The game is great fun. It is fast pace and easy to learn. Leon had never played it before and he had picked it up in just a few minutes. I have also played with my son who is just fifteen and not a gamer, and he picked it up very quickly too. The game is basically powered by the same rules devices as Songs of Drums and Shakos and Songs of Blades and Heroes. It is a pretty unique system where there are random turn lengths, meaning your men might not always do what you want them too, and you have to make some quite tactical thinking about how you activate your troops. Sometimes it is best to be bold and daring, and other times you need to be more cautious.
The game has lost of nice touches that make it stand apart from Songs of Drums and Shakos, and adds to the French and Indian wars feel. I think it is great for playing the small skirmished common during this war, but is probably less good for a battle between two disciplined western style forces (eg the French vs British army). For that you want Muskets and Tomahawks.
One of the best things is how simple it is to come up with an army list. Once Leon and I had rolled mission he decided he wanted to play as Indians. I hadn't written and army list for Indians but it only took a few minutes to work on out, so we could get on and play without any delay.
SoD+T id best for small forces of 8-15 figures aside, but M+T can be used for bigger skirmishes of 40-50 figures aside.
The mission generator we used if taken from the M+T book. We rolled it up then used a bit of creative planning when working out the objectives as M+T is turn based and SoD+T isn't. The M+T mission generator is particularity interesting as it generates a different mission for each side. In this mission Leon roles Slaughter and I rolled Defend, which pretty much dictated the mission and scenery. Other missions can be raids, burning down settlement, ambushes etc.
In the mission I set up three Buildings representing the Mainwaring farm. There were two women in each house. They were unarmed civilians and had no role other than to stay alive. The game was over when all the women were dead or routed off the board. The Menfolk had to be deployed in a building or within 3" of one. 1/3 of the Menfolk were also deployed off the board (they were working in the fields off the tabletop). Each time it was my turn to activate I rolled a D6 for each model off the board. If the roll was equal to or less than the turn then they would be allowed to be deployed anywhere on my table edge. This was not an activation- the model would still need to be deployed like usual before he could do anything. The Indians were deployed 6" in from their table edge. That was the mission in a nut shell.
18 November 2014, 04:08:24 AM