Back in 1991, I started playing the Games Workshop game Warhammer. I absolutely loved it and became a fanatic. I also started playing the sci-fi version, Warhammer 40,000. Soon, however, Games Workshop started their still-current policy of releasing new games, rendering their old ones obsolete and subsequently denying the existence of the older ones. Rules were remade and remade, especially in the case of Warhammer 40,000, until the original game had disappeared. As a player older than Games Workshop’s primary demographic (8-12 year olds), I didn’t particularly like the simplification of the games and the strong ties to Games Workshop’s own miniatures. I’m not blaming Games Workshop, they do it to make money, so they have to do what it takes to make money.
A few years ago, I came to think that perhaps I could do better. After all, I’d been playing miniature games for the best part of a decade, and I had no commercial interests in gaming or miniatures, allowing me to concentrate on making as good a game as possible. So that’s what I did. And I called it Claymore.
The idea behind Claymore was that the rules would be free at all times, any fantasy miniature could be used, the rules would be clear,unambiguous and working to minimize rules questions, there would be no standard equipment bought by rote, and above all, the development of the game would be dependent on its players. If its players wanted something to change, it would be changed. I would issue new versions whenever needed, to make sure that the game was as all-encompassing as possible.
I released the first “beta” version, Claymore 0.1, some years ago and got some nice feedback. For some reason, I failed to follow up on it, and Claymore lay dormant for a few years. A couple of months ago I started working on Claymore 0.2, and today I released it. I’ve already started working on 0.3.
So, would anyone be interested in a free, player-developed fantasy miniature wargame? Read about it at www.claymore.nu and if you find it interesting, download it, try it and tell me what you think. If you by any chance played the first version, you can see the changes here.