Today, we are diving deep into the table presence of A Forlorn Hope. A great historical game doesn't just need sharp mechanics—it needs physical components that bring the tension to life.
Here is a closer look at five key components on the board and how they shape your gameplay experience!
🗺️ 1. The Battlefield Map
The Map
The game board isn't just a backdrop—it is a tightly tuned 9x11 grid that drives every tactical decision you make.
The Grid: Your 9 columns are divided into 3 Battalions (1st, 2nd, and 3rd).
No Man's Land: The 9 rows between the Home and Enemy Trenches are color-coded into Red, Blue, and Green Zones, representing depth and escalating threat as you push forward.
The Victory Track: Wraps around the perimeter (0–99) to track your progress and scenario objectives.
🏃 2. Unit Standees
Standees
Instead of flat tokens, your troops are represented by Unit Standees that stand tall in their respective columns.
Visual Presence: Standees keep the board clear and scannable, letting you see at a glance where your line is holding and where it’s breaking.
Status Tracking: They clearly display unit statuses as they take fire, get Pinned, or Hunker Down in No Man's Land.
🪖 3. The Tactics Chits
Tactics Chits
Momentum is everything in trench warfare. Tactics Chits represent the field-level leadership, sudden opportunities, and quick thinking of your troops on the line.
Earning Chits: At the end of each turn, the length and structure of your advancing Wave determines how many Tactics Chits you draw and keep.
Cohesion Rewarded: The more unique Battalions represented in your connected line, the more chits you get to hold on to—making them a crucial reward for keeping your advance uniform!
🧵 4. Draw Bags
Custom Bag
To keep the fog of war real and setup smooth, custom Draw Bags are included for blind-drawing components like your chits.
Tactical Tension: Reaching into the bag during high-pressure moments keeps every turn unpredictable and exciting.
Quality & Utility: Fabricated to be durable for repeated play, ensuring high usability over many campaigns.
🪵 5. The Scoring Meeple
Big Bertha
Tracking your march toward victory (or defeat) is the custom Scoring Meeple, which travels along the outer Victory Point Track.
Clear Progress: Designed to stand out against the perimeter track so you always know where you stand against the scenario's VP schedule.
Keeping the Line Together: Every piece of this puzzle—from drawing chits out of the bag to moving your standees in formation across the color-coded map zones—is designed to reinforce one core truth: you win or lose as a cohesive unit.
What physical component are you most excited to see on your table? Let us know!
It’s time for another look behind the curtain of A Forlorn Hope! We have some major production milestones to celebrate, an honest update on our delivery window, and some exciting news about where you can find us in person very soon.
🎨 From Pixels to Production: Digital Proofs are In!
We are incredibly excited to share that the vast majority of our files have been sent over to our manufacturer in China to begin preparing for production.
While we are still putting the final, meticulous polishes on the rulebook, player aids, and the back of the box, everything else is officially locked in. The digital proofs and layout samples we've received from the graphic designer look absolutely stunning. The visual design is incredibly sharp!
Because we have so many beautiful digital assets ready, we’ll be spending the next few updates doing some deep-dive showcases into the art, layout, and component designs so you can see exactly how incredible this game is going to look on your table.
🗓️ Keeping It Real: A Timeline Adjustment
As many of you know, we are a small team, and lately, life has thrown a lot our way. Between unexpected family emergencies and a wave of illness hitting the team, things naturally slowed down.
On top of that, we've been working hard to process and finalize all the incredible additional components and stretch goals you unlocked during the campaign. Making sure those extra features meet our standards has added to the workload, but it's going to make the final product so much better.
Because of this combination of events, we won't be hitting our original September target. Here is where we realistically stand:
Our New Target: We are looking at a Fall/Late Fall 2026 release.
The Goal: While the timeline has some fluidity right now, our absolute priority and hope is to have this game in your hands before the end of 2026.
We want to make sure we don't rush the final finish line, especially on critical pieces like the player aids and manual.
🎲 Come See Us at the World Boardgaming Championships (WBC)!
If you're attending the World Boardgaming Championships at Seven Springs (July 30 – August 1), please come by and see us!
We will have a vendor table set up where we will be:
Demoing A Forlorn Hope so you can see the game in action.
Demoing our second game - Urgent Commands: The Battle of the Bulge.
Selling awesome Wharf Rat Games T-shirts.
Selling games from our friends over at Compass Games, Fortress Games, and potentially a few others!
We'd love to chat, talk shop, and show you what we've been working on in person.
