The Shield of Ord, Midfast is a city truly vital to the security of its nation. Situated at the most navigable pass between Merin and Khador, Midfast has spent centuries as a vital byway of trade and a critical choke-point denying northern aggression. This city has been the scene of numerous seiges, the most famous of which culminated with the ascencion of Markus, the Morrowan patron ascendant of soldiers. To this day, national defense is the primary concern of Midfast.

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Though primarily known for its fine uiske, canny seafaring merchants, and cannier ruffians, the nation of Ord has a fine military tradition both on land and sea. Though poor in natural resources, Ord has always been able to call upon the tenacity and unfaltering bravery of her soldiers, most notably Ascendant Markus himself, who died defending that fortress city. Two major ethnicities dominate Ord, the Tordorans to the North dominate its politics and commerce, and make up the bulk of the population, and the Thurians to the South.

Tordoran Martial Weapons

Tordoran military prowess is largely found on the high sea and defending the mountain passes against Khadoran aggression and the dangerous inhabitants of the wild Thornwood and the Gnarls. They disdain polearms, preferring the use of longbows at range and swords or axes in close.

• Short & Long Swords
• Scimitars
• Rapiers
• Bastard & Great Swords
• Caspian Battle Blades & Glaives
• Battle & Great Axes
• Long Bows
• Pistols

Thurian Martial Weapons

A people split between Cygnar and Ord, the Thurians as a people are far better-treated than the Umbreans, who has a similar political divide in their traditional territory. Thurians do not enjoy all the privileges of a Tordoran in Ord, but many a renowned marine, sailor, and soldier have come from their number to serve Ord in its times of need.

• Glaive, Guisarme, Halberd, Locharn, Ranseur, Fork
• Short & Long Swords
• Scimitars
• Rapiers
• Caspian Battle Blades & Glaives
• Short Bows
• Pistols

The northern regions of the Iron Kingdoms are home to the Khadoran empire. Comprized of an amalgam of Khardic, Kossite, Skirov, Umbrean, and the Ryn, the martial history of this region revolved primarily around the untamed woodsmen of Kos, the barbarians of Skirov, and the Khardic and Umbrean horselords. Though these cultures now share a single military, some traces of the old preferences are still present, as fathers teach their sons and mothers teach their daughters the traditions of their ancestry. Through the play-fighting of children and the prejudices of drill sergeants, Khadoran armsmen still present a variety of martial weapons.

In addition to limiting the availability of martial weapons that have no strong presence in the martial traditions of these cultures, I am also including many of the “exotic” weapons into their native cultures, and adding a handful of additional “simple” weapons.

Khardic Martial Weapons

The Khards are a proud, ancient people with a long tradition of mounted warfare. Through their incessant wars with the Umbrean, Kossites, and Skirov, they simultaneously imposed their will upon their neighbors and learned from them on the fields of battle. Rifles have become extremely popular over the past generation, as the Khadoran military has been modernized under Ayn Vanar.

• Glaive, Guisarme, Halberd, Ranseur, Fork
• Light & Heavy Lances
• Short & Long Swords
• Great Axes
• Light & Heavy Horseman’s Axes
• Rifles
• Shortbows

Khardic Simple Weapons

• Battle Axe
• Khardic and Hunting Spears

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One of the traditionally-awkward aspects of the Dungeons & Dragons game system, going back to AD&D is weapon proficiency. Quite simply defined, proficiency with a given weapon means that a proficient character knows how to properly use the weapon in combat. Using a weapon one is not proficient with will incur certain penalties, most notably a penalty on all attack rolls. The problem has always been in determining which weapons a given character knows how to use.

In AD&D, this was accomplished by giving the various character classes a fixed number of starting weapon proficiencies (and in some most cases a restricted list of allowable weapons), with additional proficiencies being granted as the character progressed. The main problem with this was that the Fighter character, master of arms that he is, would end up with a stupendously long list of weapons he could use competently, but would run across an enchanted Ranseur and be at a loss as to how to use the darned thing until the following character level. In time, the Fighter would reach a peak point after which new proficiencies were of no practical use.

Third edition D&D addressed this problem by creating three major groupings of weapon types, “simple” weapons that nearly anybody would know how to use, “martial” weapons that only skilled armsmen would master, and “exotic” weapons, which were simply not typically in use, and required specialized training or exotic origin in order to put to good use. Fighters are considered to be proficient in all simple and martial weapons. Quite tidily done for any reasonably-standard D&D world.

