Orewin Bridge, 1282, w "Chainmail, 3rd ed"

YOU SHALL NOT PASS!

Last couple of posts, worked out a scenario for Orewin Bridge 1282, the decisive battlefield disaster for medieval Wales and her prince. I then juggled the time and other available resources, and made progress on needed units for the game, flocked over 30 bases and completing three more needed Welsh units.

For the full table, I rotated #12 90 degrees clockwise, then used #11 and #14 alongside it - #14 was optional, to be played only if there was enough people. The scenario that makes the history is #12, an outflanked bridge defense, as this is one of the best known aspects of the battle.  

NOTE: #19 "Blow from the Rear" was another possible choice, but the outflanking force puts a huge amount of sudden pressure on partially inactive defense, making it more of a surprise attack. As the historical record states that the Welsh realigned their front before the battle began, this seemed less suitable than #12.

The laminated cards I use to conceptualize big battles are arranged below:

I made the table, but took pictures from "Table North" instead of south, so below I am turning the entire image upside down for easier comparison:

On the game day table, I used my favorite light-canvas brown cloth which provides a neutral earth color palette that strongly brings out the terrain. I easily obtained the simple terrain features needed for the three "One-Hour Wargames" scenarios I had picked out - #12, #11 and #14 - with what the Host had on hand. 

Below is #14 "Static Defense" from the defender's side.  At the top are the English, advancing with a unit of Heavy Infantry, a Unit of Heavy Cavalry, and a Unit of Light Infantry with bows [in a wide line]. They must seize either the camp at left or the hill at right. The catch is two units must stay within 12" of those objectives. So the only unit free to move is the small Archer unit in the woods.

Facing them are - from left - a unit of Welsh Heavy Infantry, a small unit of Light Infantry with Bows, and another unit of Heavy Infantry. 

A unique ability of the Welsh heavy infantry is that they can move Unformed through woods at half speed, exit and form up again.  Something useful given that there are two large woods at board center!

Below is #11 "Surprise Attack", again from the defender's viewpoint. 

Here, the English Marcher Lords have a strong force composed of a Light Infantry with Crossbows, a Heavy Infantry with Bows, and a Heavy Cavalry.  They must seize the crossroads at bottom, in front of the fields and house.

Opposing them are a Welsh Heavy Infantry, a Light Infantry with Bows, and - entering on Turns 3 and 6 as reinforcements, a Heavy Cavalry and a Light Cavalry with Javelins. The Heavy Infantry occupy the important gap between an impassible bog and the woods which may only be moved through by unformed Infantry.

Finally, at #12 "An Unfortunate Oversight", the English have a unit of Light Infantry Archers, a Unit of Heavy Infantry, and a Unit of Heavy Cavalry who have outflanked the bridge. These are opposed by a Heavy Infantry and two Light Infantry with Bow; against the Bridge itself are a Light Infantry with Bow, and a Heavy Infantry in a town.

About to force the crossing are a Unit of Armored Infantry and two Units of Light Infantry with Crossbows. All bow Units have an ammo limit of 6 shots.

The English must seize the bridge and the hill.  This makes four terrain objectives.

Below, looking down the table from the English original position at the bridge. The board objectives are more easily understood from this angle. Victory by the far English forces at top right will threaten / secure the road at left, which is the line of retreat, advance and supply for the Welsh. The two hills overlook the road and provide excellent shooting positions for the English archers. The bridge and town are positions that if lost will provide the anvil for the hammer to strike against.

Below, a rather aggressive toll booth attendant with sword and shield!

Finally, an important part of making the scenario "Orewin Bridge" is the fate of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd the Prince of Wales himself. He will enter as a reinforcement soon after an objective is seized in scenario #14.

He will get stuck in as quickly as possible, preferably to hold or take back an objective. However if he dies, that event is worth a victory point.

The total is 5 objectives: 

- If the English take 3, they win a minor victory, inflicting a setback upon the Welsh rebellion against their lawful King. 

- If they take 4-5, they win a major victory, defeating the Welsh and thwarting the rebellion of its leaders.

- If they take 1-2, the Welsh have held their own in the field of battle, proving their cause is just in the eyes of God, which will grow the rebellion.

- If the English take none, then as above, plus a huge setback for English arms and the reputation of the Marcher Lords as a force to be reckoned with, perhaps even a free Wales under a king!

**********************************************************************

The game had a slow start, with players showing up late, so we didn't get started for over an hour. Below, the main effort to seize the vital crossroads and trap most of the Welsh army against the river is being lead by their general Hugh Le Strange [known for his eccentric personality, of course].

Le Strange advanced strongly supported by archery while outflanking the Welsh with his knights. After a punishing series of volleys, the Welsh retreated with heavy casualties from the large bow unit and its supporting crossbows.

