Tales & Tactics

In this episode of Tales & Tactics: Beyond the Book , we dig into how to start a new time period, setting, or subject in tabletop gaming, especially within miniature wargaming. We get into choosing models you actually enjoy working with, matching rules and scope to the kind of stories you want to tell. Managing time, money, space commitments, and reusing collections across multiple systems, all get explored. We range from Dark Age campaigns and WWII platoon games to RPGs, solo skirmish systems, and how to “tentpole” a local gaming community without burning yourself out.

In this week's episode of Rules as Written, we cover Close Quarters Battles: Waterloo from Lock 'n Load Publishing, a small-unit tactical wargame designed by Andrew Glenn that brings one of history's most investigated battles down to the ground level. Rather than placing players in the role of Wellington or Napoleon surveying the field from a command post, Close Quarters Battles zooms in on the desperate and ferocious fighting around the fortified farms of La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont. We discuss how the game's elegant rules, presented with exceptional clarity and backed by top notch production values, manage to make Napoleonic small-unit tactics like formations, morale, fatigue, command and control feel accessible and authentically weighted.

In this week's episode of Beyond the Book, we dig into the nasty bits: why a villain has to be genuinely vile before stopping them means anything, why a setting needs real shadows before it feels like a real place, how much ugliness a game can carry before the fun gives out, and why playing the monster at the table doesn't make you one away from it. Along the way we try to draw the line between darkness that gives a story its weight and darkness that's only there to shock. Because the uncomfortable truth is that the games we love are only as good as the things in them we hate.

In this week's episode of Rules as Written, we dig into Fairy Meat. In 2000, the publishers of Knights of the Dinner Table put out a wargame about fairies, the cute, glittery, storybook kind, with one twist: they've all become cannibals. The miniatures are life size, the battlefield is your kitchen table, a forest preserve, or the food court at the mall, and every battle runs on an ordinary deck of playing cards. It sounds like a joke, So why does it play like somebody meant it? How a deck of poker cards replaces every die, why fairies eat their fallen friends mid battle and what it does for them, and the rulebook that lists a fictional character as its co-creator. Come for the butterfly winged butchery, stay for the sneaky clever game hiding under the glitter and gore.

In this episode of Tales & Tactics Beyond the Book, we tackle a question that sits at the heart of every hobbyist’s collection. What actually ages a game? We explore whether it is the mechanics themselves that date a design, as newer systems offer more refined or efficient solutions to the same problems, or whether a game’s age is better measured by the moment its developer withdraws support, leaving rules questions unanswered and supplements unpublished. We also examine the powerful role a dedicated community plays in keeping a game alive long past any commercial lifespan, through house rules, fan supplements, active forums, and sheer collective enthusiasm. As games like Crossfire demonstrate, a design can remain vital decades after publication with no second edition in sight. Ultimately, we land on the conclusion that age in tabletop gaming is not an objective condition but a deeply personal one and whether a game has aged out is a question only you, the player, can answer for yourself.

In this episode of Tales & Tactics, our Rules as Written series covers Crossfire, the 1996 company level World War II miniatures game designed by Arty Conliffe. Born from a challenge issued at Historicon in 1995 to design a historical miniatures wargame without two features present in most rulesets (rulers and fixed game turns), Crossfire remains one of the most distinctive and quietly radical designs the hobby has ever produced. Rather than traditional turn based play, Crossfire plays with an initiative system where a player may order troops in any way across movement, fire, and rally actions in any order, continuing to do so until one of his actions fails. At this moment, initiative passes to the opponent. Units advance in realistic tactical bounds from terrain feature to terrain feature, with no arbitrary units of measurement, and everything that can be seen can be shot at which makes terrain selection and table density critical to the game’s function. Thirty years on, Crossfire feels less like a period piece and more like a design ahead of its time, asking deep questions about infantry command, suppression, and tactical momentum.

In this week's episode of Beyond the Book, we discuss the early introduction of the role playing hobby to Japan. With titles such as Traveller and Dungeons & Dragons being translated and even works of Tolkien being introduced in the 60's showcasing western fantasy to a new audience. The gamebook boom that taught a million readers how dice and stats work, the computer magazine commission that accidentally invented the actual play genre. It is a story about how a genre gets imported and about how much of what feels native was assembled by a handful of people who already knew each other.

