Song of Blades and Heroes ongoing action (was: Curse of the Vampire Queen)

[jet]

Gro'ghall, chieftan of the dark dwarves of Delving Rock, leads a small scouting party across the plains in search of the abandoned tower of Thrad'mo, his honoured ancestor.


The party rounds a copse of trees near a stream, and there it looms before them...


...but it's far from abandoned. "Cross the river if you dare," shrieks a booming voice. "I am Jikatta the Vampire Queen, and all who pass here shall be feasted on by my minions."


Gro'ghall and his giant hounds ford the river and face the first of the Vampire Queen's skeletons.


The skirmishers find places near the riverbank and provide covering fire, their arrows having little effect on the undead creatures shambling towards their chieftan.


With lighting speed, Jikatta is upon the hounds. After some combat, a skeleton is dispatched by the hound...


...and the vampire dispatches the hound.


The skirmishers get a couple of lucky hits and slow the horde down (as if they weren't slow enough already)



In the meantime, the battle at the ford has escalated. Bone and claw collide in a savage melee with Gro'ghall driving his hounds hard.


The undead seem to be winning...


...however, thanks to the overall unreactive nature of the majority of undead minions, the dark dwarves are not outnumbered by much.


Finally, Gro'ghall brings his mighty weapon to bear as the hounds begin damaging the undead queen in earnest.


Suddenly, in a burst of necromantic magic, the Vampire Queen disappears...


...and a cackle resound on the evening air. "Come hither, chieftain of the dark children. Your doom awaits within, if you have the strength to come and receive it." And with another crackle of smoke, Jikatta and her minions vanished, leaving Gro'ghall and his henchmen confused in the eery mist.



So that was my first, learning game of Song of Blades and Heroes, and for that matter, my first solo game of any wargame.  Love the game, love the feel.  There were a couple of areas of confusion however.

First of all, how do you determine who takes the first turn of each round?  Is it the attacker/defender or a roll?

Secondly,... zombies.... with the 6+ quality, they spend a lot of time standing around.  Is this normal?  I got the impression that it was best to save them for last, (i.e. after the opponent had likely activated everything), and then roll three dice for each, hoping for a 6. 

Just to be clear, does every model get one activation per game turn?  i.e. Every model acts once, and when all have acted, a new turn begins?

I'll post more questions as they come to me,
Thanks,
JET

[commissarmoody]

nice set up, I like your dark dwarves, and hounistly have never thought make some up like you did.

[Gluteus Maximus]

Great report and good-looking terrain and figures! You've done your bit to help sell Song of Blades and Heroes - as if it needed any extra help selling 

I also like the Dwarves. The colour scheme is very refreshing and I had to do a double-take when I realised that you had paired them and wolves, rather than the "somewhat" [  ] cliched goblin/wolf combo. That's an idea well worth exploring.

[keeper]

Hey Jet   Excellent write-up and very nice looking minis - seems like you had a great SBH game!

When we're playing a two-player game we just roll for highest, rolling off ties, and then just alternate turns.

When we're playing a three-player game we also roll off and then head round the table clockwise or anti-clockwise, as the whim takes us at the start of the game, but we keep it constant.

When we're playing a four-player game, we dice at the start of each turn, rolling off ties, then the winner decides whether play is going to go clockwise or anti-clockwise that turn.  At the start of next turn we dice again, and so on.

I love the zombies in the SBH book - they're so wonderfully useless   But oh so cheap!!

Yeah, if you've got some, use them last of all there seem to be two tactics we've developed for rolling zombie activation - either you roll three dice in a do-or-die manner, as you suggest, or just roll one die for each - then at least each one will have a change of activation and doing something, even if it isn't very much.  Of course - use three dice on the last one, whatever!   Doesn't matter if you lose initiative on the last model in your warband!

I hope those answers are of use

First of all, how do you determine who takes the first turn of each round?  Is it the attacker/defender or a roll?

Secondly,... zombies.... with the 6+ quality, they spend a lot of time standing around.  Is this normal?  I got the impression that it was best to save them for last, (i.e. after the opponent had likely activated everything), and then roll three dice for each, hoping for a 6. 

Just to be clear, does every model get one activation per game turn?  i.e. Every model acts once, and when all have acted, a new turn begins?

I'll post more questions as they come to me,
Thanks,
JET

[dusser]

Great write up and beautiful game!


Just to be clear, does every model get one activation per game turn?  i.e. Every model acts once, and when all have acted, a new turn begins?

Yes, potentially.  If any model in your warband fails 2 or 3 dice on an activation roll then they finish any actions they do have (if any) and turn order passes to the next player.

[Saya]

excellent story and beautiful scenery and miniatures!!!!! Congratulations
SBH is calling me 

[UncleRhino]

Looks like it was a fun game, and I must echo the praise of your dwarves, they are great looking.

Ryan

[jet]

First of all, thanks for the answers to the questions.  We played three games last night (with actual human opponents), and the guys who played seemed impressed by the rules.  As for turn order, we rolled for first activation at the beginning of each turn and found in worked well.

Also, thanks for the comments on the dwarves.  Those models, as some of you have guessed no doubt, are built primarily from GW plastic dwarf torsoes & heads, and different combos of dwarf, goblin, and catachan arms.  The rest of my collection (of which there are a good number) have different combinations of laspistols, autopistols, and so on.  They were actually converted and painted to be Traitors for my Lost And the Damned WH40k army.  I've since lost interest in 40k, but it was nice to find some use for at least some of the models.

Finally, a question about SBH.  Some guys in the group have shown interest, and there is some talk of fleshing out with the Fantasy Expansions, or perhaps experimenting with the Arthurian expansion.  And thoughts or comparisons on the Fantasy and Arthurian expansions?

Thanks,
JET

[commissarmoody]

So are thouse the only darkdwarfs you have or did you make more of them?

[jet]

I have more painted, but they have various additions of futuristic weapons.  I could take some picks of the whole lot if you are interested in seeing them.

[keeper]

And thoughts or comparisons on the Fantasy and Arthurian expansions?

Thanks,
JET

I've only bought the Fantasy expansions, so far, but I've heard that they're all good.  We have found the extra rules in the fantasy exansions good for adding more variety into our campaign games, though.

Have you joined the SBH Yahoo group, yet, Jet? http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/songofblades/

You're likely to get a pretty good answer there

[jet]

Since a few of you have made comments about the dark dwarves pictured above, I took a shot of the rest of my collection.  As you can see, they are all armed more futuristically than those in the original post.  Either way, I really like the models, and it's a shame I don't use them since I got out of WH40k

[Hitman]

Looks like it was a fun game. I enjoyed reading the game report with all of the great pictures. Thanks for sharing and inspiring us!!

[dusser]

Maybe your blaster armed Dark Dwarfs can be used in Mutants and Death Ray Guns, which uses the same mechanics as Song of Blades and Heroes.   

[Alxbates]

Beautiful scenery and miniatures.

I bought SBH a few months ago, and I haven't even looked at it yet... but you've piqued my interest by posting this report.  Sounds like a fun game.

-Alex in Alaska