Song of Blades and Heroes v.5.0: WHF Playtest

OK, they look pretty fun...but can they FIGHT??

I like the cartoons and drawings for SBH... they are sorta old school

So, had these rules laying around for a while. Ages ago, I conceived this brilliant idea to play them at the FLGS but that went down in flames.  First the FLGS guy's something of a buzz kill.  Secondly, I playtested the rules at the store with some random nice people, and they just didn't work out well.  And I can't remember why. So, on the one hand, "left a bad taste in my mouth" but OTOH "been so long I think I'll piss on the electric fence again"!

So, in a fit of nostalgia, and listening to 1970s rock'n roll video, I bring you a detailed play-by-play of "Song of Blades and Heroes", one of a few Italian miniatures games to hit the scene and gain traction over the last few years.  It will include BOTH the practical intellectual and emotional impact of playing this game [emotional? you ask...yes, emotional, you'll see be patient].

First, I did a read-thru of the rules.  They are OK organized, not great.  Understanding or playing them, you are going to do a lot of page flipping.  This brings me to the first comment:

- The rules are heavily invested in special rules, and there are lots of little rules and exceptions to basic mechanics. This puts them in the Medium Complexity Camp, right off the bat.  In other words, these rules are actually not for the beginner.

Second, I tried to build a couple of flavorful rosters for my aging Warhammer Fantasy [WHF] figures. This involved quite a bit of time finding the force building engines here [CLICK]. Using them I found to be awkward and cumbersome. I did get them figured eventually and created a WORD doc with the rosters for a Human v. Chaos scrap.  Overall, took two hours.  But hey, now I know, right?  Right???

I wanted to use some painted miniatures that needed some "TTT", Table Top Time, old metal Chaos Marauders [I think] and some Minotaurs.  The latter especially make me laugh.  I'm uncertain which of the three I think is silliest, but they are all quite fun.  The list eventually had 7 Marauders, one with Combat 4 and the "Savage" Trait [on doubling an opponent - instead of trebling - he scores a Gruesome Kill, and all friendly models of the victim within several inches have to check morale.  This special rule is perfect for this "leader"].

Marauder Champion has axe, at front. Three Minotaurs all seem to be saying variations of "Cum'n get summa 'dis!" with appropriate gesticulations.

The Proud Citizens of Freedom and Empire, below.  They will save civilization, but tax you penniless, and require a permit for, well, every damn thing that they can think of, eventually.  Socialism is in the distant future, and for now they are just past feudalism and working on medievalism:

Should be 4 Archers, 5 Spearmen, and the Squire, Ozhelm at center, with shield of Sigmar blazing to the front!

The two sides. Most worthy of mention is that the Humans are half Quality 3 [the Spearmen], which means they activate on 3+ while the Human Archers and the entire Marauder force activate on a 4+ [they not being famous for organized activity, being savages who drink blood of their victims out of their scraped sculls and other such "less-than-civilized" pastimes...takes all kinds in a fantasy world!].

The Imperials have archers, but the Marauders have Minotaurs, which are both Combat 4 and are "Big" which means they get +1 to their Combat in melee, or "C5".  Plus they are making offensive gestures; think of them as soccer hooligans with homicidal instincts and horns...

I intentionally didn't take any figs with the Leadership Trait. This would allow Group Activations of 2-5 figs, which speeds play especially in the approach stages.  But I wanted to see the game at its most basic - throw figs down on the table and have at each other.

Below, the board.  A peasant farm that the Imperial patrol has learned is about to be hit by a Marauder attack.

Turn 1, Imps enter on the road, moving slowly and conservatively. In SBH, you can roll 1, 2, or 3 6-sided dice every time you activate a figure v. the Quality of the figure.  For each success, you can perform an Action. The problem is that if you roll 2 failures, your turn ends, and play passes to the opponent.  So, it is a big deal that the human Spearmen activate on 3+ v. the 4+ of the Marauders.  

Also, if you only roll 1d6, you CAN'T get 2 failures, so you will get to keep dicing to activate your force. The catch is that it is hard to WIN without taking the risk of rolling more than 1 die per figure each turn.  You get bonuses if you attack with two successes, for example. Also, sometimes you just really need to *move* a figure.

