Designing a new game with accompanying model range from scratch

I’m fully happy with my first model and it is now available on Cults 3D here –

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/labrador-warrior-pose-1-reclaiming-blade

So I finally have a first draft of the rules. I tested a quick 1 vs. 1 model situation to check the basics and it seems to function pretty well. I’m on holiday for the next week, so I’ll hopefully get some sculpting done. Please drop any comments below about rule clarity or things that may benefit the ruleset. I included a pretty crude step-by-step and two army lists with a scenario to play.

Please note that I haven’t properly tested the units out yet, so there are likely going to be some broken combos and skewed point values.

Another option I was toying with, was that of choosing your commander and having their company be pre-set. I ultimately went against this option as I enjoy list-building myself.  Have fun with the rules in the meantime and I’ll add more renders soon hopefully and possibly some more lore articles as well.

I’ve been working on the rules more and reduced the turn sequence to 3 steps. In the meantime, I have painted another of the Labradors (poorly) and I think the colour scheme looks okay. I’ve been trying to add a fur texture to the miniatures, but it always looks rubbish. The corrupted re-design is taking longer than I thought, but I’m sure I’ll get there eventually.

I painted my first test model today, which went… below expectations. I can’t paint a solid yellow colour using Moon Yellow. So ended up painting over it with US Army drab. I took a photo of the paints used, (I think the black paint came in a starter set) I’ll try a Chocolate and Black Labrador in the next few days as I continue working on the rules. The outlined turn sequence will currently be –

-Turn Sequence-

1. Rally fleeing troops
2. Draw command cards (explained later)
3. Move companies by strategy rating.
4. Shooting attacks/ranged abilities by strategy rating.
5. Close-quarters combat, the highest strategy general chooses the order.
6. Break tests

Okay, so I thought a nice photo of the full compliment of models on bases… and I found a problem, three of my cat swordsmen don’t have right hands… well, I’m going to need to sort that out by next week.

For as long as most can remember, the world has been swallowed by darkness, the combined forces of the northern animals a fragile ember in a world of darkness. Forty standard years ago the great war was waged, and a now legendary army of now-fallen heroes pushed back the Corrupted remnants of the old world and cemented a new kingdom in the ruins of the old world. Only one animal now remembers those days, the queen Rosie, ‘the bear of the north’. Around her teachings, the great dog houses of Labrador, Doberman, and Retriever were founded, following the teachings of the Good Boy. These great houses have regiments of ascended soldiers and legions of their lesser brethren, with many non-ascended breeds under their wing until their day of ascension. To the North of the kingdom are the barbaric lands of the old Scotland, and to the south the Corrupted, led by the few of them that retain any brain function. Rosie has declared her intention to reclaim the lands of old England by fire and sword, but with her now very advanced age, others covet her throne. The war rages on.

This printing went really well. I didn’t have a single failure. As I expected though, the Corrupted (the Caller) looks crap and I’ll be sculpting him from scratch as he looks neither scary nor intimidating and more goofy looking. The Labradors and Cat look awesome though and I’ll be looking to add these into a starter set stl bundle for the game once I have a beta rules set and a decent-looking corrupted for a villain.

I’m going to try and get some paint on these, then focus on the game rules as I now have a base overview of them planned out.

I sculpted this guy from an armiger, but I’m not particularly happy with it. I’ll print him off with the others and see how he looks.

Okay, so I thickened up the blades and the base tabs as they were so flimsy they snapped off last time. Slightly adjusted the normal Labrador model as well.

So this didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. The blades are WAY too thin and most of them snapped off. The regular dogs need to be reorientated as they didn’t print right on their butts. Strangely, the cats came off the best, with only one of the blades snapping (because of my fat fingers) but they were a bit small and fragile. The Labrador knight was a disaster, his cloak was too thin and I accidentally snapped his right arm whilst trimming off support I’d missed. It’s a learning curve, and I feel I learned a lot from this first run.

I’ll thicken up the blades and then re-size the models in 3D builder to reduce their flimsiness, so stay tuned.

So here are the initial renders for the first models. I have done a Labrador Knight and Soldier, then a regular Labrador (based on a low poly render from (MRPAULBEZ) on Cults 3D. It’s a nice model, but I will probably sculpt my own from scratch eventually to complement the aesthetic look of the other models. And a cat soldier (getting the face right was hard).

For this project, I want to create a ruleset and a range of miniatures to complement it. I also have in mind a comprehensive lore to go alongside this, with special characters and various campaign books as well.

So far, all I have decided is that it should be deck-based and that I have a few units planned out thus far.

I have a program called Nomad Sculpt that I have been playing with. I will post renders and test prints once they have been completed.

I have decided to go with a post-human land, where animals have begun to anthropomorphize and form their own societies. I envision the enemies being corrupted forms of the last humans. I plan to set the storyline initially in the north-west of England some 40 years after a great battle between these two factions.

By the end of this project, I am hoping to have a full, functioning ruleset, armies, miniatures, and fully fleshed-out lore. When I lay it out like this it seems like a mammoth task, but I’m fired up for this.