ANNOUNCEMENT FROM STRATEGIC ELITE

 

Hi friends, Bob Faust here. I wanted to make a general announcement regarding my hiatus from the development of several of my skirmish game products for the remainder of this year.

 

Having recently lost a close friend to Covid, I find that my usually effortless process of writing and designing fun skirmish games has been dampened severely. Strangely enough, some of you may remember back in 2016 when we lost another close friend to a tragic accident. Drew & I were under a deadline to finish writing Scrappers for Osprey Games, and the sudden death of our friend debilitated us mentally for several months.

 

Here we are again. So as of today, I’m officially suspending production for the following projects until January 2021:

 

From Strategic Elite™

 

·         The Sword Marches: Metal Sword & Sorcery Skirmish Wargames

·         Agents of the Crown: Seven Years War

·         Star Guard: Science Fiction Skirmish Wargames

·         Brink of Battle: Skirmish Gaming through the Ages 2^nd Edition

·         Scrappers: Weapons Locker

 

From Fast Food Games™

 

·         GORE Skirmish – Generic Open Rule Engine: fast play, rules light, all periods/genres

·         Advanced GORE – Expanded rules for Core GORE game

·         Star GORE – Sci-Fi supplement

·         Dungeon GORE – Fantasy supplement

·         Historical GORE – Historical supplement

 

Fast Food Games™ is a new subsidiary of Strategic Elite: Skirmish Wargames for the Discerning Strategist and will focus on our new rules light skirmish games and supplements, primarily the Generic Open Rules Engine Skirmish game called GORE.

 

Now some of you may be disappointed that I’m pushing these projects back, especially The Sword Marches which has been 90% complete for some time. I hope you understand that I’ve been writing and designing my games for the past 15 years, pretty much every day, and in light of that I need a break.

 

In the meantime, please continue to post and participate in our Facebook pages and groups. If I get some painting or modeling done, I’ll post pics as usual. I just won’t be actively pursuing design or writing projects.

 

Thanks for all of the years of support and community that you all have built. We will resume with great purpose next January. It will be a happier new year I hope...

 

NOCH WEITER!!!

 

Bob Faust

 

PERMANENT PRICE REDUCTION ANNOUNCEMENT!

After 7 successful years of sales, the Brink of Battle Skirmish System has been further refined with Scrappers and The Sword Marches games that are based upon the BoBSS core mechanics.

As time marches on, we will be doing a full 2nd edition release, but that may be another year or more from now. In the meantime, we are permanently reducing the prices of our Print and PDF versions to $19.95 for a printed book and $4.99 for the PDF!

We hope this will entice you to explore the 2013 Origins Award Nominated Brink of Battle: Skirmish Gaming through the Ages game that allows you to play skirmishes in any Historical period!

You can find them at the links below:

http://www.lulu.com/…/brink-of-…/ebook/product-20089898.html

http://www.lulu.com/…/product-18951929.html;jsessionid=5117…

NOCH WEITER!!!

Bob Faust

SCRAPPERS FROM OSPREY GAMES!!!

You can find our latest wargame Scrappers: Post-Apocalyptic Skirmish Wargames here "https://ospreypublishing.com/scrappers" Grab yours today!

Well looky here!

https://www.amazon.es/Scrappers-Post-Apocalyptic-Skirmish-Robert-Faust/dp/1472819268

This is the hardest post I've ever had to make.

This is my friend David Phillips. Monday night around 8pm he was tragically killed in a car accident caused by two juveniles in a stolen car.

Two hours before that I had my last conversation with him. He leaves behind a wife and a large group of friends and family that will miss him forever.

To help raise funds to offset the expense of his burial and memorial, we are donating 100% of all Brink of Battle and Epic Heroes sales on our Lulu store for the month of May to David's wife and family.

We hope we can make a difference in the face of such a senseless tragedy. Thanks for your support!

Bob Faust

Scrappers: Post-Apocalyptic Skirmish Wargames

We’ve been keeping things pretty close to the vest about our Post-Apocalyptic book in the works, but we are now able to reveal and proud to announce that last year we signed a contract with Osprey Publishing to produce Scrappers: Post-Apocalyptic Skirmish Wargames for their Osprey Wargames division!

Scrappers will be a hardbound book complete with core rules based on the Brink of Battle skirmish system and with complete rules for campaign games in the wastelands of the near future! As with Brink of Battle, each Crew will range between 3-15 models per side.

