Guards of Traitors Toll

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We ran a 4-player game of Guards of Traitors Toll at the club. ‘Grey For Now’ sell the basic game with a pack of Wargames Atlantic plastic sprues that can be made up as Fantasy-Medieval civilians and guards. It is also available as just the book and cards (used here) or as a big ‘Beano annual’ hardback book. The latter looks good, is easy on the eyes but impossible to play the game alone with as the cards define events and behaviours and are essential. There is not sufficient detail in the book alone to craft a set of workable cards.

Already being in possession of enough models to run almost anything we went for a late 18th Century romp somewhere with an Italian or Spanish influence. Possibly St Augustine soon after the British took over in 1763 (see below for the explanation). The game could run in almost any setting; on-line reports include Sci-Fi and 1930s UK settings. Weaponry does change but the aim is ‘where possible’ for the guards to avoid excessive violence but rather identify suspects, subdue them and cart them off for further questioning. Use of excessive force increases discontent amongst the locals and essentially loses the game.

Here we see the locals going about their business. It must be market day. The rules often require a civilian to be chosen who will then become a potential suspect or just wander about and get in the way. A table is provided of various citizen types and what they might be doing to enable suitable models to be identified. This is skewed to a fantasy-medieval setting but just about worked for 1763ish although we were short on sorcerers (using clerics and lawyers instead) and fairground acts (using anyone looking out of place).

We ran the training mission so there were relatively few happenings. This took about 30 minutes to lay out the town and 2 hours to play. Regular games have a number of possible plots. These push up discontent as they crop up and reward guards with gold as they are solved. There is a formula for this but you can just go on until you run out of time or enthusiasm and add it all up. All the guards are on the same team but the player with the most gold wins. In a solo game a certain level of discontent will count as an automatic loss.

Our lads corner a violent suspect. We are allowed to use excessive force on him but he is a tough brute. Combat has a low chance of success. If the target has not already acted it can dodge hits or strike back. It helps to have more than 1 guard in on the arrest and to go in only after the target has acted for the turn. This guy took out a guard but with a mix of shooting and clubbing him close-on he eventually went down. The rules treat muskets as crossbows and restrict how many guards are allowed them. For this setting all the guards had guns but were only allowed to use them on violent suspects. As some balance to being overpowered no guards wore armour in this game (the default in the written rules). We shot the suspect several times, usually missed but only wounded when we did hit. Using muskets as clubs worked better not because clubbing is especially effective but we clubbed him a lot. We might try making muskets more deadly than the crossbows in the book but increase the risks of hitting nearby figures and possibly upping discontent. This is on the assumption that a non-lethal crossbow shot (from a weak crossbow not a business-class 1,000lb plus draw-weight arbalest job) might be possible to ignore in the heat of battle but a lead musket ball comes in with a good deal of momentum.

Our lads run after a Catholic priest and after considerable running about corner him and arrest him with only limited force. We assume that the well-dressed violent lad was running guns to the Indians or renegade slaves supported by his local contact the Catholic priest. Catholicism would have been illegal anyway in England (although not in Florida) at this time so the charges might have to be made up later.

So it all worked out reasonably well. We only used a single set of stats for all the guards. A ‘proper’ set should have some variation. We have enough different green coated lads to accommodate that but the British regular models (from Redoubt) are only in a limited number of poses. Who actually wins is luck dependent, being in the right place at the right time and rolling the right dice. Identifying a new suspect depends on getting close through almost random movement and a 1 in 6 (coin) roll on the movement dice (usually 3 or 4 dice) which in general define direction and speed. This can all lead to some players doing a lot and others very little. This won’t matter in solitaire or 2 player games but with 3 or 4 the group will need to make sure that everyone stays involved.

Why St Augustine and why Florida in 1763?

This is more of a setting or interpretation than a game or review. Having caved in to buying a copy of Guards of Traitors Toll; the question arises of where it might be set. The answer comes from looking up how many civilian miniatures of various periods and scales are painted up and to hand. That answer being the late eighteenth century and that was in turn caused by needing more than a few to run Muskets and Tomahawks in the French and Indian War. Suppliers with a decent range of non-military types include Wargames Foundry, North Star (small selection), Perry (albeit 10+ years later) and Front Rank. Redoubt also have a good range but their supplier is winding down so might be harder to source.

An obvious problem is that fashions change. In the case of the later eighteenth century gentlemens’ coats become more tailored and less bulky. Ladies dresses are possibly less of a problem although fashionable hair styles approach immense bulk towards the end of the century. Some of the manufacturers take a broad brush as to when to set their figure sculpts. Older styles will always work but fashions can’t always predict the future.

John Collet – The Recruiting Sergeant 1767

Following the end of the Seven Years War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Britain took over control of Florida from Spain in exchange for Havanna. The occupation of Florida did not last long as it was given back to Spain at the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783.

Although Spain had controlled Florida since the 16th Century they had not done well out of it. The nominal border of Florida (as most of this land was still in the control of native tribes) gradually shrinking before British and French claims. Spain had far more productive lands in the New World and by the late eighteenth century Florida had become a border buffer state protecting those rich provinces. Here is part of the Mitchell map from the 1750s showing the Florida, Georgia, Carolina borderlands. The key point to note is that apart from St Augustine and some nearby forts it is empty.

