Kublacon 2019: Breaking Lances

I ran a couple of games at Kublacon this year, one of them was a Breaking Lances tournament. I had 10 players over all, with a real mix of ages and backgrounds.  The rules are easy to learn so everyone got stuck in quick and started charging down the coourses to create much havoc- which they did!

My nephew, this being his first convention ever attended, won the tournament and was crowned Champion. All in all there were great stories to be told over the bar/ coffee counter afterwards.

Breaking Lances will come out as a Kickstarter in the fall- in the mean time I do have some of the knights up for sale on my Skullncrown store, and will send out beta copies of the rules if you email me about it.

Cheers!
Ths

Breaking Lances: A Grail Knight and Joe Con

"grail knight" mounted and foot versions

Breaking Lances at Joe Con!

This weekend I had the privileged to run a breaking lances tournament at Joe Con, a 3 day convention my pal Joe puts on at his house. One of the great things about the con is all the faced I may not have seen throughout the year, many of them fellow SCA members (although I've been inactive for about 15 years now).

The Tournament table set up with great bayeux backdrop. Note foot combat area in the fore

So with the latest version of the rules cleaned up, I set up a table or 8 players but quickly expanded it to 10 players as the crowds demanded more action!  The other big thing we did was to give the foot combat rules a real shakedown.

Another view of the field, knights at the ready

Action commences! After the first couple of runs, the cheat sheets went away.

I unfortunately didn't take any pictures of the foot combat in action- but I had all 4 fighters participating, all were SCA fighters and at least one was a knight! This providing for great "feel and pace" feedback. And also, a few good laughs! Thanks guys!

Josh tries his hand role playing Sir Brion Beletrix.

 Rules wise, I think that they are all ready to go, sans some editing work, and adding in stuff like a better crit chart for foot combat, and how to run a tournament. My durrent goal is to set this off as a Kickstarter in Q2 of 2019. Fingers crossed.

Grail Knight 

This is a new design I finally had a chance to finish painting, as I needed 4 foot knights for the playtest. The color choices were inspired by Alan Lee's painting the blue knight, where He uses a great contrast in colors. In Watercolor! The man is a constant inspiration!

Alan Lee, The Blue knight

Different shots, on grey background. I need to build a bigger lightboxc

Well, that wraps up 2018!

What's on the docket for 2019?   stay tuned blog followers, and may you all have a wonderful, prosperous and happy new year!

Breaking Lances: Birthday Party Tournament

The Breaking of Lances!

Party!

This weekend was my eldest's birthday party- the theme being tournament. Mrs Foss, known for her award winning cakes did the boyo proud, and I ran a breaking lances tournament for everyone. A good time had by all.

The cake! Anyone guess the Coat of Arms?

Yes, that is some thick 70% chocolate ganache!

Children for scale. That cake could feed 30! (and will)

the tournament set up. We had 10 players, rotating out on different fields.

A squire's eye view of the action!

The night before...

The mad scramble!

I found out the night before how many young knights would be attending- so I scrambled over to the painting table to fill in some gaps. I didn't get them all done in time, but actually got enough done for everyone to have a knight.  I'll be finishing these up this week and will get some good snaps.

Say- when can we play the game?!!!

Fair question. I've been play testing and working on the rules over a year now, running tournaments at home, club, conventions and even drive by's at friends houses.  During that time I've been designing new knights and fiddling tuning gaming pieces like the tilting trays and jousting fence.  I'm happy to say that the rules are in second final layout stage and only need new photos added, and a bit more editing.  At this point I'm being "convinced" by my colleagues to do a kickstarter for Breaking Lances, which will probably happen in the early spring, after my Triumph of Death II- KS.

Breaking Lances on the run- Testing at House Dallimore

Sir Treadaway gloats over his victory, unawares that Kev has called in the Daleks

In the mean time I do have a few of the knights on my store for folks, and to test the waters. I'll also be running a tournament at Kublacon in the Bay area later this year.

Breaking Lances: Dundracon Tournaments

A few knights getting in warm up passes before the tournament

Tournaments Ho!

All the knights ready for action.

This past Saturday I ran a 10 person tournament using my somewhat soon to be published Breaking Lances rules at Dundracon game convention. It was well attended with over 18 players signing up! This is a real coup, as DDC is mostly a role playing and board game con, with lots of LARPing going on around and in between.

Folks from the Society of Creative Anachronism in garb playing- Cool!

A grand shot of all the ponies!

A shot with yours truly explaining the rules

Great shot of knight, Plotting shield, and Tilting tray for tracking "won" dice

With the amount of players I kept the first rounds single elimination, with a couple of players held back for bi rounds and outlyers. Everyone got the rules in the first course of their jousts, and I think fun was had by all.

Our Tournament winner! 

I totally forgot to get the name of the winning knight- no doubt some noble that was slumming at my tourney, but remember he won with a score of 6 points higher over all than the 2nd place opponent.

Sunday's Tourney

As Saturday's tournament went so well, and there were many that did not get to play, I opened up the lists for Sunday as well. This table had 3 jousting runs, and cycled through 12 players in all.

