The Saga begins

Some weeks back, John Kennedy posted on Facebook about nearly completing a Moorish warband for Saga 2nd edition (Saga 2). That got my brain turning like meat on a spit and it dawned on me that the El Cid retinue I'd created for Lion Rampant could easily be used for Saga 2 as well—without having to paint a single additional mini.

Fueled by this inspirational brain-fart, I jumped at the chance to buy a copy of the Saga 2 rules at The Panzer Depot. When I looked at the price, I thought I'd gone back in time. $15.00! I haven't seen a set of rules cost $15.00 since the 70s. My rejoicing at this bargain, was short-lived as John informed me that the rules were nothing without the supplements, which cost a mere $45.00 per book. And the dice were $20.00 for a set of 8.

So, still firmly rooted in the 21st century.

He was out of the Age of the Crusades book, but expected them in soon. When they came in, I shed $65.00 (not including the aforementioned $15.00 for the core rules, which I'd already spent) and got the Crusades book and a set of dice. (Yes, you can just use standard D6 in lieu of the expensive Saga dice, but the dice are so charming and being a dice fetishist, I can't resist.)

I'm normally very doubtful about spending so much money to buy into a game system that just sucks you into buying more and more. I've been through it before, most recently with Bolt Action and every army list booklet, plus the 2nd edition rules, which made all the army lists obsolete. In fact, I bought the 1st edition Saga rules and one of the booklets, which I eventually sold—having never played it—at the Enfilade! swap tables before I wound up buying more booklets. But, as St. Peter wrote, a dog returns to its vomit...

At our last gaming get together in late July (was it?), Mike Lombardy, Dean Clarke, and I discussed the possibility of a Saga game. Saturday, September 1 was the day.

I'd read the rules and studied the board for the Spanish. I went into the game with only a fuzzy idea of what was supposed to happen. Since I'd never actually played 1st edition, I had no need to make a paradigm shift from Saga 1 to Saga 2, which probably helped.

We played with 6-point warbands. My warband consisted of my warlord, 2 units of 4 hearthguards (armored cavalry), 2 units of 8 warriors (armored foot), 1 unit of 8 warriors (jinetes), and 1 unit of 12 levy (crossbows). I played Dean, who ran a Saracen warband consisting of his warlord, 4 units of hearthguard (mounted with composite bows), and 2 units of warriors (basic spear-armed foot).

I had a slight advantage in that my hearthguards were more heavily armored, but I soon discovered that the composite bow was not my friend. I formed up with my hearth guards in the front, supported by the warrior foot with my warlord just to the left of them. My levy crossbows were on the left in a field and my jinetes were on the right hidden behind a wood.

The warbands deployed

Dean had his hearthguard on his left opposite my hearthguards with 3 units up and 1 behind. His warlord in between the two of the front units. His 2 warrior units were on his right opposite my levy crossbows.

I had first go, which only allowed me to roll 3 Saga dice, but I used one flag die to get a roll of 2 more. So, basically, 4 Saga dice. My first move was to go forward on my flanks. I took first blood when the jinetes shot away one of Dean's hearthguards.

Dean came back by attacking my 8 jinetes with his 3 hearthguards. It was bloody. I lost 5 of my 8 figures in the unit, which deprived me of it generating a Saga die, but I managed to kill all 3 of his remaining hearthguards, thus wiping out the unit and depriving him of its Saga die.

Javelins to the left of them

Dean moved his other hearthguards and warlord up towards my center, ignoring my 3 surviving jinetes—which he would later regret.

The fighting in the center was pretty nasty, especially for me. Both my hearthguards got beaten up pretty badly in the first rounds, although I managed to reduce one of his hearthguards to a single figure (still generating a Saga die, though). One unpleasant surprise for me was a Saracen Saga ability called "Damascus Steel" that gave him 4 or 6 extra defense dice.

Mayhem in the center

Meanwhile, on my left, Dean moved up his warriors into the beanfield to oppress my levy crossbows. I got a shot off earlier that hurt him a little bit. When he came at me, he had a bit of advantage, but we tied in the melee and back he went. I managed another shot at him. He came at me a second time and got hurt even worse than before. I kind of expected the levy to crumple, but they hung in there. He came at me a third time with just 2 figures in his unit and managed to push me back. However, I still retained 6 figures in the levy unit, so it still generated a Saga die.

Action on the left flank

All the while since turn 2, my jinetes hung on Dean's left flank like a gadfly. I only had three figures, but that still gave me a pool of 2 dice for shooting. I manages to take out a couple more figures as the game went on. Annoying as they were, Dean was loth to send off his warlord or a hearthguard to drive them away. Too effective to ignore, too puny to deal with.

