(Crowdfund Quest) Pocket General: Wargaming Cards

Pocket General, by Brandon Fisichella, is not a game in its own right. Nor is it a set of wargaming rules, or miniatures. Pocket General is a campaign to produce what is hoped to be the first in a series of illustrated card decks where the cards represent different units from historical battles which you can use in place of miniatures when wargaming. Enabling you to carry your entire army in your pocket.

Pocket General is a unique, rules-agnostic wargaming system that allows players to substitute traditional miniatures with playing cards featuring high-quality original artwork. It's affordable, ready-to-go "out of the box", and is easy to store and transport.

These cards aren't a replacement for plastic miniatures, but represent an accessible way for new players to get involved without needing to invest significant time and money into a hobby they may be unsure of. Likewise for the seasoned veterans out there, Pocket General allows you and your friends to explore new settings, conflicts, and rulesets quickly and easily!

For our first set of cards, Pocket General: Waterloo will focus on the Hundred Days Campaign of the Napoleonic Wars, and the Battle of Waterloo. Not only is this time period many people's introduction to the miniature wargaming hobby, with myriad rulesets readily available, but it's also a wonderful setting for colourful, evocative, and distinctive cards.

Each unit is the size of a standard American poker card, and will be able to easily represent units from almost any scale depending on your chosen ruleset, from individual companies up to entire brigades. Need more detail per card, like unit names or stats? Just slot it into a plastic sleeve, and you can write directly onto the card with a dry erase marker!

Our artwork for this set is custom commissioned from the extraordinary historical artist Christa Hook, whose hand painted pieces are second to none in capturing the vividness of Napoleonic Europe.

Take the battle to your enemy wherever they may be! Transport and setup your full scale wargame in minutes without needing to worry about the logistics - save that for the quartermasters!

Want to change up your list, or try out a new army? Pocket General is an immediately affordable entry point to test the waters. No more using your water bottle as a proxy for that shiny new artillery battery, and definitely no more grey plastic!

The core of our campaign is to establish two sets of cards- one French, one British- to serve as base armies for wargaming in the Hundred Days with any ruleset of your choice. Each set will have around eight to ten different card types, and together a two-army starter pack will be something around fifty cards altogether. One two-army pack is all you'll need for yourself and a friend!

Should we meet our campaign goal, we hope to use additional funding to expand our Waterloo set with army packs for the Prussians as well as other forces. Then we'll look at other settings with a backer poll! This could be another Napoleonic setting (Borodino, anyone?), or we could go into Ancient Rome, Feudal Japan, the First World War - so long as it features formation combat, we think it's fair game for this system! Ultimately, it's all about the artwork and what you want to see come next.

Pocket General: Wargaming Cardsis currently funding on Kickstarter with the campaign running until 17th August 2026.