A dozen expansions into its life and BattleLore is still coasting on the same basic terrain it shipped with, the exception being specialty, one-shot terrain tiles attached to specific creatures, such as the Hill Giant lair.

I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that the game is long overdue for an expansion in this area ... especially since official scenarios are relatively sparse compared to, say, Memoir '44, making custom scenarios an integral part of the BattleLore experience.

There is such rich potential to expand the scope of the game in this way. Of course you'd have your tiles for natural features such as rough terrain, desert, lakes, swamps, and so on, but you also have the man-made structures. Castles, villages, fortress walls, graveyards, etc.

And they can help push the game further. You easily open the door to further expansions (siege warfare rules & units extending the basic rules for walls, fortresses, etc) and army packs (an undead pack using graveyard and swamp rules as a launching point).

It’s easy to see what such a set would contain, too. One box, a bunch of new terrain tiles, maybe some additional new Lore cards that play directly into a few of the new terrain features (example: turn deserts into quicksand), and a series of solid scenarios that showcase the new terrain.

As long as it was made as a standalone product that can be used just with the base game OR as a way to enhance existing/future expansions, I think lots of people would be on board for this.

Any rumors to this effect, or is this a pipe dream?

Swamps and cliffs came out in one of the expansions (can't remember which right now)

It's difficult to see what new terrain beyond whats out there can cover. Lakes, blocks movement but not missile fire (rivers do this) if it blocks missiile fire too it'll take up too much of the board (or be out of scale). Rough terrain ends movement like forests do but do not block LOS (swamps do this if I recall), Deserts, short of a campaign set into the goblinoid lands (hmm nice idea for an expansion there though) I can't see it getting much use.
Not too sure on my feelings about terrain that would treat infantry and cav differently seems too fidely for the game but might be a direction to go

Castles, yes a siege expansion would rock and would round out the campaign abilities of the game

Chris

Not that I don't agree with your conclusion (I would enjoy some more terrain pieces - especially "structure" pieces like the ramparts and archer stakes), but there were 3 new pieces included with the early expansion Call to Arms: the aforementioned Archer Stakes (units moving on to them must stop and may not battle unless they are ranged foot units, ranged foot units may ignore one bonus strike [in melee] and one flag), Cliffs (treated as hills but additionally no melee battling and impassable across cliff faces), and Marshes (basically forest hexes that do not block line of sight). More pieces such as those would be fun.

Yes, yes, I'm familiar with them.

The Heroes Expansion has a graveyard in it too.

Since FFG are taking Battlelore as their Fantasy battles game, some Fantasy themed terrain would be a lot of fun. Another Creatures Expansion, or a Lore Masters expansion with some additional Fantasy terrain types would be great.

• Crystal Forest - gives a player lore if a unit is positioned on it and neither moves or battles for the turn.
• Dark Sorcery Mire - every time a unit in the Dark Magic Mire kills ithe player also recieves one lore.
• Fairy Ring - a unit on this terrain piece that is activited may draw a lore card instead of moving or battling.
• Field of the Fay - a unit in this terrain piece may not be attacked by a creature.
• Obsidian outcrop - a unit on this terrain piece may not be targetted by a lore card (own player or opponent)
• etc. I'm sure the boffins at FFG HQ could come up with some far better ideas than these!

It might be fun to have a deck of Non-Player-Heroes that can be added for a bit of spice - the Black Knight will challenge and attack any unit trying to cross a bridge, Forest Queen that puts a unit entering the forest to sleep unless a player spends lore to activate them (alongside an order), trapped princess that provides a victory banner to the player that rescues her.

It would also be great to have race specific Lore Masters, and some Dark Magic - say a Sorcerer - to add spice. The Sorcerer could power his magic by inflicting casualties on his own army for example.

In any case - there is plenty of room to move with Battlelore! I look forward to whatever FFG has planned!

Cheers,

Giles.

Great calls there Giles!

I agree with all of those ideas - fantastic stuff.

Cheers,
Ben.

Wow, Giles! Great ideas!

I agree. Some new terrain pieces wouold be very cool. I especially would like to see some building pieces. Many medieval battles took place near towns and settlements, and some buildings scattered around the map would be very cool, things like: a farm (to incluede seperate tiles for fields, barn, etc.), a roadside tavern, a ruined tower, a peasant's hut, gypsy wagons, etc. I like the idea of a battle raging across an inhabited area...buildings could be used to cover some units, and archers could attack from buildings, using them as cover. Also, you could introduce some fire rules (flaming arrows, torches, and such) to set some buildings on fire, reducing them to ruins after a certain number of turns.

I always liked the idea of a battle where viking raiders attack a village, and the kings soldiers must ride to the rescue. You could set-up some building pieces for the village and place a river near it (as if the viking long ships sailed up the river to lay waste to the village...just like really happened in Medieval times). On the other side of the board you could place the oppoesing army, and they could move in an try to fight off the vikings. You could have special, scenario specific objectives, such as objective tokens representing villagers in certain buildings. The vikings might win if they destroy a certain number of buildings (representing the vikings doing what they did best...****, pillage, and plunder), and the kings soldiers would have to prevent this.

Really, introducing building terrain pieces would not be too complex at all. The rules could be this simple: they block line of sight. Movement is stopped when entering a building. Archers can make ranged attacks from a building. Buildings put to the torch or hit with flaming arrows would burn to the ground in three turns (flip the token to represent a burning building picture on the reverse side). Units in a buring building take damage. Once the building is razed, replace it with a ruined building token (that has similar traits to a wooded terrain hex), etc. Also, there could be some specific attributes associated with certain buildings (like units at a tavern could heal one lost unit, or gypsy wagons could add to lore, etc.).

Also, I would like to see some bigger river pieces where you could place a large bridges across the river. Battles around and on a big bridge would be cool. And lastly...snow!. I would love some snowy terrain.

Hail and kill!

this is getting better and better!

if things goes this way, soon we will have real adventures for each scenario, with complex descriptions getting near to an RPG description: one of the armies is moving some noble (which is an NPC and will take some pre-programmed action) through a forest at night, trying to stay hidden, when they are ambushed by the other army / by creatures of the forest. We could have fog of war, the army moving the NPC could slow the attack by making some kind of choice in movement before knowing where the enemy is, and things like that!

marvelous!