Song of Blades and Heroes with the Firstborn

This picture says it all and the to be honest, this wasn't a posed shot, what you see here is genuine, unbridled eight year old enthusiasm for what is about to commence. I gave my daughter her first true geek gift, a set of rules for Song of Blades and Heroes. You read through the first few pages like a trooper and on errands in the the car I would quiz her about, "What's the quality mean?", "How many actions do you get if you pass two dice?" and the like. We started small, just one hundred points per side, but we followed all of the rules from set up to finish. For one, I get some miniatures gaming in, but for two, obviously I get to spend some quality time with my girl as well.

Song of Blades (SBH) is a great skirmish fantasy game, not just great really, but really really great. It's simple enough to start out with, the rules are solid and unencumbered, and you can get right down to the actual gaming itself with little effort. It's minis-generic so you can use whatever you have on hand and have a ball with it. I've done quite a bit with it on here in the past, here's the related posts for it.


My daughter's "force" consisted three figures, all female not surprisingly! I'm proud to say that she personally painted two out of three of them too (I painted the one in the middle). I'm trying to teach her right so right off the bat I let her know about 'what you see is what you get' as far as models, and secondly...you never play with unpainted figs!


She was enamored with my old Citadel "Viking chick" and took her on as the leader. She did her rosters all of herself and said because this figure had a winged helmet that she got to be a barbarian instead of "just a human".


For my crew I just took three identical and basic human 'marauders', just stand-in troopers from my Viking Warband. These guys are just your average human with hand weapons and minimal protection with zero skills or special abilities. They're still not to be counted out however!


Our table setup was roughly three foot by three foot with a scattering of terrain pieces. We whipped up a quick little backstory for the battle. Basically wars in the area had the men of the village off fighting while the women took care of things at home. The Elf was visiting her friends when bandits emerged from the woods intent on stealing livestock and whatever else. Thinking the place was undefended the bandits moved in, little did they know that there were 'warrior women' left behind!


Moving and measuring between two buildings...


Getting ready for the big fight


The first few turns as you could see consisted of just movement and maneuvering. As you can see here, one bandit in the top left has managed to close with a target while another bandit at top right is about to do so. The third bandit hides behind some vegetation at the bottom of the screen. The girls' movement and placement was actually much better than my own as they held a good defensive line across the middle of the table.


"Wait a minute, these girls be armed!"


The first fight was over quickly as my daughter's reliance on choosing to power attacks every turn paid off (and made me think I should do them more often). While the two were fighting, the third strolled in and the overwhelming numbered proved in the girls' favor. These two would then move on to attack the bandit previously hiding behind the giant mushrooms, they made even shorter work of him than they did their first target!


The final fight of the game was about to occur. I should state at this time that I wasn't pulling any punches during the game and I was helping my opponent with obvious and helpful advice as often as I could or when I saw fit. After seeing my first two groups get thoroughly dusted however, I was kind of hoping to win this last combat.


As you can see from the first roll of combat, it was going to hard for me to even pull out a moral victory. This was actually a hard fought battle, with neither side gaining the upper hand, and oddly enough we kept bouncing back from melee instead of one side falling down.


Once the 'difference maker' barbarian female showed though I knew it was over. I took the tactical withdrawal approach, actually weathered a few free hits, and then began to flee off the closest table edge.


Girl power!

Well I'll say the game was an utter defeat for me, and as I said before I certainly didn't throw any rolls, rules, or the game itself, she beat me fair and square. Well, technically the Elf warrior she had in there put her a tad over the one hundred point agreed limit, but I'll let that slide.

How was it? It was great of course! I've played tons of boardgames with my girl before, and even some made-up-on-the-spot miniatures (basically rolling for highest d6 using Mage Knight figs) but this was the first "official" tabletop game, played while sticking to actual rules, with figures painted by both parties. Typing all of this it kind of makes me glad I've got a place to record this stuff in the first place. Until round two...enjoy!

2011 Kickoff and Winter Painting Queue

A new year is upon us and the projects continue on unabated. I'm padding my queue a bit here by keeping it relatively small, but in my eyes certainly manageable. There's lots of other projects waiting in the wings, so let's get these wrapped up first.


