I seem to have played two games of Wars of the Roses using Midgard this week, commanding the Lancastrians on both occasions! The first was a Battle of Wakefield 1460 game, which you can read a full picture report with orders of battle here.

The other was a visit to Boards and Swords Hobbies in Derby, where I introduced some new players to the game and laid some plans for our first Midgard event, due to be held there on Saturday 26th April 2025. Ian from BASH has also persuaded me and some chums to run Midgard games on Saturday 4th January – just drop in if you’d like to try the rules.

The Midgard Heroic Battles rulebook has been sent for a reprint, which is fab news less than a month after release.

Warbases have expanded their range of Midgard-related products with some custom raven dice and Killing Zone templates; thanks again chaps! (Please note that Warbases are now taking a well-earned break so you won’t be able to get these now till Jan 2025).

Lard Magazine 2024 has also made its appearance, being a PDF annual magazine from Too Fat Lardies. This year’s issue includes a scenario from John ‘What a Yorkshire Cowboy’ Savage based on the Fords of Isen from Middle-earth, as well as an article by myself on my thoughts for Midgard events.

And finally, my article and scenario to play Tolkien’s The Battle of Tumhalad has made its appearance in Minature Wargames magazine 501 this week.

Take care everyone!

UK/ USA/ Rest of World (non EU) customers can order from Reisswitz Press here.

EU customers can order from Karwansary Publishers here.

The rules will be released on November 18th 2024.

There are two official sets of Rulers & Tokens, detailed in the images below. First is a set of 3mm MDF measuring sticks and tokens which will be available from Reisswitz Press and are also included in bundles in the advance orders. These are only available in the one size (12 cm Spear Throw) as shown below. The outstanding art on these is by Handiwork Games, who also designed and illustrated the rulebook for that proper heroic battle feeling!

There are also STL files for 3D printing your own measuring sticks and tokens. These will be available from Reisswitz Press as STLs only from 18th November 2024. Being print files, they can be scaled up or down for different sized games. There will be an option to purchase the STLs for both personal and commercial use.

These were designed by me and then turned into STLs by the 3D wizard behind Reconquer Designs, whose superb miniatures also feature prominently in the rulebook!

Not only that, but the first official video has been released on the Too Fat Lardies YouTube channel. It’s already garnered 2.5k views in less than 24 hours, quite an achievement! Watch it here:

That’s all for now, but we’re expecting the next official video to drop tomorrow! All the best, James

On the cover, we see Raedwald, King of the East Angles in the first quarter of the 7th century, (representing the ‘Historical’ element) and Celtic Goddess Morrigan (pushing ‘Legend’ and ‘Fantasy’) – these two act as guides within the rulebook, offering advice to the would-be warrior and hero throughout its pages.

Behind them, the ‘Battle’ element is fully in progress in a mountain valley, with warriors facing off, a challenge to single combat being issued, and some fearsome beasts pushing their way out of the tales of myth and legend onto the battlefield.

Of course, in addition to Jon’s outstanding art, the whole thing is topped off by the awesome logo by Paul Bourne of Handiwork Games. Gentlemen, a heartfelt thank you to you both.

Midgard Heroic Battles is due to be published by Reisswitz Press in November 2024, with pre-orders going live soon.

Somehow the second Partizan show of the year has snuck up on us, so it’s time to show what I’ve been quietly working away on over the last six weeks. This is the biggest game that I think Morris & Chums have ever put on, with around 1500 28mm miniatures on a 12′ x 8′ L-shaped table. It’s part wargame, part art project, and I hope you enjoy it!

I reckon the project started when I was around 15, creating a large sculpture of the Battle of Five Armies at school, having been inspired by reading The Hobbit and playing Warhammer.

Sadly this clay artefact has been lost to the mists of time, but the idea remained, and was poked back into life by two things: reading The Hobbit graphic novel to my son (a joy) and then watching the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies with him (some fun bits but largely a travesty of JRRT, especially the Battle of Five Armies).

While browsing pics of Historicon 2021, I also came across a lovely game of the Battle of Five Armies by David Kujit. What struck me about this was the painted backdrop, immediately setting the scene for the battle, which planted the seed for our game.

The plan then went a step further as Middle-earth games became very popular within the Midgard Heroic Battles play test group and Dave Hunter – a bit of a Tolkien fan – joined and got involved with running games. We’re going to be playing the Midgard rules on a grand scale at the show, hopefully their final appearance before expected release by Reisswitz Press in November 2024.

From there. it was perhaps a slippery slope. I can’t remember what finally pushed the button, but it may have been James Deering from the play test group suggesting he come up to Nottingham and we put on a big Middle-earth game. Anyway, one day I woke up, and told myself that’s what we were going to put on at Partizan in October. And here we are.

