A picture of one of David’s ESR games.

Followup Interview with David from The Wargaming Company

1. So last Spring we interviewed you about the initial release of Et sans résultat! your first product, now, nine months later – how are things at TWC, and how has ESR done?

TWC is doing well, we’re kinda off and running. ESR has gone through three printings since spring, its available and being purchased in the US, Canada, the UK, Europe… we have shipped orders to Israel believe it or not.

2. Sounds like a success, what has The Wargaming Company been up to since releasing ESR?

A lot. We have some big projects going on in the back room but we’ve also just launched a new online store and we’re offering products from 3rd-parties there in addition to original TWC products like ESR. We’re selling Old Glory 15s from 19th Century Miniature as well as importing Leven Miniatures 6mm resin cast buildings.

Leven makes some excellent resin castings but until now they’ve only been available in the UK. With the cost of shipping and the time it takes to get them here, they just weren’t available. We’re really excited to have Leven’s Napoleonic Waterloo line available now and we’ll be adding more of their products going forward including their extensive European and ACW lines.

3. Is TWC running any holiday specials?

Yes. Not enough wargaming companies do, and The Wargaming Company definitely is. From now until the first of the year we’re running a series of specials, the first is a free bag of Old Glory 15s with every purchase of $60 or more, the second is free shipping in the US on orders over $100, the third is that until December 13th ESR is on-sale, and with the coupon code ‘FreeKit’ players can get a free ESR Players’ Kit with their purchase of Et sans résultat! There will be more to come but that’s our start, there’s plenty of December left…

4. You mentioned ‘back room projects’ – what are you working on?

TWC is going to have some exciting stuff coming next year. A lot of it I can’t give too many details about yet, but some things… well, let’s see… We’re going to be adding additional vendors to TWC’s online store, you’ll see more terrain being added in a variety of scales: 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 28mm… and for a variety of periods.

5. So no details about the ‘big stuff’?

Well, I can share a little.

We have some more stuff in the pipe that we’re developing internally, we’re likely to be publishing some 3rd-party stuff in 2016. We’ve also mentioned here and there in the past that we were working on a series of campaign sets for ESR, scenarios, background information. The first of those will be available in the first half of 2016 along with more to follow. We’re hoping to push out at least two to three next year.

And… well… there will be some other stuff too. But that’s being saved for later.

6. Hang on, TWC is going to be publishing new versions of some existing games, releasing scenario books, and there’s other stuff, but you won’t tell us about it?

TWC’s heart is game design and publishing. This is real preliminary because dates slip easily with wargames, but we’re confident we’ll be publishing some recognizable titles in the next year that wargamers will be excited about seeing new editions of. We’re been talking with quite a few different game authors and I don’t know what will come together and what won’t but we’re confident some of them will be ready to be published next year. We’re always looking, actively looking, for people who have products that need a way to market. That’s why we’re working with Leven to get their really just fantastic resin building line out of the UK and into the US. The same reason we’re reaching out to game designers that need a way to get published. We’re excited to look at the games designers have put so much work into and figure out how we can help get them into the marketplace.

The scenario books aren’t just your average scenario book of 6-10 scenarios, staple bound, black & white, each one taking maybe two pages. We have a rather ambitious plan for these, sorta like it you combine about a dozen Ospreys into a single title and instead of the canned narrative of how Napoleon invades Russia, fights at Borodino and retreats, you get 8-12 scenarios covering those battles that led up to Borodino, that in addition to the orders of battle for each scenario, maps, etc… and uniform plates.

7. And uniform plates?

It’s our opinion that some periods are easy and some periods are hard. Napoleonics is hard. I’ve got thousands of dollars worth of Napoleonic books in my library. Osprey, Eltling, Funcken, plates by maybe a dozen different artists compiled by this publisher or that publisher into collections, scattered across books. When I sat down to look for information on campaigns to research our first scenario set, I realized something very fast: the big battles, everyone has them, the little battles… where the heck are they? There are nearly a dozen fights between the Niemen and Moscow, but just talk about Borodino, maybe we talk about Smolensk but most wargamers still don’t really know what happened at Smolensk – and they certainly haven’t played a wargame dealing with Loubino, or Mir, or Saltanovka. Part of the problem is that information is so scarce among the resources we have and part of it is that this is a hobby, we use what is accessible.

So we’re looking to make this stuff more accessible. Should you really need hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of books to get into a period? And even if you’ve got the money, seeking them all out is a chore itself. We’d like to offer wargamers something more consolidated. We think it only makes sense that a gamer can buy something that collects the stuff they are looking for into one place. We want to help make that happen.

8. That’s pretty ambitious isn’t it?

I think it’s common sense that this is something people can benefit from, I think it is a better product that what’s available right now. We believe it is something we’re capable of putting together and we hope people will respond to it.

Most people think there are maybe 20 or so big battles of the Napoleonic Wars that can be gamed with a grand tactical set like Et sans résultat! We think that number is more like 200. And this is how we think best to show people.

9. Well, what are the next steps?

You’re reading them. The next step is to get the word out, make sure people know both what we have to offer and what is coming. We thought CBB was a good place to do some of that so we’re excited to let your readers know what’s coming.

10. And when is all this going to go pop? How else can people find out about it?

ESR has a Yahoo! Group:  https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/etsansresultat/info

We run an announcements list: http://thewargamingcompany.com/etsansresultat/subscribe.html

Facebook seems to be a popular place to be seen: https://www.facebook.com/The-Wargaming-Company-LLC-1002143863147169/?ref=hl

Thanks for the interview David! We wish you a lot of success with ESR and your future projects!

Good Gaming – Cory and Chris @CBB