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This past April it was reported that that some model casts would come out this year. As it is now mid November, with no update on this, is this even a realistic expectation? Or will be next year sometime? It would be helpful if a periodic update was given on FA progress and model availability to keep interest alive.

One thing that I think would balance the game a bit from huge dice pools which can become a bit silly is that no attack can have more dice than twice the main weapon dice pool. It is a bit silly when 5 frigates can combine their fire power and heavily damage a battle ship with their main guns. The reason is that dice don't scale linear in effectiveness due to how the mechanic works. I also think that main heavy guns are way to efficient when fired against small ships. The main guns of battleships in WWI & II was not terribly good against small ships but their secondary armament was pretty devastating against anything that managed to get close and was small. A small ship that manage to stay at long to medium range should be pretty safe from those big guns but not the secondary guns at medium to close range.

Just as a note from Firestorm, the Foldspace Escape to get your damaged ships off the table to reduce the amount of points given up to the opponent if they destroy them is mostly a waste of time. The main use is as bait to force your opponent to follow up and focus fire to kill the escaping ship. The issue with the Foldspace Escape is that to do it you must sacrifice all of your offensive capability the turn you activate it AND spend at least one full turn unable to move or attack, potentially 2 full turns depending on when you activate the squadron trying to escape. If you're in a position to have picked up enough damage to want to escape then coming to a full stop and losing all offensive capability for 1 and a bit turns just guarantees you'll die (excepting dice randomness). You end up in a position where a Battleship (8hp normally) needs to start charging the fold space drives to escape once it has taken 2hp damage otherwise it wont have the hp to actually survive the time needed to charge the drives to escape. --- Conversely I've been playing some Victory at Sea (ww2 naval combat, not a rivet counting sim, focus is instead on having you make similar choices to a 'real captain' even if the reason you make those choices is game mechanics and not realistic simulation. E.g.: when on the offense crossing the T should be your aim but if you're in pursuit you want to be in line ahead formation) and that has the big ships (even some of the medium ships) with a lot of hp and it's more difficult to remove critical hit effects. E.g.: a single hit from a 16 inch gun deal between 0 and 3 hp damage (unless a crit effect does bonus damage). The King George V class battleship has 39hp (and is crippled when it has 13 hp left). Actually sinking that thing is a monumental task that really only combined fire from multiple ships with multiple big guns (really looking at at least 10 inch plus) stands a chance of doing it over an extended number of turns. Instead it tends to pick up crit effects that reduce it's effectiveness and as these kinds of gunnery duels are essentially races a crit that prevents you turning to bring the rear turrets into arc a few times can be all it takes to make it impossible to realistically win that race so the only sensible choice is to withdraw the ship, doing what it can while it does so.

A couple of things: The Firestorm Universe is not going to be a Cold War. If you have an entire galaxy to wage war across, with vast distances of time and space separating the various combatants you can have multiple belligerents actively battling each other in full-scale war while still having the breathing room to explore, exploit and expand. Let's not get too hung up on notions of 'The Directorate are going to be turned into X or Y.' We haven't announced any factions yet or even if there will be a Directorate at all (just kidding... maybe). Just lots of lovely speculation from the community. I'm certainly in the camp of being excited about the possibilities rather than worried about what might get thrown out with the bath water.

Hey guys. With the new beta around, I needed a tool to be able to easily create some unit cards I could easily update and reprint. Quite some time ago I discovered a very handy tool called RPG Cards by crobi, I have used quite a bit for Dungeon and Dragons 5th edition. It can create some very nice Item card handouts, monster reference sheets, spell cards, pretty much whatever you want. Since the project is open source in available on GitHub, I took on myself to adapt it for creating various cards Dystopian Wars. This tool allows you to create cards with a whole bunch of customization options, save and load them them as easily editable json configuration files, and then print them on standard printer sheets either as single sided or double sided cards with a customizable background. I added the ability to create landscape oriented cards and sheets, to add some stats blocks card elements for DW ships and weapons, and did a few specific tweaks to help with the kind of card I was generating. The live demo can be found on this GitHub page: DW-Cards Just press "Load sample" to load up some sample data for various card type, then press "Generate" to create the result in a new window.The various example should get you started and provide some template for the various types of cards (Unit card, Outfitting, Reference Sheet). The manual listing the various available card elements and their parameters is on the Project page.Many style options can not be customized, but since you can download the project on github and run the generator page from your disk after changing the font style or size in the cards css file. I do not plan on releasing premade card sheets (at least not until the stats are a bit more final). The idea is to make something easy enough to use so people can use the provided samples as a base to make their own unit or outfitting cards.