Details can be gleamed from ‘East Florida as a British Province 1763-1784‘; a book written in 1943 and luckily on the Internet Archive. Obviously a secondary source but it fills in a lot of the story behind the maps. The British landed in St Augustine on 20th July 1763 and had no issues from the Spanish regarding withdrawal of their Florida garrison and almost the complete population of the province to Havana. As the majority of these people were soldiers, civil servants and clergy directly paid by the Spanish crown and the remaining few depended on the income of the former it is no surprise that they all took up the Spanish offer to be relocated to Cuba. A British report described St Augustine as ‘a struggling little settlement, unproductive of any supplies save fish, and with the ground overgrown with weeds’. A Spanish census prior to withdrawal gave the town population as 3,046, including the garrison. An estimated 8 Spanish citizens remained after the other Spaniards left; chiefly to ensure the transfer of property to new British owners. The British put out small garrisons at Apalache (a weak company, perhaps <80 men), Picolata (8 men), Mosa (13), Matanzas (6 men), the lookout on Anastasia Island, and New Smyrna (20 men following a riot in 1768). All but New Smyrna being existing Spanish settlements although probably no more than military outposts and most were soon abandoned. Penascola and the West of Florida was administered as a separate colony by the British.

This 1763 map of St Augustine shows a few rows of houses but most of the buildings are detached with garden plots. Some of these building might have been decayed and some plots uncultivated.

The British had to start their new colony from scratch. The 1763 peace had established reserved Indian lands beyond the existing American colonies but this boundary did not include Florida. So anyone looking for new lands could find attractive and legal opportunities to settle in Florida. Colonists came from Georgia and the Carolinas bringing their slaves and plantation production methods. An interesting exception was New Smyrna: A plantation system based on over 1,000 Minorcans as indentured labourers. They were allowed to practice their Catholic faith and when the ‘experiment’ failed in 1777 many of these workers ended up in St Augustine.

There were also Indians, some mixing with escaped slaves. Disease, raids from British Georgia and the Spanish themsleves had lessened their numbers. Indian matters led to negotiations, bribery and some conflict but no formal hostilities. The map above indicates that Timooqas had been ‘destroyed’ and that settlements were abandoned. These could have been original native villages or Spanish missions. Florida later becomes the base of the Seminole nation but the term does not seem to be in use at this time. Later images of Seminoles show European style clothing with a notable Native twist. Earlier engravings of Carolina Indians depict loin cloths and cloaks. Unlike the Seminole paintings there is no proof that the engravers ever saw the natives they depicted. It is fair to assume that Forest Indians with buckskin leggings would not be entirely accurate for Florida.

Osceola or ‘Rising Sun’, a Seminole Leader, 1838, illustration from ‘The Indian Tribes of North America, Vol.2’, by Thomas L. McKenney and James Hall, pub. by John Grant

Last but not least would be the Negroes. The Spanish had welcomed runaway slaves, 1 more man for Spain, 1 less for the British. Those who now saw themselves as Spanish townsfolk would have left with the other Spaniards. Communities of Negroes were also established in the countryside. These may have increased with additional runaways as the British imported slaves for their new plantations. Their way of life would be closer to that of the Indians than the British or Spanish settlers. Their descendants are now recognised as a specific ethnic group in the USA. Considering what might happen to them it might have been rare for (not obviously enslaved) Negro or Indian natives to be seen in St Augustine under British control.

V For Victory

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V For Victory is Studio Tomahawk’s WW2 game pitched at the same unit scale as Bolt Action and Chain of Command both of which saw relatively recent releases of new editions. The base book here deals with 1943-5 in Europe. An early war Europe supplement is due out so it made sense to finally drag out the base game with the aim to decide to keep with the system or get shot of it while there could still be an interest out there.

The game system is broadly based on that of Congo but unlike Congo games that are basically story driven V For Victory is played in classic battle scenarios such as ‘hold the objective’. Activation is governed by choosing 1 of 7 order cards; identical decks for each player. The higher numbered card player going first but the lower numbered cards tending to allow more useful actions. That is all much the same as with Congo but each unit can only undertake 2 actions per turn. The base unit is a team, a half squad or a weapons group. Issuing a 4 move order to such a team will only allow it to move twice. A full squad can share its actions if close together so both half squads could move twice with the 4 move card. The force leader can also spread actions amongst units within 30cm and gets a free action for himself but that burns 1 of his actions for the turn so he can only issues these orders twice per turn. There are 2 free orders, reactive fire that does what it says on the tin but burns an action and the equally obvious hit the dirt which is not an action. This all means that not all possible options on any card will be used and some units might do nothing as they have no chance to react by shooting and all the cards have been used up. A card can be pulled back and used again in a turn through the player skipping a card play and discarding 2 cards. There is some good in not using both actions in a turn as once a unit has bunt both it is frozen, can’t react and if it comes to melee is worse at that as well. There are some rare cases of being able to pull an action use back and to get a 3rd go but not enough to rely on that.

Clearly this system will limit larger forces more and will influence the troops chosen for a game. The rules suggest running larger games with 4 players and 2 packs of cards.

Running out the basic scenario with German Heer against British paras. The paras here are running as regulars, they could be run as elite at an additional points cost. The hedges are bocage which offers hard cover and blocks line of sight unless the unit behind has fired. The scenario allows the units to set up pretty close together but even so no one is initially spotted. The aim is to wipe out enemy units and control the 3 central objectives.

First action sees a German team spot a British unit as it moves through the field. They shoot but reveal their position. Movement is by means of tracing the unit leader’s path. If he is spotted the entire team can choose to continue moving or hit the dirt at the moment they are shot at. At either of those times the remainder of the squad is deployed within 10cm of the squad leader.

Predictably the game enters a phase of both sides hugging cover and taking pot shots with limited chance of success. The lads behind bocage save on a 5+ using a D12 (67%).

