Battle of Bosworth with Midgard: The Rematch

 We had another go a the Battle of Bosworth using Midgard Heroic Battles, this time using the revised scenario published in the 2025 Lard Magazine.

This gives Henry Tudor a stronger starting force, which allows him a fighting chance in the event that the Stanleys do not join him. We made one adjustment, which was to ignore a result of the Staley's siding with Richard III, we would treat this as they remained sitting on the fence.

Personally I do not think there was ever any chance that the Stanley brothers would have actually attacked Henry Tudor at Bosworth, the best Richard III could have hoped for is that they stayed out of the action (this still would have given Lord Stanley some awkward conversations with his wife at home "I did try to save your son dear, sadly I was just too late!").

Once again, I took Richard III while Colin took Henry Tudor.

The first two turns saw most of Richard's forces remaining on the hill, watching Henry's Tudor's lines slowly advance, with both sides exchanging long range archery. This worked out fairly even with both sides whittling away at the opposing longbowmen.

I did manage to get the Earl of Northumberland's archers up close enough to take some long range pops at Tudor's cavalry, but with out meaningful effect. I also pushed my unit of handgunners down the hill to try and disrupt the cavalry while I manoeuvred Richard and the mounted reserve to face them.

By turn three Tudor had had enough of them and charged a unit of mounted men-at-arms into the handgunners, eventually wiping them out (the first loss of the game) but leaving a, now worn, cavalry unit facing down my two fresh units.

Further along the hill, both sides kept up the exchange of fire. Richard's guns were being particularly effective, so Tudor's forces were taking more losses than they were inflicting.

At this point (end of turn 3) Colin rolled a 10 on a d10, so the Stanleys now declared for Henry Tudor.

The archery was intense on the far flank. The Duke of Norfolk had lost one of his bow units, but had destroyed one of the Earl of Oxford's longbow units in return and the two other Tudor missile units had taken 3 out of 4 hits each! But this allowed Oxford to bring forward his billmen and French pikemen, leaving Norfolk still looking severely outnumbered.

Colin now threw everything forward, launching charges all along his line. Henry Tudor moved out of the safety of the bodyguard men-at-arms to lead the archers in a charge on the end of the hill.

The charges had mixed results, in places pushing the Yorkists back, elsewhere being repulsed with heavy losses. Henry 's charge was unbelievably successful, destroying the archers in front of him and gaining a foothold on the hill. But by moving the supporting billmen slightly aside, I allowed a gap for Richard to charge through, leading his cavalry, destroying Henry's archers in turn and leaving the would-be usurper in a very dangerous position!

Northumberland had held off Tudor's other cavalry charge and was now pushing them back. But in the top right of this picture you can see Stanley's cavalry closing in on the flank!

On the other flank Norfolk launched the remains of his command in a downhill charge, with mixed results. Norfolk's men-at-arms pushed the French pike back, but the billmen led by the Earl of Surrey took heavy losses and had to retreat.

Staley's knights came crashing into Northumberland's flank! Somehow (dice gods were generous) he managed to rally his men and wiped out the cavalry unit to his front and forced Staley's men back.

Henry Tudor was rescued just in the nick of time by his own men-at-arms charging into the fray and in the frantic melee Richard III was wounded and his cavalry pushed back. However, things were not as dire as they looked. So long as Richard to survive another round of melee, there was the other Yorkist cavalry unit, ready to charge in and a longbow unit had worked it's way around behind the Tudor men-at-arms, close enough to charge into their rear. As the Yorkist billmen had just finished of the Tudor bills next to Henry, he, and his bodyguard, were surrounded.

Having gained a breathing space, Northumberland turned his command around to face the Stanley brothers. At this point the bill unit had had been lagging back on the baseline were inspired and charged into one of Staley's longbow units, destroying them and now threatening the Stanley's flank in turn!

And this is where we ran out of time and had to call it at the end of turn 5. We declared a draw, Henry was down to 3 Reputation and Richard on 2. It could have gone either way in the final turn, or just as likely remained a draw.

A great game and a lot of fun. We both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and it was so close throughout. Enlarging Tudor's starting force had made this a great scenario, so long as the Stanleys do not join Richard! 

We are going to try this scenario again in the New Year, when we have more time so we can play to the end. But we had managed 5 out of 6 turns, with 600 point armies in only two and a half hours, which seems pretty fast play to me!

5-way Fight with Song of Blades and Heroes - Chaos!

 I got a bunch of my gaming buddies over for an afternoon to try out Ganesha Games' Song of Blades and Heroes fantasy rules. These have been around for many years now but, although I've played several different rules that use the SOBAH mechanisms (Fear and Faith, Mutants and Death Ray Guns etc), I'd never played the original set before now. 

A couple of the players hadn't met each other before, so I thought this was a good opportunity to do some networking and introduce them. A put together a selection of 300 point warbands and allowed everyone to pick which one they wanted to use.

