Songs of Blades Heroes AAR (no pics - sorry)

[keeper]

I purchased Songs of Blades and Heroes earlier this week, and we had a game last night using some of the Ceaser plastic 1/72 fantasy minis.  I didn't take pics, as everyone's minis are only half-painted, anyway, but they should be better next time, so hopefully there will be some photos!

I am pretty impressed with the rules and we'll definately be using them again!

We had a three-way battle with 300 pts each of Dwarves (me), Elves (Tom M) and Undead (Peter).

Peter set his undead up in a "village" in the middle of one table edge, and Tom's Elves and my Dwarves landed our boats in the two opposite corners. The boats are from Shifting Lands and work really well with the 1/72 scale figures.  A few hills surrounded the village, and there were dense woods projecting the from the middle of the other three table edges. A few scattered trees finished off the terrain.

Despite starting first, my Dwarves got off to a stuttering start with a series of bad initiative rolls in the first few turns, combined with their short legs, meaning it took a long time for them to close with either opponent.

In the mean time, Peter's skeletons set up quite a nice line of defence in front of the village as the Elves bounded in and attacked. The Elvish Archer's shooting was pretty much useless against skeletons, as you might expect, but as they closed into HTH, some pretty brutal, dynamic fighting broke out before a couple of gruesome kills finally dispersed the undead.

By the end of this fight, the Dwarves had managed to fire a couple of ineffective shots at the Elves with their crossbowmen, and once in position to assault, there were only Elves left. Another, shorter bout of intense HTH fighting started, with the Elves suddenly finding a much sturdier opponent than skeletons!

However, a further gruesome kill by the Elves after a couple of rounds of fighting, which also took the dwarves down to 50% of their original strength started the Dwarves running back to their boat and at this point I conceeded the game to Tom M   I know I really enjoyed it, and I hope the other lads did too.

If anyone else has had any experience with Songs of Blades and Heroes, I'd really welcome your opinions of the game. And next time, I hope to get some pics!

[Orctrader]

Ceaser plastic 1/72 fantasy minis... 

What "type" of plastic are these?  Hard or soft?  "Bendy" rating?  Just curious.  I often wonder how these types of figures would "paint up."

[keeper]

Soft and Bendy - although on the better end of the scale : like D&D/Star Wars/Clix/etc. soft and bendy rather than the old-school 1/72 horrors.

The detail is actually a lot better than I thought it would be when I started painting them, and they've been quite fun to paint.  I've got a work trip next week that is going to interfere with my painting time but as soon as I have some finished, I shall post some photos of them.

[Orctrader]

Thanks.  Photos are good.  (Soft and bendy...Not sure I could take the stress.)   

[keeper]

Yeah - a drawback I'm not used to hit me last night as I was painting the handle of an axe held over the dwarf's head.  Held the mini the wrong way and all of a sudden I'd got a blob of dark brown on his nicely finished hair! D'oh! 

Off on a business trip for a week, but the Dwarves were almost finished last night.  I'll take photos when I get back.

[Rich J]

I play a lot of SOBH, the post apoc version and the Napoleonic one (as well as the not released 'modern' cross genre set).

Until about 6 months ago I was a Two Hour Wargame only guy - got SOBH and didn't play it as it looked to 'simple' but eventually tried it out to see if it would suit a mates kid and also to see if I could get the guys at the club playing something (they hate the THW reaction mechanism).

What I found was a game which was so easy but very subtle - fast paced and fun. While my favourite sets of rules are still THW NUTS and 5150 I have actually found myself playin nothing but the Ganesha Games stuff -even wrote a Samurai add on for it instead of for WHAA.

The system is great - haven't found anyone who doesn't like it yet, not for games where you want lots of detail in the hit and wound system but excellent for short games and you can play a campaign in a couple of evenings etc. So cheap it is daft - the other supplements add more detail to terrain and dungeon bashing.

All in all I am amazed at the range of people who have really enjoyed playing it - once past the 'it's fantasy DBA' comments (which it isn't) people never look back!

Rich

[Sterling Moose]

Does SOBH lend itself to large scale games or is it aimed at skirmish level gaming?  Does anyone have a link to a review of the rules?  I have a whole bunch of Fantasy figures that, apart from some D&D, haven't seen the light of day since WHFB 2nd Edition.

Thanks

[keeper]

It is primarily aimed at skirmish gaming, since in the activation system you use each model in turn, meaning if you had very large warbands it would get unwieldy, and/or you'd lose initiative before all of your models could act.  So far we've plyed it successfully with up to 12 models each, but I think it might work with up to 20 at most - although I do want to try a "hoard of zombies" warband, which would have about 35 models in it

Reviews:
http://home.dejazzd.com/broadsword/Feasting_Ravens/FR_SBH_PAGES/FR_SBH_Main_Page.html
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13161.phtml

And there is quite a straightforward and honest description on the SBH blog:
http://songofblades.blogspot.com/2007/07/sbh-available-for-sale.html

[Rich J]

We manage big games by having multiple leaders and activating groups instead of individuals all the time - works Ok but obviously takes longer.

Simple enough system to manage it, just have the groups of figs with the same stats and maybe a 'toughy/hero' tagging along etc - there is also a version coming out which deals with groups and larger numbers of figs - it is an ancient system but will retro fit into the fantasy set I reckon.

Rich

[grubman]

Thanks.  Photos are good.  (Soft and bendy...Not sure I could take the stress.)   

I used some of these for the war councils for my Battlelore game.  Granted I didn't take a ton of time to eavymetal paint them, but I think they painted up nicely.

[grubman]

Reviews:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13161.phtml

I think my RPGnet review is better..but I'm biased of course
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13575.phtml

[keeper]

Reviews:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13161.phtml

I think my RPGnet review is better..but I'm biased of course
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13575.phtml

Ten thousand apologies, for chosing the wrong review grubman     But I think you'll agree they are both a fair review of the game

Nice job on the adventurers set for Battlelore, though - they've come out really nicely!

I played another three games last Wednesday, but between replacing a broken toilet (god I hate plumbing!), dealing with chicken pox (anyone got small children that need infecting?) and travelling to see the outlaws I've not had chance to finish off the write-ups.  Maybe later this evening, but I'll post back here as soon as I do!

[keeper]

With apologies for the double-post, it comes as a great surprise to me that I actually did find the time this evening to finish off one of the AARs from last Wednesday!

My first game was playing as the human defenders against Peter's Undead raiding force.  Rather than repeat it here, I'll just link to my website: http://www.azaleanempire.co.uk/ and follow the link on the left to Human Defenders 1.

Your comments and feedback are most welcome!