The para sniper team makes a run for the bottom objective and briefly holds on to it. The German HMG sorts them out and another German squad gets in to the field across the road; turning the British flank. Running in the open is a D6 save (33%), always on a 5+ but the only shooter with line of fire is a single bren at 2D6 (4D6 down 2 for reaction shooting) so worth the risk against hitting the dirt in the middle of the road.

The British need to reposition to avoid having their line rolled up.

The Germans take some risky moves but the British whiff their dice and its all over on turn 3.

Having another go but with scenario 2 and upping the forces. The force system requires a core of infantry and a budget of points to buy more goodies. Here the British had 5 points and bought a Tetrach tank and medium mortar. The Germans spend 6 on a flamethrower, panzerschrek, some more infantry and 3 panzerfausts. These choices were to see what could happen rather than for any tactical insight.

Much the same board is in use but the bocage has been downgraded to flimsy hedges and treated as light cover. Models can see further and the tank is not getting to get stuck in the bushes. There are 5 objectives to control here. Note that play here is with the basic rules. Recent FAQs have made several changes that although minor would have had significant gameplay effects.

The Germans missed a rule allowing them to move 1 unit after all deployment so could have put their Panzerschreck closer to the tank. The Britsh missed the tank being recon and allowed to move before the game start so both omissions cancelled out.

Both sides move up then it all goes pear shaped. The British commander spots for the mortar. Knowing that; the Germans shoot at him as he moves up. He survives and calls in a mortar on the shooters who he can now see. The mortar rolls 4d8 (50% of each shot hitting), any models hit get a D8 save so we might expect 1 kill out of 4 shots. The rolls significantly favour the British, mashing the target and several nearby Germans taking out almost all of their anti-tank ability. This encourages the Tetrach to move up and create more damage. To be fair to this situation if the Germans had not shot first the British officer would have seen the team in the field and mortared them with only slightly less potential damage.

Someone at Tomahwk must also have realised all this . The rules have now changed to require passing a D6 check or indirect fire comes onto the target at half dice plus for medium mortars the range for other squads to be hit has dropped from 15cm to 10cm.

It is now a case of mopping up for the British. Most of the remaining German units are badly shocked and will need orders to recover and the army is below half strength so its all over.

That could all have gone quite differently with the revised rules but it did make for an interesting game. Verdict is that it would be worth looking out for the expansion book. There is still no support for the Pacific or for related conflicts such as the Spanish Civil War or French Indo China or Algeria. Congo has spawned quite a few un-official scenarios and variants but not so V For Victory. There is not a great deal of difference between armies, some changes in team structure and differing equipment options. Each force does have 3 special rules, 2 always in force and another playable once per turn. These will not always be used, the British here had no back-blast with their PIAT but by not bringing a PIAT the rule was not needed. Inventing new forces should not be much more than making up 3 new rules for each, with Bolt Action or Chain of Command as inspiration. The supplement could help with that plus your author can get his early war British out.

Steel Lard 2025

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Another trip down to Patriot Games, Sheffield for Steel Lard following similar outings in 2024 and 2023 and 2022. This year began with a post apocalyptic skirmish running on ‘What a Cowboy’ rules. 3 of us took on 2 characters each aiming to take down a cult of cultists. Other hazards included zombies, robots and possibly something else icky (but we stayed away from that). Rewards were in the form of bottle caps awarded for kills and successful searches. Due to some dreadful bad luck I probably did least well all day, only earning 3 caps and those probably because the game runner may have taken pity on me. I ran about, shot things, fired an explosive bolt and only managed to cause a single (non-lethal) wound on a cultist.

The terrain was pretty dense. One of my characters did most of the heavy lifting. The other had difficulty walking halfway across the table. Someone else sorted out those dogs and I was able to run past them.

This cultist sniper was almost impossible to take out, we spent much of the game shooting, dodging, getting into hand to hand with each other and not achieving a lot.

This was a cracking scenario with lots going on. Activation was by card draw with new cards entering and leaving the pack as fresh adversaries entered the fray and were taken down. Not much happened at my end due to the nature of how actions are allocated in ‘What a Cowboy’. Each figure has a dice pool. They roll the dice and can take the actions matching each die’s score. A 6 is wild and can be set as any number. One of each pair of characters (the one that got to be most useful) could also change the face of any 1 die. The system seriously lacks any other way to mitigate luck. If you don’t roll any 1s or (wild) 6s then you won’t be moving (been there). If you do happen to get movement dice the first move action is 2D6 and ignores terrain, subsequent moves are 1D6 with terrain penalties; so how far you get is chancy. There are similar issues with just about any pip, a load of aims are no use without a shoot. To see anything beyond very close ranges will need a pile of spot scores. To be fare the cultists and other gribblies worked with a similar activation and my fellow players managed to get all their ducks in a row and worked the system. Personally I am yet to be convinced by ‘What a Cowboy’.

After lunch and off to familiar territory and ‘Sharp Practice’ and 1st Bull Run. I took the CSA against 2 Yankee players. Up front we see a formation of Louisiana Tigers backed up by South Carolina Volunteers. Our artillery is just coming up the road and skirmishers are lining the fence by the house. The Union are yet to come on so its all looking good.

This is based on actual events. Here is the Stone House modeled in the game (taken in 2006):

This might be a view of the hill (it is my photo and I took it just before the house photo above)

I was informed that in previous plays of the game the Louisiana boys did sterling service and did not lose a man. Not so here, my bad luck held. They got off a single volley of 26 dice with their rifle muskets, outside the Union infantry smoothbore range. Result 1 kill, limited shock. The Union moved up, presented and our boys went down in droves. They also took fire from a USA cannon and as their numbers plummeted so did their shooting effectiveness.

