Boardgame Rescue - My Next Project - Warrior Knights

The next in my Rescue Mission series is going to be one of my two copies (if not both) of Games Workshop Warrior Knights circa 1985.

Warrior Knights is a great medieval wargame designed by Derek Carver who alsodesigned Blood Royale which was similarly released by Games Workshop two years later as part of their Bookcase Games range.

I have played Warrior Knights a handful of times but it always stood out as a great game with lots going on for each player both in their turn and in others as you strive to capture cities across the board, wage war and try to put your pretender on the throne.

To Pimp or Not To Pimp

That is the question.  There is limited scope for pimping the game as it comes with a huge amount of cardboard tiles for all manner of item , however, there are some options including:

Strongholds and Cities - The most notable game piece on the board are the stronghold counters which come in three flavours:

• Stronghold - x1 - This is your barons home
  
• City Control Marker - x14 - Some city walls to surround your
  
• Improved Control Marker - x6 -
  

Noble Markers - As you can see from the photo below these generic shields just look cheap and nasty and mine have even changed colour!!

Warrior Knights - Noble pawns, Stronghold and City Control Markers

Money - It makes the world go around and you end up playing with these tiny little tokens throughout the game.  Much better to have some nice plastic tokens that don't blow away if someone coughs.

Warrior Knights - Money - Who has time for 1/2 crowns these days!!

Trade ships - There is an exploration element to the game represented by the 4 colonies in the corners of the board.  These work in the same way as the cities on the main board and can be captured and fought over.  Getting there requires a vote in the council and the ship's progress is represented by a small cardboard counter.  This could easily be replaced by a tiny sailing ship.  

Wish me luck

Pimp My Game - Curse of the Mummy's Tomb

Back in the midst of the Corona Curse, I went about restoring one of my favourite Games Workshop boardgames from the 1980s, Curse of the Mummy's Tomb.  

I was never truly satisfied with the result and the ultimate goal was to have a pimped out copy of this vintage classic.

A prayer to the eBay Gods and an incomplete copy of the game was soon in my hands for the princely sum of £20.  Why, you might ask, would I part with good money for an incomplete game?  Well this one had all 5 of the original minis.  

These are much sought after "oldhammer" minis from the Night Horrors set and bought individually carry a hefty price tag of between £15 and £20 each.  All 5 minis for the price of 1 is what I call a bargain! If only I could find my originl minis...

The Pyramid of Khonsu    

Both my original and this copy had horribly warped boards and an even worse central column.  I therefore took it upon myself to model and print a new sturdier version on my 3D printer.  I modelled this in Sketchup including all the important game elements such as the start arrows, encounter numbers, pharoahs heads, ankhs and compass, leaving the way too complicated hieroglyphic frescos to someone with better modelling skills than myself.

The goal here was to balance printability (must fit on my print bed), functionality (must fit together and store in the original box) and playability (must have all the major functions of the original).  The middle and top floor plates all fit on the bed of my printer but the ground floor needed to be cut up into 4 segments and printed in batches.  I've seperated these out as individual models so you can play around

With a bit of trimming on the tabs it goes together easy enough.  

In order to print it on my FDM printer I split the central column into 3 pieces and magnetized each piece (16 Magnets in total) with readily available 5mm neodynium magnets. 

Pyramid of Khonsu - The Floors

The Floors and Columns click together

Floors stacked with the help of magnets

It all fits neatly back inside the original box

If you want to print your own Pyramid of Khonsu you can download the STL files for free from thingiverse

Tana Leaves

The quality of card stock in these 80s GW games would give the team at Fantasy Flight nightmares. It is so shockingly thin (10 thousands of an inch thick), I imagine you could use it to accurately set the tappets on a vintage car or level the bed of your 3D printer.  The tana leaves get a lot of handling during the game and so were another candidate for the 3D printer.  Given their size and relatively low number it was not too much of a chore to design and print 55 of the little blighters. 

Download your own replacement tokens for free from Thingiverse - Tana Leaf Tokens.

Attribute Cones

This new copy came with a few cones missing.  I could have purchased some replacements from eBay, or tried to find some replacements from boardgamemaker.com, but a pretty good alternative is available on thingiverse - Cone Game Piece (Games Workshop style)  They are the ubiquitous game tracker pawn used in many GW games of this era such as Cosmic Encounter which used them to represent the ship tokens.

The first outing for the game was as a special finale finale to my recent Judge Dredd campaign.  I'll write up the rules for this in a seperate article

Jessie's Prints - Episode 16 - Maxing out the print bed

 

This week, I are mostly been printing...

