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I recently had the pleasure to talk to Steve Blease. As the owner of Wessex Games, Steve is also the man behind Panzerfäuste.
A game—and accompanying miniatures—we’ve covered more than once here on Tabletop Sentinel, Panzerfäuste has been one of my personal favourite lines of miniatures for some years. It will come as no suprise, therefore, that I was thrilled to finally touch base with Steve and find out what’s been going on in the world of Panzerfäuste.
Hello Steve, and thank you for taking the time to chat with me today. Now, whilst I’m thilled to finally have the opportunity to chat with you in person, so to speak, could you pleae take a moment to introduce yourself?
Hi, I’m Steve Blease, a gamer since the early eighties and owner of Wessex Games. We’re a small, cottage industry games company based in Bristol. We produce a variety of games ranging from Aeronef (Victorian Science Fiction flyer combat) to Iron Cow 2136AD (epic SF tank battles), and from AirWar: C21 (think Top Gun) to Panzerfäuste (mechanised combat in a fantasy realm). Look us up on Wargames Vault for more…
That's a really eclectic mix. Does that reflect your own broad taste, at all?
Definitely. If anything I am even more of a wargames butterfly from a hobby perspective. I love the obscure so when gaming historical periods like Napoleonics rather than build a French or British force I have gone Italian, similarly my WW2 Blitzkrieg army is Dutch rather than British, German or French!
And did that penchant for the slightly leftfield inspire Panzerfäuste?
Yes, I suppose it does. The original ’Eureka!’ moment for Panzerfäuste came way back in June 1989 when a magazine called Games Review Monthly published an article called Warhammer In The Age of Reason. It had the simple but rather brilliant idea of moving the Warhammer timeline along from its medieval/early renaissance tech era to to start of the horse and musket one (the idea being weapons development wouldn’t cease but continue like the real world). Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the author, but his idea of using the Marlburian historical miniatures Citadel then produced as Bretonians and Empire troops alongside converted 40k Grots etc was (to me) quite brilliant.
From there the road led to Flintloque (fantasy gaming in a Napoleonic tech era), which I wrote for the original Nottingham-based iteration of Alternative Armies run by Mac Coxhead back in 1995, and then Panzerfäuste through my own company Wessex Games, taking fantasy into a mechanised era, which was published in 1998, along with a small line of white metal miniatures.
So, you wrote Flintloque?
Yep. Mac sent me three figures in 1995 when I was doing figure reviews for Games Master International. They were a British orc redcoat, a Prussian dwarf landwehr and a French elf. I was so enthused I started converting one of my existing rule sets to create Orcs and Eagles. I then read that Alternative were already working on a game so I offered to playtest when Mac fessed up that ‘working on a game’ meant he’d written a page of notes! I told him about Orcs and Eagles and swiftly that became Flintloque. I then wrote Deadloque the following year and then Grapeshotte, and edited the Orcs in the Hills fanzine. Not long after Mac unfortunately had to sell the business to new owners in ’98 (IIRC) and we both stepped away from the project.
It was a great three years and Mac was great to work with.
I bloody love Flintloque! Kudos to you. But, as much as I could enthuse about Flintloque for hours, let's get back to Panzerfäuste…
…So how did you take that 'Eureka! moment' of Pänzerfäuste to a published game?
I suppose there was a certain logic to it. If you could make a fantasy Napoleonic game then why not the other ‘big’ historical period. I think the initial concept of what became Panzerfäuste started in 1997. My initial thoughts were to make a WWII version of Flintloque set in Valon a couple of hundred years on. But, whilt the orcs (British) and dwarves (Prussians / Germans) would port across quite nicely, the main issue would be the elves, and who they would represent. I think initially we thought they could be the Waffen-SS, but I never really settled on that! I tentatively pitched the concept to Mac and the idea of an Operation Market Garden-type box with orc Paras and dwarf Panzergrenadiers. Unfortunately, Mac had to sell up, so I decided that I’d develop the idea ‘in house’ with Wessex Games.