1. Hordes of the Things Orc Army

I didn't realize until I finished the first leg of this 6mm army that I have a *lot* of stands of Orcs, especially for a game that requires only about a third of what I have. This gives me a *lot* of options to mix and match with and it also gives me two completely separate armies that can fight head to head at the same time. I came close to painting a different skintone on the next batch, but I think I'll just keep them the same and have one gigantically huge fantasy Orc army.


2. Some Sci-Fi Terrain

There's no excuse to not paint these. They've been built and sprayed with primer for some time. I intended these to be terrain pieces for 15mm battles, but they'll scale further up or down the spectrum just fine. I've got to get in more sci-fi games this year anyway, so why not crank out some terrain to go along with it?


3. Prehistorics

The last of the projects on the block are my prehistorics; cavemen and the Ice Age era critters for them to hunt and eat. I'm looking forward to this one, not that I'm not the others, but the figs look very cool and it's a genre that interests me a great deal as well.

That's it, just three projects in the queue to start out with. Don't be fooled though, there's a lot of stuff to paint up here and I don't see myself blazing through it either. The terrain should come together easily enough, but the stands of Orcs will end up being tedious if for no other reason than sheer numbers, and the prehistoric plateful of cavemen is deceptive, there's really a lot more there than you'd think waiting for the brush. Once these three projects are all wrapped up and complete there's more on the horizon, there's always more, without much planning ahead here's a quick list off the top of my head for the future:

Incoming on the H.U.D.

1. Space Orks (AE Bounty and 5150)
2. Pulp Figures (Strange Aeons, Chaos in..., etc.)
3. 15mm Sci-Fi Troops
4. Sons of Minos Space Marines
5. Basing and Finishing Touches on the Karman
6. Continue Work on 15mm FoW Brits
7. Deathwatch Marines
   
8. Exo-suits for 28mm Mercs
9. Tanks for the same 28mm Mercs
10. Dino-Marines!
    
11. Lord of the Rings Project
12. A Dwarf PC figure for our FATE RPG
13. Another Spring Garden
    
14. Imperial Guard troopers
15. Sci-fi Greatcoat troopers
16. A trio of Dark Angel rhinos
    

If there was one thing last year taught me it was that I need repetitive games under my belt with the same system. To this end, I need to try some different sci-fi rules well-suited to 15mm to find "the one". I'm looking for games that will handle single mini to a little larger than skirmish level. Having a solo option in there is also a big plus in my book.

Speaking of solo, as much as it pains me to say, I'll be looking at 5150 again. I've had an idea for some time of a pair of Space Ork mercenaries plying their trade across the galaxy and it's be fun to make into a serial here.

This will also be the year my daughter graduates from boardgames to some true tabletop gaming, I'm thinking we start with the Song of Blade and Heroes for some linked games. So overall 2011 has got some ambition to it already and it's just begun. Some of the items listed on the HUD are for projects, but others are just to get done because they've languished too long incomplete. I'm not saying I'll get to them all in 2011, but they're not going away, so whether it's this year, next year, or even further down the road...they'll always be there.

A Sarterra I See Before Me

I know many of you are wondering how the creation of our fantasy world, Sarterra is coming along. Well, I like to think that anyway! I f I were to run into you however, say, at Fall-In! or something and you were to ask, my answer would be a resounding, "Swimmingly!"

Over a year ago I first posted on this endeavor. The four of us sat down with a copy of the incredibly cool game, Dawn of Worlds at hand and began to give birth to a planet. We have tinkered on this thing, both full-time in earnest, and part-time off and on since September of '09, and recently we've picked up steam and are fleshing it out further.

In the large map above you've got a glimpse of the whole Mars-sized planet. We've got continents labeled and major cities listed. The next step is to take one small part of the overall map, "zoom in", and complete just a single area. This will include all of the lesser cities and towns, and smaller landforms that wouldn't necessarily be seen "from orbit" per se.

Before I go any further I should point out that all cartography is done by our resident artist Chris "Biscuit" Miller and he continues to amaze us all. He takes sketches and notes from us sitting around the table, hemming and hawing over mountains and rivers and cranks out full color maps I wouldn't even expect to get in a professional product. As a free plug for him, he does do commissions and I'm sure he'd love to hear from you. cmgillustrations "at" gmail.com


In the 'zooming' process we've tackled two separate regions for two separate campaigns. The one on the top is a portion of the much larger overall continent of Talamh. In this case the western area of Talamh is the country of Bresia. The lower focus area is the continent of Arhun. We're still working on Arhun and it's yet to have its borders broken down further into political boundaries. Three races prominently call this continent home, so I will suggest to the guys at the next session that three countries in this case ought to do the trick.

