This post was originally published on boardgamegeek.com. For pictures please see the original post!
Find below an After Action Report for this years BattleLore games at Dice Tower Con (DTC) in Orlando Florida, July 4th-8th. Sincere apologies for the long post but there was so much to cover. So grab a cold glass of water (or other beverage of choice) and I would be honored if you read on!
I had the pleasure of running two games of Epic BattleLore with the designer Richard Borg. This all came about after I had observed a game Richard ran of Battle Cry at Dice Tower Con in 2016; in that game he had taken the normal epic sized Command & Colors form and expanded it even further. I went away from that game determined to design a scenario at that scale in my favorite variation of the system, BattleLore. Last year, at DTC 2017, I had played a single session with a combination of friends and family. After some discussions with Richard afterwards, and over the course of the intervening months, the game evolved into an official sign-up event for 2018.
I won’t go through the six hours of gameplay in detail. But I do want to give a sense of what we did for the games and the overall impressions I took away from them. We played two sessions on the Friday of the convention with a break of about 45 minutes in between. In standard Epic BattleLore there are four players, two per side, which face off with two standard boards placed together. After watching Richard expand this to eight players with Battle Cry in 2016, I scaled this scenario similarly with three “generals” and one “marshal” on each side. Each general commands the troops in one of the three sections (left, center, and right flanks) while the marshal makes the decisions of the command card selection from the epic rack and the team’s hand of cards. The marshal discusses the options with the generals and for the most part the team makes the decisions together. This player configuration fosters a lot of planning and interaction among the teammates which is an aspect I like quite a bit.
Below I’ll describe some of the special elements of the games in terms of the scenario played, the modified and special rules, the components used and some observations on the general gameplay. I also have a few picture to share of the action.
The Scenario
The scenario designed for this years battles was an updated version of what I played in 2017: the battle of Towton, 1461. Set in the carnage of the War of the Roses, Towton is known as England’s bloodiest day. Two massive armies faced off during the cold of winter in an unusual late season campaign. On one side the Lancastrians, symbolized by the red rose; while opposing them were the Yorkists and their white rose.
Each army needed three named historical figures from the battle to provide flavor and to match the “Field Commander” unit deployed in each section of the battlefield for the two sides (more on these Field Commander units later). From the cadre of leaders at the battle I chose Henry Holland, the Duke of Exeter; Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland; and Henry Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset, for the Lancastrian side. For the Yorkists we had Edward the IV, the Duke of York; William Neville, Lord Fauconberg; and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick.
Each of the six players fielding troops in their section received one Field Commander unit along with a contingent of troops. The strength of the armies was balanced with a point system I designed previously for BattleLore scenario development. In general, each side had one section of heavy horse, a section with heavy foot, with lighter foot making up the third. All sections had some number of archers given that English longbows had played a pivotal role in the battle.
The Rules
At its core, the games were standard BattleLore 1st edition, using standard movement, flag, command card and battle rules. The Epic rules were in play with one tweak: the command rack contained five cards and was refreshed when down to two. Also, we played with Battle Savvy in effect. Lore rules were not used due to time and complexity, with one unique exception I’ll talk about below. The additional rules were added to accommodate the gigantic size of the game, and to brings some historical flavor to the battle.
Field Commanders
If you are familiar with Leaders from Command & Colors Ancients, then you know what a field commander is. In summary, this unit can be ordered as a normal unit, but when ordered can order a number of units up to its “Command Rating” that can trace a line to the Field Commanders hex.
They are treated in all respects as a Red banner mounted unit for movement and battle dice. As with C&C Ancients leaders and BattleLore monsters, a critical hit is required to eliminate them.
Given the massive amount of units in this game, using your Field Commanders effectively for movement and organizing attacks is crucial. A balance has to be taken between exposing the Field Commander to danger and using it to conduct an attack. The dynamics of this proved to be very entertaining during the games. Players had to make a decision on exposure versus benefit when presented with an opportunity to activate a Field Commander. What proved particularly powerful was a well timed charge lead by a Field Commander accompanied by Knight Lancer units.
Dice
Second edition dice were used. I like to use the them in my games because of their flexibility. I can create custom units that use the Heroic result for example to produce an extra power. Or, mix in second edition units into my game if I so choose. Working the math out between combat results from 1st edition, and using the 2nd edition dice, I found that once you factor in weapons, the difference between the two were minimal, while the flexibility to utilize all of those icons made it worthwhile and adds to the fun.
• Double crossed swords (Strike) – A hit in melee combat. This is the helmet/banner match in 1st edition.
• Single sword (Cleave) – A hit in melee combat, treated just as a “yellow bonus strike” would be in BattleLore 1st edition. For example, a unit armed with a short sword cannot hit a mounted unit with a Cleave result.
• Pierce – A hit by a missile attack.
• Morale – The defending unit may have to retreat one hex. Identical to the flag in 1st edition.
• Lore – Treated as a miss as we didn’t play with Lore rules, however, a player could still collect a lore token on this result in melee combat and at any time during an attack, trade in three lore tokens to add one dice to an attack roll. This special rule was put in by Richard and it worked wonderfully. It gave the players agency. They were able to accumulate the lore tokens and then trade them for a bonus attack die at the right time.
