Yeah most famous french peoples are (or were) not french. It's particularly true with singers as they tend to be either Belgium/Dutch or from Quebec/Canada.
This even holds true for fictional characters as Poirot is from Belgium (apologies for the profanity).
I may have told this before, but I was on holiday on the Spanish island of Majorca a few years back and got a taxi back from a restaurant one night. Over their radio there was an English woman asking for a taxi, but was adamant she got a driver she liked - Michael (presumably Miguel). Woman: "Can we get Michael?" Dispatch: "Which Michael?" Woman: "We want Michael." Dispatch: "I don't know just Michael, which Michael?" Woman: "Michael! We wanted Michael!" Dispatch: "I don't know Michael! Too many Michaels!"
He is French because it was a French Departement when Morocco was a French Colony. We don't care much about the parent's nationality. If you are born in France, you are French. ;)
Hell, you can even become French if you don't want to, as long as you speak french : probably 75% of people in France think Jacques Brel is french ! That counts as an auto-frenchification !
The new Drop[zone/fleet] Commander rulebook as well as the community. So, the new book contains the full rules for 2nd Edition Dropzone, advances game timeline, and has new ships and stats for Dropfleet. There are no stats for Dropzone models, even though the stats currently in existence are no longer valid. They are planning to release an army builder app similar to Infinity Army with all of that. So, the new rulebook for their game that you need to haul around has stats and rules for a different game in it, too. We don't know if the army builder will cost money or not. There is no PDF of the core rules. So, an Infinity player (not me) suggested, you know, core rules PDF that is free on the DzC Facebook group. You can tell who has never played Infinity, used to be a GW slave, and is also a moron based on their responses of "THAT WILL NEVER WORK THEY COST MONEY WHY SHOULD THE RULES BE FREE-REEEEE-REEEE!" There are many very long posts explaining to us in painful detail how wrong and backwards that is and how it will never, ever work and no company could ever do that and if they did it would be a sure sign that they are failing because their rules aren't good enough to get people to pay for them. And a free army builder?! Someone had to make that app, you know! It shouldn't be free! We need as many bars to entry for new gamers as possible! Why don't you and your friends pool money to buy a rulebook? Why don't YOU buy one and show your friends how cool the game is by also buying two armies and convincing them to buy their own rulebook? If you want free rules, you entitles turd, why don't you just make up your own rules and play with the models since that's all you care about?! Like...holy shit, they're all literally the dumbest pack of goons I've ever seen, and I live in America and we have Republicans here! And Democrats, too!!
But..... Wargames make their money on miniatures, not on rule books..... Give the rules for free will simply make people able to read and get interested thus making them purchase models (Maybe even PAINT!) to play. These guys are just elitists that want no newcomers. I mean, what if they are good and beat them!
There is the risk of proxying... I've seen some people playing Infinity using GW models... Oh, wait, that people either buys the models then, or go away without having spent money in a game they did not like, in the end, without imposing on the guy making the demo to have 2 armies ready, or to having to sell in the 2nd hand market the models they bought and won't be using...
Sadly I have to agree, one of the biggest entry barriers to the Dropzone universe games is the convoluted system of rulebooks, in fact it kinda killed my attempt to get into it, because I worked out I'd have to buy 3 books just to use all the models I wanted, so I never bothered expanding past the PHR starter box. The biggest bullshittery IMHO is that 'Battle For Earth' is an expansion for Dropfleet, and the core rulebook for Dropzone, while not having any real indication that is in fact the core rules for Dropzone, unlike every other game system where the core rules are in 'The Rule Book' which exists separate to the expansion books/completely different games by the same company. It's going to frustrate new dropfleet players that they have to buy the Dropzone rulebook to get the stats for dreads/monitors/etc, and confusing to new dropzone players that there's random space combat stuff for a different game in the core rules. On the plus side AFAIK the army builder will be free to use, as it's going to be the single-source-of-truth for all unit stats going forward. But they could so easily put out a 'Just the Rules' pdf and instantly make the game 75% more accessible to new players. Personally I am totally in the camp of the 'CB' model of rules, a free 'technical' document and a dead-tree version with lots of cool fluff and pictures and things once you want to know more about the game, works for Infinity, works for Bushido, don't see why it can't work for more companies if they just bothered to have go at it
A lot of the resistance to free rules PDFs is a misunderstanding of what can be copyrighted. You cannot copyright rules mechanisms. You can copyright setting and stories. That's why Infinity's free rules have always been shorn clear of all the setting info. Yes, there is probably as much work in the rules as in the setting, at least if you want things to work well, BUT it's not something you can copyright.
For a miniatures company good/fun rules are an excellent marketing tool to sell your models, lowering the financial bar to entry makes it easier for new players to pick up and get hooked. I can understand companies like Warlord or Osprey charging for rules as they're not necessarily going to be partnered with specific models sold by this companies. But DZC/DFC seems like a perfect case of using online rules to push sales of the (really really cool) models.
I agree entirely. You can use the rules with temporary miniatures to see if you like the rules. Having them free means anyone can try and if they enjoy it, the will be happy to purchase matching miniatures. If you hide your rules behind a paywall, only people with a lot of disposable incomes and willing to try new stuff, people with friends already playing, or people who had the previous version will be really inclined to buy it. Free rules simply attract more people.
Yup, been there, done that. I used them as "equivalents". a 5+sv human was light infantry., a 4+ was Medium Infantry (or light armoured biker), 3+ was powered armour Heavy Infantry. "Terminator" models were S5 HI. Tau XV battlesuits were "TAGs". Basic weapons were "combi-rifles", flamers were flamers, missile launchers were missile launchers. Plasma weapons were combi- with plasma ammo. If you want to show them how the game works, using known quantities, this was one of the easiest. The rules are free to download. This sort of proxying isn't "legal" for sanctioned tournament play, but at this point, you aren't running a tourney, you are still growing the scene. I remember when the idea that the same company produced the rules AND the miniatures for a game was an outlier.
I remember back at our local GW, there suddenly began this odd notion of range-purity. If you played 40k, you used 40K MINIS!! If you played Warhammer, you used WARHAMMER MINIS!! We were utterly forbidden from using LotR parts in either game. I remember I had an idea of making a force of Ents for LotR, but before the idea had even gotten off the ground I was forbidden, by the manager, to use Dryads or Treemen to compile this force. There was also the legendary note from head office urging the staff to dissuade 40k players from using Necromunda parts for conversions, and vice-versa, as they were different games so must be kept separate. It was a mad time.
That seem like a really crappy manager and GW place in general. You're not there to play an important tournament for prize money, you're there to have fun. This practice is basically telling you "You can't have fun unless you pay us to buy the right minis" They probably got some kind of bigger cut on minis and wanted to make people buy more.
The "no LoTR minis in WHFB or 40k" rule was pretty widespread in GW shops, the story I heard a few times is that it was down to licensing but it's equally likely they just didn't want people to play two games with one set of models.