I dropped a line to Simon Toey, well-known on the Facebook Wargaming in Middle-earth group for his cracking Tolkien miniature projects. I’m a huge fan of Simon’s style, where he combines classic metal and newer miniatures onto diorama-style bases with some conversion and stunning basing.

Not only did Simon agree to get involved, but he also added additional pieces to the collection to bring units up to size.

Simon’s dedication is demonstrated by his new Beorn model; we had a brief discussion about the original Reaper mini being a little small for the scale of battle that we had planned.

A few minutes later, he’d ordered up a new model and then set to work swapping heads and sculpting new fur as soon as it arrived. Following a quick suggesting from me about basing, and he was hard at work putting together Beorn’s goblin victims…

Other members of the group have also chipped in and we hope to have a veritable host of Goblins, Wolves, Dwarves, Elves and Lake Men to show you at the weekend!

An honourable mention needs to go to Sam Lancashire, who is pitching in with the hobbit himself, Mr Bilbo Baggins (wearing his magic ring, of course).

Dave Hunter and I sketched out the plan for the table with help from the Facebook group; I had an idea for an L-shaped table, leaving out the ruins of Dale but keeping in both spurs of the Lonely Mountain involved in the battle. With Dave’s expert Tolkien knowledge, we put together a possible battlefield that would also meet our gaming requirements and I built a maquette to test it out.

After several design changes, I got to work creating the battlefield. This is all work in progress at the moment – I’ll do a full photo game report once Partizan is over.

Colour schemes and designs were heavily influenced by Tolkien’s artwork for the book, as this was very much the inspiration for the game.

Anyway, I need to head off and finish the layout, so hope to see some of you at The Other Partizan on October 13th!

After many months of waiting, we’re delighted to be able to announce that Midgard Heroic Battles should be released in November 2024. Following several years of writing and play testing, we can’t wait to get it out to you.  Midgard Heroic Battles will be an all-in-one volume containing the rules (including flying creatures and sorcery), five scenarios, 12 sample Force lists and an appendix to allow you to create your own Heroes and Units.

Layout and art are currently being completed by the hugely talented Jon Hodgson (Beowulf Age of Heroes, The One Ring, Warhammer Ancient Battles, Dragon Warriors, Jon Hodgson Backdrops and many more) of Handiwork Games.  We are absolutely delighted to have Jon’s input on this project which has raised the presentation of Midgard Heroic Battles to another level and can’t wait to show it off nearer the time of release.   Stunning miniature photography by Pete Jenkins also accompanies Jon’s artwork.

Midgard Heroic Battles will be published by Reisswitz Press, who will be running pre-orders from their website in the run-up to release.  A dedicated Facebook group to support the game, administered by members of the playtest team, will be launched on Friday September 20^th 2024.

More details will follow as we have them. 

All the best

James Morris (mogsymakes.net)

Sunday 19th May saw myself, Tom, Pete, Andy and Martin crawl out of our beds far too early and get on the road to the awesome show that is Partizan at Newark Showground. Setting up on the edge of the Lard Zone, we put up our double-headed game format to promote my forthcoming Midgard Heroic Battles rules. It’s all very well telling people that your rules will work with any scale of miniatures, but it’s far better to show them!

So this time we had Trojan Wars in 6mm back-to-back with a battle from Tolkien’s Silmarillion in 28mm. This also neatly showcased the fact that Midgard can be used across the spectrum of historical, mythical and fantasy gaming.

Jon Hodgson (of Handiwork Games and Jon Hodgson Backdrops ) had kindly granted us permission to use two of his pieces as backdrops for the battles, so we had a lovely vista on both games.

Once I had micro-managed every single miniature and piece of terrain into its correct location, we had a quick team briefing and then got stuck into the games. While it’s fun to have two games on show, of course, it’s double the work for manning them, and we try to have games being played as well as being available to talk.

I played through several turns of the Silmarillion game with Pete and Andy in between chatting with everyone passing by, so the battle moved at a leisurely pace on my side of the table.

Tom and Martin took the Trojan Wars game so I apologise for the lack of photos of this – Tumhalad was taking up most of my attention!

I didn’t see the action develop in the Trojan Wars game but understand that Hector challenged Achilles to single combat, and found himself being dragged three times round the walls of Troy by his heels…

Back to the Battle of Tumhalad…the Orcs deployed on three sides of the battlefield, with the Elves of Nargothrond trapped with the River Ginglith to their backs.

Surrounded, the Elves elected to throw their archers forwards and harass the Orcs as they came on.

