Song of Blades and Heroes - An Experiment in Hand-Drawn Maps and Dice as Figures

Ganesha Games has been my jam for the last few months!

I came across a post recently on Facebook about a guy playing One Hour Skirmish Ancient & Medieval Skirmish Wargames. What intrigued me was that he did it all with pen and paper. I thought that idea was great, as I have been thinking of doing this myself. I think reading about it got me kicked into starting it.

Song of Blades and Heroes Solo Battle Report: Dark Ages on Fire!

 

 

 Don your helmets and grab your battle axes, it's time for another Song of Blades and Heroes (SBH) battle report.

Scenario: The situation is, a Viking raiding party (played by me) consisting of a berserk leader, 4 spear men, 1 axe man, and an archer are raiding a Saxon outpost. The Saxon defenders (played by my opponent, me, making the best moves possible) consist of a hero, 4 spear men, 1 heavy infantry, and an archer, situated on the tower. I rolled these forces up randomly and are more or less within 10 points of each other, with a slight advantage to the Saxons.

Win Conditions: The Vikings can win by burning down the tower (using the flammability rules in Song of Wind and Water). Each spear man carries a torch and will set fire to the watchtower on a 4+ attack roll. It must burn for 2 full turns after being set ablaze. A tie would be capturing the cart laden with supplies (being in base contact with it at the end of the game). The Saxons can win by repelling the attacks for 10 turns or eliminating/routing the Viking invaders. On with the show!

The Viking forces

The Saxon forces defending the watchtower

Song of Blades and Heroes Battle Report: Zombies everywhere!

 

About a week ago, I decided to play a solo game of Song of Blades and Heroes out of the blue. I have been working on cutting out paper miniatures for a few months, trying to decide on a scale and a set of rules. Finally, I made up my mind and brought forth SOBH to the table!

I waited until my son was about to get home from school to play so that he could possibly join me. He never did, so I played it out myself. I did get to try out some of my new terrain from Battle Systems, the graveyard set! I also bought the blacksmith shop and village. Pretty cool stuff!

Anyways, here's a quick battle report, as I like to make blogs about my hobby...It's a little hobby in of itself!

I came up with a simple scenario on the fly. The heroes must destroy the Zombie King breaking the curse on the graveyard. There were 11 zombies and 1 Zombie King. Their opponents were a group of heroes, consisting of a dwarf warrior, 2 human warriors, and 2 elf archers. I had played this same heroic group against some goblins the previous day, so just used the same band from that game (some pics of that game at the end of this post). All minis are either purchased One Monk Miniatures or free forum hoard minis in the downloads section.

A simple warband, not very well suited to take on the undead!

Song of Blades and Heroes: Treasure in the Desert

 

This is a fantasy battle report for Song of Blades and Heroes! Had a little time to get in a game. The scenario is "Treasure Hunt." All terrain pieces are dunes and block line of sight unless two models are on the dunes or touching the dunes.

Tundra Warriors

Desert Raiders

Random Warband Generator for Song of Blades and Heroes Engine

For use with SBH or any SBH rule system

Want a little spice in your solo/solitaire Song of Blades and Heroes games (or other games using the same rules engine)? Try this! I cooked it up in a few minutes so it might not be all that great. This can be used for solo and cooperative games.

Random Warband Composition for

Song of Blades and Heroes Engine Games

-Build a warband for yourself of any point value

-Roll 1d6:

1: the enemy has 50 more points than your warband

2: the enemy has 25 more points than your warband

3-4: the enemy has the same amount of points as your warband

5: the enemy has 25 less points than your warband

6: the enemy has 50 less points than your warband

-Roll on the enemy roster until you meet or exceed the total point value above

Sample enemy army list

Roll 1d6 for the overall commander

1-4: Orc Boss Q3+, C3 Leader pts 60

5-6: Orc Shaman Q4+, C2 Magic-User 38

Roll 1d6 on this list until you meet or exceed the point value of your band:

1-2: Orc Warrior Q4+, C3 pts 23

3-4: Orc Archer Q4+, C3 Shooter: Medium pts 29

5: Elite Orc Warrior Q3+, C3 pts 30

6: Orc Savage Q4+, C3 Savage pts 27

As I said, this is just a draft. Add profiles to your liking, 4-8 is probably the butter zone with a 1d6 or 2d6. Please enjoy!

