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: 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

Warstuff, First Impressions

Warstuff is a completely genre neutral wargame for quick battles from OnePageRules under their "One Off" games section. You can play virtually anything with these rules. From dinosaurs to futuristic space battles, it can be done with just one page of rules. On the second page, it has unit creation rules with abilities. They are also free!

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!

Hawkwind Saga: The Lost Episode

This is a chilling random encounter that I never finished!

The rain poured down as the man, known as Hawkwind, stood reluctant to enter the bar before him. The cheesy neon lights flashed in the puddles. One said "Ope !" clearly the n had burned out long ago. Another said "Live Noods!" clearly someone forgot to check their spelling. The name of the place was simply named Gus'.

"This must be the place Miranda was talking about" he mumbled to himself. He sighed and entered the building. His senses were immediately overwhelmed by loud music, the smell of piss, beer, and other noxious scents. He scanned the place and, after a moment, saw Miranda.

On his way there, a nude man dancing on a table swung his junk nearly into Hawkwind's face. He didn't flinch and in a flash, his blaster pistol was aimed at the guys package. "If you don't get that thing out of my face, you're gonna be known as the guy with no nuts" Gordon said flatly. The dancer only shrugged and blew a kiss at Hawk, moving on to another bar patron.

As Hawk came up to the table where Miranda was seated, she obviously saw the entire thing. "A little excitement, eh babe?" she said with an impish grin. "I think you guys would make a cute couple."

"Shut it, Mir" he said as he took a seat next to her with a heavy sigh. "Definitely not my type."

"Oh, just what is your type?" Gordon felt a hand on his leg.

"Really? I'm not in the mood."

Miranda feigned insult. "Oh come on, just a little fun? Loosen up a bit, Gordo. Have a drink, on me" she signaled to the serving droid for a couple drinks."Anyway, I happen to have a job for you" she said, switching to a business tone.

Hawkwind massaged his eyebrows "you've got a job for me? I thought you worked for me?"

She stifled a laugh "No, you are mistaken. I need you to take me to a...location...in Zirqon territory. I have a contact there who needs some illegal parts but you can't just land a ship there."

Gordon snapped his head up "Zirqons! They don't exactly like humans...or anyone for that matter. You got some balls, Miranda just hope mine are bigger." He mulled it over in his head "all right, I'll accept the job but I expect hazard pay for this one."

Miranda smiled ruefully. "I do, just don't threaten them like that dancer!"

Next encounter, escort!

Sinister Cities Tactical Maps Review

More than meets the eye!

While on a 2D kick, I decided I needed an urban environment but didn't have the tiles and other goodies to work with. Unlike some products that just had streets, I wanted some top-down buildings. That's when I came across these, Sinister Cities: Tactical City Maps. As you know, I'm a huge fan of David Okum's art style so it was only natural to place it in my cart.

A little All Things Zombie Evolution featuring one of the vans. Also, some custom tokens.

What you get: You get 16 urban tiles that are top-down; sort of like the Hero Click maps. You can arrange them in various different ways to suit just about any modern, future, pulp, etc. games. I'm no mathematician but you can probably make thousands of different combinations. The instructions do suggest that you glue them to some foam board to make them more substantial. I may or may not mount them on foam, we shall see.

There are also two tiles that have layered interiors. You can print off the initial building without interiors, then turn off all layers except the interiors so you can just print off the interiors to use separately as your characters go in the door, as seen below. There is an additional floor on the factory but I didn't print it off.

Overlay on!

Bonus Material: I also needed some 2D cars and, to my surprise, it already had a whole selection of cars, vans, etc. No trucks or motorcycles but that's not a big deal. You get 13 different cars, including 2 police cars and 2 vans. I may fiddle around with one of the vans and convert it into an ambulance. No zombie outbreak is complete without an ambulance or two. Also included are top-down crates, rubble, trash bags, upturned trash cans, and traffic barricades, nice touches.

Some of the bonus material in a parking lot.

Visual Appeal: Overall, I'm happy with how they look. Pretty standard urban environment and what you would expect. Details like trash on the ground, manhole covers, skid marks, etc. The only real gripe I have is the square grids. I wish there was a layer where you could turn off the grids but it's not a deal breaker, especially with the two pages of bonus material you get.

Zombies approaching! I may have to back them with foam board but they may just need flattened out a bit.

Final Opinion: If you need top-down views of urban environments, you can't go wrong here! Whether it be zombie apocalypse, modern fantasy, gang wars, futuristic cities, etc. you'll find this set useful.

Okumarts Extrastellar Set Ten: Space Heroes Review

This is a quick review of David Okums' Extrastellar Set Ten: Space Heroes. David's Patreon can be found here.

