Elbows: Famine, Sword, & Fire (The Empire Strikes Back, p.7)

[Elbows]

Nothing too exciting, just a few more berserkers and a crazy lady (probably used for a hero).

[Ogrob]

Really cool project. Love the white warpaint.

[DivisMal]

Yeah, a bery cool project and the white warpaint looks really evil!

[Elbows]

Thanks.  Still absorbing what a fantastic deal the celtic chariots were from Victrix.  I got a bag for $27.  From it I built the three chariots, two bases of additional armoured infantry and have six spare heroes/characters (the lady in the picture above is one of them).  Staggering considering $27 won't even get you a single 28mm figure from some companies. 

[Dolnikan]

All these figures look absolutely amazing and I'm very curious about the development of your ruleset as well. Especially because it can be so hard to find a ruleset that's truly appealing.

And to be fair to companies that sell single figures for more then $27, those generally aren't 28mm minis anymore. But based on some recent ones more like 40mm.

[Elbows]

Had another playtest today with my buddy (and his not-Vikings).  The game took forever, but...in a good way.  We both played super cagey and "tactical" and really had a lot of analysis paralysis.   

Some thoughts below the pictures.











Thoughts:

1) Building an army is almost as fun as playing the game.  We used a random settlement table to generate the eight units we were using.  We both rolled semi-poorly and neither had any Veteran or Elite units (all Levy and Regular).  This made it very tough, allowing units to only pick one or two traits, meaning you had to really think about what you spent your training on.  We both ended up taking agents and couriers. Agents have special effects (rolled randomly) prior to the game, and couriers are expendable 'counters" (represented by a model) which allow you a guaranteed activation.  Assigning the different commanders and seeing who your general was is always fun.

2) For being a new game, the game runs super smooth and elegant, even in an absolute clusterfuck of a game.  We had maybe one or two questions I hadn't tackled when writing up the rules...so that's always encouraging.  The rules did not get in the way of the game and we both have the game down really well already.

3) There seems to be a ton of risk/reward (which leads to the analysis paralysis sometimes!) in what decisions you make.  If you charge you get a bonus...but then you may be counter-charged or flanked.  When do you spend your sprint abilities on your cavalry?  Who is best suited to fight in the woods?  Do you drop your defensive formation to move faster, or will you be caught with your pants down?  Who do you spend your couriers on?  Can you get archers in range without being at risk of being attacked by enemy missile troops or enemy cavalry?  Can you advance with your units while cavalry is galloping around your back field?  There is a ton to consider for such a "simple" game.

4) Thus far the stats, traits, etc. seem to be pretty evenly written.  There aren't many "power combos" we've stumbled into - yet.

[Elbows]

Been trying to get models off my desk..painted some more archers.




PS: Another pair of archer bases I knocked out today.

[Elbows]

Despite being buried under other projects, there is still work going on for FSF.

In order to rope in more buddies, I've added 'fantasy' options to traits, etc.  I've started building a small "evil" army (which will face off with my Dacians and other player's "good guy" armies).

A unit of ogres.


A unit of orcs (I realized I had half a box of Oathmark orcs sitting around, convenient!)


The collected bad guys with a giant I painted a little while ago.


Some pictures from a playtest game against my buddy's skeleton horde.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Loving it all mate! 👍

[Pattus Magnus]

I agree with Grumpy, the figures and game look brilliant! Just curious- how compatible would rectangular bases (40x30) be with the rules? I could see myself using my 15mm collection with them if there’s flexibility in the basing.

[Elbows]

Basing is irrelevant as long as its consistent between players, really.

A base is a base, so it doesn't matter if it's 40mm square, or the standard Hail Caesar size, etc.  As long as its consistent between forces so no one is gainng some weird modeling advantage.

We generally are doing 40mm squares for infantry and 50mm squares for cavalry, etc.  Even minor differences aren't going to make a big deal, but it would very much be player discretion.  Unit sizes are from 3-12 bases.

The speed/distance is designed around 28mm more or less, but could easily be halved or converted from inches to CM to play at a smaller scale.

[Pattus Magnus]

That’s what I was hoping to hear, thanks for the information! It sounds like a very sensible approach.

[Elbows]

Got another playtest in with my buddy - expanding on our fantasy traits and the addition of spells, etc.  I won a narrow victory in a game which went back and forth several times.

[Elbows]

Another game of FSF in the books, with some heavy revisions being performed.  Some new tokens/cards, etc.  Been doing a lot of work on the rules as we now are playing enough test games to figure some stuff out.



In addition...my desire to be able to run FSF at conventions...but not wanting to risk my Dacians has led to some more poor decisions...details to come over the next few months.

[Basementboy]

Poor decisions! No such thing!
But jokes aside, looking forward to seeing what you do with them in the next update