Apparently. they got that wrong . . .

Hi,

You know that old saying, the one about how  pride goeth before the fall?  Yeah, not so much.  Turns out, pride goeth during the Fall.  Mid-November, as it happens.

Regular readers may recall this post, in which your (now) humble author laid waste to all who opposed him? The evening in question led to much debate within the club as to whether or not the ability Long Move was a bit OP in Song of Blades and Heroes.  Yeah, verdict is, "not so much" ;)

I got in two games, one against ernieR's Dwarves, and one against Foxlington's beastmen, and was hammered (hoofed?) in both.  The dwarf game was a place of power scenario, with me as (nominal) defender.  ErnieR had gotten in a few games between this one and our last, and his Dwarves are moving up in the world - not inconsiderable boosts to both combat and quality value across the group, and the addition of another uber-combat guy.

The terrain caused me some problems, and ernieR used it well.  Because there wasn 't a load of room for my big bases, I tried to send my knights looping around.  In consequence, ernieR was able to take me on in scattered engagements, fighting two or three to one, and it didn't take him long to rack up some casualties.

I didn't play this well, to be honest.  I had a significant mobility advantage over ernieR, and should have used it to hang back and pick off single figures if /as they were exposed.  Although slow, ernirR's basic guys are the equivalent of my best ones, and it was silly to forget how dangerous they can be in close combat.   Instead, I went in hell for leather, and it cost me.  It didn't help that I rolled a pile of "1"s, both in combat, and for injury - I lost my new knight, and "good "archer, Salvatore, and my other peasant P'Tit Jean took a hit to quality in the next game.  Total casualties were the equivalent of over 100 gold!

With a much depleted warband on the table, Foxlington and I sat down to a game.  I can't remember the title of this one, but it began with a fairly unconventional deployment; we took turns placing one of the opponent's figures on the table.  This produced a predictably scattered arrangement, with Fox's minotaur in distressing proximity to Lady Hawk.  I caught a break in the first turn, when Fox fluffed his activation roll for the big guy, and the Lady rushed to safety.  Not that it helped her in the long run.

I was badly outnumbered in this game, but had learned a bit from the previous one.  I put the experience to use picking off a few of Fox's outliers in the early turns, using my mobility to gang up on isolated figures.

It wasn't long, however, before Fox consolidated, and we were left with a bit of a stand-off.

I tried a couple things, throwing a transfix on one of the beastmen, and buttonhooking a knight around the wall, but he managed to flub his combat roll.  My second knight didn't manage enough successes to get in on combat, and I was left with a knight exposed, and my forces strung out.  The game turned into a straight up slog, line on line, and once again, my opponent had more force to bring to bear.

It wasn't long before Foxlington was able to bull his way through, and he took my figures out one by one.  A failed morale roll later, and my gang was out of the game.

This game cost me another permanent casualty.  In two games, my warband cut down to half size!  The Lady was robbed to boot!

I noticed a  few things in these games, between the spurts of blood and shrieks of terror.  As the quality and number of troops go up, it's getting harder to pull off some of the riskier tactics I'd used in my first games.  Exposing my leader to danger in order to pull off a transfix is a much greater risk when opposing figures either are better at resisting the transfix, or at surviving the following round of combat.  Bad dice have gone from being something occasionally frustrating, to something that loses me figures.  Because my knights are so expensive, I can't play them fast and loose.  With only two of them and my leader left, my next few games are going to have to be much more cagey.

FMB

Review, WiPs

Hi,

I'd hoped to get an Impetus unit finished for today's post, but of late painting time has been limited to those short minutes after my daughter goes to sleep and before I follow suit, a window of time that seems smaller and smaller of late.  It likely doesn't help that I've been distracted by other painting at the same time, including working out a possible colour scheme for a Blood Bowl team.  I thought what I'd do instead is post some WiP pictures, and give my first thoughts on the new SBH rules.

Windows.  Always too small.

To start, I've been plugging away on some more phalangites for my Antigonids.  The original plan for my 400 point list was to add at least another three deep block, though it's a bit of an open question as to whether they'd be regulars or pantodapoi.  I'm using OG seleucid pike figures, to distinguish the unit from my core pike.  These are the guys in trousers.



I've also gone for a more uniform look.  In the past, while I've used a consistent palette across a unit, I've tended to vary where colours appeared on a figure.  The idea with these guys is that unlike my veterans, this group would have been recruited as a body, and equipped at the same time.  Antigonus was ridiculously wealthy, so the idea of uniform equipment isn't too out of bounds.  Not sure yet if it'll work, but I wanted to try the idea.

