Today (March 4th, 2023) marks the sad 15th anniversary since Gary went to DM somewhere in the beyond... pretty sure he's still outfoxing everyone he meets.
As he appeared in Futurama...
FANTASY BATTLES
by
Gary Gygax
I offer the following details of our fantasy battles:
The rules used are those designed by Jeff Perren and I - CHAINMAIL, Guidon Games, P.O. Box
1123, Evansville, IN 47713, U.S.A., at $2 plus postage. The revised and expanded version should be
available by the time this is read. The booklet contains brief information about the scales used for the
different figure-types, and the expanded edition has things like how fast goblins, ores and dwarves can
tunnel under the walls of a besieged stronghold.
Tolkien purists will not find these rules entirely satisfactory, I believe, for many of the fantastic
creatures do not follow his "specifications", mainly because I believe that other writers were as
"authoritative" as he.
Because I have a large force of 40mm Elastolin figures, we use a base 40mm as man-size, but 30mm
will do as well.. Regular troops have only a few added touches of paint, but hero-types have such things
as gilded or enamelled armour, jewels, and carefully painted devices on their shields.
Orcs and elves are 30mm - that is what it says in the book. However, because we have not got around
to preparing them, Orcs are 40mm Turks and Elves are bowmen of the same scale.
Trolls and ogres are 54mm. I located some inexpensive plastic Indians in this scale, and a bit of
conversion produced sufficient numbers of block, grey, green and purple creatures of this ilk.
Metal mediaeval figures in 25mm scale can easily be painted up to make goblins and dwarves, while
converted Airfix "Robin Hood" men serve as Hobbits.
Giants are made from the 70mm Elastolin figures. At the moment we have only a pale blue fellow
with a head of bushy hair (snipped from one of my daughter's dolls when they weren't looking), who is
brandishing a huge club. He was originally a Viking with sword and shield, but this shield was stripped
off, the sword removed and a puttied matchstick became the bludgeon.
The Balrog has caused considerable problems, and right now we are using a giant sloth from an
assortment of plastic prehistoric animals, which (converted) makes a fearsome looking beast, albeit not
quite as Tolkien described it.
Nazgul, like the Balrog, are also difficult. Presently we are employing unconverted 40mm Huns on
black horses, but we would like to put wings on these steeds and cloak the figures riding them.
There are two dragons in our force of fantasy figures. One I made stegosaurus: First, the head was
enlarged with auto body putty, a wire was inserted into the tail and puttied to make it longer - and
barbed, the spines on its back cut to small points, the spikes on the tail were clipped off and added as
horns at the head end, cardboard bat wings were puttied in place, and finally the entire affair was given
many coats of paint, gilding, and glitter (as sparkling gems on its belly). The other was made by Don
Kaye using a brontosaurus, with two smaller heads added to the long neck, spikes along the back,
wings, and so on.
A large stock of plastic wolves, bears, vultures, and the like are used for lycanthropes or whatever
other fairly normal looking creatures are called for. Soft plastic "horrors" and insects from the dime
store serve as elementals and giant insects.
Perhaps the best part of fantasy wargaming is being able to allow your imagination full rein.
Whatever the players desire can be used or done in games. For example, for one match I built a chest of
jewels as the object to be obtained to win. However, I did not mention to either team that I had added a
pair of "basilisk eyes" (large pin heads dotted appropriately) which immediately turned- the first ogre
who opened it to stone. The possibilities are boundless.
The way the rules are selling here, it seems a good bat for some model figure firm to start producing a
line of properly scaled fantasy figures!
Mr. Bortham's observations about the possibilities of the Airfix "Astronauts" as Heinlein's "Starship
Troopers" (or other future warriors) has also crossed my mind as a fair possibility. In fact, if Mr.
Bortham eventually puts his ideas into a set of rules I can state, as Rules Editor for Guidon Games, that
I would like to see them with eventual publication in mind.
Some of the Futurama episode...
3 comments:
I wonder if the giant sloth/balrog was the same "Chinasaur" that eventually became the owlbear in D&D. It's certainly a sloth-like creature.
Thanks for sharing: we'd read something about Gygax's creativity in putting together the first fantasy creatures, but reading his own words is something else entirely. Fifty years have passed, but an era seems to have passed compared to today, when we have dozens of fantasy miniature manufacturers and the possibility of 3D printing... We would not regret today a giant made with a doll's head, but the creativity and the freedom to modify and enrich the rules at will is no longer usual
So sorry I missed Gary's natural time on this earth . I've been involved in the hobby since the mid 1990s or at least I was aware of it and an enormous fan of the 1980s cartoon show too. I'm more in to the Warhammer tabletop game but I should shake Gary Gygax's hand for developing and promoting the hobby like he so obviously did . RIP Gary and may you roll many 6s in your eternal Dn'D games in the sky.
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