Friday, June 25, 2010

Battle Lore Thursday

Last night we tried out Battle Lore, a board game with miniatures. But we had to up the game by making the miniatures 15mm, and based up, rather than single minis. We also played on an 6' x 8' rather than the small board provided with the game. Now, Battle Lore is really a simplified, fantasy version of Command and Colors which I've been fascinated with since playing it (with minis) at RECRUITS. I've had BL stashed away for awhile it wasn't till a rainy day months ago that I dug it out and Lead Addict and the Boy played for 3 hours. We were sold after that. Time to dig out all the old Demon World figs.
Shelob ain't got nothin' on this spider

The real beauty of Battle Lore is the no muss, no fuss-ness about it. Hexes clearly (even though you can barely see them in my photos) define ranges, terrain type and location of unit. No rules, no gamey sneakiness of where you are in relation to someone's flank. The units are color coded and the dice clearly show what happens. Clean, simple but with lots of nuance.
Centaurs take the hills
Our battle involved a joint Dwarf-Elvish defense against some Orcs and their Undead friends. The battle evolved slowly with each side being cautious, with a few long range archery losses. Early, the Orcs and skeletons had it rough, suffering the loss of 3 units. Then, suddenly the Undead exploded from the right flank, crushing everything in their path. The whole flank was lost and the elves were forced to retreat further into their woodland home.
You will notice the lack of finished bases. We're working on that, and apologize. The Basement Generals do not usually tolerate this kind of untidiness on the battlefield, but this was really a play test. Our version of Battle Lore is slowly evolving into Command and Colors with fantasy. We'll be making cards for each unit that clearly defines its abilities.

5 comments:

El Grego said...

Litko bases? What sizes are you using?

Also, what size hexes?

If my attempt with FR! does not work out, CC:A is my fallback rules set, even for fantasy. Looks like a lot of fun.

BaronVonJ said...

50mm x 50mm for cav and single stand types like monsters and artillery, 25mm x 50 mm for infantry. Number of figs on stand helps show type along with a color stripe on back.
My hexes be 6" flat to flat, but 5" could prbably do you. Mine are 6" so I can also use for 28mm size units which have 60 x 40 as a standard.
-J

Fitz-Badger said...

Nice spider and howdah!

There is definitely something to be said for simple straightforward games/rules (which can still have plenty of nuance as you say).

El Grego said...

Thanks for that, Baron.

Have to agree with the Badger, on both counts (makes me wish I had seen those spiders long ago)!

Lead Addict said...

Thanks for the chiding Baron. I will base them soon enough.