Rules for the tales of Shedwood

A momentous occasion !

Earlier this week I decided that I had to finish all the civilians for Robin Hood, Tales of Shedwood. With over Sixty miniatures to paint I set myself the daunting task of painting these by the weekend. I have been procrastinating over this task for some weeks and it doesn’t matter how hard you look at them they just don’t paint themselves.

 

There are a number of reasons why I wanted to get these done, chief amongst these is that I want to get the test games started. This coming Monday - Tonight !) we’ll be playtesting the rules.

 

Front Cover of the Rules

In time I’ll publish these but here is a flavour.

 

Each player takes the role of one of the main protagonists eg Robin Hood, Guy of Gisbourne etc in a particular scenario – more on this in a bit.

The Leaders have a number of units at their disposal ranging from Knights, Men At Arms, Outlaws, Trained bands and Peasants. These units each have characteristics ranging from combat ability (number of attacks per figure ) , Armour (saves in combat, movement) and Morale (From Fanatic to Panic !).

A unit will be typically sized from six to 12 men, all of whom will be of a similar class but can be bolstered with the presence of either a Leader or Knight.

Combat is very straightforward everybody needs a 5 to hit (d6) modified by things such as cover, mounted etc – with the defender saving hits according to their armour (+morale/calibre modifiers).

Mounted troops get to move faster and inflict more hits...afterall they are the tanks of the medieval battlefield.

 

The phases of play is where this game differs from others. At the beginning of each turn each player gets a number of command tokens based on how many units they are commanding. The commander then places these tokens on a Command Board that grids actions versus units.

The Actions a unit can take are Move, Defend, Shoot, Reload, Vigilance, Rally. A maximum of two tokens can be stacked in each unit column (ie a unit can perform two actions in a turn but this means something else will not have the option of doing anything). Once all the players have laid out their best plans they take it in turn to activate units.

Each leader will also have a set of leadership tokens (different colour) these can be used as order tokens (thereby generating more orders) or for the cost of two tokens they may add an action in the middle of play (eg a unit is about to be charged and cannot react). These leadership tokens are removed from play once used – ie they are finite. However more leadership tokens can be won for valourous/dastardly deeds.   

In addition each leader has a treacherous deeds or luck score. The luck points can be used to reroll failed dice throws, treacherous deeds work in the opposite way ! 

If a unit suffers damage in combat/or has a stressful situation (eg levy about to be charged by mounted knights) Morale checks will be taken. Units start on a Morale grade at the beginning of the game according to their calibre, position (eg in a castle), and presence of Leaders. Again the presence of a knight will bolster morale.

Morale tests are simple. The number of figures in the unit denotes the number of dice rolled) – the dice rolled are compared with the current unit status – any number that equals the morale of the unit is discarded. Those that better the morale are subtracted from those that fail and the balancing number is added to the current status. This does mean that fresh units can run in the presence of danger or actually harden their attitudes.

Why am I excited - well we get to playtest these tonight...in the adventure of St Oswald's Tongue.


 

The Small Monastery of St Oswald lies on the edge of Sherwood Forest, a days ride from Nottingham. It is a famous pilgrimage in this part of the country for it claims the that it is the resting place of the old martyr known as St Oswald.

Oswald was beatified when he single handedly talked a marauding Viking war party to turn back from its evil ways and embrace the spirit of God.

Immortalised in tales and legend his tongue has now become a powerful relic (if rather wizened) and is said to inspire leadership and oratory.

It has long been known that the Sheriff of Nottingham covets this relic and wishes to add this to his collection. After all pilgrims are prepared to pay to see such treasures. He has instructed his henchmen, Sir Guy de Guisbourne and Black Hugo to recover the relic and bring back to Nottingham.

Fortunately for the Monks of St Oswald the Sheriff's intentions have not gone unnoticed and a message has been sent to the outlaw and hero Robin Hood. Said Robin has decided such a theft should not take place and has such determined to thwart the Sheriffs plans.

 

The Monastery of St Oswald

 

For the full AAR please come back in a couple of days time...