The country of Bresia, the continent of Arhun, and everything in between can all be found on a wiki-type page we've been compiling since the beginning. We've got a couple of dozen races, just as many organizations and orders, deities, avatars, major heroes, and more. Here's the link to the Sarterra wiki. Also, loosely linked to all of this are the many battles of Song of Blades and Heroes (another awesome ruleset) we've fought over the last year or so. These SBH battles technically take place in the world of Sarterra as well.


Bresia; inhabited, governed, and settled by the Romanesque human empire known as the Averni. Bresia is their foothold into colonizing beyond their home continent of Avernia. Its capital city of Port Valens is the hub of commerce and trade.


The continent of Arhun features a wide variety of flora, fauna (ahem, Dinosaurs!), and landforms. Three prominent races call Arhun home with many other minor races also present. The good and noble Dragonborn have built their capital city of Itova on a gigantic chunk of floating rock and earth raised a thousand feet in the air held in place by giant chains to the land below. The Dwarves have carved out a kingdom from the river's edge and the deep forests. Their technology is without equal not only in Arhun, but in all of Sarterra and they have subsumed the mighty Minotaurs of the land under their sphere of influence. Last of the prominent races in Arhun are the primitive Teotzin. These humans live in cyclopean pyramids where they practice the arts of embalming and exhibit an astounding knowledge of astronomy.

I hope you've enjoyed being a spectator to this world creation process. It's still a long ways off from being completed, but it's maps and info like we have so far that get me energized to see it through. Check out those links, and especially the wiki, there's a lot of creative juices in there and it's the culmination of four experienced gamers to boot, it's pretty much world creation "done right" if I may be so bold to state.

Mind you, it's not just us, the game Dawn of Worlds is what puts you in charge and gives you such an easy-to-use system that covers so much ground, both literally and figuratively. Not only is it efficient but it's an absolute blast to do with your friends, and it can be played as a standalone game without attaching such a ambitious project to it as well.

I also mentioned Song of Blades, which regrettably we haven't played in ages. By taking such a solid fantasy skirmish ruleset such as these, then follow up on a Dawn of Worlds game and you've got a one-two knockout punch combo on your hands that will knock you and your group's socks off.

Vaddarra's Patrol

501 points of choices for Song of Blades and Heroes

We played a great game of SBH not too long ago, but I was shocked to see that it had almost been eight months since the game before it. We really need to crank up the frequency of this gem of a fantasy skirmish game. Totally, utterly, and enthusiastically inspired by that game I cranked out "official" models for the "evil ice elves" from the report. They were proxy of course, and I felt I had to do them justice. Yesterday saw their official Sarterra entry. Instead of making a specific warband of exactly 300 points, I went with a larger spread to have options.


I primed these guys white and used a lot of techniques I normally don't use. After soaking them with a custom-mixed blue wash overall, I went back and added some darker wash to certain areas in the armor. I also started blocking out their cloth and cloaks with a tan. I used a bunch of wet-blending to work their cloth up to a pure white (first time I ever wet-blended like that). Their hair was a chore too, basing as black, and working up with two other really dark blues. All in all, especially given how fast I cranked them out, I'm happy with them. I'm also trying to make a point to quickly paint up figs that other friends give me (instead of just hoarding them) and the basis of this warband came from the Repple Depple blog. The three Reaper elves, and the big Reaper troll were all hand-me-downs, so thanks again Brian!


Tundra Troll, (Troll; Q5/C4, tough, fearless, big, 41pts)


Warband leaders...

Frostfairn Marshall (Dark Elf Leader; Q2/C3, evil, heavy armor, leader, 88pts)
Frostfairn Sorceress (Dark Elf Witch; Q3/C1, greedy, sorcerer, 30pts)


Warband specialists, left to right...