Ticket to Ride Trays - Thingiverse 213031

Nothing gets a board gamer with OCD riled up than having their rolling stock scattered all over.  How do you calculate your progress? How do you know at a glance if you have enough to snatch that last minute route?

Wonder no more with these wonderful Train Trays.

Judge Dredd Film Badge 2012 - Thingiverse 114711 

I am a big fan of the Savage Worlds RPG system and it's a perfect fit for my Judge Dredd RPG Campaigns (see Sector 55 Blues).  Savage Worlds uses the concept of "bennies" to effect rerolls, soak damage or to introduce a bit of player story enhancement.  What better way to encourage player engagement than with some Judge Dredd badge shaped bennies.

 

I also managed to max out my printer bed in the process... which was nice.  It's heartwarming to know exactly what the maximum available print space you have on your printer.  In my case for this Geeetech Prusa i3 Pro W it is X 185mm and Y 187mm.  Settings have now been adjusted and so there is zero percent chance of a carriage collision... fingers crossed.

Printer Upgrade Time

I've had my printer for almost a year now and I must say that I haven't been using it that much until recently.  Getting back into printing has been great but the experience has been marred by the absolutely ludicrous location and orientation of the SD Card.  On my printer it is on the back of the control board and mounted transversely. 

 

This doesn't seem like a big deal until you've dropped the SD card a bagillion times whilst trying to insert it in the slot and then had to fish around under the printer to retrieve it without disturbing the delicate karma that makes the 3D printing magic happen.

 

Clearly a first world problem but a quick scan of ebay threw up a solution in the form of an SD Male to SD Female card extension which should allow me to move the whole shebang to somewhere more esasily accessible.  I might even print a cover to go over the board now I don't need to access the onboard SD Card slot.   

Vintage Miniature - The Chainsaw Warrior

I've blogged before about my passion for collecting boardgames and in particular my mission to collect all of the bookcase format Games Workshop boardgames released in the 1980s.

Chainsaw Warrior is one of those games.

Chainsaw Warrior (1986)

Chainsaw Warrior (1987) is a solo game where the titular character climbs a New York skyscraper fighting off zombies and other evil minions in a race against time to find and destroy the ultimate evil Chaos.

It's peculiar in that the game is dominated by amazing artwork from 2000AD artbot Brett Ewins yet is not a miniatures game and in fact does not have a single pawn in the game.  

However, that didn't mean that Citadel wasted this opportunity and launched a series of Chainsaw Warrior minis for fans of the game which could be bought as a single blister pack - C100.  Exactly how you used them in game was not proscribed, I guess you could use them as a turn marker. 

They also released a Chainsaw Warrior as part of the Talisman Timescape miniature range to accompany the Talisman expansion of the same name.  A masterstroke in marketing to use a massively popular boardgame to shift a metric ton of lead.

Citadel also made 3 bad guy minis directly culled from the card art used in the game.  These were only available as a very limited release and command insane prices on the secondhand market.

Three Bad Guy / Zombie Cards

I've had this one mini kicking around since 1987, I must have the other two but only God knows where they are.  At the time I must have been going through a Blanchitsu phase as he was painted white with black checkerboarding all over him.  

You do stupid things when you are young, innocent and influenced by the 'Eavy Metal pages of White Dwarf.

The Myth The Mini

As I recently rescued my copy of Chainsaw Warrior it seemed only fitting to rescue this one mini.  Sadly time had not been kind and he had lost the blade of his Chainsaw.  

The mini has a weird "braced for action" pose which makes him look all hunched over.  

Cling Film to the Rescue!

I scratch built a new chainsaw out of a plastic cling film (saranwrap) cutter blade and some scraps of styrene plastic I recycled from ancient W3C Web Accessibility Initiative business cards.  I knew I would find a use for them one day.

The Chainsaw Warrior - a vintage Citadel miniature from 1987

I consulted the box art and some original painted examples for a muted military olive drab kind of colour scheme.  The chainsaw of course got the defacto hazard stripes and some oil washes to make it stand out as the most important thing in the room.

The only thing left to do now is actually play the game...

Curse of the Mummy's Tomb - Vintage Fun from 1988

Recently I blogged about rescuing my copy of the vintage Games Workshop boardgame Curse of the Mummy's Tomb.  This weekend I actually got to play it for the first time in about 30 years. 

Curse of the Mummys Tomb

Vintage Games Play Very Differently

Back in 1988 boardgames were very different.  Wolfgang Kramer had only just invented the Kramer Track implemented for the first time in Heimlich & Co. (1984) and no-one had heard of the term Euro game.