• Heroic – Treated as a miss unless the unit rolling this result on an attack was adjacent to a Field Commander, then it would be counted as a hit. Think of this as the extra fervor experienced by a unit fighting next to their lord. This addition, also from Richard, gave even more emphasis to the Field Commanders and another reason for players to risk them in battle.
Reinforcements
There were two opportunities for reinforcements during the game, one for each side. In the actual history of the event, the Lancastrians deployed two units of light cavalry in the woods at the side of the battlefield before the it had begun. The original intent was for these horsemen to flank the Yorkist lines either to harass or assist with a rout. This was modeled in the game with “hidden placement”: the Lancastrian player that had the woods in their section secretly wrote the hexes the units were to be set up in, then kept them to the side off the board. At any point during the game, the player could use an order to activate them as normal. At that point they would be revealed. In one of the games this technique was used to perfection, with the two green banner horsemen charging out of the woods to flank and cut off the retreat path of the Yorkists.
The other reinforcements appeared on the opposite side of the map on a roadway. These reinforcements represented the late arrival of Lord Norfolk’s contingent, the Yorkist commander who was late arriving at the battlefield. Two Heavy Cavalry (red banner) and two Medium Cavalry (blue banner) were placed on the board in any position desired along the road hexes on turn 4 (initially we had turn 5 in the first game but determined a turn earlier would be more effective and fun for the Yorkists). After that initial placement they could be activated with orders as normal.
Morale
The biggest variation in the rules used for the DTC games was a morale mechanic. I had been experimenting with it for a couple years and worked from a baseline of the Battles of Westeros and a few other games in the space to come up with an approach I hoped was both fun and exciting. So, why did I bother with a morale mechanic you ask?
Sometimes, when a game nears the end and a player is one banner from victory, you can see certain “banner-cheese” crop up such as hiding that single figure at the back hex row or behind other units. You’ve never seen a figure (literally) run for the hills so fast. The banner system is an easy way for new players to understand victory and a strong way to manage the length of a game, but for this particular scenario I wanted to design in a different system with a bit more complexity.
At the beginning of a battle, an army has a set Morale Value. This value is calculated from the units that make up the army itself. So as not to bog down this post I will summarize the details (I can expand on this in another post if people are interested!): An army in the field loses confidence for a variety of reasons, chief among them is losses. To get an idea what the value morale measures, think of an army made up of all bold units. This army would be at the top of the morale scale. An army made up of all frightened units would be at the bottom. In this system an army takes morale stress when it loses individual units and that loss is felt more or less significantly based on that units value to the army. For example, losing a Knight Lancer figure would be more impactful then losing a Light Infantry figure. When the army moral reaches 0, a rout check is made. If it passes, the army remains on the field, if it fails the game ends in a rout. For the purposes of our games at DTC, when an army routed the battle was over with the routed army losing.
For the Towton scenario the Lancastrians start off with a slightly higher morale than the Yorkists, and this is somewhat accurate to the history, however, when Norfolk’s cavalry arrives on the field things even up.
The Components
The total figure count in this game between the two sides is 336. Richard and I combined our painted miniatures to fill out the armies and together we were able to have painted armies fielded other than a few figures. I was very thankful to Richard for bringing his painted sets. The field of battle looked truly impressive!
The Field Commander units were built by me. I used mounted knights from Zvezda and custom hexes laser cut to match the large figure size from Litko.
The game board used was made from four standard BattleLore boards cut to the dimensions originally described as the “conquest” size on the now defunct site zonegamma.com. This configuration allowed 22 11 hexes wide per section, giving each section general enough room to deploy their troops in a variety of ways.
Commander “tent” standees were put together to show the opposing player which commander they were facing, and also to give the controlling player access to some important info about their Field Commander unit. These can be seen in the pics in front of the players.
The Gameplay
Without a doubt, the most effective units in the game were the mounted heavies, both Heavy Cavalry but more so the Knight Lancers. The design of the two armies was balanced with one Field Commander on each side having a contingent of heavy horse. In the two games we made sure that the heavies did not face directly across the battlefield from each other. This allowed for a better opportunity for those exciting charges against arrayed infantry.
By utilizing the ability of Field Commanders to activate additional units, a line could be formed with the adjacent Knight Lancers. That usually meant exposing the Field Commander into the battle line, and more than once we had one perish. However, they gave a powerful chance to really do some damage to the opposing battle line. With the use of the three lore tokens for an extra attack die, applicable tactics cards, the ability to execute pursuit, or the roll of the crown icon, these combination of units were in a word, devastating (and fun!).
What these extra rules accomplished were to make such a large and expansive game more dynamic and provide the players with more options to move, attack and do more damage with units. True to the history of the battle, it was bloody!
Both games were Yorkist victories. The first game had more experienced players on the Yorkist side. We were one player short so I joined the Lancastrians as their “Marshal”. Obviously, that did not give them an advantage! In the second game the Lancastrian’s were more experienced players and had an overall better strategy across the sections, but the player on the Yorkist left flank was, as they say, rolling like a monster! Still, the game was much closer then the first and very bloody on both sides.
Conclusion
I feel that the games were successful in what we wanted to achieve: getting a massive BattleLore game to the table at this big con, and providing the players a fun time. We have some very early plans to run another couple of games at next year’s DTC. I think I may design a new scenario, perhaps add in a some humanoids. We will see where the planning takes us, but whatever it ends up being, I know it’s going to be fun. After all, it’s BattleLore!