Kirstie chose Orcs, Mark Dwarves, Ross Wood Elves, I took Lizardmen and Ian had a mixed group of adventurers (based on our Sellswords party from pre-covid campaigning).

I stole borrowed the idea for this scenario from an absolutely superb mini campaign I had found through the Lead Adventure Forum https://necedemalis.org/hunt-for-the-barrowland-act-one/

My take on this for SOBAH is below.

CURSE OF THE BARROWLANDS

The skalds speak of the lost barrows of Sianwon in hushed tones, speaking of a kingdom long thought lost to myth. Some believe it was the place where the dream of undeath was first discovered, for from its, now-buried, sepulchres and tombs the dead first emerged to walk the earth again. Others say it is a place cursed by demons. Either way the legendary treasures rumoured to be buried there have enticed many an adventurer to risk life and soul to explore the grassy mounds. Few have returned to tell of what they found there. 

Objective: To search the barrows and find as much treasure as possible.

Searching a Barrow: Once in contact with the entrance, it takes two consecutive activations to search a barrow, roll 1d6 (a barrow will only contain 1 treasure).

1= Creeping Terror, the model flees one full move away from the barrow.

2-3= Dust and Ashes, nothing but you can try again in another turn.

4-5=, a 1 or 2 value chest.

6= Ancestral Treasure, Either a 3 Loot chest of gold or a relic* (players choice).

*A magical item, counts as 2 Loot, but does not slow the bearer.

Eternal Guardians: Each time a barrow is searched roll 1d6

1-2 Nothing happens

3-5 A barrow guardian awakes, place 1 next to the entrance.

6 Two barrow guardians.

 Name                                  Q C PTS TRAITS

BARROW GUARDIAN 3+ 3 36 Undead

  Carrying a treasure chest reduces the models speed by one band (Medium becomes short etc).

Ross got off to a quick start, advancing his elves across the table.

Kirstie's orcs were a bit more reticent, we said they were paddling and building sand castles on the riverbank.

Most of Ian's adventurers rushed up to the river, but the wizard and dwarf lagged behind.

My Lizardmen also spread themselves out as they advanced. mark's dwarves hardly seemed to move at all (I know they have only a short move, but even so!).

Ross' fast moving elves were the first to get into contact with a barrow.

Ignoring the two laggards at the back, Ian waded across the river, towards the nearest barrow.

Getting there ahead of my lizardmen.

The two parties clashed in a brief, inconclusive skirmish. Then Mark's dwarves attacked Ian from behind and my lizardmen took the opportunity to move on to another barrow.

As the elves had looted one barrow, after dealing with an irate guardian, and were moving on to a second, Kirstie decided to ignore the barrow and cross the river to cut off the elves' retreat. Let the elves do the hard work and mug them on the way home!

Things were getting nasty between Ian and Mark's warbands as my lizardmen quietly moved away and looted the next barrow, which didn't have any nasty surprises!

Eddie the wizard got halfway a cross the river, when the dwarf archer started shooting at him. The couple exchanged arrows and fore bolts for the next couple of turns, with inflicting serious damage.

After a few turns of combat both warbands had lost 3 of their number, both were now at half strength!

Having looted two barrows, the elves decided to head for home, only to find the orcs blocking their way.

If that wasn't bad enough, my lizardmen can charging up from the other side.

Deciding that arrows were not working, a dwarf rushed towards the wizard, intending to try splitting his head with an axe. Eddie concentrated and froze the dwarf on the spot, halting his advance (deciding that fire bolts hadn't worked, Ian decided to try a Transfix spell, which had the desired effect).

As the elves dropped under the combined assault, an orc grabbed one of the looted treasures, whilst a lizardman grabbed the other. Having lost two of their number, the lizardmen now retreated with their treasures, pursued by the orcs. Two acted as rear-guard, while the third carried off the loot.

Back in the river Eddie the wizard took careful aim and loosed a fire bolt, killing the transfixed dwarf.

Now, with only 1 character left each, Mark and Ian made a truce. With the orcs acting as a distraction, they would gang up on my treasure carrying lizardman and rob him!

Having lost a couple of orcs to my lizardmen, Kirstie decided to call off the chase an loot the final two barrows instead. The first they entered had shiny things inside, but also a guardian, which promptly laid out the first orc to rashly enter. However they ganged up on it and despatched the undead creature.

Whilst the orcs were now off looting, the other two lizardmen were able to come to their fellow's aid made short work of the two would-be robbers.

After a lot of fun, laughter and banter, aided by beer & snacks, the final result.

Ian TPK (Total Party Kill)

Mark TPK

Ross TPK

Me 4 Loot Points

Kirstie 6 Loot points

I will be trying another multi-player game of SOBAH next week, with different players. My intention is to run a campaign next year for a group of 4 of us who get together regularly once a month.

Refighting the Battle of Bosworth with Midgard

 This week Colin and I got the opportunity to play test James Morris' Bosworth scenario, after I had franticly finished basing more archers. I was Richard III and Colin took Henry Tudor.

