Barons' War 2nd edition

[SteveBurt]

Having now read through the first edition, it sounds like many of the changes are removing fiddly stuff, like shock, and the 10 criticals with dice having to be set aside. Nice ideas, but this sort of thing slows down play for not much gain. The big thing is having profiles always the same and making weapons change things, rather than changing profiles.
I hope the scenario setup rules have changed, because the ones in first edition seem a little mad.

[Dice Roller]

Not sure what you by 'scenario set up rules' but the whole scenario section in 2ed is exactly the same as 1ed. Sorry.
I always thought the scenarios section was one of the strongest. There are what, about 13 scenarios with about another 13 different deployment options. That makes for a great variety.
Having now played a few games if 2ed I can say that it is a much tighter, less sloppy, version. It's what 1ed should have been from the start.
However, the two editions are not compatible. Essentially the same mechanics but a lot of the abilities, and the most common ones at that, have substantially changed or been completely re-written, meaning the two editions can't work together.
It is now an excellent game.

[SteveBurt]

My point about the scenario setup is that there are scenarios and deployment patterns, completely independent of each other. Some deployments are not going to work with some scenarios. It would be better if each scenario came with a list of suggested deployment patterns.

[Hoblyman]

How does this game play with just knights and serjeant, no peasants?

[Dice Roller]

Absolutely fine.

The rules state that a retinue must have at least 10% of its number made up of 'green' troops.
However, as long as both sides are in agreement, then that can be ignored.

[Cat]

Ditto that "fine".
 
Just for thematic reasons, I'm going with green spear troops for the 10% requirement.  The peasant levy seems OK for the defending player, but rather unlikely to bring along for a force that's out raiding.  But anybody is likely to have some new mooks with spears.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

A friend of mine's curious about these rules and I was barely of any help with my "was taken through a demo game at a show last year" experience. Have you guys played the second edition rules a fair bit yet?