Bloody Barons - Playtest

I finally got around to playing Bloody Baron which I bought some time last autumn in my search for a good set of Medieval rules. Since they were stand based I knew they were unlikely to be a winner for me, but as many others have said they do have a nice pre-game section. Mind you rolling about 144 dice (!) to do it seems a bit much! The results of the pre-game were:

• A marsh moved from one table side to the other
• A couple of Yorkist units got extra arrows
• A couple of Lancastrian units arrived late
• One Lancastrian unit deployed on the wrong side of the wood
• One Yorkist unit deployed on the baseline.

The central melee which lasted the whole game!

In summary the Yorkists advanced on the Lancastrian line. On the flanks both sets of bowmen got to grips with each other (the Lancastrians having found their way through the wood). In the centre two groups of opposing billmen rapidly came to blows. A fairly drawn out struggle then ensued with lots of rounds of no hits or all saves. The turn countdown (nice feature) progressed quite rapidly. Both sides lost a bow unit (on opposite flanks) from enemy fire (the Yorkist one going in one turn), most Morale rolls resulted in no result until a Lancastrian unit routed in one turn, the battle in the centre ground down til only 3 stands were left, and by the time the clock ran out the Yorkists were up by 2 units but only 1 actual stand (the final Lancastrian reinforcement having only just arrived!).

ENDEX

It was a fairly small game, needed to be at least twice the size for flavour I expect, but it did give a chance to test the rules.

Likes:

• The pre-game, but could be way simpler
• The countdown clock - but pretty fast

Dislikes:

• Stand based damage
• Having to count leader separation  distances on every unit activation
• Bucket of dice model gave huge swings in results
• Archery generally quite ineffective
• Overall quite hard to cause damage (i.e. to hit and then have opponent fail save)

So not one I'll play again as a whole I expect, but may well steal a few ideas.

I was hoping to then play The Perfect Captain's Coat of Steel but a) the rules looked incredibly context and b) Deborah needed the table for a meeting. Might save Coat of Steel for a retirement project as it looks like you need the time to immerse yourself in the milieu - which is probably also true for Bloody Barons.