Back in the Saddle with Song of Blades & Heroes

A few guys from the club got together in my basement recently for an off-week game night. Our goal was to showcase some newly painted fantasy figures and terrain that we've been slowly accumulating ahead of the summer fantasy campaign. We were all collectively itching to play some more Song of Blades & Heroes, a fantastic ruleset that has served us well since the club's inception in 2010. (Spoiler: for readers who enjoyed last summer's Iron Isle campaign, get ready for a treat. We're going back to that wondrous world with this new campaign! More details to come...)

For this game night, we tried a slightly different table configuration for my small basement game area. It turned out really well -- everyone was basically sitting by everyone else, so we could chat and talk trash and sort of watch all the other games unfold. We played 6 separate 1-on-1 games of Song of Blades & Heroes, switching seats between each game so people could play against different opponents on different boards.

As you can see from the photos, we set up three distinct 3x3-foot skirmish boards: a medieval village, a wooded glade and a grim canyon dominated by a fortified watchtower.

Rather than attempt to reconstruct the chaos and fury of last night's games, I'll just present the photos and try to examine the little vignettes that played out on the tabletop.

In the first game, Karl's chaos knights (the Night Herons of the Black Crown) faced off against Jon's orc raiders. The two sides came to blows quickly, and both factions were kitted out for close combat. Karl's knights started the game by lurking near the crumbling walls of the fortified watchtower.

Here are a couple typical brawls from that game.

And here is Jon's orc warchief, mere moments before he was slain in a cascade of bad rolls that ultimately spelled defeat for Jon and victory for Karl.

Across the way, I sent my undead skeletons creeping into a sparse forest in search of Tyler's dwarven adventurers. The dwarves, for their part, advanced in a stout, bearded line of armor and axes, backed up by the considerable threat provided by a large bear named Rolf (pictured below).

Alas, I overextended with my cool, newly painted skeletal dragon and was punished for it. The dragon was cut down by the stunty dwarves as he smashed into their armored line. In game terms, I forgot that the dwarves had the fearless special ability, which rendered my dragon's terror ability irrelevant!

This would prove to be a theme for the night: send my dragon in to attack, and watch it die horribly. Oh well.

Across the table on the village board, Tim's monster-demon-dudes squared off against Josh's newly painted warband of adventurers. Here's Josh's team -- in true old-school fashion, he has a little bit of everything in here: dog, mouse warrior, elf archer, etc.

Here are Tim's guys in action. The scenario (Tim was defending a pumping station and Josh's guys were crippled by thirst) meant that Josh was on his back almost from the start. Their game was definitely among the first to end.

It didn't help that Josh's adventurers had to face off against THIS THING while scurrying through the streets of the village. (Tim often brings cthuloid monstrosities to the table as part of his SBH warbands, and this evening was no exception.)

After those games concluded, we chatted a bit and swapped seats for a new set of games. Of course, my notes got even sketchier at this point in the evening, so bear with me (Rolf pun).

In the medieval village, Tyler mustered his dwarves to assault Karl's chaos knights. That game ended up lasting for the rest of the evening, and they were still playing it out as we were packing up our models at the end of the night.

Here's a closeup of the fight that was developing in the center of town. It took the dwarves a while to get their (because they move a little slower than their human counterparts) but they arrived in force, and only bear-ly won (another Rolf pun)!

(I didn't get a single photo of Jon and Tim's game in the wooded glade. I think it was over rather soon.)

On the fortress table, Josh and I set up a scenario whereby my undead had captured a border outpost owned by his adventurers, so he was tasked with taking it back by force. I began the game by assembling my skeletons in a shieldwall near the gates of the fort's main yard.

Another team of skeletons ventured out into the burnt-out ruins to try and flank Josh's team. His archers did a good job of keeping them at bay, though, and that darn dog proved to be a capable combatant.

Here's the scene as some more skeletons hasten to join the battle that has been joined just outside the supply depot. Despite my overwhelming numbers (skeletons are cheap, but ineffective in combat) Josh managed to get Roland, his mouse warrior, into contact with one of the creates.

I was ready for this move, though, and my wraith swooped in with his gigantic sickle and lopped off poor Roland's head, thus snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

We were all very pleased to get back to our roots with some Song of Blades & Heroes. This was also a great chance to take stock of our fantasty terrain and tabletop accessories and see if we need to fill any holes before the campaign starts. I think we discussed making some Mordheim-esque ladders and walkways for our village table so we can add some more tactical options to our games. I've also got some Lemax Christmas Village accessories (walls, fences, etc.) that need to be repainted.

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member