Song of Blades & Heroes play report from Little Wars 2011

At the height of the fun at Little Wars last weekend, our game table was full of players rolling dice, moving miniatures and generally having a great time. Our local club hosted an introductory scenario for Song of Blades & Heroes, and we had a packed house — all spots were taken, and we briefly had a waiting list of players who wanted to jump in.

As we had hoped, the simplicity of Song of Blades & Heroes meant we spent about 10 minutes explaining the basic rules before turning the players loose to battle each other. The factions were the Forces of Good (Knights, Gladiators and Celts) versus the Forces of Evil (Orcs, Undead and Mycenoid Mushroom-Men).


As you can see from the photos, we had some young players at our table. This was by design — we intentionally listed our event in the "Parent and Child" section of the Little Wars convention program, in an attempt to attract some younger players. And they showed up! Maverick, age 5, got some help from his father Matthew, but guys like Aaron (pictured above) mastered the rules with virtually no assistance!

The game was a wonderful success. Big thanks to David, Aaron, Adam, Maverick, Matthew, Robert, Claire and Liam for coming out to play!


Tim's ruined church proved to be a wonderful centerpiece for our table.


Here's the group shot: 6 players plus onlookers, all battling it out on our fantasy tabletop.

Ryan (red shirt, but not a redshirt) officiates a game taking place in a small medieval town.

We're already brainstorming ideas of games to run at other conventions. Personally I'd like to do some sci-fi skirmish, as I think that particular sub-genre doesn't get a lot of representation at conventions. Generally, it's either 40k-style big games, or nothing at all. So a game of 5150 might work, or Wastelands, or WarEngine, or some other fun ruleset we've yet to try out.

Running my first convention game

My local miniatures club is going to run a miniatures game at Little Wars, a wargames convention that takes place April 8-10 outside Chicago. This is our first time doing anything like this, so we played it safe and decided to host a game designed to introduce players to Song of Blades & Heroes, our current favorite for fantasy skirmish battles.

Since SBH is quite easy to learn and encourages RPG-style warbands, we chose to list our game in the "family friendly" convention category, which means we'll likely have some parent/child teams at our table. This is 100% great — the hobby needs ways to fire the imagination of younger players, and SBH is definitely an excellent introductory game.

I found out last week that our event filled up during the pre-registration period. Again, this is a good thing — we can count on a full table. We're already brainstorming ways to accommodate walk-ups...maybe we'll grab some space on an adjacent table and squeeze in another couple players? SBH requires a comparatively tiny play area...you can play on a 2 by 2-foot square if necessary, though the author suggests 3 by 3 for 28mm gaming.

Anyway, wish me luck as I attempt to give back to the hobby that I enjoy so much!

Introducing 5 new players to Song of Blades & Heroes

Normally introducing just one or two new players to miniatures gaming is a weighty task — there's the rules overview, the introduction of the miniatures and the explanation of the stats, plus turn-by-turn questions about various situational stuff.

Last month I introduced not one or two, but FIVE new players to Song of Blades & Heroes in one epic slugfest game. It's a testament to the strength of the SBH rules engine that the game 1) played fast 2) didn't bog down despite most of the players being relatively new to tabletop minis gaming and 3) gave us the kind of "oooooh man, did you SEE that?!" moments that really define a fun miniatures game.

Anyway, we threw together a quick encounter pitting three undead warbands against an alliance of two human and one elven warband. The classic good guys vs. bad guys scenario. As for terrain, we just threw everything I had on the table without much consideration to the layout. It was no big deal, but one look at these photos and you'll agree that our terrain didn't really make sense. Walls led to forests, which were on top of hills and linked by bridges. Ha! It was a glorious mess, and we had fun.

The game ended early, but the players all got a good taste for how the system runs. Outnumbering and swarming your opponent is key! When we stopped playing, the undead had scored an impressive series of victories against the elves and were threatening to surround the beleaguered humans. In short, it was the perfect fantasy storyline!

Aliens vs. marines with Flying Lead

We tried out Flying Lead from Ganesha Games recently, with mixed results (mostly owing to my own mistakes in the rules). Ganesha also publishes Song of Blades & Heroes, our club's current favorite fantasy skirmish game.