Meanwhile, to the right, the Welsh were struggling to hold off a strong advance by English heavy infantry and knights. Below, the knights took significant casualties from the two archer units, and are now at 50%! However, this used up most of their arrows, and the knights have chased off and are pursuing one of the bow units. 

On the hill, the two sides are locked in a slog, with the Welsh having a small uphill advantage against an identical heavy infantry unit. 

Interestingly, the key to the position is the open flank of the Welsh Heavy Infantry, which was being well guarded by the two small Light Infantry Archers, who wisely kept distance, forcing the knights to come farther to them. They are, however, still within charge distance of the Welsh Heavy Infantry flank, so must be driven off.

To the left, the English make a bold and well coordinated attack with their Heavy Infantry supported by archers, while their knights move to outflank the Welsh and threaten the camp. Arrows fall upon the Welsh causing several casualties, and reducing their figure count from 24 to 20. This also reduces their future combat total against the English Heavy Infantry by 20 points, an impactful amount.

After just a few turns - far faster than I expected, the dismounted English knights forced their way into the town, causing the Welsh to fall back some distance. This is a huge accomplishment as it outflanks the Welsh on the hill, and the Welsh Heavy Infantry are decisively outclassed by the English dismounted knights unless they occupy the town.  They have no chance of seizing it back.

With tough fighting happening in the center and right, the English took the camp on the left. Llewellyn arrived and attempted to re-take it since it is important to morale as well as having most of his treasury!  

Here, I used a combination of the battle rules [the two knight units] with the two general figures fighting beside them using the Man-to-Man combat rules.

"Leave him be, the traitor is mine!" shouts Le Strange.

"Get your greedy hands out of my camp!" shouts Llewellyn back.

As one would think, the identical knight units are slowly attriting each other. Meanwhile, the two knights hack away at each other in personal combat.

After a couple of rounds, with time running out for the game, we concentrate on the single combat. Both knights manage to wound each other [they have three wounds] but neither is ready to give up.

A bit later, the knight units have lost 3 figs each, but Llewellyn takes a second wound!  

"Save the Prince!" his retainers cry. Grabbing his horse's reigns, they retreat quickly, leaving the befuddled English to see to the wound of Le Strange.

Overall, this was a fun scenario that was cut short by several time delays, leaving the main part of the fighting uncertain - it could have swung either way.

As for the rules, the most important thing I took away is that the split-move shooting sequence is just too confusing.  It must have been explained 5 times at least, and was still tripping up players and slowing down the game.  With all due respect to Lords Gygax and Perren,  I will change the turn sequence a bit to take care of this but retain the original design goals as much as possible. 

Some other thoughts on the rules... I was uncertain that shooting was effective enough at times, but a lot of it had to do with the ranges and shots the players took. In other words, some of the shots the players took appeared marginal to me, and they would have been better off saving their limited arrows for another opportunity.

Given that some shooting was very effective, and other shooting was a lot less so. I'm going to try and make it just *a bit* better. After all, I have aggressively limited the number of shots to 6 [conveniently counted down with one black die] so the fewer shots should be a bit more impactful.  Overall, shooting has been reduced to  about half as effective, and with an ammo limit that forces the archery units to enter melee at some point if the objectives are still in doubt.

Another aspect I want to clean up is the integration of Man-to-Man combat into the main rules. Much is made in the rules to differentiate the interaction of various armor types and weapons. As most medieval single combats will have the fighters similarly equipped, this is a wash and easily handled. 

The players were willing to give the rules another go, so I am considering whether to re-play the same battle with a few changes to get a decisive conclusion within the allotted time, or try a new battle.  I'd also like to finish a few more units and individual characters, as well as their banners and flags, to give the whole event a bit more spectacle and color.  We'll see what 2025 brings!

Medieval Welsh & Marcher Lords: prepping the armies

The Day the Music Died...

The tune of Welsh Independence, that is!         from: [CLICK] 

With a battle in mind, I had to start looking at the bunch of figures that were not yet finished, and start planning the Units that would fight on the table. This means I need to decide on how many units per player, and how many per foot width of table.

POINT 1: One must figure out how many people are playing, how many units are needed per person for an interesting game.  If you don't want much maneuvering, you need lots of units flanked by terrain that confines the space and forces more straight-up fighting. In general, people need at least 3-4 units, so that if a bit of misfortune happens to a couple they still have toys to play with.

POINT 2: There is a direct measured relationship between table space and unit sizes.  I'm planning a 9' x 3' [really 5'] table, with a center 3' battle space. My unit bases are 5x2.5" with 1-2 per unit, which works out to about 6" width per unit.  Ergo I can fit 18 units side by side and fill a space.  As the OHW scenarios from last post do have some significant terrain, the actual clear maneuver space in the center of the board is only 5.5'!  See below:

The two woods are 2 square feet total, and the bog [circle in center] is an impassible 6" terrain piece. The River [left] is also impassible except at the bridge [and the marked ford doesn't exist - it is actually off the South edge of the board] so the 8" or so to the battlefield West is just to stage troops to attack across the bridge, or support the attack with shooting.

