Thursday, March 25, 2021

Fantastic Battles! A review

 

Fantastic Battles Review

Well, there are battles, there are fantasy battles and now there are Fantastic Battles. Written by Nic Wright and published by Irregular Wars, Fantastic Battles promise just that, battles that can be set in any fantasy world, even historical, that are in themselves fantastic!

The rules are well written and easy to pick up. The book is set out in a logical order, has lots of photos and some superb cartoonery by Orestix. The various tables are sensible, logical and well laid out making the game easy to play once you have the principles. I found the quick reference sheet was more than adequate for most situations.

Nic sets out his central tenets for the game in his introduction and the game seems to live up to all of them. They are…

It is setting and scale agnostic. You can use any of your existing armies, from any period and any scale. The basic unit is the company mounted on a war base of set size, usually between 4-6 cm square. Up to four may be used in formation in a unit. All companies have the same size war base and movement and missile range is measured in base widths or bw's, it's all about the base!

The game probably works and looks better at 6mm -15mm however I have been using 28mm with no great difficulty apart from the fact that I can’t fit a mumak or a dragon a 5 cm square base!

There is no single figure removal, whole units are removed once they have taken sufficient loss of Resolve, the most important factor units have. Resolve is somewhat akin to morale, combat and magic can reduce it , when it reaches zero the unit disperses with detrimental effect to the resolve of nearby units. There can be a knock-on effect.

Flexible army building is at the core of the rules. There are seven core unit profiles which can be augmented by up to three traits, from a list of forty, such as “mounted, skirmishers, ferocious charge, shieldwall, long spears, unreliable” etc. It easy to use and you can create your own units and your own army lists. There can also be racial traits that apply to the whole army. My favourite creation so far are my Orc Rabble. Their traits expendable, unreliable ,rabble sound like a character description, their low cost means I can have hordes of ‘em which makes ‘em feel like orcs! There is an Excel Fantastic Battles Army Builder which can print out an order of battle for any army you create which is in its self, Fantastic!

Engaging rules randomised initiative with play passing between both sides ensures this. Players draw coloured counters/meeples/dice from a hat or use a deck of cards to decide activation.  There are also spells that can interfere with the order of play

Command friction and fog of war These are certainly present in the form of Mishaps that are rolled for each unit at set up and may result in a unit arriving late on the battle field or in a diseased state or even have companies deserting! The rules themselves tie up movement and shooting in such a way that you have to really think about your set up.

The Command and Control is simple to use. Basically, each army is led by a Warlord or Mage Lord and can have several characters that can activate units and companies. Each character, company or unit can use one action each turn.

There are three phases shooting, movement and melee.

Shooting is pretty well automatic; it does not require an action and you have to shoot at the nearest unit in range. There are four different shooting traits which produce very different results at different ranges.

Movement is probably more limited than in many games and this adds a tactical element to the game. It is very easy to get yourself stuck in a position that you cannot manoeuvre out of.

Melee is brutal. Whole unit removal means big holes can open up in your ranks and create a domino effect of Resolve loss.

There is a campaign system that is fun and easy to use.

The armies can be augmented by strategies and characters can have relics to boost their stats or give them extra abilities. The book contains 24 Army lists for Historical and Fantasy Armies and only one rule book is required so it is a small investment for a big game.

Both the tabletop and the campaign rules lend themselves well to solo play so it is also Fantastic Battles for the times we are living through.

Overall, it is easy to learn, fun to play, requires some tactical thinking, can be used with just about any army and can be used for solo play-Fantastic! 

One of my favourite aspects of the game is the Mishaps rule. Here's an example of Mishaps in action from a recent battle between the Rohirrim and the Haradrim

The Armies set up

The Rohirrim are in the right in this picture the Haradrim are set up on the left

The river is crossed by a bridge but also by a 20 cm ford marked by two statues(one fallen) North and West of the little hill

An obvious strategy for the Haradrim is to march the heavy spear armed infantry to the ford and guard it.Simples!


Cue Mishaps! Both armies roll on the Mishaps table.