Players assemble Recovery Crews who explore the ruins of ancient Earth for lost artifacts and scraps of useful technology fighting off enemy Crews in the process. Scrapper Crews can belong to one of six Factions or be freelancers selling their scraps of tech to the highest bidder. Crew members can be one of three Lifeform types: True Human, Mutant, or Synthetic. Rugged human survivors, mutated humanoids & animals, and deadly robots fight for every last piece of tech they can find!

Scrappers: Post-Apocalyptic Skirmish Wargames is targeted for release in the spring of 2017. 

Come Play in our First Tournament!

We here at Strategic Elite have joined forces once again with our brothers in arms at The Launchpad Comics & Games to put on our 1st official Epic Heroes Tournament!

Here are the details. We hope you can join us and make this a great kickoff to more Fantasy goodness with our favorite skirmish game!

The tournament will be held inside StocktonCon https://www.facebook.com/stocktoncon

Located at the Stockton Arena 248 W Fremont St, Stockton CA 95203 the tournament will be held on Saturday August 8th.  Registration begins at 10am. First round begins at 11am.

To Register contact commander@brinkofbattle.com or sign up on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/events/1592854407631073/

Tournament Details

Entry Fee: $10.00 plus con admittance ($10.00 pre-registered, $13.00 at the door)

Maximum # of Players: 8

Prizes For: Best General, Best Paint Job, Best Sportsmanship. Over $175.00 in Prizes!

Number of Games & Format: Swiss System with 3 Games played followed by top 2 in Final Round.

Period:  1, Equivalent Year 1300AD

Power Level: 1, no Magic Gear of any kind allowed.

Force organization: Standard Force Org

Supply Points: 750

Theme Bonus: ALL Forces must be fully painted and have a Theme/Background Story with named models.  This will grant the +25 Supply Point bonus, so all Players will have Forces of 775 Supply Points maximum.

Restricted Units: Cavalry, Exotic Cavalry, War Dogs, War Beasts, and Flyers.

Gear: One Scarce Gear allowed per Force in compliance with Power Level 1. No Magic Gear. No Prestige Gear.

Augmentations Allowed:  Natural Armor, Natural Weapons.

Brink of Battle Main Rules General and Period 1 Profile Traits Allowed: All

Epic Heroes Traits Allowed: See List Below. Prestige Traits are indented and must follow their Required Traits.

Epic Heroes Traits Allowed

Abomination

                Psychic Scream

Acrobat

All-out Attack

Amorphous

Amphibious

Aquan

                Sea Devil

Arborean

                Grove Stalker

Assassin

Athlete

Backstab

Berserker

Blunt Force Trauma

Brute

Bully’s Boot

Burly

Claw Fighter

Combat Awareness

Combat Reflexes

Commander (As in BoB Main Rules)

Field Marshall

On Yer Feet!

Stand Yer Ground!

Warmaster

Corps-a-Corps

Counter Strike

Defensive Stance

Dogpile

Duelist

Durable

Elusive

Endurance

Extra Arms

Extra Attack

Fanatic

Feral

                Bloodlust

Fighting Man

Gang Up

Gladiator

Graceful

                Battle Runner

Ground Fighting

Heightened Senses

Henchman

High Pain Tolerance

Highborn

                Call in a Favor

                Friends in High Places

                Rich Uncle

Insectoid

                Wall Crawler

Intimidating

Iron Will

Just Won’t Die

Knockdown Attack

Lightning Reflexes

Low Profile

Mobile Ambush

Monkey Grip

Natural Armor

Natural Climber

Natural Weapons

Paragon

Ratskin

                Guttersnipe

                Plague Touched

                Vermin Tide

Reptilian

                Dragonblooded

                Inscrutable

                Leapin’ Lizard

Resolute

Ronin

Runt

Shield Bash

                Edge Striker

                Glancing Blow

                Slam!

Skeleton Warrior

Slithering Body

Targeteer

True Grit

Two Weapon Fighting

                Two Weapon Defense

Undead

0-1   Commander Type Only

Valiant Heart

                Exemplar

                Heroic Poise

                Hold!

Volley Fire

Weapon Expert

Zombie

Super Summer Sale!!!

I've gone off my rocker in this heat! So for the rest of the Summer, I've knocked the price off of the PDF's of Brink of Battle and Epic Heroes severely. You can now get the Brink of Battle PDF for $9.99 and the Epic Heroes PDF for $14.99!

Go forth and spread the Word!

Noch WEITER!!!

