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.