He’d grown to young manhood in the sultry swamps of Louisiana but, like so many others of his generation, had headed out West to find his fortune. The gold boom had, over the course of time, given way to the love of silver. Both of those commodities, however, required expenditure of effort and he was inherently lazy. Not for him endless days of toil; of wandering the hills hoping to stake a claim on a seam of something that may or turn out to be valuable. No – he had discovered something far more appealing. Something that held a thrill greater than the simple, honest pursuit of precious metals. Those things paled in comparison to the many other opportunities that the Arizona Territories had to offer. Opportunities that a resourceful young man who discovered he had a remarkable and deadly skill with a gun could exploit to the full. And he had exploited them with great aplomb. Of course, many of those opportunities were not necessarily considered to fall within the confines of the law, but Julien Lavolier was young enough, arrogant enough and – as it now transpired – fool enough to have believed that so long as he applied sense and caution to his misdeeds, he would evade capture. It transpired that he was wrong in that assumption. Painfully wrong. He had completely underestimated the full might of the law when it finally turned its attention to the young Cajun. Very wrong. The prison cell was, as one might expect, not a pleasant place to have spent upwards of a week. A six by six foot brick cube that slowly cooked him during the day but left him shivering into the night, with only a thin, prison-issued blanket to wrap his body in. The heat wasn’t like the humidity of the swamps back home. This was a cruel, relentless heat that burned with endless fury, only relinquishing its hold when the chill of night set in. He had been given little more than the requisite bread and water for six days and his stomach was clenching painfully. He had started dreaming about his mama’s jambalaya. It hadn’t helped. Once he’d starting thinking about his mother, dead these last five years, he could hear her voice in his head. I ain’t angry, chere petit. I am jus’ disappointed. Lavolier sighed miserably, curling up into a foetal position. He lay on the rock-hard bunk that was his bed, staring at the opposite wall. There was a stain there that looked precisely like a bear and during his confinement, he had grown rather fond of it. He’d yet to reach the point of despair that saw him hold conversations with it, but it was not far off. “Julien Lavolier.” It was not a question, requiring his answer, but a statement of fact. He sat up at the voice and rubbed at sleep-deprived eyes to bring the speaker into clear focus. He was tall, this newcomer, and well-dressed in a dark grey suit with a crisp, white shirt. A long black coat hung from broad shoulders. To Lavolier’s untrained eye, the clothes seemed well cut and individually tailored. They also looked hot and stifling, made as they were from some expensive woollen based fabric. By Lavolier’s estimation, the man should have been cooking alive. It was mid-July and the outside temperatures were well in excess of one hundred degrees; the inside of the jail definitely more than that. But the man did not seem to be suffering any discomfort at all. Not so much as a bead of sweat broke his brow. He bore the burden of his woollen-based fabric load with a stoicism that had Lavolier but known it, he brought to everything. When Lavolier was sitting up fully, the man on what could best be described as the right side of the bars studied him closely. Lavolier attempted to return the scrutiny, observing a few important and several incidental ones at the same time. The first point was the star on the man’s lapel, denoting his status. He was perhaps in his mid to late forties, with sharp, pale blue eyes that did not miss a thing and a long and rather pointed nose. The expression on his finely chiselled features as he looked at the prisoner put Lavolier in mind of someone who had stepped into the street and discovered a freshly dropped pile of horse dung. He squirmed. “My name is Judge Kingsley Stern,” said the newcomer and the words were enough to turn the blood in Lavolier’s veins to ice. He knew the man by reputation. No outlaw was oblivious to the name of Judge Stern. The vaguest quirk of his lips drew the man’s mouth upwards into a semi-sneer. “You have heard of me, then.” “Oui, I have.” “Excellent. I do so dislike extended introductions. Well, then. Let’s have a little look, shall we? It would appear that your behaviour has been less than exemplary, Monsieur Lavolier,” said the lawman without a hint of sarcasm in his tone. His deference and politeness caught Lavolier off guard and he blinked. What little self-control he’d managed to maintain while in this firepit of misery slipped away from him and he heard the snivelling tone that crept, unbidden, into his voice. “I have reasons for doin’ them things what I done did, Mister Stern…” “Judge.” The cold eyes narrowed. “I will correct you once. Twice is an insult and anything more than that I will take to be a complete breach of decency. Judge. Henceforth, you will not address me by anything other than my given title again. Are we clear?” Every syllable was enunciated to perfection; not a consonant out of place and delivered in a tone devoid fully of emotion. “Crystal.” A pause. “Judge.” “Excellent.” Another expression that approximated a smile formed on the man’s mouth; thin-lipped and without humour. “I will be hearing your case later today and I very much look forward to these ‘reasons’ you have for…” He glanced down at the sheaf of papers in his hand. “Robbery, arson, two counts of murder, six counts of attempted murder and…” He looked up and clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he shook his head. “Non-payment of a bar tab. Oh dear, Monsieur Lavolier. Oh dear indeed.” “I…” Kingsley Stern raised a finger to his lips and silently shushed Lavolier. Steel, unrelenting, unsympathetic eyes bored into the Cajun’s soul and the unfortunate prisoner shuddered. “Well, very soon you will have the opportunity to divulge these wonderful ‘reasons’. As I have been appointed as your case judge, I shall listen with great intent to all you have to say.” He smiled, again without humour, and Lavolier was reminded rather forcibly of a swamp gator coming out of the sludge to take down its kill. He groaned inwardly as Stern turned on his booted heel and strode away; a man whose body language screamed infinite purpose. It would seem that Lavolier’s run as an outlaw was clearly coming to an end. That end, he had no doubt at all, would now take the form of a hangman’s noose. Quick drop, sudden stop. As the outer door of the jailhouse slammed shut, Lavolier dropped back onto his bunk and cradled his head in his hands. Judge. Jury. Executioner. Kingsley Stern would be all three. It was, after all, what he did best. View the full article