Frostfairn Scout (Dark Elf Sneak; Q2/C2, acrobat, evil, stealth, traps, 48pts)
Frostfairn Berserker (Dark Elf Witch Dancer; Q2/C4, acrobat, distract, 88pts)
Frostfairn Soldier (Dark Elf Warrior; Q3/C3, evil, 30pts)


Warband rank-and-file

Frostfairn Crossbowman (Dark Elf Crossbowman; Q3/C3, evil, poison, long shooter, 50pts)
Frostfairn Crossbowman (Dark Elf Crossbowman; Q3/C3, evil, poison, long shooter, 50pts)
Frostfairn Guard (Dark Elf Halberdier; Q4/C4, evil, heavy armor, 38pts)
Frostfairn Guard (Dark Elf Halberdier; Q4/C4, evil, heavy armor, 38pts)

The Summer Painting Queue

I guess I will start doing quarterly "painting queue" posts. The spring edition was pretty successful, I look back at that and think, "Hmm, I painted those x32 Star Grunt II guys, and the rest of those Vikings, not too shabby..." But I can't rest on my laurels, nope!

1. Deathwatch

I've got tons o' DW posts already, you guys know what they look like by now. They're not going to paint themselves and the book is due out any time now. Time to get crackin'!


2. "Evil Ice Elves" Warband for Song of Blades and Heroes

I'm giving a shout out to my buddy Brian at Repple Depple here. He brought a box full of "freebies" to game night a while back, and many of those figs have found their way into the core of this warband. In SBH, if you've got quality troops, nine is probably more than enough. I'm going to paint them as a group, but then pick and choose according to my mood and have some options, such as a martial leader, or an arcane one.


3. Hordes of the Things, Orc Army

These guys aren't going away are they? It's a sizable Orc army, and really, shouldn't be too bad to whip into shape. I have so been dragging my feet on this one, ugh.

4. Pulp

No surprises here. Unlike the HotT army though, these pulpsters have not been around very long whatsoever. They will be fun to paint up, but I have a sneaky suspicion that they'll be making a queue comeback later on this fall if you follow me.

The Eulonteos Engagement

Deep in the frozen lands of Sarterra's southernmost continent, the profane Ice Elves have not only scratched out a meager existence, but have learned to thrive there. The massive, walled city of Eulonteos stands at the base of the Land's End mountains, and represents the last point of civilization before the frozen void beyond. Many outposts and smaller settlements dot the landscape near Eulonteos, most within just a day or two journey from the city itself. It is here that forces of Sarterra clashed; the greedy Duergar, dark Dwarves bent on expanding their subterranean stranglehold, the soulless Liche in service to Nesut Ammon, raising his army from the crypts of his enemies along the way, and the profane Ice Elves, cruel and spiteful, as cold in demeanor as their surroundings.

Technically it was going to be boardgame night, but at the last minute we called an audible and opted for Song of Blades and Heroes instead. Great game, I can't say enough good things about it really. We haven't played in a while, but set up was a snap. We didn't have forces ready, but it took no time to whip up three complete lists, and for models, we just grabbed whatever was laying around. Since we spent so much time and work on our Sarterra collaborative world-building, it has become the default fantasy setting for all of our games.

Hailing from lands so far abroad it defies comprehension, this follower of Ammon washed ashore on the southern continent alongside the wreckage of a shipwreck. Lost at sea for months, this Liche from the city of Djedet sustained his life energies by siphoning those of his crew. Drawn to the city of Eulonteos, and the life energies within, the Liche began moving overland. His warband is composed of the remains of Ice Elves, plundered from their unhallowed tombs. A lone zombie of unknown origins also accompanies the warband.

Emperor Ittondor created the Ice Elves of the southern continent in his own twisted image. When word arrived that undead were marching on one Eulonteos' settlements, a small band was detached to investigate. Two warriors and an archer were led by a female scout. Alongside the Elves were also an Ice Elemental, and am enthralled Frost Wasp.

This is a case of proxying, of sorts. Originally I was going to play a Wood Elf warband, but when we randomly chose the southern continent, I changed it up to the evil Ice Elves. Just imagine instead of a Tree-Man, it's an elemental, greens are light blue, etc.

The Duergar appear wherever strife and conflict seem to be at their thickest. It is unknown how these particular Duergar arrived on the southern continent, but it is unlikely they arrived by sail. Given their propensity for rooting out and using portals deep under the earth, it is more likely that they arrived through an underground passage via these temporal ley-lines. It is also unknown what their goal is, but they arrived with many high-ranking individuals. A hero of previous encounters, the veteran lady is flanked by two of her hand-picked warriors. Leading the entire expedition is the Slayer Commander, flanked by his own slayer guard, one of whom has brought along his enslaved Goblin pet.

