It has been far too long since the last time I put fantasy figures on the board with the correct-sized base and in more reasonable numbers. As fun as the rank and flank of the Old World has been, my heart is much more skirmish-focused. Having received my copy of Famous By Our Swords at Salute (directly from the author himself), I suddenly realised I was eager to get back into the swing of things. More importantly, I was excited to get my Sister and the Regular opponents into the latest version – we enjoyed the last time we played and with a few tweaks (and the whole new monster generator section) it’s time for us to buy far too many random figures and get them on the table.
The First Regular opponent to hit the table was the Creative one. Driving down from the Frozen North, it turned out that he had been assembling a set of figures from Victirx and Wargames Atlantic for some Medieval fellows and (as is the habit with his army collecting) had built enough fellows for a full-size company. For our intro games, we decided to minimise the group to only five figures, a mixture of heavily armoured nobles, spearmen and a crossbowman.
On my side, I had originally planned for the party to go up against a trio of Last Sword’s Werewolves but alas, my painting was not done (I will blame Tarkov and a morning working in the garden). Instead, I delved into my pile of minis and prepared several scenarios.
For game 1, we played a familiar mission – the party out in the wilderness finds itself set upon by the undead, the taint of necromancy guiding their unholy movement. To compound the issue, the Necromancer is protected by a Hedge Knight, stomping across the field to be a real threat to our heroes.
As the horde descended, the fighters formed up. Taking point were the two heroes in the group, sword and board and with heavy armour. On the flanks, the two spearmen would provide some standoff (spears form a bubble 1″ around the wielder, which requires a test to pass) while the crossbowman would be able to ping things at range. Attempts to get the charge on the enemy were thwarted by the second hero being unable to pass the resolve test needed to charge something terrifying.
Soon, battle would be joined as the zombies made contact and the hedge knight waded in. The zombies have a nasty habit of only dying after the necromancer is killed, so there is very definitely a bit of spinning plates to keep them down so you can concentrate on the rest. On the other hand, the Hedge Knight was a very real threat (with a similar statline to the main characters) and able to wade in. There were a few close calls, but a one-two punch from the spearman and then the hero managed to wipe him out before he could do much damage.
With the bulk of the group keeping the zombies at bay, the second in command managed to push through the line of the undead and sprinted towards the necromancer. You may have expected the necromancer to go down immediately, but he did manage to hold off a few combat rounds before getting his head stomped in by a knight. Once the necromancer was down, the rest of the zombies got cut to pieces, letting the heroes manage to lead away.
After having reached the rest of the company, the Knights received a new contract from the local Baron. A visiting noble needs an escort to the next town. Fortunately, our Knights are available with a small group taking him across country while the main group took the longer roads. However, while trekking through farmlands, the group suddenly hear the sound of a clanking automaton before a Golem leapt out of the crops and into an ambush.
Yep, the poor poor Siccarian Ambassador is back – and potentially about to be in serious trouble.
This was a relatively simple game – the Golem started with three activations and gained more as he took wounds. He was also using the Cave Troll statline, meaning he could send opposing characters to the ground, ignore armour, and completely ignore any attempts to parry or block due to the fact that he was hench. There was plenty of back and forth in the fight, the Knights able to swarm the Golem, while my awful dice rolling meant the Golem was much less effective than he could have been. Next time I’d be tempted to give him an attack that would let him attack multiple enemies in a single attack, to represent a big swing.
However, as the battle continued, the wounds started rolling in. The Knights saw two people go out of action (one of the spearmen and the Necromancer slaying hero), but the Golem’s programming meant he was quickly forced to make a run for it. However, while making a break for the board edge, one of the crossbow bolts ripped through the monster’s head, breaking it into pieces as it removed the final wound.
Having finished the pair of games, it’s safe to say that the Creative Regular Opponent is very happy to play some more FBOS. The rest of the company will soon be gaining names and statlines and then from there we may launch into a campaign. We also got to talking about how the fun the possibilities are with FBOS for just getting together all the figures you might want to use, while the ruleset allows for some fun tactical plays thanks to its activation system and flow of combat. It’s also a great starting point for setting up your own little rules, in a similar way to many RPG systems, with plenty of options and entry points for minor rules tweaks – we already start looking at how you might add the rules for weapons or abilities using the built in keywords and adjusting them; maybe aswordmaster or two who can switch between Riposte and At Bay special rules on a turn by turn basis for just a starting point.
The next step for me is to finish off painting a few things. But I am a terrible person for all things new, and small-scale fights are just asking for the arrival of some sneaky fellows. The latest month of the Last Sword’s wargamers tier adds to their Dark Elf range and brings with it my favourite Dark Elf unit, the Shades. Once I get these cleaned off and assembled, I’ll have a little warband of murder elves all ready to go up against the Regular Opponents.
If you want to give Famous By Our Swords a go for yourself, you can find it over on Ko-Fi in paperback (with a PDF version hopefully returning soon). Eoin’s store also has their fantastic range of hero figures (one of which I still have to assemble) as well as Clash of Banners, the slightly larger scale game that everyone with an Old World force is eyeing as a possible add-on. If you’re wanting a fantasy RPG-lite skirmish game and want to support a small creator, definitely take a look!
For now, I return to plotting how I shall deal with someone’s Dwarves…
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