Annoying the flank

Still the Saracens came on and it was looking very bad for Team El Cid. His "Damascus Steel" Saga ability made several of our melees lop-sided. By rolling so many extra defense dice, Dean was able to nullify any hurt I did to him, while I was steadily worn down.

4 to 1: Death of my hearthguard

However, the worm slowly turned for me. As a desperate measure, I threw in my reserve of foot warriors against Dean's hearthguards. I managed to kill the last figure in one of his hearthguards by shooting them with my jinetes.  Before long, Dean was down to 1 unit of hearthguards, reduced to 1 figure, and his warlord in the center. At this point, we started bashing into each other with our warlords. Back and forth, Dean charged me or I charged Dean. All to no effect. We each soaked off losses by taking fatigue and never got more than 3.

Nearing the end

I eventually killed off the last figure of his Dean's last hearthguard with my jinetes. By this time, we'd likely gone over the 6-turn limit (we really didn't keep track). When we counted up victory points, I managed to pull off a surprise win at 23 to 16.

I think the jinetes were probably the heroes of the game. They managed to take out one hearthguard unit straight-up and then managed to whittle away at the rest, providing the coup de grâce on two of them by shooting.

I have a lot of finessing to do with the Spanish. The Saga abilities seemed anemic to me. They donlt seem to have much that helps in reaction or any really killer combat abilities (like that nasty Saracen "Damascus Steel"). I probably need to paint another unit of jinetes. There are some Saga abilities for them, but with only 1 unit having 3 figures remaining for most of the game, I couldn't take advantage of them.

I really like Saga 2. I'll plan some more warbands with them. I'm also eyeing the Aetius and Arthur supplement. It'll give me something to do with all the Picts I painted forever ago for Pig Wars. I'm also contemplating a Saxon warband for Age of Vikings, if the book ever becomes available again. At this point, no one in the world seems to have it in stock.

We're in Dutch!

We had a good time playing at Meeples Games in West Seattle on Saturday. Kevin Smyth and I were testing the scenario (more or less) for the Song of Drums and Tomahawks game we'll be running at the Fix Bayonet! game day in September at Historic Ft. Steilacoom.

There were six of us playing: The Daves (me, Dave Demick, and Dave Schueler), Kevin, Bob Mackler come up from Sumner, and Bill Stewart from literally around the corner in West Seattle.

The Hurons: Dave, Dave, Kevin

The scenario has a mixed force of Dutch and Iroquois on the wild outskirts of New Netherland ca. 1640 trying to make it off the board lengthwise against an equal number of Hurons trying to stop them.

Bob, Bill, and I were the Dutch/Iroquois. Kevin, and the other two Daves were the Hurons. We set up in three successive files marching Indian-style and the Hurons came in from off board to attack us. Bill was out front with 8 Iroquois, I was in the center with 6 Dutch musketeers and two officers, Bob had the rear guard.

Marching on

We ended up engaging pretty soon. As far as advancing down the table goes, we hit our high-water mark pretty much after the first move. The Hurons all came in on one side—probably more to do with where they were sitting than with actual strategy.

See how Bill hastens to his death

Kevin swooped in on Bill's group in the lead. The dice favored Bill not, yet smiled benignly on Kevin. After a few turns of fighting, Bill was getting pasted and Kevin hadn't lost a man. Bill had to make morale checks for losing his leader and then for losing half his force. This was probably for the best because his skedaddling men managed to get away from the maelstrom.

One, however, stayed put as the Huron tide washed over him. Beset to his front, but not overwhelmed, he fought on as the exultant Hurons washed past him in a flood.

Bill's brave musketeer fights on

In a head-to-head fight with Dave Demick's masked chief (Dave had rushed about half his force to help Kevin against Bill), Bill's heroic musket-armed Iroquois managed to inflict a killing blow against him and run back to saftey.

Kicked butt, changed position, reloading...

While Bill was suffering at the head of the line, Bob and I were engaging Dave Schueler's and the other half of Dave Demick's groups. I turned off the marching path early and started taking shots with my musketeers as soon as the Hurons came in close range.

Sucking them into .85 calibre range!

The fight around the middle of our line turned out to be the hottest. Dave Schueler called it the Plain of Skulls because of all the Litko skull tokens we used to mark where a figure had fallen.

