Song of Blades and Heroes - AAR The Bridge to Ashburton.

I have been meaning to play through these rules for a while after reading several good reviews over the past 12 months, a rainy Saturday afternoon seemed to be the perfect opportunity to give them a run through with a new recruit to the gaming.

The core rules are fantasy based, but as the rules do not require specific weapon stats any figures will do, time to revisit England in 1563 and the Elizabethan Zombie Wars.

An extract from a earlier posting with the gaming back drop.

"No one truly knows how the black days started, some blamed Phillip II and Catholic Spain, claiming him to be a necromancer summing forth demons on Protestant England others such as the Flagellants, thought at it was gods wraith brought down on them for the barbarity of recent times. 

England and much of the known world had suffered with the Bubonic Plague or Black Death for many years. Victims of the Black Death would be sealed in their homes.

This outbreak seemed different The Watchmen paid to watch the ‘plague houses’ and to hoist food up to the victims noticed that only the meat would be eaten, they heard moaning from the houses and a continuous scratching at the doors and windows as if the devil himself was trying to escape. Plague Pits that had been reopened from earlier outbreaks began to stir as if the ground could no longer contain the dead."

So the scene is set, villager look to their own defence as the dead spill forth from their resting places.

One such place is the village of Ashburton, the plague pits outside of town break open and the cadavers lurch slowly towards the town, drawn to the living. The village milita rush to the bridge to stem the tide.

I have to be careful here not to genuinely scare my young opponent..... Or so the boss of the house tells me :-)

The Bridge at Ashburton with the militia deployed in the centre of the table, the plague pits can be seen at the top of the table.

Each side had 300 points, the militia had invested in a Leader and a mix of Calivers (Shooters Long) and Hand to Hand Weapons to keep the Undead at bay, the Undead just Zombies, 37 in total..... ouch.

With a number of 2 Actions moves the militia rush across the bridge to take the fight to the dead, before they can amass in the burial grounds.

With a quality score of 6, a short move and slow characteristics it takes several moves to get them moving, but slowly the Zed's move out from their resting places, just how many 6,s can you get from 37 rolls?

Samual Highton is the first to engage with the dead, but is knocked to the ground, my opponent looks a little crest fallen. A Combat Score of 4 for a Zombie vs a 3 for a militia man gives the risen a slight advantage.

The advantage swings to the living as they gang up on the slow moving cadavers, dispatching them once they are knocked to the ground, but still the dead keep on coming, forcing the militia back across the bridge.

The militia fire their muskets, but medium range and a minus for shooting at undead, results in few casualties on the dead. Slowly the decaying tide reaches the bridge.

With musket balls running out the militia stand there ground knowing if their lines are breached the village is at risk.

The walking dead.

In the final rounds the enless tide finally reaches the militia who hold as best they can, it's only when one of their number is dragged down by the foul tide that they break and run, thinking of their families a few miles behind them...

Considering this was the first outing the game ran really smoothly and the mechanics were easy to pick up even for a 10 year old general :-)

The varying sequence of play where you choose your activation for each figure looking to roll 1, 2 or 3 D6 dice, gives both cautious and rash generals something to think about, 1 action per figures allows you to play through all of your figures in a slow methodial manner, 3 actions and you can wizz round the table chopping and hacking, but fail on at least 2 of your rolls and the turn passes to the other player.

The back of the book, gives a large number of ready made characters to choose from, however as we found it's very easy to adapt these to your own collection, as an example our Zombies went from Q6, C4 to Q5 and C2 which had the effect of improving their activation but made them far weaker in combat, we also removed the short move characteristic which sped up game play.

Great to have another gamer in the house, but I am under pressure to paint Witches and Werewolves, just what have a done????