Another SoBaH Game Day

     Saturday, my friend Buck found himself with a few hours to kill in the morning while he was up in my area, so we made some last minute arrangements with Rob and Greg to throw together a four-player "Song of Blades and Heroes" battle.  I hosted, and set up a table featuring a crossroads with a couple farm buildings and a ruined chapel and accompanying ruined graveyard.
    For my warband I selected a typical multi-race adventuring party.  Buck was teamed with me, and he borrowed the same Human warband from Rob with which Rob had won a couple games against me in the past.  Rob selected an Undead themed warband, and Greg, who ended up being paired with Rob,  had conveniently brought some of his own Undead figures to use.  We chose to just have a standard kill-the-enemy type battle.

My warband, left to right: Human Leader, Dwarf Warrior, Human Magic User, Hafling Thief, Lizardman Warrior, Dwarf Elite Crossbow, Elf Archer 

     As Rob and Greg slogged forward with their less than ambitious zombies and skeletons; Buck and I, without prior discussion, both decided to make our way to the center of town; and a bit of a traffic jam formed on the road leading into town as we both maneuvered down the narrow street.   Buck's female magic user, Juliette, recruited two willing bodyguards, and headed out first to meet Rob's approaching Undead horde.

Juliette and her bodyguard advance as my guys watch from the safety of the wall.

      Meanwhile, I tried to move my team around the ruined chapel to take advantage of it's cover while placing my force on Rob's flank.  As usual, I was plagued with bad activation dice.

An overview of the table

  Soon, Rob's first skeleton warriors were moving into contact, as Juliette attempted to transfix them.  Her warrior bodyguards found them easy to deal with.

First contact, as two of Rob's skeletons move into contact.

    About this time I had a series of unfortunate event's befall my team.  First, my Halfling thief, who was moving around the chapel, suddenly found himself face to face with Greg's Wraith who had a burst of successful activations combined with his Flying skill.  The thief, with his Combat skill of 1, was no match for the Wraith's skill of 4 and my bad die rolling, and was quickly dispatched by a Gruesome kill.  This was too much for my human magic user, Julia (Juliette's twin sister),  and she promptly fled the field.

I attempt to move around the ruined chapel with some of my force, as my leader charges forth into contact with a skeleton.  Greg's wraith can be seen in the upper center of the shot, ready to pounce on my poor Halfling, who is hidden from the camera by the far corner of the chapel.

     At this same time, my  human leader moved forward to help Buck battle Rob skeleton's.  No sooner had me moved into contact with the closest skellie, than Rob charged me with his Spectre and his Terror ability.  This caused my Leader to panic and run, allowing the skeleton he was in contact with to get a free hack. The skeleton was successful, and killed my leader.
    Rob's Spectre now moved to to charge Buck's magic user, Julliette, and though she was brave enough to stand her ground, her 1 Combat rating left her dead on the field.

Juliette attmepts to karate chop the Spectre only to be struck down by his mighty sword.

     It now looked as if Rob's Spectre was going to cut an unstoppable path of destruction through our ranks.  We truly need a miracle, ...and got one.  In a true Lord of the Rings "I am no Man!"  moment, my female Elf archer attempted a desperate long range shot at the Spectre, and rolled a 6!  Rob rolled a 1, and his Spectre fell and disintegrated into a cloud of black smoke.  This caused Rob's force to drop below 50% and his remaining zombie warriors melted into piles of dust. Only one of his skeletons stayed on the table and he was soon reduced to a pile of bones by Buck's barbarian.

"I am no man!" My female elf archer takes aim at Rob's Spectre.

  We now turned to Greg's force, and the remnants of our forces desperately battled his skeletons and zombies.  My Dwarf warrior was knocked down, and before he could stand up, Greg's twitcher (christened "The Head", as he was a skeleton model of just a head, shoulders, and arms ) raced over and used his Opportunistic skill to kill the fallen dwarf.  
     Eventually, we were able to wear Greg's force down to it's below 50% level, and the majority of his zombies, like Rob's turned to dust and blew away.  At that point we called it a day.