Curse of the Mummy's Tomb is essentially an exploration game set in a 3 tiered cardboard pyramid.  You move your token by playing movement cards on yourself but your fellow players can play movement cards on you to send you off your chosen path.

If you land on an encounter space, numbered 1, 2 or 3, they can also play encounter cards on you up to the value on your space.  These can be either a hazard, a creature or a discovery and you can have only 1 of each.  This means as a player you must search out the encounter 3 spaces in order to guarantee that you can lay a discovery on yourself.  Of course the more players the more chance that they will play hazards and creatures on you.

Heavy Player vs Player

I was quite surprised at how heavy the PvP action was.  In fact in order for you to get the right movement cards for yourself you have to get rid of as many hazard and creature cards in your hand as possible because you can only hold 5 cards at a time.  

The Mummy Is Not That Much of a Threat

Players bid to control the mummy each round by bidding with their Tana leaf tokens.  This auction style movement runs out of steam unless players are regularly pausing to burn their cards and acquire new tana leaf tokens.

If I were to play again I would definitely up the ante and instigate two house rules.

1. The Mummy moves every turn not just every round.
2. Either the player to the right of the active player moves the mummy or the mummy moves randomly using a d10.  (1 North, 2, North East, 3 East etc.. 9 Go Up, 10 Go Down)

The End Game

Once you find a Key of Osiris you can attempt the end game and ascend the pyramid to find the Chamber of Osiris and try to find the elixir of immortality by testing 3 of your attributes.

This is a bit of a lacklustre endgame to be honest as I hate a dice off.

Player Reaction

My boardgame pals didn't hate it completely.  Once they had gotten to grips with the forced PvP nature of the whole thing and the crippling nature of some of the hazards the pace of the game picked up.

Cthulhu Ate My Minis! - Rescuing A Vintage Curse of the Mummy's Tomb

My Games Workshop Bookcase Boardgame collection has a couple of survivors who are hanging on for grim death.

Box Art

One such game is Curse of the Mummys Tomb which has long since lost its metal minis and I need to replace these.  Being a tightwad I'm not going to spring for a mint copy or the £35 for a full set of 5 minis.

To the scanner dear boy...

I have the character cards which have fantastic Gary Chalk illustrations of the four protagonists which can easily be turned into papercraft miniatures.  I wrote a papercraft minis how how to many moons ago and this sort of boardgame first aid is trivial if you have a scanner and printer.   

This also gives me the opportunity to print out the additional characters from the expansion "In Search of Eternity" which featured in issue 102 of White Dwarf. 

 According to the Lost Minis Wiki all 8 character minis were repurposed from the Gothic Horror range and the Mummy from the Night Horrors.  In fact this is probably what happened to my minis... Cthulhu ate them.

Scan, GIMP, Inkscape, Print, Play

Replacement Character Minis

I scanned in all the player cards and in GIMP cut out each of the character images.  I increased the white point using adjust levels  to make them pop before saving them into individual files.

Moving to Inkscape I created a basic standee template 1 inch wide x 1.5 inches tall with a half round base.  Each character was then pasted in and flipped copy pasted in.  Remember to put these head to head otherwise your standees will be upside down.

Export them out as a PDF and print them out.  I only have a cheap inket and even cheaper paper so mine came out a bit blurry.  These were then stuck to cereal box card with PVA glue and once dried cut out.  There's a significant difference in thickness of cereal box cardboard.  Name brand varieties tend to be quite thick which can be a disadvantage if you are using plastic stands.

The player cards for the expansion were also printed out and backed onto cereal box card along with some missing value 1 Tanna Leaf counters.

Another Game Saved from the Scrapheap 

As can be seen from the photo the quality of the minis is very dependent on your printer and paper.

Replacement paper minis for base game and expansion

 

However, for me this is perfectly acceptable for the time being as I am desperate to play a solo game during COVID lockdown 3.0. 

Curse of the Mummy's Tomb: rescued and ready to be played

3 Things You Need When Collecting Vintage Board Games

Sometimes a bargain vintage boardgame comes incomplete.  Sometimes you can only afford to buy the incomplete ones.  

Don't fret, you can probably fix that game up and replace those missing components with some hand made ones.

  The three tools I have found indispensible for this are:

1.  A Printer Scanner Copier - even a cheap and cheerful budget version will produce more than acceptable results.
   
   
2. GIMP - the free image editor takes a bit of getting used to but is essential for manipulating your scanned card fronts and backs into printable files.
   
   
3. A Laminator - inkjet printed cards soon disintegrate so running them through a laminator will make them a bit more substantial and resistant to cheeto fingers.
   