The bulk of the Duergar warband advance across the smaller bridge


The Undead warband, led by the Liche, skirt the forest edge

• The first couple of turns all parties advanced towards center of table
  
• Skeletons fire their bows at the Frost Wasp, all missing grievously
• The Djedetian Liche transfixing the Elemental first try...
• ...which the Elemental was able to shake off immediately the next turn
  
• Frost Wasp crosses river to threaten Duergar rear guard
• The Ice Elf archer moves to river edge to harass the Duergar rear guard with arrows

Ice Elves advance through the cover of the blighted forest

It looks like I'm going to have to get crafty and follow Repple Depple's Easy Forest Boundaries tutorial and crank some of these out for my house. There was some, ahem, controversy about where the forest edge exactly was. Of course there was no real controversy, just more of the good-natured fun we usually have at the table! Although I changed the fluff of my army at the last minute, they were mechanically Wood Elves, so moving through the woods didn't pose a hindrance to them I could tweak this in the future.


Transfix! The Liche freezes the Elemental in place

• Skeletons charge the two Elf warriors emerging from the treeline
• The Elemental is once again transfixed, and hit ineffectively by arrows
  
• The Elemental shakes off the Transfixation once again...
• ...only to be charged directly by the terror-inducing Liche
• The resolve of the Elemental breaks and he temporarily flees the combat
  

In the thick of it; Ice Elves and Undead clash in melee

The Duergar rear guard wouldn't take to the harassment well. Elven arrows rained down on them to little effect, but providing cover fire to the gigantic Frost Wasp. One of the Slayers spotted this monster and knew it would make a fine notch on his axe. He tugged at the chain leash attached to his Goblin pet to urge him on, then the Slayer headed straight for his prey.

Splat! Bug juice flies as the Slayer swats down the Frost Wasp


Both Ice Elves and Undead get 'stuck in'

The combat between the Ice Elves and the Djedetians came to a furious climax. Opponents were outnumbered and allies worked back-to-back fending off blows. The Liche himself, after chasing off the Elemental closed on the Ice Elf leader, a female scout. She was considerably less experienced than the Liche, but her drive was stronger and she eviscerated his withered torso. Spurred on by her victory, the warriors at her side swept aside their skeletal opponents. One skeleton archer remained nearby on the hilltop, which the scout charged.

The stout-legged Duergar pressed on like a juggernaut


The lone zombie met its demise at the end of a Duergar axe

The Undead found it too hard to fight capable enemies on both fronts and with their numbers decimated and leader slain, they quickly lost their ability to effectively influence the battle. As the Duergar rolled through the remaining ranks of skeletons they set their sights on the Ice Elves, confidence building with each step. What little skeletons remained were outright ignored by the Duergar as they closed with the Ice Elven warband.

• On the other side of the field, the lone Slayer and Goblin pet cross another bridge
• The Elven scout eviscerates one of the Slayers, causing a "gruesome kill"
• The Duergar is unaffected by the morale check thanks to their "fearlessness"
• The mighty Duergar Slayer Commander easily dispatched the scout leader
  

• An Ice Elf warrior is bested in melee by the Veteran Duergar female
• Ice Elves test for morale with half their original numbers slain, and pass
• The Veteran and her Commander fight in tandem against the Elemental
• One of the Duergar warriors slays the remaining Ice Elf warrior
  
• The Elemental, while knocked down, is wounded by the ferocious Veteran
  

Once the full might of the Duergar found its way to the field, the fate of the Ice Elves was as sealed as the undead before them. Duergar warrior, veteran, and commander alike cut a swath through the fairer-skinned opponents. What remained was the mighty Elemental, bellowing its challenge to the short folk. The outcome would be obvious, but the Elemental wouldn't yield so easily. It gave as good as it got, but in the end it was overwhelmed by its foes.

The sole surviving Ice Elf, the archer, hid among the forest before making his escape. His last act of spiteful vengeance was striking down the pet Goblin slave of one of the slayers. He did this on the move, without slowing, and made it to the bridge. He took once last look at his ally, the elemental, as it was overwhelmed. The archer swore an oath on the bridge that the Duergar would pay dearly for their transgressions. He spat into the freezing water, sneering toawrds the dark dwarves, then took off into dusk.