Wednesday 8 April 2015

Lock Stock n' Two Snarlin' Bondi: The Game

Tonight's game was merely an excuse to get some Vikings onto the tabletop with a borrowed setting from one of our favourite films... 13th Warrior. Unfortunately in these times of austerity and cut backs, there's only 7 Norsemen, but that didn't prevent Maff going in hard

Sven Hardcnut (Huscarl) leads his small band of trusted Hirdmen
against the Wendol who have been terrorising the Jarls lands

 
The savage Wendol appear from the rock formations..... 
Huscarl Ulfhednar (Terrifying, Fast)

 Sven, shouts "You dogs! We will feed you on your own bones!"
 and leads his Hirdmen in a ferocious charge

 Snarling, cursing, swords, axes, and shields clash
Red dice = Blooded; Black Dice= Great Blow
Our Viking hero, pulls off a stunning Saga Feat, wounding the
Wendol leader in the process but receiving a Great Blow in return

The final moments. Back to back the Norsemen are cut down.
Sven calls upon Odin to help him take as many as he can to hell....
before wounded, he succumbs to a Killing Blow from the Wenol leader.
Odin has other plans for Sven so we will see him again

The rules worked well despite the fact that the odds were stacked in the Wendols favour. I treated them as Viking Ulfednar with a +2 melee roll against Hirdmen plus Fast and Fearsome traits. The Fast gave them the advantage in the first round of combat and the +2 often gave them first blood.

We use a Combat Matrix based on charactre types for melee which has three levels of combat result depending upon the dice score. Whatever colour we try to give this table it essentially boils down to light and heavy wounds or outright killed. Character types can amass a certain number of wounds before the next wound of whether light or heavy becomes the killing blow.

Armour and shield modifiers may reduce the impact of a successful dice roll, downgrading a heavy wound to light, or light wound to no effect. Conversely a two handed axe or famed sword may turn a light wound into a kill for a Bondi or a heavy wound for a Huscarl.

A double six represents Saga Feat........ there's separate tables for that filled with various heroic acts pulled from the Sagas or movies.

The one thing to note is that this is a one dice roll combat system. There's no defensive roll. No saving roll. No return swing with the axe if you've been killed that turn. You are rolling on the outcome of the fight that turn. If the guy with initiative rolls high.... that's your bad luck. If he rolls low...you can steal initiative next tun and land a blow on him. It keeps the game cracking along at a pace.


Cheers
Mark

4 comments:

  1. Every time I came up with a mad Norse insult or threat I scored a wound. I think when I said "my sword will cut you a way through Hel's gates" it was a kill. If I didn't, I missed. You could not make it up.

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  2. Great AAR. The naming did make me laugh!

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  3. Lovely miniatures and scenery. Loves the slightly mythical nature of the battle.

    -Eli

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  4. They look great! Well done. What scale is this and where are the minis from? What fun!

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