Bob and I were engaged mostly with Dave Schueler's group and some of Dave Demick's. I managed a few effective musket shots right off the bat. In our first game of Song of Drums and Tomahawks, we'd (or I'd) forgotten about the leadership bonus until late in the game. Trying to reload, which takes two actions, or to get an aimed shot, also two actions, was pretty dicey with Q4 troops. This game, I was able to keep my troops close to my leader, Lt. Groot, and found that reloading and aiming was easier to accomplish—although I had many, many (it seems) activations where I missed the two required to reload. I eventually started using my musketeers for melee since it was easier to get into contact than to reload/shoot.

Firing line: bows and muskets

Muskets are pretty effective. There were many bow-shots in the game, but I can't recall any shot putting a figure out of action. Muskets were dropping figures all over. In this regard the Dutch had an advantage with having 6 musket-armed figures. The Indian groups had no more than 2 each.

I started out with Lt. Groot in the forefront of the action, flanked by 2 musketeers. My hero, Cpl. Van Buskirk, was off doing his own thing, mostly in reserve as I fought the urge to pitch him in the midst of the fight. Both leaders were armored and had the Primitive Weapon trait for their quasi-Medieval pole weapons, but I only gave them C2. Their big advantage was having a better chance to beat defeat or death and the possibility of an instant kill when they won on a natural 6 die roll.

Groot's first stand

For Lt. Groot these advantages weren't enough. Surround by 3 Hurons, he fought bravely but was felled by a blow from a big war club, which counted as a Primitive Weapon. In the ensuing morale checks everybody but my hero (who was immune to checking) fled back a bit.

Groot's last stand

Bob was nibbling away at Dave Schueler's force, but taking losses himself. He lost his leader and went down to half strength.

Chief Mackler (pre-mortem)

Bob's hero, however, survived the fight with tales to tell. With his wooden armor and a big war club, he could pretty much take on anyone and live.

Don't mess with Smashing Bear

As our position on Bill's front deteriorated, Kevin rushed in with his still intact group and smacked into the flank of my beleaguered Dutchmen. It was dicey going. At one point, Cpl. Van Buskirk endured five bow/musket shots against him in one turn. Thank goodness for steel cuirasses!

Kevin's Hurons come on

I was soon surrounded and taking losses. Apart from Lt. Groot, I'd only lost 1 musketeer up till now. But Kevin's and Dave Demick's groups coming up on my flank changed all that. I quickly lost another 2 musketeers and was looking for an opportunity to fall back.

Kevin's hero taking out Musketeer Van Dyke

Kevin's reign as the intact player ended, however. Bill lost half his force—including his leader and his hero—but he was still a potent enemy and sending shots into Kevin's warriors as they moved into our center.

Bill still in the fight

After a few turns of intense fighting, Kevin wound up losing both his leader and his hero. In the morale check after losing his leader, every one of his figures scampered back 2 or three moves.

Kevin's leader fatally takes on Bill's remnants

We called it soon after that. Kevin's group was the least molested of all. He had 6 figures out of 8 remaining, but his two losses were his leader and hero. Dave Schueler had 2 figures remaining, both in contact with Dutch musketeers with the issue in doubt. Dave Demick had, I think, just one figure remaining. Bill had three. I had four. Bob had four.

The Dutch/Iroquois patrol would make it through, but much diminished.

The Plain of Skulls

The game was fun and Meeples is always a nice venue for occasional games, although the tables are generally small. The food and beer is good.

Song of Drums and Tomahawks is part of a great system from Ganesha Games. The engine is pretty useful and I've played several of the Song of... variants for everything from the Bronze Age to the ECW. We talked up using Flying Lead for gaming WW2. I have several Copplestone Back of Beyond Chinese warlord minis that I can get paiting on, plus a couple FT-17s. Bill has a vast amount of single-mounted WW2. I see something happening with that later this year.

Sumer-time and the paintin' is easy

Sumer? Yes, Sumer, I Akkad you not. I may be rash, mercurial—even mistaken—but to Ur is human and the urge to Ur is upon me. As with many serendipitous projects, the moment has met the man and I'm going full speed ahead. Sæpe erro, nunquam dubito!

I blame Ernie Calvillo for this sudden development. (The cats are innocent—this time.) He posted on the Lion Rampant Facebook Group about the Sumerians he was painting, and that got me all worked up.

Ernie's Sumerians

I've been a fan of Sumerians for pretty much ever. Yet in all that time, the only Sumerian minis I've painted were for a 15mm DBA army (Essex Miniatures), since sold. I'd wanted to do a 28mm army for a while, but I never had a feel for the right minis to use. Wargames Foundry started a range years ago. I love their minis. The range looked promising, but they abandoned it. It was unavailable for a long time and is now available again. However, it's a very limited, unfinished range and there's no chariots; in fact, it's just spearmen and javelinmen.

