Three games, well 2. 216 maybe

The last bit of gaming I have managed in the past month (oh, for the Halcyon days of High School and College, when I could game rather than study, or, if I recall, eat..) was an intro to Song of Blades and Heroes. In less than a month, Chirine and his pals will be hosting a Tekumel event in the Cities. They are planning to battles, a large scale clash of Armies and a skirmish. The skirmish will use the simple mechanics of Song of Blades and Heroes. I designed the basic scenario*. SBH as it is called by its fans, is a pretty simple, fast, and kinda elegant system. It is not made for exactly what we are doing, however. I am still trying to create some mechanics for bits of it, as the Tekumel game we will be doing has several sides, and there will be a host of unaligned figures on the map. Also, many figs will not be trying, specifically, to kill their opponents. At least, not to begin the game. That can change.

So I thought it might be a good idea to try the game out. Seems the least I could do in the way of planning. The very least. George came over, and I created a couple warbands using the excellent WB generator (Javascript) that can be found on the SBH yahoo group. He took the Orcs and I took the Elves. We only got three turns into it before I had to leave. Bad planning on my part, but there was a concert (Argentinian Folk/Rock ) my wife wanted to see. Not much bling here. This was, after all, supposed to be a simple exercise in learning the mechanics. I took these pics so we could approximate where we left off, if we could get together on this one again. Or we may start over.



Turn one I tested my luck on a Q2 unit, rolling three dice and rolled two ones. That ended my turn one. George then decided to reposition his leader, and only got half way to safety. He brought a body gaurd, though, so, according to the rules for targeting, I had to shoot at the closest legit target. I moved my leader closer to my shooters on my left flank in order to improve their activation rolls, then moved them to shoot the vulnerable leader. So far, I had pierced one of his orcs with an arrow, and narrowly missed his Leader. He had the bulk of his troops strategically holed up in the woods. I can't shoot into the woods, but he can shoot out. I have some sneaks, though, who can't be targeted next to anything that qualifies as cover, so they were beginning to move up along the village huts on my right flank.

We were just getting the sense of flow by turn three. I can see the game can go pretty fast, but I am concerned about what will happen when we have 6 or 8 players. Hope to squeeze in extra games before then. Maybe do a big game, but I am not sure, locally, who to try to get into it.