As part of my miniatures mania, I have inevitably been drawn into taking a fresh look at my fantasy/historical rules, Conqueror: Field of Victory.
This was revised and reissued in 2019, and while a major improvement over the original, there are areas that need to be improved. As is often the case, some rules could be phrased better and I am getting feedback in that respect.
But the scope of the game could be expanded, as well as the resources to support it. When the original version was released back in 2013 or so, it was not so much a complete game as a kit to build your own. This was because it was designed as a replacement for Warhammer Fantasy, which Games Workshop had decided to push into a 7th Edition. I liked the previous version (and loathed the one before it), but the constant churn of rules that has come to define GW products was simply unsustainable for me.
Like many players, I was annoyed at the transparent cash grab, but in a more practical sense, I no longer could afford to buy new copies of all the rules and books. I had already given up on Warhammer 40,000, which is gearing up for it’s 11th edition.
For those who don’t know, these are not iterative developments, building off of player feedback but simply random ways to stir the pot and make people rebuy product every three years. It would be like Sony putting out a new Playstation with zero new capabilities, just a different color on the box and slightly modified controllers that were not backwards compatible.
Conqueror was my answer, and there is absolutely a huge improvement in terms of the revised addition compared to the original. I’m looking at doing the same thing again.
If there are features that interest you, leave a comment. For now, I am focusing on three things: better artwork, rules clarifications, and expanding the army lists and options.
The first two speak for themselves. Having gone through the book after a couple of years away, I can see areas that need clear improvement, especially in some of the terms I use.
Artwork also helps sell a game, and in fact this whole exercise started with me deciding to update the cover illustration, which was drawn by my middle kid when she was still in high school. She has improved considerably, but one of her sisters has asked for the commission. We shall see.
The biggest change (and I mean that quantitatively) will be in the army lists. When I set out to add them, I quickly grew bored and fatigued. Grinding through stats and formatting tables is dull work, and at a certain point, I burned out and basically tidied things up as best I could.
The result was serviceable, but still required extra work on the part of the players to shape their forces. For example, most lists have a generic entry for infantry, be it orcs, goblins, humans, elves, etc. What that means is that before one can even start to build a roster, one has to calculate the cost of the troops in question.
What I’m going to do instead is pre-generate common troop types, which will add more space, but I think will make the process faster, and of course I will include verbiage noting that these are just samples, players can use the unit creation rules to make whatever changes they desire.
To put it another way, I’m doing this in large part to improve my enjoyment of the game, and I figure if I want it, others probably do as well.
I’ll be providing updates as needed and will of course announce when the work is done.
Chateau Lloyd 
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