Cutting Edge (Warlord) makes Sumerians, but I can't bring myself to use that range. I bought some Middle Bronze Age Amorites (think Mari) from them a few years ago. I was pretty eager when I orderd, but then very disappointed by the minis when the order arrived. They're beautiful and have a lot of nice detail—but they're so wee! Compared to other 28mm ranges, they're like skinny children. I like chunk. Cutting Edge minis have no chunk at all.

Newline (L) and Cutting Edge (R)

I'd seen a few other ranges, such as Eureka Miniatures and Castaway Arts from Down Under, but I hung back. I didn't want to make a move without first seeing the minis or at least seeing better pictures of them.

Finally, I just wasn't sure of what I would do with a lot of Sumerians after I'd painted them. I love Ancients, but the state of that part of the hobby seemed to be in a doldrums, at least to me. But now I know: I'll use 'em for Pat Lowinger's Chariots Rampant variant for Lion Rampant (Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy, Issue 82).

Ernie and I gamed together back in San Jose, CA 30+ years ago. He's now in San Antonio, TX and I'm in here in Beautiful, Formerly-Bucolic Lynnwood, WA. Ernie has always been an excellent—and prolific—painter.  He's also always had an eye for good minis. When I saw the pics in his post, I asked who made them. He told me that they were Newline Designs and that for July they were 20% off their normally reasonable price of a bit more than £1.00 per figure. In my head the voices screamed, "BUY NOW!" What could I do? I bought now and for a ridiculously low price, I got more than enough minis for a Chariots Rampant army—with options! Now I have an unexpected summer Sumer project on my hands.

So, why Sumerians?

Well, because they're cool. They're one of the oldest civilizations on Earth. So old they're just on the cusp of being prehistoric—and I like prehistoric things (see my love for prehistorical Europe) as I love all that is old and arcane. I strive every day to be older and arcaner myself.

Sumerian soldiers wear sheepskin skirts and go barefoot; they're like The Flintstones with ziggurats. They used four-wheeled, shambling proto-chariots drawn by "equids," i.e., not quite horses. They fought in phalanxes 2000+ years before the Greeks figured it out. They wore shiny copper helmets and fearsome, metal-studded capes long before Batman made wearing capes cool.

Caped Crusaders - 3rd Millennium BC

Sumerians invented writing, art, literature, and law. (They also invented government bureaucracy, so it's not all good.) They invented the cat—no, seriously, see this. They invented cities. They had ginormous eyes.

They invented sexagesimal mathematics, which we still use to calculate time, angles, and compass points. They invented the sail (maybe) and the wheel (also maybe—at least it wasn't that guy from the B.C. comic strip). They created the first armies and also produced the first records of how soldiers looked (ca. 2500 BC) on the Standard of Ur and the Stele of the Vultures.

Standard of Ur

Stele of the Vultures - detail

So, yeah, Sumerians are cool.

They're also easy to paint. Prehistoric, and nearly prehistoric, people dressed simpler than we do, and we dress simpler than people in the past. Try painting early 18th c. British regulars to see what I mean. But I digress.

The sheepskin, capes, and shiny helmets I mentioned above are about all the costume the Sumerian soldiers had. Only bare-nekkid Celts could be simpler—and they have those elaborate shield patterns to muck up the whole simplicity groove thing.

Sans spear, axe, cape, helmet, and shield he'd pass as Cro-Magnon

I ordered from Newline in two batches. After my initial order, I convinced myself that I needed more and made a wee supplemental order. The second smaller order came on Wednesday. It contained more of the infantry I ordered (spearmen, slingers, javelinmen, command), but also three straddle carts. The straddle cart seems to have been developed a bit later than the better known four-wheeled battle car. I haven't seen any actual Sumerian art depicting them. Yigael Yadin doesn't address them in The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands, but The Two Nigels show them in Armies of the Ancient Near East 3,000 BC to 539 BC. I had one in the first order, so I have four. I'm not really sure I wanted four.

Straddle this x4

I cleaned up several minis right away. The flash is minimal and the metal is softish (not rock-hard pewter), so cleaning was pretty easy. I replaced the cast lead spears/javelins with Northstar wire spears. I love those things. I must have bought a thousand of them.

