bases, thus using 2 bases for 1 M&R base. Decisions decisions... :)
Excellent the cover has me sold without even looking at contents ! :-)
As to book type etc I would love another Lasalle style hardback but to be honest a more practical option is wire-bound (great for laying flat on table). As to cards I suspect expensive for us in UK but Pdf version or thin card insert would be welcome options.
Looking forward to this
Cheers
Gary
sgtsteiner.blogspot.com
Excellent the cover has me sold without even looking at contents ! :-)
I agree Gary - I'm so looking forward to doing WSS!
Sam, personally I'm happy for a hardback like lasalle and cards, as long as there is a PDF option as well for those on a budget. Rule books are something I buy once and use often (if they are used at all of course). Having nice content fluff pics as well as being able to stand up to usage is important, to me at least.
Sam - I agree totally with @MarkE - I for one will definitely purchase a Hard Cover Book, Full Card Set, and a PDF if you do some sort of bundle - especially if the PDF will include a free upgrade at a later point with any errata incorporated!
Personally I see the Hard Cover book as an investment for my library rather than a gaming tool... Unfortunately that means I disagree with Gary as I'd sooner see the same style binding as Lasalle, rather than wire bound or such. I can't see a spiral bound book lasting well with handling over time, and I went down the 'alternative binding' route with Arty Conliffe when we published Modern Spearhead and cant say the ring-binder approach was received overly well at the time (although one or two others followed our lead later - such as the General Quarters second edition Naval Rules from ODGW).
A agree with all the above that the PDF would be a good option for budget conscious gamers to get the rules without the expense of a hardback book. You might want to have 2-3 different bundles e.g:
John
Wargaming.info
The problem with offering a sort of "premium" option - in addition to cheaper options - is that it's very, very hard to anticipate how many people will choose it, given the cheaper alternatives. For full-color, hard-bound books, you still have to do it the old-fashioned way, ordering months in advance from a printer on the other side of the world, and it costs a bundle. Five digits.
Print-on-Demand is simply not capable of doing those sorts of books in any quantity, at a cost even remotely close to being feasible. Remember that 80% of the sales of color books is through retailers and wholesalers, who want substantial discounts. You have to sell a lot, just to break even. And that's exponentially harder if there are simultaneously cheaper options for the same product. (Not to mention that retailers will be very reluctant to order the expensive books if they know that customers can buy a cheaper version elsewhere.)
So it would be very easy to get that wrong. Especially for a topic like 18th century, which is not one of the traditional "big three" (Ancients, Napoleonic, WW2). And I can't afford to get anything wrong.
In other words, if I offer a premium hard-bound color book, then I can't really offer anything else, except maybe a very cheaped-down B&W PDF.
I suppose it might also be possible to do a "Magic 500" or something like that, in which - if I can get 500 pre-orders - I can go ahead and do the full-color book. I've never taken people's money that far in advance, though, prior to even printing something, and it makes me nervous.
Or, If people are willing to do without a full-color hardback book, then that opens a lot more options, because it makes Print-on-Demand cost effective.
Finally, it should go without saying that I'm a one-man "company" who also works a full-time job doing something else. Customers obviously want me to produce every game in seventeen different variations, but producing each one takes months of work and often considerable expense. So if you want the game sooner than later, you'll have to accept that it won't be done in every imaginable format simultaneously.
Nothing has been decided yet. But I'm leaning toward doing a traditional soft back book with color cover and B&W guts, and then offering PDFs in both B&W and color.
Then the cards will come in both a free basic "starter kit," and the full color, full set.
Well Sam I really like the hardbook cover with full color inside in Lasalle rulebook, I might even buy the softcover book, but with full color diagrams and pics. B&W inside definitely will be very sad for me :(
I don't like B&W inside wargame books for any period.
At end of the day I'm like venotaku. I'll take what format I can get, and do understand the issues.
The nice quality cards will likely be the most important thing for me in the end, as home made ones are just not the same. :)
+1 Here. A step back to soft covers and B&W inside will be a big step back Sam and you might not appreciate how detrimental it may be to sales considering the standards now being set for wargames publications...