As Buck sends his archers and remaining warrior into battle two of Greg's zombie, another zombie pushes my Dwarf down as "The Head" moves up to break his neck. 

   It was a really fun game for a spur-of-the-moment event and we all had a good time.  It stayed exciting until near the end, as fortunes swung back and forth.  And best of all, some of my Bones figures got to get on the table and take part in a game.

For Buck's report on the battle, see here: Song of Blades and Heroes

Another "Song of Blades and Heroes" Battle Day

My friend Rob Dean came over to my warroom this past Saturday for a couple games of "Song of Blades and Heroes" using our Bones figures.  I had set up the table with a little ford crossing a meandering creek in the shadow of an old Elven watchtower.
   For my initial force I picked an all-human group consisting of; Magic User, Leader, Barbarian, Warrior, Elite Archer, Heavy Infantry, thief, and another Warrior.  Rob had a group of Orcs with  a Leader, supported by a pair of Orc Archers and some Giant Rats.

Team Human L to R, (Front row): Magic User, Leader, Barbarian, Warrior, Elite Archer, Heavy Infantry, (Back row) Thief, and another Warrior

As the game started, I rushed for the hill where the old watchtower stood to get my Elite Archer and Magic user into good positions The Heavy Infantry tagged along to act as a bodyguard.   The rest of my forced moved to my right, to cross the creek a little up from the ford. Meanwhile, Rob marched his Orcs towards the ford in an attempt to quickly cross it, while his archers and rats moved to thwart my attempted flanking maneuver.  First blood came when my archer scored a lucky kill at maximum range on one of the Orcs approaching the ford.

As Rob's first Orcs splashed across the ford, I turned my two Warriors back from their flanking maneuver to try and halt the Orcs before they got any further. Hopefully stopping them while they were still slowed down crossing the ford. Quickly, a swirling melee developed at the ford.

The battle at the ford begins. I rush one of my Warriors up to block a crossing Orc, and Rob counters with another Orc, I then move my other Warrior up to support.

   We both threw more troops at the ford, though I continued to advance my Barbarian around the flank.  Rob used his Rats to counter this move, and despite their reluctance to follow orders, two of the Giant Rats eventually made contact with my Barbarian and caused a Gruesome Death.  Luckily, hardly anyone was around to witness it, so there was little lasting effect for my side.  While my Archer remained on the hill, trying to take pot shots at the Rats who had killed the Barbarian, my Magic User moved down to get in better range of the ford bringing the Heavy Infantryman along with him.
   In the end, the Orcs' lower Quality told, and I was able to wear them down one by one, while only losing my Thief and Barbarian in the process.   After Rob's Orc's dropped below 50%, causing several of the survivors to run a ways down the road, we called it a game.

The scene near the end.  With a powerful force still at my disposal, and the Orcs badly worn down, The Orc Leader calls for a retreat.

  For the second game we rolled for a scenario, and got the Place of Power result. So, we quickly reset the table, removing the Elven Watchtower and the river. In the Watchtower's place I put out the Bones Sarcophagus and threw some Armorcast cemetery walls around it. We decided it must be a powerful magician's grave, which inspired my to pull out my Bones High Wizard statue to put up by the sarcophagus. After a quick rearrangement of the woods, we were set to go.
   I picked a more mixed-race adventuring party for this game, featuring: a  Halfling Warrior (not a Bones figure), Halfling Wisewoman, a Dragonman (I used the Hyenaman stats), Human Warrior, Human Leader, Fire Elemental, Elf Sneak, and Elf Elite Archer.  Rob used what I call his "invincible force", since I have yet to beat it in a number of games now.It consists of an assortment of human types; including a Leader, Warriors, Barbarian, Archers, and Magic user

My team: (front row) Halfling Warrior (not a Bones figure), Halfling Wisewoman, (Back Row) a Dragonman (I used the Hyenaman stats), Human Warrior, Human Leader, Fire Elemental, Elf Sneak, and Elf Elite Archer

     Things got off to bad start for me as on the first turn Rob did a group activation and successfully rolled 3 dice, allowing most of his force to run and gain the Place of Power before I had even picked up a die.  I did my best to rush my force forward before Rob's force could get settled.

