Armies and Hordes Playtest

We managed to swing one game of Armies & Hordes in.  Since it was Independence Day, figured it was appropriate to have a 1776 battle.  Of sorts.

 The Loyalist, or British forces included 2 units of regular infantry, 1 unit of Indians, 1 unit of Indian Skeleton Archers, their General, and a beastly Scottish Hill Giant.

The Rebel, or American forces included 1 unit of regular infantry, 1 unit of Rangers, a unit of Beastmen (from the frontier) and a pack of hell hounds.  Their General had an attached unit of bodyguards.

 Our first attempt at a board.  Dark green patches with trees were forested terrain (very rough), the white/green were fields (rough), and all else was clear terrain.  The road was split into 3 sections for movement.  The big patch of forest in the foreground should have been split into 2 areas.

Initial deployments.  British from the South.  In a surprise move, the American player (Sara) deployed her fast unit on the road.  We both thought that would be dramatic, watching it sweep ahead.  Then read the rules on fighting from column and realized it was not a good idea.  My unit on the road also quickly abandoned it for a better formation. 

 American player (A) goes first and attempts to activate her beastmen.  Rolled 2 failures.  British (B) take over.  A pushes the beastmen up the hill, they become fatigued.

B activates first unit of regulars - 1 fail.  A moves hellhounds up the road.  B pushes the unit into the rough ground.

Realizes he doesn't want to fight on the road.  Moves giant up.  Wants to move the other unit off the road to where the giant was.  Has the General with the unit. Fails his unit activation with a 1.  A rolls for beastmen and become refreshed.

Skeleton archers fail their activation. 

Indians move up.

General moves to the side.

Turnover.

A rolls to activate her first group.  2 fails again.  B takes initiative right back.

B rolls to activate giant.  2 successes, will be able to charge into the side of the hellhounds in column on trail.  A uses the reaction die to move the hounds into an adjacent area.

Giant still attacks hounds, but no longer gets the bonus.  Hounds lose 1 stand and retreat in disorder into an adjacent area.

Rebellious colonist-bred hell hounds attack a Loyalist Hill Giant

Indians move in to attack hounds.  Completely blow the shooting roll.  Blows the melee roll.  Loses 3 stands. Then gets 3 sixes on the morale roll.  Retreat into woods.  

Rest of units activate and move up.

On last reaction of round, A moves the bodyguards up (I forgot to give them shooter) and shoots the giant dead without even moving in to melee.  

Turnover.  A rolls to activate her first unit, using the bonus from her General.  Double fails again.  A keeps blowing her activation rolls.  I just use reactions instead of taking over.  Beastmen advance down the hill.  Indians set up an ambush. 

B advances units.  On a reaction, A moves her rangers into the woods, roll 2 sixes on the shooting roll.  Wiped out.  

Turnover.

Surprise!  Ambush time!  Oops, we forgot to load first.  

A fails (1) activating her first unit.  I use the reaction to attack the beastmen.

Shooting takes down 2, melee takes down 2 more, the last 2 fail twice the morale roll and run off the board.

Then she turns over again.

rit unit moves into the woods.  Loses the combat and the morale roll, runs away. 

Just a staged picture for furn

So, thoughts?  SoBH and it's variants are the only wargames my wife will play.  If it has the variable activation mechanic, she loves it.  At first she was afraid of trying a "big battle" version.  Movement trays and facings were new concepts.   She clearly picked it up quickly, and despite have horrible luck on activation rolls, still smeared me.  We need to get some painting done so we can field more "traditional" armies of halflings, mushroom men, etc.

William Buchele Rifle

this trip

in the books.

25 Days
6,336 miles
17 states.
average 8.4 mpg!

Wreck on I-15

Today

video test

testing video

Hurricane window

window

tire simulator

tire simulator

KAHR E-9

1776 Round of Fire

Continuing to beta-test Round of Fire.  The author claims it is "good for all time periods", so I decided to test that.  I quick-statted up some troops and weapons from the American War of Independence.  (Note, this is a first play-test only.  These specs will need some tweaking.  I changed the rifle specs halfway through the game.)

Just an example of how easy it is to make units.  Normal units in RoF are usually 4 figures, but I like the larger groups for the feel of this older, block-style combat.

 As compared to most RoF battlefields, this one was quite open.  With a 3x3 playing surface, the "Distance Unit" for 28mm was 3"

The scenario is a quick one:  At the end of the fourth round, whichever side has more troops on the opposite half of the board wins.  It's supposed to be a fast and bloody push for both sides.

After random initial deployments, the British have chosen to push heavily on their right flank.  The Officer, 1 group of Regulars, and the Skirmishers are all pushing right.  The other group of Regulars takes the left.