For example, the Marauders are moving up.  They roll successes for 3 of 4 front Marauders, all of whom can make a "Medium" move, shown by the stick.

These three move up, the failure stays put [tying his shoelace, or something]. Behind, the other three only get 1 success, and that fellow moves up.  There are now 4 of 7 that managed to advance of the Marauder force.

Of the Minotaurs, 2 of the 3 manage to move up.

Overall, the Marauder force moved up 6 of 10 models, needing a 4+ so they beat the odds, and really can't complain, can they?

Below, the Archers showing off their pathetic range.  Not much of a threat, really.

A couple of the more adventurous / foolish / optimistic archers advance, threatening to loose a few arrows at the Marauders at two Medium lengths...at -2, not much chance of harming anything.  But there it is.

Meanwhile, the Cow-heads advance, quickly [they smell blood! and want revenge for all those Imp trips to Longhorn steakhouse...].  One chap rolls 3 successes...

...and suddenly is way up the road, bellowing [mooing?] at the Humans, ferociously.

As turn 3 continues, the Marauders blow it on 3 failures, and end their turn.

The state of things...Imps have advanced a bit, hoping to score an archery hit or two, and perhaps knock out a stray chaos warrior with excessive enthusiasm and / or bloodlust. Unfortunately, the Minotaurs are coming on strong, along with the Chaos Chosen who is already hacking away at an Archer who carelessly advanced too far for safe shooting, and safe pension collection...[top left].

Chaos Champion engages Archer - he is only C4 to C3, so nothing spectacular should happen, as he makes a lone, unsupported and ill-advised attack on the archer who is near his friends, and squire.

First rolls of the game, 5+C4 for him and 1+C3 for Archer is 9-4, or the Archer is doubled. In doubling the Archer the Chaos Marauder Champion kills him, "gruesomely"!  The archers head flies across the farmyard, going down a gopher hole and golf is unexpectedly invented...but that's another story.

Morale checks for the Gruesome Kill go badly for Imps. One archer flees the board via the road he entered upon, "I'll go and get help!" he shouts over his shoulder. "OK Thanks for nothing Archer Peacock!" The other two archers and the squire fall back to the courtyard and behind the wall.

His brains splattered all over the road, the archer gives up the ghost and the Marauder Champion screams his unearthly battle cry, "Go Patriots!"  Savage!

Despite this setback, on Turn 4, Imps advance up the road, staying together, and hoping to channel the enemy to some advantage.  Part of this entails working to outnumber the Minotaur monsters with their pals.

Basically, combat entails fighting; 50% of combat results are one side pushed back, 50% are "knocked down" which I think of as Stunned [encouraged by the authors] as it makes more sense than knocked down.  Below, the front two Bulls are unimpressed by the spearmen, and slap one silly with a stick...

Spearman lays down to collect his wits, apparently...

Turn 4 continues, and with some failures to activate...

"That's a very big load of Bull, there, sir!" say the spearmen...

One Spearmen charges ferociously, screaming "He ain't heavy, he's my Brother, Bull-man!" and tries to stick the left Bull.  He rolled 3 successes...

Then he manages to beat him with an odd-die roll, resulting in the Bull recoiling one base depth [on an even roll, he is Stunned, and quite vulnerable].

End of Imp Turn 4, the Squire is holding his front yard with a couple of timid archers, and the spearmen are pushing Bull on the road between the fields.

On the Marauder Turn 4, they Bulls push up the road, engaging the spearmen but not having enough actions to beat them up.

Then the Champion rolls 2 Failures, ending the turn!

SITREP Turn 4.... Humans are on their back heels, but Marauders are strung out and attacking in a disorganized fashion, except for the Minotaur Bulls.

Spearmen barely manage to organize themselves, then their Squire gets 3 Failures, equaling the cunning of his opposite number!

Marauder turn 5 doesn't see much Activity before it ends. Bulls organize a bit, Marauders on the left advance to support their enthusiastic Champion.