Flying Lead is built on the same rules engine, with each model having just two stats plus a few special rules. You'd think this would make for a speedy game, but I must admit that Flying Lead required a fair amount of rulebook-flipping to get through a basic combat. The multitude of special rules was also a big hindrance...rather than making each figure unique, it caused headaches as I tried to remember which of my identically painted Colonial Marines had the Hitman rule, and which had the Elite rule, and which had the NCO ability, etc. Better to minimize the special rules, perhaps, and only give them to one or two key models? But then, where's the fun in that...?


Anyway, we played an aliens vs. marines scenario on a dustry, dry wasteland planet strewn with boulders and scraggly trees. It looked pretty sharp, considering we threw the table together in a few minutes without much effort.

This was the second time our group tried Flying Lead, and I made the same mistake in this game that I did in my previous game. It was just a misreading of a rule, and as a result, my marines were slaughtered by the encroaching aliens before they even got out of their deployment zone. Here's an example of how the game went for me:


Our second game, a 3-player scenario where the aliens were deployed in the center of the table and had to fight against both marines and Predators, went a little better. But Flying Lead still seemed far less intuitive than Song of Blades & Heroes. I don't understand why...perhaps the nuances of a shooting-based game causes the whole rules engine to slow down a bit?

Anyway, the search continues for the right sci-fi skirmish game. Up next is 5150, Future War Commander Skirmish, Wastelands v.3, and perhaps Nuclear Renaissance. We'll find the ideal ruleset or die trying!

First blood (literally) for these freshly painted miniatures

It's always awesome to see new miniatures hit the table, especially if they've been painted by folks new to the miniatures hobby. Two players at last night's Song of Blades & Heroes game fielded their own hand-painted warbands, the product of hours of painting, modeling and finessing. Congratulations to Ryan and Chris! I remember painting my very first miniatures back in 1997, and the thrill of placing them on the tabletop (followed by the heartbreak when they got blown to pieces by a plasma gun or a sword thrust or whatever).

Anyway, Chris' Dwarves tangled with Ryan's Lizardmen twice last night, with the Dwarves winning out both times. These photos show the Dwarves, advancing in a tight cluster across the table, being slowly surrounded by the numerically inferior Lizardmen. The color palette for last night's game was particularly attractive, with a dusty red tabletop mat and some autumn-colored trees for scenery. Game on!

Play report: Song of Blades & Heroes

I downloaded Ganesha Games' Song of Blades & Heroes last month with much anticipation. Here, I thought, was the miniatures game I was looking for: fast, rules-lite and beholden to no particular manufacturer of miniatures. I could paw through my miniatures collection, scrape together a motley handful and create a warband in 10 minutes flat.

All these expectation were exceeded in my first game, which took place last weekend at Chicagoland Games. I met up with Brian, a friend and fellow player in ChicagoWiz's Dark Ages AD&D game. Brian was in the same boat as me: he wanted a super casual minis game that retained a bit of tactical appeal. Like me, he had tried Mordheim but found it lacking.

Anyway, we were joined by Tim, who had actually played Song of Blades & Heroes before (and boasted some keen custom miniatures to boot). We played two games: the first with about 8 models per side, the second with about 15 models per side (it was a two-vs-one game where Brian and I teamed up to take on Tim).


In the game, players take turns activating miniatures one at a time, generally using them to move, shoot and attack where appropriate. To activate a figure, players roll between 1 and 3d6. Each dice that rolls at or higher than the figure's Quality value (one of only two stats for each figure! simplicity!) grants one action. BUT if a player ever rolls two failures on a single activation, his turn is over. This means that if you get greedy and try to squeeze too many actions out of a low Quality figure, your turn can end prematurely — leaving one whole flank exposed, as happened in my game against Brian.


So there's some risk — and some tactical decision-making — that goes along with activating your troops. Do you roll three dice for your lizardman warchief, knowing that if he fails your turn will be over? Or do you play it safe and roll one dice, knowing that you will only be able to do one thing with your guy?

Beyond activation, combat is a simple d6 roll with each figure's combat score added to the result. A few other modifiers get thrown in as well, stuff that's pretty familiar to anyone who's ever played D&D 3.x. If you double your opponent's score, he dies. If you beat him without doubling, a couple other cool effects can happen.

In any case, the sheer speed of the game and the fact that you can use a huge variety of miniatures won me over. I daresay this game would be an excellent wargame option for folks seeking to add a little strategy into their D&D campaigns. And it's perfect for my beer and pretzels miniatures crowd.