Sir Brion- Sunday's tournament winner

When can I play Breaking Lances?

Good question!  This tournament weekend proved to me that not only are the rules working, and the added layers of complexity (such as the optional "flourish" rule) can be added or subtracted with  no hitches, but that folks actually want their own knights and set ups. The only changes that came from the weekend was a clarification on a "Favor" you can win, and upping the crit severity when you get really bonked on the head.  Yay!

I had a lot of folks as if I was going to make this a kick starter. That would make a lot of sense and get good press, but I think that I'm for now just going to get it ready for launch on my webstore. The rules are now in the hands of my editors, and I have enough toys to take good pictures for the rules, so now it's really a matter of time on getting all the ducks in a row. Luckily most of this part is out of my hands, as my Triumph of Death Kickstarter coming out soon, causing a bit of juggling of my time

So, stay tuned, if you really can't wait for a release I'm happy to sell you sets of Breaking Lances ( I sold 11 "pre-launch" sets at Dundracon), send you a beta version layout of the rules  and post you the real set when they come out. just ping me and let me know.


More Pictures of Dundracon!

For lots more pictures of Dundracon, including more of my game and an awesome refight of Pickett's charge, swing on over to my pal Jay's Wargaming Madness Blog


As always, I look forward to your feedback
Cheers

Breaking Lances: Knights WIP

I generally paint the arms then assemble, but you don't have to.

 A Day for Knights

Busy holiday week, but I did find some time to redesign the tilting fences and then start work on a few more knights.

I didn't get a shot of the fences yet, but they fit together better with easy set up and take down. More on that in the next blog.

The blue fellow in the above pic is inspired by this page out of the Codex Manesse.  I'm working on a few more helmet crest and shield variants, and will have 12- 15 ready at launch.

 For those of you with the decerning eye, you can see some actual metal and resin minis lamenting in the wings. In particular some fantastic Halfmen goat knights from Westfalia Miniatures, and a couple of awesome French foot knights from Claymore Castings.  Highly recommend both!

Breaking Lances

       "I remember my first joust. It looks far worse than it feels!"
            ~Sir Ector

54mm wooden knights are about to smack down!

So... this is a thing...

I actually started making knight Wooden models about 2 years ago as an idea for Christmas ornaments, which got me started noodling with some rules ideas, but  then put it down for other had multiple requests for jousting rules, got the itch and started the project back up again. The big push was I  had a deadline for my friend Drew Williams D&D game that needed a tournament; nothing like a deadline, eh?   Behold- Breaking Lances!

A custom piece with the arms of a friend in the SCA

Breaking Lances

Breaking Lances is a quick playing set of jousting rules, recreating the fast paced and awe inspiring engagements of knights charging at each other with lances couched, shields up, and horses thundering down the field.

 These rules are an attempt to capture the quick moment to moment reactions timing and counter reactions needed to get your lance on point to gain glory by breaking lances on your opponent, and possibly dismounting him.  All for the glory and honor of the joust! Or the favor of a damsel; or the ransom money- those are good too!

 

Early version activation placards  show hit locations when lances are crossed!

 Scoring jousts in medieval times (and later) had a set of standards for scoring.  Geoffroi de Purelli is credited with writing a manuscript detailing the rules of jousting during medieval times. He wrote it in the year 1066. Purelli later died during a joust. Tournaments basically made their own rules. Thus, the weapons or styles of combat may vary from one tournament to another. Knights adapted depending upon which tournament they were participating in. As history has given precedent, in Breaking Lances, in order to get a more “game play” feel of the action, I have foregone the standard lists scoring system and embellished a bit.  

A Breaking Lances tournament playtest.

After each player plots, they move in for the hit!

These rules are designed to be played at “convention level “meaning that you can pick them up, learn them very quickly and get stuck in (pun intended) the game. The more you play, or the better you know your opponent, the more bragging rights you will have.  Breaking Lances also features a tournament system that allows players to win favors, and gain skills and fame.

The trumpets sound. Mount your horse, check your feet in the stirrups, grab your lance and off you go!

 

Designs are inspired by old manuscripts, in particular the Codex Manesse

From the Codex Manesse

The Models

Like all of my Wooden soldiers, I look to the period I'm doing and the art of that time to inspired the look. In the case of knights I have a really rich source in the Codex Manesse. Scores of awesome "portraits" of knights on their horses, including barding, heraldry, colors and Crests.  

After playing around with a few scales, I landed on 54mm to be the most rewarding. It has a great table top presence, the detail comes out nicely, and the jousting run needed fits on any table top nicely for games. 

views of both sides of the knights. The lance is adjustable

Currently the models are 5 pieces including the base. I'm looking to release these with a "heraldry" sheet similar to my Galleys Guns and Glory! flag sheets, where you can cut out the painted shield, checkered stripes, smaller shields to decorate the Caparison barding, etc. 

Well, that's quite a bit of blathering. My goal is to have these, the rules and everything you need to play on sale, come December. 

Cheers!

UPDATE

Totally forgot to post a picture of the winner, Sir Ryon of levitt! He won a Wooden knight, and of course, bragging rights!