Our own cannon deployed on the road and shot off at the Union column coming towards them with limited effect. Their own cannon smoke was hovering above the guns and making it hard to range in on the enemy.

As the lads took fire they built up shock. This made it hard to move them back. The best they could do was hang around and remove some shock only to see it come back on in subsequent rounds of incoming.

It is about this time that the difference between ‘Sharp Practice’ and ‘What a Cowboy’ starts to come into play. If an activation comes up there will be something that can be done with it; even knocking off a couple of points of shock. The same combat rules apply to both sides; so although the Tigers fall (some run) back the Union is also piling up shock. The pace of the road column has slowed and a militia unit unwisely moving across their own firing line is breaking up and getting in the way of the shooting. Meanwhile the South Carolina lads have fallen back to a second line behind the fence and some of the Louisiana lads have rallied. Better still the USA commander rashly charged his skirmishers into the remnants of the Tigers. These are hard men and they saw the Union off.

Apart from that setback the skirmishers on both sides were the most useful units. The main lines could put out more firepower but were too unwieldy to take advantage of it.

The final image shows the situation at game end. CSA morale was 1 higher than USA morale and the Rebs did still hold the field. As a bonus we got our commander figure Major Roberdeau Wheat off the field to safety. Play took about 3 hours and running onto an attack on the house would have taken at least a couple more. With Patriot Games closing in a hour and the game still to pack up we call this a CSA winning draw.

More Konflikt 47 Weird WW2 Proxy Models

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In a rare 2-parter a look at some more Weird WW2 fodder that will run in Konflikt 47 at a reduced expense. First up these werewolves from MaxMini who are in reality a part of TT-Combat. They are a shiny very slightly bendy resin like the early Warmachine mechs. The sales blurb warns of possible bubbles to fill but these were all perfect casts. There are 6 in a box for half the price of a set of 3 Warlord Schrekwulfen. The only possible drawback is that they have no trousers on and that one of the 3 poses is a little big for the Konflikt 47 40mm base.

Now some more big fellas. These are 2 giant bears from Temu; here they tower above a 3D printed Ursus from Etsy. Again no trousers but they just fit on a 40mm base. These could be used as the extra-stompy Ursus with big clubs in Konflikt 47.

3 Stahltruppen here. The middle guy is straight up Warlord. The flankers are mostly Warlord but a single Stahltruppen sprue only has enough parts for 3 complete models. By adding bodies from Space Marines and backpacks from Wargames Atlantic Valkir 2 more dudes can be made out of a single sprue.

Having bought official Stahltruppen the Valkir proxies from last time have been converted to Soviet Mk II heavy armour. The Wargames Atlantic guns have been cut down to work as SMGs or worked up into ATRs. Apart from that it was a case of head swap and repaint.

Keeping with the Soviets these are Stargrave Crew II and Mercenaries II (both female sprues). Done up as Daughters of the Motherland. The assault rifles are from ones’ bits box. The weapons on the sprues being largely useless for WW2. One has been built up into a Zyukovoy Automat; a sound projection thingy with a criminally short range but likely to do a world of harm should it ever get a shot off. The Crew II sprue clothes were closer to the Soviet Summer kit. The Mercenaries II seem to be in space suits; these were modelled up as partial armour. One minor issue with both sprues is the lack of usable human female heads. There are loads of heads but most are literally out of this world. Having made 10 models out of 2 sprues there are about 6 useful heads left depending how off-piste a modeller would want to go.

Konflikt ’47 Proxy Models

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A look at some alternatives to the Warlord Konflikt ’47 models for those of a thrifty nature or who have loads of this stuff lying around, don’t want to end up with more of the same and might be looking for some way to get it back on the table.

There has never been a limit on using non-Warlord models for Bolt Action in competitions. At home or at the club no one cares (except that some effort ought to be put into painting them). The only real concern is that a proxy look something like what it should and that it be about the same size. Too big won’t be a worry as a model will be harder to hide or find cover. Too small could be see as modelling for an in-game advantage. Konflikt 47 now has fixed base sizes of 25mm and 40mm for infantry which could cause issues for other size bases in relation to spacing out models and what fits under templates. Re-basing might be avoided by working out the sundry base and model spacing differences and working out how far apart or close together these rogue models will need to be. The walkers don’t need bases although many will need basing as their unlikely load out makes them top heavy.

Dust Tactics and AT-43 infantry are significantly bigger than 1/56 but their mechs will fit in. More of a problem is that both are long out of production and relatively collectable. So in general they are not a cheap alternative although better priced job lots do turn up from time to time. Another oldie is Robogear that shows up at all sorts of prices. The starter kit can be a good buy. It has 2 big walkers, 2 tank sized crawlers, 2 overly-small flyers and 2 very iffy tracked things. There are also some big infantry figures and just about enough terrain to make a small landing platform. The walkers and crawlers work up to decent Konflikt ’47 Linebacker and Vogelspinne walkers with a bit of cutting and gluing. Most of the rest of the box should be just be seen as a source of parts.

WestWind do a decent sized selection of models in their Secrets of the Third Reich range. Some of the stuff is better value than others. The big mechs are good value in a ‘never mind the quality look at the width’ sort of way.

Close enough for a Mastodont, the original barrel replaced by a much longer piece to look the part.

Another new barrel works up a Heuschrecke.

Modiphius did have a solid selection in their Achtung Cthulhu skirmish range but recently cleared out most of it so the good stuff is hard to get. Here their leaders hang around with the Warlord vampire and plastic Warlord infantry soldier.