 

Perhaps I do have a problem

...and it's called Dead Games

After joining the Fans of Dead Games Society on facebook I have realised that there are gaping holes in my collections of Games Workshop bookcase format board games.

Some of the best games from my childhood are contained in these small boxes of fun which fit neatly onto your standard bookcase (unlike todays monstrosities).  It was a popular form factor for many games publishers back in the 80s and popularized by the likes of Avalon Hill and the mark of a serious game.

These were heavily advertised in the pages of White Dwarf, The Space Gamer and Imagine magazine

It was natural for Games Workshop to follow suit and begin publishing their own bookcase format games.

Games Workshop Bookcase Games

Apocalypse
Buy it on eBay

Apocalypse: The Game of Nuclear Devastation (1980)

This is a cut down 4 player version of Mike Hayes Classic Warlord which focuses on the Western Europe part of the map.  It has a strong 6.8 score on BoardGameGeek and a bit of a cult following.

I've never played or owned this game but always lusted after it, purely on the basis that the cover illustrations is from 70s Space Artist Jim Burns.

If you like this artwork I strongly recommend that you buy his art book Lightship, you will not be disappointed.

Availability is limited but you will still find copies at reasonable prices if you search for Apocalypse on eBay.  


Battlecars (1983)

Battlecars
Buy it on eBay

Following in the footsteps of the very popular Steve Jackson Games Car Wars, Battlecars is a very simplistic vehicular combat boardgame with an innovative diamond grid board rather than the more typical square grid.  The games scale (10mm?) is compatible with Car Wars being and Citadel Miniatures even produced a range of metal vehicle minis as accessories and more pictures of the C42 Battlecars minis range can be found at The Stuff of Legends.

I played a lot of Battlecars and really enjoyed the fast gameplay.  I even scaled the game up to 1/64th hotwheels scale for participation play at a SELWG Open Day one year.  We had a lot of fun with this game and if you're like me and a fan of post apocalyptic auto duelling it's one that you should consider including in your games collection.

Citadel C42 Battlecars - Buy them on eBay

Battlebikes (1984)

Battlebikes
Buy it on eBay

A year after the success of Battlecars, GW released an expansion to include rules for motorcycles and lots more pedestrians and scenery counters.  This is not a standalone game and you will need a copy of Battlecars to play it.

Citadel expanded their battlecars C42 range to include motorcycles to accompany the game but it was not long after this release that the game was ultimately shelved.  The highlight of this range has to be the Sinclair C5 battletrike. 

Games Workshop returned to the post apocalyptic auto duelling genre 4 years later with the much more accessible 1/64th scale Dark Future game which I covered in my A-Z of UK RPGs in the 80s: L is for Large Box Games post.


Block Mania (1987) - OWNED

Block Mania
Buy it on eBay

A product of the licensing deal with 2000AD publisher IPC Magazines.  Games Workshop released a slew of 2000AD related products also featured in this list.

A 2 player game in which the residents of Sammy Fox and Buddy Holly blocks have gone to war with each other and are determined to destroy as much of each others blocks as possible using whatever items they can lay their hands on.  A very vibrant looking game and one which features the work of seminal Judge Dredd illustrator Brett Ewins.

Block Mania and it's expansion, Mega Mania, are games which slipped under the wire for me despite them being Judge Dredd related.  Needess to say they are on the wanted list and still pretty affordable if you search for Block Mania Boardgame on eBay.

UPDATE: This was re-released by Rebellion Unplugged in 2021 along with the Mega-Mania expansion.

Blood Bowl (1986)

Blood Bowl
Buy it on eBay

This game of Fantasy Football by Jervis Johnson has been a mainstay of the GW IP for many years and has spawned numerous editions, computer games and spin-offs like my favourite Blood Bowl Team Manager.

The first edition was released in the bookcase format and there are some significant rule differences which make it a less fatal version of the game.  Consequently, the board is a 4 piece jigsaw puzzle affair (something GW experimented with on a number of games at the time) and the miniatures are cardstock standees with plastic bases which kept the production costs low.

I own the 2nd Edition Large Box version with the Expanded Poly-Styrene foam field.  I consider this to be the definitive edition which came fully supported with a huge range of extra star player and add-on team boxed sets from Citadel Miniatures.  However, it all started here with this Bookcase version.

If I ever get this version it will be a curiosity filled spur of the moment purchase.  There are plenty of copies available if you search for Vintage Blood Bowl on eBay, but be prepared to wade through hundreds of listings for later versions.

Blood Royale (1987)

Blood Royale
Buy it on eBay

I've always thought of this as a cut down version of Warrior Knights but it is infact a completely different 3 to 5 player game of European political conquest in the Middle Ages.

