Monday, April 11, 2011

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.

5 comments:

Tim said...

Thanks for posting this!

Michael S/Chgowiz said...

Sounds like an excellent game :) I hope you run more. Definitely planning on coming back next year. Sorry I missed you guys, I had to take off about 11.30. Was it just me or was it very hot in that room, I was sweating by the time I left.

Luckyjoe said...

Very nice. Great pics and that ruined church is awesome. Nice to see youngsters playing. I taught 3 of my younger sons how to play a couple of years ago, SBH is a great game.

Supah said...

I love the kids at the table and the church is sweet. Hope to play with the crew soon.

The 2 Half-Squads said...

We had a good time playing. My boys enjoyed it to. If you play ASL I am a co-host of The 2 Half-Squads podcast, my boys and I are in the photos wearing the matching ASL shirts. Thanks for the game.
Dave