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Playtest GREATHELM! New Micro-Skirmish Game By Malev
August 13, 2025 by brennon
Malev Da Shinobi, the creator of the One Box Wargame Community Challenge and loads of other micro-skirmish games, will be coming to Kickstarter soon with their 28mm scale game of knightly battles, GREATHELM.
GREATHELM // Malev Da Shinobi
GREATHELM is a fast and easy micro-skirmish game for you to dive into with a handful of miniatures per side (six in this case). You can pick and choose your Knights from Fantasy, Historical or maybe even Sci-Fi settings and dive into a game played out on a small gaming space that matches US Letter or A4.
At the core of the game is the ethos that this is a snapshot of a larger battle being played. Your Knights are where the important action is taking place, be that on the top of the walls of a castle, in the courtyard of a fortress, or amid a swirling maelstrom of two armies clashing. Your Knights are playing out their climactic and cinematic moment in the story.
Introduction // GREATHELM
Mechanically, GREATHELM uses a unique system for sorting out initiative, activation and your actions that you take in-game. At the beginning of a round, you'll roll a handful of dice, which will determine when you act and which actions you can take. That might be moving, bashing, lunging forward or laying that heavy, fatal strike.
Movement // GREATHELM
Working down through the numbers, you'll go back and forth between players until you've finished your scenario. This could be a brutal battle to the death or something different. Whilst this might also feel simple, the elegance lies in the way that you fight and what you choose to do on a given activation. You'll have to really think about when you engage with your Knights and how you want to control the small space that you're battling in.
Clash Tests // GREATHELM
Malev Da Shinobi is currently playtesting GREATHELM and you can find out more about how to get involved with the process HERE on Reddit. Malev would like those who take part in the playtest to actually give feedback on the game and have their say, whether you enjoyed it or not! It will all go towards polishing the final package that will end up on Kickstarter.
You might also have noted some gorgeous artwork in the preview for GREATHELM, which comes from the excellent Sean Sutter of Metal King Studio and RelicBlade. If you don't have miniatures to represent your Knights, there is a full print-and-play set of standees by Sean in the playtest download.
Will you be giving GREATHELM a go before checking out the Kickstarter?
Thanks to community member @tinyheadbones for pointing this one out to me!
"Malev Da Shinobi is currently playtesting GREATHELM..."
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Read “GREATHELM”.
Though of Lord Helmet.
Doesn’t contain Lord Helmet.
Sad.
“That’s the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!”
I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this (as you might expect if you read the last line of the article)
This looks really cool! Participating in the One Box challenge was a lot of fun; I wish I’d had more free time to devote to it, but I’m pretty proud of what I came up with and how far along I actually got!