Song of Blades and Heroes: Chicken Chasers vs Humans

Saturday night I invited my cousin and his son over for a play date and our sons played together as well. I chose Song of Blades and Heroes as the set of rules that we would use. Last time we played a war game was back in the old days playing Warhammer Fantasy Battles! Been a long time. I suspect we were still in our teens back then. Now at 36 (me) and 38, we are old haggard veterans of gaming, though this was my cousin's first game since then.

First we played a straight stand up fight and, as I was busy explaining the rules, I did not take any pics. In short, the Chicken Chasers performed admirably taking little in the way of losses!

Charge! A goblin chicken rider goes down. Hardly chivalrous! You can clearly see he was fallen!

We were running short on time but decided to play another game. We did the scenario "Treasure Hunt." We would play up to 3:45 pm or until a victor was decided.

The humans close in on a possible treasure spot (which would turn out to be the magical sword).

A giant chicken blockade being formed. As animals they couldn't pick up the item but they could muck up the field! Alas, the treasure wasn't there and the brave chickens were slowly whittled down.

Chicken riders were diverted to where the treasure was found.

The battle is joined!

After the treasure was found, goblin archers and chicken riders raced to the location.

Most of the human war band had concentrated in the center, luckily for them, as the magic item was revealed in the center ruins. The Human leader was the barbarian looking guy and mine was the black chicken rider.

The battle raged more quickly this time after my cousin got a new set of dice (very superstitious this one!) and understood the activation system a bit more. We had to wrap up the game as time ran out. Just as I was about to administer a coup de grace (yeah right, I was pretty well blocked up at the end as you can see by this final picture)!

Next time I think we'll try the science fiction set of these rules, Mutants and Death Ray Guns.

Thanks for reading!

The Orc Fortress...A Song of Blades and Heroes Dungeon Crawl!!

 Hail adventurers! Herein lies the account of another venture into the depths of a dungeon using the Song of Blades and Heroes rule set with the Song of Gold and Darkness dungeon crawl rules. As usual, I am using the fantastic fan-made expansion for SGD called Deep Dark Dungeons (DDD). Read on after the link if you're interested in seeing what happens! Plus, check out my custom-made orc dungeon table at the bottom! Enjoy and happy holidays!

Same composition as last time's party just different miniatures. Dwarf, Swordmage, Acrobat Thief, and Crusader. Maybe they'll have better luck!

Return to the Drow Priestess' lair...A Song of Blades and Heroes dungeon crawl

The four mighty heroes! Crusader, Acrobat Thief, Dwarf Warrior, and Swordmage.

 Herein lies the picture diary of our four brave protagonists as they attempt to hunt down and slay the evil Drow Priestess! I used the rules from Song of Blades and Heroes, Song of Gold and Darkness, and the custom tables from a fan-made companion called Deep Dark Dungeons, which is a great little addition to the dungeon crawl rules for SOBAH!  If you wish to take a step into the dungeon, then read on!

Song of Blades and Heroes solitaire photo highlights, Orcs vs. Humans!

 It's been a while! I've been meaning to get a blog post up and now I actually have some worthwhile content. I've played a couple solitaire games of Song of Blades and Heroes against, well, myself. Here's some highlights of a battle I fought with a raiding party of orcs and a detachment of knights with a wizard battling over a "Place of Power."...Also, I wanted to test out my new Black Friday deal camera, so here's a quick highlight reel!

The battling was fierce at this point, when I remembered "Hey, I've got a new camera to try out!" You can see casualties mounting off the table to the right.

The orcs get stuck in with a knight..The ever out of range (and out of focus!) wizard watches on.

The blue and red knight keeps the orcs at bay whilst the human leader (purple guy) and his trusty companion survey the fight.

The orc leader rallies his archers near the forest with shaman in tow.

Just showing off my scratch-built mausoleum, well, aside from the doors.

Finally, the wizard joins the fray attempting a transfix...The green knight steps up as the red/blue one gets pushed out of combat!

Both human and orc combatants are thrown to the ground as the orc leader engages the wizard, oh no!

I didn't get a pic of it but the next turn the axe-wielding human leader dealt the orcs a decisive blow when he charged the leader and cut him in two causing most of the orcs to flee and the rest to quit the field. See, he wasn't just hanging back to give orders, just waiting for the right moment to show the humans who's boss!

 I really like playing Song of Blades and Heroes solo. Playing both sides can kind of seem drab in a lot of games but with the activation system in SOBAH, it keeps things tense. I just need to work on my skirmish tactics. Even playing alone I'm not that great!

