Song of Blades and Heroes - Game on

Sean came over a few weeks ago for my first 'proper' game of Warmachine but later in the day Keith arrived so we moved on to SoBaH. I'd been itching to give this a go and had had various lists and fully painted warbands sitting on the sidelines for days.

I'd planned a classic Dwarf v. Goblins game. The dwarfs are more powerful, costing more, so were massively outnumbered. Most AAR's I've seen for SoBaH have been between two similar warbands with similar capabilities and they looked like fun games but I can sum up my feelings on how well the rules stood up to a more asymmetric scrap in one word... Disappointing.

Hordes of poor quality troops in SoBaH seem to have no chance against smaller warbands made up of high quality troops. The points system fails to allow for the massive disparity in the abilities of the troops. It was bad enough in the first game we played but once we added Leaders it was ridiculous. The dwarf player just kept shouting, "3 actions!", rarely causing a turn over. The Short movement dwarfs ran rings around the goblins, setting up advantageous fights and slaughtering them. Gruesome Kills happened all the time causing 50%+ of the goblins to flee every time the dwarfs ploughed in. I played a 3rd solo game after the others had left, same results.

I took loads of photos, planning on doing a detailed AAR/batrep but it all seems pointless now as there wasn't really a battle. My enthusiasm for these rules which was riding high has really drained. I'll give them another go with two warbands of similar size/quality but first impressions are that the game engine won't allow me to do what I want to do.

Song of Blades and Heroes

Just over a year ago I purchased Song of Drums and Shakos, the fast play Napoleonic skirmish rules from Ganesha Games. We played a single game at the club (granted it was ACW...) and it went down well. I purchased the expansion More Songs of... and determined to play more... I went to Salute 2013 intending to purchase some Napoleonic figures but I ran out of money and it never happened (but it will, one day!)

Squad level ACW fun.

A year later and I've purchased the fantasy variant of the game, Song of Blades and Heroes. I suppose the proof of the game is in the playing but I'm convinced these are my cup of tea. I've started throwing together a couple of 300 point warbands and you should expect a batrep soon.

The first warband consists of dwarfs. I managed to pull enough figures out of my Warhammer army to throw a list together and a few extra figures for variant lists. They were all already painted but needed re-basing to my Mk III standard.

Wizard, Hero/Leader, Troll Slayer

Veterans, Young Dwarfs, Crossbows

The second warband is composed of goblins. First up again, some old figures that I just needed to re-base.

Night Goblins with Leader/Hero

They have a troll!

Night Goblin / Common Goblin Archers

Goblin Shamans

Not having a finished army to cherry pick figures from I had to paint up the rest of the figures I needed over the weekend. Like the dwarfs I now have enough spares for a couple of different lists.
  

Common Goblins with Hero/Leader

A major Hero/Leader and Squig Herder with... Squigs

First game on Tuesday hopefully so expect a batrep shortly and maybe a fully fledged campaign not long after.