Last Stand! A new set of rules of great promise! Have I found my childhood Featherstone?

 

My first experience of wargaming came when as a young boy I started collecting Airfix 20mm figures and with a friend who lived in the next street would set up our armies and take turns to roll marbles at them. This progressed to rolling dice at them and if the dice landed on a six, we could roll the dice again. By the age of eight we had progressed to rolling the dice to see if we had hit them by the number rolled, a 5 or a 6 would do it.

  When I was ten, I found in the local library a book by Donald Featherstone, Advanced Wargaming, that changed my life. Some of the concepts were a little strange and I ached to find the “non-advanced” version, what was I missing?

  I ordered every Featherstone title that the library had, I read Wargame Campaigns, Naval Wargaming, Battles with Model Soldiers, Air Wargames and eventually War Games! 

There was an Ancients rule set credited to Tony Bath that I played to death, I loved its simplicity, it was fun! I created many different armies and drew maps and had campaigns and watched empires rise and fall and heroes win glory or death.

I was very happy. As I got older, I sought more sophistication, more realism, more complexity. I tried games with tables, complex algorithms, percentage dice, any number of sides dice, templates, graphs showing penetration etc and yet…

I never could find that sublime feeling I had as a boy. Yes, my memories are rose tinted, yes, it is nostalgia, yes, I was a child and easily pleased. If I played Tony Bath’s rules now, I expect I would find them unsatisfying, too simple…

There has been a general trend in the hobby back to the simpler gaming experience, buckets of d6, six is good one is bad, saving throws and some excellent games have come from this. Never Mind the Billhooks, Fantastic Battles even Middle Earth SBG which is in itself, pure Featherstone.

A very good friend, James Morris, has now introduced me to his own rule set, Midgard, and I have to say the child in me is very excited by these rules. The game is still in its developmental stage and is being play-tested by a group of fifty gamers who are pounding the hell out of it trying to break the system and refine any weak points. The system is very nearly perfect however, and resisting all attempts to break it! It is almost a finished article and just requires burnishing with a fine cloth.

The concept is a Heroic Battle Game, where the army is led by a great hero and consists of maybe a dozen small warbands of fifty to sixty warriors with several lesser war chiefs and champions to lead them. The game is designed for any pre-gunpowder era but definitely suits Dark Ages, Mythic and Fantasy genres best.

And it came to pass that Angbor the Fearless of Lamedon gathered unto him the men of Lossarnoch, Dimril Dale and Morthond under their captains Forlong the Fat, Dervorin and Duinhir and led the last Great Host of the Fiefdoms of Gondor to the succour of Minas Tirith. In his haste, he did not send scouts ahead and there in lay his doom, for Noblig the Grate, an Orc most foul had called upon his kinfolk to aid him, not least of whom, Shatrag the Unacceptable, the vainglorious Skaythe, shaman, and Skaag the Troll chieftain all of whom mustered their clans and heeding the call followed him to Emyn Arnen, where they surrounded “Man’s Last hope” atop the lonely hill.

Noblig at the centre of his mob of Uruks and Orc rabble

Angbor looks down on the Evil host from the crown of the hill

Ravens Eye view shows them to be surrounded

“Steady boys” counsels Aedwine, captain of the Hearth guard “Angbor has never lost a battle yet!”

Assaulting the Eastern side of the hill came Shatrag the Unacceptable leading a Bodyguard unit of Warg riders, some wolf riders and a pack of wild wargs, huge, slavering beasts with a taste for man-flesh and hatred of all that walks on two legs

With a snaaarl the Wargs leap forward…

..and are obliterated by the spears and javelins of the men of Lossarnoch

Shatrag escapes and joins the Warg rider Bodyguards leading another assault on the grim wall of shields

The Orc advance is relentless

Orc skirmishers, elite trackers, lead the way shooting a constant swarm of arrows

lumbering up the steep slope at the front of the hill come four huge trolls led by their chieftain Splaaag

Fearsome in their fury the Trolls smash into the Men of Lamedon pushing them back up the hill.

Bravely the men lock shields and shouting defiant war cries prepare for their doom

Mighty were the blows struck that day, many a blade was turned by the thick hide, many a spear sought its bed in the hard flesh of the trolls, many were those crushed beneath iron hard foot.

Cerdric the Unbelievable steadys his men with his Inspiring Trait 

Meanwhile on the West face of the hill, Orc warriors rushed into combat with the men of Dimril Dale who were not found wanting…

….wielding sword and shield they drive the Orcs from the hill and being impetuous follow them down from the heights , hacking and slashing at the fleeing foe

However, the Orc host is mighty and drawing support from the other units the Orcs survive the onslaught. The valiant men are soon surrounded and hacked to pieces.

Back on the East flank the men of Lossarnoch deliver a crippling flank charge into the Warg Riders wiping them out and slaying the hapless Shatrag whose luck has finally run out.

  The red arrows are charge/winning the combat markers.

Angbor draws his sword and calling across the din of battle in a voice of brass “Hey you stack of dung, you vermin of Malkoth, dare you wield your blade against mine? I challenge you to single combat!”

  Fearless indeed this Lord of Lamedon but maybe not so wise….

Splaag is not one to refuse a fight, he leaps up the hill and brings his heavy sword down onto Angbor’s sending the man sprawling in the dust.

Angbor leaps back to his feet but has been sorely wounded, blood runs from under his helm, angrily he wipes it on his forearm, raised his sword and with a cry of “Lamedooooon” he charges the monstrous foe

Splaaag brings his heavy rusted blade down from high above his head it scythes through the ancient sword of Angbor’s ancestors and through the brave Lord of Lamedon. Leaning forward the Troll bites off his head and spits it at the shocked warriors

  Angbor would probably have fared better if he had led a charge of the Hearth guard into the trolls using his “Today we Fight To Win” trait which would have given him d6 dice to add to the combat 

But I wanted to see how the challenge to single combat rule would work out and my curiosity sealed Angbors doom

Emboldened the Orcs swarm up over the hill and the battle is soon over, not a man survived the slaughter to come to the aid of Gondor, nor indeed, to bring news of the great defeat.

the tale of the Stones of Reputation. The dark blue ones are for the Evil force the pale blue are those of the Good side.

 A fun game of a one sided “Last Stand” scenario that the Defender can only win by holding on until the end of turn six when much need reinforcements from Dol Amroth will arrive. As it was the cup spilleth its last bead at the end of turn three!

I very much enjoyed this Heroic Battle Game and look forward to many more happy hours playing Midgard. Midgard is due to be published by Reisswitz Press at some future date