Saga AAR: The (dumb) luck of the Irish

I completed my Irish warband for Saga on the same morning I played it in its first game. That's often how I roll. The Irish warband was one of the insta-armies that I originally created for another project, but found that I could easily convert to a Saga warband by some rebasing and painting a few more figures/units. Not actually instant, but close.

To get an Irish warband out of them, I needed rebase everything I had based for Pig Wars and paint 12 slingers—which I've had sitting unboxed and untouched for a long time. The original figures I painted for Pig Wars are all Old Glory minis, but OG doesn't make Irish slingers—despite the fact that the ancient the Irish were profligate rock-flingers because the surface of Ireland is about 72% rock.

So, I used the Irish slingers produced by Crusader Miniatures instead. I also needed to paint another six Old Glory warrior figures to complete my warband of three warrior units, two hearthguard, and one levy slingers.

I brought them down with me to Silver King on Wednesday and took on Gary Griess and his Anglo-Danes. This was to be my farewell (for now) attendance at the bi-weekly meet-up. As I recently posted, I'm going back to the salt mines after a three month hiatus. As I have done with most of my games, I brought some new terrain with me also. I have two (of ultimately three) large resin-cast hills. One of which got in the game, but didn't feature much.

Hill three is pending. I've got a post planned about them soon. No, really. It'll show up.

Gary's A-Ds were organized as a hearthguard-heavy force with the bare minimum of warriors and some bowmen to annoy people from afar. I was a bit intimidated by all that axe-wielding menace and wasn't sure how my warband would hold up. Mine were two 4-figure hearthguard units (javelins), three 8-figure warrior units (javelins), and one 12-figure levy unit (slings).

We played the Feasting and Pillage scenario from Book of Battles. I was the first player and we set up terrain that gave us each pretty good defensive positions, but left a large space of open ground in the middle (as is pretty much required by the scenario rules). Having the first move, I used the maneuver rule to get my units close the the objective markers.

Gary moved his units into or near the defensive terrain. I didn't really think of activating the Sons of Dana ability, which would let me take a shot from unseen hooligans at his troops moving near cover. There are several opacities of mine that I can cite. I was just lucky not to suffer much from them.

The Irish are a shooty kind of warband with Saga abilities that maximize their effect. I didn't make near enough use of them. However, on my second turn, I did move my warriors up and launched my javelins to the discomfit of one of Gary's hearthguard skulking in the woods.

For some unclever reason, I thought moving one of my warriors over the steep hill was a good idea. It wasn't. Unlike the Picts (especially the Picts) and the Welsh, the Irish have no Saga abilities that let them fly over uneven terrain. Those poor schmoes had to trudge over the hill moving Short (S) every turn.

If  hadn't sent one of my warriors on the slow route, I could have concentrated them and taken advantage of Saga abilities that reward massed shooting, namely Sidhe, where by nullifying the shooting of one unit, all others shooters at the same target get a +1 to their shooting.

I secured one objective marker on turn 2 and surrounded another. I didn't want to be burdened by it in case I wanted to move more than S, which is the movement restriction for schlepping around an objective marker. In retrospect, I ought to have grabbed it when I could.

Gary was having none of it. He came on pretty strong in the center moving his 6-figure hearthguard unit against my marker-schlepping warriors. He hit them hard and they lost more than half their number while inflicting only one casualty.

Rules avoidance instance #1: It turns out that according to Book of Battles page 17, Gary was entitled to grab the objective marker my warriors possessed after beating me. I had assumed that they had to destroy the unit to take its marker. So, they kept it. C'est la guerre.

My big break came in my turn when I activated the Fir Bolg ability for my slingers using a rare die. It addied three dice to my shooting for a total of seven dice, and made all 6s count as two hits. I rolled five 6s for 10 hits and Gary couldn't save even half of them. His formidable hearthguard unit disappeared under a pile of Irish stones. It was probably the luckiest I've ever been at shooting. 

I love slingers. Kevin Smyth advises me that I need a second slinger unit for my Irish. I may have to follow that advice. 

With no enemy to catch them—and fearing the mighty slingers—my warriors were well on their way to exiting the board with their loot.

