In this newsletter | Arcane Sword Press | Ham & Egg Publishing | Super Savage Systems |
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Super Savage SystemsNeon Bastardz is live on Kickstarter! |
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WELCOME TO THE CASSETTE-APOCALYPSE
Neon Bastardz is a fast, brutal, no-prep tabletop RPG built for pure, unfiltered action. Get ready for:
This is what happens when the world ends…
and keeps going.
Give the future a wedgie; it’s time to get radical in the end times!
WHAT YOU DOPlay as a skumdog surviving the neon wastelands and mega-cities Smash through creeps, corpo skum, khaotic weirdness, and ninjas Snag bizarre gear and fantastical relics Mutate. Adapt. Get Rad. Try to stay alive long enough to matter
Are you a bad enough dude to become a Neon Lord?
Want to see for yourself? Download the Sick-Start Rulez and try not to get SLIMED! |  |
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| | Ham & Egg PublishingTwo cool things and some promo! |
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Ahoy! Hambone here to chat you up about the coolest things I have seen this week.
First up, I celebrated the 30th anniversary of my 17th birthday this past Wednesday and popped by my local multiplex to check out They Will Kill You.
This movie is so gloriously grindhouse that it defied all my expectations. They weren’t kidding when they said they couldn’t show anything but a staredown in the ads.
If you are not opposed to over-the-top blood and guts, They Will Kill You is a must-see in theaters. Solid story, superb casting, killer action sequences, and mostly practical effects.
I cannot recommend They Will Kill You enough. |  | Photo by me using my CampSnap Pro | Secondly, at the start of the 2025 PWHL (Professional Women’s Hockey League) season, my wife, Sally, was invited by a friend to check out a New York Sirens game. She immediately fell in love with the sport. She’s since gone to almost every home game at the Prudential Center–A.K.A. The Rock–in Newark, New Jersey.
Yes, they are the New York Sirens and play in New Jersey. Don’t get me started on that.
For a sport founded in 2023 with an inaugural season in 2024, the women on these teams have worked diligently to prove why they deserve a spot at the table*. They have fought for every inch, showing the world why women’s sports are so important.
Having been to many games myself, I can attest to the talent, grit, and heart these athletes bring to every time their skates touch the ice. Inspiring not only their local fans, but folks around the world when the US Women’s Hockey team brought home the gold in the 2026 Olympics.
So on Saturday night, Sally and I went to “the world’s most famous arena”, Madison Square Garden, to watch the Sirens take on the Seattle Torrent. Holy cow, what a game. The Sirens won in overtime 2-1 after a shootout that had every one of the 18,006 fans in attendance on their feet.
It was one of the most magnificent things I have ever seen. Wee F’n Woo.
*Flavor Flav would be the first one to tell you that women’s sports are underfunded, undersupported, and unappreciated. Now has never been a better time to get in on the ground floor of something great. Support women’s hockey. |
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Finally, if you want to do something nice to commemorate the 30th anniversary of my 17th birthday, click the link to get notified of the launch of my Dark Double Feature. Of A Harmonious Nature and Nothing Left To Lose: designed for use with ShadowdarkRPG, will be launching on BackerKit on April 21st. |
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Arcane Sword Press Magazine Madness Returns! – Adventurer Magazine by Mersey Leisure Publishing |
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Sorry for the delay, I had to put more effort into this one! Primarily because Adventurer magazine lasted eleven issues between 1986 and 1987, so I wanted to see how it compared with its two most notable peers- Dragon magazine and White Dwarf Magazine, which I will get to later in this article. With my focus on earlier published magazines and issues, I had to get a general glimpse into the hobby magazine style of the mid 1980s to help understand the publishing zeitgeist. I first heard about Adventurer magazine from fellow cohort/comrade Ben (Empty Castle Press) a few years ago after he stumbled upon it. So I figured I should also cover it while doing this series. Let’s dive in! |  | With that out of the way, I’m gonna just say – Adventurer Magazine punches well above its weight. It is the perfect mix of content and style, capturing a level of enthusiasm for the hobby while also being as visually engaging as possible. This magazine was so effective at advertising its games that I literally went on eBay and ordered some (Flashing Blades, among others)! This magazine got me so fired up that I couldn’t stop looking around each uniquely laid out page with original ornamental artwork and headers for its featured articles. On top of that, their aesthetics just get better each issue! This magazine was really something. Unfortunately, it burned so brightly, only for it to burn out quickly. I’m under the impression that this magazine was meant to fill in the hole that Imagine Magazine left after TSR shut it down, but wow, Adventurer eats Imagine’s lunch. |  | Adventurer – The Superior Fantasy & Science Fiction Games Magazine honestly lives up to its title. After looking at issues of Dragon and White Dwarf from the same 1986-1987 period, Adventurer crushes them. It’s the aesthetics of White Dwarf, but with the density of content of Dragon BUT with a maximalist approach to layout that White Dwarf specialized in, where there were no empty spaces at all. But what really makes it stand out? Mersey wasn’t promoting their own game. In turn, there is more shared game content and advertisements for other games that are able to float to the top and get your attention. This also means you get some great original content to support generic game systems or articles to help inspire players and GMs alike. You also get the occasional short story here and there. But! You also get Zine reviews, which are far more positive and endorse the small publishers than Imagine did. Which- this is also something I’ve noticed with the UK published gaming magazines; They talk about fanzines which I don’t see in the US-based mags. This, in effect, makes the UK gaming scene feel more palpable and enthusiastic about the hobby, especially with more professional magazines promoting it. What are the main featured articles and editorials for Adventurer?
