"Orcs and Dwarfs and Chaos - a SoBaH game" Topic

I gave the Song of Blades and Heroes game a whirl wth my sons at the weekend

Report and thoughts here:
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Glad you enjoyed it (sort of). I noticed you bemoaned the lack of well-developed fluff and setting material, but I see that as a strength. The game intentionally leaves the fluff to you, so you can decide which factions and warbands should reside in your world. You can certainly layer it on top of the Old World of Warhammer, too!

The game also works best with warbands that include a variety of figures, rather than just "leader + 5 warriors." As you pointed out, there's not a lot of granularity in the combat system, so it's up to the players to bring a figures with varying stats and special rules, otherwise you will indeed just bounce off each other for the entire game. :)

Yes, its is kind of simplistic, but that's one of the benefits. You can run a multi-game campaign in an afternoon.

You are correct about the morale. It's intended to not have to track any morale status from turn to turn, so there's only 1 check & the figure makes 1 or 2 run moves, or is removed from the table. It know it seems kind of strange, but it lends to the simplicity.

Remember when you outnumber someone, the opponent who is outnumbered has a -1 modifier for his Combat skill for each attacker beyond the 1st. So make sure to pile the attackers on the tough fighters.

Using the Group Activations, might help too. It allows you to make a concerted attack. If the group is able to get 2 activations, it can move a 1-2 figures into contact with the target but not have them attack (I think you don't have to use all your actions). & then continue to move more guys in contact with the target & attack with them so the target will get the outnumbered negative modifiers.

Shooting will be harder to kill with since there aren't as many negative modifiers to the defender's C. But it's more harassing fire than target shooting. But once you have more than 1 shooter, you can use the Concentrated Shooting group action, which gives the same -1C to the target as Outnumbering does for melee.

&, it sounds like the rules did a good job of keeping you & your sons entertained for the afternoon.

All of the above comments being true, I think you will find song of drums and shakos to play a more satisfying game. Combat scores are almost always a 2, and the muskets or rifles add 2 more (at short range). So shooting is deadlier, but you have to reload after every shot. This means you have to decide whether or not to stay exposed after a shot to reload, or spend actions taking cover.

We played a dark ages version using Song of Arthur and Merlin, without the magic or quests, and tactical finesse amounted to dogpiling on a single figure before the hapless defender could respond. This was easy enough to do if you had a leader nearby to boost Q3+ figures to 2+.

SDS is where it's at. I should also mention that if you wish to stick with SBH that your chaos profiles are in one of the expansions, Song of Gold and Darkness or Song of Wind and Water, I forget which.

One point I would make is that SBH really needs the use of scenarios other than just charging in and fighting. With those kinds of games it quickly becomes a simple pile-in and that gets old quick.

The scenarios in the various SBH books are good. Also, 11th hour gaming has converted all the Mordheim and Warhammer skirmish scenarios to SBH. Our club has found them to be really useful. We've been playing SBH at least 6-10 times a year (we only game every other week) for 4 years now and still enjoy it.
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Thanks all for all the feedback.
I think I'll definitely give the rules another chance.
Points very much taken about scenarios and different troop types. I usually enjoy scenarios, but the lads just wanted a stand-up fight and we were aiming to keep it all simple for a first run through.
That 11th hour page is a great resource, thanks for sharing.

Got a game of Drums and Shakos lined up, so we'll see how the engine works for Napoleonics.

Tom