Myself and the rather smashing chap Mike of
Little Odo's Miniature Wargaming Blog have been threatening to actually push some of the collective lead mountains around some green fuzzy polystyrene for a while now, and it finally happened this afternoon.
Mike made the perilous journey down from farthest Bromley in the dark wilds of Kent, bringing some Gripping Beast 28mm Romano-British, and some warband lists for Song of Splintered Lands.
You'll have to excuse the photos - using my Blackberry Curve, and the camera on it is utterly useless. Mike took a handful more using his Blackberry, so between us we might be able to find one that's in focus.
Anyway - first out of the block was SSL. Mike's first outing with the SBH engine, and he played the baddies (the Flowering/Rebels), and promptly handed my goodies (the Faithful) their collective furry backsides on plates.
Can't remember much of the game - seemed to involve a gruesome kill from both sides, but morale held. My decision to use the brilliantly hopeless Tassletail Brothers again but paid to any hope of winning things... that and Mike's uncanny ability to roll six after six after six... with my bloody dice!
We then swapped it around, and Mike picked up the Faithful whilst I elected to give my sort-of-painted Dwarf warband its first outing.
So, how did the Stunty Debut go? Erm, well - the Champion on Bear charged off on his own, fully expecting to make short work of the clump of mice, but he ended up transfixed, then suffered a sudden bout of being dead. The battle in the middle see-sawed, and eventually the Faithful prevailed. It was a close run thing though. Mike rolled a lot of sixes.
So, how does the Dwarf faction in SSL shape up? Rather well, I must say - they've all got long ranged attack, which didn't dawn on me at first. This potentially has huge benefit when using the SBH tactic of stopping short of an opponent to force him to charge (thereby increasing his chance of failing activation when he has to roll at least 2 activations, or preferably three).
The Bear could have been good I suspect, but I went a bit mental with him. The Bondi are better than their stat line would have you believe; shieldwall is hugely powerful. Huscarls are so-so, but the good overall quality makes them a dependable lot. The Crossbow Specialists are very strong indeed - Shooter Long, sharpshooter, and C3 means they're rocking with +5 within 5", which is very respectable indeed.
After that, we played the new version of Song of Arthur & Merlin. The first game took about 5 minutes with my Saxons getting pummeled by Mike's numerically superior Romano British. Mike rolled a lot of sixes.
Second game, we doubled the size of the table, and added a couple of cavalry each to run about 370 points. (I think SAM in historical mode is too small at 300pts). This gave us more tactical scope, and I finally won something. Mike didn't roll a lot of sixes.
Set up on 4x4 board.
Saxon horse pile into the back of the Romano-British shieldwall.
Then it was dinner time, so we called it after four games and a rousing afternoon's toy soldier action.
Think Mike enjoyed himself - he certainly didn't run away screaming, which most people usually do from the house of Tangent, and looking forward to another outing soon.
I think I'll actually find some time to finish the Dwarf band - great fun to play with, and a nice change from the Druid's Children. I'll also get the Beastlands warband underway properly, just because I'm all inspired again.
Nothing else to report, except
Splintered Light having a 25% sale until the end of the year. Get over there, say hi to David, and get your lead mountain up.