On my right, Gary got aggressive in a more successful way. I had nabbed the objective marker with my hearthguard and both hearthguard and warriors had flug javelins at Gary's warlord who suffered two fatigue due to using his resilience. I was feeling rather pleased with myself.

However, Gary triggered Lord of War for his warlord, who had two fatigue on him, then charged him into my hearthguard unit. This ability allowed him to shed all his fatigue and bumped his armor to 6. 

In the resulting scrum, Gary's warlord obliterated my hearthguard at no loss to him other than one fatigue from having fought a melee. He also captured the objective marker my hearthguard had.

Rules avoidance issue #2: Lord of War is a nice ability, but having triggered it, you can't activate your warlord again for the rest of the turn. I.e., Gary couldn't have charged him into my hearthguard. Again, c'est la guerre.

After this slaughter, Gary charged a fresh hearthguard unit from the woods into my warriors. 

There was much loss on both sides with each of us inflicting four casualties on the other. This put me to half strength, but wiped out Gary's hearthguard. Like the slingers slinging death in the center, this result was a stroke of luck. Nevertheless, it left me at a loss. There was no way my diminished warriors were going to beat Gary's warlord and recapture the objective marker.

I made a bold attempt to skewer Gary's warlord with javelins—having finally gotten the Trudgers of Erin to the other side of the hill—but to no effect. He took another fatigue by using his resilience, but it wasn't enough to stop him and he began his retreat with his loot intact.

On my left, I secured the heretofore unmolested third objective marker with my mighty slingers. Gary had no one there to contest me for it.

Elsewhere, we both started withdrawing our units, neither of us holding onto hope that we could steal back a lost objective marker or do any further damage without risking more to ourselves. Because victory is largely based on survival points, it didn't make sense to play with fate.

When the dust had settled at the end of turn 6, Gary was pretty beat up. He'd lost two whole hearth guard units (10 figures total) and another three figures (of four) from a third unit. He'd also lost his one warrior unit, which started as a unit of four (he'd exchanged four warriors for two hearthguard) and got pummeled into nothing by the Irish slingers.

I'd lost one unit of hearthguard and one unit of warriors plus another seven warriors and a single slinger. I had also carried one objective marker off the board and had possession of another. Gary had possession of one objective marker. Total score after counting survival points and points for objectives: Gary at 16 and me at 30. It was a nice result for what may be my last Wednesday Saga game for some time to come.

Irish Threefer

Painting Irish for Saga is kind of a 3-in-1 opportunity. I originally intended to use the Irish I had as Scotti for Age of Invasions. These are from the Old friends, new enemies... section of the book. I've been working on eight hearthguard figures that are Viking-y types with Danish axes. But the factions mostly use the same troop types and use the same battle board. The Irish for Age of Vikings can use hearthguard with axes and have an axe-wielding warlord, but can also be identical in composition to the Scotti.

However, Age of Vikings includes the ferocious Norse-Gaels. By adding axe-armed hearthguards and an axe-armed warlord, there they are. Sadly, the Norse-Gaels don't have slingers and their only levy is javelin armed. Given that any or all warriors can be javelin armed, there's no sense (in my mind) of burdening your warband with levy who are no better at shooting than your other rank and file. I have enough axe-armed Irish warriors to replace my slingers (sigh) and give myself a fierce warband of two 4-four figure hearthguard units with axes, three 8-figure warrior units with javelins, and one 8-figure warrior unit with axes. Alternately, I could make all the warrior units javelin armed.

I'm well along with adding the figures to make Norse-Gaels—including Somerled the Destroyer as my warlord. I'll need to find a way to get them in a game now that Wednesdays are closed to me.

My summer vacation

I got laid off from my job at Array in May. It was, at the time I was hired, the best job I ever had. I was sorry to go, but disillusionment had already set in by March of this year when the director of design (my manager) and our lead designer were laid off—thus effectively eviscerating our design team. I spent the next two months assuming my time was coming. Then it did. Array is a start up and startups can be volatile. Content designers are a luxury in volatile situations because "anyone can write." Nevertheless, I got a nice severance and had money in the bank. I was prepared for a bit of a wait until something else came along. That something came last week and I start a new contract position at Microsoft on Wednesday. 

