If you have ever bounced off a wargame because the maths slowed everything to a crawl, you will appreciate this. Tuomas Pirinen, the Finnish designer who wrote 1999's Mordheim and contributed to Warhammer Fantasy 6th Edition, has just opened up about how he kept Trench Crusade's rules tight enough to teach in five minutes. The grimdark alternate-history skirmish game, which raised $3.3 million from over 20,000 backers on Kickstarter in late 2024, leans on a 2D6 system that swaps the usual four or five rolls per attack for just two.
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Set up your group for free"The more barriers to entry you put in, the more players you lose each step," Pirinen tells Wargamer, and that mindset shows up everywhere in the design. Stat lines have been pared back to movement and a melee-or-ranged bonus, so a new player can memorise their entire warband on the first read. Tactical depth comes from keywords and special abilities rather than dense profiles, which makes the rulebook feel less like a tax exam.
The bit that should interest anyone who has waited an hour for an opponent's turn is Blood Markers. They sit on your models as spendable resources, but your opponent can also burn them for offensive effects, so even when it is not your activation you are watching the table and plotting. Scatter direction on blasts is decided by the opposing player rather than dice, which kills arguments and adds a layer of bluff.
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Find events near youPirinen calls Mordheim "very narrative driven, not about perfectly balanced competitive play," and Trench Crusade has the same DNA. The free-forever rulebook helps too, given that any miniature can stand in. If you fancy organising a campaign weekend with your group, Backseat Gamer makes that bit easy.
Sources: Wargamer | Wargamer designer history | Kickstarter campaign
