Gloire (board game)
Gloire - Swashbuckling Adventure In The Age Of Kings is a miniatures game developed by Rattrap Productions in 2006 . It focuses on the cinematic and heroic representation of skirmishes roughly in the period of the 17th and 18th centuries, entirely in the style and tradition of "cloak and sword" films . The set of rules is only available in English.
Gameplay
Gloire is usually played by two or more players (solo scenarios are possible but the exception) who control a single or a small group of miniatures on a 28mm scale. The miniatures represent fighters whose importance is similar to that of the protagonists and characters from adventure films and novels due to the division into different grades - grade 3 denotes important heroes and villains, grade 2 the characters who support them and grade 1 the "cannon fodder". In their design, the players fall back on various archetypal character classes, such as courtiers, muggers, brigands, fencers and musketeers, which are well-known from literature such as that of a Dumas or a Sabatini . The characters have a number of attributes ("stats") such as intelligence, strength, courage, speed, close and long-range combat skills, etc., as well as freely selectable skills within the framework set by the class, which give them advantages and disadvantages let them interact on the battlefield. The rulebook does not provide any explicit guidelines for this, but the presence of non-combative character classes such as the philosopher or the trader and selectable disadvantages that are intended to give the character depth allow parallels to role-playing games to be recognized and also enable the playing of campaigns as well the further development of the characters and their background beyond the limits of pure combat; The so-called "plot hooks" also suggest that the scenarios should always have a background and the fighters should have a motivation.
The rules based on the W10 enable a fast, easy-to-learn and sufficiently realistic game and use other elements such as drawing playing cards to represent random encounters and unexpected events in order to make the scenarios interesting. As the rule book repeatedly emphasizes, the focus is on having fun.
Future outlook
Since the game was only released in November 2006, not many expansion rules are available yet. On the manufacturer's homepage, however, there are already scenarios available for free download (for example to replay the "Gunpowder Plot" from 1605) or elaborated characters (Alexandre Dumas' "Three Musketeers" ), for 2007 the module "Under The Black Flag" is already available "announced, which thematically deals with a second pillar of" swashbuckling "and adventure literature, namely the pirate .