Making some custom Chainmail tiles

[arkansan]

These are awesome clownboss, excellent work.

[clownboss]

Faction Update 2: The Normans!

[clownboss]

Faction Update 3: Turks! Or rather, I would call them Ottomans, but I gotta stick to Gygax's wording.

[arkansan]

Good work man, you just keep on delivering the awesome. Out of curiosity are you hand drawing these and then scanning them? Or using some sort of design software?

[clownboss]

Jun 24, 2017 17:30:49 GMT -6 arkansan said:

Good work man, you just keep on delivering the awesome. Out of curiosity are you hand drawing these and then scanning them? Or using some sort of design software?

The ones on the very first post were all drawn on paper and then coloured digitally. But since I decided I would do all these unique unit types, I jumped to tablet drawing completely because it speeds up the process. For drawing and colouring I use combinations of Krita, Paint Tool Sai, and Photoshop, all for various purposes.

[foxroe]

These are fantastic; you should consider putting this all together and publishing it. Heck, I'd but it. I've been struggling to come up with "simple" paper minis for a Featherstone/Bath Trimsos battle... I'm quite jealous!

[clownboss]

Thanks for the kind words, but I don't think the drawings are too good. They are not to my standards, and indeed I could do them better. The way I'm drawing them is meant to be really quick and disposable(because I intend to make a LOT of them), and hardly what I'd consider worth a price.

And besides, you're overestimating my originality a bit, and the historical research that goes into creating these units is very bare. I draw these units mainly in reference to games or sources I like. The Heavy Horse is based on the Rise of Nations knight, for example:



Or the Norman Archer is drawn based on the very Elastolin figures Gary Gygax used:



The sources I use are messy and often contradictory, and had I wanted to draw these professionally, I'd put significantly more research and effort into making them. But right now I have a university to graduate.

[Deleted]

I think they're great for their intended purpose. I'll probably (eventually) mount them on 1/4" thick foamcore board.

At last, a way to play CHAINMAIL and not have to carry tons of stuff.

[clownboss]

By all means. It would be an immense honour.

Faction Update 4: The Byzantines!

[owlorbs]

For those interested, I've found the best material for making nice heavy duty counters is Grafix Medwium Weight chip board. It's thick, about 2mm but can still be cut with a high quality scissors. I use a spray adhesive and a roller to apply the printer label sheet to the chipboard. Of course avery style full sheet sticker labels are nict too.  Link

[foxroe]

Jun 27, 2017 6:50:23 GMT -6 owlorbs said:

For those interested, I've found the best material for making nice heavy duty counters is Grafix Medwium Weight chip board. It's thick, about 2mm but can still be cut with a high quality scissors. I use a spray adhesive and a roller to apply the printer label sheet to the chipboard. Of course avery style full sheet sticker labels are nict too.  Link

There are wooden squares available as well. They come in a variety of sizes, but they are a bit more expensive. Still lighter (and maybe less expensive) than carting around 200 lbs. of lead figures...

[Starbeard]

The best part about using flat playing pieces is that you can have a different image on the flip side. For CM it could be a different unit type, or maybe the same unit but designating fatigue.

[clownboss]

^ My, that's an excellent idea.

I would like to give you a small note, in case you haven't noticed. You can download all of these cards and tiles, in full print size, by following the quick links I have edited into my first post of this thread. In there you can find every one of these tiles in the trademark red and blue colours. If there is a demand, I can also supply them in other colours.

Now that that's done, here's another update. Now you too can add crusader corps to your armies, or utilise them as an entire faction onto itself.





Hopefully nobody mistakes them for the KKK.

[Deleted]

Instead of generic "religious order," why not make Hospitallers, Templars, Teutonic Knights, etc?

[clownboss]

Jun 28, 2017 17:43:07 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Instead of generic "religious order," why not make Hospitallers, Templars, Teutonic Knights, etc?

Because Gygax did not make proper divisions himself. He only listed 'Religious Orders of Knighthood' in Chainmail as a generic term, and I took it as that. I figured players would rather make distinctions and alterrations by themselves from a base that can be applicable everywhere. It also means less work for me, and not having to struggle to find the nuances of what makes all the orders different from one another(as I don't know their history).

The least I can do is change the colour scheme and alter insignia of the figures to differentiate their orders. Just name who would you like to see. And I can also place alternate army compositions per every unique order on the index card, as long as you supply the numbers.

[Starbeard]

It would be nice to include different orders, but I don't think it's necessary to get too bogged down in the details. After all, each of the other unit types are generic and span several centuries of variation as well. Besides, most of the military orders fought in garments that looked pretty much the same, so one can stand in for most others.

If you simply make three copies of the knight—one with red crosses on white, one white on red, and one black on white—that should cover you for pretty much every order out there. Personally I would just call them all generically 'Religious Knight', and players can organize them by order if they're into that, or just mix them up for a bit of variety (I know—blasphemy!)

If you're feeling ambitious, you also could modify the armoured foot and possibly even the heavy crossbow tokens to have special versions for the military orders. I think most of these 'sergeants' would all have the same garments as the knights, except the Templar sergeants who should be in red on black.

There's also the issue of what shape of cross was used, but at the size these are being printed, and as top down figures, I wouldn't bother.