My Elite Elf Archer takes up position in the woods, as my Dragonman and Warrior rush bravely forward.

  With their Quality 4 and 5,  the Halflings proved to be useless, especially after I had had to rush my Leader forward to throw more bodies into the fray.  I have yet to have success with low quality troops.  Even my high quality troops preformed poorly on this outing.  My Elite Elf Archer couldn't hit anything, and my brave Dragonman was knocked down with the first blow he received; and on the following turn was dispatched Gruesomely, causing many of my forces' survivors, who had rushed forward to help the Dragonman, to recoil backwards a move or two.

My Dragonman falls, as the rest of my force tries to move up to help him.  In the lower left of the photo, my Elf Sneak has taken position to charge out at an opportune moment. A moment which never comes.

   It wasn't long before I was worn down to below half; as the dice were unkind and I could not get any coordinated attack put together.  With Rob's forces well entrenched in the walled Place of Power, at this point we called it a game.
  Another good gaming day, and a nice victory for each of us.  We both still struggle to find the correct way to use low Quality troops to advantage.  Hopefully we can have a rematch soon.

Song of Blades and Heroes: Bones Battle Report

This past Saturday I went to Rob Dean's house for a couple games of "Song and Blades and Heroes". Rob and I decided to hold these game days using SoBaH to give us an opportunity to use our newly painted Bones figures. Like me, he bought into the first Reaper Kickstarter, and has been busy working on painting the figures from it.  He has also purchased and painted a number of Reaper's non-Kickstarter Bones figures as well.
  Rob set up a nice looking table with some sort of ancient stone heads guarding a hilltop.  Perhaps some ancient burial ground I was guarding from treasure hunters?
     For our first game I decided to build a warband around some of my newly painted translucents.    So I decided on a force consisting of: 1 Spectre, 1 Ghost, 2 Superior Skeleton Archers, 1 Skeleton Warrior, 1 Superior Skeleton Warrior (I used the Lionman skeleton stats from the rulebook), and 1 Fire Elemental.   This gave me a group of rather mediocre troops, most having a Combat score of 2, and Qualities of 3+ and 4+.  My best weapons were the Spectre with its Terror attribute and the Fire Elemental with it's 4+ Combat score, and short range shoot.
  Rob chose a warband of assorted Human fighters, archers and a Magic User.  He had one figure with the Leader ability in the mix, who effectively brought his warband's Quality down to a 2+ (Lower Quality is better in SoBaH).

Team Undead: Spectre, Ghost, a pair of Superior Skeleton Archers, a Skeleton Warrior, a Superior Skeleton Warrior, and a Fire Elemental

   It didn't help things that I badly mishandled the warband from the get go.  The Ghost proved to be useless with a Quality 4+ and a Combat of only 1.  It seldom activated, and lingered about waiting to pile on to another combat, which never happened.  I really didn't know what to do with the Spectre  either, with it's Combat score of 2+.  It wasn't until halfway through the game that I realized the way I should be using it was to pin an enemy with one of my other units, and then charge it with the Spectre; thus forcing it to take a morale check (because of the Spectre's Terror attribute) and possibly causing it to flee from combat giving the figure it was fighting a free, and lethal, hack.

Rob advances his troops. 

   The Fire Elemental I sent on a foolish flank march to get at Rob's wizard, but the hill slowed it down to a point where it had hardly got halfway across before the rest of my force had been decimated...which is what happened.  While my Spectre and Ghost flounced around being ineffective with their Quality 4+ activations, Rob was able to efficiently start taking out my skeletons with melee attacks. When I did try to get my Spectre into combat it rolled miserably and lost the fight, falling to the ground.  At which point it was swarmed and dispatched by the enemy.  In a matter of a few turns I was reduced to below half strength, and we called it a game.

My Spectre's big chance.  It knocks the enemy down, but subsequently has such poor activation rolls that the enemy is able to stand up and knock it down in return before it can react.

