SBH with SDS factors

John and I tried out SBH with two warbands that were mostly Q4/C2. It played very differently. In particular, gruesome kills were much more common, as factors were lower, and caused more panic, because quality was also lower. My warband was:

Gordon (Leader) Q3/C3 [60 Points]
Leader

Duncan (Magic User) Q3/C1 [40 Points]
Magic User

Gavin (Standard Bearer) Q4/C3 [29 Points
Shieldwall, Standard Bearer, Steadfast

Brian and Calum (Archers) Q4/C2 [2x30 Points]
Shooter (L), Forester

Donald, Fergus, Malcolm, Douglas and Alistair (Warriors) Q4/C2 [5x17 Points]
Shieldwall

Angus and Dougal (Dogs) Q5/C1 [2x13 Points]
Animal, Long Move, Dashing, Greedy

John’s warband also had 12 figures. I had a wizard and two archers; John had three archers. I had a block of five warriors that had the Shieldwall skill, while some of John’s warband had heavy armour. I lost a third of my force to two gruesome hits from shooting (I rolled two 1′s to aimed shots). For the first, I rallied to the standard; for the second my two Q5 dogs scarpered. I was very relieved when my wizard managed to transfix an archer that one of my own archers then shot. At this point it should have triggered a morale test, but the rules don’t make it clear that a doubled transfixed figure is the same as a doubled fallen one. As the two types aren’t identical we decided not to do the test. Things didn’t get much better for me, but my wizard was lucky enough to transfix another figure that an archer did the honours on. Again it was doubled, but we didn’t have a morale test.

John was beginning to make his numbers tell when my leader made a silly attack and was surrounded and killed. Two didn’t run, the steadfast standard-bearer and a warrior next to him, clearly inspired by his example. I decided to fight on, and the standard-bearer succeeded in gruesomely killingly one of the opponent’s dogs. This caused them to rally to the flag, but after that, disgusted at this gratuitous violence to animals, no mercy was shown and the last two of my warband were cut down.

It was a fun battle and had my two shootings caused morale checks, it might have been closer. However, it seems that gruesome kills may be too frequent when low quality warbands are used. Neither of our warbands were ‘shooter’ ones, yet shooting had a disproportionate effect and the fight was largely decided by a quarter of our warbands that had ranged attacks. Otherwise, the average Q4 made for a more interesting game, as turnovers were more common and getting three activations for a figure was chancier and rarer. The warband was even more concerned to cluster round the leader than normal!

I note that for Song of Drums and Shakos (SDS), a gruesome kill is classed as an outright kill (in contrast to an incapacitating wound), and only ‘Green’ figures are affected by seeing one. Something similar might be needed if the average combat factor for SBH was lowered. However, as it is, Gruesome hits are a key element in bringing about a victory, so it’d be a shame to see be marginalized like this.

Anyway, I’m keen to do more SBH, as is John and I’m preparing to get a 28mm warband for a series of Dark Age games at the Auckland Wargames Club. Doubtless the range of plastic Dark Age figures will increase very quickly, but it’s not quite there yet. I’ll just have to go for Vikings and call them Hebrideans or Islemen!

Vanilla and Dwarves (an SBH encounter)

Steve and I got a game of SBH last week. It was Steve’s first pretty much (there was one over two years ago) and my first for a year. I have the feeling that playing with warbands that have high factors makes for a less interesting game and also limits the potential for development: before the system breaks down one can’t go below Quality 2+ (the lowest possible) or Combat 5. If you start with Q3/C4 there’s not much room to improve. I noticed that SDS (Song of Drums and Shakos) goes for much more humdrum line figures Q4/C2. I’m working to set a lower baseline to see how things play. Therefore I scaled back the factors of my dwarven warband, making only Beli and his lieutenant C4 and the rest C3. They were up against a warband of Scots led by Duncan, none of whom had factors above C3 or below Q3. I took the dwarves and we faced off in an encounter.

