Hello folks, recently I’ve had the chance to interview Emily Fontana from On the lamb Games. Enjoy!
me: Let’s start with the simple stuff: Who are you and what do you do for a living?
Emily: My name is Emily Fontana, and I’m one of the three main staff of On The Lamb Games. I handle most of the business and PR side of things in addition to unit design and testing.
Otherwise, I’m a bum.
me: Good to know . What did you do before OTLG and how did you end up in the gaming industry?
Emily: Originally worked as a cashier at Publix (supermarket), then went on to run an Anime store. Before we formed OTLG we worked on a fan project combing two copyrighted items into an awesome miniatures game . After my store closed the three of us decided to write a RPG which ended up being our first product ‘Legendary Realms’ and caused to form a proper gaming company.
me: Sounds pretty easy. Was that a logical progression for you? I mean, venturing into this kind of business is quite risky, isn’t it?
Emily: Yeah, it is a risky thing. You never know how people will respond to what your putting out. Originally it was going to just be a ‘in our spare time’ thing, but it quickly became our full time thing.
me: How big is OTLG now? You said you are one of three main staff, do you hire freelancers for certain projects?
Emily: Three is the three of us (Matt, Pedro, & I ) that form the core, with a few ‘they’d be staff if we could pay them regularly’ folks like Daniel (Sculptor) and Nick (Playtester/Sales Man), and then we have a number of freelance artists we hire for various things.
me: What are the other two doing? Matt is your head-honcho, right?
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Emily: Matt is the main writer for all the fluff in both LR & Brushfire, Pedro does a lot of the unit design and playtesting with me. We had to stop Matt from playtesting because the dice gods hate him. Pedro is also the only one of us with a ‘Real Job’.
We all handle the grunt work though, going to cons, running store demos, packing and shipping product.
me: Maybe you can tell us what your usual working day is like
Emily: Mostly involves sitting at my desk, painting miniatures, answering e-mails, lurking on message boards/4chan. If we’ve gotten a restock/new stuff in I’ll be cutting out cards and covers to get them ready to be shipped.
me: I wish I could paint miniatures during office hours at my desk… Okay, let’s talk about your main product, Brushfire. Give us a quick overview.
Emily: Brushfire is a miniatures skirmish game with a semi historical setting. Its factions are based on historical armies, but uses indigenous animals as troops.
As it’s a skirmish game it’s played with 10 to 20 miniatures per side for a standard game and can be scaled up or down depending on how the players wish to go.
The units and fluff contain a lot of random humor and references to things we enjoy, while also keeping that somewhat historical feel.
me: Yes, reading the rulebook is a bit like a wacky history lesson. Have you done a lot of research to find the right pieces to transfer to the fictional universe?
Emily: Yes, we’re all somewhat history nerds, and used that as a jumping point to figure out what to include into each faction. We did make sure to do a lot of research into what each army was doing when and where. There are portions of things that we decided to say ‘screw history’ with to make things more fun, like Gotz & the Valkyr in The Vandalands. Gotz is based on a famous german mercenary (Gotz of the Iron Hand), and the Valkyr are based off a combination of Swiss clockwork and DaVinci’s Knight. But in history, the battle that is referenced in their fight against Ursal Khanate (Russia), was lost.
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me: Yes, Gotz von Federwerk is an Exemplar with a lot of steampunk feeling. Considering that steampunk is the new black in wargaming, will we see these units as models soon?
Emily: While every model in Historia Rodentia will be released, I can’t say exactly when those ones will be out. We’re focusing at the moment to get each of the 8 factions to a playable point.
me: How do you decide which model to release next? Do you have a big master-plan or is it more like a case-to-case decision?
Emily: I have a plan, it’s broken up by monthly releases. But there have been times where I’ve changed the order because of an issue with the sculpt, or I’ve changed my mind about priority.
There will be a wave or possibly two after the Axony and Zabar warbands are released that will focus on bringing out additional troops for the currently released factions.
me: That would be Ribenguo and Vandaland?
Emily: Ribenguo has all of its troops already, and is just waiting on the Daimyo and its Exemplars. Vandalands and Mare-Civitas are looking likely.
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me: Talking about Vandaland releases: My first contact ever with OTLG was the Hedge Knight Artwork, and that was just one day after I started the Tabletop Fix. Where on the list is he, approximately?
Emily: Because the Hedge Knight will be sharing parts with the Shrew Hussar it will be around the time they come out. They are one of the possible additional troops I spoke of earlier.
me: Nice. Okay, before I ask you this question for every single miniature still not released, let’s move to another topic: How big is your fan base and where are the Brushfire “hotspots” on the map?
Emily: We’re still pretty small at the moment. Our main hotspots would be Augusta, GA and Jacksonville, FL, followed by various areas in the UK.
me: Building an army in Brushfire is quite different from many other wargames. Tell us about it.
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Emily: We use three ‘Resources’ when building an army: Food, Lumber, and Gold. Food is used for troops, while Lumber & Gold is used to purchase upgrades. This allows you to equip a guy with a shield and not have his buddy disappear because it took away the points for him.
When setting out to play a game you’ll decide on a resource limit, say 100. This gives you 100 Food, 100 Gold and 100 Lumber. You can choose to alter the amounts of each if you wish, but the standard is the same amount in each.
