I finally got around to reading Song of Shadows and Dust and have been pretty excited about getting it on the table since. The kids finally humoured me and played a game I set up for them.
I actually got so excited I
briefly thought I might use it (along with elements of the campaign Song
of Deeds and Glory for the 2015 Winter Wargaming Weekend – give the
popularity of the skirmish campaign we had at the 10th
Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash this past February… But then I got
thinking I’d potentially have to come up with 80-10 civilians (for 4-5 tables)
and another 6-7 gangs worth of guys (I could easily field two – maybe three…)
and BUILD another 3-4 tables worth of buildings!? Not saying it wouldn’t be
possible… but I had other plans already and those plans involved painting
figures I already HAVE! Maybe I’ll have another wargaming weekend… I’ll
definitely get a little campaign going with the kids and maybe Amanda and
anyone else local that wants to get in on it…
Weaver’s Quarter, Iskedumdrum,
69BCE
SITUATION
The Weaver’s of the Weaver’s
Guild in the Weaver’s Quarter of Iskedumdrum had enough of paying taxes to the
municipal authorities and then having to pay their “extra taxes” to some
corrupt militiaman for “protection”. The Weaver’s were a force to be reckoned
with. They were very skilled and relatively wealthy and well respected. The
cloth woven in Iskedumdrum was becoming famous and sought after throughout the
empire. They shouldn’t have to pay “extra taxes” they figured… so they stopped.
Not wanting the other craftsmen and guilds in the other district any funny
ideas this situation had to be brought to a quick end or the Militia would find
every quarter not bothering to pay their “extra taxes”!!
FORCES
The Weavers Guild (played by The
Girl)
Textora Majorica - Demagogue –
the outspoken and eloquent leader of the Weaver’s Guild.
Q 3+, C 2, 74 points
Demagogue, Dogged, Plebian
Urus the Dancing Bear
Q 4+, C 0, 23 points
Animal, Distracting
Julia - Armed Hench(wo)man
Q 4+, C 3, 36 points
Armed, Bellicose
5x Henchmen
Q 4, C 3, @27 points ea
Grey
The Militia (played by The Boy)
Gaius Foetidus Flatus – Militia
Officer
Q 2+, C 3, 95 points
Armed, Leader, Lucky
4x Veteran Militiamen
Q 3+, C 3, @50 points ea
Armed, Bludgeon, Determined
SCENARIO
Rolling for objectives:
The Militia got “Looking for
Trouble” – so they were just there to kick butt and remind those pesky Weaver’s
just who was in charge!
The Weaver’s rolled “Keeping the
King’s Peace” which meant they were trying to maintain control over the
populace by showing they could protect them – they would loose Victory Points
for any civilians killed! (Not a good start for a side with a Demagogue – that
depends on help from those civilians!)
The scenario took place at high
noon so there were 12 civilians on the table.
The Weavers were defending.
THE GAME
One thing I really like about
Song of Shadows and Dust is the “interactive terrain” I suppose you could call
it – there can be piles of civilians wandering the streets – depending on the
time of day – that could potentially aid you our just run away… There’s animals
that make noise that makes it hard for people to sneak around near them and
there’s an irritable mule that kicks anyone that comes too close…
(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version)
There’s supposed to be “poultry”
set up by the defender which make noise when anyone is near and negates the
Stealth special rule and nullifies any ambush bonus anyone lurking near them
might have otherwise got. Lacking poultry, we set up a barky dog that barked at
anyone that came near…
I did have a mule… but I’m
thinking I’ll have to put a mule on a larger base this one didn’t really have a
big enough one to block anyone’s way anywhere – except right here in a
passageway.
Or perhaps I need more buildings
and tighter corridors!?
Gaius Foetidus Flatus leads his
militiamen into the Weaver’s Guild.
Having been warned by look-outs
that the Militiamen were approaching, Textora Majorica, leader of the Weavers’
Guild, escorted by a few of her most trusted guild members heads out to
confront them.
The scene of our confrontation:
the Militia are at the right of the picture, the Weavers at the left.
The Militiamen at the end of
their first turn.
The Weavers enter the square and
spot the Militiamen.
At this point The Girl was
anxious about using the Demagogue to rally the citizens of her district because
the Militia would get an extra victory point for each one that was killed… so
she just hung back to see what happened.
The Militiamen rushed forwards –
there was a clash of metal on wood and bodies tumbling over each other a few
fell to the ground in the scrum.
At one end of the line a Weaver
got up only to be cut down by one of a Militiamen’s gladius. At the other end a
pack of the Weavers ganged up on a Militiaman and brought him down.
The militiamen cut down another
Weaver and reformed into a line.
