Elf Game Heartbreaker

I'm developing a B/X derived miniatures skirmish game as a hobby project.

Tone setting image by Jakub Rebelka, one of my favourite current illustrators.

A little while ago, my wife told me two things:

• She doesn't realistically think she'll be able to play RPGs until the baby is significantly older. Like in maybe in a year.
• Looking at the roleplaying games we've played in the past - various iterations of D&D basically - she really enjoyed using miniatures.

... and thus, this post about roleplaying games on my miniatures blog. I'm starting (and hopefully continuing) a project to borrow, modify, and/ or develop a whole bunch of OSR B/X based houserules to make my very own Elf Game Heartbreaker narrative tabletop skirmish game.

Wait... what? What does that mean?

It means that I'm taking an old and fairly simple edition of D&D (B/X), modifying it to make a game to suit my particular needs and aesthetic inclinations. This is something lots of people are already doing in what's collectively known as the Old School Revival (OSR) movement in D&D. And now I'm doing it too.

So what am I aiming for?

Another cool Jakub Rebelka image.

So here is my current thinking about my Elf Game Heartbreaker:

• Combat will be resolved on the tabletop, using miniatures and terrain and all that. This has a number of implications:
• I'll be adding and tweaking terrain and combat rules to provide a decent table top skirmish experience.
• The setting is going to be mostly reflective of the miniatures I own and/ or am likely to buy. I'll have time to do some painting between now and then, but it's looking like it will be centred around a bunch of viking and other dark age types (historical or not), a not insignificant number of elves, some orcs and goblins, some beastmen, and various monsters.
• I'll be leaning fairly heavily into the morale rules, followers, and adding some friction. Combined with what I hope are effective incentives for taking captives and holding them for ransim, it will rarely be "combat to the last drop of blood." But you can still get maimed or die in a gruesome fashion.
• I intend to anchor the PCs in the setting and the community, somewhat akin to what you see in the Great Pendragon Campaign and the One Ring.
• This means the ideal pace of adventures are something like "one every year or two," and - similar to Pendragon - adventures can be failed or abandoned and consequences will accrue in the game
• It also means slow healing and lingering wounds.
• The flavour of the game is going to be somewhat Dark Ages and pre-Christian Europe. This means no gun powder, no analogue to the Church and clerics, and no steam-punk mechanical robots, gonzo ray-guns and that sort of thing.
• I expect there to be more cattle raiding and kidnapping than dungeon delving.
• In spite of the name, the game will initially be human-centric.
• If no one except me and my players like it that's cool. If my players don't like it either, maybe I'll try to develop some solo play rules.

... that's what I'm thinking right now. Now I just have follow through. I'm pretty stoked about it, and I have about a year. So it just might happen.

An illustration of the Battle of Brávellir by Christian Højgaard (a Danish book illustrator).
Not completely sure about the historicity of the chariot pulled by the massive horses there.

No rights asserted, claimed, nor implied for any images shown in this post. They will be removed on request by rights holder.

GW has announced that the old world is coming back, with square bases no less. That sounds like Warhammer Fantasy Battle (my first love) to me.

It is several years in the future, apparently, leaving plenty of time of for idle speculation. With that in mind, here is my 100% purely speculative, utterly unfounded prediction: the new game is going to be in 15-18 mm scale!

Why? New models for everyone (sales), less competition from 3rd party manufacturers (except the old Demonworld range), bigger units, unit price will stay the same but more figures will make buyers feel they are getting value, and GW can use their existing digital files to make the minis.

There you have it, I've gone on the record. Let's see what happens.

From the Dark Ages

I painted another handful (12) of spear wielding Gripping Beast plastic dark age warrior types. I figure they can do duty as a fairly wide range of early medieval North West European fyrd or levy type warriors, as well as generic warriors, tribesfolk, and/ or angry local farmers in various fantasy settings.

This time I went for a much more muted palette, attempting to represent warriors of more modest means dressed in humble homespun fabric. Again, these lads were painted mostly using contrast paints.

Charging across a white, featureless plain.

The shield designs are entirely speculative.

Granny and the Boys

I finished a few more viking types, including Granny. I'm in the process of planning my first Dragon Rampant game and Granny is going to feature in it - as are her two friends, most likely.

I picture Granny as being a local force, both due to her tendency towards sorcery (real in fantasy games, less real in historical games) and sheer force of personality. The miniatures themselves are (L to R) Citadel, Citadel (I think), Wargames Foundry.