The View from the Turret

Mongoose News

Posted on 01Dec08 Updated on 01Dec08

Mongoose Publishing posted its annual State of the Mongoose. Of most interest to us,

Miniatures Games
We have spent a lot of time in 2008 re-examining the way we approach miniatures, in terms of quality of casting, sculpting and presentation. New quality control procedures are in place at our casting facility, and we will be utilising new talent to manage sculpts and pre-production – these areas were always the ones that caused us the most problem in the past. We will also be starting ‘smaller’, with no ‘grand’ battle game planned until at least 2010.

That said, the latter half of 2009 will see a return to miniatures for Mongoose! The final details are still being put in place, so forgive me if I do not reveal too much at the moment, but we will have lots of cool previews in the run up to releases.

In the mean time, I can say there will be a new Judge Dredd miniatures game. Based on the original Gangs of Mega-City One, the scope for games will be greatly increased. You can play simple gang-on-gang action in Mega-City One if you wish. However, the new game will allow you to instead run a Sector House of judges, battle throughout the Cursed Earth, or deep within the Undercity, fight entire block wars, roar down the Megways, fight alien attacks, or stage desperate last stands against the Dark Judges. All tied into a complete campaign system, your characters will develop and grow with every battle fought and every story told.

There will also be a new version of A Call to Arms. The space combat game set in the universe of Babylon 5 has too many fans for us to let it fall by the way side. So, expect a new universe, new ships, and a lot of the core mechanics you have been asking for – including a solid points-based system!

We have also had a new game in the works for some time that will finally see the light of day in 2009. V-Max Racing is an all new system covering, well, racing. Of a sort. We’ll likely preview this one in Signs & Portents, much as we did with Victory at Sea. If enough of you like the look of it, we’ll put it into production!

As well as miniatures, our existing miniatures games will continue to be developed.

Victory at Sea continues to amaze us with its popularity – February 2009 will see the release of a new rulebook, Victory at Sea: Age of Dreadnoughts. Covering naval conflicts in World War I (also known as the ‘war where you can use big ships without aircraft interfering’), this one has been penned by naval supremo David Manley and, appearing in hardback format, will be a beauty!

There will also be new titles for Battlefield Evolution, both World at War and Modern Combat. We are currently working on a Spec Ops version of Modern Combat, with a far more detailed weapons system. For World War II, the Pacific War supplement has already been written, and work is just being completed on Warbirds of World War II, which will allow you to use just about any 1/72 aircraft kit of the period in your games, complete with customised payloads (a similar title is also planned for Modern Combat). Later in the year, we will be visiting Africa and war in the desert, and an all new Battlefield Evolution title will surface in December 2009, covering Vietnam.