The miniatures
The first key design and production issue facing us centered around BattleLore’s most visually distinctive components, its miniatures.
How to design them in a visually unique and compelling way, yet retain the wealth of information that’s usually crammed into reference sheets filled to the brim with numbers?
Let’s just say that many pounds of plastic were harmed in the process ;-).
Eventually, we settled on a concept of having each unit, or group of miniatures, led by a banner bearer. The banner bearer is the unit’s most distinctive and important figure, since its capture will usually yield your opponent a victory point.
The shape of the banner helps tell which camp the unit belongs to.
The banners’ undertone, or background field color, marks the unit’s level of training - from irregular “greenies” to heavy “red” shock troops. Each color represents a different level of mobility and combat-worthiness with lighter (green banner) troops more mobile and less effective, and heavier troops more combat ready but considerably less light-of-foot.
Finally, the banner’s weapon symbol (and the corresponding item in the miniature’s hands - there are 15 different sculpts in the base game alone!) provides the final visual clue to the unit’s special fighting capabilities.
What is really neat about this banner bearer scheme, besides its obvious visual appeal, is that it retains all the flexibility that a fantasy game might require, since there is absolutely no way any of us could envision all the different types of troops, units, races, and other living (or undead) beings that might eventually roam across the gaming table!
Even better, the banners are designed in such a way that they are sturdy enough to grab a miniature by its banner without coming loose, yet flexible enough not to break. They can be individually pulled out and exchanged or replaced from one figure to the next, opening the door to many interesting concepts. Need more troops of one sculpt type on one side? Simply pull the pennant banners of these archers and replace them by standard banners! Just trained a troop in your camp? Swap that blue banner for a red one! Etc…
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September 11th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
The whole game concept with those miniatures and banners looks very promising! I have only one wish that I would like to suggest. Please, make those banner colors safe for red-green color blinds. It’s a little thing to notify in design but it makes many colorblinded player gaming experience so much enjoyable. Thank you already!
September 11th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Can I propose myself like italian translator of these news?
Please contact me for discussing this idea, if you’re interested.
Thank you
Leo
September 11th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Can’t wait for the next post!
This game can’t come soon enough
September 11th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Looks Great! I’d like to have prepainted minis because I’m a horrible and lazy painter, but I’m excited about this game.
September 11th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
Awesome looking minis….cool
September 11th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
Do I have to apply the stickers to the flags myself?
September 11th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
Eric, I do have two questions. You mention that the game is a “tool box” for the players to create with. Say, I want to play the BattleLore system with say the background rich Games Workshop Warhammer Fantasy universe as a base, how would I do that with the minis in the range? Or, would I need to make up paper units to play with. Or, is the idea that players would use the existing minature range to create their own worlds?
Secondly, are we going to expect an RPG type of dungeon crawl/city scape type game of Battle Lore to support the mass combat game, ala Warhammer Quest?
September 11th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Would 20mm plastic figures work with this game. I have a handfull of boxes of knights and archers that I’d like to be able to use. Still, looking forward to the game immensely!
September 11th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
The three mini’s I’ve seen, they’re keen,
onto the table they’ll fling the fantasy theme
with a banner scheme.
Seems a great thing, the banner means
in a glance valuable info we glean.
Nigh unbreakable and interchangeable? Now a unit’s exchangable,
growth capable,
a little training and they bring the pain in full.
Things are looking good…
September 11th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
Folks,
Sorry we’re a bit swamped right now. I will come back to some, if not all, of these questions in upcoming blog entries.
September 11th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Eric, I think it is safe to say that we all appreciate you taking the time to answer our questions. Thank you, and I look forward to your future posts.
September 12th, 2006 at 2:50 am
Eric,
Don’t worry! You are doing a great job of being “responsive” to our questions.
When you do have time to reply, my question is: are all the miniatures going to be grey plastic, with only the flags determining “nationality”? I think the miniatures look great (although I’ve seen the profile on that archer somewhere before…..), but all grey figures would be a bit dull.
Thomas
September 12th, 2006 at 6:07 am
Will the game be shown at GenCon So Cal?
September 12th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
Will the game have a ‘take it or leave it ‘ approach the magic/fantastical elements? In other words if I want to game purely historical encounters from the middle ages is this the ‘right’ system, or should I stick with C&C anicents?