At 5.5', the center portion of the board accommodates 11 Units in the open, with 4 additional units in the woods, which is restricted to Unformed troops. Both sides do have them, however, they are entirely small units of archers.

--> Overall, I'd say that a good troop density is 4-5 Units per scenario, i.e. per 3' width of the table. This leaves the option to deploy the larger units 2-bases wide if desired, some maneuver room, and also the possibility to deploy in depth.

Overall, I'm looking at about 12-15 units per side, total of 24-30 Units.

At present, I am well short of that number.  Depending on if the units are 1 or 2 bases, I need at least another 5-10 bases.

Looking at the large number of "almost done" units, I have about 3 bases of Dark Ages Welsh spearmen, 3 bases of Medieval Welsh spearmen, and 6 bases of Welsh archers.  I also have 8 bases of Anglo-Saxon heavy infantry. All the figures [except the archers] are at the same stage: the figs are painted, but they need spears and shields to be painted and attached. Then they need to be sealed, based and flocked.  I like the idea of heavy infantry clashes, as they are satisfying to gamers who enjoy lining units up and bashing heads.

I start to work on the Anglo-Saxons. Previously, I painted the back of the shields, mounted them, then painted the metal parts of the shields.  Now, I need to clean up where the black / metallic paint encroached into the painted leather covering of the shield, so a bunch of edging needs to be done, basically.

Below, over 120 figs, with shield inspiration above, just to help me figure out the colors later.  All the figs pictured here are from Old Glory 25s - great, animated figs!

To get the shields white, I needed to use a Base White which has more pigment - this gave faster coverage. To blend things a bit, I used Vallejo Off-white.

Below, these metal colors need to be cleaned up and made white, preparing for a color of some sort to follow; likely bright colors, so the metallic paint would show through and not look good.

After cleanup, you can see the slight contrast of the base white, the original white primer, and the off-white.  I actually want this because I like the look of the shield being a bit weathered and the color NOT being consistent. This inspiration comes from the Little Big Men Studio transfer images I printed out, just for ideas.

As you can see, their shields look like they've been outside and on campaign a bit!

Some of the shields are very nicely sculpted; you can see that the below shield on left and right has the leather cover overlapping the edge and being nailed down on the back side inner edge.  So I paint that white also.

The center fig has what is most likely a leather strip reinforcing the edge and nailed in - I painted this to be a metal edge, which was less common, but did exist.

Below, I am using my trusty wet palette to keep the paint flowing as it will take at least an hour to paint all these shields white - I don't want the paint can open as it will start to dry out. Also, it makes it easy to blend shades.

These shields were primed grey. They also have no sculpting on the interior to indicate that they are wood.  I use a brush with a bit of extra wet paint on it to create fake wood lines.  It is very fast - just a long toothpick in the center hole to hold it still, and two quick wet swipes with a brush is usually enough.  

A second coat would make them solidly the brown color and it faux grain would disappear. 

I then take an X-acto blade and scrape down to the bare metal on the contact points between the shields and the hands / arms / clothes where the shield will touch:

As I'm a bit short on shields, I go to my craft store bag of round wood discs and grab 20 small ones, then dremel out a concave recess to help glue it to the fig.

Then I paint the interior side of the shields, then I paint the exterior with a thin coat of color, which allows the wood grain to show through. These shields were bought at the "Snorri Used Shield Shop" are are low-budget, no leather covering, some paint thrown on to preserve the raw wood from wet.

As all that was drying, I began to get a better idea of the time involved, so gave all the Welsh that needed them spears and shields. I then popped the archers off their craft sticks [the Elmer's glue dries brittle, allowing for easy removal].

I then checked and realized I needed more uni-bases with contour  [an 8-part blog post series CLICK], so I cut up strips of cardboard [two different thicknesses] and made little undulations and hills, gluing them with Elmers.

While the cardboard was drying, I popped the spearmen off their craft sticks. I usually just bend or twist the stick, and they start to come off.

I then glued them onto the uni-base in little dioramas. In this case, I was putting 12 figs per base, which makes them "loose medium infantry" in WRG basing terms. There is enough space to give an interesting story to each base.

Having done the same with the archers, I then sculpted the bases with Elmer's wood fill to hide the cardboard and the figures metal base. When it was mostly dry, I painted the entire top in a color sample I had made at Lowe's, which matches the bases and the table.

I tried a darker color craft paint, but it didn't look right and contrasted too sharply with the wood fill light tan under it, so I ended up painting that over.

I spread cheap white glue [wetter and thinner than Elmers] around on the base so it is mostly covered, then dip the base in my flocking mix, for below result.

These also had some shrubbery glued on for added effect.

Around mid-week, I realized I would not have time for the Anglo-Saxon shields, so I concentrated on the Welsh to try and get them done for Saturday's big game!

