Riders of Hyberia

Saddle up, Adventurer! This is the third in our series of articles on 2026’s new Maladum expansions. If you missed the others, you can find them here and here. The new products can be pre-ordered on Gamefound later this week – follow the Kingdom of Hyberia project to be notified when they’re available.

The windswept plains of Hyberia stretch as far as the eye can see; a land of dust, sun, and endless motion. Out here, the distance between life and death can be measured in how quickly you move.

The Riders of Hyberia expansion brings a new dimension to your Maladum campaigns: mounts. These creatures can be ridden into battle, granting enhanced mobility and combat options, and adding layers of tactical depth, especially in the open wilds of Hyberia, where speed means survival. There are also new Adventurers, new quests, and new equipment to be found.

Mounts: A New Way to Travel

Mounts follow the Companion rules first introduced in the Forbidden Creed expansion. These previously allowed for apprentices, pets, familiars, and beasts of burden, but the same rules apply to these larger creatures too. They are hired and activated in the same way and will gain experience and upgraded abilities during a campaign. The main difference of course is that each companion in Riders of Hyberia features the Mount ability, signifying that it can be ridden.

Mounting or dismounting costs one action, and once mounted your hero and their steed are treated as a single character with a shared activation. Essentially, the mount performs Move actions, taking advantage of any movement-based abilities it may have, and the rider does everything else. When a rider attacks, their mount may attack the same target for free.

But how do you physically mark a character as being mounted, I hear you ask? With the sandbox nature of Maladum, it was important that (almost) every character could ride every mount. To allow for this, all Maladum mounts are positioned off-centre on their bases, leaving a space to the side large enough for a regular-sized miniature. Simply place the rider on the base of its mount and move them together!

Mounted Adventurers are at their best in the open plains and battlefields that let you unleash their full speed and manoeuvrability. Many outdoor quests use a larger 3′ x 3′ (90cm x 90xm) gaming area so having access to greater movement helps to traverse these areas at speed. Riders of Hyberia introduces two new ability variants that allow for mounted combat.

• Sprint (covered briefly in our article on the Urmeck) works like the Fast ability, increasing a character’s speed, but only when moving in a straight line – easy when you’re out in the open. Most mounts have this ability, although some are more nimble and less restricted by tight terrain.
• Charge! is a variant of First Strike, allowing a free attack when a character Moves into melee range of an enemy, but with bonus dice. Many of the mounts confer these abilities to their riders.

Mounted characters also benefit from their size. Mounts and Riders combine their sizes, allowing for better visibility, stronger Knock Back attacks, and the capacity to move larger objects, as well as allowing them to ignore more Urmeck Dregs! The increased size isn’t always an advantage though, as you’ll be a far more visible target yourself!

Of course, not every dungeon corridor welcomes a galloping steed. In confined underground environments mounted characters might find their actions restricted. Searching, Climbing, and using standard doorways are all off limits while in the saddle. Sometimes you may need to dismount and fight on foot, or risk being trapped in tight spaces.

Additional Rules

When shooting at a mounted character, you must randomise whether you hit the mount or rider, in a similar way to shooting at engaged characters.

When separated from their masters, most mounts revert to an Untamed state, leaving the player unable to control them. Docile mounts will wander around aimlessly until attacked or re-mounted, while Ferocious mounts will attack anything and everything nearby!

Mounts also have a Persuade value like NPCs. This allows an Adventurer to tame another character’s mount if necessary, and also allows the mounts to be used as Wandering Beasts. The new Loose Mount Event Card does just this, bringing one into play at a random location. Will you leave it as a distraction and let the Urmeck have roast Horax for dinner today, or will you try to tame it for your own party?

Should you want to pursue a career in the saddle, Saddlemaster is a new Support Skill focused on mounts. Passive abilities allow for easier mounting and dismounting or improved chances when Persuading mounts, while you can spend Skill pegs to improve the effectiveness of your actions while mounted.

Saddlemaster appears on the new Beastwarden Class Board, a profession devoted to taming, training, and fighting alongside animals.

Mounts of Enveron

Three articles in, can we just take a minute to thank Andy Jackson for these stunning paint jobs? They’re gorgeous!

Just like the Companions in Forbidden Creed, we’ve made use of the reverse side of the character boards, allowing you to make use of other miniatures in your collection for a more bespoke party, if you prefer. The stats and abilities of these alternative mounts fall into four broad themes, in line with the creatures included in the box:

• Trusty Mount – a basic, generic mount – this is what you’d use for a regular horse or similar.
• Battle Steed – a mount that’s been trained to fight – tougher, more loyal, and easier to control.
• Nimble Beast – a fast, exotic, vicious mount – you’d use this for a big cat or lizard.
• Armoured Charger – a large, lumbering thick-skinned creature such as a rhino or yak.

The Heroes of Hyberia

The wild frontiers of Hyberia demand a new breed of hero – law bringers, exiles, and wanderers who have taken up arms to bring order to chaos. The Riders of Hyberia expansion also includes four new Adventurers – you can add them to your party as playable characters, or introduce them as NPCs, particularly useful in the Shields of the Frontier campaign (more on that later this week!).

More? Yes, There’s More!

That’s right, it’s not just these eight new characters. No expansion would be complete without shiny new gear, and Riders of Hyberia delivers in spades. There is a wide selection of new equipment, most of which complement the new Adventurers. There are explosives that can be thrown at your enemies, blades of all shapes and sizes and a selection of rifles and pistols, not to mention mount-specific equipment such as barding and lances!

You’ll also find a selection of new event cards to mix up your games, and two new mount-themed Side Quests. All of the content described so far is plug and play and can be dropped right into a new or existing campaign, no matter which sets you have in your collection.

Last but not least, there are three standalone scenarios that feature some of the other new expansions and terrain sets.

• Stable Raid uses the terrain from the starter set, and is a fast-paced, loot-driven mission that helps your party get its first mount.
• Next comes The Grave Gallop, a high-speed race through an abandoned Hyberian town using the Ingonsburn terrain. This quest is played competitively as you try to outperform your fellow Adventurers, testing your mounted prowess against one another in a desperate sprint through crumbling ruins.
• Finally, The Cure is a race against time to find a rare medicinal herb in the frontier wastes, using the Ur’ghaal Badlands terrain and Dominion of Ur’ghaal expansion. Only by covering ground swiftly and making the most of your mounts’ abilities can you hope to secure the cure in time.

Designer’s Note: After writing all that, I’m starting to think we’re undercharging for this expansion! 😉

The Call of the Frontier

The plains of Hyberia are vast and unforgiving, a place where courage and grit define survival. Whether you are racing for glory, hunting Urmeck warbands, or chasing the horizon just to see what is beyond it, Riders of Hyberia ensures the journey is every bit as thrilling as the destination.

Tighten your reins, check your saddle straps, and ready your weapons. The Riders of Hyberia are riding out. and the wildlands will never be the same again.

We’ll be back soon with more on the new narrative campaigns!