David continues to expand his paper miniature Extrastellar line with another great set. You get the initial 12 figures pictured above but, as with most of his sets, you get bonus material expanding the set to 24 unique poses. You also get a bunch of different color options too.

The initial 12.

Bonus Material

Two of my favorites!

I did notice a few head swaps from other sets but really, that's not a big deal. Overall, I can't say enough about this set. They can be used for a ton of different sci-fi or even modern genres. They could be armed miners, security guards, spaceship crews, corporate thugs, garbage workers, etc. Combine it with the Bug Hunt Crew and you got a lot of options.

Note: These minis print out way better on something other than my $30 HP printer! :)

The Hawkwind Saga: Enter Miranda

This adventure has Hawkwind searching for a pilot he can hire but first, he rolled a defend encounter as his involuntary encounter.

A sharply dressed man toiled away at some bad plumbing to his apartments. "No job too small, no job too big" he said to himself wiping some grease off his cheek. "That should do it" Hawkwind said wiping his hands clean of said grease. He turned around and in the light he could see the silhouette of a man with a baseball bat. "I thought baseball went out of style back in the 22nd century?"

5150 No Limits Meet Gordon Hawkwind

5150 No Limits Maiden Voyage. Click here for more info.

This is my new campaign centering around the adventures of "Hawkwind," a combination of Gene Starwind and Jim Hawking from one of my favorite animes, Outlaw Star.

Hawkwind has set up a new freelance business, Hawkwind Enterprises. His motto, "no job is too big or too small!" This is his story.

Rules change: I am playing an all human campaign, at least until he gets off this rock, Earth. For now, I lifted the who are they tables from Chain Reaction 2018 (it's free) and will simply interpret the results as far as what "profession" they are. If, in the likely event, Hawkwind dies, I will use the Cheat Death rule used in other TWH titles.'Cause you know he's gonna get whacked right off the bat!

Gordon Hawkwind Rep 5 Star (5 people, 4 savvy) Attributes: Rage (random), Crackshot (chosen) Weapon: Machine Pistol (A3)

Talomir Tales: The Northman Part 3

After his last encounter, which nearly ended in disaster, Hellburg finally made it down to the fringes of society. He entered a tavern and strode up to the bar. "Give me the strongest grog you got, tender!" The bartender complied and slid the "grog" to him.

Talomir Tales: The Northman Part 2

Hellburg awakens, bloodied, bruised, and missing his sword. "Dammit!" He got to his feet, dizzy from the loss of blood. He shook his head, piecing together what had happened. He had been beaten to a pulp by some highwaymen.

Talomir Tales: The Northman Part 1

Tonight, I played a game of Talomir Tales: Distant Shores and I wanted to record my play. I also had very limited time to play so no better game than one of the new Two Hour Wargames RPG lite systems. This is, of course, the fantasy iteration.

I also picked up two new titles from THW, 5150 Working Grave a future police RPG lite and Road to Ekra a jousting game. Can't wait to get my hard copies! Ok, on with the game.

The Northman Hellburg

"Hellburg smash!"

Talomir Tales: Snotz the Goblin

Once upon a time there was a goblin named Snotz. He was an eager little fellow and wanted to make a name for himself. He strolled into a run down tavern looking for work one day.

"Tender! You got any work, eh pig face?"

"Hmmm, wot?" The bartender peered down at the little goblin. "Oh, yer can look on dat board over yonder. Any ub dem jobs is on dere." He drooled as he munched a piece of mutton.

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!

Okumarts Patreon Shout Out

If you've ever wanted to get into paper miniatures, David Okum's Patreon is definitely a good place to start. Lately he has expanded into other genres that aren't covered to well in the paper minis, such as his new sets pictured below. Perfect for your pulp gaming needs!

A T-rex...Now I can finally play "Lost Worlds" by THW!

Of course, he's got a full catalog of other fantasy, sci fi, modern day, zombie horror, and a whole lot more. If you want to check out his other stuff, you can go to his Drive Thru RPG page and have a look.

Customizing Paper Miniatures with GIMP (free)

Good day, ladies and gents. I'd like to do a brief tutorial on how to customize paper minis in GIMP, which is a free program that allows you to do this. It's really quite simple. Here's quick example of a Sanity Studios militia figure:

1. Load up GIMP.
2. Open your PDF file or picture file.
3. Press F to get the Free Hand Tool or "Lasso" as I like to call it.
4. Trace around the area you want colored. It will probably take several sections at a time and a little patience. Remember, there are two sides to each mini!

5. Next you go to colors and go to "colorize" (as seen in the above picture).

6. Now use the color slider bar to get your mini just how you want it. In this case, purple, my favorite color! My niece once said "but that's not a man's color!" Humph I say!