Next post - the game itself!

History to Table - Creating an Orewin Bridge, 1282, Scenario

"Upon this rock, I will build Welsh Nationalism"

from Wikipedia article on Orewin Bridge [CLICK]

In similar fashion to previous posts about creating a wargame scenario from history to tabletop [here] using the battle of Hereford, and [here] using the battle of Crug Mawr, I set out to create an expandable scenario for Orewin Bridge, 1282 [click above] for a group of variable size [2-6 players]. Once again, I turned to the old reliable "One-Hour Wargames" by Neil Thomas [CLICK], my go-to starting point. OHW should be familiar to all followers of this blog, it having 64 posts!

First, to get a quick summary of the battle, I used the Wiki article above. The most significant features of the battle are:

- Welsh hold River Crossing

- English outflanking it by a ford

- English attack and rout the Welsh

- Death of Prince Llywelyn

With that in mind, I already knew the exact OHW scenario to use, #12 "An Unfortunate Oversight".  It features the above two points. But how to expand the battle in ways that made sense and were also tactically interesting?

This gets into the social aspect of the hobby. 

Today, it is a lot harder to get firm commitments from people about doing anything, even something as *critically* important as a wargame.  With an uncertain number of players, but likely around 4, and being willing to play or not myself, I was pretty certain of 4-5 players. So I would need at least one additional OHW scenario, but preferably two, which would expand the game to total of 9 feet by 3 feet at 3 feet per scenario.  The third scenario would be "optional", and could be dropped if short of players.  But the key aspects of the battle would be there.

With this in mind, I took my handy-dandy laminated OHW scenario map cards and tried a few concepts. Keeping in mind the feel of a strong attack from an unexpected direction, the outflanking of the Welsh bridge position, I considered:

#12 "An Unfortunate Oversight" [rotated 90 degrees], as I didn't want to fight down the narrow end of the table, but allow each scenario to be a fully alongside the others.

Ever-reliable Scenario #8 "Melee", alonside #7 "Flank Attack" were early choices. While 8 was suitable, it had too much deployment time for the attacker, and I wanted the battle to develop quickly.  I considered replacing it with #4 "Take the High Ground" but that involves a lot of subtlety using the hill as a line of sight block to save the 2 Units that start upon it. Also, 7 "Flank Attack (2)" had the attacker too far to the right flank, and the English attack was an operational but not a tactical surprise, since the Welsh redeployed to meet it.

Below, #11 "Surprise Attack" and #14 "Static Defense".

I felt that the pacing of 11 would be good - it gets right into the action, and puts the defender under a lot of pressure quickly, which seemed to suit the tactical situation. #14 I decided to use as it helped me introduce the use of the Town [black square at right] as Prince Llywellyn's camp, which was a suitable objective.  I pushed the hill forward a bit and added a road continuing from 11's road.  Thus the objectives all made sense - the capture of either the hill or the camp interdicted the road behind, which was the line of retreat for the Welsh. Same with scenario 11, the seizing of the crossroads would trap the Welsh units fighting in scenario 12.   I added the town at the bridge as an objective also, giving a total of 4 terrain objectives. 

The 5th was killing Prince Llywellyn, who would arrive as a reinforcement the turn after either objective in 14 was taken. It would be his task to try and turn the tide.  I also decided that the Welsh would win if 0-2 objectives were taken, the English win if 3-4 were taken, and a complete decisive victory if all 5 happened - the death of the Prince was the death knell of an independent Wales, which is the purpose of fighting this campaign at all, historically.

I was very satisfied with this scenario.  Altho there are many differences between Neil Thomas' rules and the venerable "Chainmail" we would be playing, I felt that the faster move rates would be compensated for with a wider table; the larger units might crowd the space a bit, but I was pretty sure I would have fewer units per side, probably 4 instead of 6.

For the fight between Prince Llywellyn and the knight who slew him, Stephen de Frankton, an English centenar from Shropshire, I plan to use the man-to-man combat rules from "Chainmail".

Next post: Assembling the feudal array!

"Mead Price" Dark Ages Rules: Playtest

A Great Way to Settle Disputes...

...the old fashioned way!

Mead Price is a free offering from Slingshot issue 347, July / August 2023. The author is James Morris ["JM" henceforth] who maintains a website and blog HERE. The rules are part of his brief but informative article "Getting Started in Early Medieval Wargaming". It is *definitely* worth reading if you want to...get started in Early Medieval wargaming! At the article's end, JM suggests several popular and accessible sets of rules for the period, along with his own, Mead Price. In the article, he calls it "a very simple set of battle rules" which we can take as a design statement. However, I was able to contact him to get a little more information:

SttS: Did you have specific design goals you wanted to meet with Mead Price?