When the Heavy Infantry Spearmen roll, they get the Enthusiastic result

They charge d3+1 b/w forward, of course they roll 6 and charge 4b/w straight ahead.This has two effects. One they are not near the ford.Two they are out of range of command. This means they become impetuous and will act according to a result rolled on the impetuous table when they activate in the first turn.


They roll "fall back" which means they turn 180 degrees at a cost of 2w/b which is all their movemnet allowance. 

They completely obstruct the axemen who do not have the movement required to advance through them.







The second turn. While Theoden's gallopers are advancing on the ford, the spearmen have no choice but to wheel and advance in order to about face again next turn and head to the ford.

 

 

 

 


Few games can generate a situation of this kind, and the fighting hasn't even begun yet!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


A frustrated Zokhora points out the error of their ways

"It's over there you $%$^^*!!" 








Meanwhile...at the bridge!


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, March 22, 2021

And.....he's back in the game!

 

Outriders of Rohan

And……he’s back in the game!

Covid is a b*st*rd and no mistake! I can heartily recommend that you avoid it. For four and half months I have lived in a world of fog with no physical or mental energy and in constant pain but now, although far from well,  I am finally recovered enough to get back into my hobby.

And that’s all I will say about it here, if you want to know more about how I nearly died from the killer disease you can find my blog about it here

https://www.twelvedaysofcovid.com/

Meanwhile, there are games to play. I have been kit bashing and painting quite a few figures. My family have been playing Rangers of Shadow deep but are now getting into Frostgrave so I have been knocking up some war bands, more about that later…

I have been starting to build my Wars of the Roses Army for Never Mind the Billhooks, again more about that in another post…

I have discovered a great little game called Fantastic Battles which I will review later this week…

Meanwhile here is my latest kit bash the Rohirrim Outriders, scouts for the Eoreds of Rohan

Body and the horses are Gripping Beast Dark Age Cavalry. This rider has a head from Gripping Beast Saxon Thegns with a green stuff horse skull in gold and some extra hair. The bow is from Victrix Dacians as is the right arm and arrow 

 

 

I am not a great sculptor and I admit I was pleased with this

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

I am not too sure where this head came from , may have been Frostgrave Knights, the right arm and spear are from a Victrix Dacian. The horse skull I thought would make a good unit emblem for the Rohirrim, they were further embellished with a crest/plume of horse hair. I may use the colour of the hair to distinguish unts. Grey for Outriders, White for Kings Guard, chestnut for Westfold etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

This chap has a Gripping Beast Dark Age Cavalry head with a magnificent moustache. His right arm is from a Frostgrave wizard, his left is from Perry War of the Roses Infantry. I had to use quite a blob of GS under his right arm pit to get the arm at the right angle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 










I like the idea of Rohirrim being “Anglo Saxons on horseback” so the paint scheme is pretty much that. Tunics have borders that are decorated with strips of coloured woven silk. The tunics have been stained with mostly plant based dyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 



“The Rohirrim were not "medieval", in our sense. The styles of the Bayeux Tapestry (made in England) fit them well enough, if one remembers that the kind of tennis-nets [the] soldiers seem to have on are only a clumsy conventional sign for chainmail of small rings” Tolkien Letters No 211

 

 

 

 

 

 


 
This figure will be the leader, I  nearly always represent the leaders of my units as bareheaded.


"Outriders" are only mentioned a couple of times in the books and no description is given. It is likely that they are not a designated unit or troop type but simply some riders who have been given the scouting role. However, I like to imagine a light cavalry type, lightly equipped, no armour, adept at skirmishing with a mix of bows and throwing spears.



 

I am not aware that Tolkien ever describes the Rohirrim as all wearing green, as they seem to in the films, as far as I can recall, the only mention of the colour green associated with them is the description of the emblem of the house of Eorl “a white horse upon green”

 I guess that may have been done in the films for the effect of a mass of riders all in the same colour so I have assumed a lack of uniform. 





 

 The bow strings are cut from an old paint brush, a cheap decorating one from Wilko








Although looking at the pictures I have used a lot of green! The shield designs are my own kind of based on Anglo Saxon art (a bit)

This is my first attempt at using a light box to photograph figures, I think I should find something other than brown wrapping paper as a background!

 

 

 

 

Ambush!