As briefly noted last week, I’ve joined a team that is developing a board game prototype. The game, currently called Aerth: Tides of War, is a tactical conquest game; several invented cultures and civilizations compete for territory and provisions. Some of the cultures are based on historical peoples and periods, such as the Roman empire and the Northern Renaissance, while others are more mythological in their origins, based on creatures and races, such as the giants of Scandinavian folklore. Each civilization has a series of troop tiles, eg. pikemen, knights, village levy, that advance across a system of interchangeable terrain tiles rather than a board. Think of it as a world map you can rearrange.

My task is to design the various tiles. Aside from researching medieval arms, armor, attire, and architecture (the 4 A’s) to draft troop sketches, I’ve worked mostly on sketching terrains. The first batch of tiles contains 12 different terrains (6 double-sided tiles), and I’m approaching a point where I can start color images for most of the 12. Next on the roster: the first civilization troops, based on the medieval Britons.