Midgard Battle of Bosworth

Two weeks ago, six of us gathered at the Abyss to play Little Wars TV’s Battle of Bosworth scenario. The game had been three to four months in the making, as we needed to bring together several players’ collections to field all the troops. Once we had the forces sorted out, movement trays were 3D printed for the game, and we finally met on October 17th.

We had reserved an 8′ × 5′ table, only to be told the night before that our booking had been cancelled! After plenty of back and forth with management, we secured an 8′ × 4′ table, which worked just fine.

By a little after noon, all the troops were on the table and we were ready to begin. I won’t go into the scenario itself, as it’s available free from Little Wars TV. It features seven heroes: three on the Plantagenet side, three on the Tudor side, and Lord Stanley waiting on the sidelines.

Plantagenents:

Richard III-Rob

Duke of Norfolk-Graham

Earl of Northumberland-William

Tudors:

Henry Tudor-Pierre Yves

Earl of Oxford-PY/David

Philibert de Chandée-David

Lord Stanley-John

The Players and Setup

The Tudors on the left, interestingly enough both PY and David are from Brittany, Richard III and his loyal lords Graham, Rob and William to the right. 

At the end of the table is me...Lord Stanley, part traitor part GM.

Initial Setup from the Tudor side

The Game

All the photos were take by the players and they are out of order, but I hope you can get some idea of the game.

Most of the figures were Perry Plastics peppered with some metal figures, all in 28mm of course. The figures were painted by 5 of us. 

Stanley makes his decision and enters the fray on the side of the Tudors

The death of Richard III

Summary

The game went well and we got to a conclusive end in less than 3 hours which is remarkable as most had never played or had not played for a couple of years. Both sides had started with 11 reputations and I believe when Richard the III was killed each side had 3-4 reps left, it was a very bloody game. We did have to resort to the rulebook relatively frequently but question were resolved quickly.

I learned a lot from putting on this game, it was a bit of a challenge getting the figures together from multiple collections and getting the movement trays right. I am planning to put on a Mortimer's Cross game at our Lardy Day and Agincourt in February. I have put on a drive to paint all the figures needed for both games and only have about 20 to go which should be quite manageable. 

 

Saga: Franks versus Picts-The Frozen River

 

I got in my last Saga practice game with Eric a couple of weeks ago. This was the 3rd test of my Frankish warband as configured for the Montreal Saga Grand Mélee. I had not played a game with Eric for sometime and I was looking forward to it as he is an excellent player. The other big plus was that we played a modified version of the Frozen River. This is one of the 3 scenarios being played in the upcoming tournament. I should also say this is the first time I ever have played against the Picts.

The scenario is unusual in that you get points for units/figures ending up on the opposite of the river as well as survival points. The interesting bit is that there are only 2 bridges/fords where you can safely cross. You can cross the river itself as it is frozen but every time you move there you risk falling through the river and drowning. This is done by a dice throw. Very tricky.

I used my usual 6 point warband deployed as follows:

Warlord

2 units of 12 Warriors

1 unit of 8 Hearthguard

1 unit of deserters 

Here are some photos:

Starting Positions

Midgame

End Game

This was again an extremely close game with a victory for the Franks 28 to 24. I was able to get Momentum by turn 3. That will be it for Saga until Nov 7. 

Carnevale Revisited!

 

I had my first game of Carnevale in 2 years 10 days ago at the Abyss. Our gaming club has a Carnevale night once a month on a Friday and this was the first Friday that I happened to be in Montreal that coincided with this night for quite a long time.

Carnevale has a devoted following in Montreal with I suspect at least a dozen regular players. Antoine, one of the club members, has done a great job introducing multiple players to the game. He has put an enormous amount of work into 3d printing terrain, painting it and contributing it to the Carnevale group. He has also taught many players the game. They have been so successful that I was shocked to see Carnevale merchandise on the shelves of L'abyss.

I had bought into Carnevale several years ago with their Initial Kickstarter, this was at the time when TTCombat first took over the game in the summer of 2017. When I received the starter set I just shelved it.  I connected with Antoine in 2023, who I was shocked to find out had Carnevale collection and knew how to play the game. I believe we got in 4 games in the next couple of years but none for the last 2. During that period I had put together 3 Factions which all got some table time. All I had left from the original kickstarter was a box of The Gifted: Commedia dell'Arte. I subsequently purchased a few extra figures and asked my friend Graham to paint them, they are terrific figures and I just knew that I could not do them justice. You can see Graham's paint job here. 

Anyway, I wanted to get The Gifted on the table for some time and I finally got a chance. There was not a big turn out, they usually have 5 setups but on this Friday there were just 2, Antoine teaching a new player Guillaume-Manu how to play and Genessee and myself. Genessee was a great teacher and she has one of the largest collections of Carnevale figures I have seen, all painted brilliantly by her boyfriend.

I will not go into the game itself but just post some photos, I was playing against the Strigoi. It was a fun game and I lost badly but became re-acquainted with the rules and got some sense on how to play The Gifted!

Strigoi vs The Gifted

The Rashar and The Doctors vs The Guild (2 games)

Saga: Franks versus the Romans, The Ambush

Two weeks ago myself and Gavin got together at the Abyss to have a game of Saga. We played a slightly modified version of the Ambush from the Book of Battles.  This is one of the scenarios that will be coming up in our Saga Grande Mélee which will be held at the Abyss in Montreal on November 7th. 

We both played the warbands that we are planning to use for the tournament. Gavin is playing his Romans, I should have written down the composition of his warband but you will get a sense of it from the photos below.

Franks

Warlord

2 units of HearthGuard

3 units of Warriors

Deserter Mercenaries

This is the second time that I used a unit of Mercenaries, so this was another test run. This is quite an unusual scenario where points are gained for capturing objectives as well as massacre points. I had played something similar a couple of weeks before with David and got crushed. I felt I had a much better sense of how this scenario worked this time around.

The Game

I went with 5 dice as below. The Frankish Battleboard has a cheap ability, The Frankish People,  that allows you to activate 3 units as long as they are within M of a Hero for a common or uncommon dice. I have noticed that I have seldom had to put my dice on the activations but rather on the advanced abilities. The critical ability on the Battleboard is Momentum and with this once triggered by winning 3 melees you can activate any 3 of your units by Determination. The trick is though that this has to be done early in the game to make it work especially in games that last 5 turns only.

5 Saga Dice

Warlord

Unit of 12 Warriors

Unit of 12 Warriors

Unit of 8 Hearthguard

Deserters

Starting positions after initial movement of the carts.

The Romans quickly grabbed 1 of the Objectives

A dropped Objective

The Franks with 2 Objectives

Using Momentum the 2 Franks were able to end the game with 2 Objectives on their start base. 

So a Frankish Victory of, if I remember correctly, 34-26 points, but I think I was lucky in that Gavin made a very minor error when he picked up one of the objectives with a unit who was already holding an objective (the rules allow only 1 objective per unit). This caused him to drop it which I was subsequently was able to pick up. By then I had Momentum initiated which allowed me to grab it and move it towards my side of the table. Once the points were calculated it was found that the Franks won by holding 2 Objectives, if the Romans had held the 2 objectives they would have won.