Bob

Epic Heroes Plug & Play Force Rosters

After releasing Brink of Battle, I received quite a bit of feedback that was contrary to what gamers were telling me in years previous when it came to building your own force or using an 'army list'. Since one of my goals with BoB was to destroy the Metagame and Power Creep, army lists, where I tell you what you can play with, went out the window.

Then, with the design burden shifted over to their side of the table, a lot of players found it too challenging to assemble a force, even with the step by step guide I put in our Downloads section of the website. And some just honestly admitted they were too lazy for the build your own concept.

So, for Epic Heroes, we decided to paint up 13 different forces and supply pregenerated rosters for people who wanted to play right away, or who at a minimum see what the new rules looked like all put together.  So here they are. All 13 for your perusal.

Since we listed to our customers, we are working on a pre-generated plug & play booklet that will have most of the Fantasy tropes pre-packaged with optional add-on's to speed force construction and let players get over what seems to be the biggest hurtle in the beginning.

Noch Weiter, Elf!

Bob

The Bone Devils

Shock and Awe! Bob's posting some pics of miniatures on his miniatures blog!  That's been long overdue.

Seriously though, now that the kids are sleeping through the night, we've had more evening time freed up and I've been able to go down to the basement and work on my Melnibonean figures from Citadel back in 1987.

I've been quietly buying them off of eBay for the better part of the last 8 years.  And I hadn't really had a better purpose for them until recently when I decided that they would be my next force for Epic Heroes play.

I always liked the back stories of the Harlequins and the Legion of the Damned from Warhammer 40K. Mysterious warriors traveling through the Warp and arriving in time to turn the tide of battle, but for reasons known only to themselves.  This concept was at the heart of The Bone Devils.

In the Epic Heroes Fantasy supplement for Brink of Battle, we have the ready made setting of The Lost Empires of Arkantis! (Cue thunderous drums and horns) In that cosmology there are 3 primary Planes of existence: The Ascendant, Primeval, and Diabolic Realms encompass the Positive Energy Plane, Prime Material Plane, and Negative Energy Plane concepts common to Fantasy games/worlds.

The Etherium was created when I got the idea for the Ghost Watch, a secret order of warriors who patrol the non-corporeal space between the Planes and who stand guard against beings from the Etherium such as ghosts, wraiths, and other malevolent phantasms that manifest in the real world, or that try to invade the Ascendant Plane.  

I wanted a group who was more like the Dark Eldar Kabals, Legion of the Damned, and Harlequins who entered from some pocket dimension they inhabit and who hunt and kill Demons/Diabolicans. Hence the Bone Devils were born. They patrol the Netherium which is the nether realm between the Diabolic and Primeval Planes. Since they hunt diabolicans and other demonic nasties who enter the Primeval Realm I wanted them to be adorned in demonic looking masks with either a rictus theme or something similar and in all cases sporting horns. The Horned Devil from D&D was an inspiration for that theme. 

However, over the centuries members of this order have become accustomed to torturing and killing diabolic entities and their mortal followers. In addition, they have become isolated from the rest of the populated lands, and see themselves as separate from other mortals. Their agendas and interventions in the affairs of the inhabitants of Arkantis have shown a compunction toward torture and slaughter which has resulted in them becoming a possible threat to those they once protected. 

Ok, so enough back story. Here's some Work In Progress pics I've taken of the group so far. They are lead by an Agonarch, or overseer of tortures, battles, and reveries.  I'm holding off on naming any of them until I get further along on the painting.  

The Agonarch on his mighty steed.

Might name these heavy knights Grim Knights. Jury is still out on that one.

 

Lighter horsemen with bows are Corsairs. They use the Tunneler Trait to deploy later in the game as they open an extradimensional gateway to enter the game. Its my twist on the Tunneler Trait concept. Instead of digging through the earth to pop up later, they enter from the Netherium! 

 I built a Star Skiff out of some jewelry pieces I found at Hobby Lobby and some bits and bobs from my hobby gear.  I can use it as an Exotic Cavalry piece for lower Power Level games that don't allow for Flyers, or as a magical conveyance for Power Level 3 where Flight is allowed.

 

 

More pics later. I am done with assembly for the Agonarch, 3 Grim Knights, and 3 Corsairs, plus the Star Skiff and 2 Arcanists. Might whip up another Star Skiff just for kicks. 

After much consideration, we here at Strategic Elite have made the business decision to move all of our print and pdf offerings to be sold exclusively on Lulu.  This decision was not made lightly, and unfortunately the print version of Epic Heroes will be temporarily unavailable while we explore our color print options on Lulu.  The PDF is now available for purchase there.