Of course I'm happy to be working again. No, really. Severance, savings, and unemployment checks will all run out eventually. It's too early to retire and the civilizational collapse they keep promising repeatedly fails to materialize. Adam Smith wrote that "there's a great deal of ruin in a nation." Apparently we haven't exhausted our store of ruin yet, so hi-ho, hi-ho.

On the other hand, I had wished that my gainful unemployment would last until September, like after Labor Day. I wanted to squeeze out the last drops of summer before returning to wage slavery. But it's been just over three months of economically-inflicted leisure now, so I can't complain. Besides, it really hasn't been leisure. I spent most of every day chasing down job opportunities, reacting to urgent (URGENT!) appeals from recruiters and never hearing back from them, and reading depressing blog posts from people in the tech industry who've been unemployed for more than a year.

However, when I wasn't fruitlessly chasing down work, I had a lot of time to game or do gaming-related things (like paint minis and make terrain 'n' stuff). What follows is a précis of what has been occupying me for the last three months.

Xenos Rampant

At the time I was laid off, I was pretty deeply into working on completing two Xenos Rampant forces. I was planning a couple games at Enfilade!, our regional convention, and had a bit of work to do, all while taking a long weekend off to go to Bozeman, MT for my nephew's wedding under the Big Sky.

Most of the rest of my time in May was spent preparing for Enfilade!, which involved painting minis and completing the terrain. The minis were well towards completion by the time I achieved leisure. There were a few more bits to complete for the "Green Meanies," the original force I painted in a camo pattern.

There was also the "Red Menace" force to complete. These minis form the red-themed OPPFOR for the Green Meanies.

Doing the terrain for XR had to start from scratch. I've built up a nice collection of terrain bits over the years, but it's all for Earth. Starting with the TableWar Desert Planet game mats I inherited from Dave Schueler, I needed to create the rest of the terrain to match them, which involved lots of buying stuff on Etsy and frequent visits to Hobby Lobby to buy out bits of their faux plants stock to create an alien-looking environment for our games.

Since the project started just before Christmas in 2022, getting two complete forces painted, plus all the terrain, was a pretty good result. I may be lazy and prone to distractions, but when I set my mind to a project, it's surprising how much I can get done quickly. I'll return to that theme below. 

We played our first game down in Tacoma in April and I was also able to get a pre-Enfilade! playtest of one of my scenarios on the Wednesday before the convention.

With two games under mt belt and all the bits completed, I was ready for the con.

Enfilade!

My participation at our regional convention this year was understated. I drove down on Saturday, ran two games of Xenos Rampant back to back, then zoomed back home to feed my ravenous cats. 

Having just spent the last weekend away, I was loth to do it two weekends in a row. Plus, I miss the cats when I'm away. I fear for their mental health when they're left with no one to torment.

The games went well and were enjoyed by the players. I even won the Best of Period award for my second game on Saturday afternoon.

The convention was mostly uneventful otherwise—except for a purchase I shared with Scott Murphy. Someone was selling a pile of mostly Crusader Miniatures Carthaginians. Amongst the pile were four Aventine Miniatures elephants. I'd been slowly working on a Carthaginian warband for Saga: Age of Hannibal and was resolved to use the Crusader Miniatures elephants I had, even though I don't like them. Acquiring the Aventine nellies enabled me to do a hybrid using the Aventine elephant bodies with the Crusader howdah and crew.

Saga

Saga has dominated the last few months. It started before I was laid off, but I thought then that I'd have little opportunity to participate. Being all retired, the group meets on the first and third Wednesdays of each month (and the fifth when that occurs). Because I'm still working that was impossible for me. I managed one Saga game  on a Saturday in late April with Mark Waddington, but I figured I'd only be able to play Saga when I could talk one of my retired friends into playing on a weekend.

Of course being temporarily retired change my availability. After Enfilade!, I was able to devote myself to painting Saga warbands, although I had been dabbling in it since April when I dug out the Carthaginians I started so long ago for a 28mm Field of Glory project. That project, which I completed in early June, was just the first of others that involved digging up old, abandoned projects and making them Saga projects.

