SoBH - Fightin' Fungi Playtest

MacSver and I set down to playtest the rules from the Fightin' Fungi Kickstarter. They are applicable to the "Song of Blades and Heroes" standard rules, and sound like they might be implemented to the next full version, although don't take that as law.

The two warbands would be battling for control of a powerful crystal, situated in an ancient ruin.


MacSver had pulled out some of his characterful dwarves and appropriated plied them with a variety of new traits (special rules in  old money)

Dwarves:
Personality Points: 100 (29%) Warrior Points: 250 (71%) Total Points: 350

• Valgen Maest - Personality Points:100 Quality:2 Combat:3 Armored, Leader, Magic Shield, Shield, Short Move
• Falster Vonlyr Points:62 Quality:3 Combat:4 Armored, Fearless, Shield, Shield Rush, Short Move
• Halgar Snowbeard Points:36 Quality:3 Combat:3 Low Kick, Shield, Short Move
• Oggi Redbeard Points:44 Quality:3 Combat:3 Shield, Short Move, Way of the Intercepting Fist
• Sqint Ironsights Points:48 Quality:3 Combat:3 Crossbow, Fire Into Melee, Short Move
• Ireheart Points:60 Quality:3 Combat:4 Hammering Blow, Shield, Short Move, Steadfast

I decided to bring to the table a more generic Church Warband, led by a Battle Bishop and soldiers kitted out to hopefully test the armour\shield, Crossbow and Long Reach rules.

Humans:

• Bishop Briggs - Personality Points:80 Quality:3+ Combat:3 Bludgeon, Evade and Counter, Leader
• 2 x Soldier (Shield ) Points:36 Quality:3+ Combat:3 Armored, Shield
• 2 x Soldier (Shield & Armour) Points:42 Quality:3+ Combat:3 Armoured, Shield
• 2 x Soldier (Polearm) Points:36 Quality:3+ Combat:3 Long Reach
• Crossbowman Points:44 Quality:3+ Combat:3 Crossbow

We'll run through the game first and then look at the comments.

The warbands moved towards the table centre. The human's moved first, but it soon became apparent that the dwarves could make extra, free headway off of the single failed dice being thrown, so both sides edged forward carefully using the free move rule (introduced in the last revised ruleset) to avoid giving the enemy any advantage.

The humans reached the ruins first, with the warriors with both armour and shields trailing in their comrades wake.

The crossbow were enjoying the new weapon rules by firing off long range bolts, an aimed shot effectively giving them no negative modifier on a double range shot. As that range though any knockdowns were soon recovered before they could be capitalised on.

Falster and Ireheart had moved forward to engage. But the human's had the numbers on their side and Ireheart was the first to go down despite heaving his mighty blow Warhammer. The long reach of the pikeman was adding to the numbers able to gang up of the single target along with a "reaction" movement bringing in an early guard.

Falster soon followed him. The height advantage of his final attacker and again the extra outnumbering of the pikeman giving the edge.

Redbeard and Snowbeard made ther way round the crowd to assault the crystal's resting place from a quieter angle. The way was blocked by just a single guard, but he had pikeman backup giving him an outnumber bonus as well as height advantage at the top of the stairs..

Both Dwarven warriors were knocked down on the stairs under a flurry of dice and modifiers, even the new shield rules not saving them.

And when the humans activated, first Snowbeard,

then Redbeard were dispatched in front of Valgen.

As so the continued theme of the battle headed Valgen's way in the form of a swarm of blue clad warriors.

with a familiar result.

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Thoughts:

First up Long reach is deceptively powerful. Effectively having a warrior second line effectively gives the front warrior a +1 C bonus, and when crowding round a single base foe this can really tip the balance.

The new shield and light armour rules were useful as well, and came into play a few times, although quite how the balance was set I'm not too sure. It should be noted that the armour and shield rules have already been tweaked between the playing of this game and the posting the this report.

Other special rules didn't get much chance to be fully tested. Ireheart's Hammering Blow did connect once and scare the bejesus out of me. Falster was closed down before he could use "Shield Rush, although that wasn't helped by our mis-interpreting of the shield and armour restrictions (movement can't go below short, so not restrictions for Dwarves noted!)

The main winner we thought was the reaction element (even if we were playing to incorrectly as an automatic bonus activation). It really gave a feel of everything going on simultaneously and not so turn based.

In the end the conclusion was that giving all the extra traits (special rules) is tempting, but numbers of troops count. Perhaps the new warband makeup will be Personalities, Characters and Grunts in the future.

As mentioned, these are still in playtest mode. More reports for future playtest sessions. Details are on the Ganesha Facebook page (and there are a couple days left on the kickstarter)