I've also been puttering with a colour scheme for a planned Ork Blood Bowl team.  I'm thinking orange and blue, but I think the colours I've got so far are maybe a bit dark.  I've been using some of the old GW foundation paints (the ones they just discontinued), and while the coverage is good, they tend to be a little dull.  I'm definitely going with the blue and orange, but I'm hoping the finished product will be a little more eye-bleedingly garish.



I also need to play with the skin tones a little.  When I did orks for 40k some years ago, I stuck to a pretty simple DA green + off-white for the skin tones, which works fine en-masse.  For these guys, I'd like to make the skin tones a little richer - maybe experiment with some oppositional shading, things like that.



In terms of SBH, I should begin by pointing out I'm still rather new to the game, so you can take the following with a grain of salt.  First impression is that this version of the rules is larger.  In part this seems to be a product of an effort to include more examples and clarifications of the core rules.  These fall into three categories.

The first involves a clear effort to illustrate each rule or mechanic (this is especially characteristic of the combat section.  The second involve comments on game design (it work this way in SBH because . . .).  I found the latter interesting.  While it's become common to include a preface with comments on game design, it was nice to see an ongoing discussion throughout the rule-set.  This may have been prompted by past questions the designers received, but it was still cool to peek "behind the curtain".

Just pay no attention when you do.

The third category of comments seem intended to prevent "gamey" interpretations, and many take the form of "when we say x, it means x, not some irritating reinterpretation which benefits you". While one of the charms of the game is it's simplicity (I saw a recent blog post where the author ran a game for his kids, listing stats as "do stuff" and "fight" - if this was you, please remind me so I can link!), there's always the chance of playing against TFG.   One example is they take the time to specify that any contact between bases counts as contact.  Tell me that wasn't a response to an in-game conversation between a designer and TFG over what, exactly, was meant by "contact".

This guy.  Him.

There's a few other additions that seem intended to smooth game play or avoid exploitations, including an automatically available move when sufficiently distant from the enemy, a minimum move, and some clarification of visibility when on the edges of terrain.

They look to have shifted a few of the supplementary special abilities to the main rules, and two nice additions are the inclusion of the formula used to calculate the points of a model, and a complete list of available special abilities.  There's also a smattering of optional rules, with an accompanying explanation of rationales and consequences (if this rule x bugs you, try doing y instead, but be aware doing y will likely lead to consequence z).

Overall impression is that this edition is an improvement over the original rules.  Given my already positive impression of the game, I'd heartily recommend them.  They've all the advantages of the original game, with a clear effort to clarify, avoid exploitation, and give insight into design choices.  Given the cost of the .pdf is under $10, and you can use pretty much any figures you want with them, why haven't you bought them already?

FMB

The lady triumphs . . . again!

Hi,

Got an unexpected reprieve from some family commitments last night (a last minute rescheduling), and managed to get out to the Dueling Grounds for the first time in three weeks.  Some of the THMG guys were running games for the Song of Blades and Heroes campaign we're setting up, and I managed to squeeze in three (!) games with my Bretonnian warband.  Based on the fact that I won all three, I'm starting to wonder if I've discovered some sort of secret weapon, or if it's just my opponents haven't figured out how to counter a core of fast moving elite troops.

The first two games were against Foxlington's slightly updated beastmen.  He's cut the scruffier elements he'd crammed in for our last game, along with his mage, in favour of more hard hitters.



I kept the same warband I'd had before, with my mage leader, two knights, and a couple of disreputable peasant archers.  It had worked well for me, so I didn't see any reason to switch it up.

Our first game was a "Place of Power" scenario on a swamp table, with (IIRC) Foxlington as attacker.  The scenario calls for a randomly determined player to choose one terrain feature as the eponymous place, with mages getting bonuses while on it, and victory points awarded for kills and possession of the Place at the end of game.  Being a gent, Foxlington went for a bit of terrain in the centre, although you'll have to admit, it looked the part (that would be the trilithed upon which Lady Hawk has her sights).



The game got off to a rocky start when I rolled two ones on my first activation.  My knights are quality three (quality is your "do stuff" stat), and get a bonus when in proximity to the Lady, so I generally roll the max dice for them.  Two failures ends your turn, but it's not usually a problem, though last night, that came back to bite me more than usual.

