My first game of CHAINMAIL: Battle of Emridy Meadows

[The Bibliophile]

In my imagination, Chainmail has always been that shadowy precursor to Dungeons & Dragons that I was both intrigued by yet leery of. I loved the idea of a game involving mass battles in a fantasy setting akin to those depicted in the The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but I also had a sense that Chainmail, released in 1971 a mere year after I was born, was likely a clunky wargame that would be too frustrating to bother mastering. It also didn't help that my first inkling of its existence was around 1980 or so when I could never dream of amassing the miniature armies needed to play out these massive conflicts. No, back then I was pretty sure Chainmail was the province of grizzled old grognards who had started wargaming before I was even born.

Lucky for me, I finally got the chance to try the game out, thanks to my pal Keith Sloan, who plans to run it at Gary Con this March. He needed some playtesters, and I leapt at the chance to see what I've been missing all of these years.

And to make it all the cooler, he's recreating a battle only alluded to by Gary Gygax in the World of Greyhawk supplement, The Battle of Emridy Meadows, in which the forces of good have it out with the cultists and their evil allies from the Temple of Elemental Evil.

Lots of photos and my experiences with the game at my blog, Scrum in Miniature: https://miniaturescrum.blogspot.com/2020/01/chainmail-battle-of-emridy-meadows.html















Many more photos and my experiences with the game at my blog, Scrum in Miniature:  https://miniaturescrum.blogspot.com/2020/01/chainmail-battle-of-emridy-meadows.html

[pixelgeek]

That is a heck of a lot of 25mm minis! Looks like it was a lot of fun.

[jambo1]

What a super looking game, lovely loads of great looking figures, superb!!!

[Nordic1980s]

A good looking game with nice scenery! This is how a great looking fantasy wargame ideally looks like: realistic scenery with natural colours, rank and file made of classic fantasy archetypes with metal painted as metal, horn as horn, wood as wood and so on - I even like the basing style and the gaming cloth used. Thanks for sharing the pictures.

One detail other fantasy wargaming rules could loan from Chainmail are the rules for surrendering, taking prisoners and escaping prisoners during the combat.

[Mister Frau Blucher]

Really cool! I love seeing all the old lead. Great painting on those old boys!

[Commander Carnage]

Fantastic, I would love to play in a game like that. If only Scrum Con wasn't so far away.

[The Bibliophile]

If anybody is interested in playing this game, I know Keith will be running it at Gary Con this year!