RPG & WARGAME NEWSLETTER #93

January 20, 2025

Jan 20, 2025

Greetings, Gamers!

For the last few months, I’ve been 3D printing like mad, making myself as much terrain as I can for my current Frostgrave game. Frostgrave takes place in this frozen city, and for years I’ve sort of sulked about my lack of immersive terrain — my fantasy terrain has always been left without snow effects because I also wanted to be able to use it for D&D games and other fantasy wargames. But I made a decision recently to spend the time necessary to really get my terrain collection for Frostgrave painted up with the proper ice/snow coverage, an I think I’ve succeeded. I’m including some photos below of my first game with the new look, and I must say I’m grinning constantly.

I highly encourage all gamers to pick that one game that they just really love… cannot play it enough… and focus on creating (or printing) the terrain necessary to bring it to the next level. For me, that’s Frostgrave, the game that started my real interest in skirmish wargaming back in 2014. It’s taken 10 years, but I’m finally at the point where I’m happy with how the table looks AND I absolutely WANT to invite other players to come and learn Frostgrave to play on my new table. With sites like Thingiverse and MyMiniFactory and others, there really is an amazing variety of thematic terrain for every genre of game - horror, western, cyberpunk, sci-fi, etc. I welcome your photos, and I’m going to include a new section called “Themed Terrain” if I can get enough photos from subscribers of their “BEST” table. Let me see them!

Let’s get to the fun stuff.

THEMED TERRAIN

My Frostgrave table is below, but I’ve got easily double or more that’s not been seen on the table yet. LOTS of options. If you’ve got a themed table you’re proud of, share it with me - email me at jimsworkshop@fastmail.com with a few photos and details about the game and anything else you’d like me to know.

RPG

Have you EVER played Fallen London? It’s a browser-based game set in a gothic Victorian era, and although I haven’t played it in years, I remember it fondly. Well, I just found out that they’re making an actual RPG from its setting and mechanics! (This makes me want to go back and play, but I’ll have to make a new character as I can’t access my old one any longer.) I’ll probably buy the rulebook simply because I love the setting and lore, but who knows? Maybe it’ll be an interesting new RPG to play… either way, I’m definitely going to create a new character and play again… you can, too. Click here to play the original game.

And click here to be notified when the RPG fundraiser goes live.

WARGAMING

Fat Dragon Games has announced a new expansion for Battlefront Valkyrie - Expansion Set 4 contains two new ships for the Kurgun fleet (see image). No release date yet, but more info on the game here.

I’ve received emails from many subscribers asking me if I’m aware of and/or interested in a new game that’s about to launch called Malediction. First, yes… I have seen the videos and I’ve looked at the website and read through the details. And I have some doubts about my participation because I don’t think this is a wargame. Here goes…

It looks more like a card game that encourages miniatures to be pushed forward to represent the cards being played. I don’t see much in terms of terrain and measuring… but I could be wrong! What I see advertised at this moment seems to be a card game with limited terrain.
It also seems to be leaning towards a subscription model. You buy the starter set (with cardboard standees) but if you want the miniatures, you’ll need to sign up for the service. Again, I could be wrong… but this is based on what I’m seeing and hearing in the promotional video (below).
The video says something like 2000+ miniatures are already created, but I doubt the card game supports all of them… that would be a monster of a game to try to crowdsource and I suspect it’ll be a small sampling of those that get cards first… or completely new miniatures (that you must print yourself).

All in all, it looks and sounds fun, but is it something I think I would rush out to play at a game store? Probably not. I’m not much of a card game player and not really a fan of Magic the Gathering, and I get MtG vibes from the cards shown in the video. Ultimately, it all depends on gameplay. Once I see more details (when the project launches in late January 2025), I may change my mind, but I really REALLY don’t need any more fantasy wargames at this point, and I see no mention of solo rules and that’s always a significant requirement for me. I’ll keep an eye on this and let you know if anything changes, but it just doesn’t sound like a game for me (right now).

TERRAIN

I attended Dice & Diversions this past weekend here in Atlanta, and one of my friends, Bryan, was there selling 3D printed terrain from his company called Yellahammer Tabletop Crafts. He was selling a mix of unpainted and painted terrain, but I was quite taken with his style of painting his stuff. I did manage to pick up a primed ruined building from his store that I’m going to apply my Frostgrave ice and snow effects and cannot wait to add it to my table. I’ll try to remember to post a follow-up image in an upcoming newsletter.