Next up, I had prepared an Orc and Goblin warband.  I was able to paint the Goblins up quick after the Spirit figure this past week, as the Spirit didn't take that long, and I will feature them in an article on Monday. Rob reused his warband of Humans, and who could blame him after their great success in the first game.  So this time I was tasked with defended the great Orc holy stone head alter from Human interlopers.
  This will be a short report, as I must say up front, I do not think I have ever had a game go bad for me so quickly.

Team Orc: (Back row) Orc Warchief, 3 Savage Orcs, 1 Superior Orc Archer, (front row) Goblin Elite Archer, 2 Goblin Warriors, and 2 Spider Swarms (I used the centipede swarm stats from the rulebook) 

The Orcs, like my previous warband, suffered from less than average Quality of 4+. I had learned enough from Rob's last outing with Orcs (See: Bones Battle Report ) to include a figure with the Leader attribute to effectively bring my Quality down to 3+ .
     So, on my first turn, I get about half of my stuff activated including an Orc Spearman who is pointed up as a Savage Orc.  He gets two successful activation rolls and races forward.  After my second mixed result activation, the Spearman is about a move out front, with everyone else following up at various stages.

The beginning of the end:  the Orc Spearman goes charging forth.

At this point, two of Rob's fighters who have also been racing forward, reach him.   With their better Quality, they roll and get 3 activations each, so they still have the ability to strike the spear-wielding Orc when they get to him.  The first one knocks him down, and the second manages to inflict a Gruesome Death on the poor Spear Orc.  About 5 of my figures are in range to see this and must test morale.  Since most have hardly got two moves onto the table, when they fail their morale they are close enough that the rout carries them off the edge.  So, four end up running off the table.  This immediately reduced my strength from the 10 models I started with down to 5 remaining by the third turn.  Rob, easily enough, gets one more kill on me by plugging my archer with an arrow, which drops me below 50% strength. In the ensuing morale check, everyone else, but the swarms, run away.  

The end.  The spear Orc meets a Grusome Death as his clanmates look on in horror, possibly wetting themselves and crying like babies, before running off the table.

  So, it was not a good day for my warbands.  Rob and I discussed afterwards that we really need to figure out a way to make lower Quality and high quantity warbands work; since in the games we have played so far, the warbands that have the superior Quality always win.  I look forward to our next rematch.

To read an account of the battles from the other side of the table, visit Rob's blog: The Sharp End of the Brush

Bones Battle Report: SoBaH

My friend, Rob Dean, (who also bought into the first Reaper Bones Kickstarter), and I, have been plotting for a while now to get together for a game; to actually put some of our Bones on the table and play with them.  Rob had suggested "Song of Blades and Heroes" (SoBaH), a set of Fantasy skirmish rules he owned, that he had only played once before.  We finally made a date for this past Saturday, and we met at his house for a couple games of SoBaH. He lent me his copy of the rules to read the week before, and I prepared a pair of 300 point warbands to use: an Elf one, and a Medusa and Skeleton minions one.
   For the first game, I chose my Elf warband because it was small and had only a few Special Abilities. I figured it would be easy to handle for my first outing with the rules. Rob chose a warband consisting of 9 Orcs and an accompanying Troll.

Team Elf:  Sneak, Commander, Elite Archer, and Elite Archer

My Warband consisted of an Elf Commander, two Elite Elf Archers, and an Elf Sneak.    We played on a card table using some of Rob's beautiful terrain and two paper building groupings he had recently constructed.  Since he had set up the table before I arrived, I took the role of attacker, and chose which side I wished to enter from.

A look at the table as Rob moves one of his orcs.

