As alluded to in previous posts, one of my back burner projects is a refresh of my 10 mm WOTR armies. They are based for Bloody Barons which up until now were still my favourite medieval set. Now with the release of version 2, or more correctly, 'Wars of the Roses. The Bloody Barons', its time to take another look.
I was quite excited by the prospect as this new version claims to be a proper army level game and is played on a large grid - the playing area consists of 16 zones arranged into a 4 by 4 grid. This gives a 4 foot by 3 foot table, which just happens to be the size of my new table - happy days!
The rules are less focused on individual units but more about centre, left and right wing; in medieval parlance battles or wards. This is similar in concept to my favourite ancients game, 'Lost Battles', so I was keen to give it a go.
So the first step is to ascertain whether I have all the necessary figures. After a review of army size both for pick up games and historical scenarios it seems that the new version is potentially a bit more demanding in that it uses slightly more units. However, this version has suggestions for different unit sizes and is really quite flexible in that respect. A typical version one unit would be in the region of 8 bases (this was variable). In this version all units are the same size and consist of 8 'increments' but are deemed to be made up of 4 bases. In the 'popular' configuration' a unit is 4 bases and loses casualties by the half base. An alternative for wealthy players (as the rules deem it) is to use 8 actual bases but counting each one as a half base. It is this latter 'wealthy' configuration that tallies best with my version one armies. After a review of the scenario requirements it seems I have enough figures for most of the battles except the biggies, such as Towton. However, with my current basing system I have the option of using the 'popular' scale, in which case I have more than enough figures.
So, having decided that I would quite like to keep my basing system, the next step was to play through a game and see how this impacts upon the practicalities of game play.
The rules give examples of armies of different sizes both at the standard game size of 40 points and a small game size at 22 points. I chose to field two identical armies using what the rules term the 'normal' army, as opposed to a high quality army of less units or a poor quality army of more units.
Example Normal army
2 household foot units = 8
8 retinue foot units = 28
3 levy foot units = 3
1 light gun =1
Total 40 points. 104 (or 52) bases + 3 generals and a gun model
For simplicity, I wanted to restrict this first game to infantry only, so left out the guns. I also reduced both armies by a single retinue unit for figure usage reasons; even so I needed to use crossbows and a handgunner base to make up numbers. This is actually a plus, as the game doesn't differentiate between base types; archers, bills or crossbow it matters naught. The only differentiation is by quality; household, retinue or levy. This of course is really versatile when it comes to putting together armies from existing figure collections.
Hence, for this game both sides came in at 12 units costing 36 points. I will refer to them as the northern army or southern army depending on which table edge they occupied.
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| The Armies assemble - about 1200 figures |
Having built the armies, the next step is to choose the terrain (or scenery as the rules call it). A standard pick up game will have 7 pieces of scenery. The first 3 are compulsory and consist of a gentle hill, boggy ground and buildings (or a wood). Both players then choose 2 (differing) items from the following: gentle hill, rough hill, hedge or ditch, stream.
In reality I was limited by my available terrain so ended up with a wood, a gentle hill and marsh plus 2 hedges, a stream and a rough hill.
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| The Scenery items |
The next step is to roll for General's attributes. These can be:
Assaulter (A) - confers advantages when assaulting
Target (T) - confers advantages when being assaulted
Unreliable (U) - nuff said
Morale (M)- confers advantages in morale tests
After the dice rolls the attributes were deemed to be as follows:
Northern army CinC AT, 2nd general A, 3rd general M
Southern army CinC A, 2nd general T, 3rd general A
The next step is to determine the roles of attacker and defender. This is carried out using a quick little dice game (quaintly called the piggy chase). The winner of this is deemed the attacker and, as is common in other Peter Pig games, the defender suffers losses before the game start. The severity of the loss depends upon how well they did in the piggy chase. In this case the northern army would be defending and had level 3 losses (levels are 1 to 4 with the lower numbers being worse).
Next the scenery is placed. This is done by placing pieces alternately with the defender placing the first piece. The corner zones are filled before centre zones. Once placed, both sides have a limited chance to adjust the position of scenery.
