Getting Totally Billhooksed!

 

I had two reasons to be in Derbyshire last weekend. The first was to meet James Griffiths at Wargames Illustrated in Nottingham to demonstrate my skirmish version of Never Mind the Billhooks and the second was to play in the Fourth Billhooks BASH at Boards and swords in Derby.More about the BASH in my next post.

My good friend Mark Taylor and I met up with Pete Harris, the BASH event organiser, and a couple of his pals on the Thursday evening at Boards and Swords Hobbies Derby, an excellent venue, and played the new version of Kingmaker. It took a while to get into it and we never saw its full potential but had fun once we got going. It is actually a fairly simple game to play but takes time to set out and learn. I would definitely recommend a practice game before playing a proper one.

We stayed as usual at the Travelodge at the Cricket Ground and I got a room overlooking the pitch which meant I should have quiet night as the other side of the hotel is adjacent to a major road.

  However, my neighbour, who came in after I had settled down for the night, slammed the door and then played the TV very loudly.

I tried to sleep but it got louder until the mirror in my room was actually vibrating with the noise. Exasperated, I banged on their door but had no response. I then realised I had left my key-card in the room; I was locked out and had to wander around the hotel to find the night staff.

They tried knocking, no effect, they tried using a remote to turn the TV down, no effect. Eventually one of them opened the electrician’s cupboard and isolated the power to the room. With the TV off we could all hear through the door the Herculian roar of his snoring! They gave me a spare key. It was now twenty past two!

Ah well, we had to be at WI at eleven, so I could have a lie in…except…the Snoreceror next door, had the loudest alarm which went off at five thirty and he slept through it for over an hour! Banging on the door had no more effect than it had the night before! AAAAAAAARRGH!

And so… to Wargames Illustrated…

Mark at WI Tower. Six months ago, I had the idea that NMTBH would make a good skirmish game. My mate Mark Taylor and I have been playing it ever since and it has evolved from a few notes on a piece of A4 to a full book of over forty pages.

 I sent a copy of it to Andy Callan who played it and gave me some excellent feedback and then I mentioned it to WI who said they would be interested in it. And here we are…

They have so much terrain at WI! It’s a treasure trove of nice set pieces and scatter.

 We decided to demonstrate “Nine Fingered Ambrose” which is set in a monastery garden.

  The table was exquisite.

Mark is considering whether it will fit in the car!

James Griffiths Project manager lines up a shot.

  James is a really nice guy who is very enthusiastic about the hobby and loves a skirmish game. When it comes to setting the table, he is an artist using little piles of flock and sand to hide bases and blend terrain pieces into the table.

and so we played! Nine fingered Ambrose is a scenario from Never Mind the Ruckus (working title) in which a spy bearing information about the King has taken refuge in a monastery disguised as a monk. Sir John Barre and arch enemy Gaston Villa have both arrived in hot pursuit and have to find the spy Ambrose and extract the information from him.

Ambrose has donned cowl and cassock and is disguised as one of the brethren who will not give him away as they are sympathetic to his cause. Ambrose is known by a distinguishing feature however; he has no little finger on his left hand.

There are five monks on the table one of whom is Ambrose. There is a deck of five cards, four tens and a nine. When a character is standing adjacent to one of the monks the Player draws a card. If it is the nine, he has found his man and just has to escort him from the garden to win. Ambrose will not go quietly however and has to be dragged at half speed.

Only a few figures are needed to play Ruckus, each Retinue has twelve, A captain, two squires, three Retainers with Bills and six archers.

   The Retinue changes with different theatres, this is a basic one for playing the in the Billhooks world of Albion

Mark, holding up the sky

de Barres men spread out looking for monks. When drawing skills for this Retinue I drew an extra squire, Bill Squires who takes four archers in a wide flanking movement towards the monk who is feeding the ducks

Mark adopts a similar approach

de Barre heads for the centre of the table

     I use a Perk card to speed Bill up and he reaches   the duck feeding monk “Show me your hands!”

 

     No good, he has all ten fingers

In the centre of the table Gaston Villa approaches two monks.

  When a Bonus card is diced for , the winner has the option to take a card or move a monk

Roger of Hanham and Edmund Strongfellow are not far away

Gotcha! Blizzard barks loudly but the men pay no notice

Soon four of the ten-fingered monks have been found which means that the last one must be Ambrose!

“There he is!” points Manuel Emmanuelle

the spy is unmasked!

  Manuel has him but deBarre is in the wheat field too and is closing in

Bill Squires and his archers never really got into the scrap. Characters are activated on cards as in Billhooks and his card just did not come up

Edmund Strongfellow arrives on the scene

de Barre charges, Manuel points to his bill man “Get him!” he cries 

but de Barre is having none of it and takes Manuel down. In the campaign version, he would be rolled for after the game to see how badly injured he is and what happens to him

 At the end of the field, things are not going well for de Barres squires, both are injured as indicated by the red tokens

  Villa vaults the wall and heads towards de Barre

Left behind and out of command this de Barre archer is marked with an orange counter to show that he is Feckless. A d6 is rolled to see what he does this turn and a one means that he runs away. He is removed from play.

Gaston Villa charges into de Barre soon both are wounded. They each hit each other again twice more.

  They need to roll 3+ on d6 to save from being wounded further…

they both fail to save and fatally wounded fall to the ground. 

We had a great time! The game was well received and will be printed as free give away game IN Wargames Illustrated sometime next year with, hopefully, a nice book to follow.

  An article about this game will appear in June or July’s edition of WI