SoBH: Raid for the Blood Stones

All was quiet (for once) in the Barbarian village. Chieftain Ardaric gazed up to the bejewelled skull on top of the sacred mound. Little did he realise that others had their gaze upon the the ruby encrusted eyes of the giants skull as well!

ASoBH: Hunting Chaos

With last year's lack of posts a change I'd tack is required. So instead of battle reports of yesteryear I'll be trying to at least get some photos up!

ASoBH: The Necromancer's Tower

A Scenario from from Hour11's fanmade Warhammer/Mordheim Scenario Conversion project: The Necromancers Tower with Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes. There is a magic book rumoured to be left in the Tower Ruins, but several magical defenses have been put in place. Can the warbands get past the defenses and each other for the treasure?

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.

ASoBH: The Dwarves Have Been Shopping.

With Ganesha Games Hammer and Forge Kickstarter now rolling out it's pledges it was inevitable that a game of Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes was to be played. The main rulebook is out now and the Dwarven supplement, "Hammer and Forge" will be on general release in Feb (maybe already?), but sent out to KS backers.

I appear to have mentioned Hammer and Forge without adding "Long Awaited" before it, as MacSver has been eagerly and impatiently (to put it lightly) waiting it to come out for years! But he has it now and can run wild furnishing his collection with all manner of figure appropriate whimsies.

SoBH - The Mausoleum

Arabiansquire every now and again mentions doing some gaming again, but then slopes off his teen den to play Halo with his pals! With the shed table all set up from Frostgrave I took the opportunity to suggest a game. Happily the ArabianQueen also decided to play, possibly her first wargame in fact (or at least the first I can remember!).

For familiarity and ease of play I decided core "Song of Blades and Heroes" was the game of choice and set up 3 basic 300pt forces:

• Wood Elves (ArabianQueen): Leader, 2 archers and 4 warriors (I dropped the forester special rule as the board had no forests!)
• Barbarians (ArabianSquire): Leader, 1 Cavalry, 5 Warriors
• Ratmen (Me!): Leader, Standard Bearer and 8 warriors

A single magic scroll was placed on top of the central structure. Whoever could grab it and make ift off table was the winner.

The Elves started mid table side and the other forces at the opposite side corners. The Elves started by pushing forward through the gap towards the prize.

Adv_Sobh: The Good Barbarian(s)

The Barbarians are travelling through a wooded area when they hear a cry for help. A tree has fallen onto a human archer in a clearing and pinned her to the ground.

Ardaric and Fredrick Redmist move to help and try to move the branch enough for her to escape.

The rest of the party fan out. Just past the clearing edge anything could be lurking with intent...

15mm Skirmish Board - Caravan Carnage

For the May holiday we took a trip up to the lovely East Neuk of Fife for a quick break in our caravan.. The weather wasn't quite as lovely all the time, but fortunately I'd looked at the forecast and taken up the Skirmish Board and accompanying kit, all compactly stored in a Pizza box. Almost as a demonstration of concept, when the rain started I cleared the small caravan dining table, set up and had a game with Arabiansquire. Almost in keeping with the pseudo impromptu nature of the game I'd forgotten my camera, so had to borrow the wee lad's ipod for photographic duties. That is the first of my poor photo excuses. If you need more, please apply in writing - I have loads!

The board was set up as above. Barbarians (Leader, Warriors and a couple of ranged slingers) in one corner and the Undead (2 Cavalry, inc the Leader, Warriors and Walking Dead) in the opposite. It was set to be a simple straight battle.

SoBH - Fightin' Fungi Playtest #2

After a couple of weeks of no dice rolling, MacSver tripped down to the hobby shed to put some of these draft SoBH Fightin Fungi rules to the test. Again it should be noted that some of these rules are in flux, in fact since playing the game I've got access to the playtest forum and a few of the crucial rules regarding armour\shields and reactions will be slightly different. Just something to bear in mind when reading this report.

SoBH Campaign 4 - Humans vs Wood Elves

This post is a base to catalogue my fantasy "Songs Of Blades and Heroes" campaign with my gaming buddy MacSver. I have moved the campaign page to this post to make room at the top for the next campaign (so for those avid readers this isn't anything new, just a bit of re-organising) 

The basic warband makeup is Humans vs Wood Elves : Initial Warband Compositions. The campaign winner is the first warband to 10 Campaign points.