JM: Well, the whole game was put together over the space of a couple of weeks for the Sutton Hoo 'Wargaming the Age of the Anglo-Saxons' event, so it wasn't quite as detailed a process as you might imagine.  Midgard Heroic Battles had the right ethos but I wanted to be able to distil some of that down into a 30-minute game.

SttS: How did you choose its mechanics?  Were you inspired by other games?

JM: Simplicity was the key aim.  The mechanisms needed to be quickly picked up by people of all ages playing their first game, but to have some kind of plausibility.  I'm a big fan of Daniel Mersey's work and had recently played Age of Penda, which was quick to play but felt a little too abstract for a non-gamer audience.  The 'highest roll wins' mechanism was probably inspired by Rick Priestley's original Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game, but I have changed how you deal with ties.  Other rules, such as the Risk to Heroes and Reputation Goblet came straight out of Midgard Heroic Battles. The random event chit appears in many Too Fat Lardies games.

JM also indicates that it is a simplified version of a full set of rules for heroic battles in the early medieval period, which will be called Midgard. This is due for release soon, in late November, 2024. Even now it has informative videos [CLICK] and explanations at his website. 

One thing missing from the article that is brought out in the rules, is the importance of leaders / heroes / bully-boys in the Early Medieval period; sometimes they were the main or only reason there was a battle being fought at all. They also fought amidst their closest and most trusted warriors, often referred to as hearth guards or similar. These men tended to have the best weapons and armor, and the most experience.  More on this shortly.

BLUF, aka "Bottom Line Up Front"

Mead Price achieves the design goal of "a simple battle game" and is a superior free offering in a magazine that regularly gives them to subscribers. It presents significant aspects of period battles in the barbarian realms north and west of the Mediterranean in a clear fashion. These include: 

- the importance of leaders and a battle line, 

- four troop types: Hearth Guard, Warriors, Mounted Warriors, Skirmishers,

- Events beyond the general's control,

all in a modest 2-page package. It is worth the price of issue 347, so one can consider the rest of the issue a bonus!

Problems. The brevity of the rules comes at the price of some unclear game mechanics that could have used more explanation. For example, the mechanic of Turning is not explained, and it is one of the most important mechanics in any battle line game. So, can you wheel? turn on center? Turn freely within the limit of your move? About face? It's not stated. As he included contact info, I reached out to JM with my questions and got the following:

- A Turn takes up an entire Move, and no corner may move farther than one ST.

- If the final Unit of a Leader's command is destroyed, the Leader is destroyed, also.

- A Fight is resolved at the end of a Unit's Move, before the next Unit Activation.

- The ZOC effect is only straight forwards [basically, it's charge zone].

- a tie between two units in combat results in them separating half a ST.

- [EDIT Nov4, 2024] During Fight resolution, if one Unit runs out of dice during the tie-breaking, it loses to any value of the opposing Unit's next highest dice. Example: If the total dice of two units were 2 & 4, and they tied their two highest numbers at 6-5, 6-5-2-1, the '2' would win for the Unit with more dice as the other has a '0'.

- There is no mechanic called "battle rating" [top of p.9]; it should read "strength".

Tactics. Most of the tactical decisions are during setup, which is strict but the order in which players setup has no rules. Alternating Unit placement or drawing a sketch should suffice.  Generally, you advance straight ahead to defeat the unit in front of yours; hopefully, combat results present opportunities to flank an enemy Unit or two. If combat goes badly, you will be trying to rescue a couple of your units from being flanked! Around that time, a few final decisive combats will occur and the game will decisively end. 

The decisive ending is provided by a Morale Clock mechanic: each side has 8 Reputation Points, and the loss of Units and Leaders - and sometimes Events - lowers it until one side reaches zero when the game immediately ends.

Time Commitment. This game requires little tracking or record-keeping, and should play in an hour as presented, a bit more or less perhaps depending on dice rolling. The game length is easily changed by increasing or decreasing Reputation Points.

Key Game Mechanics

Scale and Time. None are offered, but table distances are measured in "Spear Throws" equal to the width of a Unit and the distance a foot unit moves in a turn.

Taking an actual javelin throw as about 50 yards; bows shoot twice as far or 100 yards. This makes a turn equal to about a minute of activity, plus about 4 minutes of wasted time using voice, visual or musical commands, so a five-minute Turn, give or take. 

The battle space as presented in the rules is 8 ST by 5 ST, so 400 by 250 yards. A Unit is 50y wide, so if the common four-man deep formation is used, a Warrior Unit is 50 men by 4 men or 200 men. Four deep seems to offer enough solidity while providing some flexibility to match the opponent's frontage. A Unit of Skirmishers or Mounted Warriors would be around 50-75 men, altho the "civilized" Mediterranean formations would have denser numbers in their Units.

All the above demonstrates one thing - you may say "this game has no specific time and ground scale" all you want, you game designers, but it's there and easily deduced!