 

 

A Trip to Reading - Warfare 2013

Sunday morning November 16th headed off in the car to Reading - arrived at 09.30 and had a bloody awful bacon sandwich inside the leisure centre.

Whilst there I spent a few quid  - more stuff for Shedwood and took some photos of the games on display...enjoy

This was the main hall for the competition games

All the Warhammer games were being played in the squash courts - rather an apt name !

The Vikings have the Danes for Tea

Over the past year I have probably played more than a dozen games of Saga. At first the novelty of the battle boards and the unique abilities of each of the troops has thrown out some great games BUT over time we have found that they become a little bit predictable – I charge into you wipe out a unit, you charge into me wipe out a unit etc etc etc...If anything the luck of the dice tends to create the variations in the game. Perhaps I am being a little unfair because every game we have played has always been great fun.

 Last night was no different and to spruce things up we decided on random deployment. This in part was necessary because we were playing on my 7ft x 3ft Kitchen table. With little depth on the board we decided to use the full length of the table and divide this up into thirds. Once the units were determined we randomly rolled their entry point along the table edge. The Warlords could be deployed as and when the players wanted.

 

Our forces were both based on 6 point armies and had very similar compositions – once again I played the Anglo Danes and Mark played the Vikings – could I win? Read on

 

The following table illustrates the deployment and forces

 

	Danes	Vikings
Top Edge	Warlord 1 unit 8 Warriors 1 unit 6 levy 1 unit 6 levy	Warlord 1 unit 10 Warriors 1 unit 6 Warriors
Middle Edge	1 unit 8 Hearthguard	1 unit 6 Hearthguard 1 unit 6 levy
Bottom Edge	1 unit 8 Warriors 1 unit 4 Hearthguard (Danes Axes)	I unit 6 Hearthguard 1 unit 6 levy

All levy are bow armed

 

Table before deployment

The significant difference in this deployment was forcing the units to spread across the table and therefore create a pattern of play somewhat different to previous games- a big mass of mutually supporting troops

 

Another view of table before deployment

With both Warlords sited on the top edge of the table it was inevitable that the action should commence in this area. Mark moved his larger Warrior unit forward taking the cover afforded by the wattle fenced enclosure (if you are interested on how these were made head here...

Wattle Fence Tutorial

elsewhere he began to move his units on the lower edge towards the centre.

 

Top Edge - with deployed troops

Time for the Danes to act I pushed forward a unit of levy and stacking a number of dice on extra shooting attacks I let rip. All my arrows missed. I too moved my units on the lower edge across the board.



Danes prepare to advance

 

Vikings in Wattle Enclosure

Round 2 Mark Launched his big warrior unit into my Levy troops decimating the first unit and crashing into the second. 10 warriors made mincemeat of the poorly armoured levy for no casualties. In response I threw my last unit with the Warrior into the engagement. A savage melee ensued with the Danes victorious albeit losing three of their number to the savage Northmen.

 

Early Skirmishes

Things were evenly balanced at this point in time.

 

Mark realising that there were bigger fish to fry in the centre turned his attention to the middle zone. He marched his smaller Warrior band and Warlord into the Middle Zone – his hearthguard started to advance supported by his levy units.

 

Danish Centre

The movement of his warlord presented my boss with an opportunity....I threw my dice and ended up laying fatigue on his Warlord the attached unit of warriors and his levy in the centre. The rest of my dice I stacked on extra hits and charged with the remnants of my top edge force. With five warriors and a warlord against six warriors and his warlord could I have an impact.

 

Viking Advance

Despite arriving fatigued I could put 12 dice onto his warlord in attacks (albeit needing sixes to hit) a further three dice could be aimed at his warriors. I rolled ALL MISSED, Mark rolled ALL MISSED or SAVED. With one Viking warrior as a casualty  My Danish Warlord looked rather exposed.

The Danish rush

 

Attacking the Viking Warlord

Mark threw his Hearthguard into the fight taking out the remainder of my warriors but not my Warlord.

