The king decided it was high time for a tournament, and called for a test of arms to be held near the abbey at St Ronald’s. Above is the field, Baron Mountcastle is on the left with his faithful men, and Lord Brightfort on the right. Alternatively, blue commander on left, red on right! It’s a classic king of the hill situation, whoever can take and hold the hill first wins!
Mountcastle’s men: Foot knights, mounted sergeants, and bowmen.
Brightfort’s mirrored force.
The first move goes to Brightfort, who maneuvers his sergeants to the left flank, hoping to block the cavalry of his rival. The rest of the troops make a straight rush forward.
Mountcastle moves straight forward, determined to have the hill.
I had my own personal dice roller for this game. You can see the finesse in her throw, it’s all in the wrist after all!
The end of turn three sees Brightfort’s cavalry removed from the fight, while Mountcastle’s sergeants are flanked by enemy foot knights. The archers are having a hard time getting clean shots on targets before melee ensues, but Brightfort’s are about to get the chance Mountcastle’s foot knights, who are lingering just in sight and range.
They get their shots in, but it costs them dearly, as the the end of turn 4 sees the foot knights of both sides clearing the board, while their lords truly “Duke it out” atop the hill (pardon the pun).
The game ended with all figures stricken from the field except the knights and lords. Mountcastle took the hill, and Brightfort ceded victory, as the two lords’ faithful knights both attempted to perform flanking maneuvers to help their lieges.
Maneuvering was tight, but not as tight as expected for this game. Honesty, the most impacted units were the archers, with their shots blocked by the hill! Movement calculation was easy, as the blocks are exactly sized to work with Chainmail’s movement (by coincidence).
Also, I finished my dungeon walls (tentatively) as promised. Gloss varnish has been applied, moss and matte varnish may be applied later. Another view, I’ll get them setup in a design soon.
A close-up of the large gate piece and my paint-ridden fingernails (sorry).
Which rules are these?
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to ask which rules you use for your RPG gaming.
Hi there! The rules used here are Chainmail by Gygax and Perren, with the pay-what-you-want supplement “Hauberk” available on Wargame Vault (and maybe DriveThruRPG). Hauberk has an adjusted table for melees with smaller units that sometimes works better than Chainmail’s “4d6 per figure” rules! I substituted a d12 for 2d6, because although I know it messes up the statistics, I just didn’t feel like rolling more than one die! For RPG’s my go to tends to be DnD (3.5 or a horrifying amalgamation of 3.5, ODnD and 1E Basic) or my “heartbreaker” I’m writing and hoping to publish by the end of the year.
DeleteI'm interested in the rules too; this reminds me a bit of a Featherstone ruleset I tried last year. I have also considered running rules for a tourney from White Dwarf Magazine issue 215; there are rules for a large melee in there, as well as your classic duel.
ReplyDeleteI used Chainmail with the PWYW Hauberk supplement (it just changes the melee table to use less dice). I’d like to get my hands on a Featherstone book, I just haven’t bought one on Amazon yet. This battle was heavily inspired by https://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2013/06/midsummer-mayhem-in-tradgardland.html?m=1
DeleteOver at the Duchy of Tradgardland, and he used some rules from Charles Grant that I’m having a beast of a time tracking down!
Great looking game!
ReplyDeleteThanks! There’s more to come, things are moving along over here.
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