Thank you all so much for your understanding, your patience, and your incredible support. We're getting closer every day, and we can’t wait to start showing off those gorgeous digital samples in our next post!
When we partnered with legendary game designer Hermann Luttmann to bring A Forlorn Hope to life, we did so because we love his ability to weave deep historical narrative with high-stakes, gripping gameplay.
That signature "Luttmann flair" is on full display right now, as Blue Panther LLC has just opened worldwide pre-orders for the Dawn of the Zeds: Designer's Edition collection! Running from June 2nd through June 30th, this is a fantastic opportunity to see how Hermann handles a tense, cooperative zombie survival crisis.
We are incredibly proud to have Hermann's name on a Wharf Rat Games box. Seeing the excitement for Dawn of the Zedsonly makes us more eager to get A Forlorn Hope into your hands. Our team is working hard behind the scenes to keep our Fall shipping timeline right on track, ensuring the premium linen finishes, custom dice, and dual-layered battalion boards live up to the masterful gameplay Hermann has designed for us.
Huge congratulations to Hermann and the team at Blue Panther on the launch! Head over and check out their pre-order, and thank you all for your incredible, ongoing support of A Forlorn Hope.
We have a massive update for you today as we transition from the design phase into the concrete steps of manufacturing and fulfillment!
🎨 Artwork is Nearly Done!
We are at the finish line for the visual assets. We will receive the absolute final art images this week! Once those land, our primary focus shifts entirely to finishing up and polishing the rule manual.
🏭 Next Stop: LongPack
As soon as the manual is finalized, we will be sending the complete file package over to LongPack to manufacture our physical pre-production prototype. Seeing the digital files transform into physical components is always one of the most exciting milestones in a project!
🚢 Fulfillment Planning
We are officially working with Quartermaster Logistics to build out our shipping and fulfillment plans. They are top-tier in the industry, and partnering with them ensures that A Forlorn Hope will get from the factory floor to your gaming tables as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
📋 Survey Status: Down to 15!
Thank you to everyone who jumped on their surveys after the last update. We have whittled the list down from 21 all the way to just 15 people left with incomplete surveys.
If you think you might be one of the final 15, please grab your link and finish it up so we can accurately lock in your shipping details: 👉 https://a-forlorn-hope.backerkit.com/
⛺ Wharf Rat Games on Tour: Summer Conventions!
We are hitting the road soon and would love to see you in person. We have two major convention appearances locked in:
1️⃣ Origins Game Fair (Columbus, OH)
Where: Wargame HQ
When: Thursday, June 18 – Saturday, June 20
What: We will be running demos for both A Forlorn Hope and our next upcoming title, Urgent Commands: Battle of the Bulge! Come by, roll some dice, and see how the systems are playing.
2️⃣ World Boardgaming Championships - WBC (Seven Springs, PA)
Where: Vendor Area (Look for the Wharf Rat Games table!)
When: Thursday, July 30 – Saturday, August 1
What: We’ll be running demos of both games, hanging out, and hosting some fun games and prizes. Plus, we will be selling new, excellent titles from our friends at Compass Games and Fortress Games.
Thank you all so much for your continued support, enthusiasm, and patience as we piece together the final blocks of production. We're getting closer every day!
We are deep in the trenches getting A Forlorn Hope ready for the manufacturer! We wanted to give you a transparent look at where the project stands today.
🖌️ Artwork & Content Update
We are currently finalizing the massive amount of files required for production. To be transparent: we are running a bit behind our original internal schedule for submitting final art.
Part of this is simply the "cost of success!" Because we unlocked so many great stretch goal, specifically the 7th scenari, there is a significant amount of additional artwork and balancing that needs to be perfect before we hit print. We want to ensure this extra content meets the high standard of the rest of the game, so we are taking the extra time to get it right.
This means digital proofs will be slightly delayed, but the trade-off is a much more well rounded game!
✨ A Glimpse of the Progress
The good news? The components that are finalized look incredible. I’ve included some samples below to show you what’s coming your way.
Sweeping Machine Gun Fire Event Card
Communications Disrupted Event Card
Rain of Grenades and Mortars Event Card
📋 Survey Check-in: 21 Left!
Our surveys are now locked so we can finalize our manufacturing counts. However, we still have 21 "stragglers" who haven't finished their surveys.
To keep our timeline aligned with our production progress, we will be moving the collection of shipping and tax charges to late summer. We’ll give you plenty of notice before those charges are processed.
Thank you for your patience and for helping us make this game even bigger than we first imagined. We’re excited to get these final files across No Man's Land and into production!
