Battlelore

Jesse_James · Battlelore

Anyone play this?

it is quite fun.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com...e.asp?eidm=15&enmi=Battlelore

Duck Crusader

Yup, got the whole series. As soon as my job situation gets straightened out I'm getting all the monsters for it as well. Remarkable little game, but I can't help feeling it's a little biased toward the French when you first start playing the scenarios. Once you get past the first set of those it evens out though, especially if using the optional deployment cards.

Duck Crusader

Ah, found it. A review I did for WD3 some time back:

A while back I saw this game in the shop and was intrigued, so when I sold off my GW stuff I took the opprotunity to pick it up and I've not been disapointed. I haven't tried the larger, epic mode yet but the regular game can be played in an hour to an hour and a half.

First things first, if you've played Memoir '44 you can pretty much sit right down and play this. If not the starter scenario and rules are laid out in such a way that you can pick it up pretty quick, but you'll need to flick to the back of the book to clarify a few things. Would've been easier if we'd known that first game. The scenario book lays out your starting positions and force composition by simply showing you a printed map with the unit types marked on it, as well as the terrain. The same book also lists how many movement cards you get, what sort of lore council you have, and the number of banners needed to win. more on that stuff later.

The map hexes are all blank on the mapboard itself except for three dotted lines denoting the map sectors, a number of cardboard hexes with forests, streams, hills etc are provided for terrain. Simply place them on the hexes shown on the picture. Units consist of either three cavalry, four infantry, or one monster. They are further split up into light (green) medium (blue) and heavy (red) troops These are supplied with a different miniature to represent each type and level of troop IE there's one human type for light, another for medium an so forth. My main gripe with these is that while the Dwarves and Goblins look like 1/72 to me the humans are about 1/87. Once troops and terrain are done it's time for the cards

First there's a set of cards explaining what your troops do, their weapons, and terrain effects. Enough are provided for each player to have a set but we found it easier to simply place one set to the side of the board so both players could see/reach them. Next you deal each player a number of order cards equal to the amount shown for that side in the set-up book. Finally there are lore cards to be split up using their own formula, but as that's an advanced rule I'll leave it for later. Card holders are supplied to hold all of these so you can see them. Now to battle!

The scenario lists who goes first. Each player takes his whole turn and then it's the other's go. Movement is accomlished by means of your orders cards, which list the sector/sectors and/or unit type and quantity you can move by playing it. Examples are advance left which allows you to move two units in the left third of the board, red banners which allows you to move as many red banner troops as you have orders cards, and calvary charge which lets you do the same thing with your horse. This gets pretty interesting when most of your troops are in one part of the board and you don't have the cards to move them! You only get to play one a turn so you need to be careful what you choose to place.

Battle uses speical dice marked with a helm in each of the three banner colors, a flag, a sword and sheild, and a purple diamond. To fight you roll a number of dice equal to the type of troop you have and every helmet that comes up the color of the banner you're trying to hit kills one guy. Depending on your weapon and troop type the sword and sheild also may cause a hit. The flag is a pushback, and causes your enemy to have to retreat one hex or take a hit if trapped and unable to retreat. The purple diamond is a lore marker, in the basic game it's just a miss but if you're using the lore council it means you get to draw a lore token. again more on that in a bit.

Couple of tactics. One is keep your troops in groups of three. A unit touched by two other friendly units is emboldened, meaning that it's tougher to push it back, and if you fail to do so it may attack you back. Using terrain effects is also quite effective in the game, woods only allow two dice attacks so if you put light troops into them you can lower those heavy infantry to attacking at your level. Hills only allow two dice attacking up but you can use three going down. Finally cavalry can be BRUTAL if you know how to use them. In the course of normal combat a foot unit may move into the hex of a unit it pushes back, but mounted troops can move another hex past that one and fight again that turn.

When you have killed all the troops in a unit you get it's banner bearer which is placed on one of the spots provided on your side of the board. When you've collected a number of them equal to the victory conditions at the end of your turn you win. Pretty simple.

Now the lore council. In the advanced game you have another card representing your commander and advisers. These consist of the commander, a warrior, a rogue, a cleric, a wizard, a cleric, and the option for a creature. When using lore a level is assigned to the lore council, say eight, and these points may be distributed among your council. I'll say I'm going with a L2 commander, cleric and wizard, and an L1 rogue and warrior. The lore deck is then set up according to a formula based on how many lore masters are available to each side. Next cards distributed to each player from the lore deck. The number you can hold in your hand is determined by the level of your commander, and the type of cards you can hold is 1+the level of the loremaster it's drawn from. So my L2 wizard and cleric can each hold up to three spell cards, but my L2 commander says I can have no more than five lore cards in total in my hand.