At this point it was looking grim
for the Weavers – the advantage the armed and armoured Militiamen had was
great… Textora Majorica cried out and plead for help from the citizens of her
district – would they allow such violence and barbarity to go on in their
quarter!? Especially at the hands of those who were ostensibly there to
“protect” them?
The denizens gathered in…
The Militia carried on with
their attacks – 6 civilians were within one short of the first attack – two
fled, but the other FOUR joined the Weavers! (as the militia were armed and
fighting against unarmed defenders and the defenders were “Gray” – meaning they
blended in and looked like honest ordinary citizens that were being attacked
for no apparent reason – they had hefty bonuses to their Quality rolls to see if
they got involved!)
One of the citizens was quickly
cut down as he tried to stop one of the militiamen from charging in against the
Weavers. (I need to make some civilian casualty markers…).
Things went downhill quickly for
the militia, in one turn one of their number was ganged up on in melee and
taken down (knocked down by one in contact, finished off by another). A second
Militiaman was knocked down by a large crock that had been hurled at him from a
short distance by one of those newly joined citizens – and then was finished
off by a second newly joined civilian who was throwing… er… chickens!? (the
figure was holding chickens and the kids were delighted by the fact that a
militiaman was taken out by someone hurling dead chickens at him… they’re 8 and
10… who am I to complain as long as they’re playing games with me and having
fun!)
The remaining Militiaman in the
scrap then failed morale and dashed out of there – thankfully before he had
been surrounded! At that point the Militia decided to call it a day and
scarpered back to their guard tower with their legs well and truly between
their legs…
Don’t mess with the weavers of
Iscadumdrum!
In the end the Militia scored 3
Victory Points for the two weavers and one citizen taken out during the game.
When we checked after the game both the Weavers survived with light wounds and
could fight again the next game (if we had one), the citizen, however had been
slashed across the neck with a gladius and bled out in the street…
The Weavers got 6 victory Points
for the three Militiamen they took down and a further two for the remaining
ones that fled off the table… of the downed militiamen only one survived. The
other two, if they weren’t killed in the actual action, were quickly beaten to
death by the angry gathering mob! The one that slipped away was only lightly
wounded.
I am pretty fired up to get a
campaign of this going.
I will have to find a few more
figures to act as faction members… perhaps I could use a few of the Greeks that
I have… I suppose I do have some Egyptians that I could press into service…?
Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:
I have one last batch of Romans that I’m finishing up this
week that hopefully I will be posting pictures of shortly. I think the kids and
I will definitely get Amanda trying out Song of Shadows and Dust over the
weekend!
Nice report and great figures and scenery. I'm impressed with your buildings. What materials did you use on the walls?
ReplyDeleteThanks Dannoc!
DeleteI made the buildings out of MDF. The floors were !/8" MDF, the walls were 1/4".
I didn't really do any How-to or process pictures but there's some mention about them in these posts:
http://saskminigamer.blogspot.ca/2008/11/week-of-terrain.html
http://saskminigamer.blogspot.ca/2007/01/36-miles-of-barbed-wire-part-2.html
This was pretty cool. I might have to check out those rules.
ReplyDeleteThanks Commissar! They are definitely worth checking out!
DeleteVery nice AAR. I have looked at SofS&D for sometime and although I love the concept, I think it is too hard to do well with the miniatures currently available on the market. I think we need a lot more good Roman civilians to do this game any justice.
ReplyDeleteFrank
http://adventuresinlead.blogspot.com.au/
Cheers! NO there's not a tonne of stuff out there, but Wargames Foundry has a collection of Ancient Civilians that work pretty well:
Deletehttp://www.wargamesfoundry.com/our-ranges/civilians-18th-century-and-ancients/ancient-civilians-collection-bcciv003/
I've also seen a bunch of posts on the Lead Adventure forum with some inspiring gangs - many of which are converted (I can't seem to get it to load at the moment to find a link... but it's there under the ancients forum...)
Great AAR. I like the sound of some of the mechanics in the game, very interesting. Particularly liked the chicken throwing incident! ;-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Mark!
DeleteOne of the really cool things in this version is that anyone can pick up an improvised missile (rock, brick, bits of pottery, etc - it's an ancient city, there' lots of just just lying around - that isn't necessarily modelled on wargames terrain!) and throw it. It's not terribly effective... very short range - but in "the chicken incident" one activated civilian threw one and got lucky enough to knock one of the militiamen down, then another activated civilian threw another and got lucky and beat the militiaman's score again and that took him out.
There's also a group action called "Stoning"... which I'm going to have to try out... I might have to make a market stall with a merchant selling fake beards to 20 shekels...
Great battle report Tim.
Deleteyou give more taste to test the rules.
But i have to finish my buildings quarter.
i'll add the link of this page to my blog.
cheers
Eric
Thanks Eric!
Delete