Any customers who downloaded our PDF’s from Wargame Vault will still be able to access their purchases in their Library. Wargame Vault has assured me that the only items that won’t be available to customers who previously downloaded them are the old Epic Heroes Ashcan (which is now obsolete with the release of the full book).

All of our Force Rosters, Play Sheets, Gear Tables, and the Sci-Fi Ashcan are still available for free from our Downloads tab at www.brinkofbattle.com

We appreciate your understanding and we will notify everyone once we have a solid print copy of Epic Heroes available again. 

Noch Weiter!

Bob Faust

Strategic Elite Thanksgiving SALE!!!

We here at Strategic Elite want to say 'Thanks!' to our customers and supporters. We want to give your friends an opportunity to get our game and supplement so you all can have a great time!

Use the links below to get the special discount pricing. Tell all your friends and get gaming today!

Brink of Battle PDF Sale! $16.99 USD

Epic Heroes Fantasy Supplement PDF Sale! $22.99 USD

Happy Thanksgiving & Noch Weiter, Elf!

Bob Faust

The True-Bold Fighting Company Pregenerated Force Roster from the Epic Heroes Supplement!

Now that I have a little more consistency with schedules at home and work, I can start to do some of the marketing work that had to be temporarily sidelined.  So, today we reveal one of the 13 pregenerated Force Rosters in the back of the Epic Heroes supplement for Brink of Battle. This format was added after receiving much commentary from our readership that they wish they had some pregen forces to use to get stuck in right away trying out the new rules.  And so we decided to not only put them in the book, but also build them around the miniatures our three strategic partners sent us to paint up and photograph for the interior.  Here's Iron Wind Metals (formerly Ral Partha) adventuring Player Character models. We know them as the True-Bolds!

I am ALIVE!!!

And well. And supremely busy with real life work & family.  When I get the opportunity to work on some figures I will post them here.  Until then,

Noch Weiter!

Bob

We do some talkin' and some cussin' too!

Our friends over at The Launchpad Comics & Games in Lodi invited Drew & I to join them on their excellent podcast. So we laughed, cussed, and talked all about Epic Heroes and how it fits into the Brink of Battle system.

Check it out here http://missioncommand.podbean.com/#.VBS-6sJj9AA.facebook

Noch Weiter, Elf!

Anatoli's Game Room reviews Epic Heroes!

Once again Alex does a great job not only describing the mechanic, but also capturing the 'feel' of the material.  Read it here:


http://anatolisgameroom.blogspot.com/search/label/Brink%20of%20Battle

Finally! Epic Heroes goes on sale Sunday August 31st at Wargame Vault!!!

Three years in the making, Drew & I have given you the ultimate tool box for adding fantasy rules to any game of Brink of Battle!  The PDF will go on sale this Sunday, August 31st as a stand alone supplement or as a bundle with the Brink of Battle core rules PDF.  Next week we get the proof copies of the print version and if those meet our ridiculously high standards, then we will put that up to market as well.

Noch Weiter Elf!

Bob Faust

TWIN-ty Percent Off Sale!

To celebrate the arrival of our Twins, we are holding a TWIN-ty Percent Off Sale from now through the end of May!

 This applies to print copies as well as PDFs. Get yours while you can for $23.96 for a print copy or $17.99 for a PDF. Lulu and Wargame Vault are our go to places for this Sale. You can find the links here:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=brink+of+battle&categoryId=100501


http://www.wargamevault.com/browse.php?discount=43488

 Grab this Origin Awards Nominated Skirmish game today!

Brink of Battle Core Rules PDF on Sale!

As part of DriveThruRPG's GM's Day Sale a PDF of Brink of Battle is now 30% off its already reduced price. You can now buy these rules for only $15.74 USD!


Here's the link http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/101770/Brink-of-Battle-Skirmish-Gaming-through-the-Ages?term=brink+of+battle


You WILL need these core rules to use the Fantasy Supplement Epic Heroes, so grab 'em while they're hot!


Noch Weiter!


Bob

Epic Heroes: Skirmish Gaming in the Realms of Fantasy Update!

 For those of you wondering about the size and scope of the Epic Heroes Fantasy supplement, let me update you.

I am finished with the principal writing. Now I need to do some chapter intros, list out some errata that we have from the main book, and also finish Magic Items, War Beasts, Flight, and Alchemical gear. 

 

That being said, we're already at a word count of....wait for it.....49,009. The main rule book is a smidge over 55,000 words!

Pile that wall high boys, 'cause unless I miss my guess, we're in for a wild night!

Noch Weiter!

Bob