Brawl Arcane 28

Brawl Arcane 28 is a tabletop game developed by Brett Evans @quarantine_miniatures, where spellcasters engage in arena duels. It’s currently in open beta, with updates coming every few weeks. I played my first few games with my brother last weekend, and it was as fun as I expected.

Only four models per side are required to play, so it’s easy to get into. Especiall if you already have a wizard and some critters ready. I looked through my collection it and saw I could play several mage + minions with models I already had painted. I thought hey, that’s so convenient!

Aaaand then I promptly converted and painted completely new ones, because I’m weird like that. There are seven wizard flavours to choose from as of v0.3, each coming with their own minion type, special ability, and unique spell. I made two to start with: the Necromancer and the Green Witch.

The Necromancer was converted from the wizard figure out of Wilhelminiatures Caves&Creeps set. The minions are my Wraiths. The minions in this game are super open to interpretation, which is phenomenal. For example, Necromancer’s minions are called Undead, so they can be skeletons, spirits, zombies, mummies, whatever... It’s fun to see what the game's community comes up with for their minis, there’s a lot of creativity on display.

The Green Witch was converted from my Grobnik Heavy Trooper, with a Wose’s shield for a face. The minions, called Forest Dwellers, are all converted Wodewoses I sculpted for Harwood Hobbies.

The arena is a square grid 8-12 tiles across. No measuring for movement and ranges; it’s all grid based. It’s designed to be playable on a standard chess board, if one doesn’t wish to build a dedicated arena. I wanted an arena, so we made it into a small project. I had a cork pin board and plenty of foam at hand - so my BF and I spent an afternoon building the arena, and another one painting it. The tiles are recommended 30mm squares cut with a hot wire cutter and textured by pressing crumpled aliminum foil on them. Our board is 9x11, as I somehow missed the part in the rulebook where it clearly said it’s supposed to be square. I don’t think this rectangularity messes with the gameplay, so it’s gonna stay as it is.

Terrain is also a thing, letting models hide from each other’s sight. My initial idea was to use debris from Citadel Warcry ruins, but ended up taking a bunch of simple black cubes as a more elegant solution.

The rules for Brawl Arcane 28 are super simple. Wizards can move around, cast various spells, and summon up to three minions each to give them a hand. Stuff they do may earn them crowd favour from the audience, which can be spent to roll for random events. Game ends when one of the mages is knocked out. Once you know the rules it can be played quite quickly. Few models per side, not much math, only d6 dice. Each type of wizard brings something new to the game, so I’m hoping to expand to a few more disciplines in the future.

As the rules are developed, new bits are being added - such as tournament rules, more magic disciplines, and monsters. If this game looks rad to you, check out #brawlarcane28 on Instagram, and visit the game’s webiste (HERE) for rules downloads and the Discord community link.