Caldoom, the Launch.

Yes, at last, the big moment. We’re launching Caldoom. Now I was brought up in a shipbuilding town and know what launches are really like. Complex, with care taken to get everything right. You have to make sure that the tide is caught at exactly the right point. Then a lot of people slap each other on the back and drink ale purchased by others. At the same time, the few token grown-ups huddle together hoping desperately that she goes down the slip smoothly, behaves herself, and they don’t have to explain to the authorities why exactly the borough has acquired a new, expensive, and considerably over-engineered breakwater.

On the other hand, we haven’t achieved anything like that level of professionalism for our launch. This isn’t entirely due to incompetence, but because of the business model. Still, I’m running ahead of myself. The Caldoom Project is something that I’m working on with Ali Doğan Sayıner who is the creative genius behind ILIADA GAME STUDIO.

You can find him at https://www.iliadagamestudio.com/

We’re building a world! Well actually, provided the imagination and mdf holds out, we’re building a galactic sector. Admittedly it’s going to be a very ‘downmarket’ galactic sector, but still, it looks as if it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Now if we’d done this properly Ali would have had a huge number of buildings and vehicles in 28mm scale ready for your delectation and delight. (Actually he has, just go to the website.

https://www.iliadagamestudio.com/caldoom-by-starlight  ) Also I planned to write a novella, ‘Caldoom and the Ship of Dreams’ which will be a painless introduction to the world. This I have done. Currently you can buy the pdf from Iliada Game Studio, it’ll soon be on Wargame Vault and Amazon.

There’s also ‘Caldoom by Starlight’ which is the campaign book. OK it’s half written because there’s a lot of scenarios in there. A lot of them will be suitable for solo play. Finally we have four Caldoom scenarios written and ready to go onto the blog. The fact they are not yet there is because of the business model. The figures we’re using are from the CP Models 28mm range. (He’s just a poor innocent bystander who happens to produce lovely 28mm figures. Check him out at https://cpmodels.co.uk/ )

My role is to slouch on the divan, taking puffs from my hookah pipe and eating freshly peeled grapes. I spin off ideas and create dreams. Ali then has to turn them into mdf and other materials. Obviously there are times when I have to step in and point out that air rafts only have three rails, rather than five. This was laid down specifically in the Third Concordat of Liberty. So he retools and we avoid heresy.

Also not only has Ali got to exercise his creative genius, he has to fulfil orders and generally run his business. Apparently his family expect to eat occasionally. So whilst we’ve got all the figures and suchlike for Caldoom, due to aforementioned issues, not all of them are painted yet. This means we haven’t got the photos for all the scenarios. We have the photos for one, but ironically it’s the fourth in the series but still, the other three are in the pipeline.

Then there are figures we’re producing as well. At the moment we’re more looking at useful civilian types who can stand in bus queues, give orders to their squad of goons, or suddenly produce a hidden weapon/explosive device.

So not so much a launch, but more a steady shamble into the light, probably blinking at the brightness of it all.