Warmachine is another useful source which luckily still is available. Pricey new but often affordable 2nd hand. The Khador (Russia) infantry are a good match for Mark 1 armour. The scout guys might work for Moroz Gul.

A potential officer and Zvukovoy projector.

The Cryx have plenty of gribblies for the Axis; looking at zombie or even Nachtjaeger material here:

A commander and possible Schreckwulf proxies.

Several Wargames Atlantic sets can be useful. Several re-sellers offer single sprues for when a whole box is way more than required. The Eisenkern (either of 2 boxes) could run as Schwertruppen with the Valkyr making decent Stahltruppen or just about anyone’s heavy infantry by swapping out their heads with faction specific headgear.

Most of the weapons in either set are oversized although the official Warlord equivalents look like they are carrying toy guns as the models are obviously large but their weapons are still to true scale. The Wargames Atlantic werewolves will be a little thinner and shorter than Warlord but considerably cheaper. They do also produce a box of zombies although their clothing consists of very generic underwear. North Star do a Frostgrave Cultist box; this may not appear useful but the cultists come with alternate zombie heads and arms that can be added to Bolt Action regular plastic bodies. The rest of the cultist sprue can be built up with WW2 weapons although these would only be basic infantry in Konflikt ’47 and hence somewhat specialised. Kudos to Lead Adventure Forum user Sinewgrab built up a Hastur Bolt Action army in 2016. Anyone else going down that route might consider the monsters from the Cthulhu Death May Die games (volume 1 or volume 3 is the place to start) as walkers and (obviously) monstrous infantry.

3D Prints are another contender; either from Etsy, eBay or even Temu who sell these walkers as a set of 3. The gun barrels have been added to run as Kazak walkers.

3D prints of Ursus and Falcon infantry.

Most of the 40K stuff is clearly too big but some of the turrets can be pressed into service as Rift devices to fit onto Bolt Action hulls. Warlord do sell these turrets separately but at a premium price. This 40K turret works on a KV-1 body to proxy as a KV-ZP.

That beast is 320 points as a regular so not much of this type of stuff is going to be used in a 1,500 point game.

Pillage

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Pillage is originally a French set of rules but has been recently released in English by Victrix. The official site includes additional scenarios and the basic (French) rules. These are free but you need to create an account first. There are also some freebies on the Victrix site although again you need to create an account to get hold of them. The basic rules are quite workable but Pillage even in its final form is pretty simple. The basic rules miss out the various bells and whistles; to be honest without these there is not a lot left.

The setting is the Dark Ages with most of the usual suspects (Vikings, Normans etc) in the book and a few others (Rus, Magyar, Byzantine) in the free downloads. This is all firmly within Saga territory and the same models can be used for both. The era also crosses over with Clash of Spears rules. A set that is still supported. We tried them out, no major complaints but doing much the same thing with Saga is a lot more fun. Pillage will face the same competition but being simpler than Clash of Spears and Saga might attract some at the club who shy away from Saga (a definite Marmite game).

Although not essential a lot of the focus is on stealing stuff and burning things down. The base rules are no surprise.

  • Dice for initiative
  • Winner, moves, melee
  • Joint shooting, initiative player 1st
  • Next player
  • Morale.

There are 3 armour classes, no armour, shield and no armour with shield/armour without shield and lastly armour with shield. These effect movement, attacking and saving. Combat is a roll to hit and roll to save. Most models are one hit and they are gone. Warlords and a very few others have 2 or 3 wounds. Good for the armies as losing a Warlord or 50% losses will cause all friendly models to test morale at the end of their turn (all models roll a D6 on a 1 they are gone). That is pretty much it for the basic rules. There are some extra bits such as spears supporting other infantry, multiple figure melee and bow (only bow) shooting volleys, a bonus for charging and using a shield to improve defense at a cost of losing an attack. Most combat is simultaneous but the hit probability is relatively low: Armoured Spearmen fighting each other with no support need a 5 to hit and a 5 to save that is a 2/9 chance of a kill.

Digging out the Dark Age terrain to give it a go; some Irish raid a Viking village. The Irish were picked as the attacker because they have less armour and should be quicker and better able to run in, grab the loot and run off. There is a points system with the points for the same equipment being different for differing armies. This ought to encourage historical (within the view of the designer) lists as it makes sense to go for the cheap stuff. This has all led up to the Irish only being slightly more numerous than the Vikings.

The models are supposed to be WYSIWYG; that is fine when building up a new army but needs bodging when working from existing stock. Having a single figure with a warhorn and another with a standard is a decent buff for any Pillage army. The Irish slingers here have a shield at an additional 10 points a pop. Looking back it would have been better to drop the shields as that halves the cost of each slinger and hence you can shovel a lot more of them in (there is a 25% limit on missile armed models so you can’t go all in sling).

Here we have a 600 point battle with the Irish at the top. A few Vikings defend the settlement; most are at the bottom of the table.

It takes a couple of turns to move up to anywhere useful. The Irish want to hold 10 points of loot at the end of turn 10. The animals are worth 2 loot, barrels and such like 1 but moving with loot slows the lads down. The Vikings hold the centre while their pals come up to help out.

The Irish spread out to grab the loot but both sides are taking losses and man for man the Vikings are better armed. Both sides soon start to run out of men.

The factions end up taking 2 morale tests each for losing 50% of their starting forces and then 50% of what is left.

By late game there is not much left of either side and certainly not enough Irish to claim 10 points of loot. The Viking can claim a victory of sorts.

All this makes for a light game. The hardest work was getting the terrain out and setting it all up. It does lack the crunchiness of Saga but could appeal to those of the Games Workshop crowd who don’t want to be overburdened with their recent trend for special rules weighing down the base systems.

