A very interesting and good game. The idea is basic, you create a band of heros, and they get some followers. Essentially followers are less capable heros.

Your band can move between various fringes of civilization, encountering things mundane to otherworldly, but almost always dangerous in the extreme.

Your characters can increase in skill, and can gain useful and valuable items.

The various supplement allow for more toys and more serious dangers.

It's a lot of fun, and easy to play, but exciting. It can easily fit inside any existing world you might have or want to get.

I have played many hours of first edition and am very pleased with what I have seen during play of 2nd. The good parts were made better, and the parts I tended to forget in play were coincidentally removed. I look forward to future supplements.

What seems a silly module does have some point. You can fish, and if lucky you catch fish that you can sell for gold OR make into ration.

Usable with 2nd ed., it gives your band something to do when others are resting.

Why come here indeed!

A shorter campaign setting, than normal. It has two types of encounters, nomads, and animals.

Aminals are tough, and you don't get much when you win.

Nomads are a different type of human.

A tough and easily frustrating campaign, suitable for more experienced bands.

This is a campaign easily used with 2nd ed., but one with no monsters or evil monsters.

Just the evil of your fellow man, who wants to split your head open and take your stuff.

Your band will do 8 patrols for a noble in a land at war.

The set of encounters are new, and some new skills can be had here as well.

If you prefer to find normal folk, man to man (literally!) this is the one for you.

A campaign for 5 leagues, and easily used with 2nd edition.

A different campaign than dark woods, here you have a new and specific monster type, which has its own specific fighting styles and weapons. They also have a type of magic.

This campaign has stages. Each one is different, and harder than the last.

Its easy to lose this campaign, due to the calamity mechanic. You do get the chance to get a LOT of loot, as well as some interesting goblin treasure.

I think this is tougher than the dark woods, I would want a more experience band before heading here.

I nice expansion for 5 Leagues, and I find it quite compatible with the 2nd edition, with really nothing to change.

Basically what is different is the encounters tables, and the after battle loot and such.

You have "Fey" creatures, which some items affect more, and others don't affect at all. Hope you have the right things!!

Areas tend to be more dense, so there will be less ranged combat, more up close and personal stuff. There is only one village, that helps.

There are new (and strange) type of enemies, many not quite human or plain not at all human.

If you want a more "spooky" adventure, this is for you.

I bought the entire "Scum of the Earth" series, including the Demo. I wanted the Demo for my friend who will NEVER read a longer rule book. I decided to see what kind of game could be played right out of the Demo booklet.

After a quick and smooth read-through, I gathered a 2x2 foot scenery board, four small forest groupings, sme d6 and averaging dice and dusted off forty-two stands of 15mm American Civil War figures that had not seen daylight in ten years.

With the book close at hand, I diced for initiative, then started rolling for the variable moves of my three units of infantry, and one unit of light cavalry. (For the Demo, there is NO artillery. Nothing being in range, I started the same process for the other side.

Soon both forces were in range, and fire began. I used the Average Dice, having bought two pair half a century ago... Soon units were shaken, then breaking. This game will definately reward the commander who keeps a unit or two in reserve. In twenty minutes, six turns were complete, and a winner was decided based on casualties.

The game was fast, fun, and not determined by the strenght of a 'points list'. It had very much the feel of games I enjoyed when I was getting started long ago. This was a bare-bones game, and there are a lot of options available in the full set for when you are ready to deal with them.

I can think of no better way to introduce a newcomer to historical black powder gaming than this simple Demo set. You may gain an opponent for life.

I had the first edition, but never got around to playing it because I didn't really have any fantasy figures or terrain. By the time I got around to it, there was the second edition, which I'm really enjoying!

First, the game is solo or cooperative focused. This is great for me, because I don't get out much. Plus, solo games seem to make for better "stories", like D&D without a DM. The solo focus also means that the system is, I don't want to say "lite", but very straightforward, which is important when you're playing by yourself, and maybe trying to log the events of the "story" that unfolds while also trying to keep track of the turns and the modifiers. As such, there's not much to keep track of, and the modifiers are few, but there are still important tactical decisions to make.

The material in the books doesn't establish a setting per se, but it does hint at one through the types of characters, the backgrounds, the events and the encounters. So, it's evocative, but flexible. Also there are so many cool things that can happen. "The Palid Wanderer" floats through your battlefield. A "Haunted Stone" terrifies all who approach. The Red Moon portends bloodshed! Cool! The main campaign structure is set around eliminating the various threats to the village you're visiting, but there are also special events, some of which serve as mini-campaigns within the overall campaign, like the Sickness Below (rat-men!) and Rumors of Treasure (treasure hunt!) and others.

