Bloodbeards - Guilders: A Life In Shadows - Development blog

[Bloodbeard]

My main shop for any kind of supplies is King Games and I always back their Dunkeldorf Kickstarters. Absolutely amazing miniatures. When I got these Peakock Inn miniatures I had no plans for them at all, but with Guilders they have a use. I use them mostly as terrain in the city or as patron in the Tavern Brawl scenario.

The different scatter pieces and furniture are from all over the place: King Games, Mantic, resin pieces unknown board game stuff.

When I painted these guys, I really tried to make as many different colors as possible. To make the miniatures look even more different from eachother.

More photos on my blogspot.

Old Sailer


Peasant


Hunter and Courtesan


Scribe


Merchant


Ratcatcher


Halfling


Lady


Druid




These photos are not taht good. Taken in bad lighting, seems it's all we get in Denmark during the winter. But the miniatures are very nice. The was makes them really shiny in the lighting.

[Bloodbeard]

 Here's a nice little piece I put together. It's a butcher from Dunkeldorf and his resin meat rack. Decided to put the Mantic Games terrain crate market stall as well. I really wish there was a pack with only these, but I don't think the Market Place kit is that well packed. So I might end up building more myself, should be easy enough.

There's also some coming with the Dungeons and Lasers KS I'm waiting on.

I had suprisingly many different meat bits in the bit box, from various warhammer kits I suppose. Beastmen and ogres mostly, but I'm unsure. Added those and some knives to the market stall, it already had sausages hanging in it.

I would love to have a full market at some point. Lots of stalls with different themes in them. Different colors on them all as well. Would be perfect for Guilders.

[Burgundavia]

Reading through the rules - they look really interesting and I'm always a sucker for another skirmish ruleset. Shall have to try it out soon

[Bloodbeard]

Reading through the rules - they look really interesting and I'm always a sucker for another skirmish ruleset. Shall have to try it out soon

That would be awesome! You spend too much time on a ruleset you get blind about bad stuff. So if you find anything really tricky, then please share it.

If you're on Discord check out this server. There's a good deal of activity there.

[Burgundavia]

That would be awesome! You spend too much time on a ruleset you get blind about bad stuff. So if you find anything really tricky, then please share it.

If you're on Discord check out this server. There's a good deal of activity there.

Just joined and absolutely I hear you about being too close to something. Right now not doing in person gaming due to the case count, but once we get back will try it out with my usual group

[Bloodbeard]

Guilders - Royal Guard and Crossbowmen
 In Guilders: A Life In Shadows the last tier of guards to enter the conflict is the Royal Guards. These guys are extremely deadly for the players. They're wearing heavy armor, shields and have a high fight stat. These guards are better fighters than even many experienced player characters. They are however slow in their armor and cannot climb after guilders.

The best thing is to avoid causing so much Alarm that these start to enter (Overall Alertness hitting 30). We've only experienced it a few crazy games where we were very violent. Almost all characters are able to outrun the Royal Guards, so the trick is to not get cornered by them.

You will very rarely need a lot of Royal Guards. I've painted up my Basilean leader types from Kings of War: Vanguard to use as these. They look might imposing. At some point I'll revisit the banner and add a few lion stencils or a golden free hand lion.





Almost all scenarios in Guilders start with a few ranged combat guards on the board. These are often placed on roof tops and can provide a lot of trouple for the guilders. Shooting attacks can be very deadly, especially if a character is all in the open with no cover. In that case the modifiers will quickly boost the ranged guard a lot.

I made my guys with some Perry Miniatures European Mercenaries. The crossbow bits are from different GW sets I think. All the helmets are old Brettonian men-at-arms helmts. I wanted to make the shooters stand out a bit, that's why I picked different helmet types for these guys.

[Bloodbeard]

Youtube Video of TTCombat buildings
Making videos is not my favorite medium to work with, I don't have a dedicated studios space - so it's a bit up hill.

None the less I tried making some video about a few TTCombat pieces I've done. Don't think I can insert them directly. So jump in to watch it.

The Build

Roof and Timberframe

The kit is simple and quickly build. It has some decent burned detail timberframe, but I'll cover that with plaster.

The first thigns done is simple timberframing with coffee stirrers and popsickle sticks. The roof is made from strips of cardbaord with small cuts. Never do individual roof tiles, it's a stupid amount of work. But these strips are very quick to could and stronger when glue in place.

