After seeing Gnomes on a battlefield at a HGMS convention, I knew that I wanted to buy into if only just for the novelty. So a regiment of Irish found their way home with me. I painted them up, and took them to the next con and found out how fun the game was too.
Many years later and many hours of painting Gnomes, I have a significant collection of Gnome forces with enough to put on a real game away from the convention. We have been talking about playing for quite a while, and this past Sunday we finally made it happen. Needless to say, after not playing for a long time, it was a relearning of the rules. We found the rules easy to handle, but kept our rulebooks close at hand.
I played the Allies who were comprised of Swiss, Irish, Russian, Sikhs, Highlanders and French with the aid of a friendly wizard. Sevy played a large German force with the Witch and Vampire in their corner. Although I tried to cost up each side fairly, in the end I think that the Allied force was probably a bit deeper even with the Germans having the advantage of some heavy weaponry.
The objective of the battle was to gain control and hold a magical fountain in the center of village.
The battle saw bunny cavalry face a tough crew of Highlanders. As well as a thundering war elephant that cleared a path for the Irish Wolfhounds to finally make their way to the fountain. As we were learning as we went, we were not the fastest, and the afternoon quickly went by. So we called it before we really had a chance to finish, but it was a really fun time. Thanks to Sevy for helping make this game happen. I hope that we can play Gnome Wars again soon.
Below you can see the pictures of game action. The table features one of Sevy’s beautiful Cigar Box Battle Mats. They are great to game on and photograph splendidly.
Spoils of Wargames 
I had a blast playing this. You have some beautifully painted gnome figures, and it was super cool to see such a massed array of them in play in one big battle. We’ll definitely play again soon; I don’t want to keep re-learning the rules all the time!
I would love to try the “Alternate Card Activation” rules next time, where each General puts his unit cards in the order he wants to activate them, then the armies alternate activating units from their army decks. It gives you more command control than the pure random pulls from the common unit deck.
I need to finish off some of my work-in-progress gnomes and paint up some others, although that said, you have more than enough for everyone! I loved those lederhosen wearing Germans so much, I need to go buy some! Truth be told, all of the Brigade Games figures for Gnome Wars are really neat, with lots of personality. Outside of HMGS East conventions, this game is not that well known, which is a darn shame because it’s colorful fun with a keen sense of humor, without being simplistic.
Thanks for sharing all the great photos!