CROWDSOURCING

Fellow Atlanta resident and game creator, Brian Colin, just shared with me the news that he’s got a skirmish wargame in the works based on his Vast Grimm RPG. First off, I don’t get to play Vast Grimm BUT I do love reading the rulebook AND the crazy artwork and color schemes of the game. It’s a really amazing universe he’s created, and he even has a card game called Plunderlust (playthrough video coming soon!) that’s set in the same universe. The skirmish wargame is called Sqwurmish and I got an advanced look at some of the miniatures… they are INCREDIBLY detailed and unique. From the press release:

Sqwürmish is a 28mm miniatures agnostic game set in the Dying Universe ofVast Grimm. Players can use official miniatures, minis already in their collection, rocks from the yard, or craft monstrosities of their very own for this game. In Sqwürmish, play as a Crew of five going on daring missions in search of fortune, glory, and survival. Players do their best not to become infected by the Grimm Parasites while attaining their objective, but würms are everywhere.Built using the rules-light mechanics of Forbidden Psalm (Mörk Borg skirmish game), it will be familiar to anyone who has played a d20 RPG or a miniature wargame. Sqwürmish can be played Solo, Co-op, or Versus with a single one-off scenario, or as a long-form campaign connecting the thirteen scenarios in the book.

I’ll share more info as I can, but it’s definitely a new wargame I’m looking forward to playing. You can sign up to be notified when the Kickstarter launches here.

YOUTUBE

Earlier I mentioned a new card game called Plunderlust - if you’re interested in seeing the gameplay, here’s a learn to play video created by the game’s creator, Brian Colin.

I’m just getting into the new Halo: Flashpoint game, and I’ve been deep diving into what people are doing for terrain. I stumbled upon this AMAZING play area created based on one of the Halo videogame locales, and I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did.

LOVECRAFT MYTHOS

I just got my copy of Tiny Epic Cthulhu in the mail, and after a read of the rulebook, I am really looking forward to playing some games. This thing is very impressive with how much they packed into the box, and you can play solo or up to 4 players. I did buy the small expansion box, too, which allows you to play as a cultist. (I haven’t read that rulebook yet.) I’ll try to get a video playthrough up soon, but if you’re interested in the game, you can grab the free rulebook here.

But… there’s something better that you might want to take a look at and it’s free - it’s called DIZED and it’s an app you can download for free. I found out about DIZED because there was a sticker on the wrapping for the game that had it listed… and I’m glad I checked it out. The goal of the app is to teach you how to play games by walking you through your first game, and I have used it to set up my game of Tiny Epic Cthulhu. It’s very well done, and I think this could be an amazing tool for other game companies to check out. The app comes with a small amount of games already out, and I hope to see many more. It is supported by ads that occasionally interrupt the tutorial but there’s a DIZED+ version that you can get that loses the ads. I’m not there yet, but maybe. Check it out for iOS and Android. There’s also a web browser version.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Just finished attending Dice & Diversions in Atlanta. The temps really dropped on this last day (Fri to Sunday), but inside was packed as most seemed to be ready to play some games rather than sit it out. I got in two games of Cthulhu: Death May Die (won one, lost one) and one game of Legendary: Alien. I also got to visit a lot of vendor booths and I’ll be doing some interviews with them in the weeks to come. This convention had RPGs and boardgames but no wargames… I’m hoping they’ll change that next year as I would have loved to see some wargaming, and I’m likely top demo a few if they offer up the space.

Have a great week, everyone… and I’ll see you next Monday.

Jim, The Tabletop Engineer

TO MY SUBSCRIBERS

If you know of a local and/or independent gaming convention, email me at jimsworkshop@fastmail.com to get it listed.

You can find my zines and laser-cut terrain at thetabletopengineer.bigcartel.com - 10% off to newsletter readers with code RPGWGNEWS.
Digital copies of all my zines can be found on DrivethruRPG.

My game play-through videos can be found here.
The YouTube Channel name is The Tabletop Engineer Plays

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