Konflikt 47 v2 Demo Game

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Edit (2nd September): We now have some more details on the rules so the text below has been updated)

At the club we have a draft copy of the Konflikt ’47 2nd Edition playtest rules and it would have been rude not to try them out. These are running with the Bolt Action 3rd Edition rules to fill in any gaps of the playtest set and with some simplifications laid out within this playtest set.

The game uses the models from the new Konflikt ’47 starter set which we do not have so some proxying took place. The walkers are from the Airfix Robogear game. The Axis Stahltruppen (steel warriors) are Wargames Atlantic. The Allied Firefly jump troops are Warlord bodies but with Games Workshop jump packs.

Our first run through was on a 48″ square but both sides spent the early game moving up so we switched to 36″ square. 24″ square would have worked but with the Firefly troops having a disadvantage as there would be less room to run away. With relatively dense terrain here there was an element of tactical shuffling going on.

The core changes from Bolt Action are rift dice and guts. Warlord are selling bespoke rift dice but the only real design need is that they be the same shape as order dice. Here grey/red and grey/black order dice are being used as rift dice. An alternative would be to use chips or cards for activation and to place markers rather than dice on the table to mark their effect. A rift die has 6 faces (exhausted 1-3), ready (4,5) and surge (6). In this scenario only the Stahltruppen and Allied walker and Firefly troopers have rift capability. All these begin the game on ready except the walker which begins on surge. The poor Vogelspinne (tarantula) Axis walker has no rift only the basic recce ability.

The Stahltruppen can use a rift die to pass an advance order and shed all their pins. The Firefly infantry can use a rift dice to make a 12″ move after an activation. The is handy to advance 12″ into point blank range, shoot then fly back out danger. The Allied walker uses its surge dice to improve the penetration value of its Tesla cannon. On surge this (compulsory) benefit can also cause hits on the walker itself. Being a heavily armoured beast (9+) this is not a major worry.

Rift dice can be kept with their unit or spent. Used rift dice are rolled at the end of the turn. Active or surge dice are reassigned. Spent dice go into the order dice draw bag and are rolled again when drawn and re-assigned. If a unit has yet to draw a Rift die then they count having a ‘used’ Rift die. The Firefly and Stahltruppen units are at a movement disadvantage with exhausted dice. The Allied walker loses its shooting buff.

Guts are dice modifiers; here both overall commanders have the same guts rating of 3. Each allows a single change to any die result of + or – 1 but only on the hero with a guts rating. They can use this ability to improve their own save chance. Another good use of guts is to allow a unit within 6″ of the hero to put its order die back in the bag; so it can activate twice in a turn.

So how did it go? The Firefly troopers had a ball. Jump in close, hose down the Stahltruppen, jump back to cover. Stahltruppen are 7+ to damage but the Firefly guys are +1 on the damage rolls so even with a good chance of a hit did not have much effect with their guns. Each Firefly unit contained a flamethrower and that caused proper havoc. Hits were not a major worry but each attack put out D6 pins and caused a morale check. Although veterans the Stahltruppen don’t like being on fire and bottled when not whittled down by constant attacks.

Having suffered this several times a good Axis defense seems to be to hold 1 unit on Ambush and move up the other. Keep 2 units relatively close together and whichever is attacked the moving Firefly guys will take hits in the open. Statistically at least 1 model is going to go down but the almost guaranteed pin will make the remaining attacks somewhat less painful. The American can make 3 of these jump-in-jump-out attacks in a single turn if their rift dice luck holds so still probably have an edge. The less cover in play the more that edge slides away.

On the walker front the Allied walker is a beast but the Vogelspinne distinctly second line. The real threat to the Allied walker is the anti-tank weapon held by one of the Stahltruppen.

The units in this starter set up (except possibly the Vogelspinne) are very powerful and regular Bolt Action units will have trouble standing up to them. The Stahltruppen are armour 7 for example, so ordinary infantry weapons can’t touch them but other rift enabled units are in with a chance.

Exactly how the new rules pan out in play will depend heavily on how the lists and scenarios work out. Playing the current Konflikt /47 v1 rules heavy walkers can end up in a duel as they could be the only units that can harm each other on the table so the first to get in a killer shot will be at an advantage. Putting down plenty of line of sight blocking terrain will make this effect harder to happen early game and give other troop types a chance to get in on the action.

Looking at this as an example of using the starter set. One certainly can get a decent tactical game out of the box. Ours took about 45 minutes with maneuver and putting the rules through a fine tooth comb. Cut back the terrain and you could be done in 30 minutes. The whole would need filling out for a longer game and what to use depends on how the new lists work out.

Renatio et Gloriam Epico Poles vs Ottomans

/ blackshawgaming / 3 Comments

The Renatio et Gloriam Epico rules were swiftly updated to 5.1 with most of the comments from our previous post being picked up in the rules and chart tweaks.

The Army Builder is also up on the forum (but you need to create an account to see it). This seems to include all the available lists and troop types. The original lists are needed for maximums and minimums but anyone with a decent knowledge of the armies or lists from similar games (such as DBR or FOG_R) could create workable armies with the official lists.

So running out 5.1 with Ottomans and Poles. These two just about had adjacent borders although sundry Cossacks and Tartars might claim ownership of the middle bits. The Ottomans had been out a few times in full size Renatio et Gloriam. The Poles had to be prized out of their metal tins having been sat there for 25 years or so.

Ottomans have some OK cavalry and lots of it. In the big game it seemed to work out having their cavalry get into combat with better cavalry and take a few lumps. The opposition would be ground down and then finished off by more Ottoman cavalry who with a bit of luck could then loot a camp or get to the rear of enemy infantry. As a bonus the Janissary foot are not too bad and unlike most of the army ‘drilled’ so relatively easy to command.