In this week's episode of Rules as Written, we dig into Sword World 2.5's Power Table and its runaway criticals, its faction based combat, its firmly centralized GM authority, and party roles gated so tightly the rulebook explicitly closes the loopholes you might reach for. We also trace what survived from the 1989 original which turns out to be most of the arithmetic and almost none of the combat engine. Japan's best selling roleplaying game for thirty five years is a study in how much structure a system can impose while still calling itself welcoming.

In this Beyond the Book companion to our Repent! Ye Foolish Gods episode, we look at how roleplaying games and wargames borrow from each other, going both ways. First we ask whether you should bring miniatures to your RPG table. Models make positioning, line of sight, and area effects clear, cut down on rules arguments, and look great on the table. But they also cost time and money to collect and paint, they can slow play down, and they can make a loose, freeform game feel more rigid. Then we flip it around and spend the second half on adding RPG ideas to wargames and their campaigns. Using the ongoing warband progression from Repent! as our example, we talk about named characters who build up a history, injuries and losses that stick, earning experience and improving your fighters, and the story a group gains as it carries its scars from one battle to the next. We close on how a good campaign lets players go from just playing a ruleset to telling their own story with it.

In this episode of Rules as Written, we dig into Repent! Ye Foolish Gods, the 2026 skirmish game from Snarling Badger Studios by Adam Loper and Vincent Venturella, in which a four model warband of cursed and discarded mortals fights its way up the divine hierarchy with the goal of killing a god. We break down the roll under D12 engine, the Supremacy and Deficiency mechanic that drives most tactical decision making, and a warband construction process that pairs six Septs against six warrior archetypes with genuine roster legality constraints. We spend most of our time on the campaign layer, where an escalating Extolment score governs enemy density and gates access to harder content, and where a six tier enemy AI system carries the solo and co-op play that the game treats as its default mode. We follow the progression loop through raid generation, the injury and death table, and the experience economy, up to the three stage endgame ladder of Legendary Monster, God’s Vanquisher, and finally the god itself.

In this Beyond the Book discussion, we explore the role of crunch in tabletop gaming. We discuss why some of the hobby's most beloved games are also its most complex, what makes players embrace or reject heavy rulesets, and how designers balance realism, depth, accessibility, and player engagement. Whether you love lightweight narrative games or thousand page rulebooks, we tackle one of tabletop gaming's oldest debates: when are the rules worth the complexity, and when are they simply too much?

In This week's Rules as Written episode, we dig into BattleTech: A Time of War's detailed character creation, sprawling skill system, tactical combat, and tendency toward troupe style play. We explore a functional and ambitious RPG whose greatest strength and greatest weakness may be the same thing: its determination to provide rules for nearly everything. A Time of War sets out to let you play almost anyone in the Inner Sphere, from MechWarriors and mercenaries to spies, nobles, technicians, and traders. But in trying to model an entire universe while remaining compatible with the BattleTech tabletop wargame, does it become too complicated for its own good?

In this episode of Tales & Tactics: Beyond the Book, we step back from any single title to take a broader look at the tabletop industry in our Wide World of Games discussion. We examine the growing influence of live play shows and roleplaying media on the hobby and how actual plays and streaming content have brought an enormous wave of new players to the table, while also instilling habits and expectations that don’t always serve the game well at home. We also consider the accelerating digitalization of what has always been an analogue hobby, from tools like D&D Beyond to digital character builders and virtual tabletops, and what is gained and lost when the physical experience moves to a screen. From there we explore the ongoing conversation around new editions of beloved games and what they mean for existing communities, whether they represent genuine evolution or commercial necessity, and the role players themselves play in shepherding a game’s identity and longevity through edition changes. We also dig into our design philosophy as hosts, making the case for rules and systems that generate meaningful, consequential outcomes at the table rather than leaning on GM fiat to paper over mechanical gaps.

In this special 100th episode of Tales & Tactics, our Rules as Written series turns to the world’s most played tabletop roleplaying game: Dungeons & Dragons 2024, the significant revision to fifth edition released by Wizards of the Coast as part of the game’s 50th anniversary. Our verdict is one of measured appreciation but honest critique that D&D 2024 is a polished, accessible, and a well organized game, but in striving to be everything to every player and every genre, it ultimately commits to nothing. Its mechanics are fundamentally heroic in nature, and that creates real friction when players attempt to bend the system toward darker, grittier, or more grounded settings. A game with stronger design convictions and one willing to plant its flag in a specific tone and theme would be a better game for it.

