[Boardgames] Yet more <i>Battlelore</i> [Rowan Tree and Red Thread]

Last night

sammywol and I tried the Agincourt scenario from Battlelore again, this time swapping the sides so that I played the English and she played the French.

I'm beginning to think that the English have the worst of it in this scenario. I had my ass handed to me this time, with a final result of 4/1 banners in favour of the French. To be fair I think I made it easier for the French by advancing some of my infantry rather than concentrating on laying down fire from my archers as early as possible. The stand out piece of bad luck was a round where I did get it together in the centre and manage 8 dice worth of attacks against one of the English infantry units and didn't score a single hit or retreat flag. Clearly the gods of war were with the French.

It was still fun, and quicker to play than our first try. I have sorted the pieces out by type and it makes the setting up much quicker.

Next, I think we should move onto the more fantasy elements, like the goblin and dwarven mercenaries, or the lore masters.

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Thanks for the two entries on your Battlelore games. My copy is safely at the FSLGS (Friendly, somewhat local game store). I have resisted the temptation to drive 35 or 40 minutes down to Londonderry to retrieve it. Normally, I would have jumped into the car right after I called the gamestore. But, the reason I called was to confirm a substitute game night for Monday night. I was scheduled to run a game last Thursday but I was in New Orleans. So, we re-scheduled for Monday. I GUESS I can wait until tomorrow night!

Peter Hildreth

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It's worth the wait. I hope you have fun with it. And have better dice luck than I did last night.

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yeah! then we will have something constructive to do with all those misses.

The scenario book really does a nice job of working through the steps, though the first mercenary battler (with Goblins) does not exactly play to their strengths. We've tried one lore game so far and it was, I admit, a little weird. Only had a Level 1 wizard on each side, so the effects were kind of blatant - I'm curious to see the other loremasters at work, as well as what happens when the lore card descision process is a little less straightforward.

Yes, I wondered about that, as some of the magic (and other lore) effects are pretty powerful. I hope that the balance between generating lore to make those effects occur (which essentially requires you to miss doing damage in combat) and dealing damage with sword and arrow in the usual way evens out.

I am really keen to use the Hill Giant to drive off a heavy cavalry unit too. Others have said that some of the lore effects are mixed into the command deck in the game Memoir '44, and that it made for a more random game. Separating out the command and lore decks seems like it should go some way towards balancing the effects of magic, as you'll be less likely to have just the one good card to play at any one point.

On Saturday, our local FLGS was having a BattleLore Demo Day. They were also giving away the Earth Elemental if you participated, so I went down.

We played a slightly truncated version of the second scenario. The guy running the demos felt it was a less lopsided scenario to start with.

I gotta say it really went down to the wire. I pulled out the win at the end, but it was very close. I'm also very curious to see how the Lore factors in -- especially seeing how gaining Lore when you lose in combat helps even things out.

later
Tom

Well done on the win, and on snagging an Earth Elemental. I'm looking forward to trying out the Lore adventures now, and I guess I'm going to have to expand my circle of players so that I don't bore my wife with requests for games of Battlelore every evening.

I must sign up online too, once the online editor is up. I'm quite keen on the possibility of online games too. Maybe I'll see you there.

Thanks for the Battlelore descriptions. Keep it up!

Glad you like them. I'll definitely continue to post about the game as I learn more of the rules and adventures.

It's a little different to Conor's Crusades game. There are times I wish I had a couple of Hill Giants at Antioch, alright.

Isn't a problem with battle games based on actual battles that you know how the real one went, so unless the French player is a FULE they won't fuck it up as badly as the real French did?

Well yes and no. If it's an actual battle you're recreating with whatever rule-set you have, I'd like to think that the scenario was well play tested and balanced to give a roughly 50-50 outcome, tweaking victory points and what have you so that, for example, getting some Roman troops out of Cannae alive counts as a victory for the Romans. Also you can rate your performance against the historical outcome, and say that you have to do a lot better than the real French did to even call it a draw.

Clearly Charles d'Albret had my luck with the dice on the actual day though.

Part of the appeal of the recreations is exactly what you say though. Showing that you're better than any old French army commander and squashing the English is part of the appeal.

In the particular case of Battlelore the scenarios quickly diverge from actual battles anyway so this becomes less of a problem.

Rowan Tree and Red Thread

[Boardgames] Yet more Battlelore

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January