7. And Bob's your uncle! You're finished.

It will even save your colorization option, just select the date from the drop down bar and boom, no need to try and get your slider bar to perfectly match the color you want on another figure.

A note on gimp. I like to use GIMP to make sheets of figures I want multiples of. Instead of printing off multiple pages for just one or two figures, I'll just make a new page 8.5" x 11" then use the select tool, Ctrl C, and pop it onto the new page with Ctrl V. It does slightly shrink the image for some reason but it's not super noticeable.

Hope this helped out!

Chain Reaction 2015: A Classic Tale

This didn't actually happen...

Five Parsecs From Home: Gladiator's Campaign Turn 2

The religious artifact the crew must liberate.

I had to use the special card "Have you met my mate?" in order to scare up some help. There are five one use cards you can use in a campaign. This one in particular lets you get a crew member whenever you need one, even during a battle. Pretty powerful so I'm a little reticent to use it on the second turn. The alternative is to only get one recruit so I opted to use it so that I can recruit two new members and go into battle with four characters.

Note: I did kick Hattie and took her shotgun. She was bad luck anyhow!

Anyway, the campaign turn consisted of Katsuda and Skeet recruiting one member each (total of 6 upkeep). No enemies tracked me down so I had to do an "opportunity mission." I decided on the statue since I wanted a cavern theme.

From left to right: Katsuda, Skeet, Grenda, and Gort.

My opponents: Four vigilantes armed with rifles and the leader with an auto rifle.

The scenario: Locals have hired Katsuda's crew to root out their place of worship, a statue deep within a cavern. Vigilantes have decided to make it their base of operations. The townsfolk have little in the way of weapons, being a peaceful people. Naturally, they have to hire some muscle to take care of their problems once in a while.

Strategy: Try and keep out of sight or at least in cover and close as everyone of my people have 12" range.

The set up

Turn 1:   Quick actions went to Gort who dashed into cover. Katsuda moved into range and opened fire! She hits her man and he's stunned but being a terrifying weapon (probably super loud, especially in the cave), he has to take a morale test at the end of the turn.

Gort makes his move but is out of range with his hand gun.

Katsuda opens fire!...Even if she wasn't supposed to!

The enemy take over and run for cover. The victim of Katsuda's cling fire pistol crawls to relative safety while the leader of the vigilante group and his lackey level their rifles at the blue beauty. Being in cover, the bullets bounce harmlessly off the stalagmites. A few yards over, Gort is fired upon by a vigilante behind the statue but the he's saved by poor marksmanship.

They never said anything about collateral damage to the statue!

Grenda joins the battle with a wild shot after she too moves behind a stalagmite. Skeet dashes up behind cover.

(At this point I realized you can't shoot after dashing. As Katsuda dashed and fired, I decided it wasn't such a terrifying shot and didn't make them test morale. Oops!)

Turn 2: No quick actions this time. Things go very wrong.

Fire erupts once again inside the cave, Katsuda is injured and goes down! Grenda is targeted but the bullets miss. Gort, unfortunately, isn't so lucky. He crumples to the ground!

Uh oh...

Alien down!

The good guy's turn sees Grenda fire again but miss. She's a hacker who lived on a space station after all! Skeet makes a wild charge to one of the bridges hoping for a quick action.

Skeet's last stand.

One morale failure for the good guys!

Turn 3: One quick action goes to Skeet who moves into firing position (1" of extra movement is pretty nice!). He fires his shotgun at the woman behind the statue. One vigilante down!

Skeet caps the lady behind the statue.

Enemy take aim at Grenda and she's not very lucky! She gets shot by the boss man's auto rifle and goes down...Game over! Skeet beats feet as he lost his morale roll. If it's worth anything, the vigilantes also lose their roll. *Sigh*

Post Game:  We got paid 1 credit from the locals. A "thanks for trying" gesture, I guess.

Injuries: Katsuda was just knocked out! Grenda minor injuries and would spend one turn in the tank. Gort suffered a leg wound dropping his speed from 5" to 4.5" and missing one campaign turn.

Experience: Katsuda leveled up! I put the +0.5 into combat. Gort and Grenda each gained 1 exp. Skeet also leveled up! Decided I'd also put 0.5 into his combat score. I think combat is a good stat to dump points in for now since you add your combat score to your shooting dice.

Shopping: I spent 2 creds and got a brutal weapon.

Campaign event: An admirer! I've gained one crew member if I choose but they're unarmed and have no skill advances. I'm guessing they can still get stats from their background rolls? I'll take them as I can always dump them, I suppose.

Character event: Gort got +0.5 reactions as he was taught to always be on the lookout. He may have lost a leg but he gained in wisdom!

Well, that was campaign turn 2! Next turn will see the return of Jibril and Tereg. I can finally do some activities other than recruiting. Until next time!

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!