Turn Sequence is simple - all Units are assigned to a Leader who has a chit in a bag. The Units Activate when their Leader's chit is drawn. One chit is also the Event chit - if drawn you roll a d6 for a random Event to occur. So there is only the one phase, "Activations" after you set up.

Activation

The draw-chit provides an unpredictable but smooth activation sequence. It is possible for Units to get two Activations before nearby opposing Units if it Activates after them on one turn, and before them on the next. As both sides fight in Melee, this does not affect it much, but it definitely empowers maneuver and shooting, e.g. you may get to shoot or move twice before your opponent can react. Activation choices are Shoot/Move or Move/Shoot [for Mounted Warriors or Skirmishers with missile weapons], or Move; Units Fight immediately if the Move results in contact with enemy Units.  

Combat

This is quite simply adding up the Unit's Strength Points and any Leader, Support or Flank bonus and rolling that many dice; whichever side rolls higher wins. Ties result in a "push". Shooting is similar, but only one die for the shooter and full dice for the target, resulting in shooting being weak, suitable for most Dark Ages armies in the uncivilized lands - may not be for Mediterranean civilized armies.

The Importance of Leaders is shown by Units Activating when their Leader's chit is drawn, Leader's significant combat power [1-2 dice], and the effect when killed, [1-2 Reputation points lost]. They are thus as valuable as most Units. Their vulnerability is seen in the mechanic to check for Risk to Heroes whenever the Unit is a target of combat.

Troop Types

These are enough to provide some variety and they all have importance in the game. Warriors are the typical unit and have Strength 2 - so two dice Fighting and two Hits to remove them.  Hearth Guard are same but Strength 3. Mounted Warriors are the same but move twice as far and might shoot javelins or bows [bows shoot twice as far].  Skirmishers are Strength 1 and also might shoot. There are no Terrain rules, so Skirmishers are mainly weak Warrior Units that may shoot.

Events

The events are flavorful and usually impactful, although there are a few circumstances where they have no effect which is a let-down. The six are randomly diced for when the Event chit is drawn, and affect Reputation, Leader Risk, Combat, Move, or Rally a Hit. This is a flavorful mechanic, and it may be easily altered to suit a narrative or specific historical / fantastical period, including an RPG or board game.

With this explanation in mind, it's time to see how it plays!

When this free offering came with my Slingshot [always a welcome arrival in its old-school airmail envelope!], I immediately played it several times with Battleground Fantasy cards, Wood Elves vs. Orcs, as I was pressed for time and table space. It provided a quick and narrative game very suitable for the period and the "genre" of literature that inspires it, especially high fantasy literature, e.g. Tolkein and Mary Stewart. 

As Units are simple rectangles with no figure adjustment or maneuvering, any labeled card or block may be used for Mead Price. A portable set could easily be made for the game using cardstock and visuals downloaded from Wargame Vault. Also Battleground Fantasy has 2-dimensional terrain sets perfect for people on the go, whether a work or leisure trip.

I set up 12 of my 25mm "mass army" unit bases, single bases 5" x 2.5". The general idea is Dark Ages Britain, seen here:

It doesn't take much to build a quick fun narrative, which is the strength of this type of game.

I then dragged out some runes I bought for gaming purposes. To have some narrative fun, I picked a name to match each Leader and his rune. So below are "F" for Finnbogi, "R" for Rolff, and "Th" for Thrassi, Northumbrians defending their crops against raiders from Strathclyde. 

Finnbogi is the Warlord [2 dice, 2 Reputation] and has a command of well armed and armored Hearth Guard and Skirmishers with bows.

Old Glory Swabians and Gothic Archers.

Rolff has a command of two Warrior Units.

Old Glory Gothic Infantry.

Thrassi has a command of two Warrior Units.

Old Glory Lesser Saxon Fyrd.

Below are Strathclyde raiders, "H" for Hals, "S" for Skeggi, "D" for The Druid, a savage bard summoned from his hut near a haunted barrow.

Hals is the Warlord [2 dice, 2 Reputation] has units of Hearth Guard and Warriors.

Old Glory Dark Ages Welsh, Gripping Beast Late Romans / Arthurians.

Skeggi has two Units of Warriors.

Old Glory Medieval Welsh.

The Druid has a Unit of Skirmisher bows and Mounted Warriors. 

Old Glory Irish Cavalry and Medieval Welsh Archers.

For a little variety instead of yet another straight-up fight, I used scenario #4 "Melee" from One-Hour Wargames. I modified it to fit the rules so battlespace is 8 ST wide, and each column of 5.5" has one unit in the center six columns, leaving space for one Unit to maneuver on each flank. The closest Units started 15" apart while the reinforcements are farther away.

Hals the warlord of the Strathclyde raiders camped for the night near some Roman ruins, setting some Warriors and Skeggi as an advance guard on a low hill. The Druid is a bit off on the right... he makes the men uneasy...always seems to be toying with unidentifiable entrails and mumbling to himself...Carts with their ill-gotten gains are slowing them down and Hals reckons that the Northumbrians may catch up to them, so is mostly prepared for a fight.