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| Initial Scenery placement |
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| Final Terrain. Note the stream. The stream is only considered an obstacle in the Stream zone - here denoted by the stream side vegetation. |
Next, both sides may note down a zone which may be moved forward after deployment. The southern army chose to advance their right flank zone, whilst the northerners chose their right centre.
Both armies then deploy with the defender going first. Each base edge zone must contain a unit and the maximum capacity of a zone is 3 units. The southern attackers chose to spread their levy units over several zones, whereas the northerners chose to mass most of their Levy on their right flank behind woods.
The defender's losses are then determined. The northerners lost 3 half bases of Levy and 6 Retinue. Also all 3 Levy units failed to arrive and were placed in the off table reinforcements area. (A maximum of 3 units can be lost in his way).
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| Deployment before Defender's losses or advancing zones |
After this the pre-selected zones are advanced.
Finally, the scenario events are carried out. Both sides have 26 dice to assign to four scenario categories. (Bloody Barons ver. 1 had a similar pre-game with 11 categories including determining attacker and defender). Players then 'dice off' to see who has the advantage in each of these categories. In this case the results were as follows:
Ambition and Title Defender wins by 1 - add an attribute to general. The T attribute was added to general 2.
Battle Craft and Reputation Attacker wins by 2. Put an enemy unit into the reinforcements area. Chose to remove the last unit from defender's right flank (2 levy units had already been placed into the reinforcements area through defender's losses). Ouch.
Chance and Happenstance Defender wins by 1. Change a gentle hill to a rough hill.
Deviousness and Politic A draw.
So their we have it, all the pregame stuff done and we're ready for the off. The pre-game in version one was always great fun but did tend to take a long time. It remains to be seen if this is any quicker. It does seem to have been slimmed down but the first time through is always slow and I'm playing solo. The essential flavour of the original rules is still there, albeit with a slightly different focus.
So onto the game with the defender going first. I shall describe the play sequence but won't go through blow by blow; hopefully the pictures will speak for themselves. I will say, however, that after the initial run through I picked up the mechanisms very quick and the battle rules are very slick. The turn sequence is handy to refer to but most of the rules can be remembered pretty easily after a couple of turns.
Turn Sequence
1) General's actions - essentially moving and attaching / un-attaching to units.
2) Morale - any Wards (zones) containing casualty markers takes morale.
3) Cavalry Phase (not used in this playtest)
4) Pulling units in - essentially a chance to adjust which zone single units occupy
5) Active player shoots
6) Active player moves Wards
7) Melee
8) Both players attempt to remove low on arrows markers
9) Both players attempt to restore order to single units
10) Restore Wards. A chance to regain casualties if not in contact.
11) Both players attempt to load guns (not used this playtest)
12) Arrivals - units in reinforcement area attempt to arrive
13 Battle clock - D6 Battle lasts up to 32.
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| End of Turn One. Attacker's left centre in some disorder. Defender late arrivals start to trickle in from behind wood. |
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| End of Turn Two. Attacker's push on the right. Disordered by shooting crossing the stream. |
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| End of Turn Three (getting late, hence the change of light!). Red markers show 'Winning the Fight' |
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| Turn Four. Defenders concede when both flanks shattered. |
All in all I'm very impressed with the rules and they do seem to reflect the level of command they are pitched at. For me, highlights are:
1) No formations - units are either 'Ordered' (in battle line) or 'Out of Order'. [Personally I would have gone for something like arrayed and disarrayed but hey ho].
2) Focus on Wards - shooting, morale and melee is done by Ward not individual units.
3) Morale effect - most troops are lost by single bases sloping off with only the odd unit legging it.
4) Combat outcome - very easy to remember and intuitive.
5) Generals. - the mechanisms for generals is very clever. They have a real effect with the mechanisms being almost invisible. General's attributes aside, they act by attaching to units and raising the quality of that unit. This has knock on effects in morale, shooting and melee.
As I said I'm very impressed with these so far. I already have ideas for upgrading my terrain, a big rebase and touch up of the paint work and even adding a few more figures. Then there's that long dreamed of Kingmaker campaign.........