 The Americans placed their big block of militia dead center, behind a nice, safe stone wall.  One group of skirmishing Riflemen guarded each flank.  The American commander apparently forgot to read the mission briefing, as he chose to sit here for the first half of the game.

 British Regulars soon outpaced their Skirmishers.  Slow down, boys!

 The skirmishing Riflemen used slow, deliberate fire to whittle down the advancing troops.  Two would fire while 2 reloaded.  But thanks to the dice gods, their initial fire was ineffective.

 The return fire from the Regulars, being musketry and into cover, did no better.

 The Militia got into the act, firing early at long range.

 Skirmishers rushed to catch up.  The combined rifle and musket fire was finally causing casualties.  The shock was slowing their advance also.

(Ignore the Sergeant.  He was a test figure and not really there)

 Over on the other flank, the team of skirmishing riflemen had advanced quickly, scored a hit or two, then rapidly moved out of range before firing again.

The above two scenes show the beauty of this activation system, and the best point of these rules.  A commander has to pay attention to where everybody is in the activation sequence, and how it can change.  The riflemen benefited from the nearby Officer presence, allowing them to easily outmaneuver the slower British unit.

The right flank?  Not so lucky.  The riflemen skirmishers didn't have the Officer benefit, and were not paying attention to the activation wheel.  They let the Regulars charge into bayonet range!

Bayonets versus Tomahawks.  Not going to end well for the riflemen.

That was the end of round 2.  The British currently control the board, but are being whittled down.  They may try to hold what they have for 2 rounds, while the Americans had better get that large chunk of Militia up and moving.

Another Round of Fire

Finally dragged the boy out to the gaming room again.  He is convinced the Dice Gods hate him.

 We're playing Round of Fire, still in beta.  To make it more interesting, I'm using my Dust Tactics figures, that I haven't completely statted up yet.  But Luther up above there is special.  He's a vehicle in the rules, but he does get a melee bonus.  That was to come in very handy later.

 Horrible shot of the board, I know.  But that's a tribute to the game rules.  We became so involved in the fight we forgot to take pictures.  Once you grasp the rules, play really is fast and fluid.

The open center posed a tactical challenge.  We played the "double blind" scenario out of the book.  Miles' defense point was the garage in left bottom.  He stacked his BBQ squad in early.  He was afraid to come out the front door once my squad took up defensive positions around the toxic pool in the middle.

But then the light dawned, and he saw how innovative and clever the turn wheel is. First his mech laid supressive fire on my squad, bumping them up the wheel.  Then he Assaulted with his squad:

 Normally you would think they were sitting ducks in the open like that.

 But the Assault lets you move and shoot.  And flamethrowers are nobody's friend.

 To make matters worse, his mech got to go again next.  With a, "Hold my beer!" the mech showed what a big flamethrower can do.  (I need to make better specs on the big flamer).  I think next game the toxic sludge will be flammable.

Things were looking bad on my left flank.  My heavy squad was wiped out.  It's just my leader and my mech on the left, as my zombies charge up the right flank.

Sigrid takes a shot at the BBQ squad, but it's long range for the laser and it doesn't do damage.  She's using a neat rule called "corner cover".

Decision time for my mech!  A squad in the open.  A mech in the open.  Both in range.  On the extreme right flank, another enemy squad about to hit my zombies.  Who to shoot?

He went for the mech.  My heavy squad had managed to put a hit on him earlier.  The dice gods finally woke up and realized that Miles was playing.  My rolls became perfect, his terrible.


Meanwhile, on the other flank my zombie squad had been taking casualties as it advanced.  Feeling confident, Miles launched his squad from cover in a counter-attack.

Only to discover the hard way that the zombies were optimized for melee combat!

(But we still need to practice the melee rules, not clear on handling multiple combatants)  

Things were still looking good for Miles.  I had a leader and a mech.  He still had a fully-functioning squad, deep on my side of the board.  But then my mech jumped around the corner and melee'd the squad.  (In Dust rules, this mech can melee with his claw, so I figured that would work here, too)
And the dice gods smiled on me.  That is the mech melee roll:

Pictures stopped there.  But after a couple more moves it was clear we had a stalemate.  The remnants of the BBQ squad holed up in the building.  The mech outside was just waiting for them to pop back out.  On the left, the remaining zombies and recon squad were engaged in a slugfest.  Both leaders were moving that way to help, but we called the battle a draw at that point.

For the future?  Must keep working on stats.  And must build more terrain.  The Dust figures are large for 28mm.  Using them with a Distance Unit of 3" (on a 3x3 board) makes for some funky short ranges.  We might try it on a 4x4 board next time.