Chronicles of Midgard - A Review

A declaration of interest first. I was one of the playtesters for Chronicles of Midgard, and my Mystic Britain campaign — which you may have followed in earlier posts — was run using early drafts of the rules. With that caveat stated, I hope what follows reads as an honest assessment rather than advocacy.

Midgard Heroic Battles arrived in November 2023 and swiftly built a devoted following. See my review here. Since then, Midgard has won the Best New Wargames Rules Award 2024 as voted for by readers of Wargames Illustrated.  The newly published Chronicles of Midgard is the first supplement, and its central ambition is to take those fast, heroic battles and give them narrative weight and long-term consequence.

Click the image to Link to Chronicle of Midgard.

What the supplement contains

Chronicles of Midgard adds rules for fast-moving narrative campaigns and fifteen new dynamic scenarios, with a simple map-based campaign system focused on heroic deeds as two Courts of Heroes compete for renown and victory across a historical, legendary, or fantasy setting of your choice. Just under half the book is devoted to those scenarios, and they are arguably worth the price of the supplement on their own. Covering everything from open-field engagements to ambushes, river crossings, broken-terrain fights, and assaults on breached fortress walls, they offer genuine tactical variety. Combined with the five scenarios in the core rules, players now have a library of twenty from which every campaign will draw a different sequence. I would also suggest they transport cleanly to other medieval skirmish systems — something I intend to explore, though I have not yet made that transition.

The campaign system itself is streamlined by design. The map is played on a 3×7 offset grid — which, incidentally, could equally function as hexes for those who prefer a nodal campaign structure — with each square labelled as one of four terrain types: Open, River, Broken, or Fortress. These classifications feed directly into scenario generation via a d6 roll. Logistics, weather, and political fortune are not tracked turn by turn; instead, they arrive in a single pre-battle throw on the “Wheel of Fate Turns” random event table. This is an elegant solution. The Wheel of Fate brings local colour and keeps the campaign unpredictable without burying the player in administrative overhead.

Hero progression is the one element of ongoing record-keeping. At the outset, a Court of Heroes is established — typically a major hero, a couple of minor heroes, and several champions — and reputation points earned in battle are tracked as they grow. In my own games, I did not find this burdensome, and it provides precisely the kind of continuity that makes a campaign feel like more than a series of unconnected battles. Unit experience is not tracked, which keeps the bookkeeping to a minimum. After each battle, the margin of victory determines whether the winner may pursue, take plunder, or must allow a fighting retreat — most campaigns will involve between five and eight games in total.

From Athelney to Ethandun

The ready-to-play historical campaign included in the book pits King Alfred of Wessex against the Vikings in the spring of 878 AD. It supplies a campaign map, a full Court of Heroes for both sides, detailed muster rolls, and the specific army traits and unit restrictions that give each force its historical character. This latter element is particularly well handled: the campaign’s flavour is shaped not just by scenario and terrain but by limiting which traits particular units can take, grounding the game in the period without sacrificing the sandbox flexibility that makes Midgard worth playing. The campaign serves as both a standalone experience and a demonstration of how the system’s tools can be applied in any setting.

The Iron Valley

Released simultaneously as a standalone PDF, The Iron Valley offers a fantasy 'Goblet-Sized' Campaign pitting the Dwarves of the Iron Valley against an invading Orc warband under Azgoth Hornchewer. The 35-page pack contains background, maps, full Muster Rolls for Orcs and Dwarves, and five new scenarios playable as either a linear or map-based campaign. It also introduces a new trait, adding another tool for differentiating armies and giving particular forces their own identity. The format clearly signals how the planned series of Goblet-Sized Campaigns — very much akin to the Pint-Sized Campaigns produced for Chain of Command — will work going forward, with Chronicles as the manual underpinning each one.

What I would like to see added

No system is without its gaps, and a few additions would strengthen future supplements or editions. A sense of time passing matters to those of us who write campaign chronicles or dispatches. I have solved this simply by treating each map move as a month; most pre-modern campaigns ran from March to September, which tallies naturally with the suggested campaign length of five to eight battles. A formal timescale would be welcome.
I would also like to see additional terrain types. A coastal terrain category — with its own scenario table — would open up sea raiders, amphibious landings, and the kind of littoral warfare that defines so much of the early medieval world. A magical terrain type would serve high fantasy settings well. Both feel like natural extensions of what is already here.

What’s coming

The Goblet-Sized Campaign pipeline is already moving. James Morris is working on a Second Barons' War campaign covering the battles of Lewes (1264) and Evesham (1265) — two engagements that are well-suited to the Midgard format. Lewes in particular, fought over broken, hilly ground south of the town, rewards exactly the kind of terrain-driven scenario generation that Chronicles handles well, while Evesham — de Montfort trapped in a river loop, his outnumbered force destroyed in a near-encirclement — offers a ready-made scenario with its own special conditions baked in. It will be a campaign with high dramatic stakes and should demonstrate the system’s range beyond the Dark Age settings that have dominated so far.
Looking further ahead, Midgard has been selected as the ruleset for the extraordinary Hastings 960 project, an ambition to refight the Battle of Hastings at a 1:1 figure ratio, targeting over 16,000 fifteen-millimetre paper miniatures on the table for October 2026. It is a remarkable vote of confidence in the rules’ scalability, and it underscores how quickly Midgard has moved from a new release to a community institution.

Verdict

The core question for any campaign supplement is whether it adds narrative weight without adding administrative drag. Chronicles of Midgard manages that balance well. The Wheel of Fate keeps things unpredictable; hero progression gives players something to care about between battles; the scenario library ensures no two campaigns feel alike. For the solo wargamer in particular, the minimal bookkeeping is a genuine virtue — one of the reasons my own Mystic Britain campaign progressed as far as it did.
If you already play Midgard, this is a straightforward purchase. If you have been on the fence about the core rules, it is worth noting that the game now has not just an active and growing community but a substantial supplement infrastructure — historical campaigns, fantasy campaigns, a promised series of further Goblet-Sized releases — that suggests Morris and Reisswitz Press are committed to the long term.
Chronicles of Midgard is an essential addition to the shelf.

Chronicles of Midgard is available from Reisswitz Press in hardcopy (£24) and PDF (£16). The Iron Valley Goblet-Sized Campaign is PDF-only. The Too Fat Lardies preview video is available on their Patreon page.