[Modiphius] The Elder Scrolls:Call to Arms - Dawnguard p. 11

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**warboss**

Another licensed game for Modiphius? Wow.. Mutant Chronicles, Infinity, Kung Fu panda, Fallout, Star Trek, Cthulu, Dune, Conan, and now Elder Scrolls. I hope they're not spreading their creative butter too thin over all that IP toast.

**JonWebb**

warboss wrote:
Another licensed game for Modiphius? Wow.. Mutant Chronicles, Infinity, Kung Fu panda, Fallout, Star Trek, Cthulu, Dune, Conan, and now Elder Scrolls. I hope they're not spreading their creative butter too thin over all that IP toast.

We have three departments all with individual staff, so me and my team do wargames, Sam and his team do RPGs and Rob and his team do board games.

Support staff, sculptors and layout are shared though.

I’ve got Elder Scrolls, Fallout and our in house IP Achtung Cthulhu under me, with a team of 10 under me plus external writers where necessary.

A lot of the RPGs are done by freelancers too, so it’s not as mad as it seems.

**warboss**

Glad to hear it and hope it all turns out well and especially in time.

**AegisGrimm**

At least within reason lots of other fantasy miniatures an terrain can be used for Elder Scrolls games, so a slow release won't be as troublesome as Fallout. Especially for monsters and NPC's.

For instance...want a giant to run terrified away from before they come out officially? Get the ones from the Game of Thrones wargame.
.

**Geifer**

Thanks for the skeleton picture.

AegisGrimm wrote:
At least within reason lots of other fantasy miniatures an terrain can be used for Elder Scrolls games, so a slow release won't be as troublesome as Fallout. Especially for monsters and NPC's.

For instance...want a giant to run terrified away from before they come out officially? Get the ones from the Game of Thrones wargame.
.

Might be that I'm just a natural junk architect but I had a look around Skyrim last night and I think making Fallout terrain is easier. Too much precision engineering in Elder Scrolls for my taste.

I am actually interested in seeing some of the more generic stuff from Oblivion (eventually anyway, it'll surely be a while). I'm specifically thinking about the minotaur here. More minotaurs on the market is never a bad thing.

I'm not going to say no to a good resin bear either.

**Davor**

JimmyWolf87 wrote:
Davor wrote:
Is this the game where Bethesda copied the fluff from D&D almost word for word? Or was that something else?

That was something completely unrelated to Modiphius and apparently wasn't even a thing in the first place. As I understand it from memory: It was a group of Bethesda/Zenimax staff (as I recall) using a D&D source as a template for an internal Elder Scrolls based RPG session they were running for themselves. Someone in the chain didn't really pay attention and thought it was a release/promotion of some kind and posted it on social media. People obviously noticed it was nigh on verbatim a D&D resource and called them out for plagiarism which.... it would have been if had been intended as a public release but it wasn't and got taken down as soon as it was noticed. Obviously that's their own explanation so discount it as whatever but I'm personally inclined to think they wouldn't be that bloody lazy if anything.

Thank you for that. I didn't know. Funny how people will be so quick to mention the faults, but don't mention after words when more facts are revealed.

**JonWebb**

As promised, shots of the resin versions of the 2P starter set.

Note - these are still pre-production. 99% what you will get, but we had to make a few technical changes to strengthen some weapons.

**Geifer**

Thanks for the pictures!

So while true Nords use archery, the Imperial dogs rely on witchcraft. Flavorful.

I had hoped there'd be a female Draugr in there as well. Ancient Nord Armor is one of the coolest armors in Skyrim, both the male and the female version. Would have been good to have a model to base conversions on. Maybe in the Dragonborn starter set?

**Tyranid Horde**

That armoured Draugr has a classic shout pose, very cool!

I'm impressed overall, and I like that the bases are pre-textured as I don't think I'd be able to model the slabs you get in the barrows.

**Manchu**

Thanks for posting those pics Jon!

Looking at the painted skellies, I can immediatley hear the creaky and dusty sound effects from Skyrim.