A gorgeous looking board stretches from England in the North to Spain and Portugal in the South and as far East as Germany and Italy.  Unlike Warrior Knights, where forming banner armies, laying siege and raising cities to the ground, is the core of the game, Blood Royale focuses on the political machinations of the individual family members and the quest for wealth.  

BoardGameGeek recommends that this is best played with 5 players so I imagine it takes some time to complete a game.

Prices remain a bit on the high side when you search for Blood Royale on eBay.  But with the right wind and a lack of interest from other snipers I just might be able to get a bargain.  Fingers crossed. 

Calamity: The International High-Risk Insurance Game (1983) - OWNED

Calamity
Buy it on eBay if you must

This was early days for Games Workshop and they would still release these odd "traditional" boardgames.  GW originally started out making chess boards and one of their first boardgame releases was the wine trading game Grapevine (1980) in partnership with Colman's of Norwich, a well established winetrader.

Calamity is another such game and proudly advertises the name of its designer musical empresario Andrew Lloyd Webber.  Yes Games Workshop made a game designed by the man behind some of the most popular musicals of the 80s like Phantom of the Opera, Starlight Express, Chess and Cats.  Who woulda thunk it.

This is a fairly dry affair compared to their other games and modern satirical games like Crunch or the glorious The War on Terror boardgame by Terrorbull Games (if you haven't played them you should).  I own a copy but purely out of curiosity.  It has hit the table once in only 10 years and to be honest is only here for those who want to complete their bookcase games collection.

Chainsaw Warrior (1987) - OWNED

Chainsaw Warrior
Buy it on eBay

A weird one this.  Chainsaw Warrior is a rare, exclusively solo game with a 1 hour fixed time limit.

It sounds a bit like a boardgame version of The Raid before that movie was even a glint in the milkman's eye.  You take on the role of a Special Forces veteran who has to come out of retirement to face the ultimate evil known as The Darkness (not the noughties rock band)  who has taken over Manhattan.  GW published a set of extra cards in White Dwarf #88 and the Chainsaw Warrior proved popular enough to be integrated into the Talisman game with a range of miniatures from Citadel.

Artwork by the sorely missed master illustrator of big combat boots, Brett Ewins, this game just screams 80s action movie horror and reminds me so much of the comic strip Bad Company which he drew in the 80s.  This could be the perfect game for me, especially if Coronavirus Lockdown continues for another month.

Fortunately prices are reasonable when you search for Chainsaw Warrior on eBay so there is every chance that this could be gracing my bookcase in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: I managed to pick up an incomplete copy (missing just a handful of cards) which I intend to complete.  If anyone reading this has the stats for the blaster, please comment below.

Chaos Marauders (1997)

Chaos Marauders
Buy it on eBay

I must confess that this is a bookcase game which has never really taken my fancy which is strange because I field an orc army in Warhammer.  I have always loved the unpredictability of Orcs and my favourite unit are the ball and chain chucking goblin fanatics who are frankly more of a danger to their friends than their foes.

Designed by Stephen Hand of Fury of Dracula fame, Chaos Marauders got a small form factor reprint from Fantasy Flight Games as part of their budget silverline range.

It is a reasonably available and affordable game if you search for Chaos Marauders on eBay.  I suppose I will bite the bullet and get a copy some day...

Cosmic Encounter (1986) - OWNED

Cosmic Encounters
Buy it on eBay

Another licensed version of a West End Games classic although Cosmic Encounters has passed through many hands over the years and is the basis for Avalon Hill's Dune boardgame.

This is a fairly abstract and esoteric Player v Player game of stellar conflict in which each player tries to eliminate the others using their combat cards and their special power.  The beauty of this game lies in the variety of powers available and something which has been expanded upon over the years with each edition.  Games Workshop used the pages of White Dwarf #78 to publish their own expansions whilst they owned the license. Ibelieve cover art is early John Blanche.

I own this and whilst I enjoy it, there is never any love for it among my group so it never makes it to the table.  It's still a solid game and this bookcase version is considered to be one of the classics.  They are readily available if you search for Games Workshop Cosmic Encounter on eBay.  

Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1988) - OWNED

Curse of the Mummy's Tomb
Buy it on eBay

This is the game that started my own personal journey down the rabbit hole of bookcase game collecting.

A 1 to 4 player game where you take on the role of explorers investigating the interior of the pyramid of  Khonsu, trying to find the ultimate treasure, the mythical Elixir of Life.  The thing that really makes this game stand out is the 3 tiered pyramid which adds a third dimension to the gameplay like some sort of Games Workshop vesion of Vulcan Chess (Kal-Toh).  Sadly the rather flimsy construction and the lack of distance between levels causes more aggravation than I am comfortable with.  Perhaps I will design a 3D printed, upgraded and sturdier pyramid.