Bronze Age warriors with brass spears

At this point, the first order hasn't arrived. International postal service isn't a science. I expect it'll come this week. Meanwhile, I've started painting what I have. So far, it's just the skin tone. I used Vallejo Medium Flesh. They look suitably Sumerian to me. There's not much else to paint for the most of them. They either wear a fringed kilt or some kind of sheepskin. It won't take much time.

I have a lot on my plate right now, but I hope to get a few units of these banged out this month and the rest in September. Then it's time for another Rampant game day.

Is three enough?

I know it's crazy, but I've just acquired my *third* copy of the old Al Margolis Legion ancients rules that were published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1976. In my defense, I thought I was only acquiring a second copy.

Legion was one of the first sets of ancients rules—really, of any miniature wargame rules—I ever played. I mentioned them in my previous post about Al Tilley. For a time, they were our go-to ancients rules. They have the advantage of not requiring enormous numbers of figures to build armies, so you can get gaming with minimal effort and build from there.

Units are either 8 or 6 figures. Legion uses the same base size as the WRG Ancients rules, so based minis would be interchangeable. Heavy and medium infantry are two 4-figure bases; light-heavy, light-medium, and most cavalry are two 3-figure bases; light infantry and light cavalry are three 2-figure bases.

Legion is old school. Not that that's a bad thing. Far from it. I like old school, but it's different from the norm of today. The rules use a D100 for combat and moral. (This is something Legion shares with the venerable Square Ancients we played at Al's—except at Al's we used his nifty random number generator.)

Missile fire is a pretty straight up percentage chance for inflicting a figure loss, though casualties on the shooter plus other modifiers can bring than number way down to a minimum shot of 5%. Shooting isn't a big killer, but with so few figures per unit, one figure lost can be significant and tell against a unit's combat ability and morale.

Melee combat is more involved, which is where the old-schoolness comes in. Like in WRG Ancients, the combat value of a weapon type depends on the type of armor/formation it fought. For example, a unit armed with pilum fighting SHC (super-heavy cavalry, like cataphracts) has just a 20% hit, whereas the same weapon against MI (medium infantry) has an 80% hit. Modifiers also come into play, so a unit may have a better or worse shot. Once the basic melee hits are resolved, there's a slightly more fiddly procedure to determine the overall victor of the melee round. I won't go into it, but it involves math, the kind of math that people like me never use except for wargaming. The result of all the mathifying is to get a victory quotient that runs from 1.0 (even up) to 5.0 (they're so screwed). Each quotient corresponds to a probability from 50% (for 1.0) to Automatic Elimination (for 5.0). The roll of D100 subtracted from the probability produces a result.

Things can go south quickly. The more figures you lose in a unit, the more you're likely to lose. Although I can recall a few games where battered units hung in after taking a lot of punishment.

Despite its hoary age and old school pedigree, Legion is still a very playable game.

The illustrations throughout the rules are by Roy G. Krenkel, a contemporary and sometime collaborator with Frank Frazetta. Krenkel did a lot of the illustration for Edgar Rice Burroughs books as well as some for Robert E. Howard and others. The Legion art is pretty much sketches. Krenkel's more formal art is more impressive, which isn't to say that the rules artwork is anything to sneeze at. There's a fluidity, energy, and dramatic composition that belies its apparent simplicity. Krenkel illustrated a few other FGU rules, notably Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age.

Now that I have *three* copies of the rules, what will I do with them? Good question. I've entertained making a project with them for the past several years when I had only two copies (or just the one). I have a lot of Peloponnesian War era Greeks. Mostly unpainted Wargames Foundry lead. I could easily do up some small Spartan and Athenian forces without having to shell out for any figures. I'm also eager to paint some Aventine Miniatures figures, just not a lot. Legion doesn't require many figures for a decent game, so some Pyrrhic War gaming is a possible project for 2019 or so. (I'm kinda full up on buying new minis right now, which I'll detail in upcoming posts.)

The passing of legends

We often hear of the graying of the wargaming hobby. Ancillary to its graying is its dying. I know, I know. I'm bordering on the morbid again. Most of my friends and acquaintances in the hobby whom I've lost were still pretty much in their prime. Occasionally, one of the legendary warhorses goes the distance.

I heard from my friend Rick today that an old friend from our San Jose, CA days had passed last week. Al Tilley was almost 88 when his heart gave out (today would have been his birthday). He'd suffered from ill-health for a number of years mostly due to the effects of his being a lifelong chain smoker. (Kids, don't smoke.) I was saddened by the news. I've generally had a happy life, so it's hard to experience the loss of people and things that contributed to that happiness. Memories are no substitute for the friendships of which they're the remnant.

