Tuesday 2 December 2014

Sound drums and trumpets!

I have recently been painting a few Romans (and making a really bad model villa and a not much better marching fort) to provide some more variety to the Romans in Britain game. However, I have been assuming that we won't be playing it again for a while and have been wondering what to set up next in the wargaming annexe. A side conversation during last week's Seven Years War bash in the legendary wargames room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach has led to some action.


As you may have seen on his website, James is designing another campaign. Among the mechanisms that he described was a random countdown to define the campaign length, reminding me that various Peter Pig rules use something similar. That led me to re-reading Bloody Barons and that has led to the Wars of the Roses figures hitting the table, at least in the sense of being set-up. Real life has so far prevented any actual dice rolling.


I have gone for Tewkesbury - using the scenario in the book - for a variety of reasons, but mainly because it's relatively well balanced compared to most WotR battles. I've had to bodge the basing of what the rules refer to as Generals and Captains because it doesn't match mine, and to work around a shortage of levy bowmen; the rules are for 15mm and therefore tend to require a lot of figures. Sufficient reinforcements have left the mound of unpainted plastic and joined the workbench and will quite possibly be finished before I get round to playing anyway.


Bloody Barons involves motivation dice rolls a bit reminiscent of Blitzkrieg Commander plus some pretty traditional rolling for hits followed by saving throws. A word of warning though, the rules are really badly written, not so much in the sense of the mechanics being poor, but more in the sense of trying to work out what the hell they are in the first place. If anyone has worked out what the 'Extra arrows' markers are for then please let me know.

5 comments:

  1. I've had to look this up - I have played the rules a lot in the past , in the campaign sequence under supplies if your lucky you get extra arrows (marker) these give you 3 extra Activation Points (3AP) in shooting . I like these rules but they are not easy just to pick up and play again , as you say baldy written , but playable I've found all the later/modern rules Peter Pig has produced to be to complicated for me , Tony

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    1. Thanks, all is clear(ish) now. I do like the rules, but that's despite the rulebook and its omissions (no rules for cavalry vs cavalry), confusions (pretty much everything) and tweeness (why not name your leaders after cheeses?).

      I've never actually played any other Peter Pig rules although I've always wanted to have a go at 'Patrols in the Sudan'.

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  2. Great to see your WoR figures on the table. A game and BatRep soon? You are a lucky fellow to be able to game at James' place. The photos of his games and game room are astonishing.

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    1. Ahh yes, as I replied to His Holiness the padre the other day I am indeed lucky to regularly play with James' figures. To me they are what I always imagined one should aim for when I was reading Featherstone, Grant et al all those years ago.

      However, personally I fell no motivation to try to emulate his approach or aesthetic standards. Thankfully I still find I can get a perfectly enjoyable game from doing it the way I've always done it. Which brings us to the WotR figures. They're actually - apart form the chaps with flags - sort of generic 15th century and if you wait long enough many of them will reappear fighting for and against the Hussites, Hunyadi and the Ottomans. It works for me.

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