**modiphius**

We've just posted the official community survey - some of you may know we like to involve the community so head over and tell us what you think!

https://www.modiphius.com/surveys.html

**Mymearan**

Huh. Well, I mean, TES, or more specifically Morrowind, is my favourite game of all time. But a tabletop game? The visual design of the series has always been, to put it nicely, generic and bland. The only really standout designs are in Morrowind, and that isn't even mentioned in the press release. So instead you have generic viking barbarians fighting generic undead that even hardcore TES fans would be hard-pressed to recognize without the logo up top. The appeal of TES is entirely based on the sense of exploration the games give, aided by fantastical vistas and varied environments, with the character and creature designs being largely incidental. Unfortunately, in a tabletop miniatures game, there is usually very little of the two former and a whole lot of the latter. None of this is Mophidius' fault of course, it's all Bethesda, but I'm sort of scratching my head as to what the appeal of the IP is in this case.

**squall018**

Went ahead and took the survey. Definitely hoping for a HIPS option in the future!

**Geifer**

Me, too. Agreed on HIPS. Modiphius does fantastic work with resin, but there is only one material of choice for and I hope we'll get to see at least some things ported to plastic.

And please no more PVC.

Mymearan wrote:
Huh. Well, I mean, TES, or more specifically Morrowind, is my favourite game of all time. But a tabletop game? The visual design of the series has always been, to put it nicely, generic and bland. The only really standout designs are in Morrowind, and that isn't even mentioned in the press release. So instead you have generic viking barbarians fighting generic undead that even hardcore TES fans would be hard-pressed to recognize without the logo up top. The appeal of TES is entirely based on the sense of exploration the games give, aided by fantastical vistas and varied environments, with the character and creature designs being largely incidental. Unfortunately, in a tabletop miniatures game, there is usually very little of the two former and a whole lot of the latter. None of this is Mophidius' fault of course, it's all Bethesda, but I'm sort of scratching my head as to what the appeal of the IP is in this case.

Two things on Morrowind, stuff actually made it on the survey so Modiphius at least considers it, regardless of what the original press release says. Also, they're starting with Skyrim obviously and Dragonborn gave us a slice of Morrowind on Solstheim, so that's at least a start.

I think you're giving the Elder Scrolls design a bit too little credit. It may just be my perception, of course, but I appreciate a generic baseline to give more definition and contrast to all the more exotic stuff. Seyda Neen as a start for Morrowind was nice and normal before you went on to see all the bonemold armor and shroom and carapace architecture further inland. I thought Bloodmoon added something amazing with Solstheim because it varied greatly from what I'd been experiencing in the base game.

Similarly I had mixed feelings about Oblivion when it was released and I was a lot more invested in the exotic look of Morrowind, but Oblivion to me actually became a great game with the release of Shivering Isles because it presented a way more exotic look at the setting (and unlike the Oblivion gates of the base game, took you to a place with dungeons and settlements, mirroring the usual experience of a fleshed out and inhabited environment you get from the base map of an Elder Scrolls game, instead of being just a dungeon to explore like the aforementioned games).

To me Elder Scrolls design works because you get a look at the mundane and the exotic and they both complement and enrich each other. So while I can appreciate the criticism of generic this versus generic that not being all that enticing, I think it's not representative of the bigger picture.

Vistas and varied environments are of course a problem to most of us who don't have access to a wide and varied terrain collection. That's hardly an Elder Scrolls problem, though. For instance, my group could have done a number of things for Star Wars Legion when we built terrain for use at the local store, but for reasons of practicality and recognition, we went with the ever so popular Tatooine. Now we have great terrain to fill the board, but mostly every battle is played on Tatooine or a similar desert planet, and snow or forest troops from the movies look a little off in that environment. But who's going to pay for or invest all the time to make three or four different terrain sets?

Likewise, you could criticize the whole of Warhammer because you can just play Dawn of War and have a fully painted Imperial Fists army fighting in a variety of environments in the time it takes your computer to load the map, without any of the commitment that the tabletop hobby requires.

I don't see Elder Scrolls being any different. If you want something that looks cool and evocative, there's just no way around putting in the work. The skirmish format is limiting the size of what you can practically use, but that's about the only inherent drawback of a tabletop game compared to a video game I can see.