Foxlington promptly rolled two failures on his first activation roll, and once I stopped laughing, I sent the lady with some peasants to guard her on the right, while my knights beelined towards the mysterious trilithid in the centre.



Foxlington moved up his beasts while the Lady took possession of the Place of Power, leading with his minotaur.  This guy causes me problems.  He's better in combat than my knights, and denies them the combat advantage they derive from being Mounted (+1 vs the same size or smaller non-mounted).



In order to have a chance to beat him, I either need to transfix him with the Lady (which means exposing her to the risk of combat, something she's not great at), or go two on one with my knights, which reduces things to an even combat.  I gambled with the lady, and she managed to hypnotise the Minotaur with her grace and beauty (which leads to trains of thought best unexplored), and sir Blue (I know, I know) charged home.  Transfixing the minotaur gave my knight a +2 combat advantage, and it meant I only had to beat the minotaur to kill it (rather than doubling its score).  First blood to Bretonnia!



Things went quickly from that point on.  Sir Purple charged in, and after some to-ing and fro-ing (including a lucky break when a few of his beasts teamed up against a knight), I managed to get a gruesome kill on one of his ungors (lesser beastman).  This caused a few of his other troops to run, and Foxlington decided to opt for discretion, high-tailing his warband from the field.  With VPs from both possession of the objective and kills, I had the win.



We rolled for gold, and I did quite well, though my exploration phase was uneventful.  I did use the campaign point I'd gained from the win to pick up the warband skill "Seize the Initiative", which allows me to ignore a turnover once per game.  Foxlington's beastman casualty recovered, I think, but his minotaur was out for a game.  We had time for another, as we were waiting for the guys on the other table to finish, so we quickly set up a "Seize the High Ground" scenario.  I think I attacked this time.  The scenario requires a hill in the centre, and victory points are awarded for exclusive possession and kills.

With my speed advantage, I was able to get a knight onto the hill quickly, though again I had some atypically bad luck on early activations, and one of my poor knights was looking a little lonely.  On the plus side, it meant I racked up an early VP.



With his usual point-beast off nursing it's wounds, Foxlington adopted a rather clever testudo formation, that protected some of his figures, while retaining the option to charge (as you can always move freely through your own figures).



To be honest, I was a little non-plussed.  In order to break up his beasts, I needed good activation rolls for both my knights (1 success to move, plus ideally 2 successes to generate a powerful attack).  I know from our other games that if he can get numbers on me, Foxlington's beasts can quickly turn the tables.  As it was, while I rolled okay, I didn't roll well enough for an alpha strike, and Foxlington charged in.



He tried something a little new this time, moving figures in to surround my knights, but not attacking with them until one had a significant combat advantage.  He won the combat, but I caught a break.  Rather than knocking me down (leaving me as vulnerable as the minotaur in our first game), he made my knight recoil, which actually took him out of danger, and opened up a charge opportunity for sir Purple.



On my turn, I was able to double team one of his models, I think producing another gruesome kill (i.e., I tripled his score), and several beasts retreated from the hilll.



Things got a little sticky, as the beasts surged back, but my peasants had finally trudged their way to the hill, and I now had a numerical advantage.



It was enough to get another kill, which took the beastmen below half strength, and Foxlington opted to retreat.  The chivalry of Bretonnia had won again.

I picked up not quite enough gold for another knight, and rolled (for something like the third time in 4 games!) "Murder of Crows" on the exploration table.  The resulting bad omen meant that I'd gain half gold next game.

By this point, the guys on the second table had finished, and we swapped players.  I now had a game against ernieR's dwarf warband.  We ended up playing an assassination scenario on "regular" terrain, with ernieR as the attacker.



Win conditions were straightforward - if he took out my leader, he won, otherwise, I did.  This is, I think, a rough one for ernieR's dwarfs, as they all have short move.  While he has very high quality troops (an even better mage than mine, and a tough as nails elite fighter, long with rock-solid "basic troops"), the slowness of his warband makes it difficult for them to "chase" an opponent, especially when the opponent has fast movers like my knights.

Instead of coming after me, ernieR opted to take up a defensive position, using terrain and a shield wall to protect his leader, and present me with little in the way of easy targets.  My knights advanced quickly, while the rest of my figures slogged their way up the field.



I actually forgot to take pictures at this point, because ernieR was presenting me with a real problem.  In order to win, I had to end the game without losing my Lady.  Unless the game ended because I retreated (which meant I'd have lost more than half my figures), I had to take out more than half of his.  The way he'd set up, there was not way to get the kind of combat advantage I needed to pull that off.  His basic dwarfs fight almost as well as my knights (same stats, with me having a slight advantage with Mounted), and his elite fighter is better, even with mounted factored in.  He also considerably outnumbers me, unless I bring in my peasants, and only one of them fights comparably.



