Way back when I was about twelve (so we're talking
way
back) I loved me a good hex-and-counter wargame. I had a copy
of Advanced Squad Leader which I could never persuade anyone to play
with me (so played against myself) and when we got our first PC a
few years later I moved on to hex-and-counter video games. Waiting
for the computer to take its turn in Battle Isle 2 is responsible
for pretty much all the serious literature I've ever read.
I also played some Warhammer Fantasy Battle at the time -- I
want to say second edition? -- but I hated painting minis so I stopped.
Anyway, it's now over thirty years later and I've written a
little hex-and-counter wargame of my own based on my distant
memories and a pdf of the original Chainmail from 1977. I've tested
it, and despite knowing little about wargames and less about history
Glaive-Guisarme-Glaive does actually play well and offer interesting
tactical choices with a stripped-back ruleset, so if you're looking
for a lightweight game to kill some time with, here you go!
How It Plays
It's all pretty simple really. The battlefield is made up of several hex-grid geomorphs randomly chosen and stuck together into an A2-size area. Each army is represented by several tokens, each of which is a unit in said army. The effects of shooting and melee combat are determined by the strength of the attacking unit, the armour of the defending unit, and the roll of one or more six-sided dice. There are rules for changing unit formation to get a tactical advantage, a bunch of different terrain effects, fatigue, morale, all the stuff you'd expect.
Fantasy Supplement!
Yes! Because I'm calling back to a certain other short-and-simple wargame from decades ago, I've also written a sixteen-page Fantasy Supplement which abandons even the pretense of historical accuracy and offers assorted ways to customise units further so that they can represent elves, dwarves, dragons, vampires, and all your other fantasy staples -- plus almost anything else you might dream up.
Fulfillment
I've done this a bunch of times before, so this is how it's going to go: once the campaign closes and the money lands in my bank account, I'll send everyone on the list a link to itch.io where they can collect their pdf copies of GGG and the Fantasy Supplement, and send the print files off to my favourite zine printer for printing. Once they come back I'll pack them all up in rigid mailer envelopes and ship 'em out in the post. This whole process usually takes 3-6 weeks depending on how motivated I feel and what else is going on at the same time -- my first ever ZineQuest (Sunlands) was done in February 2020, so that one was a bit late as you might imagine.
