My youngest son has been with us for the last week or so and rather than go over the fields to play football today he decided that he wanted to play a battle game. We usually only play the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Games : Battle Companies, but he said that he wanted to try something a little different this time. He still wanted to play a skirmish level affair with about the same amount of soldiers on each side. I racked my brains and pulled out my copy of the Song of Blades and Heroes rule book, which I haven't played for many a year now.
I had a quick skip through the rules to remind myself of how to play and we both choose a ~300 point army each...
Orcs of the Red Eye (302 pts)...
Warchief Budlak Q 3+ C 4 Leader Tough (100 pts)
5 x Orc warriors Q 4+ C 3 (115 pts)
3 x Orc archers Q4+ C 3 Shooter - Medium (87 pts)
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| View from the orcs' side |
Defenders of the Realm - Medieval style humans (278 pts)...
Sir Tristan Q3+ C 3 Leader (60 pts)
1 x Heavy Infantry Q 4+ C 4 Short Move (26 pts)
3 x Barbarian Warriors Q 3+ C 3 Fearless (108 pts)
3 x Human Shortbowmen Q 3+ C 2 Shooter - Medium (84 pts)
We got our maths a bit wrong here, for some reason we thought it added up to 298 pts - an extra Heavy Infantryman could have been added to the human force.
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| View from the humans' side |
We decided to play a straight up fight just to learn/get used to the rules again. We diced for who was to be the defender and who was to go first. The human faction was the defending force, so set up the table, the orcs chose which side to enter from, the defenders set up first and then rolled the best initiative so went first.
Turns 1-3
Both sides advanced across the battleground of the local village; the orcs were more eager to close into combat and claim the prize of the village and all its stores
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| Turn 2 |
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| Turn 3 |
Turn 4
Shooting produced no effect from either side, but when combat ensued, one of the human warriors was knocked prone
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| Turn 4 |
Turn 5
This turn was far more bloody - two orcs were knocked prone but one human archer was killed by the orc archers and one barbarian was killed by the orc warriors (O 9, H 6)
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| Turn 5 |
After taking such a heavy beating, the human warriors stepped back to reform their shield wall. Another of the human archers was not able to retreat as quickly as the others and fell to more orc arrows (O 9, H 5)
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| Turn 6 |
Turn 7
The orcs attacked again and one more barbarian fell causing a Morale check for the force hitting half strength. One human archer ran away, but the remainder retreated to within a few mm of the board edge (O 9, H 3)
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| Turn 7 |
Turns 8-9
The orcs chased the humans, who backed away and chose to use the high ground for their final stand
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| Turn 8 |
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| Turn 9 |
Turn 10
Sir Tristan fell to the orc rabble which caused a second Morale check, wherein the heavy infantryman ran away, leaving a solitary barbarian to defend the village (O 9, H 1)
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| Turn 10 |
Turn 11
The orc archers killed the remaining barbarian warrior (O 9, H 0)
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| Final stand |
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| Orc victory |
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| The orc that shot the final arrow |
This turned out to be a rather one-sided affair. The orcs made mincemeat of the human defenders. As the orc leader, I played a very aggressive game, and always rolled a minimum of two Activation Dice. My son played it very safe and only ever rolled one die per figure, except we both rolled 3 dice for the last figure in each turn.
I think that if he had that extra warrior, it might have made a small difference to the outcome (the orcs may have lost one or two troops), but he realised his biggest mistake was playing it too safe; he was so worried about rolling a double-one and not being able to use all of his troops in each turn. I threw caution to the wind and always rolled two dice, only rolling a double-one once in the entire game.
My son really enjoyed his first foray into Song of Blades and Heroes and said that he would love to play again sometime soon.
