"Peter Pig's "Battles in the Age of War" - any reviews?" Topic

Now that this ruleset has been available for a few months, are there any TMPers who could provide a quick review of it?

The rules seem tempting, although the price (around $40 USD USD) is such that it would be nice to know more about them, before buying them sight-unseen.

Also, are they spiral-bound, like many Peter Pig rulesets seem to be, or are they stitched?

I played it at Historicon, lots of fun, uses a fist-full of dice style that may not be for everyone. I thought it had a nice period flavor with leaders able to call out their opponents for a challenge. Has an interesting system for pre-battle events, each player has a number of dice that they allocate to various categorys including weather, family, treachery, etc. It's not spiral bound (at least not until a quick trip to Kinkos)

I also played it at H'con. Got my clock cleaned but quite liked the game. the pre-game stuff is quite good for generating more interesting scenarios than equal points armies meet and punch it out.

The game had lots of period chrome to help with the feel, so you aren't just pushing 'blades' or 'Ax (O)' around the table top.

I was seriously tempted to buy the rules myself and I don't even have any Samurai!

Okay, i'm interested. This sounds as fun as PP's Bloody Barons… anyone know if this is adaptable to 28mm? Particularly WAB mounted 28mm armies? :) I can't wait for WAB's Divine Wind and need my Samurai fix…

I have this. It works on base size, so you can up-scale and use 28's fairly easily. I have heard that it follows the themes of the other PP games quite closely, but this is the only one that I have. Overall, although I have not played it, only read it, it seems like it would give a very good game.

Happy to answer specific questions.

Iain

I played a demo at Newbury and it is fun. It uses many of the same mechanisms as Bloody Barons, but as Jamesonsafari said with plenty of "period chrome".

Rassilon – we've played some good games of Bloody Barons with WHA based medievals, using one figure to a base, so there's no reason that it won't work the same for samurai.

Graham

Thanks! I've been curious about the rules for awhile now (as I love Bloody Barons) but I have been reluctant to paint 15mm Samurai armies when I am already invested in 28mm (awaiting Divine Wind).

I'm thinking of picking them up too! So any more positive reviews would be good to read.

David
kingsfordminiatures.org

There is a review on the RFCM Yahoogroup, link found at my blog

seanswargames.blogspot.com

I love the rules. You get the flavour of the kind of battles likely to have occurred during those times without having to know much about sashimonos and the like!

Sean you have to join the group to see the review. I am a member of to many groups now. would it be possible for you to email a copy of it. belisarius#jardinetransport.ca

Here's a link to a good review recently posted at the HMGS Yahoo Group.

link

Don

Unfortunately same problem with that of needing to be a member of that yahoo group Don.

Ok here is the review from the Yahoo group. I wrote it. I have played a dozen games or so and it is my favorite Samurai rules by far. Re based two army's for it.

The pregame is a big deal and set the stage (flavor) for the battle. You get your Koku dice and spend them to influence present and future event in the battle. I guessed that Doug would spend some but not a large amount on being the attacker, out of a possible 18 dice for that I spent 10 and Doug 11 so I won it with out spending much! I had also spent a lot on family, ninja, leadership, treachery, events and won most of those categories. This had the effect of delaying some of Doug's units and eliminating some of his stands. My army arrived on the field complete, and full of and vinegar! His was strung out and late (very nicely simulating an attack upon an unprepared adversary!)

In my group I am known to be one of the best (ok luckiest!) Dice rollers, getting the name of Major Roller from the group. So from the get go I rolled better than Doug. This is very much a game of rolling "better" but it is also very much a game of what and when you try to activate and move troops. I rolled well for my messengers and they representing the Daimyos communicating with generals worked well. I picked up a lot of re-roll dice for my generals using them. I guess this represents them having more up to date info and being able to command / influence the battle more. The few "bad" rolls I made were negated by this effect.. 8) Shooting does not seem so bloody as in Brian's rules but my Ashigaru and his fired at each other 1 stand loss each, passed morale, I charged in used my spear bonus and won the melee, I won the "I choose" roll and I got to decide which of his stands where killed (he failed his 3 save chances) and I eliminated his spears, then kept pressing the attack, he now having only Arquebus armed troops left in the unit suffered in melee. I used the same tactic on another unit but killed his shooters and then sat back and slowly shot him up, he having no effective reply.

Commander Challenges are not nearly as bloody as KK2 since there is a chance to "draw" so to speak with both challengers satisfying their Honor and returning to their units. You keep rolling try to beat your opponents score without passing "12" and dying. If the two are with in 3 points and do not want to chance it they can "bow" and go their separates ways. I was not sure at first but liked it after playing as you are in control, not some abstract written chart.

The game has a variable end and at the point ours was over we counted Victory points (very nicely done section) and found I had won a moderate victory, Doug packed up his Maku screen up and made off to the castle! to commit Sepuku!

We all liked the game quite a bit. The questions that arose during the game were quickly found and answered in the rules or even just with the cheat sheet (supplied) Answers also left little doubt in our minds about what you needed to do after being read. The "pre-game" rolling was felt and enjoyed by us once we started playing the battle. This will greatly increase long-term playability. We are already talking about a campaign system to generate battles and ad to the flavor. We may try adapting the Milton Bradley's SHOGUN game for this.

This game had good flow and few unanswered questions. We are re basing for this game. In fact the basing is much superior since the need for different size stands or casualty caps is eliminated. Much easier to move units too!

I will do a more in depth series of battle reports and game analysis on BAW on my website Historicalhobbies.com