A Fortunate Unfortunate Oversight.

There are limits to how many times one can play a simple scenario over and over again. I did do a quick run through with the first draft of the revised Prince Valiant rules and they worked ok but a bit too fast and simple for such small forces. I decided to try the Armour Save version which allows more nuances and made one or two other tweaks but could not face another run through of the rearguard.

A quick flip through scenarios suitable for  the existing river suggested "An Unfortunate Oversight" in which the attacker sneaks over a ford while the defender is massed around the only bridge. 

"Release me and Rome shall acknowledge you as King of all the tribes from here to Portlandia and pay you a wagon full of gold."

The Romans had 1 unit of armoured Roman cavalry with bows, a unit of archers and a unit of armoured infantry while their Armorican allies had a unit of armoured shock cavalry and two units of infantry. All of these were massed around a village just off camera.

The Huns had 2 units of Hunnish horse archers and a unit of foot archers. Their Rugii allies  had a unit of Elite Shock infantry, a unit of infantry and a unit of archers. 

Somewhere around turn 4. The Hun cavalry has surrounded the Romans on the hill but the table is too small and one unit has been caught by an initiative flip and routed off table by the Roman cavalry. 

It was a quick game with several turns of fortune and a nail biter finish. A really satisfying straight up game using these rules would need  larger forces and a more complex scenario but that was rather the point. 

For a multi-player, 3-4 hour convention game on a table twice this size with more than twice the forces, most being independent with several being nonaligned, all with secret individual victory conditions, I want simple, easy to grasp combat rules so players can focus on the rest.  I need to polish the writing a bit and write out some of the assumptions but these will do. In any event the players will only have a one page summary and a verbal briefing  to guide them and I trust my co-GM's judgement should things crop up mid-game. 

The current version of these 2 page Castle Dangerous rules can be accessed here.

Several turns later: its all a bit of a bloody mess. The Hun King was slain early on in single combat against the Armorican Duke who was in turn slain by the King of the Rugii several turns later.  What is left of the Allied infantry is surrounded on the hill but the remnants of the Roman cavalry are rushing back to the rescue. The Rugii however are tough and inspired by their King and it all ends as seen in the first picture. 

Five months and change to go. The next step is to muster the painted troops, organize units under the new system, form 8 contingents each with a character leader and and assess what needs doing in terms of basing, repairs, painting touch up for some of the recruits (often a wash of burnt umber will do but...), and probably addition and conversion of new recruits from the unpainted kit supply. I know I have enough for 3 units per player but would prefer to provide 4 if I can.

I also want to find a way to id units to help players, armour or hair/helmet style, shield colours etc but if all else fails a colour swatch on the bottom of the base. Oh and add the siege bits since the setting involves the Huns and their allies besieging a castle.

While doing the practical bits,  I also need to come up with names for the 8 factions and the characters for each as well as a back story, individual victory conditions and background and so on as well as table layout. (Not that I'll be able to blog that stuff till late May.) The only time I designed and ran a game of this sort as primary GM was over 12 years ago and I spent most of my time worrying what to do if I only had 3 or 4 players show up for an 8 player, 8 am Saturday morning game and none  of my time planning to cope with 16 players. Luckily it all worked out with 8 teams of 2 friends each.