Trying out The Sword and the Flame

[Redshank]

Monday night gave me an opportunity to crack out some recently-acquired Parroom minis against my 1898 French Foreign Legion and have a go at The Sword and the Flame (TSatF), as part of a long-running quest for the perfect VSF/Space 1889 ruleset.

We tried the example scenario from the rulebook of a European platoon sent up a valley to scout out an old outpost. We used British stats for the FFL, and Pathan stats for the Martians - two tribal warbands and a 12-strong detachment of Tharks as cavalry.

I forgot to take many photos until near the end, when things had clearly not gone well for Les Etrangeres...



The Tharks had got in about them. Two Plains Martian tribal warbands hadn't even closed to contact yet.

The "good" news was the officer lived to fight another day...



The game flowed pretty easily once we had played a couple of turns, although our first melee caused some head-scratching and rules-flipping. We enjoyed how the rules support ambushes, and the extra flavour of kills vs wounding. Speaking for myself, I thought the rules were efficient in the way they achieved a lot of detail and flavour without piling on complexity.

The only thing that stopped us short was melee. The thing about re-matching opponents after the first round and fighting on made it extremely bloody. We might have got it wrong, or if not, I would probably add in a morale check after the first round of combats so the losing side breaks and runs.

Also we would probably use the stats from the African supplement for more primitive muskets for the Martians' firearms. We made the two warbands 50% riflemen, which left the FFL outmatched. We (I) had ignored the points system in setting up the game. It would probably have been fairer not to let the Martians have the Tharks. But Tharks are so cool that it is hard to leave them out!

Overall, we decided we would be happy to give the rules another go. I think it might be particularly good for campaign play, as there is a quasi-roleplay element of officers acquiring traits.

[Leadjunky]

The melee goes a lot faster once you know the rules well.  It leads to some dramatic last stand type finishes sometimes.

[The_Beast]

You mentioned Parroom figs, I just wondered if you ever tried Charrette's rules.

Not as a suggestion, I have only read them and The Sword and the Flame.

Doug

[Menelduir]

There was a mini, unofficial (I think) supplement for these rules that cover off on some of the Parroom figures called Sword and the red sands. Really just a few pages (maybe that covered some but not all of the Parroom stuff.