Here was the initial line up, the Ottomans running with an almost featureless battlefield to maximise their perceived cavalry benefit. The Poles only need 1 pike and shot unit but the formation benefits including the ability to regain losses from a supporting unit makes taking at least 2 a good plan.

It all went swiftly downhill. The Polish cavalry went through their Ottoman oppos like butter. The Ottomans broke with only a single Polish unit lost. The Ottomans did draw some splendidly awful hands of cards but their problem lay with the cavalry plan not working out in Epico. An army can have up to 12 units and loses when half or 5 (whichever is the lesser) units break. The Ottomans took their maximum of 12 but still were going to lose when 5 units broke. The additional chaff did not have a great benefit. Camps are optional in Epico so there was nothing round the Polish rear to loot. Unit-to-unit the Polish cavalry are superior to the Ottomans and any small benefit by pushing up another Ottoman as a supporting stand in melee combat was indeed small. The Ottoman infantry never got into combat before most of the cavalry had run away. As a side note both sides can field war wagons in these lists but to keep things basic simpler army choices were made.

The battle was lost through tactics rather than rules. It did not seem worth the trouble to run all the numbers rather keeping to looking at what seems to be working. It could be that some troop combinations are going to work better in Epico than in the full game but it is too early to tell. Certainly the light artillery have been less than spectacular so far.

There is an alternative order system using dice instead of drawing cards. One die of each colour is rolled and some simple maths converts this to cards available. This system could still produce swingy card hands and its only advantage is that the 2 dice pools are independent. By drawing cards one side could hold high value cards that by the definition of the draw the other will not get; both sides cannot hold the exact same card. This slight evening out does not seem to outweigh the simplicity of drawing cards. With the dice system both sides would need to keep their dice hidden and check at the end of the turn that the correct cards had been drawn and played for those rolls. There are obvious risks if this messes up.

So we’ll go again and re-think the Ottoman plan but keep the same lists. The Ottomans have 2 pathfinder units against the Polish one so will almost always have the upper hand in terrain selection. Here we have a wood and orchard (put in front of the Polish-placed hill to render it almost useless for putting guns on). Also a new plan, get those Janissaries in and make them earn their pay.

This was a tight game that came close to the wire. The Janissaries did well although the tribal shot supporting them were almost impossible to move other than straight ahead. The Ottoman horse held for a while on their right. Most of their left flank horse mooched around but proved too hard to order into the right place (the right flank would have been a good place to go).

Here is the final layout after another Ottoman loss but at 5 to 4. There are no Ottoman units of the left of picture and no Polish units to the right. There is the odd general with no troops to command floating around.

Generals

It is expected that the various rules stats will be further tweaked but one element that seems clunky is the role of generals. These are a key part of the game’s card system but there is no penalty for playing a card out of range (there is in the full game) except for the army commander in combat. The 2 subordinate generals are used for upgrading cards and rally actions. Although not specifically stated they are probably also going to give a benefit in combat (this action is on the QRS). These are handy benefits but are they worth the trouble of handling the additional general bases? They are liable to a gamey tactic of starting all 3 generals with nearby units and benefiting a small area of the battlefield dominated by those 3 buffed units. There is no reason for the opponent to do just the same and if both sides put the same buffs in opposing units there is no overall benefit to doing all this. A possible alternative route is to reintroduce command ranges so generals can just about cover the battlefield. Cards would not need to be tracked for individual generals but the subordinates would increase the commander’s range if they too were within his radius. For example; the battlefield is 30BW wide. If the commander had a radius range of 10BW and subordinates 5 then the whole width would be covered but when units move back and forth some units would be out of command. This would also benefit units with the Independent trait as in the current Epico rules it is redundant.

Rules Queries

QRS 1.1; combat charge and fighting phase, there are no rash generals.

QRS 1.1; shooting sheet, single rank shooting while needing 2 for full effect. This rule is redundant.

Risk to generals page 6; the rules do not agree with QRS 1.1 (the written rules are different and make more sense).

Reduced Size Renatio et Gloriam

/ blackshawgaming / 3 Comments

The printed ‘full fat’ Renatio et Gloriam is a big beast. Although the games should play in 3 hours our sessions have taken most of the day. The older Morten et Gloriam Ancient and Medieval rules have sets for large, medium and small size games with smaller tables and hopefully shorter play times.

The Renatio et Gloriam Epico variant fades in and out of view but currently (May 2025) is a download on the Renatio et Gloriam forum. You need to create an account and sign in to get the files which consist of a few brief pages of rules changes and a new set of QRS with new stats, costs and so on. The current V2024_1_6 army builder has no option for Epico. The WordPress content folders can (or could when this was written) be browsed and the last army builder that does allow different size games is V2023_3. This has a Grande drop down; so is some sort of start. Alternately full size army lists can be approximated to about the right size.

The rules are still in playtest but should work out so here is a solo run through with some queries at the end of the post.

The core changes are:

  • A smaller playing area with a consequent reduction in terrain sizes.
  • Units have a fixed footprint, there is no moving of stands around within a unit.
  • Stands are not removed, losses are tracked. 6 wounds are replaced by a Moribund counter which penalises the unit. Unlike a wound a Moribund counter cannot be removed.
  • There is only 1 General that gets (8) command cards.
  • 2 subordinate Generals are only used for rally and upgrading cards.

A very few sample armies have been provided. To get off the ground here are 2 very similar Italian wars armies. The hills are gentle despite their rocky appearance. Note the footprint of the Keils, each is made up of 10 bases.

