The Power of Counts-as

We’re in a new golden age of hacks, fan supplements, and indie games. The options we have for gaming are staggering and it feels like there’s a packet or zine out there waiting for you that will cover anything you want to do in a game. I’ve had conversations with friends and hobbyists about how these rules documents can help support narrative gaming by injecting additional flavor and options into games we already enjoy. Content creation is the zeitgeist and many of us feel the need to emulate the output of people on social media, defaulting to supporting narrative play by creating more documentation. In that, I think we have lost appreciation for one of the most basic and primal of all tools a narrative wargamer has; taking one thing and using its rules to represent another.

Guest Article: The Cult of the Mushroom God

By Bonespoon (https://bonespoonminis.io/)

For NEMO 2025, I wanted to put together a new warband (because I don’t have enough warbands, of course) and I wanted to use these cool old metal goblins I had traded for at a oldhammer meetup in New Jersey. Thus The Cult of the Mushroom God was born!

Shaman Gutrot was a well-respected night goblin wizard, a pillar of the community, but had a strong predilection towards madcap mushrooms. After one particularly vicious mushroom trip, he fell into a coma for seven weeks. On his journey, he was granted a vision- Gork and Mork are not two separate beings, but truly are just two sides of one beautiful, mushroomy being- the Mushroom God. Awaking from his coma, the shaman rushed to spread the good word. Quickly condemned as a heretic, he was driven from the World’s Edge mountains with a small band of followers. Seeking power and resources to spread the gospel of the Mushroom God, the warband has wandered the Empire, finding themselves on the edge of the City of the Damned...

Guest Articles

 Over the last year, I've received a lot of submissions for Portcullis Magazine. The limitations of 26 pages of print have kept me from being able to include a number of them due to their length, color needs, number of pictures, or because they overlapped too much with an existing article. Recently, ideas for submissions began to come in for Portcullis 3 and I found the same thing happening again. What a waste! Our community is doing so much great stuff and it feels really fucking silly not sharing something cool because of printing logistics. 

I am opening up the Portcullis blog to guest articles so these submissions have a home. I'll also be accepting Portcullis submissions year-round at portcullismagazine@gmail.com from now on. If you have an army you want to showcase, new rules for a game you love, a tactics article, painting tutorial, battle report, or anything tabletop related you'd like to have featured in a future zine or guest post, I am waiting to read what you've got!

Ghosts and Dungeons

 The new year has brought with it a number of changes in my personal and professional life that have eaten a lot of my time and on top of that, I managed to blow out my knee and shoulder while central Massachusetts experiences its snowiest winter in years. The little free time I've had has been spent prone letting my mind wander, coming up with thoughts I would deem worthy of writing about but almost immediately forgetting. Rather than sit idly and hope for something to stick, I am just writing and we'll see what happens.

Border Princes: Campaign End

 

For our final turn, the forces of Chaos, already beleaguered from endless conflicts, were thrust into battle and forced to defend their holdings once more. Brad had been stuck in his corner for most of the game and was worthy of mercy, but we had not played a single battle during the campaign which means it had been months since we stood across from one another and threw dice. I also had a great idea for a campaign epilogue that would be well served by the Barrow Legion controlling Aldium. Ian just wanted a chance to crawl out of last place, no doubt.

Age of Fantasy: Regiments v3.5

 In October, onepagerules released their major yearly updates for all of their game systems. In years past, this has primarily been when they rebalance points costs, add a few new units based on upcoming model releases, and add or remove some upgrade options based on player feedback. This year, we saw a major reexamination of every army list and a fundamental change in the game's design philosophy. We've been using 3.5 and the new army lists for the last few months of our Border Princes campaign and, despite what some of my IG and discord posts may have implied, the game has not been destroyed by all of the changes. Regiments remains what I consider the best rules light rank and flank option, though it has nearly all of the same problems it had in 3.4 and several new ones. 

Border Princes: Turns 18 and 19

There is little as satisfying in wargaming than outthinking and outmaneuvering your opponent. Map campaigns allow for this on a much larger scale than one-off battles that exist solely on a gaming table. Unfolding dastardly plans over the course of weeks as your enemy can only guess at your goal is the ultimate rank and flank experience. Real general shit, sitting in the dim lighting of my office as I stroke my beard and plot. This is what I wanted to share with my friends by running and writing about the Border Princes and turn 18 sees it all come to fruition.