The game came with 5 28mm metal pawns (a feature of GW games of this era) representing the four player characters Marlow Hammet, Rev Luther Kirkegard, Professor Nayland Cushing, Lt-Gen The Earl of Carmarthen and the titular Mummy.  Sadly mine have become Player Characters and gone missing somewhere.  I will track them down because I have an urge to play this game especially as the game has a rare solo play option thanks to the drawn movement mechanic.

Secondhand versions are readily available but good, unmolested and complete versions command reasonable prices because a lot of people have fond memories of this game.  You can find rare bargains if you search for Curse of the Mummy's Tomb on eBay.

UPDATE: I Pimped my copy with a 3D Printed Pyramid of Konshu and new minis.

Doctor Who (1980)

Doctor Who
Buy it on eBay

I can't believe that I don't own this game, especially as #MyDoctor (Tom Baker) graces the cover.

However, a quick unboxing reveals a particularly uninspiring timey-wimey looking experience.  The game gets a dissapointingly average 5.4 on BoardGameGeek and it's rather unfortunate that for such a great franchise it seems to get terrible boardgames.

What this game could do with is a customisation with 20mm pawns to replace the cardstock counters.  That would look awesome but probably push the cost of owning this game several orders of magnitude into the stratosphere.

Availability is good and prices reasonable when you search for Games Workshop Doctor Who on eBay. The completist in me is interested but the Doctor Who fan less so.

DungeonQuest (1987) - OWNED

Dungeonquest
Buy it on eBay

I played this once a long time ago and the person who owned it didn't know the rules so we played it all wrong.  But I loved it.

Basically a GW licensed version of the game Drakborgen (Dragon's Keep) it has the four players starting at different corners of the board revealling tiles as they go and trying to uncover a route which leads to the center of the board and their goal, the Dragon's hoard.  To win the game you have to get out alive.

I love a good push your luck dungeon crawl.  I am a fan of modern equivalents such as Cave Troll, Drakkon and Dungeon Roll (despite it's irritating box shape) so this is right up my alley.

When you search for Dungeonquest on eBay you can see some quite eyewatering prices.  I guess this is a testament to how good the game is, I don't know but I will bide my time and if I can grab a bargain, I guess I will find out...

Fury of Dracula (1987) - OWNED

The Fury of Dracula
Buy it on eBay

An amazing hidden movement game where you play one of 4 period correct heroes trying to track down and vanquish the evil Dracula.   You travel around a wonderful map of Europe visiting towns and searching for clues to Dracula's location and fighting the minions he has left there.  But be careful when you finally track him down and fight him as he is more powerful in the night and will probably kill you.

As with many of the bookcase games of this period it came with a set of 5 metal character miniatures.  Strangely for GW/Citadel, these are not 28mm but 20mm sculpts and not really useable in RPGs.  This is probably the reason I still have mine in the box.  

This game has spawned a number of re-release versionsand is always a mark of quality and a large fanbase.  If you are going to collect Bookcase games, this is a great starting place.  The game was very popular and original editions are easily found when you search for Fury of Dracula on eBay. 

Judge Dredd the Boardgame (1982) - OWNED

Judge Dredd the Boardgame
Buy it on eBay

This is a peculiar first use of the Judge Dredd license.  A simple game where upto 6 players play Judges patrolling Mega City One trying to arrest random perps committing random crimes who pop up in random locations.  Each perp has a Combat Factor which is added to the crimes seriousness to give you a number which you have to beat on a roll of 1d6 plus your Judges Combat Factor.  Any player can use Action Cards to increase or decrease either sides Combat Factor and their chance of making the arrest.  The player with the highest scoring perp count wins.

The triple random draw function leads to some bizarre and impossible combinations such as Judge Death (10) caught Littering (1) having the same basic Combat Factor as Filmore Fargo (7) caught Blackmailing (4).  As an introduction to the often bizarre world of Judge Dredd it is a strange but fun game and the Player v Player element can get a bit heated.  To top it all off it has a cover by the greatest Dredd cover artist ever, Brian Bolland.  This game is serious zarjazz fun, it must be, as Tharg the Mighty himself is credited as a playtester.

There's a lot of love for this on the collector market but you can still grab a bargain if you search for Judge Dredd boardgame on eBay. 

