News Archive

As news drops off the front page, look for it to be archived here. We're not going back to recreate it all, but from August 2007 on, we'll back things up here.

NEWS 8/12/08- The slides from Brant's OWC talk are now online as a PDF.

NEWS 7/20/08- Relocation is basically done. Brant's in Raleigh, and the BayonetGames family are all one big group hug again.

NEWS 7/16/08- Origins 2008 wrap-up is there. Brant's slides from his OWC talk will follow shortly.

NEWS 6/26/08- Chris has our GSL application in, and we're hoping to get the new 4E products out for Esaene once it's approved.

ORIGINS SCHEDULE 6/17/08- Brant is speaking at the Origins War College on Thursday at 1pm; the topic is Civilians on Hexagonal Battlefields. Later in the afternoon, Brant is moderating a panel discussion on Games and Simulations in Training.

ORIGINS SCHEDULE 6/16/08- The schedule for BayonetGames in the War Room is online.

ORIGINS PLANS 6/6/08- While we won't have a booth at Origins, stop by the CABS War Room to check out the playtest/demo versions of Orange Crush and Asian Thunder. Brant will also be speaking at the Origins War College on Thursday afternoon in two different sessions.

COMPANY UPDATE 4/22/08- Hey everyone - Just an update from Bayonet-land. Not the happiest one, but an honest one, and a look behind the curtain, if you will.
First, p500 orders are still coming in. There was the initial flood of orders from folks who knew who we were and were expecting to see new products from us, and we greatly appreciate those great fans that were looking out for BayonetGames.
Second, because we are a truly "small press" operation, we're run on a bit of a shoestring. Chris and I have our day jobs (actually, he got me my day job, at the same place he works), plus I'm trying to wrap up my PhD. What that means is that without a decent number of pre-orders, we have a hard time sending anything to the printing press. There's no magical pile of $100 bills we can tap to get things printed, and make it up on the back end. This is why we were so excited to get the p500 up and running.
Third, because of printing lead times, we're very close to the cut-off to get products back in time for Origins. More to the point, if we don't have anything new at Origins, we probably won't be there as a company, in a booth, because we're not going to show up with no new products, and man a booth just to show off playtest copies of forthcoming games and tell people they can pre-order them. We're not the best business brains on the planet, but even we can figure that one out.
So where we stand now is this:
* We're about 80 orders shy of W101: Asian Thunder going to press.
* We're about 110 orders shy of Orange Crush going to press.
* We're about 55-60 orders from WF: World of Conflict going to the press.

The thing is, unless we get the Orange Crush orders within the next 10 days, that one won't be back in time for Origins. No way, no how. The 2 decks of cards needed to play the game really add to the production time, and ultimately, the cost.
For Asian Thunder, we can might be able to wait about 3 weeks or so, but after that, there's no way we can guarantee the products will be back in time, unless we change to another printer, and that will kill our costs to the point that we might actually lose money on the overall run of the game. See the third point, above.
World of Conflict is the one most likely to be ready for Origins, but even if it is, we'd be reluctant to sink $1000 into the booth just with that one new game, since it is essentially a repackaging of the games we've already been selling at the last 2 Origins. It just doesn't seem to make sense to show up with only that one game.
We're very excited about these new games, and we'd love to have them at Origins and show them off to everyone. But reality is kicking in. Without production copies of the games, we're not going to spend a lot of money to wave at people on the exhibit hall floor.
One legitimate criticism is that we could've gotten the games onto a p500 sooner than we did. That's certainly fair, but we wanted to get them closer to production-ready before we started promising them to customers. We'd rather get them right than get them now. That was a lesson we learned the hard way with Maneuver Warrior. That was a game that showed a lot of promise, but could've used a bit more seasoning before being unleashed on the public.
Do we expect all of you to jump through hoops to suddenly hit our order criteria for p500's so we can make it to Origins? Heck yeah!... hahaha....
Seriously, though - we wanted to let you guys know that there's a very real chance that BayonetGames - as a company - might not be there, even though Brant and Chris and the usual gang of assorted hangers-on likely will be roaming the halls (heck, I'm scheduled to speak at a few sessions for the War College; I gotta go).
Is this airing too much of our business in public? Maybe. Maybe not. I never pretended to be a business genius. If I was, I wouldn't have taken the plunge into board wargaming with a publishing company no one had ever heard of, while running up ridiculous student loan costs in graduate school.
This is a labor of love for us, and we do love it. But we're learning our way through it all just like everyone else, and we're going to make some mistakes every here and there. We just don't want this to be one of them.

DOWNLOAD 4/6/08- Warfighter series accessory counters are available to download in a 2-pg PDF. Special weapons, admin counters, and artillery markers, oh my!

UPDATE 4/5/08- Updated contact page and consolidated the shipping and payment information.

PREVIEW 3/25/08- The draft of the cover for W101: Asian Thunder is up on that game's page.

PREVIEW 3/22/08- The countersheet for Next Wars I: Orange Crush is available to view here (warning, it opens pretty big in a web-browser window).

NEWS 2/23/08- P500 is live. Place a bunch of orders on the catalog page or a check out each game individually.

NEWS 2/10/08- If you're paying attention, you'll notice a whole bunch of new icons on the website here. We've got new pages under the Warfighter heading, covering the new games that are on their way. And while the p500 setup has been long-promised, we ran into a snag trying to go live tonight and hope to have it fixed in the next day or so... aahh, the fun life of the small business!

NEWS 2/6/08- After ironing some things out, we've got the p500 setup testing right now. Additionally, the new boxes are on order for the new deluxe Warfighter set for combining The Guards and Maneuver Warrior. New maps will follow shortly afterwards.

NEWS 1/6/08- p500 should be going live within the week (fingers crossed). Also, there are new images on The Next Wars page.

NEWS 10/28/07- Big change coming... look for us to pull The Guards and Maneuver Warrior for some repackaging that'll get re-released later. Also be on the lookout for the imminent launch of our p500 site.

NEWS 10/17/07- There's a poll on over at Wargamer.com about the design of the next generation of counters for the Warfighter series. We're wondering what style of art you prefer on the counters. We're not guaranteeing we'll be able to follow it, but we do care, and we want to know what you think. Please vote when you get a chance. Thanks

NEWS 9/27/07- We'll be at Buckeye Game Fest for a few days, testing some new scenarios and some new rules tweaks, as well as running an event for Mark Walker's Lock'n'Load system. Check out the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society site for details at www.buckeyeboardgamers.com

NEWS 8/10/07- We now have our own forum over at ConSimWorld, in the game company support area. Click here to go to the top of the forum.

NEWS 8/7/07- We've got all the blank OPORDs updated and ready for download. Each .zip file has a set of blank OPORDs for each combination of maps. The graphics now match the newly-redesigned maps that ship in each of our games, and are available for sale for those of you who want to update your older maps. Just added this week: Maneuver Warrior desert map OPORDs. The Maneuver Warrior 'green' map OPORDs are available here for download. The Guards blank OPORD pack can be downloaded here.

NEWS 7/22/07- Movement to Contact will be the cover story for Paper Wars issue #66, due in a few weeks to your friendly local game store. You can also find Paper Wars online here. And yes, we're still looking at a way to get Movement to Contact back into print... stay tuned!

NEWS 7/10/07- The Guards and Maneuver Warrior have both had a map makeover this summer. You can order the new maps to replace your existing ones for $8 HERE. This map pack includes all 4 double-sided maps from Maneuver Warrior as well as both of the maps for The Guards. See a sample of the new maps here.