Seth Owen
United States
Norwich
Connecticut
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I've toyed with picking up a couple of Lost Worlds books for years, literally.
I was a big fan of Aces of Aces and eventually got the whole set of those, including all the World War I books, the Wingleader World War II set and the Jet Eagles modern set.
I once had the Bounty Hunter book, but somewhere along the line that got misplaced.
Anyway, I've long thought about picking up a couple of Lost Worlds books but never did, until this weekend at the World Boardgame Championships when I stopped by the Flying Buffalo Inc. book. FBI and I go back a long way as well, I was an early player of Rick Loomis' computer moderated Play By Mail games of Nuclear Destruction and Battle Plan and have picked up all the Nuclear War series of games, too,
(Later, while waiting for the Nuclear War tournament to start, Loomis told us at the table about how he had tracked down Nuclear War design Doug Malewicki in 1975 using a Los Angeles phone book in order to buy the rights. To this day Malewicki gets royalty checks from Loomis.)
So when I spotted the Azlana Darque book I was very tempted. There's nothing like a hot babe with a broadsword to catch the eye!
Apparently Ms. Darque is a model with her own Web Site and, judging from a quick look at the site, somewhat of a free-spirited sort, unsurprisingly. Here's her site: http://azlanadarque.com/
Still, you have to have two books in order to play the game and most of the stuff I'd already seen before and had passed up buying many times in the past.
But there was another new (2007) book in the pile and that sealed the deal.
There was Zocchi the Magician!
Now Lou Zocchi was one of the very first "names" I learned in the hobby, back around 1969 or 1970. One of my first non-Avalon Hill "war games" was a Star Trek-based miniatures-style starship combat game he published. It was a good game for the time and the miniatures were very good as well.
Zocchi was also famous for his multi-sided dice, and patented a design for a 100-sided die, too. So it's no surprise that his weapon of choice is a dice bag filled with magic dice.
Well, "The Ancient One" was even harder to pass by than the Babe With Broadsword (actually a two-handed sword, but I prefer alliteration over accuracy in this case), so I finally bought a coy of Lost Worlds more than two decades after I first became aware of it.
For more game comment see my game blog at http://pawnderings.blogspot.com
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Jeroen Harkes
Netherlands
Voorburg
Zuid Holland
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wargamer55 wrote: ...Babe With Broadsword (actually a two-handed sword, but I prefer alliteration over accuracy in this case)...
Babe With Bastardsword? It doesnt look like a two-handed sword. You can hold a dagger with two hands but that doesn't make it a two-handed dagger.
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Ken H.
United States
Amherst
Ohio
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The original books all had black and white drawings for the art work. Some of the books, at best, were what you might call "slightly below average" in terms of the art quality. Some were so horrendous that you might actually feel a little embarassed for the artist.
So, it looks like somebody sat down and said, "Hmm, I wonder how we could make the images for this game even goofier...." Mission accomplished!
Still, with that said, I agree with you. The Zocchi book looks like a must-have. I have all the old ones, about a third of the "middle" ones, and none of the new photographic ones.
Out of curiosity, what do they charge for a book these days? I think they used to be $4.95 when I bought most of mine. Maybe less even.
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Seth Owen
United States
Norwich
Connecticut
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The photo books are $8.95, which is probably comparable to the $4.95 of 20 years ago.
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Ryan McGuire
United States
South Euclid
Ohio
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Rubric wrote: The original books all had black and white drawings for the art work. Some of the books, at best, were what you might call "slightly below average" in terms of the art quality. Some were so horrendous that you might actually feel a little embarassed for the artist.
So, it looks like somebody sat down and said, "Hmm, I wonder how we could make the images for this game even goofier...." Mission accomplished!
Wouldn't it be great if they did a reprint of the earlier "characters" with all new artwork? The standard Man in Chainmail with Sword and Shield has such goofy art that I'm embarrassed to pull it out. But how can you have a LW collection without that one (and some of the other originals?
Hypothetical question:
IF someone said they were going to start collecting LW one book a month, what order would you suggest they buy them? I really would start a couple of the originals. Would Queen's Babes be last? Maybe.
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Thom Denholm
United States
Seattle
Washington
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ryanker wrote: Wouldn't it be great if they did a reprint of the earlier "characters" with all new artwork? The standard Man in Chainmail with Sword and Shield has such goofy art that I'm embarrassed to pull it out. But how can you have a LW collection without that one (and some of the other originals?
If by "they" you mean the current license holder, Flying Buffalo, there is a solution. For some cash, you can send them your own photos or artwork and they will create a book for you. How cool is that?
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Posted Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:51 pm