Fresh from completing and playing a Carthaginian warband, I contemplated other Saga warbands and rummaged through my garage for other half-begun or abandoned projects. As I related in an earlier post, I had a trove of Pictish and Irish figures from Old Glory that I'd painted for Pig Wars back in the day. I'd already started rebasing the Picts and discovered that with just a bit more painting, I'd have a formidable Pictish warband for Saga. With a bot of determination, I got the army done and let them start tearing up the field.

My next project was resurrecting the Irish, which took a bit more work, but I was able to get them into a game against Gary Griess at our most recent Saga Wednesday meet-up. I can work fast when I want to.

I started yet another Xenos Rampant force using some Alternative Armies figures that I couldn't resist (like Oscar Wilde, the only thing I cannot resist is temptation). I have only one Elite Infantry unit painted so far. Being fairly glutted with Saga Warbands now (Welsh, Carthaginians, Picts, Irish), I may pivot back to them. Kevin Smyth and I will run a Xenos Rampant game at an event in September, so maybe completing a couple more units by then would be in order.

Still in the works for Saga: Britons for Age of Invasions, expanding the Irish to be Norse-Gaels for Age of Vikings, Romans for Age of Invasions (using A and A Miniatures excellent 3rd c. Romans, which I've had before—but also a 4th c. Roman army using the Black Tree Design Late Romans I've had sitting in a box for years), Byzantines for Age of Vikings or Age of Crusades, Anglo-Danes/Anglo-Saxons for Age of Vikings, Macedonians for Age of Alexander...

I was beginning to fear that I had too few irons in the fire.

Spending

Nothing says gainful employment like making it rain on minis manufacturers.

Unless you're me and don't worry about the "gainful employment" bit. Then it's Katy bar the door on all the new stuff coming in.

Wisdom dictates economizing when the money's tight. My take on it is to creatively move expenses around. I figure that by buying measurably fewer bags of Cheetos, I can use the funds I would normally have spent on that luxury to buy new hoards of shiny metal men. I didn't exactly go wild, but I have been buying new minis in my leisure time. How else am I going to have unstarted/uncompleted armies tucked away in my garage and closets that I can serendipitously find in the years to come? I'm seeding the future, see?

(Full disclosure: I didn't actually measure, but I'm pretty sure I didn't buy fewer bags of Cheetos.)

Before I went and completed painting my "discovered" Pictish Saga warband, I ordered Curteys minis for another one from 1st Corps. This was after I already ordered minis for a Post-Roman British warband last year while I was still employed (even though I already have a bunch of Old Glory minis for that from long ago). The PRBs, I'm happy to say, have been started. The Curteys Picts will likely sit for a while. I already have one warband, with options, completed. I really like the Curteys minis from 1st Corps, but they don't make bare-nekkid Attacotti figures.

Etsy.com has been a treasure trove of resin cast and 3D printed goodies. I'm still pretty much strictly a metal man when it comes to figures, but terrain bits are another matter. I have projects a-plenty to get to.

I also re-bought some 3rd c. Roman figures to use for Saga. I have a lot of these figures in the past, then sold 'em. Even though they're not the right era—but close!—for Saga: Age of Invasions, I'll use them for that. 

Lest I spill it all here, I'll save news of more purchases for later in this post. Keep reading.

The Schueler legacy

No matter how neatly we organize all the things, we miniatures gamers are hoarders. In no time, we have boxes full of painted minis and even more boxes of unpainted or partially-painted minis. Add to that rules books, terrain bits, other books, paint, tools, game aids, etc. and we have a lot of stuff to leave behind when we go. In most cases those we leave behind have no idea what to do with it all.

With time on my hands, I was able to get together with Kevin Smyth and Michael Koznarsky to help Lynn Schueler arrange a giveaway of Dave's collection. It's a dolorous duty to sort through and organize a friend's stuff when it all brings back memories of the times you've spent playing with it, discussing it, and reveling in the hobby together.

Lynn wanted to make sure that Dave's friends had the opportunity to inherit all his stuff. I need more stuff like I need a hole in my head, but it's nice to have tangible things to remember him by, though the intangible memories can never be rivaled.

We got together at Lynn's house on July 15 to give it all away.