**Tyranid Horde**

Took the survey, I'm glad there were so many options to choose from. Biggest excitement for me if it was possible would be to make scenery/dungeon themed events for Dwemer ruins. They're my favourite ruins both in terms of puzzles and aesthetics. The mystery surrounding them adds so much more also.

In relation to Mymearan's comment on generic models, I think it's applicable for the skeletons and races in general but the amount of armour types and factions there is a huge amount of design space and there are instantly recognisable armour types just based on the helmets alone. I don't think the average fan will find a problem if they've played Skyrim at the very least.

**Psychopomp**

The survey made me way more interested to see what this dungeon delve mode is, and if it can be reverse-engineered into Fallout. Also, I'm hoping Modiphius breaks into HIPS minis with Elder Scrolls if it means we might get some HIPS Fallout minis, too. Basically, I'm mostly interested in an Elder Scrolls mini game as an extention of my interest in Fallout Wasteland Warfare.

However, if by "Cultists of Deadra" you mean we'll get a HIPS sprue of various cultists wearing those more-or-less generic hooded robes, I'm all in on that box set.

**Geifer**

I'm hoping dungeon delve will basically be a dungeon crawl and Elder Scrolls gets modular dungeon tiles like Star Trek has to play it on, as the survey suggests.

**Geifer**

Modiphius recently linked an interview with Chris Birch about Call to Arms on Facebook.

Interview article:

http://www.polyhedroncollider.com/2019/06/elder-scrolls-call-to-arms-tabletop.html?fbclid=IwAR2DvfeackNYh0uzj3mhvCmsvErh4h9etafjddPgOGxDYsl_GrHgv1EZkPk

Towards the end of last month Modiphius announced they would be launching a new tabletop skirmish game in partnership with Bethesda Games Studio, and that game was Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms. The announcement came with images of a Dragonborn miniature which would then be on a limited sale during the UK Games Expo.

To say I was very excited about this news is an understatement.

I was fortunate enough to sit down with lead designer and founder of Modiphius, Chris Birch to find out a little bit more about the game during the expo.

As I understand it, Elder Scrolls uses the skeleton of Fallout Wasteland Warfare mechanically, where did you start with the design and what are some of the main differences?

The good thing is that Elder Scrolls and Fallout share a lot of similarities with their structure in the background, so that helped with many of the design principles. But again, it is a game where you’ll be playing out narrative story lines and quests. You’re not just there to have a meeting battle or a retreating battle. It’s more of a case of ‘You are here because This is happening and you now need to go and save this character, or break into the Stormcloak camp and steal this item’ etc. The main idea was: let’s play a story, not just a battle.

We’ve simplified the system from Fallout a little bit, you can’t just ‘copy and paste’ from Fallout into Call to Arms, the mechanics have to be matched to the theme. Fallout has a lot of ranged combat and some mele, whereas Elder Scrolls is more heavily mele and then Magic and Ranged attacks. You’ve got to theme the mechanics, what we’ve done we’ve rebuilt it from the ground up on the principle of ‘let’s have a D20 and lets of those effect dice.

So I’ll be able to fireball an enemy, neck a potion of extra damage before lopping someone’s head off with my enchanted sword?

Yes, Of course. The game uses a D20 skill dice - a bit different from Fallout: Wasteland Warfare in terms of numbers, but effectively you’ll be rolling against a skill level. It uses a six-sided coloured, weapon effect dice (like in Fallout but D6s instead of D12s) and this lets us create the different type of weapon effects you see in the game. Some may do additional damage, some may have special effects triggers like fire or ice damage. So if you have an enchanted weapon on a certain effect symbol it has a certain effect to the target.

Will the Dragon Shouts work in a similar way, or do I have to actually shout Fus Ro Dah at my opponents?

You’ll be able to make use of all the Shouts making loads of different choices with them. You’ll get more as you level-up and progress through the game. Once you collect a certain amount of victory points you’ll be able to get more and do more with them. Later on we’ll be introducing Campaign Play, allowing players to build their own settlements after clearing an area of Draugr, building up their settlement before being attacked in another scenario.