I met Al way back in 1977 through Rick, who was part of a group that met in Al's garage every Wednesday night to play Judge Fernandez' Square Ancients. He pulled me into the group where I played occasionally for the next few years. Square Ancients was probably my first prolonged experience of miniature wargaming. From there, Rick and I went on to playing Al Margolis' Legion rules, which for me were the gateway drug to WRG 5th edition Ancients.

Still, the old, formalized Square Ancients game we played with single-mounted minis on a 1.5" square grid remained a fond memory. I still have a mimeographed—yes, mimeographed—copy of the rules that Al wrote out in his meticulous engineer's hand on some old Lockheed graph sheets. That's old school.

Al loved the regularity of a square grid game. Measuring with rulers was a bit too fudgey for him. I remember him giving his impression of playing Legion with Rick and me. He told me he liked the rules except for—and then he picked up a ruler and shook it making a face at it, his wordless disapprobation of Legion's means of spatial calculation. He also disdained dice, preferring a precision random number generator he'd put together from electronic bits he bought at Radio Shack. You couldn't put some English on the random number pull like you could a dice throw, but it didn't make the results more palatable. I can still hear Bob Turner, one of the Wednesday night stalwarts, crying out, "I can't believe these pulls!" whenever a undesirable number came up.

I had a project not too long ago where I started painting some figures for a Square Ancients revival. I used Al's hand-scribed pages as my starting point and fleshed out a bit of the lacunae that had always just been filled in by memory and tribal custom. I also adopted his experiment in using a hex grid instead of squares.

I managed to complete only a few pieces: 8 single-mounted peltasts and a 6-figure phalanx block. Apart from phalanxes, all the figures for Square Ancients were single mounted. I also have the rules I drafted in Adobe InDesign—except I used fonts that I lost in the Great Hard Drive Crash™ earlier this year, so it's kind of a mess until I can find a way to restore them or buy new copies.

A phalanx and a peltast—with a busted spear

I last saw Al on a trip I made to San Jose in 2012. I hadn't seen him in a very long time before that. We had a good chat and caught up on the intervening years. Al's mind was always sharp and he was always interesting to talk to. Talking to Al always left me wanting to talk more.

Apart from wargaming, Al and I shared some other things in common. Al was a cat person and cared for the local ferals as well as his own. He was also a Korean War vet, serving aboard USS Henderson (DD 785) at Wonsan Harbor. My dad was also a Wonsan vet, serving aboard USS Blue (DD 744).

There are a handful of adults from my youth (Al was 30 years older than me) who stand out as highly memorable. Al is part of that crowd. You don't realize at the time how much someone you look up to subtly influences you with the things they say, the way they say them, how they express their interests, etc. I haven't inventoried the memories or anything, but I can think of a few a few brain-seeds that Al planted that matured to become part of my own thinking. Al thought a lot about Winston Churchill's Life of Marlborough, the big, sprawling, four-volume version. I made it my quest in my 20s to find a set, which was no easy task before the Internet. I still have the set I found. It's as good a read as Al said it was. Al was a sci-fi fan and I picked up some of my interest in H. Beam Piper from him.

I'm sorry I didn't manage one more get-together with Al before his death. But I can still relive those Wednesday night trips to Orange Blossom Drive long ago: The anticipation of well-planned game played on a 4' x 4' square grid (marked on a board painted chalkboard green) with the terrain carefully drawn in with colored chalk, a fridge stocked with every variety of soft drink, an inexhaustible bowl of candy, and setting up a perfect attack only to be foiled by the random number generator spitting out 01. (I can't believe these pulls!)

Ave atque vale, Al. You had a positive effect on those who knew you and you'll be remembered by them as long as they live.

Into the wilderness (don't mess with Corporal François)

Kevin Smyth, Dave Schueler, and I played a first game of Song of Drums and Tomahawks this Saturday down at The Panzer Depot in Kirkland. It was also the debut of Kevin's and my Flint & Feather armies. It was a fun little foray into the North American wilderness ca. 1640.

This has been a serendipitous project for me. I'd been looking at the Flint & Feather range since early in the year, but held off buying. The website listed several packs that weren't yet available and I wanted to wait to order until they were. Then Bob Murch came to Enfilade! this year with minis to sell—including the ones that showed as unavailable on the website. What could I do? I came away with 29 minis, which is enough to be getting on with in a true skirmish game (i.e., actual 1:1).

