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

Kicking off 2021 the right way? Vikings vs Saxons!

Disclaimer: This is not a historically accurate account of any battle.

Rules Used: The free rules set Swordplay 2018. It's actually Swordplay 2020, which combines 2015/2018.  I used the Battleboard to Tabletop mod. It's found in the free rules section in the link.

Miniatures Used: The Vikings and the Saxons by Vyacheslav Batalov. Despite not having front and back art, these paper minis are beautifully drawn and most are done from the side to create the illusion of front and back. I haven't seen very many historical paper sets so these will come in handy. I also picked up many other historical minis, including the Normans. I found if you print them from PDF format, 115% scale is right on for 28mm. They have low ink usage, which is nice!

 I have to mention the 2D terrain from 1985 Games' Dungeon Craft: Volume I. Not a lot shown off here but it contains a lot of cool 2D houses with interiors, various trees, dungeon tiles, etc. All are double-sided.

Halkur will be leading a small band of fellow vikings scouting for settlements to raid. He's a rep 5 Huscarl star with medium armor (AC 4). His companions are rep 4 freemen with light armor (AC 2). Let the game begin!

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

Mats By Mars Review

The Green Meadow mat with orc blood spilled upon it.

I've been meaning to do a review on my Mats By Mars battle mats. In particular,the 30" x 30" Rumble Mats. I have quite a few actually. They include Green Meadow, Bustling City, Desert, Koncrete Blok (dark), and Winter's Wrath as well as some 24" x 24" in Dark Caribbean (water), Desert, and Urban Strike. I feel the 30" x 30" is great for what I had to play on at the time, a folding card table. Now I have a larger table to play on but I still like the Rumble Mats. Truth be told, I accidentally ordered the 24" x 24" mats last Christmas! I did, however, get the water one for Pirates of the Spanish Main on purpose.

You can get a wide range of sizes from 24" x 24" to 48" x 72" in a variety of different overlays if you have a specific need for something like that. As you can see, I didn't use an overlay. 

Let's look at them more closely...

Chain Reaction 2015: Just some photos of my latest game with paper miniatures!

Every cow needs a pulse rifle on its back!

Note: Most of the miniatures are One Monk Miniatures and the mat is from Mats by Mars.