"The American Schematic"

watercolor, ink & gouache on paper, 15 x 20 inches

Wars of Beleriand board game. The Silmarillion wargame.

 Wars of Beleriand board game. The Silmarillion wargame.  

However you want to say it...

This is the rulebook for a sort of late stage playtest copy of the unpublishable Silmarillion board game I designed. There are just two of them and they are each unique one-of-a-kind handmade prints. The rulebook itself is 136 pages divided into 53 sections. It uses a case system for easy reference. The game maps are printed on canvas (again, two of them, each unique), maybe not the best choice of materials, tbh.There are a few hundred counters and chits and markers and some card chart thingies too. It's a two-player game. One side is the Noldor and co. and the other player is Morgoth and all his baddies. It's asymmetrical in that each player plays a very different game. 

But this is as far as it goes. All the components are stand-in roughs. Lots of hand drawn things and visible corrections. Also some blatantly swiped graphics including a piece by Tolkien himself, a John Howe and the cover of the Ronnie James Dio album "Lock Up the Wolves."

Though unpublishable, I would like people to know that someone made a quasi-simulation of the Silmarillion in the hex and counter form of tabletop game. It's 20 turns long. And Nienor is in there somewhere too. 

And now it goes in a box on a shelf until the year 2090 or something.

 Playing card size ink & watercolor drawings of woods and trails. 

 

North Fork by Pancake

by Nate Dray

watercolor on paper, 17 x 22 inches

 

Over Lincoln Highway

by Nate Dray

watercolor on paper, 17 x 22 inches

 

Wars of Beleriand Update.

Still on it or back on it, really. 

Typing up the rulebook. Tweaking some graphics. But that about wraps it. There were some things - still are -- in the endgame latter stages of play, situations that only arise during the endgame part of the game, that weren't thoroughly played through before. Unique situations and things. The last few Turns are the most mechanically complex parts of the game. I'm sure there are things I missed, but...it should work and we'll correct as we go from here on.

Probably just release the rules online, post a link somewhere, something. 

"Single Pink Earlys"

18" x 24"

watercolor on paper

by Nate Dray

Wars of Beleriand.

The Silmarillion board game, aka WOB.

Or...The Dispossessed.

Anyway.

Another unusual and interesting (to me) situation. 

I was playing as Morgoth and my opponent marched Thingol and a sizable host of Sindar out into the open onto Anfauglith and sort of left them there, sitting ducks. They were annihilated and when Thingol dies in WOB, Melian follows (though no VPs are awarded to the MorP for Melian's elimination under these circumstances).

Consequently, with no Melian deployed on the Game Map, the Fence of Doriath (or Girdle of Melian) is deactivated and we see here a very lonely Luthien all by herself in Menegroth with only an adjacent Galadriel unit to keep her company. The Edain haven't arrived yet (this is Turn 7) and it's just an unusual situation that amuses me. Shows the value in having diversity in playtesters. 

I would never have allowed this to happen as the Noldor Player, but I am pleased that it did happen.