It's funny to have had so many "I didn't know he was into that" moments going through it all. Dave was never close-lipped about his gaming interests, but I was surprised to see how much sci-fi stuff he was unobtrusively working on. He was always most focused on air and naval gaming. I wish we'd had more opportunity to explore our mutual enthusiasms.

It was amusing to to go through boxes only to find disconnected bits of this and that. It felt like rummaging through my own boxes of what-not.

Amidst all the exploration and stuff-getting, we drank a toast to Dave using his hootch (a.k.a. Scottish rocket fuel). You don't realize how much you took for granted that someone who was always there would always be there, until they're not.

Níl na mairbh marbh ach beo i gcroí na ndaoine a raibh grá acu dóibh.

We got most everything given away and Kevin, Michael, and I recently helped Lynn go over the remnants in preparation for a phase II giveaway yet to come.

Tribal, the final most recent excess

I've already related how an innocent question asked on a forum I hardly ever pay attention to launched me into a Tribal frenzy. My love of things primitive betrayed me here. I've looked longingly at figure ranges for primitive warriors and sighed because I couldn't think of what to do with them. Tribal—even though I must have picked up a PDF of the rules way back in 2018 or so—just didn't jump out at me until last week, then POW! I jumped right in by playing a game with Wes Rogers and I'm hooked.

I bought the second edition rules (which still haven't come as of this writing), a 3' x 3' mat to play on, and started looking back at the websites that made me sigh in the past. 

A short(ish) while back, Bob Murch of Pulp Figures released a pack of mud men as part of his Savage Seas range. I was struck by them because they're so unique, but I wasn't sure what I'd ever do with them. Now I know.

There's only a single pack available, but it contains multiple poses and separate weapons. I bought enough packs to build a Tribal warband with. Then, fearing that they may be lonely, I bought enough packs of Pulp Figures Melanesians to make a rival warband so they'd have someone to fight.

I asked Bob before I ordered if he had plans to expand the range. He said he'd thought about a pack of chief types. I heartily endorsed that notion and further suggested that he also consider a separate multi-pose pack of mud men with bows. The one available pack has a single bowman figure, but he's stuck in one pose (although there's a huge variety with the separate mud head). To my delight, four hours later—and after I made my order—Bob posted on Facebook that he was considering adding archers and leader figures to the range.

So, huzzah! From my mouth to Bob's ear.

Btw, Bob lives in Kelowna, BC and is in the midst of the wildfires they're enduring up there. He's safe so far, but keep a good thought for him and his fellow Kelownians.

Having ordering all those figures from Bob on the 14th, on Wednesday, I was innocently standing outside of Silver King in Tacoma waiting for the store to open, when I spotted a post in the Tribal Facebook group from Nick Eyre of North Star Figures announcing that sculpting maven Bobby Jackson—a fan of the Tribal rules—had made available a range of caveman figures he'd originally designed for himself as a Tribal warband.

Well, crap. How could I resist? Now I have a pile of tin troglodytes on their way from Nottingham as well as mud men coming down from Canada. It's raining wee metal men and flood warnings are out.

It's good that I'm going back to work so I can afford all this.

Gaming ahead

Apart from Saga on Wednesdays, I did most of my gaming during this time on weekends, as I have done since time immemorial. However, with most my regular gaming opponents being retired, the shift towards midweek gaming is happening. I hope to get a lot more weekend gaming in when I can.

Altared space: A Tribal playtest AAR

Last week saw one of those frequent collective brain farts when someone asks a simple, innocent question and someone else shouts out, "Look! A shiny thing!" And then everyone goes crazy. Or maybe it was just me.

On our NHMGS chat group, Brian Renninger asked whether anyone could recommend a good set of rules for tribal warfare because he'd just ordered some figures—produced here in Seattle by Paymaster Games—for Pacific Northwest tribal warriors.

I (1) immediately recommended the rules Tribal by Mana Press in Australia, (2) ordered figures from Paymaster Games, and (3) ordered the 2nd edition of the Tribal rules.

Kevin Smyth followed on with actions (2) and (3) above. There was also a flurry of some interest by others that may result in a new new thing or it may just be another idiosyncratic enthusiasm by Kevin and Dave. Or just Dave.

