| The brief history of the Renegade Legion games goes something like this:
FASA created and began publishing the RenLeg series (Interceptor, Leviathan
and Centurion, later followed by Legionnaire (the RPG) and Prefect). These
were tactical games, played on a hexmap, much in the manner that BattleTech
was. Perhaps too similar - there are many theories as to why the games did
not do so well, and why FASA eventually dropped the line. Among those who
have tried it, it appears to have enjoyed much success, with its ruleset
(especially its damage-template system) and, as with other FASA universes,
its history. Nevertheless, the game never gained the following that BTech
made for itself, perhaps partly due to the 'less flashy' aspect of GravTanks
to BattleMechs, partly due to FASA not wanting two competing lines and hence
never pushed RenLeg - no one is sure entirely why, but soon after 1991,
they decided to drop the line.
The RenLeg line was soon picked up by NightShift Games, a division of Crunchy
Frog Enterprises, with full intentions of reprinting and reviving the game.
They planned a new man-to-man combat system called Phalanx, and to reprint
the three systems in one large book titled The Art of War. They also began
a newsletter, Renegade Transmissions. Unfortunately, none of these plans
ever materialized, and the newsletter died after 4 issues, leaving many
subscribers with a loss of money and often no books at all, and those who
sent in $$ for game stock without either as well.
The RenLeg licence has reverted to FASA, who at this time have no plans for
the line.
Renegade Legion online has had a similarly varied history - beginning with a
mailing list set up by Alex Williams, which lasted until he lost the box it
was running on. I put up my first RenLeg page in January 1996, with its
major update (and its title change to the WWW RenLeg Resource) in September,
when the list of RenLeg-dedicated pages grew to the 4 or so that is on my
links page now. I began a pseudo-mailing list, running a mass-mailing
once per week or so of 'submitted' messages. Soon thereafter is when NSG
announced their inability to produce RL stuff, and the game reverted to
limbo, except in the minds of us fans. Though the homepage was intended to
be the base for a RenLeg APA, it didn't quite turn out that way either.
It was by pure luck that the designer of the new Interceptor rules found my
page while browsing one day, and contacted me with the possibility of perhaps
putting up some material. Since then, it has evolved to a plan to put up, in
full, the new and as-close-to official-as-one-can-get 2nd Edition of the
Interceptor rules, as was to be published in NSG's Art of War. (Leviathan
will be to follow.) At the same time, I'm updating the WWW Resource with more
submissions from fellow fans (the closest to the APA I've yet gotten). This
should hopefully jump-kick interest again among the core fans, which, with
word of email/mouth and some advertising, may increase the fan-base and reach
out to new gamers. It will be tough without a solid game or counters for
newcomers to have and use, but one hopes. Another Automated mailing list has
also been put in place, run by myself, where new aspecs of the 2nd edition
will no doubt be discussed at length (the old digest list still exists too).
There are other projects - a history embelishment project for one, and fiction
writing as another - that will likely get a mailing list of their own, as well
as pages on the site.
My own hopes are for T-shirts--'free' advertising at cons. }:)
|
examines the alien menace.