Beli's band approach the humans.

The humans up close. Duncan on the left and his warriors on the right. At the back is a wizard, the standard-bearer and an archer.

The dwarves; on the left are the two crossbow shooters and their dog, on the right is a cluster of fighters.

The dwarves gained an impressive victory when Steve rolled a run of 1s at the start. Although he killed a couple, he was so out-numbered after the bad start he never had a chance. In hindsight I think he might have found the dwarves easier. The magic user was never able to do much, and he got a little spread out at the start. The slower move of the dwarves makes for more cautious movement and their crossbows are simpler to use.

One memorable incident was when the dwarven dog, Gifr, went after a fallen Scot and killed him. He fell to worrying the corpse (he’s Greedy), but was untroubled by a longbow shaft that by rights had every likelihood of killing him.

I’m keen to get a few more games soon, and to try even lower stats, particularly higher (i.e worse) Quality factors.

Goblins and horses

Last Thursday I got over to John’s again for some SBH. I’d based quite a few figures over the previous weekend and worked out a number of warbands: goblins, a vampire and his minions and an angry mob. I’d also reworked my two Byzantine warbands and created one of ‘average’ figures: none with factors better than 3.

In preparation for these encounters John had reworked his warband of knights, making them all slow to reflect their armour, dropping one of them and reintroducing his two archers. I decided to face them with the goblins, who consisted of quite a horde:

1 Hobgoblin Boss Q3/C4 [42 points]
Evil, Savage, Greedy

1 Large Goblin Shaman Q3/C1 [40 points]
Evil, Magic User

2 Hobgoblin Overseers Q3/C2 [28 points]
Evil, Overseer, Greedy, Coward

3 Hobgoblin Warriors Q4/C3 [24 points]
Evil, Greedy, Gregarious

1 Large Goblin Standard bearer Q4/C2 [17 points]
Evil, Greedy, Gregarious

12 Lesser Goblins Q4/C1 [6 points]
Greedy, Gregarious, Coward

Overseers were treated as similar to Beastmasters, but only able to affect figures of lower points than them of a related race. This allowed them to affect the Warriors, the Standard Bearer and the lesser goblins, but not the Shaman or the Boss.

We used the terrain placement rules from SDS, which led to  quite a lot of terrain on my side of the board, as I was the defender. I deployed with three groups of a warrior surrounded by four lesser goblins, each the maximum for a group move. Behind these were the two Overseers, and the rest of the warband. As we advanced I found one knot of goblins ended up separated from each other when they tried to move without an order and one of them failed an activation. Very quickly Woodsman Wayne got within range and started popping of lesser goblins, fortunately without any gruesome kills. Nervous about the effect of such a kill I hurried to get the goblins into contact, but was betrayed by dice and repeatedly had only two actions for the two groups (even though as gregarious in range of a leader they were 2+. This stopped me from actually hitting any of the knights and only meant I was in range for them to hit me. It wasn’t long before the goblins had to make a morale check and started to scatter.

Woodsman Wayne shoots his first goblin. The two clusters of goblins can be seen advancing. The boss and standard bearer are close behind, while the overseers keep a safer distance from the from line. One group is stranded on the base line, as is the shaman, whose failure to activate had prematurely ended the turn!

Luckily they could regroup on the standard, but they were not making progress and the attrition on the lesser goblins was growing. I had one point where I surrounded one knight and killed him, but when I tried to get the boss to move into contact with a neighbouring knight, the useless slug managed only one action. In fact, he never used his weapon in the whole fight, as after that turn a knight inflicted another gruesome kill and it was all over, as the goblins scattered in all directions, with another morale check as they went under 50%.

The casualties start to mount as the goblins regroup after the first morale check.

