Recommendation: Wiley Games and Fistful of Lead

Sitting down to write the blog's summary of 2020 got some gears turning again, so I guess the nebulous "catch-up" posts from 2020 will be coming sooner rather than later. I kept up blogging basically through April, so we'll just take it from there I suppose, and tackle it roughly chronologically, starting with some non-KoW recommendations. 

One of the tabletop purchases I made in early 2020 was a digital rulebook for Fistful of Lead, from Wiley Games. This purchase was pre-pandemic, and part of a plan to coax my girlfriend back into some tabletop gaming in 2020. That did not come to pass, but the ruleset still seems like a great way to get folks into tabletop gaming, so I'll offer some thoughts here.

The ruleset is very casual, and the game aims to facilitate small bands of miniatures (roughly 5 models per side), skirmishing over objectives. My hobby space started shrinking in April and May, and these smaller units were about all I could manage, since I needed to unpack and then pack everything up at the end of every session.

The orcs are all old GW models, purchased close to a literal handful of years ago now. I bought a blister of the push-fit orcs for fun, and was lucky enough to end up with a few armored ones back in the day from browsing some online bits stores.

In the game, models can do a variety of things above the typical attack and move, including literally creeping, interacting with objects, or completing tasks of varying difficulties. While you could play a more "kill"-style game, the scenarios provided and the larger number of potential actions your models can take want to push players towards a more narrative and objective-focused skirmish, like searching for treasure among some ruins, or powering down a superweapon node before the big things fires off screen. More scenarios are included in the webstore for purchase, but being a casual game, you could easily think up some things yourself.

These are minis from Reaper, with a guest appearance from a GW lizardman, who was my test model for orange. This probably isn't a legit crew for the game (certainly not optimized), but it was fun playing around with orange paint.

Gameplay is pretty unique, and actually geared towards pulling in multiple individual players, rather than dividing into strict teams. The game utilizes a shuffled deck of cards for turns, and players are dealt cards equal to the number of things they have to activate. Each round, you work their way through the face cards and suits in an order. As your card/suit comes up, you can activate a unit, and then play continues until everything has gone. This approach is not something I have encountered before in a wargame, and I really like this design idea, especially for a more social or casual game.

I am actually a fan of GW's various push-fit blisters. I ebayed the hero model to lead them, as a little birthday present to myself, as he looked really spiffy.

For cheap (just $7 at time of publishing this post), you can get a digital (but still printable) copy of the basic rules, though there are hard copies of the rules, game aids, and stylized playing card decks for sale if you want to support the designer more. I eventually did upgrade to physical rulebooks in September 2020, getting the core book plus some expansion rulebooks for running horrific monsters, broad sci-fi, and the post-apocalypse settings. 

Since they are selling the rules, not a line of miniatures, the system has a "use whatever you want" approach to running the game, which is awesome for a gamer like me with a lot of miscellaneous miniatures. With this encouraged flexibility, the game reminds me of playing with action figures as a kid? Or the Ultimate Showdown? Mashing up that much individually cool stuff is bound to create some fun times!

Wiley Games has created a pretty neat system. If you are looking for a casual game, particularly with Covid still running rampant, I'd suggest checking this out!