How much of the game is scenario based?

The main game is scenario based but you can absolutely play it competitively if you like. We fully support competitive play, we call it “Battle Mode”. But if we do a big organised event, it will be a story based event where everyone gets the reward for coming and playing. You get to play that new story mission first, you get to buy it before anyone else and then of course they’ll be prizes for the best painted army, for the player who completes the story the quickest, that kind of thing.

So the real heart of Call to Arms is the story that you’re telling?

We want Elder Scrolls to be about Story Mode, we want cooperative-competitive game play, so that players are teaming up together to beat the game. We focused on making sure the AI and co-operative mode are really strong in the game. Players could team up with their Stormcloaks and take on some Draugr, or get together with their heroes and try and take out the Imperial camp. The plan from the beginning was on making the game play very flexible.

The game is very character driven, you’re buying Yrsarald or Hadvar, so you’re picking all of the iconic characters from the video games and then you can customise them with gear, spells, potions. Of course, you can have Dragon Shouts if you’re a Dragonborn. And being a Dragonborn doesn’t mean you need the Dragonborn miniature, your favourite miniature might be a Stormcloak character and that’s going to be my hero. In Campaign Play, later on that will introduce more abilities and have more customisation.

Can you tell me a little about the AI and how it differs from that found in Fallout?

The AI is a similar concept to that found in Fallout, but we simplified it right down and this allows us to introduce more developed AI in later box sets. In Fallout, each unit had its own AI whereas here, each race or advisary you come into contact with will they have their own AI. So the Dragar have one AI card - a little card that you can check quickly and easily work out what they are going to do. They will go after the objectives, they will try and defend them, they might come after you where archers might retreat to shoot at you. They don’t all just move towards the nearest enemy

How much of this will I be able to do when the game is released? Will I have to wait for expansions and additional box sets?

The base set will include 18 miniatures; the Imperials, the Stormcloaks and the Draugr as well as the complete rule set and all the dice you’ll likely ever need. We wanted to make sure that the core set can really facilitate players getting stuck into an adventure straight away. They’ll be loads of scenarios, loads of game play content.

There are also a bunch of characters, most game will make use of one or two characters and each character typically comes with 3 henchmen. The Dargur are probably best describe as being an “active terrain” in the general game when you are playing against one another. They’ll be getting in the way, attacking both players.

So, when will I be able to get my mits on all of these goodies?

In terms of release, fingers crossed, the base game will be out for Christmas, which is our big two player starter set with expansions coming in the new year, which are all in multi-part resin with bespoke custom bases included. Over the course of 2020 we’ll be releasing box sets of Imperials and Stormcloaks if you want to collect those factions, more for the adventurers. Creatures and eventually dragons, and they’ll be big! I mean, what would Skyrim be without Dragons? After that we’ll be working on Wave 2.

Wave two…?

We don’t really know what will be in Wave II because it will really be decided upon by the community. Something we do with all our games is to go out to the community and the Facebook pages, because we have an idea of what we should be making, but we’ll create a survey of all the factions and put it out there and say “What have we missed?” “What factions would you most want to see next?”

If they’re saying “We want Falmer next!” then we’ll bring that development forward to try and meet that demand. You’ll probably see Falmer in Wave II, but as adversaries, not as a full blown faction. But that will come. We care what our players want to see. What are your favourite creatures, what is your favorite scenery. If they want it, we’ll do what we can to make that happen sooner.

And finally, it was only recently revealed that Modiphius are now also creating a Fallout RPG in line with the tabletop game...any plans for this to happen with Elder Scrolls too?

At the moment there isn’t a plan to turn Call to Arms into an RPG, but who knows what Bethesda want to do? There is a lot of work, for them, being as big as they are because they’re really busy making video games. They may want to see how much work is involved first before trying to create an RPG.

We definitely have enough on our plate to focus on for probably the next 5 years. With both Fallout and Elder Scrolls, just “doing Skyrim” is going to take us a couple of years. We have all the iconic characters from the cinematics sculpted, but then you’ve got Oblivion and etc etc.

