What is Next For Chaos Magic

I had plan to do a solo podcast series about Dracula's America in a similar vein as my partnership War Journal podcasts. It was going to be very different in many ways but I did want to have a similar style and cover topics in a similar way. But I've since change my mind on doing it. Perhaps I spent too much time over thinking it or maybe I finally came to realize the would be limitations of the podcast. In either case, I don't think Dracula's America is broad enough to do a podcast on in the style I had in mind. Flames of War is a huge game. Now that I think about, our podcast didn't cover Flames of War as well as it probably should have. There was so much about Flames of War that our podcast never touch because neither of us played that army or we didn't play in that era. While Team Yankee wasn't that big at the time when we switch our focus to it, we knew over time the game was going to grow. And even at the beginning, there was plenty of things about Team Yankee we could discuss. I don't think I could do the same with Dracula's America. The second expansion was recently release and while that would be a good sign for a game just over a year old now, it seems the second expansion was meant to also be the last expansion as well. Obviously skirmish games will have less to discuss on than larger wargames like Flames of War but Dracula's America problems were more than that. The subject that can generate the most discussion are the strength and weakness of a games factions. In most games you need to pick a faction before anything else as that decides how your force will look, what options you have to pick and so on. In Dracula's America factions most just give one or two models free bonuses. These bonuses are quite significant but otherwise two different forces from different factions can look and play nearly identical. There are a handful of other things about how the game works that also restricts potential discussions. I still enjoy playing Dracula's America but between the above and the likelihood of additional releases being low, I think it would be better for me to focus on individual articles and videos about Dracula's America instead of doing ongoing series. If I ever get overwhelm by stuff I want to talk about I can revive the podcast idea, I just don't think it will happen.

My local Dracula' America campaign is about to end and we are planning on starting a new campaign soon after. That means some of my focus will remain on Dracula's America for probably the rest of this year at least. The new campaign is making some of the players (including myself) consider playing a different faction. The Twilight Order is the initial faction that I took a liking to. I've enjoy playing as them in the campaign and have future plans for them in terms of finishing building and painting a posse and writing narrative fiction about them. The expansion books each had a new faction that also interest me. Those two were the Shadow Dragon Tong and Salem Sisterhood. The Shadow Dragon Tong is an Chinese posse whom uses unique tattoo magic. I like magic and the Salem Sisterhood is the faction with the most powerful arcane magic in the game so far. They are balance by the fact that their 3 witches are encourage to stay next to each other. For a low model count skirmish game, trying to keeping 3 models together is a big disadvantage. They also don't have any unique creations to summon. I will probably write up an article on summoning and why this is a big deal in the future. The faction I will use in the newest campaign will be mostly depended on what other people play. I want to see as many different factions in the campaign and others are also thinking about the Salem Sisterhood. If someone else picks the Sisterhood then I will either stick with Twilight Order or try my hand at the Shadow Dragon Tong. Whatever I pick, I will be using mostly the same models. I probably won't get around to discussing the results of either campaigns, but I will post my progress with painting Dracula's America miniatures or building western style terrain.

One of my goals for while now have been to have create a constant stream of content here. I have lots of plans for Dracula's America but future updates here on will probably be slow coming. And since I'm still sidelining Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar, I'm going to need to expand the blog in new areas to have more content available to publish. I haven't made any decision yet but I do have 2 ideas for areas I could expand into.

For the past few months I've been looking into the Android Universe. It is a science fiction setting own by Fantasy Flight Games that reminds me of Shadowrun without the magic. A friend has been trying to get me interested in the Netrunner card game. It was my first taste of the Android Universe and I like what I saw. Of course when I decided to invest in the game was also when it was announce that the game was ending. For whatever reason, Fantasy Flight lost the license to Netrunner. That means trying to buy the cards I'm missing will get harder over time as they are now out of print as well as there will no longer be any official tournaments to play in (the last official tournament was earlier this month). Not a great time to get into the game. That said, the end of Netrunner doesn't mean the end of Android. There are 3 board games, a handful of novels and novelettes and Fantasy Flight is working on a RPG book that will allow people to play pen and paper role-playing games in the Android Universe. Besides playing Netrunner, I have read the first Android novel, Free Fall. I will be writing a review of it, both as a novel on its own and as an introduction to the setting. Besides the review, I'm still toying with how the Android Universe will appear on the blog. I suppose I could get an inspiration to paint up a few models set in the Android Universe. Or Fantasy Flight Games could come out with a war game set in the Android Universe. Fantasy Flight Games have already dip their toes in miniature war gaming with Star Wars:Legion and Runewars, and there is a war in the Android lore on Mars. I will probably have a clearer idea of what I want do once I play one of the board games.

For a few years now I've been thinking about starting a new blog about my 20 years of playing pen and paper role-playing games. I wanted it to be a new blog because at the time I had a vision of what I wanted Chaos Magic to be and I didn't think role-playing games fit even though there is a lot of crossover appeal to both. That vision started to crumble when I realize it wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Also I wanted it to be a different blog because the tone of it was going to be vastly different. I try to make the tone of Chaos Magic lighthearted. Sure my stories could be dark and depressing but I always wanted my commentaries to be uplifting. The name I came up with for the new blog was "Tales from a Jaded Gamer," and it was going to be just that. At the time I was burning out on role-playing games and wanted an outlet to write about my frustrations over the years. It wasn't going to be ALL negative as I had a few stories that were more interesting or funny than exploring my dark side of gaming. But at its core it was suppose to be a way to channel my anger into something positive. I have since recovered somewhat from my burn out. I'm back to playing tabletop RPGs again and I still want to tell some of those stories of past games. I still feel that the concepts of "Jaded Gamer" and my vision of Chaos Magic are different and big enough to warrant having their own blog pages. However I know I am unable to write enough to keep 2 different blogs actives, especially since I'm also working on a different blog that has nothing to do with gaming and I have other outside projects that I'm working on. Given that for many tabletop RPGs, I prefer to have models representing the battlefield like a war game, the two concepts has a closer connection than I initially thought. I will start with the more lighthearted stories to post here, keeping the name "Tales of Jaded Gamer." After I publish a handful, I will consider if I want to bring the darker ones here as well.

I want to end this article that took way too long to write on some painting I recently did. Its not Dracula's America related nor is it anyway close to being finished. However I wanted to work on something so I started painting my giant for my Shieldmaiden force. With no current gaming incentives for the model, I'm just painting her for the practice and I like the model. Hopefully my next update wouldn't be as long as this. Until next time!