Chainmail (game)
In 1967, Henry Bodenstedt created the medieval wargame Siege of Bodenburg. This game was designed for use with 40mm miniatures. Gary Gygax first encountered Siege of Bodenburg at Gen Con I in 1968. He played the game during that convention. The rules for Siege of Bodenburg had been published in Strategy & Tactics magazine. Jeff Perren developed his own medieval rules based on those and shared them with Gary Gygax. The original set of medieval miniatures rules by Jeff Perren were just four pages long. Gygax edited and expanded these rules. They were published as Geneva Medieval Miniatures in Panzerfaust magazine in April 1970. These used a 1:20 figure scale. The rules were again revised and then self-published in the newsletter of the Castle & Crusade Society called The Domesday Book. It appeared in issue number five in July 1970 using a 1:10 figure scale. Later issues of The Domesday Book introduce a rule system for man-to-man combat at 1:1 figure scale. A rule system for jousting also appeared in later issues.
Gary Gygax met Don Lowry at Gen Con III in 1970. Gygax later signed with Lowry when he founded Guidon Games to produce a series of rules called Wargaming with Miniatures. The first game published was a further expansion of the medieval rules, published as Chainmail. Guidon Games released the first edition of Chainmail in 1971 as its first miniature wargame. It was one of three debut products from the company. First edition Chainmail saw print in March 1971. It quickly became Guidon Games biggest hit selling one hundred copies per month. Guidon Games published Chainmail second edition in 1972. TSR eventually bought the rights to some of the back catalog of Guidon Games. Starting in 1975 they published Chainmail as their own product. It went through eight different printings from 1975 to 1985. In 2001 Wizards of the Coast reused the Chainmail name for the Chainmail Miniatures Game. This skirmish game was specifically tied to Dungeons & Dragons and set in a previously unexplored location in the World of Greyhawk called the Sundered Empire.
A set of mass-combat rules were heavily indebted to the medieval systems of Tony Bath. These were intended for a 1:20 figure scale. They developed from the Lake Geneva medieval system originally published in Panzerfaust and in Domesday Book number five. In these rules each figure represents twenty men. Troops are divided into six basic types including light foot, heavy foot, armored foot, light horse, medium horse, and heavy horse. Melee is resolved by rolling six-sided dice. For example when heavy horse attacks light foot the attacker is allowed to roll four dice per figure. Each five or six denotes a kill. On the other hand when light foot attacks heavy horse the attacker is allowed only one die per four figures. A six denotes a kill here. Additional rules govern missile and artillery fire. Movement and terrain also have specific regulations. Charging fatigue morale and the taking of prisoners all follow their own guidelines within the system.
A set of man-to-man combat rules existed for 1:1 figure scale. This ultimately derived from a contribution to Domesday Book number seven. Gygax lost the name of the contributor so the rules were published anonymously. The core of these rules became the Appendix B chart mapping various weapon types to armor levels. It provided the needed to-hit rolls for a melee round. The man-to-man melee uses two six-sided dice to determine whether a kill is made. This anonymous contribution established weapon-to-armor charts that defined individual resolution mechanics. These mechanics formed the backbone of close-quarters engagement in the game. Players relied on these charts to resolve conflicts between single figures rather than large groups.
The first edition Chainmail fantasy supplement added such concepts as elementals magic swords and several spells including Fireball and Lightning Bolt. Borrowing a concept from Tony Bath some figure types may make saving throws to resist spell effects. A stronger wizard can cancel the spell of a weaker wizard by rolling a seven or higher with two six-sided dice. Creatures were divided between Law and Chaos drawing on the alignment philosophies of Poul Anderson. Michael Moorcocks Elric series popularized these ideas further. When fighting mundane units each of the fantasy creatures is treated as one of the six basic troop types. For example hobbits are treated as light foot and elves are treated as heavy foot. Heroes are treated as four heavy footmen and require four simultaneous hits to kill. Super-Heroes are twice as powerful. The core of these rules is the Appendix E chart showing the die rolls needed for various fantastic types to defeat one another in battle.
The Chainmail cover art of a fighting crusader was inspired by a Jack Coggins illustration from his book The Fighting Man: An Illustrated History of the World's Greatest Fighting Forces. Both Perrin and Gygax swiped Coggin's artwork to illustrate their preliminary articles about Chainmail that appeared in Panzerfaust and The Domesday Book. When Don Lowry of Guidon Games agreed to publish Chainmail Lowry swiped the same Coggins illustration for the cover. For the fantasy supplement the illustration of a mounted knight charging towards a dragon was drawn by Don Lowry. It was based heavily on an illustration by Pauline Baynes for J.R.R. Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham published in 1949. These visual choices shaped how players perceived the game before reading any text. The borrowed imagery connected the wargame directly to established fantasy literature traditions.
In the June 1978 issue of The Dragon Gary Gygax wrote that for the first two years of Dungeons & Dragons players played primarily without the use of any miniature figures. If visual aids were needed then the players would draw pictures or use dice or tokens as placeholders. By 1976 there was a movement among players to add the use of miniatures to represent individual player characters. In 1976 Swords & Spells was added as a rules supplement for Dungeons & Dragons. It provided fantasy mass combat rules for the game at 1:10 and 1:1 scale. In the foreword Tim Kask describes Swords & Spells as the grandson of Chainmail. In the introduction to the game Gary Gygax wrote that the Chainmail fantasy supplement assumed man-to-man combat. Rules for large-scale fantasy battles were missing so Swords & Spells was developed to cover 1:10 and 1:1 ratio fantasy battles. This lineage shows how medieval wargaming evolved into modern role-playing mechanics.
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Common questions
Who created the medieval wargame Chainmail?
Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren developed the rules that became Chainmail. Henry Bodenstedt originally created Siege of Bodenburg which influenced the game's creation.
When was the first edition of Chainmail published by Guidon Games?
Guidon Games released the first edition of Chainmail in March 1971 as its first miniature wargame product. The company sold one hundred copies per month during this initial period.
What figure scales does Chainmail use for mass combat versus man-to-man combat?
Mass-combat rules utilize a 1:20 figure scale where each figure represents twenty men. Man-to-man combat rules operate at a 1:1 figure scale to resolve individual conflicts.
Which fantasy supplement added spells like Fireball to Chainmail?
The first edition Chainmail fantasy supplement introduced elementals magic swords and spells including Fireball and Lightning Bolt. This addition allowed creatures to make saving throws against spell effects using two six-sided dice.
How did Chainmail influence the development of Dungeons & Dragons?
Swords & Spells served as a rules supplement for Dungeons & Dragons starting in 1976 with Gary Gygax describing it as the grandson of Chainmail. Players began adding miniatures to represent characters after initially playing without them for the first two years of the game.