The Hospitallers are usually depicted wearing white on black, but that was actually their monastic habit. On the field they wore white on red. I don't actually know of any orders who fought in white on black, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was one. If you do plan on making varied colour schemes then you might as well add it to the list, since it looks neat.

[Starbeard]

Jun 28, 2017 15:10:14 GMT -6 clownboss said:

^ My, that's an excellent idea.

It's picked up from hex-and-counter wargames, which often have the wounded, shaken or routed stats for the unit on the flip side.

Speaking of which, I wonder how well CM can be converted to play on a hex board. I could see myself using these units to set up a game on Roll20 with hexes.

[Deleted]

I'm not talking about different stats; I'm talking about different illustrations. Various religious orders had very different looks.

[clownboss]

^ Sure thing. Which ones would you like to see?

And here's some Vikings! In what's to become a hot button issue for some, the Berserker here actually has horns on his helmet. The things that happen when you stick to tracing Elastolin figures...

[derv]

As far as religious orders go there are really only three big ones that most would be concerned with for a game- Templars, Hospitallers, and Teutonic.

Templars- red cross on white or black (sergeants)
Hospitallers of St. John- white cross on black or red
Teutonic- black cross on white

There was a also a minor order known as the Hospitallers of St. Lazarus- green cross on white

Came across an old book on the internet archive people might want to peruse (no pics)- Military Religious Orders by F.C. Woodhouse, 1879

[Deleted]

50% berserkers seems AWFULLY high; they were pretty rare. I'd be tempted to say 10-15% without more research.

[clownboss]

Alright. Biiiig update.

First of all, here is the fixed card info for Vikings, as per Mike's suggestions:



And I've adressed the colour schemes of the Templar, Hospitaller, and Teutonic orders, and now you can have the choice of picking your own!



By God's grace they still shine a lot,
So it might still be difficult to tell them apart...

I've worked on the first of my siege units. I'm giving you the two variants of the catapult, the other one of which is actually a trebuchet. These babies should be printed on bases of 1,5''x3'' and 3''x3''. Remember, you can find the full sizes of them on my imgur album.




And a generic crewman. In case you need them.

Lastly my pride and joy: No Chainmail set would be complete without the ridiculously broken Swiss Pikemen.


I couldn't even cram all the info on the pikemen on this card! Really, the rulebook describes the pikemen in such meticulous detail that I wonder if all this info was really necessary, so I hope you have a copy of Chainmail close by to remember how these units worked.

And feeling this was a very special and fun unit to make, I made it come in three colour schemes:

[clownboss]

I'm going to ask for a bit of help.

What base dimensions would you suggest for light cannon, heavy cannon, and bombards?

[Starbeard]

Whatever you do with the base size, I think it would be really cool to add two special units for the Warwolf and Dardanelles bombard. They could be the exact same graphic, just blown up to be twice as big!

[Deleted]

Are you using the army compositions from CHAINMAIL?

[clownboss]

Jul 5, 2017 22:13:25 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Are you using the army compositions from CHAINMAIL?

CHAINMAIL only lists compositions for sides such as Russians, Mongols etc, which I do intend to use. For these other factions I do minor research of statistics from battles, and for the rest I pull the numbers out of my @$$ and by gut feeling.

The Norman and Saxon ratios are based from the Battle of Hastings, for example. The high percentage of cataphracts in the Byzantines and the encompassing Swiss Pikemen battles I've picked out from reading Oman. Other times I interpret Chainmail's unit distinctions very literally("CHAINMAIL lists Vikings under Heavy Foot, so that must mean they can not be LF, AF, LH, etc."). I also try my best to stick to a "default ratio" of troops per army once suggested by you(At least 50% of points in ground melee troops, less than 20% for ranged units, less than 10% for Heavy Horse). Just know that the ratios in my cards are based on figure numbers, not point numbers.

And others I made perhaps too powerful simply beacause of a personal bias. It's why I've characterised the Crusaders as insanely powerful, despite the fact that they were historically very feeble and unorganised. Hmmm, maybe I should change the ground troops into levies?

[Deleted]

Now you get into broader matters. When the Crusaders got the Saracens to fight battles the Frankish way like at Arsuf, the Crusaders kicked serious ass. But the Saracens learned early (for the most part) to pick away at them with mounted archers and let heat and thirst do the rest.

Strategic warfare is a whole new level, and campaign warfare (Achilles is sulking in his tent!) a whole new level after that.

[Deleted]

Hell, I have a library full of medieval history references, maybe I should rough up some army lists.

Also, if you're seriously interested in that sort of thing, try the "Osprey Men at Arms" series of books. Best "Bring a wargamer up to speed" references I've seen.

[clownboss]

If you could do that, it would be amazing.

Here's some wonderful new content for you all. First, Light and Heavy cannons:


Print the Light Cannon on 1,5''x1,5'' and the Heavy Cannon on 1,5''x3''. Bombards will come at a later time.

Introducing the French Gendarme, wherein the second variant is equipped with a lance:




As well as German Landsknecht and some pistol-whippin' Reiter!

[Deleted]

Um, hate to be harsh, but you're mixing periods like crazy there. Gendarmes don't appear before the 15th century, for instance.