Author: Jon Hodgson

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Trench Crusade Backdrop Books

Handiwork Games signs license with Factory Fortress Inc for official Trench Crusade Backdrop Books!
We’re delighted to hare that we have completed contracts with Factory Fortress to make a new range of Backdrop Books for the smash-hit Trench Crusade.

Handiwork Games already produces a range of backdrop books in A4 and A3 sizes for miniature enthusiasts to put behind their miniatures, aimed at levelling-up their mini photography. These were awarded third place in the On TableTop Accessory of the Year 2024, and have seen two successful kickstarters.

And now Backdrop Books are heading into the world of Trench Crusade! With rumours of two initial books, in two sizes, we will be bringing this new range to crowdfunding later in this year.

Jon Hodgson, Handiwork’s Managing Director and one of the artists behind Backdrop Books said:
“As a fan of Mike Franchina’s art for two decades, I’ve been following Trench Crusade with keen interest. It’s been amazing to see it coalesce into his juggernaut of a setting, and I’ve been so delighted to see it reach so many gamers. Such an imaginative and well realised setting, with such great minis, and a culture of modelling and kit-bashing is a perfect fit for what we do!
I’m super excited to see what people create with our Trench Crusade backdrops!”



About Trench Crusade
Trench Crusade is a skirmish-scale tabletop miniatures game that plunges players deep into a horrifying alternate timeline. During the Crusades a heretical band of Templars dared defy the Almighty, unleashing the forces of Hell upon the Earth. Over 800 years later, in the Year of Our Lord 1914, this merciless war between the forces of Heaven and Hell rages on in a cataclysmic struggle that will decide the very fate of humanity’s soul.

Find out more about Trench Crusade at https://www.trenchcrusade.com/


About Handiwork Games
Founded in 2019 by industry veteran Jon Hodgson, Handiwork Games is a game design and publishing company based in Scotland. They produce various game products, including a|state second edition, BEOWULF Age of Heroes, Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland, the award-winning The Forest Dragon card game and a range of unique gaming accessories. 

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New Backdrop Books Released!

We have just released two new backdrop books – Deserts and Warmer Climes, and Planets and Nebulae. These are not being kickstarted – they’re done, and A4 stock arrives with us tomorrow, the A3s next week. 

We’ve opened a pre-order today on our web store so that we can get ahead of picking and packing, before we open general orders next week. 

The pre-order is here.

Let’s check out the preview images of all the pages!


And that’s not all! We have some super exciting Backdrop Book news to reveal later today UK time. So be sure to keep an eye on our website and social media for that announcement!

You can follow us:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/handiworkgames 

Instagram: https://www.facebook.com/handiworkgames 

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/handiworkgames.bsky.social 

Or join the FB Backdrops group.

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New Backdrop Books coming!

We have 3 new backdrop books coming your way in the near future.

First up is World War Ruins:

The World War Ruins book features a host of scenes of ruined buildings reminiscent of European cities – perfect settings for the World Wars or sci-fi miniatures.

By special arrangement this book is being initially offered EXCLUSIVELY through Bad Squiddo’s upcoming Women of WW2: Resistance kickstarter!

They’ll be first available during this Kickstarter campaign and included in some very tasty bundles. There is no better way to show off your brand new painted Women of Resistance!

Later, we’ll have these books available direct from us on our web store – but it will be after Resistance backers get their copies!

The second new book is a first – a pure Paul Bourne backdrops book! 32 amazing space vistas of planets and starfields for all your sci-fi or cosmic models. This will be available direct from our web store this month.

The images in this book are so clean and fresh there was no need for any overpainting. They’re lush!


The third book is Deserts and Warmer Climes and will be perfect for your Bronze Age fantasy or North Africa WW2 minis. There’s loads of desert scenes but also a healthy dose of Mediterranean island scenes too!  This will also be available from us in July from our web store!

Find out more about Backdrop Books here.
And order into the existing titles here.
Find out more about using Backdrop Books in your commercial endeavours here.

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FiveEvil out now in PDF!

FiveEvil is a standalone roleplaying game from Handiwork Games, the fiendish minds behind BEOWULF Age of Heroes, a|state second edition and Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland. 

Get FiveEvil now in PDF

FiveEvil is designed to evoke the horror genre via a set of clever twists on the underlying fifth edition ruleset. Less a version of 5e, FiveEvil is a ruleset about 5e, making use of its subversion to defy expectations and intensify the horror.

Make no mistake: this book is not just some 5e stats for horror entities and a couple of rules tweaks. This is media-literate deconstruction of the primary RPG paradigm of the day! 

