Mister 2 B-I-G Billhooks - A Great Day Out

 

Mister 2 B-I-G Billhooks

On a cool, crisp October morning sixteen people from across the country met to decide who was to be the Top General, ye King of ye Day, the Big Cheese, the Head Honcho, the Biggest Billhook. They came together at B-I-G, that is Bristol Independent Gaming, an excellent venue, run by a friendly professional team, providing the very best in gaming experiences. And they did not come alone! Marching across the green fleeces of fate were troops from all over Europe, happy Yorkists and dour Lancastrians, bearing their various Roses, their were Happy Few- the English army of Henry V, each eagerly stepping into the breach, there were brightly garbed Venetians and assorted other Italians waving their pretty banners, shiny armour clad Imperial Teutonic knights on tall horses still kicking the snow from their hooves, chivalrous French chevaliers and their unwashed peasanty hordes, the colourful Burgundian veterans of many a campaign each bearing a bright Burgundian banner and, issuing forth from their mountain fastnesses, the feared Swiss and their terrible pike blocks!

What a Lot of Billhooks!

Back row L-R Elliot Davey, Ben Mallet, Lloyd Lewis , Andy Callan, Troy Lennertz, Jan Ash, Steve Blease, Ian Callan Nathan McGowan

Front Row L-R Colin Bright,Noah Tovey, Jason Tovey, Me, Andy Milburn, Simon Wilde, Rob Squires, B-I-G Jim

Mister B-I-G Billhooks is the nearest thing to a competitive tournament for a non-competitive community playing a non-competitive game. Each General plays three games against various “randomly” picked opponents and scores points for winning the game and for each enemy leader they kill or rout off the field. They score three points for winning and one point for each “point of leader” disposed of. Players were asked to keep a tally of coins taken and this would decide any tiebreaks.

And what do they win? This magnificent trophy! …and of course, bragging rights. Andy Callan is the current Mister B-I-G Billhooks reigning champion having beaten his long-time friend Steve Wood in an exciting very close game in the original Mister B-I-G Billhooks tournament earlier this year.

We had eight tables and on a spare table laid out the terrain pieces, woods fields and hills. A terrain buffet!

The Terrain Rule. Each table had one, two or three terrain features, using a d6 to decide, 1=1 piece 6=3 pieces, any other result = 2 pieces. These were placed by dividing the table into 6 parts each two-foot square, and using a d6 to decide which square to place the terrain in. The terrain was placed the centre of the 2-foot square  and then randomly moved by the players using dice to decide direction and distance. If a piece of terrain would be moved to a table edge, then it was moved it in the opposite direction Orientation of the terrain piece was decided by mutual agreement of the players. 

Andy Callan v Nathan Round One “Irresistible force (Nathan McGowan’s Teutonic Knights - with snow on their boots) about to meet immovable object (my Swiss - who proved solid as an Alp… they must have had their muesli!). This was Nathan’s first game of Billhooks- a tough call indeed but played like a gentleman! Better luck next time!” Andy Callan Billhookers are a friendly supportive bunch and there is nothing incongruous about a first-time player playing against a reigning champion and author of the game! Seasoned players are asked if they will tutor first timers and ease them into the game. The game itself is so capricious that even a brand-new player can topple the most experienced veteran given a good run of luck!

Player comments on the pictures are taken from Face Book. Each player had a Results Slip to fill in after each battle stating the result, how many points of generals they had killed and how many coins they had taken.There was also a Comments box and comments made there I have also used .

  Round One Jan v Jason

  Rob v Jim behind

“This was the moment when I thought I’d had it! Jason’s light cavalry ignored my bow/bill block up on the hill, in preference of hitting my general’s already weakened block in the rear to try and clinch victory. Somehow my archers HELD, preventing an over-run into the Men at Arms which would surely have been the end. Their rear temporarily secure, the M@A were spurred on to beating back the enemy general in front of them (just). Then, Hastings 1066-style, the bows on the hill rained a volley down onto the now fallen-back enemy general, who took an arrow to the eye through his visor slit, ending the game" Jan 

   Noah Tovey v Ian Callan 

  Ben Mallet v Simon Wilde behind

 Troy v Elliot

Colin v Andy M behind

Lloyd Lewis v Steve Blease Round one “All those knights and scouts! Better place our stakes and go full Agincourt! It certainly was a particularly close fought battle and great fun. Both Light Horse were the stars”-Lloyd

same game Lloyd –“Yonder Gonne took it’s toll on Robert Hungerford’s ward before his brother went on the rampage with the light horse. They daunted and then finished off two veteran units before being bounced from the flank of a disarrayed unit. Had they won the game would have been mine”

After the first Round, while we were eating our delicious B-I-G Chile, the Generals lined their armies out on the tables for inspection for the Best painted Army competition.  This year’s worthy winner was Rob Squires with his English Hundred Years War army which Rob describes…

My force, led by the Earl of Oxford as he tries to plunder back the wealth lost by his predecessors! He's employed a free company to help him do so. On the far left we have Robert Hoon (Red and White) and on the right Barbus the Cuckold (Yellow and Black). Both those characters are based on mine and my brothers’ characters from an old game. Up front we have the coulourful and fancy Jinetes (AKA Spanish SAS), great for diverting attention away from the veteran longbows and men at arms!

Rob;s Rainbow Jinetes! They may look pretty but they are a veritable scourge on the field

There was some stiff competition though! This wagon supporting Ben Mallet’s Yorkist host caught my eye…

...with it's cheeky score board! 

Ian Callan’s supply tent. If anyone wondered how Ian’s French knights managed to charge around the whole day long…

…this chest has the answer

Robin Hood Weetabix ad

After the First Round Andy Callan was in the lead on 7 points, Rob and Jan were both on six

The Second Round saw Elliot’s Yorkists playing Rob’s English Hundred Years War. By using the core rules as a default, we found it easy to use armies from different regions against each other.