I painted the lot by the end of June, which is pretty fast work for me, especially when I'm not under the gun to get minis painted for a game. Kevin got a later start on his because he didn't buy in time at the convention and had to wait three weeks for his order from Crucible Crush to arrive. By then, he was preparing for a cruise around Eastern Canada. Despite all this busyness, he managed to complete five figures to get into the fray.

We originally planned a game for four at Meeples in West Seattle, but the West Seattle Grand Parade nixed those plans and only three of us could get to The Panzer Depot. I set up a 4x6 table that was very woodsy with some hills and river bits.

Field of battle

I made up three forces of 8 figures each. Two with all Indians and a third that was half Indians and half Europeans. I took the mixed force, Kevin had his five figures plus three Mohawks with Muskets, Dave took the others. Each of the all-Indian forces included a hero figure, who fights and activates better. The mixed force had Corporal François, who had the Leader trait, which I pretty much forgot to exercise the whole game. The other Europeans, Pierre, Jean-Louis, and Etiénne, had muskets and swords. All the Indians had the Woodsman and Scalper traits. The latter requires them to spend an action scalping any foe they kill.

I thought it would be a game of cutthroat 1:1:1, but it wound up being me against two. Dave and I came in from opposite sides at one end, Kevin came in from the far end.

Some of my boys at the start

My Frenchmen, not being woodsmen like the Indians, could only move a short distance. But I trundled them up to musket-range and prepared to blast away.

Corporal François encourages the men forward

I quickly got entangled with Dave's forces. He had two musket-armed warriors and several other with bows.

Old school Indian warfare

Newfangled warfare with Dutch-supplied muskets

While I slowly positioned my musketeers, Corporal François rushed out to meet the foe head-on. His impulse in this was matched by Dave and his hero. Soon we were locked in dire combat.

Corporal François, with an Indian ally, takes on Dave's hero

Combat in Song of Drums and Tomahawks can be alternately frustrating and lethal. Many times it seemed that you'd have someone at your mercy only to have them escape. Dave and I both managed to get an advantage over each other at times only to blow the attack with a bad die roll. At this point, a lot of the action revolved around the big rock that dominated the center of the battlefield.

Ring around the rock

Ironically, in the fight between Corporal François and Dave's hero, it was one of my Indians that gave Dave's hero the killing blow. Dave managed to extricate himself from being outnumbered and then rushed in to attack my non-hero Indian ally. Unfortunately, he rolled low and I rolled a natural 6. In Song of Drums and Tomahawks, a figure armed with a Primitive Weapon, as mine was, always kills on a natural 6 if they win the combat—even if the result would normally be fallen or pushed back. Thus ended Dave's hero.

His scalp adorns my lodge-pole

Because my Indian ally had defeated him, he had to spend an action taking the obligatory scalp. Big medicine!

Dave and I kept up a desultory exchange of gunfire and bowfire. Shooting had a few successes (or maybe just one), but otherwise seemed pretty futile. For musket-armed figures, there was the added inconvenience of needing to reload.

Gunfire in the wilderness

It takes two actions in the same activation to reload. That requires rolling at least two dice for activation and thereby risking an end to your turn. There was a lot of dice failure in the game. In Song of Drums and Tomahawks, a figure can activate by throwing 1, 2, or 3 dice. Every result that is equal to or greater than the figure's Quality rating (4 for everyone except the heroes and Corporal François) allows an action. But if two or more rolls fail for an activation, the player's initiative turn ends.

Mostly, we just tried one die to activate figures. If that fails, you can just move to the next figure. We didn't want to risk double failure before we'd moved a lot. Sometime figures just never managed to pass an activation. Which brings us to Kevin.

Kevin started at the far end of the board, so he had farther to travel to get into the fight. He was plagued by bad die rolls and managed to get very few figures moving towards the sound of the guns. One figure managed only two activations for the entire game.

Chief Stands and Waits standing and waiting

He survived the fight, basically because he never got into it. As for the rest of Kevin's force, because it managed to come in only piecemeal, it didn't have the impact it might have. Being outnumbered 2:1, I never really felt overwhelmed. Nevertheless, Kevin's warriors slowly crept in to make my right flank a bit dicey.

Kevin's troops come on

Spearheading the advance was Kevin's hero. Before long, we had a standoff on the other side of the big rock, which eventually erupted into more of a fight.

Standoff at Standing Rock

I was beginning to take a toll on Dave's forces. The death (and scalping) of his hero, deprived him of a major asset. His other troops kept falling prey to the same fate as the hero: Attack and die after being whacked by a big Primitive Weapon. Before long, he was at half strength.

