March to Victory 2025!

 I had a great time this past weekend at March to Victory. Less of a convention, and more of a get together of wargamers for a couple days of fun.

Friday night I ran my Glorious Adventures in the Age of Steam game. An Anglo French force was trying to stop German rampage. The Thin Red Line managed to hold. The same was repeated Saturday.

We also had 54mm French and Indian game using Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles. Cluck Amok's games always look so nice.

Finally Friday was a game of Blood and Plunder.

Saturday had lots of games. A search for Pirate gold, What a Tanker, Underhive gangs playing a deadly game of Shootz em and Ladders, A sink the Bismark game, a WW2 Pacific bombing game, and early jets game and two games of March Hares to Victory. Right out of medieval manuscripts, rabbits attacking monks! 

Plenty of board games and wargamer talk too.

 

What I found very satisfying was how many of the games were Fistful of Lead that people had made their own. The pirate gold game was done using Horse and Musket. Necroplunda using Galactic Heroes, March Hares using Might and Melee, and the 54mm French and  Indian war game used Bigger Battles.

Talking with McMurray, the GM of Medieval March Hares game, he had used Arena Blood to run a 3 Musketeers game. Now I'm thinking...

 

Love me some 10mm Imagi-Nations, but I was trying to find a way to use them with Fistful of Lead: Bigger Battles. I designed these wooden slot bases to hold the troops and track their strength. I can pull the individual bases out make them in line for attack or in column of march. Nifty!

Designed them in Adobe Illustrator and then lasered them out. These could work for a number of games.

Starfighters!

 There are several reasons why I love Fistful of Lead: Starfighters! and not just because I'm the author.

In a world where so many games are tied to a miniatures line, this one is not. Starfighters! origin story begins with huge sale of X-Wing miniatures at my local 1/2 Price Bookstore. They were dirt cheap because they were "first edition" and no longer compatible with the newest version of the rules, even though the miniatures WERE EXACTLY THE SAME!

 So I made a rules set where you could use anything you can find: old toys, plastic game pieces, 3D printed miniatures, and yes, defunct X-Wing miniatures. A very easy build template allows you to design the ships  the way you think they should be.

The next reason I love them builds on that ship creation system: Versatility. Our Facebook Group has made mods and pre-built Battlestar Galactica ships and other SciFi genres as well as a WW1 mod called Dogfighters! and my own Pulpfighters! for use with my embarrassing large Crimson Skies collection. It has spawned racing games and even yes, naval games.

Starfighters! has allowed me to get a bunch of old plastic and lead out of the pile and into the light all while making "pew, pew" like a little kid.

Starfighters! is available here.

Fantasy Gladiators

 

As some of you may know we released Arena of Blood last year and it turned out to be more versatile than I hoped. After a few historical tournaments, I started running The Great Goblin Games. An Olympic style day of different games between the goblin tribes to decide who would be the best tribe and making their chief the Great Goblin.

 There was a Wolf Chariot race, a joust, Squig Tickling, a Doom Diver distance contest and finally a gladiatorial match. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I simply matched existing Gladiator types to fantasy creatures. A heavily armored Murmillo makes an excellent ogre type, while a bow Sagitarius makes a nice Elf Bowman. Simple.

 I soon realized this worked across other genres. I could easily run a John Carter type match on Mars or stage fights between Gamorrians for the enjoyments of the Hutts. And post Apocalyptic matches are perfect!

If you're interested in the rules, the pdf is cheap, and you can check out our YouTube videos on how the game works.

Fistful of Lead Fantasy!

The Wiley Games Fistful of Lead: Fantasy books are the most underrated and underused titles we have. 

“Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of.”

A lot of games out there force you into specific builds like Wizard, Apprentice and Henchmen, or factions. Fistful of Lead Fantasy lets you build your Retinue the way you want. Want the classic Barbarian, Wizard, Cleric Thief group? You got it. Want an all monster group, or thieves or undead? These rules are for you.