And of course, your characters can gain experience and skills, and find unique treaures. Or sometimes they die in glorioius battle.

So, in a nutshell, the system is fast and fun, and the options and tables in the book offer exciting and atmospheric things to encounter (and fight). I lost a Hero and a Follower in my first encounter, trying to clear out a band of raving fanatics camped outside of an old church, but I'm eager to bind my wounds and get back out there. Evil will not take this village today! :)

Interesting system , that I enjoyed reading . This system is composed of character creation, system rules and solo rules/tools. It expands the dice pool system I enjoyed for years playing Tunnels and Trolls fifth ed. With these rules you can build a sandbox world in any genre you choose . Creating foes and npcs, monsters appears to be easy with these rules. Simple rules for magic, super powers etc. You will need to use your imagination with this game , but thats not a bad thing , after all its good mental exercise and creativity, its the way played back in the day . I purchased this game on sale , and im happy with the purchase.

The "Hammer" series of games share many mechanics that make the game system accesable to even new players. They are written in an easy to follow prgression that allows you to begin with a few infantry, then add a few more assets each game, until you are immersed in the system. Re-basing your figures is NOT a requirement(thank the Powers that Be). A 3x3 foot table with some dense terrain can give a most satisfactory game in a reasonable amount of time, using only a few squads per side....A good example would be two or three squads(of two stands) on each side, searching for each other in the hedgerows.

The equipment listed covers a good variety of the US, UK, USSR, and German inventory from 1940-45. Ivan tells me that Poland is going to be added soon, and other forces, such as Italy and France can be worked out using similar vehicles from the existing lists.....For exzmple, an Italian M13/39 is very close to a Russian T26. An Italian 47mm AT gun is about equal to a German 50mm....You get the idea.

The Finns can be added by getting the separate set "Winter Hammer".

Highly recommended for face-to-face gamers ready to enjoy a game without bogging dowm in rules, or solo gamers with limited time.

Hi all,

I am doing RPG/Wargame product overviews on my podcast, "Live from Pellam's Wasteland," and I just did an episode on Not Just a Brush War. Here it is: https://anchor.fm/pellamswasteland/episodes/11-Overview-Not-Just-a-Brush-War-by-Nordic-Weasel-Games-e4561e The overview basically just goes over what's in the pdf, which is mostly a list of the random tables that are included and how they can be used to develop a random nation and military and then running an actual brush war campaign.

If you're not interested in listening to the overview, I can tell you that I think this is a very cool product that does exactly what it says on the tin.

Thanks,

Arlen Walker

Five parsecs it is the best rpg light skirmish solo system you could find anywhere , all the cores are superb well written and easy to play. The best expansion it is the planetary  generator. Wild animals , carnivourous plants !!! Simply  Great !! Every cores it is a new voyage in the unknown

Simple and fun rules for Fantasy battles, with a handful of miniatures on a small playing space (about 60 miniatures and a 60x60cm board with some terrain features are enough). Units are just 6 figures for infantry, 1 figure for characters, heroes and generals, 3 figures for mounted; works well with 28mm single based miniatures, and with multibased figures (1 base = 1 figure in the rules) but on a larger table, I think. Includes rules for war engines, monsters, personalities, unit special traits, and interesting features like unit formations, reactions and combined attacks. There are not rules for back / side attacks (that is a bit strange in my opinion) but these can easily worked out, same for Magic that in the rules are just a shooting ability. IGOUGO turn sequence, good solo playability, due to simplicity and random movement distance, good for campaign games, could even be used for historical (dark age / medieval). I wish that the beta version will become a full version one day. PS I just would have liked a quick reference sheet, even if the rules are so simple.

I'm impressed with this title. The core system is elegant and easy to understand but flexible and open to tweaking by the players which is nice. A lot of current rule systems are aimed at tournament gaming and it is nice to have a game I can play casually with my friends but is still tactically deep. The author has included a lot of bonus material as well: common house rules for the game, althernate turn sequences, and random tables to help with pickup games. It is a good tool box game that reminds me of a lot of classic games from the 80s and early nineties. I can see using this for some personal projects.

There are some negatives. The book seems to be a libreoffice writer file saved as a PDF. Functional, but people who want lots of artwork and well laid out pages will be disappoined. Worse, the author has elected to put many of the alternate ways the game can be played in line with the base rules. So the section describing the activation system discusses multiple activation systems before moving on to the movement section. I would have ranther seen the alternate ways to play the game in their own section later in the book. It took me a few re-reads to get the base system down because I kept pulling in elements of the alternate systems without realizing it.

Those are minor complaints and the game is so good I'm still giving it five stars. I hope this game represents a larger movement in the industry to return to creative and fun games over needlessly complex games that are better at selling miniatures then they are fun to play.