Author’s note: Whilst this vignette is set very firmly in the fictional world of Wild West Exodus, it is nonetheless loosely based on a real local Tombstone story. You’d do yourselves a favour if you go read up on Nellie Cashman and just what she accomplished in her lifetime, too. Doc Holliday has a secret addiction. A problem, even. Now, that seems very likely, given how quickly he has worked his way down the bottle of bourbon sitting on the table in front of him. Although you’d be forgiven for guessing alcohol as your answer, you’ll not hit the mark on this occasion. Try again. Maybe it’s tobacco, you might think. Well, again, close. But – and you’ll forgive, I’m sure, the pun – no cigar. Gambling. Gambling is his big weakness. It’s obvious now that you think of it. This irascible man is often at the tables until the small hours, staking everything he owns on the turn of a card. Yes. That’s it. Poker, Faro, Blackjack – there it is. Doc Holliday’s vice is gambling. Alright. Doc Holliday has a number of vices, but let me draw your attention to one of the more unlikely ones. There it is, right there his hands. A slightly dogeared book, tatty at the corners and obviously much-loved. A slim volume, with an artist’s rendition of a man in a long, black overcoat on its cover. Look more closely at the way the hat is tipped over the eyes, the way the artist has captured the curling of smoke from the ends of the pistols. The title of the book was once bright yellow, but time has faded it to a more subtle shade. From this angle, it’s impossible to make out the full title, but “Adventures”, “Stormin’” and “Lawman” are definitely in there. And this is one of two unfathomable truths. Doc Holliday is addicted to dime store novels. The trashier the better. A bizarre anomaly in such an educated man, but it is what it is. (You are, of course, correct about the alcohol, the tobacco and the gambling, but nigh on everyone in Tombstone has those issues. You get no prizes for those guesses). The final addiction isn’t even something he can ever hope to control. No, that is something intangible, but is still very evident. Wherever John Henry Holliday goes, trouble rides in a step or two behind him. Today, the deputy is having one of his better, more peaceable days. Lately, things have been uncomfortable in the more popular establishments in town. The taxidermy that is on display in Hafford’s has started to give him nightmares, the presence of the cowboys at the Grand Hotel have made that a no-go zone (but only because Wyatt said so – Doc is more than up for facing them down if they make trouble). And then, of course, the ongoing disagreements he has with the bartenders at both the Oriental and Crystal Palace Saloons mean that even what is widely acknowledged as the most dangerous corner in Tombstone isn’t an option. Just once. I tried to shoot him once and he won’t let me forget it. A flicker of guilt at his appalling behaviour when he was drunk and out of control right before… well, about eight months ago. When he lost his temper and lashed out in rage. Doc’s temper ebbs and flows as predictably as the tides. These days, he has a better handle on it, but there is still the air of a hunted animal about him. A man ready to spring into action at the click of a pistol hammer. But since his illness all but killed him… Since he has been forced to wear that curious face mask just to give his tortured lungs a rest… Well, much of his former affability has been replaced by a cynicism that is hard to reconcile with a man so young. He is still pleasant, still friendly, but there is an edge to him now. He has always chosen to sit facing the door – as so many gambling men often do – but now he always takes a corner seat as