Iron and Honor - 1 and a bit turn AAR

[pauld]

My obsessive rule collecting sees me owning a vast number of games I purchase (mostly in pdf format) or download for free from kind folk who offer their work gratis   ...   most of these I read (and enjoy doing so enormously - my tablet is full of the beasties) but few, alas, get played.

However, Iron and Honor caught my interest as it looked to allow solo play quite easily with a randomized activation  where different coloured dice are allocated to each warband (one per model) and drawn ala Bolt Action but then thrown to see how many actions a critter can take in it's turn.  Simple and neat.  A bit of chaos is a good thing.

Shooting and smacking others about is just as simple, throw 2d6 (3 if you can allocate enough actions) - add a combat skill and a few modifiers if merited and compare to a defence of 2d6 plus a defence skill (again with some simple modifiers like +1 for a shield).  Beating the defence causes a wound but doubling causes 2 wounds and 2 or more sixes in an attacker's throw whether victorious or not causes a stun.

There are a few traits to add flavour but all in all simple enough to flow nicely without bogging down.  Just what a skirmish should be.

What does it play like?  Funny you should ask that ... read on to see a bit of play from a solo game and I will end with my impressions

Scenario

Glowin and his band were on the way back from some some rock breaking in a neighboring stronghold when Bill the Pony developed a limp and slowed the group to a pace even a short-bothered dwarf found embarrassing.  

Twilight had fallen and if they didn't get back home soon it would be last orders in the The Furtive Ferret and no ale for them that night

They have to get off the opposite edge (with Bill and the wagon load of interesting rocks intact) before the end of turn six or go to bed sober - a crushing defeat for any self respecting Son of the Mountains.

To make matters worse, the smell of Bill has bought a band of Orcs and Gobbos out into the failing light - dwarves to bash and horseflesh to eat.  A greenskin dream.

Table Set Up

Where the stunties started and finished was obvious but as I was playing solo a random set up was decided by throwing a d8 for which tile saw which group.  The Orc Boss and a group of stikkas lurked in the woods close to the dwarf starting tile with the Orc Champion running along behind.  The goblin shootas were heading straight down the road and a couple of goblins shouted insults from the woods in front of the dwarf musketmen.


And so it begins ...

The first dice out of the cup is blue and I give it to the nearest dwarf musket as he has just about had enough of the goblin in front lifting his robes and mooning green (mostly) shrivelled buttocks.  A score of 4 sees him given 2 actions.

Simple choice - 1 action to aim (gives a +1 bonus which with his +1 Marksman trait and +1 for short range with a black powder weapon makes +3 in total).  Lick the finger, wet the sight and pull the trigger.  BOOM!  a cloud of white smoke engulfs him and a the stone ball flies off into the light woods and hits the goblin where the sun don't shine.  That'll teach him some manners ... and leave a nasty wound too.

To explain:  both threw 2d6
                  the dwarf added +3
                  the goblin added +2 for the cover of the light woods
                  and the dwarf total was more so it caused 1 wound (a follower has 2 wounds in total)

so you get the idea  ..  here are some more snaps from the action

The Dwarves set off


Dwarf Shoots on first action


The shootas get ready to run down the road and into range


A hopped up gobbo knows no fear (or maybe the wound just made him mad)


and lashes out to slice short man flesh - waaagh!


Meanwhile, Glowin and the Orc Boss with an ally apiece trade blows


The Troll Slayer falls - outnumbered and bleeding from multiple wounds


CARNAGE - the dead salute you!


One and a half turns saw the dwarves rocked back on their heels - I will continue the game tomorrow

What did I think?

Pretty good.  Simple and fun and very solo friendly.

There are more layers too - Fate where a pool of counters can be spent each turn to re-roll or steal initiative, more actions like run, charge, break away, furious attack, full defence, shake off a stun and simple magic also.

I could have used Fate a little more as it is replenished for each turn but the re-rolls I did do didn't change any effects so they are nice but not over-powering and can sometimes be counter fated (if you see what I mean)

I like these rules.  They are free (which is a great price) and better than SOBH in my opinion which is another quick skirmish game using whatever minis you have.  Recommended.

You can get them here if interested

http://redturbanpress.com/

[commissarmoody]

Pretty cool. I enjoyed the read and would like to see more.

[DeafNala]

I'm not much of a Gamer anymore, but that does look SPLENDID...GREAT LOOKING miniatures & terrain. That is the way gaming should be done!