Ordinarily, I'd do what I do vs. Foxlington's minotaur, either gang up or use the Lady to transfix.  The problem was his numbers meant he'd be able to "out-outnumber" me, and his troops are high enough quality that transfixing was likely to be ineffective.  I tried manoeuvring to open up gaps in his line, but he wasn't having any.  When I said to hell with it and closed in, he managed to get a transfix off on me, and took out sir Purple!

In the end, to be honest, I caught a break.  I managed to get lucky against his elite fighter (beat him, and rolled the "fall down" outcome), and then followed up with one of my peasants ( I think Salvatore), who between the outnumber and "fall down" advantage managed to beat the tough little bugger (killing him as he was vulnerable).  That opened things up, I got a few more kills, weathered some counter-attacks from ernieR (who was rolling rather poorly) and in the end, managed to get my remaining knight in on ernieR's leader (who, though crafty, can't fight his way out of a paper bag).  With his leader and elite fighter gone, ernieR pulled the rest of his warband out, and I'd won my third game by the skin of my teeth and the blessing of the Lady.

The game ended up being a little one-sided in terms of casualties (ernieR's mage leader ended up brain-damaged!), but during the game felt like a slog.  Just figuring out how to attack him was a puzzler, as though my knights are nifty, they're few in number, and not so dominating in combat that I can send them in without support.  Without catching that break and knocking down his elite fighter, I suspect things would have gone differently.  I might not have lost (he still had to catch me), but I would have lost more troops for sure.

As it was, I picked up another campaign point, just enough gold to recruit a new knight, sir Purple survived his wounds with only a few scars to show the ladies, and I'd accrued enough xp to give a few of my models a boost.  Next week I'm scheduled (finally!) for a Maurice campaign game, but I definitely want to get in some more SBH.  It's tons of fun, plays quickly, and allows for light travel.  Plus, I want to see what happens to my warband next!

On a related note, I just got the updated version of the SBH rules.  I'll try to get in a review post on the weekend, if I don't have a painting post ready.

FMB

For Honour and the Lady!

Hi,

*edit* I was contacted by Ganesha Games, the makers of SBH, to let me know the new edition is only $8, and as you can see in the comments below, if you bought a prior edition, you can upgrade.  Sweet deals!

As my Maurice campaign opponent was otherwise engaged last night, I took the opportunity to try out a game that's been floating around the club for the last couple of months, Song of Blades and Heroes.

For those who's not heard of this, it's a generic fantasy skirmish game that's been around for a few years now.  Foxlington, my opponent from last night, informs me that there's a new edition of the game just released.  Aside from the inherent qualities of the game, it has two major advantages in terms of start-up:  a) it's dirt cheap (the new .pdf is $8), and you can use any figures you happen to have lying around.  The core game comes with a fairly generous selection of lists and sample models, and there's a few free figure and warband calculators on line.  While I'd initially planned to paint models specifically for the game, reality set in, and I decided to use some of the Bretonnians I already have painted.

Lady Hawke and the boys.

First off, I'm sold on this game.  Mechanics are simple and clean, with little room for rules-lawyering or hinky misinterpretation.  There's loads of special abilities that give small, but meaningful advantages, and enough room for customization to let you play pretty much whatever you please.  Once those Reaper Bones figures from my Kickstarter buy start rolling in, I can see going hog wild on this game.

We played two games in about 2.5 hours, with time for breaks, conversation, and "so, what do I do again", although there was little of the latter.  I read through the rules once, we looked special rules up a couple times, and kept them handy the first time we worked through the campaign mechanics (did I mention you can run campaigns with experience, character development, recruitment, etc.?  You can!).

The first scenario saw us contesting objectives in forest terrain, with my Brets defending and Foxlington's old-school Beastmen attacking.

He also had a couple other figures, including a REALLY annoying ungor.

As a number of my figures are mounted, I gave them extra movement, and was able to quickly advance and take not only the objective in my zone, but the one in the centre of the table.  Models accumulate points by staying in base contact with objectives for their turn, which meant as long as I held both, I'd quickly rack up a point advantage.  The game ends when either all three objectives are taken by one player, or a warband routs (so as long as I had the point advantage, it was in my interest for the game to end - I could win even if my warband routed).  Hooray for horses!

