Chainmail Development
Len Lakofka’s Rules for a “Chainmail” Miniatures Event at Gen Con
RHampton shared a bit of detective work he’d done on Sunday, 15 February, 2026. He was reading the last issue of The Strategic Review
(Link at https://archive.org/details/TheStrategicReviewDec1975/The%20Strategic%20Review%20-%20April%201976/page/4/mode/2up ) and found this interesting tidbit:
Len Lakofka has planned an interesting fantasy miniatures event. Players will be assigned to opposing sides (rather like teams), and in this fashion about 64 participants will be involved in the first eight matches. The winning sides will then compete Saturday, these four teams coming down to a two-team final on Sunday. Len plans to use his adaptation of CHA1NMAIL/D & D, so the complete rules will appear in the first issue of THE DRAGON.
He looked up The Dragon Magazine no. 1 and found the rules mentioned. Crammed into just a few pages, the formatting was atrocious.
Intrigued, Grim Schneider did a little searching and found a rather complete catalog of Len Lakofka’s work online at https://greyhawkonline.com/an-index-of-the-dd-works-of-lenard-leomunds-tiny-hut-lakofka/
Lakofka in Diplomacy and Chicago Gaming Zines
Les Liaisons Dangereuses: Les Liaisons Dangereuses was published from 18 May 1969 and up through issue #81 (20 July 1977), and most of the LD issues are archived at http://whiningkentpigs.com/DW/kent/l.htm.
It turns out that LLD contains the complete text of Lakofka’s rules in issues 58-62, and an AAR of a battle fought with these rules in issue 64.
A Sand Table Battle
Overview
A long and desperate battle has occurred at the gates of Mordor. Gondor has been repulsed at great loss and is fleeing in fear of reprisal. One band of fleeing men and their allies has struck out northwest into uncharted mountain passes. For seven days they have fled from a Mordor patrol. Before them lies a blind canyon and behind them the forces of Mordor. The Gondor group is experienced but battle weary. Wounds have been healed & treated during brief pauses in the chase. This is a three sided game.
The Rules from The Dragon #1
As you can see the rules are extremely compacted in order to squeeze them into the pages allotted in The Dragon.
Some of the members of the Discord are working on a transcription, and planning out a method of playing the sample game.
Stay tuned for more information!
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