I have recently been looking a lot more into paper model wargaming. My main rationale are the resources of time and finances. Although in an ideal world I want a stonking great fully painted army for wargaming, what I really want to do now is play games! I enjoy modelling and painting but not to the commitment level that is required to get an army fielded as quickly and to the extent that I want too.
That for the most part has been the reason my current miniature collection consists of the skirmish style or team games. This is not for lack of desire for epic scale wargaming. Many people I speak to have the same thoughts. One of my friends actively avoids miniatures games to some degree for that exact reason even though he was heavily into Warhammer and other games in his earlier years. He now sticks to card or tiles games generally cool little ones he's found on kickstarter.
This thought stream lead me to finding the following.......
The Three Plains
Epic Wargaming - Home Page
RulesI gave the rules a quick read myself and they are very extensive and detailed. However there is a lot to digest and finding an opponent willing to put the time in for a trial game may prove difficult. I found a good full review of the rules on The Shell Case: The Three Plains Rules Review
Whats Here Lots and lots and lots of free to use paper models. A full set of free rules, extensive resources and youTube videos of battle reports.
Free Model Downloads So There are currently a total of four full armies of paper models for free download: Elves, Men, Mercenaries and Orcs There appear to be more on the way including Dwarves and Summoners. The art is good quality and the variety is huge.
Overall Simply put a large amount of work has gone into this and it deserves major props to Epic Games and the creator Dave Scholes.
My Uses So why am I talking about Kings of War? So the rules for The Three Plains are free too and as I said they appear to be detailed, in-depth and well conceived. But I return to my previous point of "what I really want to do now is play games!". Do I invest the time in learning a new rule set (Yes) but I still need to find a friend who wants to learn the rules too. I know the rules for Kings of War, it is a quick game to get in to and also has the benefit of having a current large player base/community. I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem to field a paper army at my club while I build my model base. I do want to play The Three Plains (the lore reads nicely, blue magical orc hags!!) I just need to find me an opponent. What I really want is a precident set that paper models are a serious alternative for gamers to get into a rules system.
Any way let me know your thoughts.
Thanks for looking at my game Richard :)
ReplyDeleteAfter 2 years of game testing it's being updated to version 3, either this month or next.
The Herlanceians and Orcs have been updated to the new rules and will be released with it. The Elves and Mercenaries of Many will follow afterwards. I will also work on the Dwarfs at the same time.
Because each of the game testers (or my mates) have a dog in this fight too, they want to develop their armies for the game, which are the Drackin (Orge sides Dragon-man) and the Restless (Undead with a twist).
Thanks for posting about Three Plains and spreading the word to your readers.
Take care
Dave
Cheers mate, the work you guys have put in is simply incredible. I will definitely try to push it at my local club who are heavily historical battle based. they will probably want to use minis (because they have them).
DeleteCan't wait for V3, ever thought about kickstarter?
Thanks, and it's great you're pulling it out there for us :)
ReplyDeleteI have thought about Kickstarter, but I couldn't justify it for V3, as it's all nearly done now. I might think about it in the future for little projects, like creating new Army Lists or paying for professional artists to create what I call art filler, as it's all done by me at the moment.This would save time and make the game look better too.
I do have a Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/DaveTheWargamer?ty=h, and this helps us with the costs of running the site.
Once the game is done, would you be interested in getting an early revue copy before it would be released?
Early copy for review test sounds like fun. I will try to get the guys at my some people at my club to test it out and coerce my other mates.
DeleteIs there going to be a new youtube video for V3?
Great stuff :) and well yes and yes.
ReplyDeleteI was going to make a video of our first Ever Siege Game, but as you can imagine they are totally new rules and will need a lot of work.
After that we plan to start up game testing the Elves again to bring them up to speed with the new rules.
However, some have suggested I should make a little play through video of the rules to make it easier for beginners to get into. So that could be something I could work on.
If you could email me by following this link that would be great and then I could email you back with a link to the new rules when they are done:
http://epicwargaming.com/contacting-epic/
Because you asked when I was going to release my next video, well here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nCOx1aPaoo&feature=youtu.be
ReplyDeleteAre you still interested in doing a review of the new rules?
Just to let your readers now that Three Plains V3 is out http://epicwargaming.com/
ReplyDeleteJust to let your readers know that Three Plains V3 is out http://epicwargaming.com/
ReplyDelete(Apologies for the naff spelling before, and if you want to correct it or edit that would be great)