The initial idea of starting a blog and Facebook Group for On Bloody Ground goes way back to just before Covid hit the world. With all the changes that happened during those difficult days, development of a wargame was the furthest thing from anyone's mind, for almost all of the time, although the embers were still smouldering.
Fast forward to 2021 and much of the world had changed, but some semblance of normal life had returned, so back to gaming, although nothing historical for quite some time. More time than anyone here would have expected to be honest. In fact, Historical gaming seemed like it had fallen to the bottom of the 'to do' pile of gaming options in our house, which was a shame. Our armies were literally gathering dust in the figure cabinets.
Then, late in 2022 a conversation was had with an old gaming friend and the challenge was spoken to delve deep and find the old passion for historical gaming and the desire to get back to work on a rules set that we could enjoy, with lots of toys on the table, the opportunity to roll bucket loads of dice (the dice gods require bucket loads!) and as many laughs in every game as could be crammed in.
So, here we are nearing the end of 2022. Dan (number one son) and myself had fallen head first back into the idea of getting the game we and many others had put so much work into and had so many plans for a few years before. Then Matthew (number three son) came home from Uni and saw what was happening, so now there are three of us here all working towards the final goal.
With fresh eyes looking at what had previously been done, it was clear that the groundwork for the rules was ok, sort of, but that the game would need to be looked at with a different attitude in order to make it what we wanted it to be. The passion and excitement for the game has returned with lightning speed and a ton of work has been done already. We're so pleased with the changes so far that it feels like the break was a necessity in order to be able to look with clarity at what we were producing.
The journey has begun again and barring another global event, we will have the game that we and hopefully many others can enjoy playing very soon. Our desire is to produce a great set of rules that will inspire and excite enough to gather players from as far afield as possible into events that allow like minded people to play some exciting wargames, have a few beers (if that's your thing!) and be fully immersed in our great hobby.
The plan, at the moment (all good plans change to some degree) is to maintain regular updates both on the Blog and Facebook Group, so that we can get the feedback on rules and army lists that will make the game even better. Once we're at the stage for printing and selling the first rulebook, we'll advertise on the various forums etc. and take demo games to shows, again, to reach more players. We don't expect a fast track to recognition, but hope to gain a steady momentum towards the ultimate goal of building a community for our game.
We hope you enjoy the journey, at whatever point you join us!