A YouTuber has made an entire miniature wargame rule set using Lego. Caldaria is a Warhammer-like miniature game designed by YouTuber Bybeezon, where you do battle with warriors, archers, mages and big monsters, all constructed from the humble Lego block or minifigure. The rules are available for free, and the creator plans to post unit cards online too.
As Bybeezon explains in their video, for the last five years they have been devising their own fantasy setting using Lego. “I wanted to add more interactivity to my world to make playing with Lego more interesting,” they say.
The way Caldaria works will be quite familiar to any fans of miniature wargames like Warhammer 40k. You pick a faction, build squads of different units, then have at it, using the abilities and stats of your warriors to try and win the day. Mechanics involve the usual assortment of dice and rulers, but delightfully you mark your units’ hit points, mana, and so on using Lego flowers, placed on a flat brick.
Here are the game’s factions:
- Bloodless – Skeletons, zombies, and ghosts, oh my!
- Empire of Light – Your typical do-gooder faction of warriors styled on the DnD Paladin class.
- Dragon Followers – Dragon-worshipping cultists who occasionally get transformed into demons.
- Defenders of Kerindor – Forest-dwelling magic-users, elves, DnD rangers and what-not.
- Kingdom of Luminor – A breakaway group from the Empire of Light.
- Order of the Black Falcon – A small faction that strives to maintain balance and order.
- Urdu – Orcs, goblins, centaurs, cyclops and other monsterfolk.
ByBeezen has made their ruleset for Caldaria freely available, saying: “my main goal was for any Lego fan to be able to take their miniatures and play this game, ensuring accessibility for all enthusiasts like me.”
The video is a delight, with so many diverse and awesome minifigures involved in the armies We were a bit worried how anyone but the most die-hard Lego collector, with all the most expensive Lego sets and rarest Lego minifigures, would be able to play, but according to Bybeezon, you don’t need to be too precious about which minis you use.
“The main thing is to preserve the basic principles of the squad, for instance the presence of a helmet, shield, or longbow,” they say. We like this – it sounds a bit like games like Warsurge which let you use literally any model.
This is not the first time Lego has crossed over into Wargaming. We’ve seen awesome Warhammer-themed Lego builds like this Lego Great Unclean One and a Lego version of Warhammer primarch Roboute Guilliman.
In the past we also encountered this awesome Warhammer alternative that uses a single cheap Lego set.