Whether it reads as a game about what 5e could have been in the hands of an extremely capable indie designer, or a celebration of just how far the rules of 5e can be stretched, is up to you.



The primary setting focus is modern day horror, inspired by the work of Stephen King, and moody, character-driven horror films like The Ritual, The Descent and Jacob’s Ladder, alongside mini-series like Midnight Mass by Mike Flanagan, and the scariest of Twin Peaks episodes.

Rather than seeking out evil in order to vanquish it, or investigating clues to battle malign influence, characters in FiveEvil are regular people trapped in a terrifying situation attempting to survive and escape.

FiveEvil was created and written by Morgan Davie, features art by Scott Purdy and Jon Hodgson, and boasts graphic design and layout by Paul Bourne.

Get the PDF now

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Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland Nominated!

The nominees for the Indie Groundbreaker Awards were recently announced, and we were delighted to learn that Maskwitches has been nominated for Best Art. We’re in great company with some seriously brilliant co-cominees. Check them all out here:

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Cold City Report Eight

Throughout the development of the new editions of Cold City and Hot War we’ve been releasing Reports – free PDFs showcasing some of the design work that’s gone into the games, some inspirational reading, and articles about the Cold War and possibilities of nuclear war in the 1960s. It’s great reading and entirely free. The first seven Reports are collected here.

We’ve just released Report Eight, which contains the run down of the core mechanic of the games, as well as some additional info about Hidden Agendas and Trust.  Grab yours free here.

Back the campaign in the final week!
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The Hermit’s Sanctuary 5 years on

Beautiful Vendel Helmet by Wyrmwick Armouries

5 years ago this week we released our first RPG title – The Hermit’s Sanctuary for BEOWULF Age of Heroes. It remains free, and you can download it here. You can get a print version here.

This week we’re taking a look at The Hermit’s Sanctuary with some reminiscences and new spotlights cast on its wealth of free bounty!

Let’s start at the beginning. 

Why did we make The Hermit’s Sanctuary?

There’s an obvious reason: getting attention to a new thing is hard, and giving something to people for free is an easy way to show them what you’re doing. 

We were also confident that, to the right audience, this was a really high quality thing. It’s not just another setting for 5e, nor is it just another allegedly “norse” setting that has no research behind it. It’s a set of additional rules that fundamentally change and structure the way you play 5e. And the research is solid. It’s not your typical “ren-faire dnd in clothes from HBO’s Vikings” effort. This is a game made by people with decades of experience in researching this period for games. With a commitment to exploring something of the mindsets of that era underpinning a load of monster-slaying good times. 

At its heart, BEOWULF still makes use 5e, and that’s both accessible and easy for a lot of people to play. (Don’t @ me, it’s a massive game with a huge audience.) But BEOWULF does some cool extra stuff, and we wanted to show that.

Getting people to cast their eyes over that cool stuff is a lot easier if you show it to them, and let them play it for themselves, rather than just tell them about it. It’s why most of our titles have some kind of sampler, intro scenario of free thing you can enjoy. We’re happy to show you what we’re up to. 

We also knew that there’s a danger with “QuickStarts” where you gut your own game to emphasise the quick part. We didn’t want to do that. So The Hermit’s Sanctuary has everything you need to play. 

It was a risky strategy on some ways. We’re giving you everything you need to play BEOWULF. But it was a calculated risk. Showing off our ideas and the way we present them, the art, the production values? It was worth taking that gamble. 

And it paid off! The Hermit’s Sanctuary was nominated for two ENnies, and BEOWULF itself also got an ENnie nomination. The subsequent crowd funder was a success, and BEOWULF remains a great seller for us. Thanks Hermit’s Sanctuary! You’ve done us proud!

There’s also a less obvious reason, and we’ll talk about that tomorrow.

Get The Hermit’s Sanctuary for FREE now!

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Cold City Hot War Conflict Resolution

Cold City and Hot War are live now on Kickstarter!

Cold City Hot War -- Kicktraq Mini

Let’s talk a bit about the core mechanic.

When it comes to resolving conflicts in Cold City and Hot War, both the players and the GM have access to groups of dice to roll, and they gamble on how many to use in a given conflict. 

The GM’s dice pool is drawn from groups representing different thematic elements of the setting. The players help allocate dice into the groups at the start of play.

The players build dice pools based on the things on their character sheet. 

The things drawn upon to add dice to a pool are put at risk in a conflict. 

Continue reading “Cold City Hot War Conflict Resolution”