So after last weeks article and vote, it’s been decided that we’re writing a Science Fiction tabletop wargame.
Results of the first vote
I think the next question we need to answer is what type of game is this going to be for? Is it going to be Land Combat, Air Combat, Sea Combat, Space Combat or all of them rolled into one bigger system? and on top of this what scale should it be?
Therefore it’s a double vote this week, one for the type of game and one for the scale of the game. I’ve briefly outlined the scale below to give you a general sense of what each could represent (but this is by no means set in stone).
Agnostic
Agnostic would mean that the game can be played at any scale the players wish. This could mean that individual pieces may represent a single individual, a squad, a platoon, a regiment and so on. For example a single Astra Militarum miniature on a base could represent anything, for example being a marker for a regiment of foot soldiers to an infantry division.
Grand Tactical Scale (10mm and less)
Small scale games would often represent grand tactical battles where a player is in commands of 1,000s of warriors organised into large units such as battalions, brigades or divisions and a gaming table can represent an area many miles across. Arguably 10mm could also be used for medium scale games.
Medium Scale (Between 10mm and 20mm)
Games of this scale could be used to represent that area between large scale battles and skirmishes. Perhaps focusing in on a only a few miles of the warzone.
Skirmish Scale (20mm+)
Miniatures of this size will often represent individual fighters and focus on a key area of a battle or perhaps a special mission involving only a few key personnel.
A couple of the Woehammer group have been reminiscing about the joys of Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WHFB) and how much fun it would be to get some armies together to play not only this but the upcoming ‘Old World’, which is rumoured to be released in 2023. So we did just that, I’ve dusted off my fantasy collection and have started looking at which units I could take while Pete has been doing the same with his.
If you’re new to the hobby, WHFB was the precursor to Age of Sigmar. Rather than large skirmish games with quite unconstrained movement, WHFB focused on the clashes of large units in tight formations with precise movement and positioning. The element which particularly appealed to me was the aesthetics of the game which are very much focused on those large blocks, rather than large monsters (though these do exist in the game).
We’ve decided to start by playing out a narrative campaign, and where better to start than the Grudge of Drong, a Campaign Pack written by Nigel Stillman for Games Workshop. The campaign was written for the Fifth Edition of the WHFB ruleset, but we have chosen to use the Eighth Edition rules as we are more familiar with these and have the necessary army books etc. The campaign pits stalwart Dwarfs against the perfidious High Elves who have aligned themselves with one Dwarf faction against another in a rather fractious internal dispute.
We will need to modify the campaign a little for the armies we have available to us but are looking forward to getting this kicked off. In the meantime, we will be putting out some articles on the armies and how they are developing over the next few months, before beginning the campaign in the New Year.
Both Pete and I look forward to sharing more with you soon and may all your Grudges be satisfied.
Another week under the belt and just that little bit closer to Crimbo.
Unfortunately I haven’t had much time to get much done this week, but I did receive the plinth through the post….. And I may have made a slight error in judgement.
It’s a little bit small! Never mind I’ve ordered a slightly larger one, while this one can be used for the Imperial Army Land Speeder once that’s finished.
I’m still in two minds about the bear, as the print quality is pretty shoddy when viewed in person.
Roar!
Does anyone have any decent tips for solving this?
I’ve always enjoyed creating my own rules and scenarios for the games I play, and last year I jumped into writing my own ruleset for Napoleonic Wargaming called ‘Clausewitz’.
But I thought it may be fun to create a ruleset with the community which could then be hosted here on the site for free.
So what should it be? A historical game? Sci-Fi, Fantasy? Should it be Grand Tactical, skirmish level or something in between?
What about measurements? Should they be in inches, centimetres, base widths or something completely different?
As you can see there are a lot of points to consider before getting into the nitty gritty of it all. So let’s tackle the first question.
Genre
What about the genre? What should it be. Well that’s up to you all. Why not vote in the poll below that I’ll keep open until the next article and you can decide here what we work on. Of course there’s always an argument to make the game genre agnostic as well, meaning the ruleset can be used for anything…
This report is the second from Games Day ’89; Gary Brough (Goblins) against Mark Sutcliffe (Wood Elves).
Solo Wargaming for your Favourite Games
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
It’s been a little while since I last posted to the A Life in Wargames series, for which I can only apologise. These articles take a lot more effort than the others I write and unfortunately I’ve simply not had the time for the research recently.
John Stallard, from the wonderful city of Cardiff in Wales is a Games Designer who for 27 years worked with Games Workshop. In 2007 her left and set up Warlord Games along with Paul Sawyer (who some of you may remember from White Dwarf).
John lived in Cardiff until he was four years old, at which point his family moved to Scotland where his father was working for BP, eventually at the age of ten John and his family moved to Worcester.
His cousin introduce him to military models and toy soldiers after his cousin thought he was much to grown up for such things handed John his collection. John set about expanding his collection by making weekly purchases of Airfix kits with his pocket money.