The game ran reasonably well, with 2 similar armies largely made up of massive pike blocks there was not a deal of sophistication. A fair amount of time was spent on pike Keil rolling equal grades of dice, gradually wearing each other down with one finally breaking. That is equally likely to happen in a full size game. Also like the full size battles units of cavalry don’t last long. Almost all of the cavalry crashed into each other. One unit of Gendarmes smashed trough their opposition and crashed into the front of a pike Kiel to the rear. They had to fight 1 turn of (charge) combat and that did not go well for them.

The average hands of 8 command cards were more than adequate for moves, charges and wound recovery. Often several cards were unused at the end of the turn. The quality of the cards dealt was most important. A slew of black or white cards and not much was getting done that turn.

The fixed size units caused a few issues as the basic rules put some effort into turning to face and pressing forward to model fighting on more than 1 direction at once. A common choice is between turning a base to face improving its combat ability but with the price of losing rear support for the stand that had been to the front. The Epico rules only have a few lines on pressing forward and a couple of diagrams of situations that are otherwise pretty obvious. The full rules section ME14J ‘engaging in melee while already in combat’ seems the best-fit solution. This describes limited moves and wheels to get units that narrowly touch into combat. It is a prompted move during movement not charges but would be a route to move-in parts of large bases to positions where more ranks can fight. In this game it was a common problem as the Kiel are big and getting enough space and movement to get all ranks close enough to fight on a side attack was difficult. The wood here did not help. It seemed best to penalise a whole Kiel for movement through a wood but only those files in the wood for combat (those files never got into combat anyway).

This is the final layout with blue markers for wounds and red for Moribund. There was a Kiel in the big hole centre right but it ran off and that broke the army.

Points that need firming up (now addressed in Epico 5.1):

In the Epico QRS for shooting the entry ‘single rank shooting when needing 2 for full effect’ stands as a downgrade. Alas in Epico there is no rank system, a unit such as pike and shot could be in 1 or 2 rows but would still be the same unit base. That is they will always be at maximum (2) rank depth. This has been officially ruled as a line that will be removed from the QRS. The shooting ranges notes on the QRS regarding ranks needed for full effect will similarly be redundant.

Deployment depth is 4 Base Widths from the centre line of page 3 (under Deployment) but 3 Base Widths from the centre line on page 3 (Deploying Armies). Running with 4 widths for this game but later confirmed as 3 by the rules authors.

The rules state a penalty for Moribund in shooting and melee. This seems to missing for shooting on the QRS. I drop per Moribund marker seems logical.

There is no obvious quality rank of general. With no penalty for being out of range the commanding general can issue orders without penalty across the board. There is, however, a section on the QRS relating to KAB tests for generals in combat that refers to the general’s quality. This seems to be redundant.

The supplied lists include wounds but are not clear if these are total wounds or wounds to break (half total wounds). Calculating the possible wounds from a full-size game unit and analysing the Moribund rules; the totals supplied must be wounds to break.

Saga English vs Scots

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An Age of Chivalry game between English and Scots. The models are in clothes of the 1460s which would fit in with the English invasion by Richard Duke of York in 1482. The Pike models were originally multiple based for Impetus games so the astute reader may see figures changing clothes and shape as losses are modeled. It is also probable that the Scottish Pike may not have been quite so long this early before Flodden although as Pikes the metal wire in use could be a touch short for the Swiss ideal.

The Scots field 2 points of Hearthguard, 3 of Pike armed Warriors (2 units of 12) and a Bow Levy. Pike work the same as in Age of Antiquity and are OK at best unless there is something special on their nation board to buff them. The Scottish have DETERMINED ADVANCE which moves a unit ‘M’ on an uncommon Saga die or 2 units on a rare as a reaction to enemy shooting. Pike only move ‘S’ but this ability gives an additional ‘S’ in the opponent’s turn and as a single activation during a turn won’t be causing a fatigue.

The English are running 2 points of Hearthguard and 4 of Warrior Bow. On the table we have a big wood, small ruins and 2 pieces of small uneven ground. The Pike are not too bad in terrain that gives cover. Their move of ‘S’ is not reduced beyond ‘S’. They lose their short range poke and their buff against mounted and elephant units. Thankfully the English did not bring any mounted units or elephants. The cover prevents bows firing out onto units the other side of the terrain and (obviously) gives the improved cover save.

No casualties on turn 1 but the Scottish pike move up.

On the Scottish turn the army continues to advance. One pike unit moves twice and takes a fatigue. There is an illegal Pike poke out of the ruins.

English archers and Hearthguard pull away from the Pike but keep shooting at them. The Scots did not have the correct Saga dice to advance this (English) turn.

Scots Pike are in but some English archers remain and that Pike block is starting to look weedy.

The English shoot, the Scots move up. A Hearthguard charge into the Pike block by the ruins does not go well.

The English Warlord is down. An attack by Pike on the archers by the ruins that ought to have gone well did not.

Now the Scots Warlord is gone and not much is left of the Pikes in the ruins.

Its all going sticky, an English Hearthguard is lost.

The English finish off the Pike in the ruins. Both sides are low on activation dice so not so much is going on.

The Scots knock out the last 2 archers in an English unit.

The English in turn knock out the last of the Scottish Pike. There is not a lot left on either side but the Scots would be unlikely to gain any massacre points in their following turn so the game is called as a narrow English victory.

In conclusion some tight early turns as the English shot and Scots move up. Later on it all becomes a slogging match. Given average dice the Scots had a very good chance of slamming into the weaker (armour 3 rather than 4) English archers and taking the game early doors.