Age of Fantasy Skirmish: First Game

These rules are free!

I ask you, fellow bloggers, do I need another skirmish set of rules? The answer is...yes! If you're like me, you are looking for that one set of rules that rises above the rest, is simple to play, and provides just the right amount of challenge without taking hours to play.

So what's the next possible rules set? Enter Age of Fantasy: Skirmish. It's part of the One Page Rules family, which consists of five sets of rules for big battles and skirmish battles of both fantasy and sci-fi, all free. As you probably guessed by the name, all the core rules are printed on one three column sheet. Basic special ability rules are printed on a second page with army specific special abilities on each army sheet. There's also an AI system for playing solo/cooperatively and a campaign system. All of this for FREE!? Yep. I advise you to drop what you're doing and go check it out!...Well, after you read my play through post below.

So first we need two armies. I decided to go with the classic orcs and dwarfs match up. I will be using the AI rules.

"Rally ho!"

Dwarfs (played by me):
Engineer (1) equipped with a rifle
Marksmen (3)
Iron Warrior (1)
120 points

"Orc smash!"

Orcs (played by the AI):
Boss (1)
Orcs (3)
Orc Archers (3)
125 points

Swordplay 2015: No Good Deed Goes Unpaid

What follows is a recap of my latest foray into Swordplay 2015. Not a blow-by-blow report but pictures of the important events. I wanted this to be a blood bath so I resolved all three PEFs as contact. Each PEF is eliminated then the next follows until all PEFs are eliminated or my forces are destroyed outright.

Elf, Ranger, and Dwarf

Sellswords and Spellslingers: First Impressions

Last night for my "Friday Night Fights" I had a game of Sellswords and Spellslingers by Andrea Sfiligoi, the brilliance behind Song of Blades and Heroes. I had played it initially when I picked it up. It was still just called "Sellswords" at that point and there were some confusing explanations of the rules at that time. I tried a couple of games (my wife even played!) but just couldn't get the jest of it.

I finally got around to downloading the updated version and it's way more clear. So much so that I'd say it could be the first game I try with my son when he's old enough (counting the days!). Basically, you roll up to three D20 for activation, anything above eight is a successful action. Anything seven or below means you draw from the Event Deck. This usually means your going to activate monsters but there are other special cards that are actually a good thing.

Of course, your characters have traits that make them special. I like to build my characters in a role-playing fashion, i.e. if I have a thief, they're going to have thief-like traits. Probably why my thief died the second or so turn! I'll definitely have to practice at designing characters but this was just a test game anyway. You can gain experience and buy equipment with silver pieces that you accumulate along the way. You can get assorted useful items like potions and such.

With ten different scenarios, you can go on long campaigns and I'm sure it' easy enough to design your own with little trouble.

So far the game was super fun!

Below are some action shots during the game!

In defense of the tower! Swordplay 2015 Battle Report AAR

 As I left off last encounter, Sir Scott and his band raided an orc village to save a damsel in distress. Sir Scott and his gang, along with their newest member Jenkins (Rep 4 human warrior, AC4), sat in their tower basking in the glory of victory. That is until war horns could be heard in the distance...It could only be one thing, the orcs wanted revenge! Throwing together a hasty defense (and an equally hasty narrative!), Sir Scott and his grunts set out to defend their home.

My newest piece of terrain that I built! These guys better defend it...

Two Hour Wargames Swordplay 2015: A quick review and battle report

 Swordplay 2015 is a FREE set of introductory fantasy/ancient non-gunpowder era skirmish rules by Two Hour Wargames. If you've never heard of THW, I'd advise you to check out their website and get the scoop there as this is just my review and not an overview of all the rules. I will touch upon some, however, particularly my favorites.

 Swordplay is offered in both PDF format for free and printed version for $5 plus S&H. So you've got no reason not to pick them up and check them out! This is a complete gaming system, not just a teaser. There's also a set of gunpowder/modern/sci-fi rules (Chain Reaction 2015, see above link) as well that is worth checking out and guess what? It's also free in PDF form!

So if you're interested in learning more of how I feel about the game, please read on! (Battle report is after the review if you want to skip on down there.)

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!