The top part of the roof is made with a broad piece of cardbaord, as I want a 1cm flat surface on the top. This was fixed in place with a bit of greenstuff. Great addition, as it'll allow chracters to stand on the roof.


Stonework, walkways and plaster
I' want ground floors in stone on all my buildings. For this I've used two diffent thickness of cardboard. On the corners of the building I've used the thickest made sure there was 0,5mm space between them, for a better drybrush and wash effect.

Then added a few stones here and there on the walls.


Added some walk ways on both sides of the building, again for better skirmish game playability. Drilled holes through the house and added some beams from bbq skewers. On this I added some thin mahogany boards, scavanged from the local hardware store. Could have used some coffeee stirrers as well.

The plaster is pre-mixed wood filler with added wood glue for extra strength. Just add it with an old brush you don't mind dying.


Painted up
A lot of the work is done with spray paint. Grey on the ground floor, red on roof, with on first floor. Everything else is then painted with cheap acryllic paints. For the stones I mix as I go to get different tones on the build.

The entire build is washed in homemade brown wash - thinned cheap brown and dish soap. On the white parts I paint on wash then soak up most of it with a piece of cloth. The plaster makes it's easy to do a drybrush on the building, getting a better color on the build.

I've made ivy with some old saw dust flock and added a ton of Army Painter flowers to the different windows. Smoke for the chimney is made with teddy bear stuffing glued down with super glue.






Linktree
I've setup a Linktree, a quick way to collect all the social media links together. Check it out and drop some support on the various places.

[Bloodbeard]

Guilders - A Life In Shadows 1.44 beta released today.
Download here.

In this version there multible grammar fixes. There's added a lot of RPG content to the campaign part. The Roam the City entries are growing. There should be enoug for multible games without getting the same results.

Roam the City is part of the original ideas / motivations when coming up with Guilders. Part of the 'after game action' should be exploring the city, so not all the story is told through the scenarios.

It's coming along nicely - and it's rather massive. But I like it. So far 20 enties (of 90) written, with multible choices and dice rolling in most of them.

What's left to do?
Lots of solo testing - but that is haltered by some very real life challanges with room for testing. I would really like to film it will going, to make some videos at the same time.

Grind Writing - getting the rest of the Roam the City entires written.

Then it's time to learn editing, setting up a book and getting some artwork for the book.

Download here.

SoMe
I've setup a linktree for all me SoMe in regards to Guilders and Bloodbeard's Garage. Linktree

[NotifyGrout]

I'm trying to stay focused on my current Warzone project, but I am interested in these rules and will download them and take a look 

[Burgundavia]

Excited to try this out with my group once I have some urban terrain built

[Golgotha]

Loving the atmospheric setting really helps make the miniatures come alive. One can certainly imagine what sort of characters they may well be so perfect for fantasy - well done.

[Bloodbeard]

I'm trying to stay focused on my current Warzone project, but I am interested in these rules and will download them and take a look 

That's awesome to hear. Have a look. Please share any thought and feedback you might have. The more input the better the end game.

Excited to try this out with my group once I have some urban terrain built

Awesome. Yeah, I bought a ton of MDF and build it all to have a play area. Then the paiting will come more slowly. Papercraft might also be an okay option. Though it will limit the climbing on roof top bit.

Loving the atmospheric setting really helps make the miniatures come alive. One can certainly imagine what sort of characters they may well be so perfect for fantasy - well done.

Thanks. I'm not that good at photos and only have a phone. So a bit of backdrop really adds a lot to the miniatures.

[Bloodbeard]

 I continue to dabble a bit in video editing, I think it's an important media for any game. Since I don't have a fan base or something like that in the back - I need to make videos myself to get Guilders out there.

So I'm working with a limited setup and no real editing experience in getting better with it. I just finished a small 'What's Guilders' video. You can check it out below.

.

I have plans for a complete 'how to play' series and to stream / edit all my solo game playtesting of the game as well. Will probably get around to filming the first solo games soon.

[Spinal Tap]

I am in awe of the scope of this and the work you have put in. Long term I will be looking to create and play in this world but am currently involved in enough projects to keep me busy.

I made a decision to play more than build/paint this year; lockdown pushed me into that as much as anything. Taking on Guilders now would push me to the wrong side of that balance.

Nonetheless I will continue to watch you and others develop this excellent project.

[Bloggard]

latest version d/loaded.

you're doing great work on this.