  In the background Martin v Simon-a real grinder! A hard fought, very close game that produced various howls and yowls and the occasional roar of triumph! 

Rob “At this point my veteran archer line was very close to having to take a moral check…

…Luckily the brave men at arms jumped in front just in time and all Elliots arrows bounced off their armour!”

“The push up the hill won me the game. Barbus (yellow and black leader). Got rid of Elliot's cavalry and then turned in to his main force which had been congested by the terrain”. Rob

 Simons Venetians v Andy’s Yorkists. A real meat grinder of a game, fought with grim determination and ridiculous dice throws on both sides. Andy won-just!

Lloyd v Jim

Behind them the two cherry poppers play off Noah v Troy

Ben seems amused to be facing Ian’s French Knights He did win so…

 Behind Jason faces the reigning Champ!

This was game that I wanted to see! Nathan’s Teutonic Knights v Steves Burgundian Gendarmes

Steve's beautiful Citadel Burgundian gendarmes

The Rest of his army are not too shabby!

 Nathan’s Crusading Teutonic knights had brought the snow with them!

This did not end well! Steve’s kniggets proved the stronger on the day! 

B-I-G certainly know how to host a Tourney! There were goody bags containing 6 harquebus armed skirmishers with their own movement tray, three custom made Billhooks measuring devices, (in picture) two unique Special Event cards provided by Wargames Illustrated and a free pencil!

After the Second Round Andy Callan has a narrow lead with 13 points Troy and Andy Milburn are both on 12 points, Jan Ash 11 points and Rob Squires has 10 

Round Three

Jan v Ian. Things got very busy for me at this stage of the day consequently I took very few pictures…well…two!

  “Facing two double waves of knights is a scary thing. Scarier still are the light cav lurking behind the trees, ready to wipe out my cowardly entire left ward with a single charge. The centre did its job and held, though. Very lucky with the cards - the enemy mounted general fell off his horse in round 1 so wasn’t able to move! Then my right used the Flank Attack special event to charge into the enemy centre ward, cause mayhem and rout the enemy general off of the table.” -Jan

“The French juggernaut prepares to meet an immovable English wall of steel. It was close but no cigar. Well done Jan. The French aristocracy meet yet another glorious death. Power to the people” -Ian 

The Results!

And then it was all over! A truly wonderful day that everybody enjoyed. It was fantastic to witness the laughter, the triumphs, and the frustrations and one player actually jumping up and down at one time as his opponent rolled another handful of 5’s and 6’s!

Mr Andy Callan successfully defended his title and bore away the prize but every one took home the joy and satisfaction of a good day’s entertainment.

For a competitors view point I would recommend Steve Blease' excellent blog  Bleaseworld 

Thoughts and conclusions

  What an excellent game Billhooks is! Every game is different, every game is fun, they all feel as if they could have been an historical event and no game is won until it is won!

The game works well on every level and the rules stand up to most situations, however, no game is perfect, here are my thoughts following our recent tournament.

Draws

There are only two ways that a game of Billhooks can be drawn that I know of and as far as I know they have each only happened once at Billhooks tournaments. If both Cin C’s are killed in the same melee as happened at Derby in BASH 1 or if, as happened at Mister 2 B-I-G Billhooks, both armies have companies that Daunt off the field in the same end of turn phase and reduce both armies coins to less than one.

In future tournaments at B-I-G if any game runs over time and both armies have lost the same number of coins then the result will be decided by a coin toss, the worse way to lose a game I know, but maybe an encouragement to those that drag their heels!

Knights

Having now seen quite a few armies where Knights are the key weapon and main expense, I have to say that they seem to be underpowered and expensive. At Mister 2 B-I-G Billhooks, several armies had large contingents of knights that consistently underwhelmed their opponents. Increasing their morale to d6+2 didn’t solve this problem. AC has expressed the thought that they should only cost two points each, however, while this makes them more affordable it would not increase their effectiveness. The problem it seems to me, is their consistent failure to daunt or break their opponents leading to them bouncing off the enemy. This is in turn, is exacerbated by losses on “the way in” meaning that they are usually rolling less dice than their opponents. Bouncing works well with light cavalry and feels right but seems a little incongruous with the heavily armoured knights. They end up facing away from the enemy, disarrayed and vulnerable. The fact that they can only charge twice in a battle also reduces their effectiveness. While I think most people accept that knights probably weren’t the powerful, all conquering “tank” of the medieval world that fiction often makes them, they do feel very brittle and ineffective. They are currently rather lacking and incapable of delivering the punch that is surely the wish of every gamer fielding a gloriously painted unit of bold, brave kniggets. I suspect disappointed players would move away from Knight based armies for something that is more effective.

So, what might be a solution? The main problem is not so much their cost as their lack of punch and this is usually, I feel, down to their comparatively small numbers. They are usually outnumbered by the foot that they engage with, particularly if they have lost figures through missile fire. I am wondering whether knights should be arrayed in groups of ten or even twelve in two lines just like companies of infantry. They would then roll 20 or 24 dice! This would increase their impact and put them on a par numbers wise with the companies of Men at Arms that are often their downfall. At two points each, a group of knights would cost the same at 20 or 24 points and could cope with losses. I think they should still be limited to two charges per game.

This would give increasing numbers to each successively more powerful cavalry unit. Bands of six skirmishers, squadrons of eight light cavalry and ?banners? of 10 or 12 knights. I would like to hear other opinions on this and maybe do a few trials.

An Excellent Meeting always established the date of the next meeting, and so I can announce that Mister B-I-G Billhooks III -the Extra Billhook- will be held on Saturday 27th April 2024