Interview - Michael "Dalauppror" Leck

In today’s Interview, we are happy to welcome here Mr. Michael „Dalauppror“ Leck, co-author of the Pikeman's Lament and author of the highly anticipated Rebels and Patriots game, published by Osprey Games both. Michael frequently submits excellent articles to Wargames Soldiers & Strategy and other magazines. Swedish army on the cover of Pikeman’s Lament is not a coincident as Michael is from Sweden and you can find a lot of useful information about Swedish wars amongst other on his blog http://dalauppror.blogspot.com/.

Q: So in this bloody hot summer I have to ask, how’s the weather in Sweden nowadays? (30JUL2018)

A: Indeed bloody hot, Sweden are at blaze at the moment, several big forest fires are progressing and we have got help from many other countries, Italy, Poland, France, Portugal amongst other, sending Helicopters, Fire rescue planes, Fire trucks and Firemen, so very appreciated (edit:  WARGAMINGASP – Czech republic offers chopper to help extinguish the fires) !!!  A bit of rain would be good to.

Q: Anyway, thank you for agreeing to answer our questions and welcome to our blog. Can you tell us something about your gaming history?

A: Thank you very much for having me, hope that it will be an interesting interview. I have always played games with my family, but at age 12 I got my first RPG as a Christmas gift and I was hooked for life. The first 10 years I focused mainly on RPG´s and most often as a game master bot at home and at several RPG convention´s here in Sweden. I also quite early on begun to paint minis as an addition to the RPG experience but also as standalone games, think my first wargame with minis was World War II with 6mm tanks from GHQ.

Q: As far as I know Pikeman’s Lament is your first published game (along with numerous wargaming articles). Pikeman’s Lament is based upon, let’s say, “Rampant“ engine created by Daniel Mersey for Lion Rampant and other games. The original engine works for HYW skirmish, you move it some 300 years in the future in Pikeman’s Lament. Where the idea started?

A: The Pikeman´s Lament are the first published wargame I have my name on the cover, earlier I have just got my name amongst the play testers etc., so a quite good feel to it. Since I helped Dan out with the work on Lion Rampant, and I really fell in love with the easy approach of the “Rampant” engine, I have been using the rule engine in all sorts of settings. So when I would set up a Scanian War (Denmark and Sweden in war 1675-1679) campaign at the club I wanted to use the Rampant engine but felt I needed to make some changes. So I asked Dan if I could have his Lion Rampant word file and adjust it for our club campaign, when he heard about my idea he thought it was so good as he suggested we should present it as a joint venture to Osprey and the rest are history as they use to say, The Pikeman´s Lament was born.

Michael's Swedish Company from the the Dalregiment. Thirty Years War, source: http://dalauppror.blogspot.com/2015/10/swedish-tyw-company-for-pikemans-lament.html

Q: How did the cooperation with Dan Mersey work?

A: Dan have become a really dear friend, ever since we had our first email correspondence back in 2012, as it turned out we have more or less the same view on wargaming and that indeed make cooperation very much easier. During the work with the Pikeman´s lament I did much of the rules and scenario writing as well as playtesting and Dan acted as the Project leader that gave ok to my ideas and changes to the rules. We both knew well what we wanted to achieve, a fun and entertaining game in a Pike and Shot setting that still was true to the “Rampant” engine, and I think we did it quite well.

Q: Dan Mersey’s design is based about bringing the spirit of the period into his games. What do you seek designing the game, what do you want to achieve in game mechanics?

A: As I mentioned before Dan and I have more or less the same view of game design, indeed rules that bring the spirit of the period forward, BUT not to all cost, playability always comes first. I want the rules to be easy to understand, streamlined and it should be possible to run a game in 1-2 hours and still have time for a beer and a good chat with the mates’ before the end of the evening.

Q: Let’s move to your new project scheduled for January, the Rebels and Patriots. What can you tell us about the game?

A: First of all Rebels and Patriots are once again joint venture with me and Dan Mersey. This time I have taken a greater over-all responsibility for the project and Dan have focused on editing, as well as acting as the Devils advocate asking me the hard questions about how I motivate changes etc. during the project.

As with the earlier rules, we’ve focused on the overall ‘feel’ and ‘flow’ of the game, rather than worry about the minutiae of historical simulation. My design goal has been to successfully write a set of rules that in a “abstract“, as all “Rampant“ games, way depict the warfare during the Horse and Musket era.  I have put The Pikeman´s Lament, Dan´s Colonial wargaming rules The Men That Would Be Kings and my own ideas as well as the development of warfare and history  in to a big melting pot and hopefully managed to cook something  good and  fresh that will give the playres fast, enjoyable games in the Horse and Musket era.

