Chainmail. Played it. Liked it.

[WizarDru]

Thanks to WotC's liquidation of it's Chainmail resources, combined with the dilligence of Scorch's painting abilities, last night we found ourselves prepared to play a game or two.

I'd read through the rules, having had the starter set for months, but never gotten around to trying Chainmail itself (the miniatures being used, instead, for D&D). But with such a collection as we now have, and particularly now that have most of them painted, Scorch brought over many of them, and we played a few games.

I enjoyed it a great deal. Had the barrier to entry (i.e. price) been lower when they were first introduced, I think it would have been much more successful. Understand that I'm not really questioning the original prices asked...I've always recognized that the Chainmail miniatures were good, and purchased some occasionally as my D&D campaigns required it.

In the games we tried, we used the starting skirmish groups from Naresh and Thalos. For our second game, we used expanded groups, basically adding the human sorceror to Thalos and the abyssal lurker and gnoll ranger to Naresh. Talk about knock-down drag out fights! I liked that there was no certainty about who would win, as we had at least two reversals during the battle. I'm now sure we'll play again. I liked the fact that it worked as, essentially, d20-lite. It may even influence my D&D game...as I rather liked the free-form map movement for our miniatures.

 

[Ron]

Last year I was playing a game that relied heavily in counters of a squared grid with map features plotted over. As the campaign (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil) resumed to a very large Dungeon Crawl, I seriously suggested that we moved to Chainmail rules, which I believe would speed up the combat sequences considerably. Unfortunely, Chainmail was never marketed as a D&D tool, which was probably a mistake.

 

[The_Gneech]

Y'know, if they'd gone with pre-painted plastic figures with handy stat cards ...

Oh.

-The Gneech

 

[Nikchick]

Last year I was playing a game that relied heavily in counters of a squared grid with map features plotted over. As the campaign (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil) resumed to a very large Dungeon Crawl, I seriously suggested that we moved to Chainmail rules, which I believe would speed up the combat sequences considerably. Unfortunely, Chainmail was never marketed as a D&D tool, which was probably a mistake.

Oh man, don't even get me started on how many people stuck their thumbs in that project and insisted on screwing it up. The name Brian Kinsella (along with a few others) is still a curse word in my house: in all my years in the game industry I've never had the misfortune of seeing one clueless jackalope so purposely squandered the potential of a project.

Apparently they've learned a thing or two from the experiences, and Chainmail 2: the Prepainted Collectible Game may get off to a better start, but man, if they'd just has the sense to listen to Pramas four years ago, they might have had a little success the first time around.

 

[Kesh]

I always was a big proponent of Chainmail. Loved the rules, loved the figures. However, the price and assembly did turn off a lot of people. I hope the new line works out well, though I'll still use my painted figures in matches from time to time.

Hey, Nikchick, good to see you again.

 

[bolen]

so chris primas developed chainmail?

I did not know he even worked for wizards

 

[Bluemoon]

Oh man, don't even get me started on how many people stuck their thumbs in that project and insisted on screwing it up. The name Brian Kinsella (along with a few others) is still a curse word in my house: in all my years in the game industry I've never had the misfortune of seeing one clueless jackalope so purposely squandered the potential of a project.

Apparently they've learned a thing or two from the experiences, and Chainmail 2: the Prepainted Collectible Game may get off to a better start, but man, if they'd just has the sense to listen to Pramas four years ago, they might have had a little success the first time around.

Oh please get started. I have just returned to gaming after a six year absence so I don't know what when on. What's the dirt? How was it screwed up? Who's Pramas? Or if you do not have the time to spill it, do you know of a link to an article that reviews the rise and fall of Chainmail?

Thanks.

 

[Nikchick]

so chris primas developed chainmail?

I did not know he even worked for wizards

Pramas worked for WotC for four years. At least half of that time he was the Brand Development Manager, and later the Creative Director for miniatures. The development for the Sundered Empire and the creation of the factions was Pramas. Because of the horrible, territorial way Wizards is set up (it's a "matrix organization") they didn't just let the people who knew what they were doing actually *do* that. Instead, it's all "Tell Bob in Accounting that you need boxes for your minis, and he will requisition the funds. Then Bill in Purchasing will go to our Approved Vendors and they will get those boxes for you, at about 15x the going rate. Need Graphics for the boxes? Oh, you'll need to talk to they people in Spine Design, schedule a meeting for that. Advertising? You'll need to schedule that with Publications, have the Brand Manager deliver the text after Editing goes through it; who knew Black Dragons didn't breathe fire? ...Oops, did we mention you missed the deadline for this quarter? Yes, the deadline for first quarter was Thursdays, but for second quarter we moved it to Tuesdays. Hey, these boxes aren't to the size specifications required by the book trade, someone in Project Management should have noticed that... "

It's all back-biting and prioritizing ("Don't bother me if your project isn't going to make 35 million in the first year, I've got better things to do...") and self-aggrandizing, or at least it was when they were trying to launch the WotC Chainmail game. There were literally major project-changing decisions made because some big shot in the chain of command happened to walk by a room while a meeting was going on, popped his head in and decided today was the day he'd offer his two cents. Think Dilbert. It was EXACTLY like Dilbert.

Pretty much all the complaints that people had about Chainmail were things that Pramas had already spotted and tried to convince the Powers That Be were a bad idea before they even hit the public radar.

I don't think there's anywhere on the web that chronicles the whole sorry affair. There used to be Chainmail message boards (Hi Kesh! /me waves) where a small bit of this stuff was discussed, but WotC started doing some heavy pruning of those boards and I think they've taken them down altogether now.

Nicole

 

[Kesh]

Heh, yeah. I caught the barest hints of what was going on with the project while running my website. It certainly did sound messy, and some of the main people involved were very upset at how the game was being treated.

Ah well. Coulda been, shoulda been... it's over now. I'm very grateful for what was done, as it's one of the best miniatures games I've seen, even with the flaws. Here's hoping they didn't screw up the new minis rules too badly in the change.

 

[Scorch]

Thank you SV Games

I was sitting around one day and thinking to myself:

"You know: I wish I could get into a miniature warfare game that had rules I could easily pick up... like Chainmail. Something, that is related to a system I already play... like Chainmail. Something that I have plenty of miniatures for already... like Chainmail. Hmm... if only I could find such a game."

This went on for a while until I finally I had the Chainmail box fall on my foot from the bookshelf. I think someone was trying to tell me something.

I thank the WotC store for originally having a 50% off clearance sale of Chainmail miniatures followed by the massive sale on SV Games (I just placed my third order with them).

I went out and picked up a grass paper map from a hobby store and cut out a 3 foot by 3 foot section. I was amazed at how fun it is if you have enough props. I may invest in some of those Mage Knight castle sets and landscape pieces. Either that or try my hand at making some myself.

I hope to show some of the other players from WizarDru's Story Hour and get them into it as well.

Scorch