This was an interesting encounter as we saw how dross performed. I’d had high hopes of a group of five goblins descending on a figure, surrounding it and causing a gruesome kill, but things didn’t go so smoothly. I often only got a pushback or fall and then didn’t have someone to exploit it. Also three mobs proved too unwieldy with only two overseers, and against quality troops the shaman would have been lucky to transfix anyone (he only got to try once). I’d not been expecting the archers, who proved very discomforting (I should have put the wood in the way of them! Next time a little less dross and perhaps some shooters might help. And of course better dice!

One aspect of the rules we were unsure of was fleeing near evil leaders. Can the fleeing figure move to avoid the evil leader or must it head past it if that is the most direct route? We played that they could seek to avoid the leader.

The next encounter was using the Byzantines again, and we decided to use all of them to make a warband of 500 points:

Isaac (Leader) Q3/C3 [100 Points]
Leader, Long Move, Mounted, Shooter (M)

George and John (Kavallarioi) Q3/C3 [2x68 Points)
Long Move, Mounted, Dashing

Alexius and Michael (Turkopouloi) Q3/C3 [2x70 Points]
Long Move, Mounted, Shooter (M)

Attila and Arpad (Pechenegs) Q3/C2 (1/3) [2x64 Points]
Long Move, Mounted, Shooter (M), Sharpshooter, Greedy

They faced a group of Scots, led by Gordon:

Gordon (Leader) Q3/C3 [60 Points]
Leader (Gordon)

Duncan (Magic User) Q3/C1 [40 Points]
Magic User

Brian and Derek (Archers) Q3/C3 [44 Points]
Shooter (L)

Philip (Knight) Q3/C3 [68 Points)
Long Move, Mounted, Dashing

Malcolm, Donald and Fergus (Warriors) Q3/C3 [3x30 Points]

Gavin (Standard Bearer) Q3/C3 (2) [30 Points]
Standard Bearer

Angus, Rex and Lucky (Dog) Q3/C2 [3x40 Points]
Animal, Long Move, Dashing

This was on an open field, apart from a wood and a piece of rough in one corner. I got off to a terrible start, having moves end prematurely about three times in a row. At one point Isaac was stranded from the rest of the group due to a complete failure to activate and surrounded by dogs by whom he was lucky not to be torn to pieces. Gradually, after much loud lamentation and complaints the dice started to behave, and I abandoned group moves, though almost always rolling 3 dice, which did, however, allow me to leave the leader till last.

Gordon leads his men into the rough, while Isaac tries to circle around them.

In the middle of the game my two Pechenegs were soon killed, by shooting. An attempt to attack a shooter by charging and then retiring only got a push back (of which, in fact, there were an unusually high proportion in this game). After that I concentrated on the rest of the warband, killing Philip with some aimed archery and one of the warriors with a charge. I got a lucky break when Gordon failed an activation roll leaving himself in the middle of the field on his way to reinforce the fight as he advanced from the patch of rough. Quick as a flash Isaac fell on him and killed him. The Scots fell pack on their standard (Gavin’s horn), but without a leader their efforts were hampered. Soon they were down to only three after another morale check (though they did manage to use a dog attack on George when he fell to good effect). At this point these three were scattered and I was about to ask if John wanted to concede; however, one of the remaining figures, the archer Brian, had passed in his flight quite near Isaac, and took an aimed shot that toppled him. With that single arrow the tables were turned and the remaining Byzantines scattered, giving a narrow victory to the Scots.

This was an interesting game, in which I was sure at the start I was going to get slaughtered, as I couldn’t get any actions going. The mounted proved useful in their mobility, but vulnerable to archery, and I would have been wise to concentrate on the archers, although that would have taken me into the heart of his warband, so I ended up fighting the warriors that came at me. The Pechenegs were particularly vulnerable, and really needed to be sheltered.

Another tactic might have been to attack his dogs and seek to scatter them with a gruesome kill, though they were out of range of the rest of their warband, so this would not have affected the rest of his warband, and I was kept occupied with closer enemies.

