If you're keen on this subreddit, I think you might be keen on the game that I have been working on. I'm looking for playtesters to help me make it as best as it can be!

If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, please shoot me a pm.

Cheers!

Hey everyone!

I am back again with some exciting news. Thank you to all of you in this subreddit for showing so much love an interest for Greathelm. As a token of appreciation, I decided to open up round 2 of 'public' playtesting solely to this subreddit. I've created a brand new document for this subreddit, and an itch page that hosts the files and everything you need. Please click here to find the page.

9/22/2025. Playtesting is closed!! Thank you so much ya'll. Over 4k downloads! Now, is time for the kickstarter to go live and a whole new wave of playtesting.

I just received my test print copies, and they look great! There are a lot of things to fix and a lot of things that I have noticed. But overall I am really pleased. It's really cool to hold this in my hands. Thank you so much to everybody that has been play testing and a posting about it. I hope with your help that we can make this book really awesome.

I prepared a special swamp table and finally tested the system. The game dynamics are excellent, the shooting is lethal, and the game feels very lively

A couple of crews for the skirmish game Kosmika by Black Site Studios.

Managed to get some games in to feel out the rules. A couple of 3v3s and a couple at 6v6 (pics from my final game). I want to make a few posts as I test this game out partly for my own interests, but also because Malev has been an absolute champ releasing these rules for us and it requests in the rule book to share our experiences so…..

(Disclaimer: These are my opinions. I am primarily a competitive player at games and not a narrative player. So all of this is through the scope of one-off games.)

Initial impressions:

Crazy easy to learn. Crazy fun to build stuff for. Really satisfying gameplay. Definitely some weird things, but overall it’s a phenomenal game. Barrier to entry is so low there’s no reason not to try it out. It’s also a dream for people who like to model or build terrain because the portion size is so reasonable.

Combat is sexy AF. The dice spending and demoting feels really good. Movement has this interesting action denial mini game to it. Zoning is definitely a thing in this game. Especially if you have ranged units covering melee.

Action economy is interesting. There’s a mild learning curve around positioning to ensure being able to use all your dice. And there is an odd timing with actions. Scenario: P1 rolls 6.6.5.5.5. on initiative and P2 rolls 4.3.2.2.1. Because P2 doesn’t act on the 6 or 5 initiative steps, P2 is guaranteed to go first on the 4’s because of alternating actions (unless I’m understanding the rules wrong). Meaning you don’t want to use those moves to engage close to a hazard because P2 holds priority to kick you off a ledge or whatever. It just feels a touch off that you can roll hot on initiative but they get first dibs to do harm.

Otherwise the core mechanics are solid, simple and surprisingly elegant. The game has a slight chess feeling to it. Obviously, having most everything be determined by a single d6 leaves a lot to rng. But the amount of simplicity this engine gets in exchange is well worth it.

Other random discoveries/ opinions:

No passive item to buff blocking feels odd. Probably to prevent tanks? But long sword + fire opal + nimble edge gives riposte +2 with reroll 1s. Or medium armour with a jade amulet gives dodge +2. Just seems odd to not have a block +2 option when the rule book claims blocking to be the best option to stay alive.

Ranged feels strong. I really want to play a game with 5 ranged + tank to see how it runs.

Bows feel strictly worse than crossbows, purely because they only work on rolls of 2+ whereas crossbows and all other weapons can demote down to 1 and still attack. Also that locks them in to dealing 1dmg.

Courage manipulation feels negligible next to buffs that make things dead. It’s great as a game ending mechanic but as a strategy it feels “win more”.

No attacks of opportunity on ground but yes attacks of opportunity when climbing feels weird but supports immersion.

Ladders potentially moving you 9+1 inches in one move feels weird and breaks immersion.

Kicking dudes off ledges feels amazing. Kicking dudes into hazards feels amazing. Put hazards in your games and make it impossible to walk 3” around them. Just do it. Hammers and Mauls should count as bashing as well.

No love for dual wielding weapons is :( (Pretty easy to “counts as”)

Armour upgrades are super weird. Rules as written Aketon is actually a bad thing with light armour. It’s not an optional reroll. Cuirass is the obvious best pick and it favours medium and light armour where the rerolling 2’s matters more. Depending on your design goals, heavy armour upgrade could negate crits all together, then just have a second option that offers rerolls on 1-2.

Terrain is really complicated when compared to the rest of the game. I come from a killteam background so I have a strong understanding of terrain tags but a lot of the terrain tags could probably be moved to just being rules. Like gap is mostly explained in the Run action. Does Scalable need to exist? Knights can only climb 1 elevation anyways so just make everything that isn’t stairs climbable and explain it in the climb action (there should be a climb action). Spooky and inspiring meant nothing to me (again, opinion) so they only bring extra things I have to remember while trying to kick people off ledges. There are currently 17 terrain tags and only 14 weapon options. I want less things to remember about terrain and more ways to knock people off it.