 

Danish Hearthguard

The following turn I tried again this time throwing in my larger Hearthguard unit with Warlord, Again fatigues was playing its part as none of my hits went through. It was a different story for Mark, his demon dice rolling destroying my Hearthguard unit comprehensively. Two opportunities to take out his Warlord had been presented but failure on both occasions. Luck had clearly deserted me.

 

Vikings crash into remains of Danes

Who called me Ginger !



With my Warlord in serious danger of being overrun he fled back to the remains of his troops.

 

Viking Levy armed with Bows

The Viking levy stepped forward and unleashed their arrows – four brave warriors died. This was a rout. With no sizeable force left my Danes retreated from the table.

 

Once again the miserable Danes got hammered – this weekened I am going to buy up a Norman Force at Warfare (Reading) – hopefully a change of force will mean a change of luck !

 

 

I'm always in the kitchen at....Winter when its too cold in the Shed!

 

So the clocks have gone back, the days are getting shorter and the central heating’s been switched. This can only mean one thing the time of the year where my enthusiasm for anything always takes a beating.

Despite insulating the shed with loads of old foam, polystyrene and roof insulation and investing in a mobile radiator things do get chilly in the shed once temperatures start dropping to about 5 degrees outside. I keep a garden thermometer in the shed and typically I can get the temperature of the building up to about 10 degrees warmer inside than outside. So as freezing temperatures arrive Games nights are often not for the fainthearted.

With this in mind we have tended to switch to smaller games that can be played inside on the kitchen table or to board games. Over the past couple of weeks we have been testing out the Axis & Allies 1942 second edition. For years the first edition has been a mainstay of game play providing hours of intense battle. The original was historically balanced (with the allied players winning more often than not). The newish edition introduces a raft of new toys including destroyers, cruisers and artillery on a much revised board – more territories and new starting zones. In our first two full games the Germans have overrun Russia easily but Japan is completely screwed (much bigger UK Navy presence). In time we’ll see how this goes. Quite interested in acquiring the First World War variant for Xmas.

 

The Original and Spring 42

The Original Colourful Board

A more Sombre approach

Are you Board yet...?

Since completing the cliffs I have turned my attention to the base boards for the city of Nottingham. As I am sure I have mentioned in previous posts my standard gaming table is 1.5metres wide by 3metres in length (5ft x10ft old money – being a Brit we tend to move between standards quite happily). This board is covered with 50cm squares (9mm mdf) that have been covered with the GW battle mat.

The advantage of these boards is that they can be removed and stored easily when I am using the table for terrain projects. Equally they can be used to create a floating battlefield – eg running out of room on a flank – just slide the boards one way and add another row. Terrain such as rivers, coasts, roads, woods etc all stand on top of the boards.

More recently I decided that I would add to the standard boards some new ones that could be used as town  & village squares. So a trip to B&Q saw the purchase of some more boards. Note I got all these cut instore – you get a much better cut and finish.  I originally intended for 6 square boards but in the end settled for 3 large 50 cm boards, five boards (25 x 50) and two boards (25 x 25). Each board was then prepped with a coat of PVA and left to dry for a few days.

A second coat of PVA was added and sand, grit and ballast was spread across the board. Once dry the excess was shaken off onto a large sheet of newspaper – this can then be recycled for future use. Once these were fully dry they got a top coat of black acrylic and then dry brushed with a succession of browns dark through to very light.

With added grit

The finished article..

 

Surface close up

 

I was intending to put some flock on these but in the end decided that I would leave them bare given that all the terrain features which will be placed on top all have a bit of greenery. Afterall these boards will reflect the churned ground of the city or at a push dead ground.

 

Talking of which lets build it with the new boards...

First up the boards alongside my green mats versions...

 

 

Add walls....(Games Workshop Fortress Set)

 
Add buildings - these are all from Conflix

 Add remaining buildings - these are all from PMC

The following shots all show the boards close up...they make a big difference...

This is what they used to look like on the old green boards - much happier now

 

 

Just need to finish painting all these Medieval Civilians and then we are good to go...project complete...finito...