Although this warband did fairly well, it is fragile, as none of the figures are cheap; This makes it hard to have any back-line troops, such as a standard bearer, even though one is really needed, as their long move in flight is game-ending. I suspect a balance of foot and mounted might work better, but that really requires a larger warband. I also didn’t get to use the move-hit/shoot-retire tactic very much or to any great effect.

Mounted encounters (SBH)

Last Thursday I took my two mounted warbands around to John’s to see how they performed. He had rejigged his warband, demoting Sir Cumference and recruiting 6 more knights, all dismounted. They had very regular stats: almost all of them were Q3/C4, except for the standard bearer.

The first encounter was with Isaac’s squadron. I charged into his group and caused a gruesome kill, but he rallied to the flag only metres behind where I’d attacked. In his turn he cut my mounted to pieces, and it was game over in no time. My squadron did not have very high qualities and they really needed to attack and retire in the same turn, which would need 3 actions each. It was a very quick encounter in which the standard proved vital. Also the size of the battlefield worked against my mounted, who fled off the board in two moves (if they failed their morale twice)!

The second encounter was shaping up for a great group firing on one of John’s warband when my leader had a critical failure, and it was John’s turn. He charged into contact and cut me to pieces without a loss! My two Pechenegs went very quickly, as you’d expect when they’re sharpshooters. I never even got to fire!

Well played to John, who in both games kept his warband together and moved in effectively. We probably could have played another game (or two), but instead we talked and I planned a dross warband, of Goblins. This weekend I based them, scavenging two hordes from the HOTT army and the two warband elements. I had some unbased archers, so now I have some 13 small goblins, three archers, two overseers, a leader, a standard-bearer, a musician (witch-doctor?) and three warriors. I’m working on a warband for them which should be interesting, as I’m making the small goblins C1, but gregarious. They should be able act well, but stand to be slaughtered in the opponent’s turn.

I discovered that 15mm diameter bases were too small for regular figures, but good for goblins and dwarves, and I now have quite a stack of figures for SBH, as I decided to turn a medieval human horde for DBA into SBH figures. John was talking of taking some really crap figures as ballast, so that it would be harder to get the warband to 50% casualties (provided the dross stayed out of range of any gruesome kills!). Now I’ve settled on 18mm washers for the human foot, I’m ready to tidy up the bases, which makes a big difference in getting a disparate collection of figures look like they belong together (many of them were samples).

While we get familiar with the rules we’re likely to stay with 300 point warbands, but my assessment of mounted after these two encounters is that they’re too expensive to use easily on their own; however, one, or perhaps two, might work as support to some solid foot. Mounted leaders, in particular, are too expensive to work well in a 300 point warband. Still, perhaps I should try again; I did have some bad luck! Certainly, I’d rejig the shooty warband to give them long range shooting, as otherwise they really risk getting cut up by the enemy too easily. Alternatively, I need ones with higher quality so they can move in, fire and retire.

• The Importance of Terrain

I should add that yesterday as I set to rebasing my SBH figures, or basing more figures for SBH, my 10 year old son and his younger friend were using the figures for a game of their own. Terrain was much in demand, and they really wanted more than the five trees that I had. They supplemented with the camps from DBA/HOTT, which added an economic element, as these became farms or supply-trains to feed their forces. I’m sure they would have been happier if I had a few buildings done or some better dungeon tiles; it’s a reminder of how important the visual aspect of the hobby is, and how much a part of that is terrain (which I’ve yet to do very well!).

Getting all Byzantine

By some sort of coincidence I’ve started to get interested in the Komnenan Byzantines for SBH and for DBA at the same time. For SBH it’s really a matter of finding some figures from an unfinished DBA army that I can pillage for SBH to try out how mounted figures work. I’d started a DBA army of Komnenan Byzantines last year, and I’ve even bought the figures, but I’ve gone off Outpost figures, and if I get this army it will be with  other figures. Anyway, I constructed a couple of SBH warbands out of the Outpost figures I’d painted:

• Alexius’ Squadron (SBH Warband)