 Hopefully I'll get a bunch of pics of the plethora of new minis I've finished painting up. Happy holidays, folks!

Sunday Dungeon Crawl Madness!!!! (Battle report)

 This Sunday I was home alone, so decided to do a little solo dungeon crawling. The rules I used were Song of Blades and Heroes and its expansions as well as the fan-made expansion Deep Dark Dungeons. I'd advise you to check out both!

Our brave adventurers from left to right: Drakus, Tristin, Snibly, and Gilna.

The dungeon layout.

The first of the Bones 2 minis painted! Chaos Warrior and Mushroom Men!

 I had a busy weekend but still managed to paint up seven figures...That's plain amazing for me! Really excited about a lot of these new Bones 2 sculpts. The first guy I knew I had to paint was the Hellknight Order of the Nail...

 I always loved the old GW Chaos Knights and their wild color schemes, so this is paying homage to them!

On the Dwarven Forge bandwagon!

So over the past year I've been looking for a nice 3D dungeon and I've tried various types. First I tried Hirst Arts and while awesome, it was a bit too time consuming for me and I was looking for something more durable, what with kids being planned in the near future. If a kid drops a cast dungeon piece, it's done for!

Then I tried out Fat Dragon Games E-Z Dungeons. Again, they were pretty cool and I love Fat Dragon's stuff but the dungeon just didn't do it for me. The dungeon dressing stuff though is really nice and I use it in my games currently!

 Then I remembered Dwarven Forge had a kickstarter a year or two back so I decided to check them out again. I was always reluctant for some reason to buy them. Mostly because I thought they were pretty spendy. Reservations aside, I decided to blow part of my tax return on six basic sets and a stair set!! Best decision I've made in a hell of a long time.

Stuffed to the brim!

Fightin' Fungi

A new Kickstarter out there for some really cool fungusmen miniatures!! But that's not all, you can also get the rules for "Fightin' Fungi," a standalone game based on the Song of Blades and Heroes skirmish game engine. Personally, I've pledged at "Mature Spore" to receive a PDF and a hard copy of the rules. They can be used either by themselves or you can use them to expand on the Song of Blades and Heroes, which is what I'll be using them for. The new advanced magic system really caught my eye and I can't wait to try them out!!

First Song of Blades and Heroes match, The Sexy Nuggets vs The Mullet Mashers

 Tonight I played my first game of Song of Blades and Heroes by Ganesha Games against my fiancee. She played as a mix of humans and dwarfs and called her warband the "Sexy Nuggets," which included a human leader, an dwarven elite soldier, a dwarven orcish slayer, two human warriors, an elite human archer, and a human spellcaster. My force was led by an orc warrior and included six goblins, a lesser eye beast (dropped assassination), and two lesser trolls (dropped tough) and I called them the "Mullet Mashers." We played the Treasure Hunt scenario over a Paizo Flip Mat covered by a piece of thin plexiglass with some terrain features added on (the building is a Dave Graffam paper model (very cool!). Here's a few pics of the action!

The start of the battle. Admittedly, the map is a tad small but I really liked it. :)

My fiancee's leader grabs the treasure on the first attempt! Check out the Dave Graffam building!

The forces engage each other in the field. Some of my goblins were pounded into dust, as planned.

But my eye beast transfixed her leader and then in the subsequent turn shot her to death!

                                                           BATTLE REPORT
  The game was a lot of fun for both of us! It was a little rough going since we were both learning the rules for the first time but all in all, was pretty simple to learn. On the first turn the Sexy Nuggets discovered the treasure and I thought she was going to win it quickly. I advanced my goblins to try and intercept her before she could leave. After she picked up the treasure though, she rolled three 1's the next activation and that's when the tide of war turned.

 I was able to capitalize by moving my eye beast into position and transfixing her on the spot. After that, she tried to wake her leader up but only rolled one success. Subsequently, the eye beast shot her in the face and it caused a few of her models to run. After that she managed to score a gruesome kill on one of my goblins causing a break in my forces and leaving me with almost half my models gone. I managed to nab the treasure with my eye beast but had to turn play over to her after a bad roll trying to move my trolls into position. Then all hell broke loose when she killed one more goblin reducing my force to 50% routing several of my men and nearly the eye beast! Thankfully, he only failed one morale dice and was able to hold it together. After that, it was smooth sailing and I coasted to victory with my eye beast holding the prize.

FINAL SCORE: The Mullet Mashers 11, The Sexy Nuggets 4