But with third edition Dungeons & Dragons came the d20 system, the OGL, and eventually Privateer Press and their Iron Kingdoms setting. The Iron Kingdoms has a significantly different technology level than traditional fantasy roleplaying games, and distinct ethnicities with different cultures and martial traditions. How does the d20 system’s weapon proficiency match up? A quick search for threads regarding firearm proficiency rules on their forum will tell you that it works a little less well than you might expect.

I’ll be following this introductory article with some suggested lists of weapons that should be considered “Martial,” “Simple,” or “Exotic” based upon the Iron Kingdoms cultural groups. Expect most Khadoran subcultures to favor Axes, Cygnarans to favor swords, and so forth.

Fans of japanese animation have long been aware of a subgenre known as “super-deformed.” It originated, to the best of my knowledge, with the release of small-bodied, big-headed “cute” Gundam toys many years ago. Super-deformed versions of all many of popular products have come forth, from chibi-Dragonball to chibi-Evangelion. Well, a fellow calling himself JaggedToothGrin on the Privateer Press Fora has brought this deviant little tradition over to the world of WARMACHINE. Presented for your amusement, Chibi Cryx, the diabolically-evil, piratical, tyrranous, (and now cute) arch-villains of the Iron Kingdoms setting:

From left, these are the Warwitch Deneghra, the Iron Lich Asphyxious, Lich Lord Terminus, a Bane thrall, and Pirate Queen Skarre.

The gamecrafters at Privateer Press are at it again. After introducing their Iron Kingdoms campaign setting for the d20 RPG and the WARMACHINE miniature wargame, and progressing each of these products a bit through subsequent expansions and add-ons, they’ve decided to take a hard left turn away from giant metal juggernaughts and rifle brigades and into the realm of big brutish wild-men with axes. Hyped as the Next Big Thing in their magazine No Quarter, we finally got some details.

Hordes will be an alternate version of the WARMACHINE miniatures game that focuses on four new factions, some of which we IKRPG fans are already familiar with: a cabal of Druids (presumably Blackclads), the diverse Trollblood populations (including proper Trolls as well as Trollkin), the Skorne (originally seen in the Witchfire trilogy), and the minions of a previously-believed-to-be-destroyed dragon Everblight (the subject of the Wyrmcycle Saga, alluded to in a number of Iron Kingdoms works). This game will have play mechanisms extremely-similar to that of WARMACHINE, and is promised to be fully compatible with the old system. This means you’ll be able to pit Warpwolves and Woldwardens against Cygnaran Longgunners, and Skorne stormtroopers against Cryxian Helljacks.

This also means that a wide assortment of monster miniatures that are Iron Kingdoms-appropriate will be released into the wild. Expect prices on these figures to be more in line with those of wargames minis (which they are) than with traditional RPG minis, of course. This also means that we can probably expect a slowdown in the release of new units and ‘jacks for Cygnar, Cryx, Khador, and the Protectorate, as well as a shift in the tone of the over-arching main plotline of this setting.

I find it interesting that even as the Liber Mechanika is being shipped out, with all its mechanika goodies, the Privateers are focusing onto the wild and hairy portions of their game world. I suspect that given a couple more shifts like this, the Iron Kingdoms will be a remarkably well-rounded place to adventure in.

Today I picked up the first issue of No Quarter Magazine, a periodical by the notoriously-tardy Privateer Press. I’m highly interested in whether they’ll be able to keep up with the inherent deadlines, as previous publications have suffered some rather disappointing setbacks.

First, the bad stuff. I know this is a terribly sticklerish thing to bring up, but the contributing writers to this title could use some more firm editorial filtering. Small grammatical errors and stylistic foibles slip through in nearly every article. This is acceptable in obscure weblogs (hi!) and web fora, but I wince when I see such errors in a magazine. I rarely catch them in Time or Newsweek, and I am confident that the Privateers are at least twice as smart as those douchebags. Also in the “bad” column is the possibly-intentional inclusion of references to unpublished rules. A prime example of this would be the mysterious “Khadoran Conscript” feat listed with the example Iron Fang NPC. Another minor complaint is the recycled artwork in the Professor Pendrake section. Stylistically, the font being used for the cover masthead needs to be used more sparingly. It is practically illegible at smaller sizes. These are trivial annoyances, which I will set aside as subjects for expected improvement and growth.