Foxlington knew this as well as I did, so he quickly pushed the bulk of his forces towards my brave knights, and their lovely leader, Lady Hawke.  Among them was a rather intimidating Minotaur, who was frankly bad-ass.



Some early skirmishing resulted in the rather surprising survival of one of Foxlington's ungor.  He quickly became known as "the little ungor that could", on the basis of his recurring near-miraculous survival, and his surprising combat effectiveness.

That's him.  The one with the shield.

The foul beastmen counter-attacked, and the furious charge of the Minotaur actually bowled one of my brave knights over!



My other knight counter-charged, intending to eliminate the ungor (who's presence was aiding the minotaur), but the little critter survived again!



I though I was in rough shape at this point, but a few game mechanics kicked in to help out.  Most of my figures had good quality (3+ on a d6), and were getting a bonus from their proximity to Lady Hawke (who, with the Leader special ability, could give them a +1 to activate; in other words, they only fail on a 1).  This meant that I could roll three dice, and rely on getting a reasonable number of actions per figure.  Add in her spellcasting ability (she managed to transfix the minotaur, possibly with an illusion of tasty oats), and my band managed to pull off a dramatic comeback.

Take that, beefcake!

Although a ferocious charge from the beasts eliminated one of mu knights, the minotaur also fell.  Battle was joined between the remaining knight, and Salvatore, a veteran archer.



Lady Hawke turned her attention to the leader of the beastman herd, and transfixed him (rendering him vulnerable in combat; attackers gained a +2 bonus and only had to beat him to kill him).  While Salvatore desperately held off the rest of the mutants, my remaining knight charged the beastman champion, and rode him down.



At this, most of the beastmen ran.  Those that didn't flee off the table decided discretion was the better part, and followed their fleeter kind back into the dark heart of the forest.



In the post-game phase, my injured knight proved his mettle, recovering without incident, I won some gold, and while exploring the area, came across a dire omen.  Luckily, the Lady protected my brave band (i.e., Lady Hawke passed her quality test), and we remained unbowed by the predations of Fate.

For our next game, we played a scenario in which the attackers were trying to burn down a target building, in what proved to once again be a wooded table (we rolled randomly for terrain, and ended up with woods again).  Once again, I defended, and set my figures up around the longhouse of a local noble.



As attacker, Foxlington rolled to see how many of his figures were armed with torches (the max, 6!), and concentrated them to rush the building.  To be honest, I kind of thought he had this one from the get-go, as he had a significant advantage in numbers, and I didn't see how I'd be able to tie up all his arsonists without letting one slip through.  To burn the building, he only had to use one action while a torch-armed figure was b2b, so it looked like a hot time was in store.

Things got even worse when the Minotaur charged ahead, both my knights raced to attack him, and were not only defeated, but thrown to the ground, helpless before the onslaught of the other savage minions of chaos.



Things looked dire for my brave band, but never fear!  Mes braves sans peur et sans reproche had themselves another heroic turnaround.  Foxlington rolled two failed dice on the second figure he activated, ending his turn, and a couple of good activations later, my knights were well stuck in, against a growing horde of smelly beastflesh.



The battle raged back and forth, while Lady Hawk sought to bring her magic to bear, and my archers moved up.



Then the beastmen seemed to seize the upper hand.  In the whirl of combat, two ungor and the minotaur slipped free.  The minotaur moved to crush one of my archers, while an ungor raced to the longhouse, seeking to set it alight.  To make matters worse another ungor broke free, and had the temerity the threaten the life of Lady Hawke herself.



At this point, the Lady of the Lake herself intervened, although I don't remember exactly how.  As Mounted figures, my knights could freely leave combat.  One of my knights charged the ungor defiling m'lady's dress, crushing him under his horses hooves. I was then able to disengage Salvatore from the minotaur, I think either because of a morale failure (due to the gruesome death of a colleague), or because Lady Hawke then pinned the minotaur in place with her steely gaze.  In either case, Salvatore charged the ungor arsonist.



I knew I'd only bought myself a brief respite.  My knight threw themselves forward against the beastman leader, and in a desperate combat, overcame him.



With the loss of their leader, the craven beastmen again fled the field, and the glory of Bretonnia stood victorious on the field.

Don't you wish your horsey could trot like me . . . .

I like this game.  It's clean, fast, tons of fun, and has plenty of flavour.  I'm going to play it more, and Foxlington has plans to get a campaign going.  Stay tuned for details as they emerge.