There’s no final MSRP set yet because of all the political nonsense that’s occurring currently, but I was able to get one more nugget out of Chris.

There may well be events in the future that could lead to shooting another adventurer in the knee.

**Togusa**

JonWebb wrote:
warboss wrote:
Another licensed game for Modiphius? Wow.. Mutant Chronicles, Infinity, Kung Fu panda, Fallout, Star Trek, Cthulu, Dune, Conan, and now Elder Scrolls. I hope they're not spreading their creative butter too thin over all that IP toast.

We have three departments all with individual staff, so me and my team do wargames, Sam and his team do RPGs and Rob and his team do board games.

Support staff, sculptors and layout are shared though.

I’ve got Elder Scrolls, Fallout and our in house IP Achtung Cthulhu under me, with a team of 10 under me plus external writers where necessary.

A lot of the RPGs are done by freelancers too, so it’s not as mad as it seems.

I'm running my first ST: Adventures game tonight.

I'm going to run the remnants mission with the TOS bridge crew!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

modiphius wrote:
We've just posted the official community survey - some of you may know we like to involve the community so head over and tell us what you think!

https://www.modiphius.com/surveys.html

Great stuff! I'll check it out.

Please try and licence HALO as a Table Top game and RPG. Shameless for asking, I know, but I think it would be great in a 2D20 system.

**Geifer**

So, we've known for a while Elder Scrolls Call to Arms will be using a modified version of the Fallout Wasteland Warfare rules. Jon Webb showed off the dice used in the game, along with this comment on Facebook:

Project lead Gavin Dady will be starting a blog post in the very near future, bringing all the news in the run up to launch (it would be up already but I’ve not replied to the email yet, sorry Gavin).

In the meanwhile, here is a sneak peek of the game dice to get you all theorising how the game may play.

**Tyranid Horde**

Any more word on this other than the starter set being available by Christmas?

**JonWebb**

Just getting all our ducks in a row for launch.

Some updates that may have passed folks by.

The Core Box will be rules only and is planned for a Q1 2020 launch now.
There will be no miniatures in the Core, and no PVC for this line.
This means the Core Box will be a one per player purchase but at a much lower price than the 2P set.
This will be supported by two faction boxes and one NPC box at launch, in both resin and HIPs.
Wave one comes thereafter and has extra troops for the two core factions, plus one extra faction.

We'll start revealing the full details early next year in the run up to launch.

**Geifer**

Sounds good and suits me fine. All I want is a Draugr horde. Male Draugr! Female Draugr! Armored Draugr! Naked Draugr! All the Draugr!

Did I just read HIPS? As in, fully confirmed, no backsies plastic models on the way?

**JonWebb**

Geifer wrote:
Sounds good and suits me fine. All I want is a Draugr horde. Male Draugr! Female Draugr! Armored Draugr! Naked Draugr! All the Draugr!

Did I just read HIPS? As in, fully confirmed, no backsies plastic models on the way?

Barring absolute tragedy, yes sprue HIPS multipart (but not multi pose ) plastic kits are part of the core Elder Scrolls experience.

All being well, we will see similar in Fallout in time.

Its been a long slog (I've had a plastic power armour suit for some time now...) but Elder Scrolls looks like its going to be the first chance to explore the medium for us as a company.

**Geifer**

Awesome. You've done such a great job with the resin models in such a short time, can't wait to see what you can do with plastic.

**JimmyWolf87**

JonWebb wrote:
Geifer wrote:
Sounds good and suits me fine. All I want is a Draugr horde. Male Draugr! Female Draugr! Armored Draugr! Naked Draugr! All the Draugr!

Did I just read HIPS? As in, fully confirmed, no backsies plastic models on the way?

Barring absolute tragedy, yes sprue HIPS multipart (but not multi pose ) plastic kits are part of the core Elder Scrolls experience.

All being well, we will see similar in Fallout in time.

Its been a long slog (I've had a plastic power armour suit for some time now...) but Elder Scrolls looks like its going to be the first chance to explore the medium for us as a company.

