Sorry for the delay on this one, my weekend was a little busy so I didn’t get a chance to capture the news.
Which would normally be fine, but over the last week Spectre went all out on the update front!
First up, let’s talk about the big news. Over the weekend, Spectre ran its first trial event of providing Print on Demand (POD) figures. This is something that it’s made a lot of sense for Spectre to provide alongside its STL offerings, seeing as Spectre’s core fanbase was built up with physical releases and a lot of the customers do not have access to a printer of their own. The patreon really hammered home this fact, with a lot of people turned off by the inability to get the files printed due to the rights and Spectre not providing a solution. However, that looks like it’s going to change. Last weekend was a limited time deal, using a Phronzen 8K printer to produce physical versions of the current STL figure releases (US Pilots, Hacker, the Marquis and the latest release). These will hopefully be shipping out over the next few days. Ideally, this is something I really hope they continuing offering, providing access to the STL releases for those both crazy enough have a printer and those who’d prefer not to get involved in resin.
In addition, last weekend saw the release of a new STL set, fresh for the POD. Expanding the SWAT range with two regular US cops, this pair would be ideal to crew a squad car in distress or the first stage of some investigation game. There is some nice variation between the two of them (vest vs belt kit) while still including specific details such as their body camera on the chest. Steve on the discord has said this range might be extended, so it’s definitely something to keep an eye out for.
Speaking of keeping an eye out, vehicle lovers are going to have a lot to look forward to soon. The LTV never quite got the level of addon that the Humvees from Spectre go but it seems like (from these previews on the Spectre Discord) that’s soon going to be fixed. As you can see above, Spectre has been hard at work adding a whole host of extra items to bolt onto it, such as smoke dischargers, aerials for the CREW Duke system (the flat plate at the front and the single antenna at the rear) and more. All of these will help to make your vehicles look even more accurate on the tabletop. Distribution sounds like these might be provided as STLs (or maybe even POD) minimising how much time they are out of stock.
Finally, Spectre spilled the beans on some of the rule stuff they have been cooking up. We’ve looked at gameplay on the board in the past, but now we’re talking about force building and campaign play.
The latest post over on the Spectre blog talks a little bit about trying to put a little more focus on the militia forces in a campaign, seeing as players usually like breaking out the toys the operators come with. Instead, Spectre V3 will include what sounds like a pretty deep campaign system with gameplay to reward players running the Insurgents, letting you pick your force’s motivation (Ideological, Financial or Political) before having to balance your increasing reputation (and the Resources you can get from it) against how much you’ve annoyed the powers that be and your rival player (The Task Force). The Task Force on the other hand seems to have a lot of flexibility in its workings, with different types of elements (Direct Action, Covert Action, Intelligence or Espionage) for different missions. The downside is that you have to get results or else the powers above you will not be impressed.
This overview sounds pretty great. I’m very interested to see what this overview looks like when turned into hard gameplay, as there seems to be a lot in there (and a lot needing some form of balance to stop either player just immediately curb stomping the other). If it works, it should be a pretty powerful campaign system.
Phew. I am not taking off time from the news posts ever again, that was a lot!