In this episode of Tales & Tactics Beyond the Book, We ask one of tabletop design’s oldest questions, how do you capture the chaos and decisiveness of close combat at the table? Inspired by the charge and shock mechanics of GMT’s Men of Iron: Norman Conquests, we explore how wargames and roleplaying games have approached this challenge from fundamentally different angles. From the momentum driven charge tables of hex and counter wargames to the action economy of d20 systems, the granular sword fight simulations of Rune Quest and WHRP, we examine what each design philosophy reveals about what close combat actually is in action; a physical contest, a psychological breaking point, or a dramatic moment. Along the way we ask why morale, arguably the decisive factor in real close combat, remains the thing most games handle least confidently.

In this episode of Rules as Written we ride into the age of Norman expansion with Men of Iron: Norman Conquests from GMT Games. Covering battles from Civitate in 1053 to Evesham in 1265, the game explores the rise of the Normans and the military legacy they left across Europe. We examine the Men of Iron system's approach to command, activation, shock combat, morale, and battlefield momentum, and discuss how these mechanics capture the realities of medieval warfare while remaining fast and approachable. Does Norman Conquests successfully model the tactics and leadership challenges of the Norman era? Join us as we take a close look at the rules and ask: How well do the rules model the history?

In this episode of Beyond the Book, we look at a growing trend in tabletop gaming: the rise of the "vibe game." From art punk RPGs and rules light indies to beautifully designed passion projects, vibe games prioritize mood, aesthetic identity, and emotional experience over complex mechanical systems. But where is the line between elegant minimalism and incomplete design? At what point does a game stop providing procedures and start relying on GM fiat, player assumptions, and cultural expectations to fill in the gaps? We examine what defines a vibe game, why they have become so popular, and how they compare to more procedurally robust systems like B/X Dungeons & Dragons, and other classic designs. Along the way, we explore the relationship between aesthetics and mechanics, whether strong vibes can compensate for weak structure, and why some games thrive as inspirational toolkits while others succeed as complete gameplay ecosystems. Are vibe games a new evolution in RPG design, or are they outsourcing game design to the people at the table?

In this episode of Rules as Written, we dive into MÖRK BORG, PIRATE BORG, Forbidden Psalm, and the rise of the modern “vibe game.” These visually striking indie RPGs helped define a new era of tabletop design built around mood, aesthetic identity, and fast improvisational play. But beneath the doom metal art, apocalyptic prophecy, and brutal minimalism lies a major design question: how much procedural game structure is actually there? We examine MÖRK BORG’s mechanics, themes, and OSR roots, discuss why PIRATE BORG may be the strongest and most complete version of the formula, and explore how Forbidden Psalm adds the kind of tactical and campaign scaffolding many Borg style games lack. Along the way, we ask whether these games are streamlined masterpieces of minimalist design, or whether they rely too heavily on GM fiat and inherited play culture to carry the experience.

In this episode of Beyond the Book, we dive into what happens when players must commit to plans before the action begins. From classic hex and counter simulations of naval warfare and air force games to the game Diplomacy of 1959 and more modern board games, pre planning systems force players to think like real commanders. Orders are written, actions are locked in, and once the turn begins, events unfold simultaneously. We explore how simultaneous activation changes the psychology of play compared to traditional I go You go systems, why hidden planning creates uncertainty and friction, and how different games handle the challenge of prediction, initiative, and command control.

In this episode of Tales & Tactics, our Rules as Written series covers Talon from GMT Games, a tactical sci-fi fleet combat game pitting the human Terran Confederation against the alien Talon Empire across a series of ship to ship engagements. We discuss how the game’s impulse based turn structure creates a tense and interleaved flow of action that will feel familiar to veterans of Starfleet Battles, while remaining accessible enough to bring new players into the fold. We also highlight one of Talon’s smartest design decisions in placing all essential game information directly on the counters themselves, keeping the action on the table and the rulebook on the shelf. Clean, tactical, and rewarding, Talon earns its place as one of the more elegant entries in the space combat wargame genre.