Finnbogi's attacking Northumbrian force has Finnbogi on the left, with Rolff in center and Thrassi on the right.

Below, Turn 1, Finnbogi then Thrassi Activate their Units.

Finnbogi's bowmen give the Welsh a volley, influcting a Strength loss!

Farther into Turn 1, The Druid and Thrassi are engaging in typical pre-battle conversation:

"I heard you wanted to see your uncle, so we decided to head this way."

"I'm going to gut you like a trout and pull out your entrails!"

"With which I will tell your terrible future!"

War used to be a much more personal past time...

On the left, Rolff and Skeggi engage in similar banter:

"I'm going to feed your eyes to my goats!"

"Then your relations will at last have some foresight!"

Turn 2, another shot from the bows results in a miss...had they succeeded, the Welsh spearmen would have been destroyed. But help is on the way from the Hearth Guard!

Below, the situation end of Turn 2: The Red raiders are moving up to help their forces on the hill, but are a bit disjointed. The Blue Northumbrians are approaching in a nice even battle line, except that the right-most Warriors are maneuvering towards the hill as a reinforcement.

The order of chits nearly spells "friends"... wonder if "FRHTHDS" is Anglo-Saxon? Anyway, too late for an amicable settlement here!

The chit draws on Turn 3 favored The Druid as he had an opportunity to push back the Warriors ahead of him, which would have blocked the Warriors behind maneuvering to the center. He immediately attacks!

Unfortunately, he loses, and Thrassi advances after combat to be certain of the space behind him. For that reason, he also doesn't attack the Mounted Warriors - if he lost, he'd have to retreat back into the path of his maneuvering Warriors.

Over in the center, Rolff is throwing his Warriors against Skeggi's Warriors on the hill. To his right, his other unit is not attacking but instead supporting him with a bonus combat die and maintaining the battle line.

Unfortunately, Rolff is edged out in the combat dice rolls, 4-3...

...and retreats back down the hill.

The Event chit is drawn, and a '1' results in a Reputation loss for the next Leader whose chit is drawn due to a Bad Omen - it is Finnbogi.

Aside from that set back from "ill omens", Finnbogi is doing well, and has driven the Welshmen back off the Hill.

An idea of what the chit draws look like, end of Turn 3.

End of Turn 3, the Northumbrians seem to be making progress against the hill, and also with maneuvering a Unit of Warriors from the right flank to the center, where they'll be a lot more useful. The raiders are holding their own, but have lost a couple of combats and appear to be vulnerable.

Turn 4 begins with Finnbogi and his Hearth Guard destroying the Welsh Unit on the hill.  They have a couple of options, any of which could make the situation even more difficult for the Strathclyde force.

Over on the right, Thrassi gives The Druid a sound thrashing!  His Mounted Warriors depart the field but The Druid survives and moves over to his archers.

The Northumbrian juggernaut seems unstoppable, and they charge to clean up the hill.  Victory seems certain when Rolff rolls 6-6-5 for his attack dice. But Skeggi diggs deep, and tie him 6-6-5 [and even had a '5' to spare!], pushing Rolff back down the hill again.

Desperate for results, Rolff attacks with his other unit, but they lose and are pushed back. Rolff seems to be the weak link in an otherwise successful team!

The Event chit is drawn. Die roll of '2' results in the next Leader drawn having to "Look out for that arrow!" and roll a Risk check - he passes with the '3'.

The brilliant thing about the "Event" chit is that it easily inserts into the game the many possibilities that do happen in these battles, along with Narrative possibilities [like "Frodo puts on the ring" etc] without bogging the game down in complex mechanics. Some gamers will dislike the randomness affecting their plans and their play, but this is part of the pendulum swing of "history / reality" v. "game / chess".  Depends on your preferences for games, but it empowers the narrative, and I like that a lot in certain genres like Medievals and all skirmish games.

Turn 4 ends with Strathclyde having lost two Warrior Units and having only 4/8 of their Reputation points left, v. 7/8 for the Northumbrians, who only lost a Reputation point due to a Dark Omen. The pressure is on the raiders! 

Turn 5, first draw is Hals, who has a clear flank attack on his opposing colleague Finnbogi! It seems that his coverage of the Warriors on the hill will pay off...

The teulu crash into the Hearthweru, and Hals and Finnbogi square off:

"There can be only One, Sassenach dog!"

"One what? What are you talking about? Strathclydian snake!"

Unfortunately, despite clever banter and film reference, Hals loses the fight rolls, a strength point, and retreats. Finnbogi doesn't pursue him, being focusing on a victory at the hill instead of getting bogged down with a strong unit.

In the center, Rolff makes another strong attack against Skeggi on the hill. With a high of '5' he loses the roll-off  5-4 on the second dice, and his Warriors flee the field.  He now has to roll for Risk twice...

