Friday, February 26, 2016

A miner affair.... A VBCW Encounter.

A break from the far East, after several weeks of flicking through the rules finally a chance to give Flying lead a run out......
The rules are based on the popular "Song of Blades and Heroes" rules mechanics, a simple mechanism but surprisingly complex if you are to win a game.

What better place than going back to AVBCW it's been a while...

The Government have been pressuring the workforce for greater output in an effort to bolster the flagging economy as the years of war begin to bite. Pushed to far the miners take up arms, kicking out the pit managers and throwing up defences.
The Police are set in to break the miners and seize control of the mine works.

The approaches to the mine works.

The miners take up their positions, 18 fighters armed with a mixture of rifles, Pistols and one Maxim.

The Police break into two groups swinging both left and right, using the hedge rows to cover their advance.

The Miners seeing the Government forces fail a number of tests advance to bring their rifles and maxim into range.

A number of Police are out of the fight, forcing the others to seek the cover of the tree line.

Using the leaders motivation and gambling on three actions, a detachment of Police skirt the old wool shop and flank the advancing miners.

A close range fire fight and the ambush bonus take down several of the advancing socialists.

On the right flank the Police pour forward.

At close range the Maxim can be really nasty.

The shop steward leads his men forward to defend against the flanking move.

A well aimed shot and the Shop Steward is down.

Seeing their leader out of the fight a number of the militia head for the table edge.

With their threshold at 50% the remaining militia seek to sanctuary off table. The Mine falls to the Government.

A great addition to the Songs of Blades stable, I like the way the character activation works you have to take a gamble on the number of activations needed which adds to the battlefield friction.
The firefights work well with a minimal number of dice with models ducking for cover and going to ground.

Definately one to try again in the near future....

11 comments:

  1. Interesting game Stuart- like your Coal Mine model - very good for AVBCW. KEV.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. An e-bay purchase Kev, very much do it yourself, card board and string - but acquired for the princely sum of £10.00
      Cheers
      Stu

      Delete
  2. Nice report and beautiful terrain, especially the mine!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Phil - It's been a while since these got an outing.
      Cheers
      Stu

      Delete
  3. I have these rules somewhere, so need to dig them out and have a read as they seem to give a nice game.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was surprised how well they keep the feel of Songs of Blades, the Duck backs are similar to some of the Two Hour Mechanisms which was always a favourite of mine.

      Delete
  4. Great looking game ...never tried those rules may look out for them if you recommend them ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would Matt, if you are upscaling with multiple sections, I would be tempted to have an activation per leader or unit, otherwise you might find units not moving very often on one activation roll per side.
      Cheers
      Stu

      Delete
  5. Great report Stu. Love your mine. I need to make something like that one day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bart the construction was very basic but it really does look the part - not bad for £10.00 on e-bay :-)
      Cheers
      Stu

      Delete
  6. Good looking game!
    Like your minis.
    I use Song of Drums & Shakos for my Napoleonic skirmishes they are a really good set of rules. As you say with better troops do you risk multiple activations!
    Well done...

    ReplyDelete