Warzone?

Hi!

Well I'm just back from work and have spent the last day or so obsessing over Warzone!

Back in the mid to late 90's when I first got out of the GW hobby, I happened across this amazing looking new game called Warzone in my local hobby store, Macs Models in Edinburgh (remember when there was actually a miniatures store in the capital city!) For someone used to 2nd edition of 40k, its increasingly dark outlook and rulebooks that looked rather like photocopies, Warzone was a bit of a breath of fresh air with its quality artwork, full colour contents and fascinating background setting!

Not only was the setting different, but the rules were great fun and the miniatures, while a bit on the chunky side, had a charm to them with their mighty shoulderpads and corporate gear. Needless to say no sooner did I collect and paint up a force, than it went out of production.

In the ensuing years, I cleared out almost all of my collection of Warzone goodies other than the rulebooks and from time to time, some brave soul would take on the license before it all went a bit wrong again and Warzone would disappear again.

Move forward to last year and Prodos Games announced that they were to pick up the poisoned chalice that was Warzone and reboot it. Que rapture from a fair number of folks in the gaming community who looked forward to seeing the iconic game make a comeback. Alas when some of the concepts and digital sculpts began appearing, the joy turned to rage as many fanboys, myself included I'm ashamed to say, bashed it for not being how we remembered it.

Gone were the chunky shoulder pads and the slim and more realistic figures that replaced them seemed somehow wrong and terrible. How dare our fond memories be ruined and the following wailing and gnashing of teeth (myself included!) was loud and not very grown up.

The problem is that the Mutant Chronicles setting is just too interesting to simply discard! In fact I've found myself perusing the Prodos website with a more dispassionate eye and find myself actually liking what I see! Maybe its because I have calmed down a bit but the sculpts actually look like decent updates of the classic sculpts and some of the newer stuff coming out looks quite tasty!

And that is the problem I find myself facing! I don't really want to pick up the new game as I like the old 1st edition rules (I have downloaded the new ones but just can't get myself enthused about them) but I do feel the need to get a fix of Warzone and relive some oldish school gaming. As I see it, I have three options: First, buy the new figures and use the old rules; second, collect some of the old figures and make do with what I can get or three, cheat and convert myself a few forces using 15mm scale figures.

To be honest the third option has more chance of actually seeing me painting up a whole force and playing some games but I do like the idea of getting some of the nice modern sculpts, almost as much as I like the idea of painting some of the classic figures that remind me of those halcyon days of yore!

Maybe I shall cheat a bit more and start work on the 15mm stuff while seeing out some classic sculpts and seeing how I go...

All the best!