1) Alexius (Tourkopoulos) – Personality Q3/C3 [100 Points]
Leader, Long Move, Mounted, Shooter (Medium)

2) Michael (Tourkopoulos) Q4/C3 [53 Points]
Long Move, Mounted, Shooter (Medium)

3) Attila (Pecheneg) Q4/C1(3) [45 Points]
Coward, Greedy, Long Move, Mounted, Sharpshooter, Shooter (Medium)

4) Arpad (Pecheneg) Q4/C1(3) [45 Points]
Coward, Greedy, Long Move, Mounted, Sharpshooter, Shooter (Medium)

5) Basil (Psilos) Q4/C3 [29 Points]
Shooter (Medium)

6) Andreas (Psilos) Q4/C3 [29 Points]
Shooter (Medium)

I don’t think that ‘sharpshooter’ is good value, but I wanted the two light horsemen to be good archers but weak in HTH. Their greed and cowardice is to reduce the cost, but fits with what Anna Comnena says of them on occasions, so seems well justified!

• Isaac’s Squadron (SBH Warband)

1) Isaac (Kavallaros) Q3/C3 [98 Points]
Dashing, Leader, Long Move, Mounted

2) George (Kavallaros) Q4/C3 [51 Points]
Dashing, Long Move, Mounted

3) John (Kavallaros) Q4/C3 [51 Points]
Dashing, Long Move, Mounted

4) Basil (Psilos) Q4/C3 [38 Points]
Forester, Shooter (Long)

5) Andreas (Psilos) Q4/C3 [38 Points]
Forester, Shooter (Long)

6) Argus (War dog) Q4/C1 [24 Points]
Animal, Dashing, Forester, Greedy, Long Move

This squadron seems stronger to me with better foot, who are good in woods and have more range (and a dog!) and with mounted that have good combat factors on contact. I’ll be interested to see how the two warbands play tomorrow when I try them out against John. The two archers are mounted on 15mm washers, smaller than the 18mm washers I used for the Dwarves; they seem almost too small, particularly against the cavalry, who are on 25mm disks.

Byzantines for SBH: (from left to right) Atilla and Arpad (Pechenegs, John, George and Isaac (Kavallarioi) and Alexius and Michael (Turcopouloi).

Basil and Andreas (not shown is their dog Argus—it's Gifr from last week).

So much for SBH, by coincidence I started to think about an army for the IWC competition in Welllington next year. It is a two day competition with an Ancients day (armies up to AD 450) and a Medieval day. I’m pretty settled with fielding the Carthaginians on the first day (assuming I can start winning with them!), but I’m unsure who to take on the second day. It needs to be an army I like, but it also has to be reaonably competitive (most of my Dark Age armies like the Welsh wouldn’t do!). In particular it has to be able to face elephants and knights. I’m thinking of the Komnenans, who probably have the mobility to handle knights (if I learn how to use 3Cv and 2LH!) as well as some 4Bw, and the 2Ps and 3Ax could probably handle elephants (and the greater mobility could outmanoeuvre them—in theory).

The Komnenans (IV/1a) tick the most important box: for some reason I like them; I’m not sure why I should be attracted to the mottley army of an empire in decline; but it occurs to me they share with the Carthaginians a large number of Mercenaries, so there’s a theme there!

Another choice is the Samanids (III/43c). I think these figures look lovely. It’s also actually quite similar to the Carthaginians: 3x3Cv (1=cmd), 1x2LH, 1xEl, 3x4Sp, 1x4Ax and 3x4Bw or 2Ps. If I can master the Carthaginians, I should be able to use this army too.

The obvious manufacturer for the Samanids is Khurasan Miniatures; and I reckon I could get the Komnenans there too (I’ve spoken to them, and they’d be happy to supply the Nicephoreans with kite shields; I’m only waiting for them to cast their Pechenegs). However, there is also Alain Touler, and I’ll actually be in France next month, making getting them cheaper, as well as Legio Heroica. Decisions, decisions!

