Games Workshop has released free rules for Full Tilt, a game of knightly jousting set in the Warhammer fantasy world. First published in 1997 in White Dwarf magazine, it’s a simple game you can play with a deck of cards – plus a few model knights if you want to make it look nice.
When not at war or hunting the corners of the Warhammer Old World for the grail, the knights of the Kingdom of Bretonnia love nothing more than tilting at one another in jousting competitions. With only one direction of movement and one model per side, jousting doesn’t work as a traditional miniature wargame – but the classic rules by veteran GW designer Nigel Stillman have an elegant way to represent it.
The Full Tilt rules are available to download from the Warhammer Community website, and if you have a Warhammer+ subscription, there’s a battle report with some lovely terrain on show.
Players each control three knights, who will each have three passes in the lists attempting to skewer an opponent with their lance. For each pass you’ll secretly select a playing card that represents a jousting ploy. The lower the number on the playing card, the faster you’ll use the ploy: the higher the number, the more impactful it’s likely to be.
Players roll to hit, wound, and save, usually on a 4+, and knights can take two wounds before they pass out. A single unsaved wound has a chance to unhorse an opposing knight, immediately knocking them out of the tourney. Even saved wounds count as ‘broken lances’, the victory points that determine the winner if neither knight is unseated.
Each knight also has a secret knightly virtue. They might be so honorable that they will never use the underhanded swipe or dodge maneuver, but gain re-rolls to all their saves; or perhaps they’re so sturdy in the saddle they can never be unhorsed. Receiving a Lady’s Favor grants each knight a random number of rerolls, too.
All told, an elegant game from a more civilized age. If you’re interested in more games from Games Workshop veterans, Tuomas Pirinen – creator of Mordheim – just dropped playtest rules for his new horror skirmish game Trench Crusade, while the Kickstarter for Warpath – co-designed by Alessio Cavatore – just launched.