The Gaming Gang
One of my favorite historical/fantasy miniatures systems has always been Knights and Magick from long defunct Heritage USA. There was just something about the rules which were easy enough yet had extra flavor to the make battles unique and interesting. Add to this a pretty robust campaign system – which wasn’t impossible to implement – and I can certainly say Elliott, our high school friends, and I had one hell of a time playing! Unfortunately, Heritage went the way of the dodo around twenty five years ago and the Knights and Magick rules hadn’t seen print since they originally came out in 1980. Thankfully you can still get many of the old Heritage miniatures through Classic Miniatures and our pals at Reaper but you just couldn’t score a copy of K&M without heading to the secondary market and paying top dollar. For the most part you’d be getting a bit of a dog eared copy and when I would see the game available online nearly always the indication was the set wasn’t complete; for some reason most people had lost the fifth volume to the rules, a half sized book for magic.
Now I’m happy to say you can get your hands on the complete classic rule set right here at TGG! Although we’re talking about the classic edition of K&M the digital rule book PDFs are bookmarked and completely searchable, making them perfect to bring along on the go with a laptop or tablet. Of course, you can put them on your phone too but I think you’d have some issues with the screen size…
You can download my new introduction as well as some sample pages right here.
That’s not all though! Late 2013/early 2014 we’ll bring an all new edition of Knights and Magick to the public with Knights & Magick: Defenders of the Crown (working title). This will be a full color rulebook which reimagines all the best of K&M while improving and streamlining the rules while bringing more adventures, more campaigns, more monsters, more magick, and more armies and heroes. Or, in other words, more of what makes Knights and Magick a lot of fun! We’re talking loads of goodies including lots of photography of minis from some of your favorite companies like Reaper, Warlord Games, the aforementioned Classic, and more! There’ll even be a full color guide to get started painting!
I have quite a lot planned for the new system and will be releasing attractive (and attractively priced) supplements which will be compatible with both the classic and new editions of K&M. The first to release alongside K&M: Defenders of the Crown will be Knights & Magick: Harbingers of Doom (just the working title folks) which will introduce fifty new monsters and six army lists to the world of K&M.
All that’s in the future though, so let’s focus on the present and that means classic Knights and Magick!
Your purchase doesn’t just get you the PDF of the rules but also an invite into the closed playtest of the new system which will begin in early June as well as a ten dollar discount on your purchase of K&M: Defenders of the Crown – at this point I’m estimating an MSRP of $24.95 or so for the PDF of K&M:DotC. In the end that means you’re only paying $2.95 for the classic rule set! Well, if you end up buying DotC that is…
And speaking of the classic rules they include:
Volume I: Game Rules and Systems – Forty five pages of basic and advanced rules to get you started including Jousts, Tournaments, Fortresses, and Sieges.
Volume II: Recruiting and Preparing Armies – Forty five pages devoted to not only painting and basing your minis but also an extensive section of heraldry as well as fantasy and historical army lists. Want to put an army of undead and demons up against an historic army from the period of feudal Poland? Yep! You can do that!
Volume III: Adventures, Scenarios, and Campaigns –I always felt one of the strongest aspects of Knights and Magic is the campaign system; as in it’s one which is actually playable! Here you’ll find forty one pages of adventures (both small and large), campaign rules including a sample well worth playing, and designer notes.
Volume IV: Monster Index – It can’t be a fantasy game without monsters! Twenty eight pages of beasties to bring to the gaming table including many tried and true creatures of the genre. Personally, I’ve always thought this was a bit on the skimpy side but that will be remedied by upcoming supplements.
Volume V: Magick Index – Another area which I thought was a bit lacking with K&M, back in the day, but will be addressed in supplements. Still, there’s good stuff to be found in the fourteen pages of spells both for battles and for use in campaigns.
So help support The Gaming Gang with your purchase as well as give us a hand in launching the next generation of Knights and Magick!
Currently we can only accept PayPal for purchases.
Wow, a lot of stuff in the download. Skimmed thru the pdf; the fact that the game can be used for individual combat(jousting!) all the up to castle sieges is very cool. Also, I think the price is worth it, just for the historical content. Looking forward to the 21st century version…The beginning of the end of Games Workshop hegemony???:)
Oh, I don’t think GW has anything to worry about since we have no interest in producing minis.
There’s a whole lot to the game and there’s plenty of appeal for both historical and fantasy gamers in one package!
Any thoughts of a collaboration with Max Carr (http://www.baronyminiatures.com/Baron-Wars.html)? He did a lot (most?) of the original Knights and Magick miniatures.
I’d say that would be a possibility, as I’ll get in contact with Max.
Just checked out the PDFs. I’m really enjoying everything I’m learning about this one. Never heard of this game growing up but I’m definitely looking forward to your revamped edition!
Thanks to Floyd Canada for catching Volume I : Game Rules And Systems is missing page 31. and Volume III : Adventures, Scenarios, And Campaigns is missing page 19. Grrrr!!! I know exactly what pages they are too as they took more work than most of the rest to clean up. The good news is the files are available and all I have to do is add the pages to each of the books and then reformat for search and bookmarks.
The bad news is I’m on the road and won’t be back home, where the files are, until this weekend at the earliest and the middle of next week at the latest. What I’ll do as soon as I get home is fix the books and email the links to the new books for everyone who’s made a purchase to get the replacements.
I can’t believe I missed those two pages!!!!
How does one search for the old figs on Reaper’s site? Will the figs from Merlin be included, or will that be a different expansion? I have Merlin, but have not played it.
I can’t tell you exactly what figs in the Reaper line were originally Heritage but I was informed they picked up quite a few of the molds. I can’t say if they’re in production or not but when I have a chance to get in front of a computer I’ll reach out to Ed Pugh to see what can be learned.
I’m glad everyone is enjoying this release of Knights and Magic. I couldn’t believe that Jeff was able to get such a nice copy put together. Man, what great memories this conjures up. It makes me want to play all over again after all these years. He has such great ideas for the 2nd edition too, which will be even better when it comes together. I had heard that is has been nearly impossible to get a copy of the spell book, and yet Jeff came up with it. Great job my friend. You of course realize we are going to have to put some games together when you head into town, although I’m not sure how, lol.
um…forgot the K. Knights and Magick. Amazingly enough, backwards it is Kcigam dna Sthgink, which means absolutely nothing.
Ok, the two books have been corrected so the five volumes are complete!
Greetings. I hope to obtain a copy of these rules, and utilize them with my Schleich, Papo, Safari, and Bullyland Knights; in 90mm scale.
Glad to see the game returning.
Scanning in my old set too. Almost got it done. Good to see other folks are trying to preserve this as well.