...and passes on double-4s, so is placed with his other Unit.

Unfortunately, Rolff loses again on an even attack on the center Strathclyde Unit, and departs the field with the last unit of his command...

...Rolff can only roar in frustration one last time.

With the loss of Rolff and his entire command, which is 5 Reputation, the Northumbrians are suddenly at 2/8 of their Reputation points - the battle has turned!

Eager to put the last nail into the Northumbrian coffin, Skeggi charges off the hill into Thrassi's Fyrd Unit, winning the fight 6-5! This ended Turn 5.

I was full of tension as Turn 6 began, as the chit draws would be very important here: if Hals' chit was drawn before Skeggi, he might be able to charge into the rear of his Warriors. If Skeggi was drawn first, he could charge Thrassi's fyrd unit, finish it off, and end the game! And the first chit drawn was...an Event!

I rolled the Black Die of Fate and the '6' meant that the next Leader drawn would get 2 extra dice in combat.  Trembling with anticipation I draw a chit and it was Skeggi!  He totaled up 6 dice for combat: 2 from the Unit, 1 from him, 1 for support, and 2 from the Event. The fyrd had one measly die but rolled a '5'!  I rolled the dice for Skeggi one by one...the first few were below 5...but finally a '6' was rolled, and he won the combat 6-5!  On a 5-5, he would have tied and the game would have continued.

With the loss of the fyrd, the Northumbrians lost two more Reputation points and went to zero. GAME OVER, MAN, GAME OVER!! Shout the victorious Strathclydian force!

Game end: with three Warrior Units lost [6 Reputation points] Rolff [1 Rep point] and the 1 point lost for Bad Omens, the game turned around as the center collapsed despite some incredibly close and great die rolling from Rolff.  When interviewed afterwards, Rolff stated, "I may have lost us the battle, but the Norns are to blame."

Exciting time, and a good narrative as well.  Mead Price would definitely make a great vehicle for a campaign, or as a combat resolution for a board game like The Saxon Shore is Burning available from the Society of Ancients, or the solo game Vikings: Scourge of the North by Decision Games. No doubt there are many others, and welcome additional suggestions in the comments below.

Overall, I found my playtesting to be flavorful and evocative of the period without being bogged down in game mechanics that presented me with:

- false differentiations, especially in the area of weapons / armor

- trivial details, "is it a stone wall or a wood fence?"

- over-engineered game mechanics, "you pro-rate the unit's move into the woods"

- gamey / cheesy manipulations, "You can't 

- a pile of irreconcilable special rules. 

I felt like after several playtests I could probably fight these battles with a couple of beers in me, just like the real leaders, and unless one side makes a serious mistake the game would likely be decided by the Norns through the Events and dice.  And if the players are equal in skill and execution, I'm fine with the dice deciding!

All key aspects of Mead Price are easily modified to suit the period and narrative in which you are playing, as the mechanics have distinct [moments] in the rules that helps prevent undesirable secondary effects caused by the modifications. This is greatly aided by the use of the draw bag Activation Sequence. So the cautionary word is that one should restrict "tweaking" to distinct, contained changes.

For example, if one were to modify the Events Table for Hastings 1066, then some events might not be suitable for Saxons firm atop a hill. Instead, one might change one to "all Units of the next Saxon Leader drawn this Turn advance 2ST off the hill". Or perhaps one is playing in Tolkein's world; the event might read "2 random adjacent Units of the next Orc Leader drawn this Turn may not move, as a quarrel breaks out. between two different tribes"

Some tweaks that I will be working on:

1. Dropping the ZOC rule, aka "Barkering" - it's not needed.
2. Terrain Rules: Only Skirmishers may enter area terrain that is Rough, e.g. Woods, Bogs, Rocky Ground, etc.
3. Turning: 
• 180° "About Face" costs a full ST, except a 1/2 ST for Skirmishers.
• Otherwise, Units Turn freely by any combination of wheeling or rotating; however, no corner may move more than 1/2 ST, except Skirmishers corners up to a full ST.
4. Shot Limit: Somewhere between 3-5 would be reasonable for most Units. More if the army is missile dependent or highly organized, e.g. Byzantines or Elves. 
5. Standing Shot: If Bows do not move, they shoot with 2 dice not 1.

But it is also possible that a more fleshed-out official version is forthcoming.  

Regarding a future for Mead Price as its own ruleset:

JM: I am considering doing an expanded version at some point with diagrams, examples, scenarios and army lists, but I need to get Midgard out of the door first.

And we can certainly sympathize with that - it is unfortunately true that real life often gets in the way of important things like wargaming! 😄

Hope you enjoyed reading this as I have enjoyed playtesting and presenting it. LMK if you want to see some more reviews and battle reports on what appears to be the "growing family" of Mead Price and Midgard rules!