well. Not for Doc Holliday the sneaky knife between the shoulder blades. If he died, why, Wyatt Earp would never shut up about it. His choice of restaurant today is something far simpler than the grandiose places touting their wares on Allen Street. He has retreated to Nellie Cashman’s place. Russ House, out on South Street is a homely sort of eatery, but right now, that is just what the man needs. He is tired after a sleepless night and he is a little irritable to boot. Nellie’s good, solid cooking is a tiny taste of home. And more than anything, he adores that she always, always keeps a can of tinned peaches for him. If there is anything more Georgian than peaches, well, he’d thank you to tell him what it is. As far as Doc Holliday is concerned, Nellie is an angel. Yes, Nellie is a good girl; one of the best. More strength in her spine than most men he knows, more than capable of standing up for herself and well-liked by all who know her. She is the kind of woman who could quite easily lead a revolution if given half the chance. Doc is extraordinarily fond of her, but she never stands for his flirtations. Doc has been well-behaved for days, now. Not one altercation, not one argument, hell, not even raising his voice more than half a decibel above normal. This is not a natural state of affairs for the tempestuous deputy. Something has got to give and it’s got to give soon. In about four minutes, in fact. He is scooping up what remains of his peaches and cream and experiencing the pleasant buzz that comes with finishing the better part of half a bottle of good bourbon when he overhears the Texan at the table next to him. “That weren’t no beef stew. Ain’t got no idea what the hell meat that was meant to be, but damn if it weren’t an insult to whatever animal it came from.” In order to appreciate what ensues in the wake of this ill-considered review of Nellie Cashman’s cooking, it is important to consider the following factors. Doc Holliday has lived in this town long enough to consider it home. He holds Nellie very dear to his heart, because she is nice to him. He is more than a little drunk right now, he considers the Texan an intruder on his territory, he has a hair-trigger temper and he is, with very good reason, considered one of the fastest draws in the West. Like a stretched thread, his self-control is pulled too hard. Finally, the tension cannot cope. The thread snaps. There is the distinct hum of a Juiced pistol as it begins its power cycle. The Texan hears it very clearly because he has gone, in the blink of an eye, from being an ungrateful, vociferous complainant to being a man with a ridiculously powerful weapon held right up against his temple. He swallows. He looks up into the steel trap stare of Doc Holliday’s thin face which is pinched in an expression of extreme dissatisfaction. “What did you say, sir? I did not quite catch that. Louder, if you would be so kind.” The Texan considers his immediate life choices. “Why, that’s the best cookin’ I ever had?” There is an anxious pause as the deputy considers the unfortunate and bad-mannered diner. The rise in his voice at the end, the inflection that turned a statement into a question, almost results in the permanent estrangement of the Texan’s head and body, but it’s good enough. Doc backs down and the pistol is back in its holster before the Texan has even blinked. He never even saw the reed-thin figure move. Doc turns away, picking up his book and the remainder of his bottle of bourbon. He fixes his respirator back in place and tosses his money down on the table, Tipping his hat courteously to Miss Nellie, he departs with the self-satisfied air of a man who feels that he has achieved something good today. View the full article