Now to the rabid fanboy gushing of praise and such. No Quarter is doing a fine job of mixing the tabletop miniatures game WARMACHINE and the Iron Kingdoms roleplaying game setting. With the preponderance of miniatures-gamers on the Privateer Press Fora, I had some concern that things would be more one-sided.

The artwork, as is to be expected from these folks, is fantastic. The full-color artwork for Karchev and Terminus particularly stand out. The full-page picture of an Iron Fang in repose takes the cake. My previous typography complaint aside, the magazine itself is lovely. The page layouts were clearly put together by people that simultaneously understand the benefits of consistency and the desire to be able to flip through the pages and find an article quickly. Without garish 3rd-party advertisements, articles are uninterrupted and read smoothly.

No Quarter additionally made good use of Privateer Press’s online resources, pointing folks to web enhancements and fansites liberally. As a frequent forum-monkey on their site, I can see that they take the recommendations and ideas of their fans seriously, and are putting forth a strong effort to give us what we want. Within reason.

If you have USD$5.99 handy and a local hobby store that carries it, pick it up. Folks that play both WARMACHINE and the IKRPG will get the most value out of it, but enthusiasts of either will get their money’s worth.

I’ve been playing a Bodger (an Iron Kingdoms-specific character class). Bodgers excel at working with all things mechanical. They’re able repairmen, are skilled an improvising tools for whatever occasion may arise, but aren’t the most capable death-dealers in the world. I intended for this character to use a variety of tools and clockwork widgets to help an adventuring party overcome the sorts of problems normally tackled by a traditional D&D Rogue.

My Bodger has been adventuring with three Fighters, so combat has been especially challenging for me. As the party is Fighters get an excellent BAB, and tend to emphasize dealing copious amounts of damage with the single swipe of an over-sized blade or hammer of some sort. After a few sessions of flailing around, I found the following to be good tactical approaches to a violent situation:

• Manipulating initiative: this is vital when playing a character that doesn’t have a lot of magical abilities. When you do something can be just as important as what you do. By readying an action until a teammate or opponent is in position, you can accomplish much more, faster.
• Flanking: with a low-BAB character type, fighting a high-AC opponent can be frustrating. An extra +2 attack bonus can be of great assistance in actually delivering a little damage to the enemy. This is especially important for Rogues, who can deal additional Sneak Attack damage when flanking his target. Initiative manipulation is very important here, as you want to set up your flanking situation to optimal benefit; if your Fighter is probably going to hit even without the flank, let him move in first, then move the Rogue into position for the Sneak Attack. If the weaker melee combatant isn’t likely to land a blow even with the bonus, and especially if the stronger melee combatant is having trouble hitting, get the weak character into position first. Even if you feel you are doomed to miss, you can provide your teammates with a bonus this way.
• Attacks of Opportunity: especially useful against spellcasters and opponents with good ranged capabilities, attacks of opportunity are wonderful. If you cannot get to an enemy Wizard with a Charge action (move twice your movement rate in a straight line, followed by a single attack at +2 to hit), run up next to him anyway, hoping for a free attack on his action, possibly interrupting whatever he was doing.
• Readied Actions:Once you’re in close, ready an action to perform a Partial Charge on a spellcaster or ranged combatant’s initiative, hoping to force a Concentration check. This prevents a clever opponent from simply taking a five-foot adjustment and casting spells from outside your reach. Readying a partial charge limits your character to a single attack, which is somewhat of a disincentive at higher levels, but against a difficult opponent this tactic can turn the tide of a battle.
• Communication: if you’re moving somewhere just to set up a flank, or readying an action for later, let the other players know why. Team tactics require teamwork, and teamwork requires communication.

Note that this doesn’t just apply for Bodgers. Other characters with low BAB progressions, such as Sorcerers, Wizards, and Arcane Mechaniks can make a substantial contribution when they’re out of spells through these means.

Last weekend, the folks at Privateer Press set off an avalanche of forum activity and chatter amongst their internet-intensive fanbase by publishing not only previews of the Harbinger‘s model for WARMACHINE, but also a number of previews pertaining to the much-anticipated Liber Mechanika and a cryptic sub-site featuring a Winter Guard watchman demanding a password.

The Liber Mechanika is expected to have all manner of crunchy goodness, including rules for creating and using steam-drive power-assist armor, mechanikal limb replacements, and just about anything else you may need in order to go on an adventuresome rampage through Western Immoren. Though I’m still basking in the afterglow of the IKWG, I’m very much looking forward to August. Arcane Mechaniks and Bodgers are about to get about twenty times as useful, I suspect.