September 12th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
My take on it is that it will indeed be “take it or leave it” in regards to the fantasy aspect. The information we have so far indicates that the basic set will be primarily, if not entirely, historical medieval. Looks like the fantasy will be introduced in waves with the monthly blisterpacks and the occasional expansion.
Also, an 80 page rulebook is very good news to me. If I’m not mistaken Erik seemed to allude to the notion that you wouldn’t need to be fully knowledgeable of all 80 pages to enjoyably play the game. Sounds like lots of increased depth for those who want it and optional fantasy elements. My guess is it’ll be pretty well layered, like an onion!
September 12th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
Andy,
take it or leave it (or rather, pick Medieval or Lore adventures, depending on your tastes) is how it will work.
September 12th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
awesome.
The very notion of this game is setting alight the message boards of ‘conventional’ wargame sites like ‘The Miniatures Page’. This could blow systms like DBx out of the water (sorry to use a naval analogy), and who knows - may pose a threat to the evil empire (GW).
I recently introduced a friend whose only previous miniature gaming experience was with Star Wars Minis to historical gaming via C+C ancients. At the end he said - ‘wow you could use this for Sci-Fi, fantasy, anything…’. (He had just defeated me comprehensively after 10 minutes of instruction). This game could be very, very important.
Andy
September 12th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
Yes, I am surprised by how many GW references I have read on the web. It only gets me more excited about the possibilities of this game. Having been a complete GW fanatic for a long time, I just do not have time for assembling the minis, painting the minis, etc., etc., etc.
Eric, I hear you are looking for volunteers to demo the game. I am an ex-GW Outrider/Games Day veteran and may be interested in helping out. You can contact me via e-mail.
September 13th, 2006 at 3:51 am
Yes, we will be looking for volunteers alright. Right now, we’re still a tad busy putting the finishing touches to the production of the game itself, though, so more news on this in a few weeks, once we get closer to shipping.
September 13th, 2006 at 4:24 am
It’s sounding better & better Eric, can hardly wait!!-
“on the back of the game board is actually a larger scale half board that can be combined with a board from another box set — so if you have a base set and your buddy has a base set you can actually play on a board that is actually twice as large. To support this kind of action we are going to be releasing a number of scenarios and campaigns that we call epic adventures”
“the plan for next year is that starting in March we are going to have a couple of pieces releasing every month ”
“In addition to these individual “elite” figure releases, we plan to have two major expansions a year — in June of next year we are looking at releasing an army box set”
( sorry for the chopped quotes, did not want to paste it all -best to read the interview )
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/9292.html
September 13th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
I’m curious about how many figures will be in a hex. Will it be in the 1-4 range?
Simon
September 13th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
If you guys want to translate this blog to spanish, I’d be glad to do it, just drop me an email if you’re interested
September 13th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
Yes, the figures in a hex will typically be in the 1-4 range (1 for big unique figures like the Creatures, 3-4 for infantry and cavalry units).
In terms of sizes of the sculpts, the dwarf is 22 mm from bottom of base to top of head. Humans on cavalry are about 30mm high from bottom of base to top of head, and the Hill Giant is 40mm+
more news soon.
September 14th, 2006 at 10:44 am
Eric
How about adding an RSS feed to this page, so we easily keep up to date (uh - not that we are desperate for crumbs of news, or anything like that
September 14th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
Ok the Dwarf is 22mm and the Human on horse are 30mm. This makes a normal human a 28mm or a 25mm sculpt?
And yes, it gets tedious to check this page every hour or so for an update. RSS please.
September 14th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
About RSS feeds: click on “Entries (RSS)” or “Comments (RSS)” at the bottom of this page
Yann
September 15th, 2006 at 12:05 am
This looks fantastic. I do have a question, though. Will there be any sort of support for some sort of organized play or demoing, like limited edition figures, etc? I would guess no, since it’s closer to a traditional board game than a table-top miniature game, but I was just curious.
September 15th, 2006 at 11:33 am
Has the RRP for the ‘monthly packs’ been announced?
September 19th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Are sword wielding infantry and knights all left-handed? It seems a bit odd that the shield is in the right hand and the sword is in the left.