[seeking Guidance](https://blog.wildwestexodus.com/blog/2017/6/17/vignette-5-seeking-guidance "Seeking Guidance")

I wrote this short story, I hope you like it. Comments and criticisms are welcome, thanks! Also, if anyone could tell me how to indent an entire paragraph in a forum post, that would be great. Post formatting is not my forte The preacher wasn’t smiling as he stepped up to the pulpit of the dusty little church house that Sunday mornin’. In fact, it seemed like it hadn’t been since before they could remember that the congregation had seen their shepherd smile. Instead, he wore an ever present and rather serious expression, a countenance he shared with the few members of his flock who still came and sat in the pews every week. A look that said too many thoughts were runnin’ around inside their heads. Maybe the preacher was sombered by memory of his past deeds. Before he became a man of the cloth, he had been a shotgun messenger on a stagecoach. While it had been savage natives he had felled with his gun, and far from innocents, a man of conscience might still demure over lives taken. Still haunted by the faces of widows and fatherless children rising up in judgement before him every time he sought to do a good deed. Or maybe the good shepherd was mournin’ with his people problems not only spiritual, but physical too. Like the growing portion of his congregation that was missing from the weekly meeting. First there were the young men who went away to throw in their lot with the confederates, James, the dentist’s oldest, and Andrew, son of the innkeeper. Then there were the Hendersons, the whole lot of them ‘scripted by the Union. Both sets of boys off to a fight that they couldn’t both come back from. The Union soldiers eventually did come back to town, but not the boys the preacher had known, not the young members of the shepherd’s flock. After the war it had been claims of utopia that had culled the sheep next. It had started with labourers from town being hired to go help build up the next town over, one as had been earmarked to become a “Promethean Complex”. Some of the men from the church had returned from their work there, only to take their families back with them, enticed away by promises of better living through “Enlightened” technology. Thomas Smith and his family would make visits back in to the church on occasion at first, but of late, no one for miles had seen a soul out of that big, smoke-belching monster of a city. Perhaps it was more immediate concerns that soured his face. Such as the growing fear in town, about how brother Ned’s cattle were turnin’ up mutilated, and with increasing frequency, too. Or how some folks had simply vanished from their beds in the night, only to turn up wanderin’ the waste days later with strange scars, and no memories of what had happened to them, or in some cases no memories of who they had even been. Maybe it was the thought of how Earl and Mary Hicks’ boy had made up his mind two weeks ago to run off with the Wilson gang. How, when confronted about it, he had shot his father with his six-gun before robbing his own mother and makin’ off for what his new “friends” promised was easier living. And how Ned’s brother, the sheriff, had taken off with his deputies in pursuit of the outlaw posse that same day, with no word of either since. It’s possible the serious look was due to how, just yesterday, the Mastersons’ boy woke up from a dream in which he claimed an angel had talked to him. At behest of his vision, the youth had begun to inscribe strange markings into a sabre that had been passed down in the blacksmith’s family for generations. As confused as his parents had been that morning, the more so was everyone horrified when their boy took the finished sabre up in the middle of the night, and went and plunged it into the heart of old MacIntyre, the seedy drunk who lived on the edge of town. In the end, it could have been any of those things, or even all of them, that was weighing on the preacher’s mind that morning. At last setting his Bible down on the pulpit, and opening to a page near the back, the preacher began to read, breaking the heavy silence. “And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” As the preacher read, and the congregation murmured its agreement, the door at the back of the room swung open, and a man rushed inside in a panic. “Shepherd! oh Lord God! someone help me, something aweful and unholy is afoot!” It was Jim