The fight against Kevin was getting hotter. His hero was making his presence felt, having killed one of my Indians. I had to pull Corporal François away from fighting Dave to deal with the new threat.

2:1 again, but no win

Dave managed eventually to kill off three of my force: 2 musketeers and an Indian. Kevin managed to kill off one of my Indians. Both Dave and I needed to take morale tests, which sent most of our surviving forces running back for a turn. Corporal François, however, remained firmly locked in combat with Kevin's hero.

Then the worm turned, despite being abandoned by all, Corporal François and his death-dealing halberd (which counts as a Primitive Weapon), clove Kevin's hero in two. Thus another enemy hero dispatched to the Great Spirit.

Smyth, last of his tribe

Corporal François hadn't been long enough in country to pick up the Scalper trait, so Kevin's hero went to the Great Spirit with a full head of hair.

The fight continued a bit longer after Kevin's hero went down. After Dave and I mutually fled, I only had one musketeer on my left. My remaining two Indians and Corporal François were facing Kevin.

The fight moves to my right

After a bit more sparring, I managed to kill four of Kevin's warriors, provoking a morale check, which sent all of his remaining four scurrying back.

The last kill

Dave's three remaining warriors were just creeping back, Kevin's force was potentially still potent, though in disarray. I'd managed to hold off against 2:1 odds and get a better than 2:1 kill ratio.  We called the game at that. Corporal François was the stand out champion of the game. He moved back and forth between the 'fronts' and managed to dispatch at least four of the nine casualties I inflicted against Kevin's and Dave's forces.

Among my native allies, one figure stood out, having killed Dave's hero and taken at least one other scalp. He didn't have the Hero trait, but he wore wooden armor and wielded a Primitive Weapon (plus a fearsome bearskin on his back!). That Primitive Weapon came into play more than a few times when I rolled natural 6s in combat.

Heroic, though not technically a hero

Afterthoughts

I really like the Song of [X] system from Ganesha Games. Song of Drums and Tomahawks is an adaptation of Song of Drums and Shakos done by Mike Demana et al. He tailored the available traits for the period, though there were some omissions. Several Indians wore wooden armor and/or carried shields. Mike does include a trait for Cuirass, which give an armor bonus to figures with metal breastplates, but otherwise doesn't account for the Indian armor and shields. To address this, I grafted in some rules from Song of Blades and Heroes. I gave figures wearing wooden armor the Armored trait (+1 to combat result if defeated, thus lessening or negating a loss) and figures with shields the Block trait (loss result lessened by one degree on a roll of 5 or 6). However, I only allowed them against native weapons. Against bullets and steel, they had no effect.

Muskets are potentially deadly, though I think we had only two musket kills in the game, both inflicted against my French musketeers by Dave's musket-armed Indians. The +2 to combat within the first range band and the potential for a -1 to the opponent for an aimed shot (requiring 2 actions instead of the normal 1 to shoot) mean that a shooter with a Combat value of 2 shooting an opponent with the same Combat value could have a net +4 versus +1 before the dice roll. Even without the aimed shot, a +4 to +2 is good odds. We just kept rolling badly. Plus, the need to reload reduced the amount of firing by how many times we could manage to get 2 actions for a musket-armed figure to reload.

It was a fun game and I'm glad we had a chance to get our new minis into battle. Kevin and I agree that they were a pleasure to paint. I hope to see a lot more coming from Crucible Crush/Pulp Figures for this range. We'll be running a game of Song of Drums and Tomahawks at our Fix Bayonet! game day in September. In between, I'd like to get another few games in. I think I may need to look into getting a stockade and some native longhouses...

I just received reinforcements from Crucible Crush: another 24 Indians to paint. That'll give me a total of 53 plus my Europeans. I have 12 of those (10 musketeers, 2 officers) and have another 8 I could bring in. The minis are from The Assault Group Thirty Years War range. I started several minis a while back, some of the first I painted using the Miracle Dip™, with the intention of making some units for Pike & Shotte. I still want to complete that project—and have many more unpainted and partially painted minis—but I'm sorely tempted to add more Europeans to the mix.

I also just received an order from Galloping Major Wargames: Some Candian militia and some Hurons plus a few free figures. That'll give me 24 milita, 25 Hurons, and 3 sailors. I'm not sure how the sailors will figure into this. They're very nice minis, but bare feet and blunderbusses didn't often find their way onto the wilderness frontiers of New France. I'll base these individually so I can use them for a variety of rules: Song of Drums and Tomahawks, Sharp Practice, Patriots and Rebels, etc.