Releasing Skirmish Kids

 “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.”

– Carl Jung

At long last I finally released my latest game project this week. Skirmish Kids is a wargame with a low figure count, small play surface (compared to most miniature wargames), and basic core rules to which one can add a host of options to give the game more tactical depth. It includes a host of notes for using it for historical scenarios as well as a few more fantastic genres. You can find it in full-color PDF at both my Itch.io and Wargame Vault online storefronts and in print in black-and-white at Lulu and, a first for me, places like Amazon. Skirmish Kids is the culmination of a long interest in this kind of wargaming and years of tinkering to present rules and options at a level kids and newcomers to the hobby can understand and embrace.

Return to the Abbey of St. Leibowitz

 “So it was that, after the [Flame] Deluge, the Fallout, the plagues, the madness, the confusion of tongues, the rage, there began the bloodletting of the Simplification, when remnants of mankind had torn other remnants limb from limb, killing rulers, scientists, leaders, technicians, teachers, and whatever persons the leaders of the maddened mobs said deserved death for having helped to make the Earth what it had become.”

– A Canticle for Leibowitz

Time for me to read Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz again. It’s one of the books I reach for when I need a break...from my more serious non-fiction reading, from the news, from numerous stress vectors mercilessly bearing down on what’s left of my psyche. Like many, I find diversion and solace in books, an escape so we can (hopefully) find renewed strength and get up to face our toilsome, everyday challenges in reality.

Author Umberto Eco likened books in a good library to remedies a medicine cabinet:

“We understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment.”