 From the first turn, we immediately saw the difference in our two groups, and how important the Quality numbers were.  My Elves, with a Quality 2+, only lost their activation on a roll of two 1's on two d6,the bulk of Robs figures however had a Quality of 4+ which meant that they would be failing on rolls of 3 or less.  Both of us forgot the Free Move rule on the first couple turns, so Rob's figures entered rather strung out, and hesitantly.  My high quality Elves on the other hand, wasted no time dashing on to the field.  I was eager to take advantage of the disorganized enemy, and rushed my Sneak forward into a clump of woods on my right to try and Ambush the approaching Troll, and perhaps knock him down in time for my Commander to reach him.  Ah, the best laid plans..... On the next turn, my Sneak (Combat  3) burst froth from the woods, and ambushed the shocked Troll (Combat 4) . She only got two of her three activation dice, so was unable to do a Power Blow.   We each eagerly rattled the first dice of the game, and threw....   Troll : 6,  Sneak : 1 = dead Sneak. Oh, well, it might of worked.

A stunningly bad, turn-ending, activation roll by "Red" the archer.  She also managed to break her bow string in both games.  This is how a figure gets a reputation.   She is a new Bones I painted up quickly Friday, to use in the game, as I needed a second Elf archer to complete my Warband.  Look for her painting guide article soon.  

Afterwards, my Commander rushed forth to engage the Troll, as my two Archers took up position on some nearby rocks to lend support.  The Commander performed valiantly, wounding the troll, and dispatching several orcs that ran up to aid it.  The Archers, likewise did their job of picking off stray orcs, and helping the Commander when ever he got a Recoil or a Fall.   In the end, with the troll wounded and several of the orcs fleeing the table when they hit the +50% casualty point and had to roll morale, the Elves were declared the winner.  The quality of the Elves won, as the Orcs were just never able to get any coordinated effort put together.  We both learned the importance in future Warbands of having someone with the Leader quality present if you have a lot of over 3+ Quality members in your party.

Another view of the battle, near the end.  The Commander is surrounded by dead orcs, and bow-less "Red" runs down the rocks to knife an orc archer that has fallen from one of her mate "Green's" arrows.  

We had time to squeeze in  a second game; so for this I switched over to my Medusa and Skeleton minions Warbands, and Rob switched to a slightly illegal (too many points of Personality figures) All-Human Warband.  He borrowed "Red" the archer to pose as a human archer to complete his line up.  We rotated the table 90 degrees so we each had a different side to enter on.

Team Medusa:  Skeleton  w/Hand Weapon, two Superior Skeletal Archers, Medusa herself, the second Skeleton w/Hand Weapon  and two Skeletons with Spears (I used the "Lionman Skeleton" stats from the rulebook to make them a little tougher than the basic swordsmen).

   To begin the game, I sent Medusa and her two skeleton archers and one spearman to the rocks occupied by my Elves in the previous game, while the other spearman and the two swordsmen went on a flanking march.  Things seemed to really be going my way as on my first turn of shooting, Medusa's Poison  and Shooting abilities, and a good roll from one of the Skeleton Archers dropped two of Rob's figures in the third turn.

Medusa and her Archer's take aim, as the Spearman stands guard at the base of the rocks.  Two enemy lay dead in the distance from their arrows...the only two they'd hit all day.

On the other flank things weren't going as well.  My warriors moved to engage the Human Magic User, only for one of them to get transfixed, as the Human's Steel Golem came trundling around the corner.  His metal might made short work of the trapped skeleton, and he moved on to engage the rest, as a couple of the Human warriors came to assist him.  Meanwhile, Medusa had lost her aim, and she and her minion archers were unable to hit anything else for the remainder of the game.  "Red" however, as I mentioned before, did manage to snap her second bowstring of the day.  As the Human Fighters and Golem made bone dust  of the flank attack, I quickly reached +50% casualties, so we called it a game, as it was getting to be time we both had to head to other engagements.

An aerial view of the battle.  On the right, the first skeleton stands transfixed on his white poker chip , as the Wizard shouts, "Kill, Rusty, kill!" to the Golem behind him.

  So not a bad first outing for my Bones.  And I really enjoyed my first exposure to the rules.  I can see there are lots of nuances to be explored.  Most of all, the games succeeded in giving me more impetus to paint my Bones to have more Warband options.
  For a look at the games from Rob's viewpoint, see his excellent blog: The Sharp End of the Brush