I blame Graham McNeill. Or maybe it’s Gav Thorpe. No, no, wait, it’s definitely Josh Reynolds or Andy Chambers… heck, there’s plenty enough blame to go around, right?
Trench Crusade, bulls-eying that perfect overlap of history, theological mythology, and grimdark wargaming was always going to catch my eye, but it was the recent moves towards building up a storytelling cadre that made me really sit up and take notice.
For those new to the Warhammer Wordforge, this site started as the new home for my regular column, Black Library Weekly. Before long I added a second weekly roundup, the Warhammer RPG Weekly, and now we’re rolling out a similar, regular bulletin for the first non-Warhammer game on the site. Welcome to the debut of Trench Crusade Weekly!
Each week I’ll be rounding up what’s new and exciting in the TC community, from official content to interesting community-generated coverage. In keeping with the format of my other columns, I’ll also keep a running eye on products and releases that are known to be coming soon. That’s not a lot here at the relative infancy of the game, but I fully expect things to only grow from here.
That’s not least because Marc Gascoigne, one of the three founders of the Black Library as we know it, was brought aboard last April as the ‘Head of Special Ops’ in charge of developing in-house and licensed products for the property. Duplicating the success of the Black Library is a tall order, of course, but I’d be delighted to see a steady drumbeat of tie-in fiction as the game grows and progresses.
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Now, welcome aboard and on to the week that was!
ICYMI
Here’s what’s been going on this week for Trench Crusade content!
Trench Crusade Official
Graham McNeill has penned a new bit of lore, this time around War Priest Charon. A non-playable character, Charon is one of the War Patrons in the Carcass Front and is brought to life in a terrific art piece by Mike Franchina.
The game’s first-ever worldwide campaign Operation Leviathan kicked off this week, as players were encouraged to get in some games of Trench Crusade and report their results! It will run until 19 October, and we’re told that the results will leave their mark on the world forever.
And for a much more thematic start-pistol crack, check out this piece on the Trench Wire, and here’s a bit more on how it’s going to actually function as a game event.
Results from Operation Leviathan are also being reported by Andy Chambers and Sammie Dae. The latest dispatch saw the Faithful outperforming the Fallen, but only by the narrowest of margins. No resting on laurels here!
Each Friday during the worldwide campaign, the Trench Wire will be bringing a quartet of battle reports from games all over the world. This week’s included a two-day narrative campaign run at the Ironweld Convention in Massachusetts.
Wargame Content Sites
Tabletop Battles let Aaron “Lenoon” Bowen loose to dive into the lore of the Sacred Affliction in this week’s Trench Crusade article.
Sticking with Graham McNeill a little longer, Timothy Linward of Wargamer had the opportunity to interview him about his work on the lore of the game. He’s breaking the interview into digestible bites, so here’s the first and second that dropped this week.
Simon Berman dropped a get-started-playing primer on Bell of Lost Souls this week, for those who may be thinking of jumping in! “The last time I remember seeing a miniatures game take off in such a big way,” he notes, “was WARMACHINE in the mid-2000s.”
Community Content
The Trench Scribe Podcast took a look at playing the Papal States this week. “he Papal warband in Trench Crusade is unique, in that it allows you to start with mercenaries and glory items; learn how to maximize this strength on this week's episode.”
Not enough Charon for you on the official site? scannerbarkly’s heard you loud and clear, with a lore video about him as well as more insight around the Seven Heads of the Serpent and the Phantom Squadron of Rudolf’s Folly.
For an perspective on the wargame itself, the fellas at Mountainside Gaming released a video battle report of their first tilt with the Carcass Front box.
Rogue Hobbies did a full unboxing, miniature painting, and review in her terrific look at the Carcass Front box.
Coming Attractions
Here’s a list of the known upcoming physical releases from Trench Crusade based on the available preorder information we have.
This section will be updated weekly in this column, with new or updated info presented in boldface.
Trench Crusade Rulebook (hardcover, 11/30)
That’s it for this week, see you again in seven days’ time!
Thanks for highlighting this game! It looks awesome. Warhammer 40k is amazing but it's so vast, it's hard to get caught up with its lore. It would be great to follow the development of a new literary universe from inception. I hope it will happen and it will be successful. I'm a lore buff and not really into the gaming side, so I will really appreciate the weekly updates about this!