It was a fun game, but felt quite one sided. Colin must have committed some transgression against the Dice Gods recently. I tried to play it historically, advancing Norfolk's battle first, whilst engaging in long range archery duels else where and manoeuvring Richard and his bodyguard around to be in place to charge down the hill towards Henry Tudor. Due to an appallingly unlucky sequence of dice rolls at the end of turn 3, the Stanleys turned their back on the Tudor upstart and joined in on the side of the true king of England. If the Stanleys remain neutral Tudor is in trouble, but with them against him it was all over bar the shouting.

We are going to try again in a couple of weeks, it was an exceptional sequence of dice rolls, so I doubt it would repeat in a dozen or more games. (Famous last words anyone?).

Here are some photos from the game.

The battle deployment from Richard III's perspective. The Duke of Norfolk's battle on the right, The Earl of Lincoln on the left and Richard with the cavalry reserve on the hill. In the distance, The Earl of Oxford is on the right and Henry Tudor on the left.

On the other flank the Earl of Northumberland Battle hang back and the Stanleys mass ominously on the far hillside.

By some miracle of luck, I managed to get Northumberland's archers to advance as far as the marsh by turn 3!

Richard II leads his bodyguard around the back of his lines to be in position to strike at Henry Tudor.

Tudor had kept his troops back, just sending the archers forward to shoot at the enemy.

Norfolk was struggling in his advance, caught in a crossfire with his archers on the verge of collapse, although they dished out some punishment to the enemy archers in return.

It was looking quite historical, in the battle Norfolk was killed leading his attack and his troops pushed back early on. But that didn't matter because the battle was decided else where. Henry and his knights were now outnumbered 5:2 with enemies charging their flanks - a foregone conclusion really.

A win for Richard III, let's see how the refight goes.

War of the Worlds Survivors - The Final Game

 Our Martian Invasion campaign concluded with an intense encounter in the sewers, where the Martians had installed some puzzling machinery that the players needed to examine. To achieve a full victory they needed to get an engineer to study the machinery in order to fully understand it's complexity.

The photos are a bit haphazard, several were too blurry to use and at a critical point I forgot to take any pictures!

The Martian machinery, the objective for the players.

Assorted shades are wandering the tunnels.

Mark and Colin advance quietly, trying to avoid their presence being noticed.

Henry, on the other hand, rushes forward and starts shooting. The sounds of his gunfire echo ominously through the tunnels! This triggers more shades  from all sides. Also two Martian machines make an appearance, a scuttler emerges close to the machinery platform and a Stalker arrives just ahead of Mark's party. Due to the height of the tunnels the larger machine cannot move out of the water.

The Stalker shoots a black smoke canister at mark's advancing group, who are find themselves envelope in choaking gas! Fortunately they all pass their poison rolls and fall back out of the cloud.

Mark sit's out the next couple of turns, waiting for the gas to disperse.

Henry gets involved in a firefight with the scuttler as more shades press towards him. A lucky shot knocks the machine over.

A carefully aimed shot hits a vital spot on it's underside and the machine bursts into flames!

But the delap has allowed more shades to move up and block Henry's advance.

Almost unnoticed, a strange creature stirs amongst the machinery, a Martian technician.

Clutching a strange, tubular weapon, the creature positions himself to watch the approach to the machinery platform. At this point the smoke clears and Mark advances three of his party, right in front of the Martian. It fires and the three are engulfed in the beam of a heat ray! (I rolled high for the Martian firing, mark rolled two 1s and a 2!) 

Mark's surviving characters rushed forward, where the tunnel walls blocked them from the Martian's sight. Seeing a shade closing in on one of Colins's party ahead, mark let fly with his shotgun, knocking the shade down. But he had "forgotten" at that range the shotgun blast spread, so he hit Colin's character as well (but missed!). But now another stalker showed up, immediately behind Mark! Karma??

They exchanged shots, but then, Mark's rifle jammed! The next shot from the scuttler downed the character with a shotgun. In the next turn another pack of shades arrive, who overran the surviving characters and tore them to pieces! (Again, rolling 1s and 2s in combat is never good, especially when outnumbered!).

Elsewhere, Colin and Henry had partnered up, combining their firepower to blast their way through the shades opposing them. They each managed to get a character onto the weapon platform. The Martian's heat ray was a deadly weapon, but not suitable for close range use. Once the two humans ganged up on the Martian in melee, it was all over!

At this point a called it as a human victory. With the Martian dead, the shades had lost his psychic control and would only activate on a roll of 5 or 6. Any close to the machinery were dead, so there was no way I could prevent Henry getting his engineer up (who he had carefully kept at the back of the party, out of harm's way.

A much bloodier game that usual, with a lot more Martians and shades for the players to content with, but then it was the campaign finale! But the human resistance had succeeded with the loss of only 5 characters (all Mark's!).

Great fun all round!