Tribal is a set of rules I bought as a PDF (which may have been the only way they were available) maybe 4 years ago, certainly pre-pandemic. I looked at them as an option for playing with various tribal/prehistoric type figures I had (or wanted to have). Back then, I looked them over, thought they were interesting, but then never did anything with them. The thread Brian started just spurred me to action, because I can never have enough hobby irons in the fire.

With all this self-inflicted mania, I was eager to give Tribal a try using my beloved 40mm Bronze Age Europeanoids and Wes Rogers jumped in and volunteered to be my fellow test subject. We met at a very crowded Zulu's Board Game Cafe in Bothell on Saturday. I was only just able to reserve table space in one of the basement rooms where we normally play. 

On my way out of the house, I had a serendipitous moment in regard to previously unstated action (4), which was buying a 3' x 3' Tablewar F.A.T. Mat because Tribal is played on a 3' x 3' space and my game mats are 3' x 4' or 4' x 6'. I ordered it on Wednesday from Noble Knight Games in Wisconsin because Tablewar was sold out. I was just about to drive off when I realized I'd forgotten my printed copy of the rules. I went back in, got the rules, and when I exited my house I saw a slightly longer than 3' long box containing my F.A.T. Mat on my porch. Plan A had been to use a 3' x 4' mat, but then Plan B serendipitously happened.

Downtown Bothell, once literally nowhere, has seen a renaissance of late and become a hub of activity with the consequence that anytime after 9:00 am, there's no parking anywhere. I managed to snag a spot among the few spaces in the out-of-business bank across the street. Wes, I believe, parked just beyond the county line and hiked in. When Kevin and I play at Zulu's, we have a 10:00 am start (right when they open), arrive an hour earlier to get parking, then go eat breakfast at Alexa's.

I set up the game—3x3 is a surprisingly small play space when you're used to 6' x 8'—ordered some beer and food, and we got right to it. 

The scenario we played was something I came up with by drawing on a few scenarios in Tribal and its two supplements, Primeval and Brutal. Three characters were around an altar set amidst some stonehenge-y uprights. The goal of the game was to capture the characters and dominate the space around the altar.

Rather than go through spending honor points to buy units, heroes, and skills, I just created two equal sides of four 5-figure warriors, one 5-figure missile unit (Wes had bowmen; I had slingers, of course), two heroes, and a chief. No skills were employed. We each set up one card length in.

I spooked the cultists around the altar on my first move and they bolted to safety. For the rest of the first turn, it was Wes and I alternating sprinting our units towards the center jockeying for the best position.

Wes loved moving his minis through the uprights.

Tribal uses regular playing cards for everything. Movement is done in increments of card lengths (long edge) and widths (short edge). Sprinting is done using two moves on the long edge, one after the other. It didn't take much to get into engagement distance of each other.

On turn 2, I managed to snag the prancing priest before he could bolt any farther. Wes captured the two priestesses (or whatever they were), Stella and Ursula. 1 honor point to me, 2 to Wes.

Honor points are the sole determinant of victory in Tribal. No matter who dies or lives, honor is everything. If you go out in glory, you may wind up with more honor points than your opponent who killed you and thereby win the game. Honor points are gained from winning rounds of melee or from other objectives. When you win a round of melee, you get an honor point from a common reserve. When you completely eliminate an enemy unit in combat, you get one of your opponent's honor points—or two if it's his chief.

I managed to score a point for controlling the altar space at the end of turn 2. Thereafter, the space was in contention except for one turn where Wes controlled it and the last turn when I did again.

I think I was the one who initiated the first melee. Melee uses a combat hand you deal out from your card deck. The number of cards in your combat hand is equal to the number of figures in your unit or the remaining wounds for your heroes and chief. A combat round is played out in one to five exchanges. Cards have their standard values 2-10, with JQKA being 11, 12, 13, 14 respectively. Jokers are 15. Unless they sprinted into contact, the attacker has the advantage, meaning that the player being attacked has to play the first card in an exchange, unless they have a skill that gives them the advantage. Thereafter, the winner of an exchange has the advantage in the next exchange.