Rather than convert the Flintloque rules to WWII (which you could do: Flintloque’s core system is taken from my 6mm SF tank rules, Iron Cow!) I decided Panzerfäuste needed to be a different set of rules. Fortunately Matthew Hartley, who had written Aeronef for Wessex Games, had a WWII squad level system he wanted to develop, and together we moulded that into Panzerfäuste. I was also lucky that Mike Owen, who had sculpted the Flintloque range had also left Alternative Armies and sculpted a small range of orc commandos and dwarf Panzergrenadiers, so the rules had some figures available for it.
And did any of the experience you gained from Flintloque make the process easier?
Not really, Flintoque was great in that it not only showed me there was a market for historically inspired fantasy games, but it also gave me an insight into the amount of work (and money) needed to get it fully developed.
The difference between Mac’s Alternative Armies with a couple of full-time employees, including a sculptor and the likes of me, working for love and free miniatures, and my one man, part-time Wessex Games operation (complete with new child) is why I was never really able to expand the game as I wanted. We did get some more miniatures out, French Gnomes, Russian Dark Elves and Italian Rats, but not all that I would have liked to have seen.
And how well was Panzerfaute received at the time?
Reasonably well. As we were not VAT registered it proved impossible to get a distributor interested to enable retailers to stock it, so it was all direct sales by mail order or at shows. But the game built up a small but enthusiastic following, including a certain young gamer called Rob Alderman.
So what, if you don't mind me asking, led to Panzerfäuste’s hiatus?
It was 2015 when Rob was working for Prodos Games. He approached me with the idea of Prodos licensing Panzerfäuste and utilising their resources - and some of the contacts he’d made working for them - to produce an updated line of miniatures, a 2nd edition of the skirmish game, and a mass battle game similar in size to Bolt Action.
Initially I wasn’t planning to have much to do with the project, but Rob’s enthusiasm rekindled mine and he drew me in as an unpaid creative consultant. A Kickstarter was launched and was quite successful, although toward the end Rob was not happy with Prodos and decided to set up Hysterical Games to produce and retail the game. Whilst I think this was the right route to take, Hysterical unfortunately had to pay Prodos a large chunk of the Kickstarter monies for the work they had already done.
This meant Hysterical Games was effectively hamstrung from day one, and whilst Rob did his damnedest to make it work, even taking on 3D printing and casting services for other companies to raise money, eventually the company became unviable and had to be wound up, at which point the licensed material returned to me and Wessex Games.
And how long ago was that?
Around the end of 2018. I planned to try and keep the range in production and raise some money from sales at shows etc to expand the miniatures line and finish the outstanding Kickstarter items like the rulebooks. Unfortunately I was not aware that the resin moulds were extremely perishable and only had a shelf life of six months, so by the middle of 2019 the entire range would need remoulding by a third party contract caster found to make that possible. Unfortunately, the latter proving extremely difficult and the former financially unviable.
Then the pandemic hit which curtailed efforts to find alternatives (I did look at white metal casting, but most of the models were not suitable for that) so Panzerfäuste entered something of a hiatus.
And what led to its revival?
Jim Harding of BIG Jim Prints approached me about printing miniatures to order through his 3D printing service. Thankfully, most of the original range was 3D sculpted so I had the STL’s and print on demand seemed the best way to re-test the waters regarding popularity without having to spend a ton of money on moulds and then stock. The only models that weren’t 3D sculpted were the Trolls and the buildings, if sales are good for the rest of the range I’ll look at getting these 3D scanned and STL’s created so Jim can add them to the print on demand range.
And what has the reception been like since the relaunch?
Pretty decent. We’ve been re-releasing stuff on a weekly basis so ensure Jim wasn’t overwhelmed with orders in a short period, but it has also allowed me to release some free PDF rules supplements like Panzerfäuste Zombi and Panzerfäuste Armoured, to allow gamers who have the intro set (Panzerfäuste Unarmoured) to introduce zombi hordes or armoured war-beasts into their games.
So good to hear it's going well. I remember seeing a Panzerfäuste demo the first time I went to Essen in the mid 2000s. Always had a soft spot for it since then.
And what’s next for Panzerfäuste?
My intention is to continue doing what we’re already doing, so when the Brutes are re-released, rules will be released alongside them so gamers can include them in their games.
Thank you for you time, Steve; it’s been a pleasure to chat to you.
See the full range of Wessex Games miniatures on the BIG Jim Prints website.
Images courtesy of Wessex Games
