Adv SoBH Demo at Falkirk

Dwarven bullies block the progress of
the Orc Shaman and Warriors down the alley.

MacSver had offered to demo Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes at the Falkirk Wargames Club this week, but interest was enough that a second game would probably need to be run to accomodate numbers, so I was (easily) press ganged into my first visit to run the second game. I had created a trio of 28mm warbands for reserves, but as I knew one of the attendees was 15mm fanatic Jimboba from Warchest I put managed to cobble together some advanced Warbands from my limited collection and jumped into MacSver's Dad taxi to be chauffeured up the road.


The scenario I used was the treasure hunt from the core rulebook, which had worked well for my demo at Carronade last year. I had the treasure counters already and I took up my new Skirmish Board format - the Skirmish Mat (I'll post on that soon). The club has a huge array of terrain at their disposal and some 15mm buildings and walls were quickly found.

The Warbands used were:

15mm Adv Orcs

• Orc Shaman Leader (108pts) Q3+;C3; Leader (L,P), Spell-caster (P), Blast (P), Courage (P), Flame Jet (P),Protection From Arrows (P);;
• 2 x Orc Boar Rider (50pts);Q4+;C2; Block,Forester,Long Move,Mounted
• 4 x Orc Warrior (23pts);Q4+;C3

15mm Adv Undead

• Mounted Undead Leader (88pts);Q3+;C2: Leader (L,Long Move,Mounted,P),Standard Bearer,Undead;;
• 3 x Skeleton Warrior (30pts);Q3+;C2; Block,Fragile,Undead
• 4 x Rotting Shambler (24pts);Q4+;C3;Dashing,Slow,Undead

15mm Adv Dwarves

• Dwarf Heavy Infantry Leader (w/ shield);(76pts);Q3+;C4; Expert Block,Lead from the Front (L,P),Shieldbreaker (W),Short Move
• 3 x Dwarf Heavy Infantry (w/ shield);(36pts);Q3+;C3; Block,Shieldbreaker (W),Short Move
• 3 x Dwarf Trained Spearman (30pts);Q3+;C3;Long Reach,Short Move

Undead and Orcs contest the treasure as
the Dwarves arrive late to mop up.

Both players were aware of the core rules without having played the game, which I think helped get the basic activation mechanic going. There was a bit of discussion on how the advanced reaction system would work with 3 players, and it was settled that the engaged enemy force for the failed activation die would get the chance to react unless common sense suggested otherwise. This worked well. We also diced for random initiative each round to try and keep some sort of ebb and flow to the game. Again no-one faired badly out of this.

There were a few new rules on show, with block and dashing coming into use several times. The Dwarves large blocking shields were doing great business, and their Leader's expert block had him on his feet for nearly the whole game despite being in the thick of the action. His "Lead from the Front" Trait must also get a mention for motoring a solid block of Dwarves quickly into the town. I made the poor choice to split my Green Skinned forces round a building, leaving my Orc Shaman Leader stuck behind said building trying to remotely support one or the other. Inevitably their poor Quality stat meant too many lost activations, almost as damaging as the too many reactions for the enemy, and their numbers were whittled down until the remaining brace broke and fled. Jimboba held in with his undead, but the slow Shamblers and low Combat of the skeleton's made his job difficult.

Victory eventually went to the Dwarves who ground out the opposition, although a moral mention must go to Jimboba who found the treasure first go but gentlemanly opted to change the result in favour of continuing the game instead of nipping off for a swift victory.