Bloodbeards - Guilders: A Life In Shadows - Development blog

[Olsson]

Giving it a read through I must say that you're doing something innovative and fun. While I am afraid the concept, being dependant heavily upon a lot of terrain, is beyond my reach it looks like a great thing. Hoping to play it some day.

[Bloodbeard]

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.

Thank you Spinal Tap. Yeah, lots of games out there. These last years we've been playing 3 different skirmish games each year roughly. I have so much terrain. Often doing my painting of dudes for specific scenarios. Now for a year everything have really been Guilders related. Cheers for following.

latest version d/loaded.

you're doing great work on this.

Thank you Bloggard. I hope you like what you read here.

Giving it a read through I must say that you're doing something innovative and fun. While I am afraid the concept, being dependant heavily upon a lot of terrain, is beyond my reach it looks like a great thing. Hoping to play it some day.

Cheers. It should be playable with some quick paper terrain or ruins like Mordheim. But yeah - the game is pretty terrain heavy. I've seen playtest down in small villages as well, just huts and not really any options for playing vertical. Worked as well.

[Bloodbeard]

A big part of Guilders - A Life In Shadows is the civilians in the city. It was a key part of the inspiration from the very beginning. In Reality's Edge there's civilians on the board during gameplay - but they are unfortunately very static and didn't add a lot.

In Guilders I wanted to change that. Quicker rules for moving them around and all carry loot that the thief guilds can steal from them.

All civillians start with Loot I (the cheapest, least valuable loot). They move in the end of each turn. Roll a d10, move that many inches using the dice as a pointer. Civilians in Guilder's do not 'bump' and get stuck into corners.

If there's a building in their way, they'll move around it, to proceed in the direction the dice pointed. Should they bump into a board edge, they'll move their full move directly opposite instead. That way keeping the civilians on the board and in the center.

When there's enough Overall Alertness (trouble) in the city, they'll start leaving the board.

Civilians are placed as singles or in crowds (more on that in a later blog). For standard scenarios you will need 4 single civilians and 4 crowds (I have 3 miniatures on mine).

Remember all Guilders rules can be downloaded here.

Peasents

These are made from Fireforge Games folk rabble. I think the cat is from Warlord Games. Fit perfectly in the basket, so this is a crazy cat lady. Her head is Female Soldiers I from Frostgrave, as all the folk rabble looked very angry.

Bases are XPS foam and Greenstuff World rollers.



The left woman is made entirely from FG female soldiers and folk rabble. The middle is all folk rabble kit. The miner on the right (he has a colleague, not yet painted) is folk rabble with an added Perry Miniatures helmet. Figured as a miner he should wear a helmet.



Citizens
The woman carrying the water bucket is a 3d printed miniature I was gifted. The other too guys I'm not sure about the bodies. Head are old Warhammer empire militia / soldier heads. The arms are from Oathmark human soldiers, with their weapons cut off. Wanted these two to look like citizens, a bit better off than the peasonts. Seen on their hats, colors and cape.

[LouieN]

This is all amazing work.  Well done. 

[Bloggard]

these are great ideas / rules.

[Bloodbeard]

Wargames Tournaments is a company making various MDF kits. Sometimes they have some insane 'kits under 10£' deals. So way before Brexit I stacked up on a ton of wonderful and cheap kits. Between those kits was a love midieval church kit for cheap.

I decided to upgrade it much as I've upgraded other MDF kits for Guilders - A Life In Shadows



I used thick card to make foundation stones all around the base of the church. And on the tower I mixed different thickness of cardboard.

The roof got shingles mde some long strips of thin card, with small triangles cut into them. It's a lot quicker to cut than one might expect. The top rof is the most tricky. I cut both sides and leave a 1cm wide flat space on the top. This allows miniatures to stand on the roof, perfect for skirmish games. I also did this for the small roof on the entrance.

The nave (main house on church) I gave the premixed polyfilla with some added woodglue. Giving nice various textures on the build.

Base painting was done with four different rattle cans (just the cheap ones). Black on the roof, white on the nave, dark grey on flat tower surfaces, light grey on the corners (a kind of pre highlight).