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.

SoBH Campaign 4 - Battle 11

The villagers gathered round the market cross to hear the news. There was a warband coming to take them from their settlement. Would no body step in to save them?

SoBH Campaign 4 - Battle 10

The two warbands come across a travelling caravan that has been ambushed by a band of Ogres. The guards are valiantly defending their rich merchant boss, but it's only a matter of time before they succumb to the bludgeoning force of their attackers. Can one of the warbands rescue the merchant?

SoBH Campaign 4 - Battle 9

Scenario - Heist

The scenario was simple. The First Law had hired a thief to steal something special. The Everglade Guardians were on her trail to get the loot back, so she'd gone to ground in one of six locations on the table. The Elves were to search the locations (a 12 on 2d6 found her, with extra bonus' the more locations searched), whilst avoiding the attentions of The First Law.

SoBH Campaign 4 - Battle 8

Scenario: Bar Brawl

The Inn was split into 3 areas; main bar, Office\cellar area and the main courtyard\beer garden. Both sides started with around 120pts worth of figures in random areas at the start of the scenario, with a figure coming into a random section at the start of each players respective turn. As this was a bar brawl there were no weapons. All combat stats remained the same (with the exception of ranged weapons), and there were to be no fatalities. All deaths rolled on the post game injury table would be re-rolled with 50\50 chance of moderate ot serious injury. 

SoBH Campaign 4 - Battle 7

Scenario: Break The Blockade

The scenario had the elves holed up in a watchtower, awaiting supplies. The First Law were tasked to capturing the tower and also stopping a supply wagon (arriving at a random time in the first 7 turns) from delivering their cargo.

SoBH Campaign 4 - Battle 6

Scenario: The Haunted Wreck

The scenario is a treasure hunt with a twist. There is a wrecked ship in the middle of a wide river with a treasure chest on it. The first warband to carry the treaure off the far end of the table wins (unless there is a rout). The Twist? Well the wreck is haunted by it's previous (now undead) crew and they don't want to give up their treasure. The size of the crew is randomly generated when the first non-crew member steps on board.

So the table is set as thus with the ship wreck in the centre of the table and the warbands coming in up stream.

15mm Skirmish Box - another AAR

It's school holidays time and with some downtime I pulled out the Skirmish box for a quick game with Arabiansquire - one of the reasons the whole project started in fact. It's the first game of SoBH )or any wargame) he's played in quite a while - he's been seduced by the dark side of the local gaming club (Magic The Gathering!), so I gave him the humans and a reasonable middle ground.

Information Gathering - SoBH AAR

A one off "Song of Blades and Heroes" battle this week, between MacSver's Dwarves and a new Human Holy Order warband.

 The scenario was "Traces to Emrpise" from Hour11's Scenario booklet. The aim was to get round the buildings and question or torture the inhabitants for pieces information.

Quick Crossbowmen

This week a one off game of "Song of Blades and Heroes" is planned. The campaign is in a haitus at the moment until MacSver can find time in his busy schedule to get his recruits painted (autumn time probably). Lots of games to play in the meantime. For this week I had a bit of a rummage around and came up with some blue and white quartered Empire Soldiers I'd painted ages ago as a town or noble guard for roleplaying. Coincidentally they fitted in with the robe colours of a Battling Bishop I'd picked up somewhere (already painted). If they are to try and face up to MacSver's Dwarves though they'll need a bit more than a willingness to go toe-to-toe in battle. So I raided the old Empire soldiers and Mercenary boxsets to make up a couple of crossbowmen, and gave them a quick paint to match the existing troops.

I thought town\noble guards would be more likely to have crossbows than long bows.

The assembled warband.

As far as SoBH stats go the guards are just standard Human soldiers\archers. I think I'll make the Bishop an Enchanter to give the flavour of shouting religious zeal to encourage a particular soldier for a turn (pass 2 or 3 dice to add 1 to combat for his turn). I would also like to make one or two of the pikemen as bodyguards, but that's a "Song of Arthur and Merlin" rule, and so far I don't think we've included any of those rules.