Town Crier: Rumors, Gossip, and News in the hobby/industry Live by the Sword: Letters to the Editor Figures Front: a feature on miniatures, essentially ‘eavy Metal from White Dwarf. Shop Window: Short reviews of game releases Fanzines Forever..?: Zine reviews Classified: personal ads for hobby meet-ups, trades, miniature painting, etc. Voyages Beyond: Media reviews “What is Play By Mail?” An overview and insight into play-by-mail, along with some reviews of ongoing Play-by-mail games. Comics such as Return to Arkham, a Horror comic, “Whip-lash”, which is another gothic horror comic of sorts, “Once Bitten”, a fantasy comic, and “Bomber”, the Wormy analogue for Adventurer. Center spread Poster of the cover! There is also the occasional setting guide to the publication’s own fantasy city, “Scatophagium”, a fantasy city somewhere between Lankhmar and Altdorf of Warhammer Fantasy, based on the comic Once Bitten. What a name! British Fantasy is truly its own vibe.
|  | I’d also like to outline the different RPGs that get featured or supported with content and scenarios in Adventurer, starting with what I found in Dragon and White Dwarf from 1986-1987: Dragon Magazine: AD&D, Top Secret!, Marvel Superheroes, Star Frontiers, Gamma World (All TSR), Traveller, Champions, Space Opera (?!), Villains & Vigilantes. We have some cool stuff here, but obviously, TSR will use its own magazine to publish its own game content for promotional purposes. Some of the non-TSR games were relegated to the Ares section of the magazine, only to fall away and be hidden between ads in later issues.
White Dwarf’s offerings: Warhammer Battle, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Blood Bowl, AD&D, Bushido, Runequest, Traveller, Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu, Judge Dredd RPG. Again, some cool stuff, including Games Workshop game support as expected. But it’s all cool! And on top of that, you get support for Chaosium games, including a Pendragon article by the one and only Greg Stafford. Plus a Bushido scenario, a Fantasy Games Unlimited RPG that was popular for a moment after Shogun aired in 198,0 but seemed to have legs well into the mid 1980s in the United Kingdom.
Now let’s take a look at what games Adventurer features: STORMBRINGER!, Middle Earth Roleplaying (MERP!), Runequest II, Basic D&D, AD&D, Bushido, generic SCI-fi scenarios advertised for Traveller/Space Opera/Star Frontiers/STAR TREK!, Villains & Vigilantes, Chivalry & Sorcery! Wow, what an assortment! MERP, Stormbringer, C&S, and Star Trek all get equal coverage as the D&D juggernaut here. As with Imagine at the time, some scenarios were written to be generic, but with stats and conversions at the end for use with different game systems. So if there was a fantasy scenario, it would have Runequest, MERP, and D&D. But you will also get dedicated game scenarios like a Stormbringer adventure in the first issue. Awesome. |  | After eleven issues, the magazine stopped. Mersey Leisure Publishing didn’t release anything else besides this magazine from what I can find, which is a shame. Maybe it’s because it was a magazine that wasn’t also a part of a more profitable gaming publisher like Dragon or White Dwarf, but that’s also why I like it- It felt fan-made without an agenda. Do yourself a favor and take a dive into this lost treasure from the hobby scene. This is easily in my top 3 gaming magazines of all time.
Next Time – Challenge Magazine by Game Design Workshop!
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| | Geek Flea Kearny, NJ – April 18th |
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Saturday, April 18, in Kearny, New Jersey, Geek Flea returns! Browse over 50 tables of toys and collectibles, books, knick-knacks, video games, crafts, art, snacks, and more! Get ready for spring with the coolest geeks in North Jersey. Entry is FREE for all, 10 am to 3 pm. ——— We organize Geek Flea for one main reason: to hang out and have a good time with our local North Jersey geek scene. We’re glad to be back once again, so thank you for your patronage! |
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GameFace Con Baltimore, MD – May 23rd & 24 |
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Baltimore’s Annual Tabletop Game Convention at Peabody Heights Brewery 12 pm – 8 pm both days.
Meet creators, shop, and play tabletop RPGs and board games |
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ModCon 2026 Northampton, MA – May 30th |
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Game submissions are open now, and badges are on sale for the first-ever ModCon.
It’s happening May 30th at the beautiful Smith College Conference Center in Northampton, MA. ModCon is a one-day convention dedicated to the modern-era genre of TTRPGs.
That includes games like…321 RPG • Call of Cthulhu • World of Darkness • Cyberpunk • Shadowrun • Marvel Super Heroes • Mutants & Masterminds • Delta Green • Savage Worlds • Burn 2d6 • Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland • WHPA and more!
It’s going to be a great day of gaming, dedicated to all kinds of settings in the 20th and 21st centuries, in worlds both like our own and very, very different. Sign up below, and we’ll see you there! |
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ArcaneCon Northampton, MA – October 16th & 17th |
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ArcaneCon is returning October 16th & 17th, 2026. Join us in a celebration of indie, old school, and old school-inspired RPGs, miniature games, board games, and more! ArcaneCon is Western Massachusetts’s premiere tabletop hobby convention! Game submissions will go live on March 1st! See more information at Tabletop Events. |
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Your editor this week has been John “Hambone” McGuire of Ham & Egg Publishing.
Keep on emailing us at hello@analogunion.com to let us know what you’d like to see more of, less of, or just ideas you’ve got. If you like the Analog Union newsletter, please tell your friends to sign up at AnalogUnion.com. Until Next Time! – JHM |
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