I love my Lasalle book, and I would love a product of similar quality, but at the end of the day I understand that these decisions involve risks.
If the option of a limited deluxe edition exists I will certainly sign up...
If at the end of the day it is a softboud B&W book, I'm still going to be interested, mainly due to how original the concept is. I agree that coming up with pretty cards will be important and I'll be buying those for sure as well.
In any case I'm a certain customer for this product and as long as the book has a good format I'm sure I'll be ok. I like for example the Might and Reason book despite not being the same deluxe product as Lasalle...
It will be a long wait till next summer :) , kudos for taking the risk of innovating with such product...
cheers
Francisco
I'm more than happy to have a soft-cover with a B&W guts if it means the difference between getting the rule-set or not. Sure we all want the hard-cover full colour option but at the end of the day it's Sam who could get financially burnt, not us, by making the wrong choice.
As Sam stated, he's a one man company and I think we need to make some allowances for that and perhaps put aside our personal preferences to ensure that the book gets published. A hard-cover and colour pictures will obviously add some polish to the end product but I've seen enough 'polished turds' in my time to know that it's the rules that matter and I'm betting that the Maurice rules are well worth it irrespective of what format they finally get produced in.
The book can always be published regardless via PDF or similar RoughNeck3 and I think Sam has had a positive enough experience with Lasalle not to be arbitrarily against such an idea - its not like it won't get published if it's not a soft cover B&W hardcopy. The comments were simply around if a version published in hardcopy is the same standard as Lasalle or something considerably less. No one is asking Sam to risk his life savings and home over it, but simply endeavouring to show him there is support (i.e. buyers) for going with the best quality he can.
Personally FWIW if it's not up to Lasalle standard in hardcopy I'd sooner just have the PDF thanks, I can print that easily and possibly in better quality than most soft cover books would be, and less cost, and have the advantage of electronic searching and using it on my iPad. Sam has a lot of other factors to consider like the ability to have retailers sell the product (which requires hardcopy and ties up capital) versus the minimal cost of doing PDF but restricted distribution etc, how many copies to do in the print run, etc, etc, but I'd suggest less of a better quality book will likely increase early demand and give Sam a better chance of selling a large portion of the print run quickly to recoup the investment - if people can't afford or just don't want to pay for a high quality edition I doubt they will care if it's soft cover B&W or PDF as long as they get it as cheaply as possible (in which case Sam could consider an initial high quality hard cover release for example followed by a B&W PDF version a month or two later once most of the hard copy has sold that woudl be the ongoign version available)...
Another issue is the size - if it's similar to Lasalle in page count a soft cover that's perfect bound or centre stapled would be a poor product to handle/read compared to Gary's suggestion of spiral bound or a Lasalle style hardcover... Perfect bound soft-cover books invariably fall to pieces with only a little frequent handling, and centre stapling won't work (for several reasons) if more than about 40 pages.
Hi all - I have joined the forum as I am so interested in'Maurice' - when he comes........a good friend sent me the flyer by email - wow!
I play Piquet solo and have had a 7YW imagination game in my head for some time but keep shelving it as there is so much to do to set it up - Sam is going to give me the tools to do it - Thank You!
From what is said on the flyer the concept is original and extremely well thought out - the full colour cards look fantastic.
Sam - if you want to set up a Pre-order 500 or whatever, count me in for book and full set of cards. If you opt for b/w inside I won't mind but will also buy a full colour version if you do that instead. I suspect that as this is a 'minority' period Sam's misgivings about potential sales audience could well be right - in which case full colour or b/w pdfs with two price points plus basic and full sets of cards via pdf is the best way to go and much less risky. The lead time will be reduced if Maurice is only sold by pdf and no one coughs up for postage either - it also means that Sam need not sell by distributor but can keep all the proceeds - and why not? - he has had the ideas and done a huge amnount of work.
Whatever you end up doing - good luck and hurry up!
Robert
You must log in to post.