Wuthrup, the undertaker, and as he hurried to throw himself down before the pulpit he shared with horror what he had witnessed. “It’s MacIntyre, he’s got up and started to walk again!” As the men of the congregation jumped to their feet astir, Mr. Wuthrup babbled on to the shepherd, about how the body of the town drunk, which had been put in a coffin last night to await burial this morning, had begun to stir. Finally it had climbed out and set its still-dead eyes on the undertaker, who had wasted no time in fleeing for the church, the sickening sounds of wrenching joints and dragging wet flesh behind him spurring him on. It was only a moment later, as the Shepherd tried to console his frightened lamb, that the door to the church burst open for the second time that morning. Brother Ned’s wife screamed and passed out in his arms as a monstrous form threw itself malevolently into the church-house. The… “thing” ...that had once been the town drunk, was now a club-footed and hunchbacked lump of flesh and boils, and what once had been its fingers had split to make way for long talons of sharpened bone. Even as the men of the congregation tried to maintain an orderly retreat of the women and children to the far end of the room, the flesh of the creature continued to warp sickeningly, the boils that covered it giving off an eerie red glow. Amidst the chaos of the fleeing flock, a few brave men had begun to pelt the creature with hymn books, candlesticks, anything on hand, taunting the beast and trying to keep it away from the women and children. The old shepherd ran to the pulpit, tearing the small cross from around his neck and pushing it into a matching depression on the old wooden stand. With a click, the side of the pulpit fell off, revealing an old coach gun and a line of old shells. As the creature continued to lumber forward, crashing through the old pews and shrugging off the improvised missiles of the congregation, Mr. Masterson came up behind it and smashed a chair over top of its head. Whirling around with a speed that belied its deformities, it rent his chest with its claws and sent him flying away. Loading a pair of shells into the breach of his weapon with a whispered prayer, the preacher lifted the worn oaken stock of the 12 gauge to his shoulder and aimed it at the beast. The gun was an old Remington, not one of those damnable newfangled weapons juiced by the devil’s own blood. Not for this man of the cloth. As the terrifying beast closed on the men fleeing to the pulpit, the preacher raised his voice in exultation. “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” At the sound of their shepherd’s voice, his fleeing lambs parted to either side to make an opening. Pulling both triggers, the shepherd sent two barrels of righteous fury straight into the maw of the beast, lifting it bodily from the ground and spinning it around. The creature hit the ground with a sickening wet slap, the boils on its flesh bursting from the impact to release a luminescent red liquid that was too bright to be blood. The church house fell silent. “Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.” The shepherd turned to his flock, the look on his face betraying nothing of what had just happened. As if this were the intended conclusion of his sermon all along, he sent the congregation home with a simple benediction and a prayer for Mr. Masterson, who had been taken to the doctor’s as soon as the beast was dead. Closing the doors and turning to look at the mess he’d have to clean up, the preacher thought to himself quietly. In these trying times, it was a relief to know that his ultimate destiny was secured. As the shepherd rolled up his sleeves and set to work cleaning his church, for the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to smile.

[Dead Man's Hand](https://blog.wildwestexodus.com/blog/2017/5/17/vignette-4-dead-mans-hand?utm_content=buffer9d6bd&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer "Dead Man's Hand")

[Trade Secrets](https://blog.wildwestexodus.com/blog/2017/5/9/trade-secrets "Trade Secrets")

[A Gentleman's Disagreement](https://blog.wildwestexodus.com/blog/2017/5/4/vignette-3-a-gentlemans-disagreement "A Gentleman's Disagreement")

[Harvest](https://blog.wildwestexodus.com/blog/2017/4/26/harvest "Harvest")

Here is the first character vignette I did for WWX. [The Storyteller](https://blog.wildwestexodus.com/blog/2017/4/17/vignette-1-the-storyteller "The Storyteller")