UPDATE: Rebellion Unplugged re-released this classic in 2022

Kings and Things* (1986) - OWNED

Kings and Things*
Buy it on eBay

A West End Games licensed edition of the Tom Wham classic 2 to 4 player area conquest game.  Each player must explore the shattered Kingdom of Kadab (randomly generated from a stock of 48 hexagonal terrain tiles) and conquer, construct and recruit whatever they find in a bid to become the most powerful (and benevolent) King.

For some strange reason, this was one of the games I lusted after when scouring the pages of White Dwarf but I never had the funds to acuire it at the time.  I own a copy of Tom Wham's The Great Khan Game released by TSR under their Forgotten Realms setting banner.  It's a blast and I hope that Kings and Things lives up to the hype. 

Thanks to a search for Games Workshop Kings and Things eBay, I finally own a copy at a reasonable price.  Just got to get through the Coronavirus Lockdown and get it on the table

Mega Mania (1987) - OWNED

Mega Mania
Buy it on eBay

Not a standalone game, rather a 3 & 4 player expansion for Block Mania which adds two new blocks; Sly Stalone and Millhouse Nixon and all the necessary extra counters. I find it rather prophetic that a game released in 1987 would use Sylvester Stalone's name who would later play Joseph Dredd in the movie Judge Dredd (1995).

GW also published an expansion in White Dwarf #94 called Happy hour. 

The movie took a lot of flack back in the day for the cheesy portrayal of Dredd but, as I have said on many occasions, what the film gets right is its portrayal of Mega City One.

One of the best scenes is that of the residents of Heavenly Havens and the neighbouring block, Elysian Heights?, engaging in a full scale Block War.  It really sets the scene of a city on the edge of social collapse, the normal state of affairs in Mega City One. 

This is harder to acquire than the base game Block Mania but can still be found at reasonable prices if you search for Games Workshop Mega Mania on eBay.

UPDATE: Mega Mania was re-released by Rebellion along with the base game in 2021.

Quirks the game of un-natural selection (1980) - OWNED

Quirks
Buy it on eBay

This is another bizarre early boardgame for which Games Workshop was the UK license holder and publisher.

Designed by Peter Olotka (among others) who is most famous for Cosmic Encounter, Dune and the enticingly entitled Isaac Asimov's Robots VCR Mystery Game.

Quirks is an evolution game where you must create 3 creatures by putting 3 cards together, in a sort of Darwinian Identikit, in order to become the dominate species for the current environment.  Each successive turn the environments evolve from Ocean thru Forest, Plains, Desert to Jungle.  If your creatures don't evolve they risk becoming extinct.  Lose 3 creatures and you lose the game.

This is an incredibly rare game and rarely comes up when you search for Quirks on eBay.  However, despite this rareity, it does not command particularly high prices.  I'm very much intrigued by this game and so I am on the hunt myself...

UPDATE: I managed to snag a mint never played copy from ebay for a very reasonable price.  The rules are decidedly 80s and did not go down well with my friends when we tried to play it.  I'm convinced that there is a game in there somewhere so will have to try to decipher the rules or come up with something better myself which uses just the metric ton of cards.

Rogue Trooper (1987) - OWNED

Rogue Trooper
Buy it on eBay

I was fortunate to pick up a pretty mint copy of this 2000AD licensed game at the Dragonmeet 2019 bring-and-buy for the princely sum of £15.  Conventions are a great source of bargain vintage games as the seller is usually on a mission to clear shelf space and desperate to not take the game home unsold.  I'm not really a fan of Rogue Trooper but the double pleasure from adding both a 2000AD related and a boolcase game to my collection was a "Double Whammy" I could not resist.

The board is another jigsaw puzzle hex map affair but this time it's a whopping 6 boards worth and features many of the iconic locations from the comic alongside helpful game reminders.  There are plenty of components including pawns, impressive sculpts of the eponymous Genetic Infantryman, for each of the six players.   

Whilst GW had the license Citadel pumped out a range of Rogue Trooper miniatures but they weren't intended as upgrades to this game even though they were advertised in the rulebook.

Unfortunately I have no experience with this game so can't tell you how it plays or wether or not it is fun.  I have to get it to the table with the right set of 2000AD loving friends.

Availability is high and prices very reasonable when you search for Rogue Trooper on eBay.      

Super Power: The Game of Global Exploitation (1986) - OWNED

Super Power
Buy it on eBay

This game looks like it should have been released 3  or 4 years earlier than it was and features an esoteric flower shaped layout of the disputed territories of Africa, Asia, Latin America and The Middle East.  These are the "Third World" regions in which Russia and the USA historically played out their detente foreign policies during the cold war.

I'm not much of a historical boardgamer to be honest and this has alway been one of those games that has left me feeling pretty meh.  There are a couple of history buffs in my regular Friday night games group so it could be an interesting experiment to get it out on the table to see how it plays.  I guess if I were to see a real bargain I might just pick it up out of curiosity.

