Sunday, August 26, 2012

First "Look,Sarge, No Charts: Fantasy, Ancients & Medieval" Work Session

   Last week the "Look,Sarge, No Charts" author team of Buck Surdu, Dave Wood, and myself got together, along with Buck's son Tom, to begin work on "Look,Sarge, No Charts: Fantasy, Ancients & Medievals", or as we call it, LSNC: FAN.   Buck is in the final stages of writing LSNC: Napoleonics, so we thought it was time to start some conversation and lead-pushing for our next LSNC volume.
A pair of skeletal cavalry units and a unit of skeleton chariots lead by an undead leader.

We have been slowly gathering 10 mm Fantasy armies over the past couple years, and it was great to finally have a chance to put them out on the table.  Some of the new facets of these rules that we wanted to look at in a playtest environment were flying units, and magic.   Also new is a point system that Buck is developing that will allow players to purchase troops to build armies of similar values. This will be useful for scenario design,  friendly pick-up games, and more competitive style play. 

The right wing of the battle, as viewed from the 'Evil' side's perspective.  The 'Good' side has a group of eagle units attacking, as the 'Evil' side tries to hold them back with units of bats and their skeletal cavalry

In this session each of the four of us commanded a force of about 1000 pts.  Each base represents roughly 500 human-sized infantry, or 250 cavalry, or 2 -5 monsters or artillery pieces.   We also had bases representing magic users and their acolytes, as well as Hero bases, and leaders.

The 'Good' side's right wing.  units of High Elves can be seen marching up on the right as a mixed force of wood elves and humans moves up to occupy the town in the center.  Evil beastmen and their human allies, supported by a unit of Giants, can be seen crossing over the river in the center.

The game was a lot of fun,and visually looked great.  We uncovered some issues that we will need to work on, and we are looking forward to future playtests to move these rules along.  We will probably be in a position to start public playtests at Cold Wars '13.

The battle heats up in the center.  A High Elf magic-user can be seen moving up on the left to help hold back the onrushing beastmen.


Buck Surdu (left), and Dave Wood (right), discuss the outcome of a combat.

The Evil sorcerer (seen with the 2-pip d6 on his base), puts a spell on one of the nearby skeletal archer units allowing it to shoot more accurately for two activations.

As the battle comes to a close, the eagle units, supported by units of dwarves on the ground, have begun collapsing the 'Evil' force's right flank.  Soon after the Evil commanders conceded, and the game was declared a victory for the side of 'Good'

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