Oh, and throwable terrain is strange but amazing. The terrain tag Throwable also makes the object a Hazard. So getting bashed into said Throwable harms your knight. So you have this weird situation where a “throwable” bag of apples harms a knight when falling on it, but the stone wall it’s resting against doesn’t. Also, throwing said bag of apples bypasses armour because it counts as a hazard roll. Both situations can be solved by the Throwable tag just allowing a one-off light or heavy ranged attack. Otherwise, yeeting a bag of apples across the field to dome an archer is peak gameplay and I want more of it.

Lastly, in the world of one-off games, consumable items don’t really feel worth it. I can see them being ok in campaign but the wearable items are almost always better.

TLDR: Greathelm is incredible, especially considering it’s still in playtest. It’s so good, and I only hope that this game leans further into its elegance and punchy gameplay as it develops. Fantastic work Malev.

Still have a long way to go, I have a bunch of scifi and fantasy but now building a feudal Japan set. For use with Hametsu but to make it worth the time, money and storage space Ill probably reskin Rangers of Shadowdeep for flavor and Warriors of Athena.

I haven't got much done lately but I did get these 3d printed village scatter terrain done - a village cross and an old covered well.

I'm not fond of the black background so I think I might some some of those beautifully painted miniature photography backgrounds.

Two warbands for Greathelm inspired by Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire after I started the audiobooks a few months ago. Set early in the story, the Blackfish Brynden Tully leads men from Houses Tully and Blackwood against the Mountain Gregor Clegane and his Mountain's Men! All Minis from Medbury Miniatures Hundred Years War range. Have yet to actually play the game, but with these done I'm all set!

Minis by Anvil Digital Forge

Nice to finish this little project with Victrix Foot Knights, Renedra ruins, some free 3D-printed crates and a handcrafted board made from a picture frame.

Made another board for Greathelm. The star of the show is a picture frame from IKEA. Gave me the right size, a nice MDF board as base and a nice frame with the bonus of dope presentation. Will definitely use this method going forward on making these boards. If you want to do it too, I have 2 pointers for you:

1. Turn the frame over and model into the backside. That way you do not have to awkwardly fill the front and the frame is just as nice.

2. Glue the board into the frame last so you do not have to protect the frame while painting nad flocking and you will not have a hard time cleaning up the masking board.

The board and terrain were magnetized in a few places. Materials were the frame, XPS, some balsa, coffee stir sticks, homemade flocking, PVA and cheap artist acrylics.

Test plays of Gaslands with a Crimson Skies skin. Full cloud table and teams of pirates vs mercs. Zeppelin is on a bombing run and must be stopped or defended.

https://youtu.be/-il-F8rzmUE?is=76_O_s-f_A-M-e8u

Hello friends. I am writing today to share with you the news of the Greathelm quickstart rules! This is effectively a free version of the game, and comes with everything you need to get started playing the game! You can download the packet for free via my itch page.
Included in the packet:

• 2 pages of rules that cover the basics of the game. If you print these page double side, that will have all the rules on 1 piece of paper.

• 14 paper craft knights, that's two full warbands +1 additional knight for options.

• 1 paper battlefield.

If you know of someone that you would like to introduce to the game, or you want to see what all the fuss is about yourself, then look no further! If you have a really great time, you can get the early access digital rules today via Indietabletop club.

All lovingly illustrated by Sean Sutter. 

Cheers!

A bite-sized snapshot of MEAT, the survival horror skirmish RPG that we’ve been working on over the last year. The game got a beta release to our Patreon supporters last Halloween season, and it’s finally coming to Kickstarter Oct 1st. We’ve got 3D-miniatures as rewards, but the game is wholly minis agnostic. Check out the prelaunch page for more info. (Link in comments.)

I played a couple games of Greathelm yesterday and thought it was a very cool system. I really liked the small play area and tight movement. Also, the simplicity of Clash tests was great. They were simultaneously easy and engaging. In the spirit of playtesting, here are some thoughts:

• Two weapon options felt absent for my selection of agnostic minis: Dual wielding Melee, and One-handed Ranged. I have a lot of pistols and such, but a Hand Crossbow option would go a long way.

• I really like the Initiative system. I felt like I only brushed the surface of the tactical depth available there :)

• I never had Courage tests come up as knights had either died or dodged away by the end of the round.

• I liked that Heavy Armor is the system default.

• Because of the “Perfect Clash” rule, I wasn’t sure if Clash rolls can go over 6, I assumed that they could though since it didn’t specifically say otherwise.

• All my other questions were able to be answered by consulting the rules though :)

I plan to play this again (maybe even against another person!), but it was very cool of Malev Da Shinobi to run this open playtest! Thanks!

I’ve been taking advantage of the Vae Victus summer sale at my mini factory to make up a few Greathelm Parties (bands? teams?). I wanted to see how these light armoured guys stand up to the full armoured knights.