"Recent game with son" Topic

Recently I played 2 games of 15mm battlesystem (2nd ed) with my younger son. We hadn't got a game in since about a year previous. The battle was approximately 100
goblins and 100 orcs against a elven army of approximately 150+ elves. The Orcish forces was comprised of roughly 75 goblin infantry and 25 goblin archers, these forces were
composed of 10mm Pendraken orcs which make great 15mm goblins) and a small handful or Goblin calvary riding velociraptors from BattleValor. The Orc army also had a large force of archers (35 from BattleValor and a unit of about 20 archers from Demonworld and another 15 or so crossbow armed orcs from Demonworld also. The orcs also had a unit of infantry armed with swords and shield also from Demonworld and a few lightly armed skirmish type orcs also. For Calvary, the orcs had some orcs on worgs from demonworld as well as a pack or worgs. The orcs also had a couple ogres from Demonworld and a couple Hillgiants from splintered Light.

The Elf army was composed of a unit of approximately 30 heavy infantry pikes from Demonworld which made the backbone of the elf army as well as a group of about 30 wood
elf archers from Demonworld. The wood elfs calvary was composed of a group of woodelf 12 heavy calvary from Demonworld, and a group of 7 elfs on unicorns. The unicorns are painted with different colored manes and matching riders and one painted as Princess Luna from my little ponies for my daughter. She wants me to paint up more unicorns, so she
can have a unicorn army. At first I wasn't to thrilled about paint the unicorns after the my little pony cartoon characters, but after painting them such, I actually kind of
liked it.

Using the Battlesystem rules the orcs had approximately a 100 point advantage over the elfs. The Battle was played on a ping pong table, which I think is a great size for
wargaming. I don't have any scenery yet, other than a orc tent my little girl got me to craft, ( she likes watching the crafting videos on youtube, and she like Black Magic
Craft as one of her favorite to watch) . My Girl is crazy about art, and hopefully when shes older she still will be and she can help paint my huge backlog of minis to paint.
Anyways I created a little scenario where the elfs were making a preemptive strike and trying to get at least 3 figures to what we were calling the orc kings tent. Even though the orcs out numbered the elfish forces, both times we ran the scenario, the elfs had a slight advantage. The orc and goblins could not stand up to the elf heavy infantry with pikes. Probably the next things I will have to paint is a orc unit armed with pikes.

The elvish calvary was also particularly effective, especially the Unicorns which my son feared from his previous game we had played last year with them. The Unicorns were particulary effective.

As for the Battle system rules, I really like them a lot. I really don't see why they are not more popular then they are. ( out of print? ) They seem to play quite nicely, are not to complicated, and are very adaptable using what every minis you want. Grab a 1st or 2nd edition D&D monster manual and you can field just about anything. I think it would work quite well for historicals also. I am not an expert with these rules, only having a few games in, using mostly the basic plus a few of the intermediate and advanced rules as needed, but the rules work mostly well for creating a realistic seeming outcome without having a lot a "gamey" silliness to them. Used to watch friends play Warhammer
Fantasy(HeroHammer)(couldn't afford it at the time) (not sure how many editions ago) and have watched youtube games of the same, as well as KoW, and a few others, but Battle
System while not perfect, just seems better to me. We weren't using any Spellcasters in our game, and that may change things a bit, but using a large table size and larger army sizes I don't thing having lower level spell casters would do much harm to the game.

Besides being out of print, and the whole lack of support it got when TSR was having its troubles, I think that possibly the reason these rules never caught many people were wanting to combine these with D&D to run wars in their D&D campaigns with their favor PC as commanders or heros. Battlesystem is a wargaming rules, and combining the two is a big leap, especially if your D&D campaign has been years of the typical dungeon crawl, which I and many enjoy, but the transition and mindset of a war battle compared to a
dungeon is quite different. I think it can be done, but just not easy.Dungeons and Dragons came from Chainmail, which I always wanted to give a go at. I really liked the idea as in the early editions, where you built stronghold and got your followers, and maybe even eventually battled it out with other players you've been playing with, or defended your stronghold against invasion. ( Think a very successful Kickstarter campaign made a lot of money off this one- Strongholds and followers- haven't bought yet) I really wanted to be able to do that as a young teen back in the late 70's when I started out. Of course one of the may problems is the miniatures, I didn't have them and couldn't afford enough of them if I wanted to. Battles need miniatures, and lots of them, and willing participants also. Now years later, and getting back into the scene, maybe I can do it, I have the minis if I just start painting, and a boy who wants to Wargame and is Really eager for a D&D game ( which will happen when the kids his age age a little more), most 8 year olds aren't quite ready, although my boy is. Living in a small town doesn't help either. But for now, Battlesytem is great, because 2 people can pay it and D&D really needs a few more.

Nice game report! I'm a dyed-in-the-wool fan of 2e BattleSystem. It is a really good medieval/fantasy battle game, IMO, as well. Your bat-rep demonstrates how adaptable the BS rules system is: Velociraptors do not have stats, either in the rulebook, or in the Monster Manuals from that period, that I know of… Yet, you were able to come up with stats and play them. That alone shows how adaptable the rules are to whatever creatures/monsters you wish to play with in the game.

I've noticed that my Goblin army, as well as my Orcs, rarely do well in battle. I suspect their points are rated too high, to be honest. I've made Goblin-Giant Bat Aerial Cavalry, along with Worg Cavalry, but the Goblins still do poorly in battle. I think they are cursed…

Archers are really among the most powerful troop types in the game, which I think is fairly reasonable. What is really daunting, is for Orcs and Goblins to be armed with Short Bows, fighting Elves with Long Bows! The Goblins move so slowly, and their Range is so short, that they get chewed up while they are marching towards their enemy Elves!

I've learned that I cannot send the short-legged races against Long Bowmen enemies, unless I don't have a choice. The range of the Long Bow is killer. I will, however, send fast-moving cavalry units at Long Bowmen, if possible. They still get chewed up, but when they hit, in a charge, they severely ruin the day for the Long Bowmen!

I've been playing 2e BS since around 1995. I've played with nearly every rule (it covers just about everything you can imagine in such a game… it is very comprehensive). Magic is powerful, but nothing like it is in the RPG. A Fireball spell will eliminate 2-4 figures from a Regular Formation (troops standing shoulder-to-shoulder), but that is it. Most RPG players get a bit angry about that: in reality, I tell them, you just eliminated 20-40 troops! They still think their magic should wipe out entire Units…

Some spells are particularly effective, such as Caltrops (from the 2e Tome of Magic RPG book; creates magical caltrops over a large area, either man-sized, or horse cavalry sized), and Entangle (reduces movement through its large area to around 1"-2", per Turn…). The 2e RPG book, Tome of Magic, lists spells which are written specifically for the 2e BattleSystem game. They are in the Cleric's spell lists, under the Sphere for War.

I made up some Quick Reference Sheets for 2e BS rules. I can e-mail you a PDF copy, if you like, for free. I also have some magic item lists for BS rules, night rules, and an Index for the rule book, all in PDF format, all free. Cheers!

Excellent battle report. I've tinkered around with BS 2ndEd over the years but never really did much with it. I'll have to dig it back out again. Time to get after my pile of unpainted 15mm fantasy!

Glad to hear you are having fun gaming with your son.

Always time well spent with the young ones.