06/09/2026

Happy Monday, and welcome back to Tabletop Thoughts!

One of the biggest challenges I face as a tabletop gamer is finding time to actually play games. Between my full-time engineering job, my part-time position as a retail lead, running an Etsy store where I print and paint miniatures and terrain, and creating content for both this blog and my YouTube channel, my schedule stays pretty full. While I spend plenty of time working on hobby-related projects, I’ve found myself missing the experience of adventuring through a fantasy world and watching a story unfold through gameplay.

To help fill that gap, I’ve decided to start a campaign of Five Leagues from the Borderlands.

For those unfamiliar with the game, Five Leagues from the Borderlands is a solo fantasy campaign game that blends miniature skirmishes, roleplaying elements, and procedural storytelling. Instead of gathering a group and trying to coordinate everyone’s schedules, I can play whenever I have an hour or two available. The game generates encounters, quests, enemies, and campaign events, allowing a story to emerge naturally over time.

This isn’t my first experience with one of Ivan Sorensen’s solo campaign systems. Back in 2021, I gave Five Parsecs from Home a try and really enjoyed the mix of narrative storytelling, campaign progression, and miniature skirmishes. While that campaign was set among the stars, it introduced me to the idea that solo miniature gaming could provide many of the same memorable moments as a traditional roleplaying campaign. If you’re interested in seeing where that journey began, you can check out my original post here: Giving Five Parsecs from Home a Try.

As much as I enjoyed Five Parsecs, I’ve always preferred fantasy over science fiction. Give me adventurers, monsters, forgotten ruins, dark forests, and dangerous dungeons over laser rifles and starships any day of the week. Because of that, Five Leagues from the Borderlands feels like a natural fit for both my interests and the miniatures I already spend so much time collecting, printing, and painting.

Another reason I’m excited about this project is that it finally gives me an excuse to use more of the terrain and miniatures I’ve been creating. I spend countless hours printing buildings, painting monsters, crafting terrain, and designing UDT boards, but many of those pieces only see limited use. A solo campaign gives me the perfect opportunity to put everything on the table and create unique battlefields for each encounter. Whether it’s a swamp filled with Frogfolk, a ruined church overrun with monsters, or a lonely cottage on the edge of civilization, all of those projects can become part of the story.

My copy of the rulebook recently arrived, and I’m currently working my way through the character and campaign creation sections. So far, I’m impressed with what I’ve read. The game appears to place a strong emphasis on character development, exploration, and emergent storytelling, which are some of my favorite aspects of tabletop gaming.

Over the coming week, I’ll be creating my warband and establishing the campaign they’ll be exploring. Once everything is ready, I’ll share the warband roster, the campaign setup, and my initial impressions here on Tabletop Thoughts. If the campaign proves successful, I may also begin posting battle reports featuring photographs from each game. There’s even a good chance some of those reports could evolve into videos for the YouTube channel.

At the very least, this gives me another reason to put painted miniatures on the table and tell some stories. That’s never a bad thing.

Keep on gaming!