War of Ashes: Shieldwall

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Zombiesmith Games, the same guys that make the Quar, are ramping up for their fantasy game called Shieldwall. Sticking to the "whimsical characters in a gritty world" design philosophy, they kinda look like muppet vikings to me.

Right now the only models available are a preview set for the first faction, and I gather more minis for both them and the next faction are to follow sometime soonish, with rules and two more factions out sometime in the summer. They're fairly small, about hobbit-sized:

Elvorix Preview Pack

From the brief blurb about gameplay, it sounds like figures are ranked up into regiments (like WFB or any other number of fantasy games), but once two units meet casualties are grabbed from the front rank and the attacker has the opportunity to move into his victim's place. Kind of a cool mechanism that I haven't seen in a game before.

[Caiphas Cain]

That second link is broken. I love the artwork, but I'm not so sure about the models themselves. I'd have to see the bare metal first.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

That second link is broken.

Fixed!

I love the artwork, but I'm not so sure about the models themselves. I'd have to see the bare metal first.

Yeah, I really like the artwork too and while I think the minis are fun, I don't think they quite captured the same feel as the concept art. I can't quite put my finger on it - either way I'll probably be grabbing the skirmish pack to try them out. I think from what I've seen I like the look of the next faction, the Vidaar, a bit better so if I get into the game and build an army I'll probably hold off until those guys are available en masse.

[StygianBeach]

Looks good.. not sure if I like the idea of taking casualties from the front in a game that uses single models, might be a little annoying. I think this way is fine with systems that uses Stands (like DbM and Field of Glory).

It looks like its worth a try though.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Looks good.. not sure if I like the idea of taking casualties from the front in a game that uses single models, might be a little annoying. I think this way is fine with systems that uses Stands (like DbM and Field of Glory).

It looks like its worth a try though.

Yeah it's certainly an interesting idea. I don't have any experience with either DBA or Field of Glory so I've never played a game where casualties are taken from the front. I kind of like that it gives the player an interesting choice, though - rather than a straight-up war of attrition between two blocks of units to see who can whittle the other down first, you get the opportunity to break the opponent's line when you kill off a few of their front-rankers. If you don't move into the casualty's spot, I get the impression that one of his allies will move up into his place, so you have to weigh the cost of plunging into the mass of enemies against the benefit of potentially disrupting his formation.

Rules aren't due out until this summer (I think) so I don't have any first-hand experience with gameplay, but that's the general impression I get. If my local store (also happens to be the guys at Zombiesmith's local store) is carrying the skirmish pack then I'll probably pick it up next week when I'm in for a game. If not I'll have to wait a bit until I order something from them direct.

[StygianBeach]

With games that use Stands, removing casualties from the front is less annoying. Instead of having 1 figure on a 25mm square base, you have like 4 on a 50mm square base, so it is easier to remove 1 bigger stand, then 1 smaller base sorounded by other smaller bases.

If the model count is low in the game, this will be less of a problem of course.

[Morhgoz]

I actually like the idea, exspecialy if model count isn't very high. When the rules come out?

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Not sure on the model count, in the display case at my store there's a unit of 10 of the armored Elvorix ranked up in two rows of 5, and then some of the smaller guys not in formation to the side - maybe they're skirmishers. I would hazard to guess that that is not representative of the standard unit size, I'd guess they're a little larger than just 10 models, but I don't know for sure.

I think in contrast to the relatively small guys we've seen so far there are also going to be some considerably larger monsters, maybe troll/ogre sized, to bolster their ranks.

I believe the rules are due out sometime this summer, as well as larger ranges for the Elvorix and other armies (Vidaar are next, I presume, followed by two other factions that I don't know much about).

@StygianBeach - I can definitely see where pulling a bunch of individually-mounted figures from 20mm square bases when ranked up could be a bit fiddly, although from what I've seen of the minis based on their size it looks like they're not going to get in each other's way too much the way you often see with Warhammer figs (who can obviously be ranked up just fine in most cases, but often hang over one another's base enough to make casualty removal from anywhere but the back a nuisance). I'll be nabbing a preview pack tonight, and will let you know what I think of them later this week when I get to spend some time on the minis.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Well they didn't have any more preview packs, so I'll have to get some at some later point. I did get a glimpse of some of the as-yet unreleased minis, though, and the "monsters" are roughly ogre-sized, at least for the two factions I saw (still Elvorix and Vidaar).

The game also starts off with a "Roar Phase" where the two arms take turns clashing their weapons on shields, shouting, jeering, generals can duel (non-lethal), give speeches, etc. to generate "froth" which is a resource used later in the game to essentially break the rules (get a little extra movement, reform ranks, act out of turn, etc. - think Might from GW's LotR game).

I didn't ask about model count but knowing the guys developing the game, it's probably very much a "beer 'n' pretzels" game, so more-or-less as many or as few models as you like and they might not even have point values (the larger-scale quar game This Quar's War, with which this shares some basic mechanics, doesn't). Like any other melee-oriented rank'n'file type of wargame I'd think you'd want enough minis for at least a couple of units, and probably minimum 10ish models per unit. So at the low end maybe 30 models?

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Here's a nifty interview with Josh Qualtieri, HeadZombie at Zombiesmith, about his games in general. Talks a bit about War of Ashes towards the end:

Bring Your A Game Zombiesmith Interview

[StygianBeach]

Here's a nifty interview with Josh Qualtieri, HeadZombie at Zombiesmith, about his games in general. Talks a bit about War of Ashes towards the end:

Bring Your A Game Zombiesmith Interview

The movies on home made spin casting is pretty cool.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

The movies on home made spin casting is pretty cool.

Yeah I really enjoyed those.

Picked up my Elvorix preview pack just the other day and put them together. They are quite small and don't hang over the base so pulling them out from the top shouldn't be a problem. The only one that you need to really consider when ranking up is the guy with the pike. I suppose you could skew your swordsmen to one side and pikemen to the other, I just angled mine a bit so that the pike will go between the two swordsmen in front of him.

I'll post some top-down shots of ranking the figures up, and a comparison to some other minis, this evening if I get a chance.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Well real life's been busy, but here are those top-down shots showing the two ways I thought of to rank the figures up:





These are on standard 20mm square bases, so as you can see the minis are pretty small and really don't get in each other's way as far as ranking up/removing figures. When I glued mine down I just angled the pikeman, but you can see from the picture that it would probably work just as well to skew swordsmen to one side and pikemen to the other.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

One of the Elvorix's many enemies, the Vidaar (who I believe are a very warlike, inbred race of Elvorix) have also just been released as a preview pack:

Vidaar Skirmish Pack