The tower had a wooden floor added. I cut a small square piece of XPS and rolled it with a Green Stuff roller. Painted it with modpodge and then drybrushed light brown.



The rest of the build is painted with different cheap acryllics. Gave the roof a dark drey drybrush on the black. Picked out individual stone with various greys here and there.

I also painted individual stones on the flat parts of the tower, further giving the illusion of stone work.

The base around the church is made with a mix of sand in some places, cardboard tiles in others.

I went with a bright red for the windows around the church, making it match on the priests and monks I've painted up.

[Spinal Tap]

That looks really good and fits in perfectly with your town.

I love the roof conversions to allow travel along buildings, it's something I intend to add to mine from now on.

[Bloodbeard]

 A couple of weeks ago I sat down and started testing the solo capabilities of Guilders - A Life In Shadows. All scenarios will need a couple of solo playtests from myself. Both to check who the campaign works and if the scenarios are fun.

Playing the three games did bring up a few point that I need to tweak, but nothing major.

The first solo Let's Play is now up on YouTube. And this video will cover the entire section of a game.

I've added timestamp / chapters to the video for easier watching. The video is fairly long but it will cover:

My Guild: All the characters, quick description

Setup: How the board, objectives and civilians

Full Game: A full 6 turn long game, with descriptions of what goes on in the different phases.

End Game Sequnece: All the RPG elements going on in a game. XP, Loot, Injuries, Roam the City.

This video will give a fairly good overview of the game and definately make it easier for people to read and understand the rules.

I have a bunch of How To Play and two more Let's Play videos filmed. Just need editing and will be posted in the future.



I would love feedback on both my video - editing stuff if really new to me and I learn stuff each time.

The rules. Read them, check them, play if you want. All manner of feedback is appreciated. You can find the rules and the various SoMe on the Linktree.

That looks really good and fits in perfectly with your town.

I love the roof conversions to allow travel along buildings, it's something I intend to add to mine from now on.

Cheers, so happy with this kind of upgrade. The buildings have so much playability.

[Bloodbeard]

Crowd Bases
Wrote a detailed tutorial on how I make crowd bases for Guilders. It's over on the forums tutorial section - [LINK].

[sir_shvantselot]

A what lovely miniatures and great video.

[Bloodbeard]

First 'How To Play' video for Guilders - A Life In Shadows is up on youtube. I've already filmed material for a bunch of these, covering varíous aspects of the rules.

There's a few weird stutters in the video, that I've been unable to remove. Hope the bug is not in the next ones. All this video editing is still a real learning experience.

A what lovely miniatures and great video.

Thanks a lot. I do love having some civilians done. I've always painted miniatures for games all posed for action. Never really used miniatures in RPG, so I've hade no use for civilians.

[Bloodbeard]

In Guilders one of the scenarios is called 'Pious Pickpockets'. The objective for the guilds is to steal relics from a temple. In the scenario there's still civilians for pickpocketing, so I wanted some clergy for that. I had a good friend 3d print me some monks. The bald guy clutching a dagger is from a second set - a royal court. He's an adviser of something, but fitting well for the monks.

I did a really quick paint job on them. Red base coat, red wash and then a highlight (though it's hard to see on the photos).

I'm continously stunned by this 3d printing technology and how quickly one can get whatever they need. I've had so many different specifics printed for me.

Linktree (to help spread the word of Guilders, I need traction).

[Bloodbeard]

Here's a quick little post on a buildings for Guilders and other fantasy stuff. The kit is from a now defunct sellers (who had bad health and decided to scam some people). I've seen the kit from other players since, so the files at least out there somewhere.

This building was painted quickly by my mate Lau (also here on the forum). Then I gave it a few upgrades afterwards to make it fit better with the style of my board.

The kit is originally a water mill. But we don't have any water stuff made for the board yet, so the wheel has simply been removed.



The roof got a quick fix for a flat top, allowing miniatures to balance on the top of the roof.



The railing were originally brown, like the other wooden areas. After trying it on other buildings I decided to add bright green railings instead. Getting more colors onto the house with little details like that.



All the windows have added coffee stirrer ledges for a bunch of different flower tufts. And there's some grass flock on the roofs for extra color as well.