The encounter in the Tall Timbers

Last night Beli’s Band met the Knights of George St. in a couple of encounters at John’s place. Despite promises, Keith never showed, so what was to be a three-way encounter was just between the two of us. There was a ‘treasure’ in the centre of the field, which was worth VP for the one that opened it. Surprisingly, despite short moves, I got there first (John had trouble with activation rolls). John also didn’t have much luck in combat, as Woodsman William was killed by Lhadr, when he was in combat with both Flakki and Bofor as well. Then Snorri and Holgar defeated Sergeant Bob, who had fallen, so his armour did not protect him in a close fight. Lhadr took on Sir Cumference ably supported by Gramr (I think Flakki or Bofor may have shot at him first); anyway, it was a gruesome sight, and the rest of Sir Cumference’s band did not stick around.

The scene of the carnage; the dwarves get massed around three corpses, while the remains of Sir Cumference's command are about to flee on their second morale check).

Gramr and Lhadr (both Greedy) prepare to despoit sir Cumference's corpse while the rest of the band look on.

Squire Robert, Woodsman Wayne, Squire Geoffrey and Squire Micheal beating a hasty retreat.

In the second encounter we sought magical treasure. The terrain was similar to the last encounter, but moved a little more centrally. We placed three corpses to indicate the possible location of the treasure. Two were in a central wood and one was atop the crag on the side. I went after the two in the wood, reaching one with Lhadr (his greed seemed to get him to these things quickly!) and one with Gifr. Both proved elusive, and it was left to Squire Geoffrey to climb the crag and find a ring (I think) of regeneration. Given he’s already tough, this seemed less useful. Anyway, he was soon shot at by the two crossbow armed dwarves and took a kip (fell and never stood) for the remainder of the encounter.

The real action was between Woodsman Wayne and most of the dwarves, who went after him with a will, but despite the numbers, couldn’t beat him. Holgar was in the thick of it, and Gramr went in to provide first support. Wayne despatched Gramr messily, causing his handler, Bofor, to retire a little, but the rest were unmoved (actually, I forgot that Holgar was not Fearless, so he didn’t take a morale check as he should have. At one stage Wayne was surrounded by Holgar, Snorri, Lhadr and Nar (he’d forced Grifr to retire (lucky dog!)); at odds of 3-1 or 4-1 he won each encounter until finally Snorri, I think, proved too much for him. Certainly, it was the last of the four combats; a very valiant fight; he was spurred on, no doubt, by the rude gibes of the dwarves, ‘Pick on someone your own size’ and so forth.

With Wayne down, Sir Cumference, who’d been trying to direct an encircling attack, found himself isolated. Beli attacked him, supported, I think, by Gifr, and he went down in a gruesome mess—again! At this point resistance collapsed, although Woodsman William was not routed, but chose to retire, as he had no support.

This was the first time we ventured into difficult terrain (because of the treasures), which was hard work for the dwarves, and created command and control issues for the leaders.

• Review:

The dwarves proved a tough warband (though good dice helped them); the short move was not much of a problem, as their warriors had high qualities and could usually make two moves. The high combat scores made them pretty tough as well. The dogs did well, though they didn’t succeed in killing anyone while he was down (they got at least one attack like this). They did get to add numbers to others’ attacks, though they are very vulnerable if the enemy gets to hit back.

This is a fun warband and I’m keen to use it again, though next week I’ll probably try out a mounted one to see how it works. I’ve got a few Byzantines I’ll use for this. John, after having Sir Cumference die horribly in each encounter, is planning to revamp his warband’s stats. Wayne’s valiant performance has got him thinking of a promotion (assuming the dwarves gave him a restorative brandy and bandaged his wounds).

We’ve now played three games of SBH and are starting to get the hang of the rules. What slows us down is the search for clarification in the FAQ that are scattered around the rules and the Free Hacks. Anyway, we’re getting faster and starting to see different tactics.