Well that is by far the sexiest news of the day. Any sort of comparison for the multipart but not mulitipose? Akin to something like WH Underworlds (not necessarily clipping together but in terms of parts or are there weapon options and the like)?

**JonWebb**

JimmyWolf87 wrote:
JonWebb wrote:
Geifer wrote:
Sounds good and suits me fine. All I want is a Draugr horde. Male Draugr! Female Draugr! Armored Draugr! Naked Draugr! All the Draugr!

Did I just read HIPS? As in, fully confirmed, no backsies plastic models on the way?

Barring absolute tragedy, yes sprue HIPS multipart (but not multi pose ) plastic kits are part of the core Elder Scrolls experience.

All being well, we will see similar in Fallout in time.

Its been a long slog (I've had a plastic power armour suit for some time now...) but Elder Scrolls looks like its going to be the first chance to explore the medium for us as a company.

Well that is by far the sexiest news of the day. Any sort of comparison for the multipart but not mulitipose? Akin to something like WH Underworlds (not necessarily clipping together but in terms of parts or are there weapon options and the like)?

For the first batch, it’s underworlds style fixed pose no option minis. Sadly not clip together, but no optional parts.

For the future, we are trying to introduce multiple weapon options where possible.

**JimmyWolf87**

JonWebb wrote:
JimmyWolf87 wrote:
JonWebb wrote:
Geifer wrote:
Sounds good and suits me fine. All I want is a Draugr horde. Male Draugr! Female Draugr! Armored Draugr! Naked Draugr! All the Draugr!

Did I just read HIPS? As in, fully confirmed, no backsies plastic models on the way?

Barring absolute tragedy, yes sprue HIPS multipart (but not multi pose ) plastic kits are part of the core Elder Scrolls experience.

All being well, we will see similar in Fallout in time.

Its been a long slog (I've had a plastic power armour suit for some time now...) but Elder Scrolls looks like its going to be the first chance to explore the medium for us as a company.

Well that is by far the sexiest news of the day. Any sort of comparison for the multipart but not mulitipose? Akin to something like WH Underworlds (not necessarily clipping together but in terms of parts or are there weapon options and the like)?

For the first batch, it’s underworlds style fixed pose no option minis. Sadly not clip together, but no optional parts.

For the future, we are trying to introduce multiple weapon options where possible.

No that's fine, not disappointed by that at all, personally convert most things anyway when I want variety, I was just curious. The dream of multi-option kits for different races, armours etc. is still closer than it was previously.

Take it larger, monster type models are likely to be resin only for the forseeable?

**JonWebb**

JimmyWolf87 wrote:
JonWebb wrote:
JimmyWolf87 wrote:
JonWebb wrote:
Geifer wrote:
Sounds good and suits me fine. All I want is a Draugr horde. Male Draugr! Female Draugr! Armored Draugr! Naked Draugr! All the Draugr!

Did I just read HIPS? As in, fully confirmed, no backsies plastic models on the way?

Barring absolute tragedy, yes sprue HIPS multipart (but not multi pose ) plastic kits are part of the core Elder Scrolls experience.

All being well, we will see similar in Fallout in time.

Its been a long slog (I've had a plastic power armour suit for some time now...) but Elder Scrolls looks like its going to be the first chance to explore the medium for us as a company.

Well that is by far the sexiest news of the day. Any sort of comparison for the multipart but not mulitipose? Akin to something like WH Underworlds (not necessarily clipping together but in terms of parts or are there weapon options and the like)?

For the first batch, it’s underworlds style fixed pose no option minis. Sadly not clip together, but no optional parts.

For the future, we are trying to introduce multiple weapon options where possible.

No that's fine, not disappointed by that at all, personally convert most things anyway when I want variety, I was just curious. The dream of multi-option kits for different races, armours etc. is still closer than it was previously.

Take it larger, monster type models are likely to be resin only for the forseeable?

For now, yes.

There are already several large (and really large) creatures sculpted that I can't talk about right now :p

**Geifer**

That's alright. We fully expect to have the option to ride to war on the back of a mammoth.