Check out these valuable resources that provide glorious additions to scenarios across ALL your favorite genres.
• 30 weapons including mace, flail, Warhammer, two-handed
weapons and crossbows.
• A chivalric campaign with 10 scenarios
• Mounts and 8 traits!!!
• Chivalric Quests
       Chivalric Actions with renown bonuses
• 12 Relics, plus mythical items
• 16 Premade Creatures and 15 Premade Mundane Characters…
    ... and that's just in Book I.


• 81 Spells and spellcasting rules (great for superheroes)
• 8 Summoned Creatures
• Chart for Spells, Scrolls and Potions
• 80 Magical Treasures (worth the money right here)!!
• Chart of Bad Things

Plus, 8 Magical Scenarios…

• 11 Classes to create a crew of your own design
• 4 Races
• Traps and Treasures
• Rules for Dungeon Exploration
• Monsters!!! - 139 Monsters with 7 Categories and 20 Traits

 Custom Cards in either BRUTAL or CLASSIC asthetic, and acrylic markers with ARROWS take your table to that next level. 

The Dungeon Deck is a hidden treasure in our catalog. Yes, it's makes dungeon building quick, easy and actually FUN. But, what about...

Drains & Vents (pulp, modern, sci-fi)
Mazes & Temples (pulp, gothic horror)
Prisons & Hospitals (modern, zombies, sci-fi)
Mines & Other Tunnels (sci-fi, western, modern)
Subways & City Tunnels (modern, future, apocalypse, zombies)
Spaceship passages (Space Hulk)
Make a labyrinth of your choosing and be playing in minutes!!!

As you can see, I'm pretty fired up about these rules, and you should too!

Modern Imagi-Nations

 

Working on some more modern games for Fistful of Lead, but I wanted to be more in line with Imagi-Nations. What's Imagi-Nations?

It's using historical troops in a fictional setting. It really started with wargamers using early 18th century troops in made up campaigns taking place in small fictional (usually Germanic) countries. Players could use their painted armies and fight other opponents regardless of whether those armies fought in "real life". My own campaign in Unkerlant was a blast to come up with and play.

It's since spread to other periods like Napoleonics and Medieval, but I've always been fascinated with the Inter War period. So why not do it?

I'm not tied to historical OOBs and there's no one to tell me "that's not the right Feldgrau color".

For one of my factions, the Northern Conclave, I wanted a German-ish feel but not use German Army minis. These Finns from Kyoushuneko Miniatures I printed worked great. There are so many Inter War vehicle minis out there, I can't wait to bring in some weird armor.

I can start with just a handful of minis a side with Fistful of Lead Core and build to larger and larger Bigger Battles game.

Using Airships! for naval battles.

 

Anybody that knows me knows I don't like naval games. Little terrain if any, unfun to paint minis and tactics are generally "line up and blaze away."

But designing Airships! for Glorious Adventures in the Age of Steam got me thinking people could use the same rules for water based fleets. So I dug out my favorite Dark Elves from Man-O-War and some Dystopian Wars ships (the original line, the new ones suck) and started thinking.

In Airships! there are altitude mechanics so airships can bomb and attack ground based targets so just use naval ships as being at ground level altitude. All the other traits and gun battery sizes should work the same.

For my Man-O-War ships (in this case dragons) I gave them d12s for Close Quarters dice to represent the sea serpents attacking the enemy ship and crew, and a light battery to represent their fiery breath. Easy enough to figure out the other fantasy fleets. Dwarves would have heavier armor. Their submersibles could used by adding another altitude "underwater". Underwater vessels can attack other vessel underwater but must be at the surface to use torpedoes or other weapons.

 Coming up with some of Orcy and Skaven weapons will be fun.

Wind rules (blech) for sailing ships will have to be added, but luckily Man-O-War has a nice simple system, with a Joker being a nice trigger for wind change.

I'm excited to give both these fleets a try.