Heroes then use a separate system. At the start of each game you’ll choose a hero level, and then assign those levels to each of your heroes. So if you do a 5 Hero Level game, you’ll have 5 levels to doll out. This gives you say one Hero at level 5, or a level 2 and level 3, or 5 level 1s. The more levels put into a hero, the better equipment and abilities he’ll have. Each hero has three talent trees to choose from, and each hero level represents a point they can spend in these trees. At level 5 they can choose between
three additional Boons that are separate from the talent trees.
me: I think it’s a very smart system, because Exemplars (who are similar to unit champions in other games) usually cost Lumber and Gold, effectively making them a kind of unit upgrade. The system encourages players to invest into rank and file troops because that’s the only way to spend all of your resources. How difficult was it to make this system work and to balance it?
Emily: It wasn’t too difficult, the resource cost of the model directly relates to the amount of points put into their stat lines. Two 5 FD models will generally be on par with a 10 FD model.
We further ensured that weaker models stood a chance against stronger models by adding in the Critical and Lucky hits. A dice roll of 10 is considered a Critical hit, and makes it so a model automatically hits and deals damage.
me: That’s a concept used in a lot of role-playing games. All in all, Brushfire seems to be inspired by Pen&Paper RPGs.
Emily: It was a bit, the original mechanics were taken from our role playing game, Legendary Realms, and converted into a war game.
It also has a lot of Computer RTS games in it. Warcraft 3 was a huge inspiration.
me: Even with the heroes and exemplars giving you great advantages and buffs for your troops it seems to be quite difficult to break the game and build something like an auto-win army. Was there a unit or hero you had to disarm a little because your initial version was too powerful?
Emily: Several actually. The Gopher Engineers originally had a habit of killing themselves in spectacular fashion, usually taking out the rest of the Aquitar army in the process.
me: So you decided it is safer to fire them at the enemy with a catapult?
Emily: Yeah. We love shooting silly things out of the catapult.
There are a few ‘broken’ list possibilities out there still, but we’ve been working on errata balancing when we feel it needs it. My favorite ‘broken’ thing was the Rat Lord’s Bribe ability. It was a Boon that allowed him to spend any leftover Gold to ‘bribe’ the enemy models. His Charm VS the enemy models Charm, if he won they join his force. In a 100 resource game against Matt I took his entire Mare-Civitas force except for his hero and a single Chipmunk Weapon Team.
We decided to nerf that.
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me: Sounds like a good idea. Especially because the Ratlord is already a tough opponent without your army fighting for him, too. We already talked a bit about miniature releases and availability. Some factions are not supported by your range yet, are there home-brewn Chugoku or Scyzantine armies out there?
Emily: Indeed there are. One of our playtesters up in Jacksonville has been fielding a Scyzantine army build out of various Heroscape miniatures.
We like to encourage that sort of thing, which is why we made sure to include all of the base sizes in the rulebook.
me: Nice. So your policy towards 3rd party products and miniatures is quite tolerant?
Emily: Yeah, We would prefer you to play with our models because we like to be able to eat, but we’re not going to punish you when we don’t have a model out. That would be silly.
me: The background of Brushfire is quite complex, but having the complete rules and 8 factions in a single 248 page rulebook limits the space for each one. Are there plans for something like faction books or campaigns?
Emily: We were originally going to release Brushfire as a rulebook, and then separate ‘Army Conflict’ books for each faction. So a ‘Aquitar VS Mare-Civitas’ book would have all the info for both of them. We decided to change to the current system to be able to have it out for GencCon last year, this is also the reason for the lack of art in some sections. We have plans to eventually re-release Historia Rodentia with full art and more fluff and what not, but that won’t be for some time. In the meantime there will be fluff and stories posted on the website, and we have plans for some campaigns.
me: That sounds very good. At the moment it’s a bit like Lord of the Rings, with a lot of battles and events mentioned, but not really explained. For many characters have a fluff text which gives you a sense of the epic story behind it. A good example are the Axony Experts, who are actually a group of spies and almost special operation style veterans. Their adventures must have been awesome!
Emily: Yeah, we’ll be getting to their stories soon.
At the moment however, Matt is writing a story about Tamias of Venture that will most likely get posted next month.
me: Nice. Let’s talk a bit about the future: You’ll be at AdeptiCon very soon, what will be going on there?
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Emily: We’ll be mostly running demos and showing off product. I’ll have fully painted squads for the Shaka War Hogs, Bull Regulars, and Badger-At-Claw V2.
me: Now, a bit further into the future: Recently, OTLG gave a hint that there will be a new miniature range soon. Do you want to tell us something about it?
Emily: We’re working on a few things at the moment. One of which is with a RPG company, which we’ll be producing miniatures for their setting. Release is set for GenCon this year. I can’t say much yet about it, but the setting is Dark & Terrible. We also have a few other games of our own in preproduction/testing at the moment, and more Brushfire stuff.
me: Dark and terrible… That sounds very different from the more comical Brushfire style.
Emily: Yeah, it is a bit.
me: Last question: Where do you see OTLG and Brushfire in 5 years time?
Emily: I see OTLG with a few more Product lines, and Brushfire being along the ranks of Malifaux and Warmachine.
And the Valkyr should be released by then.
me: Good luck, I won’t complain if it turns out that way.
Emily: Thanks.
I hope you liked our rambling :).
If you are interested in learning more about Brushfire and OTLG, visit the OTLG website. At the moment you’ll get a nice 15% pre-AdeptiCon discount (till thursday) by using the code “ADEPTICON11” !
And if you are at AdeptiCon this weekend, make sure you have time for a demo game!
The Tabletop Fix is a newsblog about wargames and miniatures.
Unofficial - Independent - Non-Commercial. I have been writing about the tabletop and miniatures industry since 2010.