Imp Squire charges out of his Front Yard and attacks his opposing Champion!  Forces him to Recoil [go back a base] but nothing more.

Interlude of thought here...these rules are from the "DBA" fan era, and the mechanics are largely stolen straight from that venerable Ancient wargame and put into a skirmish context.  Do they work here? Kinda-sorta... Skirmish fighting is wild and unpredictable. Fighting in SBH is a predictable and "on the bell curve".  

ChipCO recognized this issue with rolling D6 and comparing added combat values for not just a win, but for the 2-1 and 3-1 odds as well, and when they ripped-off DBA with "Fantasy Rules!" they used a d10, which made it, well, WAY unpredictable for a big-battle game. Oddly, Andrea Sfilogoi didn't recognize this aspect of inertia with his game, and kept the d6's.  Makes me think that perhaps combat should be rolled off on d8's or d10's. So, yes, this is a criticism of ChipCo for not understanding inertia, and AS for not understanding chaos theory, or something.  Anyway...back to the playtest!  

Imp Turn 6. Archer shoots, and does, well, nothing. As is often the case with these mechanics [unless you use lots of special Traits, or Group Activations].

In a burst of Savagery, Marauder champion stuns Imp Squire!

He got 2 Activations, pushed a friend into Contact, won on a '2'.

Marauder Turn 6 ends immediately...first activation by Bull results in 2 Failures.  It moves into contact with one Spearman, with the one Activation he passed.

Wild melee in progress on the left. Squire fights Marauders assisted by his Archers. Squire takes out the Marauder Chosen, and sends him to the Dark Gods!

Definitely can't argue with the figure quality!

This Bull is just saying something like "Yeah, gonnaputanaxeinya 'oomie!"

A few more turns pass, with little progress for either side. The rules can be frustrating at times, because, well, the mechanics ALLOW them to be frustrating.  sometimes you lose carefully set up fights on a dreaded 1-6 roll off, and other times you blow the activations and a turn ends pretty quickly.  

Is it realistic?  Yes.  Is it always fun?  No. Emotionally, this can be a trying game.

Turn 10, chaos seems to be gaining ground on the left. Imp Squire is down, Dead. One Marauder is stunned, and the Marauder Champion is ALSO DEAD! But the archers are not outnumbered 2-1, and it doesn't look good.

Turn 10, another Gruesome Kill on an Archer!

Spearman shrugs it off, "Never liked that guy anyway" he says.  Archer bolts back to cover of the Front Yard of the Squire's Residence.

Turn 10 ends, with Imps scattered on two fronts, but the Marauders scattered just as bad or worse. Couple more Marauders are down, as well, thanks to some careful planning and some [finally!] average dice matchups.

Imp Turn 11 ends in one roll, and they consolidate one Spearman, one Move.

Still, facing them are a pretty marginal Marauder force.

Turn 13, Archers shooting, demonstrating it can, ONCE A GAME, kill something.

Turn 13 continues, spearmen work to get into contact with isolated Bull and Marauder - numbers will be important here, as they try to wrap up the game!

Unfortunately, results in a dead spearman.

But Chaos gods are fickle!  They desert the bull and he dies a Gruesome Death, 7-2, and causes morale checks everywhere.

2 marauders fail 2 dice, 1 marauder fails 1 die, and they scamper.

Turn 14, the Marauders are over 50%, and check again. Marauder keeps running...

With only a couple of Marauders on the table, it seems time to call the game. Officially, they could keep fighting, but at this point an orderly advance of the remaining 5 Imps should see off the final two Marauders who're on the table.

Below, the Butcher's Bill.  Imps lost Squire, two archer's and a spearman. One other Archer fled off the board [facing away, behind].  Force on board was at 50% exactly, 4 Spearmen and one Archer.

Three Bulls and three Marauders died, two ran off the board, 2 had retreated, but were still - possibly - itching for a fight. Game doesn't provide for clean ending, which is mildly annoying [you can come up with your own ending, of course]. The rule is that the force checks Morale at "over 50%", or "more dead than alive" but you don't check again.  So at 50% you have your only casualty check.