The first set of rules that John played was the Airfix Guide to Napoleonic Wargaming written by Bruce Quarrie (1974), which he then followed up with Skytrex’s Middle Earth Wargames Rules (1976).
Airfix Guide to Napoleonic Wargaming (1974)
After university John moved to Nottingham a move which was prompted by reading a job advert in White Dwarf. After a successful interview John joined Bryan Ansell‘s Citadel Miniatures team, initially working in the Mail Order team reporting to Rick Priestley.
John learnt about customer service from Bryan Ansell and his wife Diane. Games Workshop was very forward thinking at the time where orders would be sent as soon as an order form was received, meaning the customer often had their orders within the week rather than the 28 days advertised.
After a year John left the Mail Order team to retake his exams, which he failed. He put this failure down to playing Warhammer all the time. John then worked in a freezer warehouse during the summer where in a forklift truck accident he lost most of the toes on his left foot. He then attended the Wargames show in Manchester on crutches and saw Rick Priestley behind the Games Workshop Mail Order stand. Rick Priestley asked if he wanted his job back and he returned to Citadel Miniatures.
John progressed from Mail Order to Trade Sales, followed later by becoming Sales Manager and later became Head of Sales and then Sales Director. He stayed with Games Workshop until 2007 when he set Warlord Games.
Warlord Games came into being because I had always wanted to do historical military models. I’ve been fascinated with them since I was six. I kept on saying to two consecutive bosses at Games Workshop that the company should start to do historical models. I remember Tom Kirby, a man I admire very much, saying to me, “John, I’ve done a study and if you add all the historical gaming companies together it comes to £2m, there’s just not enough money in it.” Being older and wiser than me, he’d actually done the research. I said, “But Tom, that’s because it hasn’t really been done before. What was the market for Goblins with spears fifteen years ago? Bugger all! Citadel and Games Workshop made the marketplace by making great models and banging the drum and producing wargames rules.”
– John Stallard
John teamed up with Paul Sawyer (White Dwarf Editor in yesteryear) who’d also been made redundant by Games Workshop, they contacted Renedra Ltd, the plastic manufacturing company who has previously been Games Workshop‘s plastic manufacturing arm. They also bought on board Bob Naismith to make their figures.
Warlord’s upcoming British Starter Set for Black Powder: Epic Battles
It takes around four months for the complete manufacture of a set of plastic models. During the period after the final designs were made for their Warlord Games plastic models (Romans), John found out that the Perry twins also had an upcoming plastic release. They were still working for Games Workshop at the time but they had set up Perry Miniatures in the background (which was allowed within their contract). They were going to release some plastic American Civil War figures which would be made as either Confederate or Union troops. There release would be the first ever 28mm plastic historical wargame figures, beating Warlord Games by only two or three weeks.
John Stallard’s work:
Solo Wargaming for your Favourite Games
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
Following on from the massive successsof last weeks article on the very first Battle Report to feature in a White Dwarf, I’ve posted below the very next one I could find in the magazine.
This report is between two players from Games Day ’89; Andrew Reid (Skaven) against Paul Groves (High Elves).
Solo Wargaming for your Favourite Games
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
– The 12 battleplan cards can be shuffled and used to determine which battleplan will be used. The battleplan card also assists in deployment of the AI army.
A Battleplan Card
– The player places the eight battle tactic cards into one deck. The player then draws one at random each turn, this determines the AI army’s battle tactic that turn.
Battle Tactic Card
– The Action Cards for that battle tactic are shuffled and one drawn for each AI unit in the army for that turn. These will determine that units action that turn.
I’ve changed the designs of the cards now so that they should be more appealing to players.
Example Card
I’ve also designed the card backs to go with these.
Card Back
I’ve had a number of players join me in playtesting and so the cards should be firmed up before the new year. However to make these into physical products I need your help! I need to raise roughly £400 to start the printing process. How can you help? Well why not sign up to be s Patreon of Woehammer? We have tiers available for as little as £2 per month! Or if you’d like to make a one of donation why not PayPal me using the box below?
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Solo Wargaming for your Favourite Games
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
I’ve decided to play Black Powder at 6mm. I’m only collecting a couple of small forces so that I can play against friends and family without them needing to collect army as well.
But how to go about this?
I’ve already decided that all the measurements will be carried out in centimetres rather than inches. So what about basing?
Here’s where you can meet issues. The general consensus between Napoleonic players of 6mm is to base your miniatures on 60mm or 40mm wide bases. This allows them to be used in other game systems as well. That’s great, if I decide to try out another ruleset then I can.
Looking at the Black Powder rulebook, there are three unit sizes; Small, Standard and Large. As there are three unit sizes the simplest method would be to have a number of bases relative to the size. So 3 bases for large, 2 for standard and 1 for small.
This should result in a smaller game with the ability to fit more units on the table. I will post it updated of the Miniatures of once I’ve painted and based them.
Solo Wargaming for your Favourite Games
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
