I almost died today!!!

No but seriously the post women turned up with a package in her hand, nothing unusual in that. What was slightly more unusual was that it wasn't a package of nail varnish or shoes for the missus. So what could this strange rulebook shaped package be I thought. Surely not? It can't be! It is!!! Yep I've got the lesser spotted incredibly rare English Edition Hell Dorado rulebook from Cipher Studios. The shock to my heart nearly did for me. To say its been a long wait is an understatement of the highest order, I've been waiting for it since 2008 when the game was Asmodee's responsibility. While it felt good to finally have it in hand, there was a huge kick in the teeth waiting for me when I tried to open the damn thing.

Although it might not look like it here, the book is actually seriously quite badly damaged. You see there have been rumours flying around the interweb that there was a flood at a warehouse in Chicago where the Hell Dorado books and indeed the latest copy of Privateer Presses No Quarter magazine were being held. Some people poo pooed the idea, but I thought it sounded infinitely plausible. Turns out my Hell Dorado rulebook is just yet more proof of that very fact. You see the pages in the book were stuck together and while carefully trying to tweeze them apart a few tore and well, its a mess. This book should never have left that warehouse, the UK distributor should never have pushed it onto the shops and the shop in question probably shouldn't have sent it onto me!!!


However its all understandable given how long the wait has been for this book that everyone in the supply chain just passed things through as quickly as possible without really checking everything. They just wanted to get it out to us gamers as quick as they could, given the wait. My order for instance has been sitting with the Maelstrom for about 8 months or so. However a quick phone call to the guys at the Maelstrom and as always they were very apologetic and said they'd send me a new one ASAP today via first class recorded delivery. So again no complaints as its just one of those things, they were trying to be efficient in getting it too me quickly and it slipped through the net. So its finally here then, not too sure it'll make a blind bit of difference though to the survivability of the game here in the UK sadly, as many people I know have already given up on it completely, which is sad.

The book is a paperback and that's actually quite surprising given the high quality hardback book of the other Cipher Studio's game, Anima Tactics. Compared to that its no where near as high quality. Its also a slight surprise considering that an awful lot of rulebooks nowadays seem to be going down the hardback route so it surprised me that Cipher seem to have gone in the other direction. In terms of the quality inside the book? Well I can't really comment given that its so badly water damaged but the pages do seem to be a nice enough quality and there is plenty of colour in there, its just that with my copy a lot of that colour has run places it clearly shouldn't have, which actually raises the question of print quality for me, but until I get an undamaged copy I'll be reserving judgement.

 
I also received an order of Dystopian Wars stuff, namely the Covenant of Antarctica Fleet and carrier as well as my second Ika Squid for my EotBS fleet. So soon I'll be terrorizing people with mechanised squids and strangely 1950's flying saucer themed über ships. It looks like the CoA guns might go 'zap zap' instead of 'boom boom' or indeed the 'fizz and whistle' of the Japanese ships rockets. So it looks like the sound department part of my brain had better brush up on these new sounds before I put this fleet on the table, I mean I can't be playing the game and get the sound effects wrong! Sound effects are such an important part of wargaming I find, it adds a whole new depth to the experience if you make shooting sounds when you roll your dice. Peace out!