Miniatures games have a lot of visual appeal for new players. On the table, they look exciting. A varied collection of terrain and models leads to a visual narrative that is hard for other games to achieve. I’ve spent years playing miniatures games at game stores, and I can’t begin to count the number of people who have come up to me and inquired about the game I’m playing.

It’s easy to convey the excitement of a miniatures game, but potential new players may be turned away by their complexity. While designing The Other Side, ease of entry was one of the keystones of the game’s design. If new players can pick up the game more easily, then there will be more players to enact exciting battles of The Other Side. The ease of entry shows itself in the unit, component, and Allegiance designs.

~ Unit Design ~

Making flavorful, interesting units for the game requires a combination of compelling rules and great visuals. The visuals will draw people in, and the rules should hook them. This means that the rules need to be accessible and functional while also providing a bit of character to the unit itself.

For The Other Side, we use stat cards to represent all of a unit’s rules. Every special rule for a unit can be found on its stat card, which takes the pressure off the player to remember what their models can do. We took this a step further by ensuring that all the rules for a unit fit on one side of its stat card, preventing players from having to constantly reference the back of the card. This limited space also necessitates units that are easy to understand at a glance: it’s rare that a unit will have more than three rules on the front of its card. Each of these rules provides the unit with flavor that makes it unique, but that flavor is enhanced when the unit “goes into Glory” and flips its stat card over. The back of each stat card contains all the rules on the front plus additional rules of play, creating a unit that becomes more interesting as the game progresses without overwhelming a new player with complicated rules.

The Other Side units were also designed in such a way to limit the need for players to track game effects. All long-term effects are dictated by a collection of five tokens. Damage is tracked by adding or removing models from a unit, allowing both players to discern a unit’s relative health while also providing a cinematic representation of the battle on the tabletop.

All of this adds up to one simple thing: units that can be easily understood by players, both new and old. A quick glance at a stat card shows you what a unit is capable of, and surprises on the tabletop are limited to powerful effects instead of frustrating “gotcha” moments.

~ Component Design ~

Another step towards ease of play comes from the decision to have preassembled miniatures. All models for The Other Side come assembled in the package, including being attached to their base. Players that are either new to miniatures games or are limited in time no longer have to worry about figuring out how to assemble their models. Players can simply purchase a new unit and get it on the tabletop in the time it takes to open the box. This is an amazing boon to The Other Side. Easy to understand units and quick-to-play models mean that the game can fall more squarely into the realm of impulse purchasing. The delay time from purchase to play is eliminated, which makes a new purchase more plausible for new players.

~ Allegiance Design ~

Finally, we focused on making The Other Side an easy game to pick up through our Allegiance design. Every Allegiance in the game determines which units you can bring to the table, and it also grants special rules to the whole army.

An Allegiance card itself gives a strong sense of flavor to your game choices. At a glance, an Allegiance card gives you a feel for how the entire Allegiance plays. On the back of each card is a quick rules reference to help players remember some of the more common rules. Just in case, players will always have their quick reference card handy while playing the game, too!

The Other Side’s Allegiances also make game growth that is manageable for players to pick up over time. Unlike most games, The Other Side doesn’t need to focus on a lot of releases for pre-existing Allegiances. It can limit the growth within an Allegiance, which makes understanding ever-expanding game choices easier to process. Instead, The Other Side will continue to add new Allegiances that provide new options, all the while slowly introducing new options to existing Allegiances. Coupled with the ability for some Commanders to hire units from outside of their Allegiance, the game can continue to evolve without making the unit choices within an Allegiance too overwhelming for new players.

~ Game Play ~

The Other Side is a miniatures game that is played on a 6’ by 4’ or 4’ x 4’ table in approximately 2-hours. A two Commander game uses about 50 models per side, but the game can easily be played at smaller (one Commander) or larger levels (three or more Commanders).

Instead of dice, each player uses a standard deck of playing cards in The Other Side. Players may generate a hand of cards that they can use to affect the outcome of different in-game actions, or they may choose to spend their in-game resources elsewhere. Gameplay consists of alternating activations, giving each player a chance to respond to the other’s choices. Attacks involve both players flipping cards, ensuring that nobody is waiting for their opponent’s turn (or attack) to end. The game stays engaging even when it’s the opponent’s turn because there are always decisions to make.

Models in The Other Side are grouped into units, each made up of one or more bases, called Fireteams, which move independently on the table. Whenever a unit suffers damage, one of its models is removed. However, damage mitigation and Reinforcements allow the model to stay in the fight, even when attrition becomes a concern. The game’s excitement comes from using units against enemies in Operations. The different Operations change gameplay, providing players with objectives outside of killing their opponents. This allows players to defeat their opponent either through cunning or brute force.

The Other Side uses a variety of mechanics to add more enjoyment to the game. Allegiance cards give a distinct flavor to each army, and units gain a benefit from high morale (the Glory side) instead of being punished for broken morale. Stratagem cards provide the chance for large, cinematic battlefield effects. All told, the game keeps players involved in the action from beginning to end.

The Other Side has been in development for over a year, and it shows. You can quickly understand the game without sacrificing tactical depth, and the easy-to-learn rules keep the focus on the action, instead of the minutiae of rules arguments.

~ Easing In ~

All of this comes together to make a miniatures game that is both exciting to play and full of tactical decisions, while also preserving ease of play. If you’ve been considering picking up a miniatures game line, The Other Side is the perfect place to start (or to add to your existing games).

We are keeping the barrier to entry into this new game low by making the rules for The Other Side available online completely for free, including all stats and game cards. Upon launch, it will also be available in six additional languages, thus opening the way for a much larger international community and allowing new players every opportunity to look over the rules and see all the great possibilities that can be had before taking their forces into battle!

Wyrd is thrilled to bring this brand-new game to players around the world, including our very own tables. It’s a game that’s easy to pick up and play, and one that is already rapidly catching the tabletop community’s interest.  We hope you’ll join us on this journey to The Other Side!

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Aaron Darland is the head of Wyrd’s design team and is the lead designer of The Other Side. He is undecided whether he likes white chocolate, milk chocolate, or dark chocolate the most.