This is a once-popular system. It is basically skirmish DBA with lots and lots of possible modifiers / abilities / characteristics called Traits. Like many Role-Playing Games, SBH is more like a "kit of tools" for a Game Master rather than a tight game. The kit is very good, IMHO, with lots of ways to tailor a force to *your* world, which is likely a fantasy / sci-fi type of place. This is therefore an $8 opportunity for someone to improve their GM skills, and for those of us with lots of experience, we can make it work. 

I also LOVE that Ganesha Games [the publisher] always seems to offer a "low ink printer friendly" copy of any game you buy. This keeps costs down.

The offered scenarios don't provide much variety which is unfortunate as scenarios give a skirmish game much of its vitality and "feel".  Again, while I can steal scenario ideas from numerous other games, this is a pretty lengthy rule book that could easily have fit 12 very different scenarios in it.

Like DBA, it can bog down a bit if both sides have higher combat, say C4-5. The mechanic that saves it is that wins on an Even roll are a "Fallen" result which I like to think of as Stunned, and which leaves the fig quite vulnerable: "Stunned" gives their attacker +2, and "Lethal" so the Stunned Fig is killed if it loses the melee.  This helps prevent the game from bogging down as badly as DBA did with certain forces. Wins on an Odd roll are a Recoil for the loser - retreat a base width - which can be helpful as it frees both figs from melee to go do other things instead of needing to try and Disengage.

I found Archers useless as archers if your side has no Leader [allowing Group Shooting].  Oddly, the rules don't give them a bonus shooting at Stunned figs, which I changed to the same +2 but didn't make it Lethal.  Now, this may in fact be historical, as if you aren't ambushing your opponent [and there is such a scenario] archers were probably not that useful, really. The weapons just aren't powerful enough.  You may not agree...

At times, the game bogged down due to bad dice, especially with Activation rolls. If you can shrug it off and hope your opponent has the same luck, then you'll be fine.  If not, you'll find this a frustrating game, because you are defeating yourself.  So I would classify this as a game for more mature people, in general, and perhaps not suitable for kids except as a character-building exercise.  If you like golf, and play miniature games, then this will be a way of life you'll find familiar. If not...

The mechanics present you with negativity.  You can literally blow your turn and actions with bad dice, and can have almost no turn at all, depending on how conservative or ambitious your attempts at Activation are. 

Sure, that's they way life really is.  People don't always want their games to be that way [they get enough of that in real life]. So "it all depends" on what you want out of a game.  If you're in therapy, you may want to pick another game to play.

There are boodles of special rules, called "Traits" that may be used to give more character to your force.  They may or may not be fair or playtested, or equally useful in all situations [again, think "Tool Kit for GM]. This puts more responsibility on the Host / Game Master to know the rules, pick a good scenario and good forces, and then run a fun game. It's not actually ready to play, IMHO, straight "out of the box", unless you are ready for blowout scenarios and other disasters, and find them fun to endure while you exercise your miniatures on the table.

Overall, I would class these rules in the British style as a "guide" rather than a set of tight rules that two people can print and play.  Like most British rules, you have to pick around them for a while to figure out what and how to do things. The tactics to win are unclear and obscured by game mechanics; this is helped by a few VERY useful explanations in little notes, here and there.

While I will try them again, it will be with some reservations, and only modest enthusiasm.  This is better than whatever happened several years ago, but I still can't enthusiastically recommend them to people. But I like them as a POTENTIAL vehicle for old-school figures, with a strong narrative streak.

And this may be the rules strongest suit - the narrative storyline is powerful. I didn't work on it hard with this playtest, but it is in there, and represents the most appealing aspect of it and the reason it was popular despite some of the boggy mechanics, and time spent flipping pages.

Overall, I give this game a qualified recommendation - if you like storylines, aren't concerned with competitive play, and want plenty of evocative Traits to tailor your force of D&D minis, this may be just right for you, as long as you are emotionally resilient. If not, you may literally toss the rules across the room and quit, and feel like you wasted $8.

Another thing I must try - using d8 for combat.  Worked for "Age of Hannibal" and it could work here...