NoDiceNoGlory Turns One

NDNG came to life on 1 Jan 2018 when a few writers from WWPD.net decided to carry on bringing our community great content about what is going on in our hobby. Over the year the core group grew from five writers to almost 20 contributors who really do cover war gaming roll by role.

When we started we didn’t want to be just another review site or flood our readers with after-action reports that gave little insight into the games we cover. When we first created the site I reached out to Pete Simunovich at Battlefront and asked him to see if we could have a similar relationship with his company as WWPD did. He said something that has stuck with me ever since;

…. Are you a site that promotes the hobby with inspiration for hobbyists and a touchstone for hobbyists
or another review site? The first one is much harder but much more rewarding I think.

I shared this with our staff and I feel it has been a guiding light ever since. As we close out our first year I feel we have tried to live up to this core idea. NDNG has helped run and sponsor events thought the country (and will run them worldwide in 2019), reviewed many of the games we found most exciting, and have done out best to keep you informed and entertained since day one. We have also forged great relationships with a lot of amazing people all over our hobby who have helped provide us the great content we have shared with you.

Now let’s hear from the rest of our staff;

Matt Varnish here,
I think we’ve achieved our aims which was to take up the torch left behind by WWPD, and have forged on ahead. We had a tonne of articles covering many games. We even started up our forums, where hopefully folks use to perhaps replace the old official Battlefront forums. [Editor: and other game company forums as many such move to other social media and away from threaded forums]

As for myself, I attended Cold Wars and Fall In 2018, met a lot of the No Dice writers and more importantly, readers. I painted up a tonne of stuff this year and even did pretty well at FOW Canadian Nationals with my Italians (one of our first articles, the Avanti reviews), which is a surprise given that usually I do well in the only non-luck-based portion of the hobby: painting!

For next year I am contemplating whether or not to repaint all my Team Yankee stuff for Oil Wars, I hear that Iraqi tanks are cheap, good thing I have about 50 of them. I also plan on working on my Romans for Hail Caesar (if my order ever comes in) and then shifting gears to Napoleonics. I’ll keep you guys updated on my progress, even if I sometimes succumb to Battlefield V and using Captured 6-pdrs to shoot at Staghounds 🙂

From Iron Tom
It has been a great first year for NDNG. I’m very pleased that we have been able to branch out and cover so much of what is going on in the Wargame world, but I’m also glad that we have maintained a strong focus on Battlefront games such as Flames of War and Team Yankee.

These are the games that brought NDNG together as a team and its rewarding to have been a factor in helping to build and support the gaming community for those games as well as others. Our forum membership is over 250 now and we grow by a new member or two every week. The discussions there are even now more important as some many game companies have turned to other forms of social media. Providing a repository for information, discussions, campaign gaming, and our great podcast to enhance your gaming experiences are what I’m most proud about from what NDNG has accomplished in its first year.

 

From Tom “Chairborne” Mullane

This time last year, I was excited to have a chance to carry on work promoting our hobby with the disappearance of WWPD. When I first got into the hobby, their podcast, tutorials, and battle reports were what got me most excited to collect so many models.  I have been blessed to be working with a lot of great gamers, writers and modelers. A special shoutout to Mitch “the Meta” Reed, for being a cheerleader, connector of people, and a torch bearer for finding new and interesting ways of getting excited about the Hobby. I think Mitch has played a larger role in me spending money this year than anyone I’ve ever met, with the possible exception of my friends Rod and Shane. Tom Burgess has also spend countless hours working on the site, writing, and bringing in new people to our stable of writers this year.

Matt Varnish is one of the principle reasons I enjoy going to conventions, and gave me the kick I needed to finally visit Canadian Nationals this year.

And lastly, Troy, who has helped keep our articles edited, organized, and timely, deserves a huge pat on the back.  I’ve travelled further, and written more this year than I ever thought I would and I’m grateful to the people who have read it, and those who inspired me to have so much fun doing something I love.  I hope we continue to grow and involved as many people as we can in this hobby, and I look forward to seeing what this year will bring NDNG.

From Grognard-Editor Troy

Yes, I’m THAT Troy. You’ve seen my rants on the various forums. But this story isn’t about those times.

On NDNG, I’m the guy that looks at every story that moves through here. Mainly because I’m the one with the most writing experience; degrees in journalism, and experience in newsrooms helps a great deal. I try to catch all the typos. Sometimes I roll a one on my skill check, though. So let us know if you spot one.

Most importantly, I try to get our cadre of authors to use only ONE SPACE after a period (“full stop” for the rest of the English-speaking world). Sometimes I have to go full Sean Connery to get my point across.

I also have! to limit! the use! of Exclamation! Marks! Our authors are addicted to them. When you find them, know that I’ve excised at least twice that many from that story

What I’m most proud of for our staff at NDNG is that we’ve survived a year, and haven’t become a one-note-samba. Too often, blogs and industry news sites stick to beating only one drum, or covering only one beat (game) out of a wide field.

Our writers can find it way too easy to get caught up in the latest new release from their favorite game(s). I’m guilty of this myself (Cruel Seas?- just wait, I’ve got a few pieces in the torpedo tubes preparing to launch.) We do want to highlight and give insight to new releases, especially when they radically change or enhance a popular game (Eastern Front for FOW).

But, we’ve maintained a fairly balanced look at the games our authors do play. BattleFront’s systems are the obvious popular choice among our authors, so we cover those. I read every one of those, and try to polish the prose as best as I can without losing the voice of the individual authors.

Our authors have their own unique voices: From NDNG_Dane and his historical insights, to the folksy and down home approach of Ed Sales, over to our stable of Chrises (is there a plural form of “Chris”?) who write in-depth strategic pieces. Many of our authors have military experience across a wide gamut of services. That shows in how they approach writing about the mechanisms behind the strategies in the games we cover.

The most fun I have here is learning new games, or new approaches to familiar games. I find this in our European correspondents Benny and Paolo. Each them bring their own “local” flavor to our coverage. From Benny’s FOG of War and Paolo’s DeBellis (DBMM) coverage, NDNG has been able to find areas of the Wargaming hobby that many of our readers are probably unfamiliar, or, at best, have limited exposure to.

I was fortunate enough to spend a few years gaming with the Able Kompanie gents in Indianapolis (in the heart of the midwest USA), but am now residing in Southern California. Both areas have thriving gaming communities, but with distinctly different flavors. I’ve run events for our local conventions and game days, and plan on continuing that. Be on the lookout for our upcoming NDNG “For Funzies” Bolt Action event in February 2019 here in Los Angeles.

 

SoCal Players cursing the dice gods, but enjoying their games at my last FOW event as a TO.

Looking Ahead to 2019

2019 looks to be a banner year for NDNG and here are some of things we plan to bring you in the new year

• NDNG will be posting player made forces, rules, missions, etc for a whole host of games
• As for events, we will be back strong with a great Team Yankee narrative event at Cold Wars in March, and of course Team Yankee North American Nationals in July at Historicon
• Spoilers for upcoming releases like; Late War Flames of War, The Great War, Bolt Action Korea just to name a few titles.
• More giveaways for our readers
• ….. And so much more!