Availability is high and it goes for a song when you search for Super Power on eBay.

UPDATE: Another game which now thanks to ebay is now in my collection. 

Talisman: The Magical Quest Game (1983)

Talisman
Buy it on eBay

There is a lot of love for this game but in my experience and opinion it's misplaced thanks to the poor game play.  Essentially a role-and-move game where you land on various spaces on your journey to the centre of the board where you chance your arm at acquiring the crown of power and must complete encounters gaining magical items or defeating monsters along the way.  It's a fantasy version of monopoly meets snakes and ladders as there are plenty of ways you can be kicked back into an outer ring by an unlucky dice roll.

It has had numerous reissues and expansions over the years but I just don't understand why this game is so popular.  

Prices for the more plentiful 2nd Edition are much better than the 1st when you search for Talisman on eBay.  It's not something that really interests even the comlpletist in me so I will only pick this up if I find a real bargain.

Valley of the Four Winds (1980)

Valley of the Four Winds
Buy it on eBay

The cover of this game just screams buy me. I remember it being heavily plugged in adverts on the pages of early White Dwarf.  Created by Lewis Pulsipher, the well respected designer of the highly rated Britannia and the founder of Pulsipher Games, this is an epic old school wargame.

I'm not a square counter pushing Grognard so I'm not sure if this is the kind of game I would enjoy.  The components look excellent (for the period) but it has an average score on BoardGameGeek.

Availability is good when you search for Valley of the Four Winds on eBay,  but with prices between £30 and £50 it's too rich for my blood.  This is probably a mistake on my part and I will have to pay much more in 10 years time.  LOL.   

Warlock: The Game of Duelling Wizards (1980)

Warlock
Buy it on eBay

Another early game from GW this magical take that card game is one I've always been aware of but never pulled the trigger on.

Something about this game suggests that the mechanics will be pretty old school and uninspiring particularly when this sub-genre is full of much better and more exciting modern games like Steve Jacksons Munchkin.  Yes I said it, Munchkin.  Every gamer household should have at least one copy of Munchkin.

There are copies out there when you search for Warlock on eBay which, for a 40 year old game is suprising.  You will need to wade through a lot of listings for the next game on the list. 

Prices are pretty steady in the upper ranges of reasonable.  My problem is how badly do I want it?

Warlock of Firetop Mountain (1986)

Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Buy it on eBay

Hot off the popularity of the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook came the bookcase boardgame of the same name.

This is another big name game that I have never played and it looks like a rip-off of TSR's Dungeon but I have no idea if it continues along with the same gameplay.  There is a lot of nostalgia surrounding this game and I suspect it has some quite dated mechanics.  It is a very heavy player v player game and one of the rules encourages deal making between players.  However, it is a drawn out race to the finish which includes the frowned upon player elimination mechanic so I suspect that its not a game with much fun factor.  

Availiability is good when you search for Warlock of Firetop mountain on eBay.  However, having that secondary Fighting Fantasy collector base means that prices for this game are much higher than I am prepared to pay.

Warrior Knights (1985) - OWNED

Warrior Knights
Buy it on eBay

Finally we get to the end of this monstrous list and I have saved the best till last.  Frankly this is the best bookcase game I own, period.  It has huge amounts of gameplay, counters galore, variety in strategy and lots for you to think about as you wait to take your next turn.  In fact this game is so good I bought it twice as a spares backup for the many, many components.

You play one of four Barons vying for total dominance over the kingdom and you must build and maintain your banner armies under your allied nobles, moving around the board laying siege to cities and building your strongholds as you go.  The acquisition of wealth through siege and foreign exploration is an important and necessary part of the game as you must always pay the upkeep on your troops or they will leave in a huff.

This tends to be a long but very rewarding light wargame and very accessible to non Grognards like myself.  It has had a series of re-releases but I consider this version to be the definitive one and there are a few mechanics in the newer ones that don't sit well with me.    

Availability and prices are very good but there are a lot of incomplete copies when you search for Warrior Knights on eBay.  This is a gem of a game and should be on everyones shelf.

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Thank you for getting to the bottom of this monster post and putting up with the amount of affiliate links I added.  They are there as much for my benefit as yours as I am actively searching for many of the games on this list.

I have tried my best to create search phrases which will put you in touch with the most relevant listings on eBay and weed out all the crap you get when you search for old Games Workshop games.

If you are a fellow collector, please consider following those links as they cost you nothing extra but help to fund this blog.  You will also have my eternal thanks and appreciation.