Black cards are strike cards, you can only inflict wounds by winning an exchange with a black card. The black suits are also tied to the type of weapon you're using. Clubs are tied to hand weapons like swords, hand axes, and clubs. Spades are tied to long weapons like spears. If you play a card tied to your weapon you get +1 to your score. Also, longer weapons win ties if opposing a unit with hand weapons.

Tripling an opponent's score causes two wounds for long weapons, but hand weapons only need to double the opponent's score to inflict two wounds. For warrior units, each wound removes a figure. For heroes and chiefs, wounds are tracked using a die. I used my nifty viking hand-carved bone dice. They were perfect for the setting. It's good to have a dice fetish.

Red cards are feint cards. They don't cause wounds if you win with them, but they have other properties. If you win on a heart card, you can change the suit of the card you play in the next exchange. For example, you could change a King of Hearts to a King of Clubs, which would make it a strike card causing wounds if you win and adding +1 if it ties to your weapon type.

Diamonds allow you to change your opponent's next card to any suit. For example, if he plays a black Joker, which can be nasty, you can change it to a red Joker, denying him the ability to inflict wounds on you. This can come in handy if his card is twice or three times the value of your card. He'd win the exchange, but cause you no damage.

A combat round lasts for as many exchanges as the number of cards in the combat hand of the player with the most cards, up to five exchanges max. Having more than five cards in your combat hand is possible. Chiefs have six wounds and get six cards in their combat hand. Some skills let you draw extra cards for your combat hand. The increased number of cards just gives you more options to play in an exchange.

If you run out of cards before your opponent does (for example, you might have a hero with only three wounds left, but your opponent is a full unit of five figures), you have to draw a panic card for the remaining exchanges. You can win an exchange with a panic card, but you can't inflict a wound. It's pretty disappointing to pull a black Joker as a panic card against your opponent's 2 of Clubs. It feels like a waste of a good kill card. You do however, survive and win the exchange.

After the last exchange, whoever won the most exchanges wins the melee round, gets an honor point, and the loser retreats to one long card edge distance away.

It's not uncommon to come out of a fight badly battered, even as the winner. It's also possible that after five exchanges, you fail to do any hurt either way. My heroic slingers came through the fight unscathed, despite being charged by one of Wes' warrior units.

Missile units aren't melee-worthy. They don't draw a combat hand; they can only draw panic cards. If you win enough exchanges on your panic cards, you win the melee round and get an honor point. Which my slingers did.

I don't know how many turns we played. We weren't keeping track. The game went back and forth with honor points lost and won. In the end, Wes lost all his units, heroes, and his chief. I still had five remaining: two battered warrior units, one fairly intact hero, my much-battered chief (whom I moved out of harm's way after he had only two wounds left), and my pristine slingers, who didn't even break a sweat but repulsed a charge and took out three figures with their slingstones. Honor point tally was 10 for Wes, 20 for me. The last few turns of wiping out the battered remains of his units took several honor points from his pile and put them into mine.

The game was easy to play after a turn or two. I had to correct a few errors in understanding as we went. For example, I had us dealing out activation cards blindly to each unit until it dawned on me that I may be wrong about that. From turn 3 on, I think, we did it right where you deal out a hand equal to the number of surviving units you have, then you look at the cards and assign them as you want. That way your chief's activation card isn't a 2 of Hearts.

The game played quickly. We probably got in six or seven turns, which is average length for a Tribal scenario. I enjoy the rules and I'm looking forward to getting the second edition next week (I expect). There are a lot of unexplored nuances to the game. Buying skills will also make a difference and enhance the combat prowess of heroes and chiefs. You can buy skills for your warriors, too, but with only 0-4 honor points to spend for skills, why waste them on mooks?

Despite its name, Tribal can be used for any pre-gunpowder kind of fight—although I believe 2nd edition has gunpowder rules—not just primitive warfare. The rules themselves highlight Vikings. That means that we don't have to spend time painting 30+ minis before we can play. Any of our Saga warbands can be used as Tribal warbands.

It does, however, open up a lot of possibilities for primitive type minis I've looked at longingly online but couldn't figure out what to do with them. Go Tribal, of course.