Q: Why did you choose TYW and North America conflict? There is a lot of competition, especially with Muskets and Tomahawks or Sharp Practice 2.

A: TYW because my own needs for a set of Pike and Shot rule coincided with the will of Osprey to produce them in their Wargames series.  

North American conflicts have always interested me, since my childhoods Wild West movies on TV and I feel that it interest a lot of my fellow wargamers to. When Dan and I first presented a Horse and Musket version of the “Rampant” rules it was more a generic set of rules to catch on where The Pikeman´s Lament focus ended in 1721. But since Osprey already had released the excellent Napoleonic rules “Chosen Men” they wanted us to narrow down our focus to North American conflicts from 1754 to 1865. Even if the rules has a North American focus I don´t see any problem using them on other continents.  

Battle of Lipany

Q: Speaking about periods and missing games. I am still looking for Hussite Wars rules, especially now with success of PC game Kingdom Come: Deliverance.  How would you design Hussite battlewagon in Rampant Engine? That’s very frequent question ;-)

A: Hussite Wars would indeed match in to the Lion Rampant period. I’m not really sure how to depict the Wagenburg tactics of the Hussite in a good way using the Lion Rampant rules. The use of Hussite wagons and their tactic was very defensive and risk getting boring in scenario driven games as Lion Rampant. If I wanted to field Hussite wagons I would probably field 2 wagons with 6 minis in each as a Crossbowmen unit with the pavese option @ 6 points. This gives me a good shooting unit that have good defence against enemy shooting and in close combat as well.  This was the assumption I worked on when I designed the Hussite list in the Lion Rampant rules (page: 60).

Q: Let’s ask about actually playing the game. What do you expect the rule set have to have to satisfy you as a player?

A: Fast, Easy to catch up rules but with a depth so it takes time to master them even if the basic mechanisms are easy to learn.

Q: What games do you play often, or enjoy?

A: I actually doesn’t’t play many games myself; I really like to set-up games for my friends, writing scenarios, stage good scenery and then participate as umpire. Rules wise there have lately obviously been much Rebels and Patriots due to all playtesting. Rules that I get back to use either for my own games or for games I set-up at the club are Black Powder and Lion Rampant.

Q: Do you prefer Resin, Plastic or Metal?

A: Plastic all days a week. Multi-part plastic minis are great for conversion and to customize the minis and that is something I really enjoy to do. Not to forget that plastic minis are most often very cost effective to.

Q: What is the Wargames community in Sweden? Here in Czech Republic it is very small and fragmented according to game system, player characteristics and so on.

A: I have no deeper knowledge in the wargaming community but I believe there are good many wargamers, mostly Games Worksop games but also quite many Historical gamers especially playing Flames of War. At my wargaming club “Little Wars Stockholm” about 60-70% are historical gamers and the remaining mostly play Games Worksop games.

Here in Sweden we also have a national “umbrella” organisation, SVEROK, with about 90000 members. They help out to start local gaming clubs, run gaming conventions and to promote the general gaming community for RPG´s, Wargames, Boardgames, LARPS  etc.

Q: There are tons of games on the shelves and web alike, so the key question is what is the reason for a potential buyer to purchase the game, specifically why I have to play just another Skirmish game? This is very strong question I feel, as I asked in the past about it to some others and did not receive acceptable answer. What do you think about it, how do you promote the game on already overcrowded market?

A: I´m not really sure if what you are referring to by “the game”? Is it games/rules in general or is it specifically Rebels and Patriots you are asking for?

In general I think it is stunning what a productive community the wargaming community have developed in to, much thanks to the use of Internet and easy access to graphic software that makes it easy for almost anyone to produce good looking games, but not always good games rules vice, but still show a will to produce and share ones wargaming ideas. As you say there are tons of games on the market so it is indeed hard to find the good ones amongst them all.

For Rebels and Patriots we of course have a big advantage in reaching out to the customers thanks to Lion rampant, Dragon rampant, TMTWBK and The Pikeman’s Lament and the fact that they have a good fan-base, so if you like any of those sets of rules you hopefully will like Rebels and Patriots to.

Rebels and Patriots have several things in common with the earlier rules based on the “rampant” engine but I really have tried to put an effort in develop the rules in to something I believe will give  fast and enjoyable games in the Horse and Musket era.

Thank you very much for your time and we are wishing you a good luck in your next projects. 

Thank you to J