The game featured an Elven watch tower that had been taken over by Orcs and was now manned by their drummers creating an almighty racket!

Yet more Orcs arriving from the North!

Here we have some of the Peter’s Paperboys Orcs taking part in their first Midgard game. They said that they were worried about feeling a bit flat, but were soon made welcome and no-one mentioned their 2D qualities!

Although the Elven archery felled the front ranks of the Orcs, more came on and Glaurung breathed fire upon the Noldor.

Glaurung piled into the Elven ranks but the Elves held on for a minor victory, having more Reputation tokens in their goblet at the close of play. A few more turns might have settled it, but that’d best be played out at a club night rather than a show!

Thanks for all our helpers for today and especially everyone who came and chatted – I hope we have some Midgard news for you soon.

The Partizan show in May at Newark Showground is one of the gaming highlights of my year, and we usually get the Morris & Chums group together to put on a game or two.

Tom WD got us onto the cunning/ unhinged idea of displaying in two scales at once back in 2017 (where we ran the WW1 Battle of Oppy Wood in both 12mm and glorious 54mm), and it resurfaced last year when I put together a Midgard double-header of 28mm Norse Myth (The Rainbow Bridge) and 15mm Early Medieval (The Battle of Degsastan 603).

As the forthcoming Midgard Heroic Battles* is very flexible on figure scale and setting, it’s nice to be able to demonstrate it with two different periods and sizes on the same table. This year’s ‘smaller’ game is the Trojan War in 6mm, featuring Hector and Achilles duking it out in front of the walls of Troy on a 3 x 4′ layout.

*early caveat: the rules are still in layout and I’m waiting for news about release dates. Hopefully I’ll know more by Partizan.

This game is run with two 300 point Forces (the recommended starting size for a game of Midgard – you can read more about Force sizes and composition here).

These were as follows:

GREEK FORCE

Diomedes (Level 3 Major Hero, Army Commander)

Achilles (Level 4 Legendary Hero)

Patroclus (Level 2 Minor Hero)

5 Units of Spearmen (Warriors)

2 Units of Myrmidons (Warriors)

2 Units of Archers/ Slingers (Skirmishers)

2 Units of Chariots (Light Riders)

TROJAN FORCE

Hector (Level 3 Major Hero, Army Commander)

Aeneas (Level 2 Minor Hero)

Sarpedon (Level 2 Minor Hero)

Polydamas (Level 1 Champion)

4 Units of Spearmen (Warriors)

2 Units of Lycians (Warriors)

3 Units of Archers (Skirmishers)

2 Units of Chariots (Light Riders)

Heroes in Midgard Heroic Battles need Mighty Deed markers. For 28mm gaming, we place these by the side of the Hero miniatures on the table, but for smaller scales, it works well to have them recorded on a card at the side.

For our play test game, the Greeks (played by chum Martin) decided to go aggressive and sent everyone forward.

Achilles threw an early charge with his chariots at their Trojan opposite numbers; his momentum carried the Trojans away, but in a twist of fate, he was wounded by a javelin in the melee.

Trojan Hero Polydamas, son of Panthous, boldly led the remaining Trojan chariots into Achilles and found himself being challenged to single combat by the greatest warrior of them all. Polydamas didn’t wish to lose Reputation by turning down such an opportunity, despite the fact that it was likely to be a fatal honour!

However, the Gods were most certainly not with Achilles; cautiously holding back a couple of his Mighty Deeds for a future turn, the Greek Hero fluffed his (numerous) combat dice. With a mighty flourish – and some more fortunate dice – Polydamas dispatched the wounded Achilles with a sword thrust to the heel. This sent tremors through the Greek Force as the goblet of Reputation suddenly emptied – but was it half empty, or half full?

The Trojan right flank was crumbling – Sarpedon’s unit broke and ran, leaving the Lycian Hero high and dry! He was lucky to survive the attentions of the Achaean slingers…

Having lucked out and dodged the sling stones, Sarpedon did what any Homeric Hero would do and charged Patroclus’s spearmen. Naturally, a challenge was issued and accepted. The Heroes clashed shields before Sarpedon dispatched the luckless Patroclus with a spear thrust to the neck…’and darkness engulfed his eyes’, as Homer would have put it.

With this loss, the Greek goblet of Reputation was empty, and the game was over. The Achaeans began to flee back to their black ships, hotly pursued by the victorious Trojans.

We both enjoyed the game which could have gone either way, although the fateful loss of Achilles early in the battle paved the way for the Trojan chariots to encirlcle the Greek right flank.

We look forward to replaying the battle at Partizan!