Ryan B.:  Interviewing the Designers of Warlords of Europe

In my mid-thirties I discovered the Milton Bradley “Gamemaster” series of games through Eagle Games’ remake of Conquest of the Empire, which led me to familiarize myself with the full Milton Bradley line. Published in the mid-1980s, the series has a good sized fan base, even today.

Always on the lookout for games of similar ilk, I was intrigued to hear of a new game from Conquest Gaming LLC: the recently released, medieval-themed wargame Warlords of Europe. (2-4 players, ages 9+, 180-240 minutes) The game features a theme untouched by the Gamemaster series, with excellent production values and what looks to be interesting and unique game play. To find out more about the game, I got in contact with designers Russ Rupe, Ken Griffin and Kyle Battle. Here’s what they said:

Ryan: Tell me about the history of Conquest Gaming. Warlords of Europe is your first professionally produced title after self-publishing all of your earlier games. Why did you decide to make the next step?

Ken: The inception of Conquest Gaming occurred in 1997 during a conversation that Kyle and I had one night after gaming. We had been gaming buddies for a couple of years and during a discussion we both realized that each of us had the desire to create our own games in general, and a medieval combat game in specific. Thus was born Warlords of Europe. Kyle and I decided to start a company and shortly after invited Russ to become a full partner. It was through this synergistic partnership that Conquest Gaming was created.

Russ: Technically, since we are the publishers, Warlords is also a self-published title. It’s just several orders of magnitude beyond what we’ve had professionally printed in the past since Warlords was done by a dedicated game building factory in China and has all the plasticy goodness you’d expect from a Hasbro or FFG title.

In Game Trade Magazine #116, we wrote an article – reprinted on our website – that more fully describes how Warlords created Conquest, not the other way around. While we knew we could have published Warlords as an expansion to Samurai Swords, Warlords was so good that we decided to wait until we could do it right. Doing it right took a long time, a lot of money, and a monumental effort. We believe Warlords is done right, and was worth the wait.

Ryan: You’ve noted that Conquest Gaming design team are big fans of the Gamemaster series from Milton Bradley. Warlords of Europe is published in that same vein, correct? What similarities does Warlords of Europe share with the Gamemaster series that will perk the interest of fans of those games?

Ken: I grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s playing Risk and collecting military miniatures. The Gamemaster series was the next evolutionary step after Risk. What was so cool about Axis and Allies, Shogun, Fortress America, and Conquest of the Empire was the fact that it gave playing with miniatures a purpose: Achieve victory in a game using the toy soldiers. How awesome is that!!! They combined the passion of playing games with collecting miniatures. It is in that same vein that Warlords of Europe

Russ: Warlords uses a few mechanics that will be familiar to MB’s GM fans: area movement with some units having a range of two and “blitzing” capability; combat rounds with lots of dice rolling; territories providing economic value. That said, there are a number of innovations that we feel GM fans will appreciate.

Ryan: Obviously, your goal is to go beyond a simple rehash of previous MB Gamemaster games. How does Warlords of Europe differ from any of the other MB Gamemaster titles to create an unique game experience?

Russ: Here are a few of our specific innovations for Warlords:

• We tossed out the script. (Why must Germany kill Russia every game?)
• Terrain type is tied to several things like economic value, the type of dice a defender rolls, and the number of peasants to subjugate.
• In the starting setup, you begin with a castle and a small army and go through a brief, almost “exploration” phase of the game fighting peasants as you build yourself up and maneuver your forces into strategic positions before you come into conflict with other players.
• Three types of event cards which you are given/buy/earn that play a significant role in the game.
• Unit quantity limits. (It was expensive to outfit a knight, and not yet considered proper to outfit the bulk of your army as archers.
• Finally, the castles are a recruitment point and an economic center, and they form a defensive bastion.

Ryan: What if someone is a fan of another genre of board game? How would this release potentially appeal to them? Why is it worth a broader audience taking a look at Warlords of Europe?

Ken: When playing Warlords you will find excitement, tension, conflict, resolution, and the thrill of winning just as you experience with other games regardless of their genre.

Russ: What Ken said. And for the more Euro-gamer crowd – I’m one of them as well – although Warlords has a lot of dice rolling, a lot of event cards, a longer play time, and some degree of player elimination, I would encourage you to give it a try anyway. I recently played a game with a few Euro-centric gamers, and we finished in just over four hours with teaching, which is only two Euro-games long. We had two players on the brink of elimination but not out yet, and lucky dice/cards are never a substitute for solid strategy.

Ryan: The playing pieces look very solid, with a high “toy” factor. Tell me about that.

Ken: Going back to what I said about combining miniatures with the objective of winning a game, certainly high quality game pieces were needed to make that combination work.

Russ: We communicated extensively with the factory on the sculptures. They did a bang-up job making into reality the game pieces that we’ve been imagining for over a decade. The plastic is not as brittle as many games we’ve played, which seem easily breakable, so we believe they will be as durable as they are attractive.

Ryan: The first print run of Warlords is limited to 2,000 games. What do you feel the prospects are for an expanded print run? And speaking of expansion, is there anything planned to expand the base game to five, six or even seven players?

Kyle: I know 2,000 doesn’t sound like a lot, but actually for our publishing demographic, it’s about right. Many games never see a second print run, so obviously we’re hoping for a high demand for Warlords that we will be excited to meet with additional print runs. We’re off to a great start, selling a ton in the first three weeks.

As for expansions, if Warlords does become a hit – and right now I’m not even sure what that threshold is – we will certainly be ready to expand on Warlords. By design, the game lends itself well to both expansion and extension, and we already have several ideas in the back of our minds. We routinely tested with five and six players, but keeping a reasonable MSRP limited us to a four-player set.

Russ: Regarding new Warlords material, several great ideas came up so late in the development phase that we had to go with the game as playtested for over a decade rather than potentially mess it up with inadequately tested content.

Ryan: Fast forward one year, and assume Warlords of Europe is the sleeper success of 2010. What can we expect to see next from Conquest Gaming?

Ken: We have been working on games and gaming ideas for twelve years, and we are confident we have other games people will enjoy playing as much as we have enjoyed creating them.

Kyle: That would certainly mean we have had another print run of Warlords and are looking seriously at expansions. We also have about a dozen other games in various stages of development with a couple that are essentially ready to publish. The last thing we want is to be a one-hit wonder.

We have an interest in a wide array of topics. Basically if it makes a good wargame we are interested in it – and that covers just about every time period. However, we also have some lighter games, as well as a children’s game we are working on. We would like nothing better than to be able to bring these to gaming tables around the world. Our hope is that people enjoy playing our games as much as we do! If we accomplish that, we will have accomplished our mission.

Russ: If this turns out to be the case, look for three otherwise ordinary guys dancing the happy dance on a street corner outside a gaming convention being held in a city near you.

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