Beli’s Band, a SBH Warband

I’ve made a SBH warband out of the three elements of dwarves that I’d got done for HOTT. I’d like to get a HOTT dwarf army done, but I reckon I won’t have much time for painting in the next while as I get ready for a trip to Europe. I’ve spent a bit of time naming and describing the figures in this warband, and I’ve even made cards for them, a novelty that might wear off:

The figures are all 15mm Chariot apart from the dogs which are Peter Pig (Gifr) and Irregular (Gramr). The cards were prepared using CCG Maker, which is fairly flaky to be honest. The novelty of it may wear off. I should get to try this warband out tomorrow with John and Keith.

The fight at Craggy Pass (a SBH encounter)

Tonight I had a game of Song of Blades and Heroes with John. It’s is a very elegantly designed game that I’ve wanted to play for a while, but not found any opponents. It uses the combat engine of DBA with an interesting method of ‘activating’ your figures. Each figure has two stats, quality (how easily they activate) and a combat factor. In addition the figure may have a number of special ability. It is the basic simplicity of the two factors and the ability to create many different fighters using these special abilities that makes the ruleset so elegant.

We picked two simple warbands and had a random encounter, which proved to be an ‘all-out battle’. I was the defender and we laid out two steep hills on two sides of the board and two small woods near them. This formed a pass that was relatively clear. My warband, all humans, led by Eustace, was from figures taken straight from the book: a leader (3+/3), three warriors (3+/3), a light horseman (3+/2) and two archers (3+/3 and shooters (long). The only wrinkle was that the warriors and the leader had taken ‘shieldwall’. John’s warband, also all humans and led by Sir Cumfrance, was much more varied, though still 7 fighters. There were a number of 4+/4s, some ‘cowards’, a squire that was ‘tough’ but 4+/2 and Sergeant Bob, who was 3+/4 and ‘steadfast’.

Things got off to a bad start for me when one of my archers went down to a 6-1 dice roll. Having said that Sir Cumfrance repeatedly rolled critical failures for his activation—most amusing; we wondered if John had forgotten to paint a vision slit on his helmet, or like Blackadder in the very first episode, he’d forgotten to go before putting his armour on. Anyway, he was stuck on the edge of the board for quite a while. I compounded my bad start by losing another warrior to another 6-1 dice roll. However, my fighters were able to surround the squire and bash him to death (we misread the rules on ‘tough’, for a while, not realizing that a gruesome death was in fact death, not a loss of quality. I lost the cavalryman to yet another 6-1 dice roll, and I was on the verge of a morale check. I then managed to pick on another of the warband, one of the cowards, knocking him over and then doubling him on the ground, getting a ‘gruesome death’, which caused some of Sir Cumfrance’s warband to run. However, Sergeant Bob was unfazed and fairly scary. I was lucky to succeed in knocking over Sir Cumfrance and then send  in Eustace for the coup-de-grace, another gruesome death on the leader! Suddenly Sir Cumfrance’s warband melted away with a cascade of morale checks. Sergeant Bob was the last to leave, wisely deciding there was no benefit to sticking around.

It was a fun encounter; I was sure I was going nowhere fast, as I couldn’t get good odds on the likes of Bob and my archer kept rolling 1′s for shooting (though avoiding breaking his bow or using up his ammo); it was fortunate that Sir Cumfrance was not so strong; all my kills were the result of ganging up on someone and kicking him while he was down.

Both of us are keen to play the game some more, and Keith should join in next time. I’d like to use the rules in Song of Deeds and Glory for some campaigns, but we need to play a few more games first. It’s a system that I’d be tempted to get some 28mm figures for, as it probably looks a bit better in that scale, and the outlay’s not too big. In the short term, as I’m going to be pressed for time to do much painting in the coming months, I may rebase some of my HOTT figures to make a Dwarven warband. They’re not enough to do much in HOTT yet, but are plenty for SBH. If I can get over for another game next Friday, I may take some photos.