The lore cards themselves allow a number of effects from spells to battle orders to sneak attacks, based on which of your lore council it's drawn from and their level. A fireball does 2 D+1 per level and so forth. These effects are activated by the lore tokens, the number needed to activate being printed on the card. These take effect at different times during the turn. You can play one during your turn and up to one during your opponent's turn. Lore tokens are aqqired in a number of ways but the two most common are when you roll a purple diamond on the battle dice(one per) and at the end of the turn when you can either draw one lore card and one token, or two tokens, or two lore cards.The use of the Lore council changes the game quite a bit. both saving up to launch large cards and popping lots of small cards seem to be equally effective.

All in all this is a pretty fun board-wargame. The rules are pretty instinctive and by the end of our second game we felt we had a pretty darned good grasp of the game. As we've been playing it seems the French have a slight advantage over the English, and when the fantasy allies are used the Dwarves one over the Goblins. Each troop type and race has it's own unique abilities though and I think overall they're pretty balanced.

Bartacus

I've got the base game and really enjoy it. Like WAS it is a beer n pretzels game which suits the (unfortunately) limited amount of time I get to indulge in gaming.

I may look to get the Epic expansion for Christmas.

I have got a couple of the Command & Colours: Ancients series by GMT which use the same card/battle dice mechanic but with a few subtle differences. I must say I find this even more enjoyable, the mechanics seem to suit the style that ancient battles were fought in very well.

All highly recommended to those looking for light and fun wargaming experiences.

USS Yorktown (CV-5)

The game got somewhat stranded because of a faulty expansion scheme. But, now FantasyFlight Games have taken over the series and it seems like there are some nice things on the horizon like a Heroes and Monsters expansion.

Duck Crusader

As long as FFG can keep their release schedule...

Jesse_James

My Blue flag cavalry felt the wrath of of red flag Iron Dwarves today on the battle field.

They were brave Frenchies.

Duck Crusader

You're supposed to work around those until you HAVE to attack them.

ARK finally won one the other day, but I think the fact he wiped out the Dwarves meant more to him than the win...

Jesse_James

ARK

I was happy, I have always suffered massively at the hands of the dwarves. I really didn't have much of a choice in fighting them either as the majority of my command cards activated that sector.

Jesse_James

Duck Crusader

That makes it crazy, no doubt.

Jesse_James

The order cards do make it unique.

Should be a rule that lets you order X amount of units per turn and throw out the order cards.

I do like the Order cards, they do scratch that itch for something new and different. But some times you just want total control of your army.

Duck Crusader

Which never happens with a real army, and makes me like them aall the more.

Duck Crusader

BTW, I see FFG has the new expansions up on their website.

NjCo

Battlelore is pretty cool and I'm looking forward to the upcoming expansions and most importantly some definite direction for the game now that it's in the hands of Fantasy Flight. That said I'm not as happy playing Battlelore as I am some of the other games in the Command and Colors series from Borg. The addition of the Lore cards made an already random game just a tad bit more random.

I remember in one game I was able to crush my opponent with a single heavy calvary unit. The combination of several appropriate action cards and one good Lore cards gave this one unit the ability to take out three of my opponents units over the course of two turns. The addition of another Lore card in that sequence netted me another unit and that combined with unit that I had killed previously gave me the game. And I've seen this happen on several occasions. Games are more often than you'd expect decided quickly and with little little to no response available from your opponent. That being said, it's still a fun game and one that I rate quite well, just not as high as Memoir '44 or Command and Colors: Ancients. Memoir '44 and Ancients are both very fun though I'd give the edge to Ancients for the best of the bunch. Richard Borg has designed a nice game system that I think lends itself well to linear warfare (Napoleonic era and before). Ancients shines with many interesting scenarios and lots of different units with different capabilities. GMT has been having a hard time keeping the base game and some of the first expansions in stock. Just looking at the expansion line up shows how popular the game is with 3 army expansions available for the base game so far and two more on their P500 list awaiting printing.

And now a comment on the 1st game in the Command and Colors system; Battle Cry. This was a nice game with some great scenarios but it lacked a few key elements which left the game experience a bit wanting. The first was one or two unbalancing cards. The second was that certain cards would end up being useless and would fill up your hand. This would limit your choices and result in a death spiral. And lastly Battle Cry could have benefited greatly from victory point objectives on the map in a way similar to Memoir '44. But there is still hope. FRED distribution has said that they will release an updated reprint of the game. This was announced almost a year ago so hopefully that'll be coming soon.

I've also heard rumors in the past of a naval version of the Command and Colors system that was in playtesting several years ago. And I've heard rumors of a Napoleonic version of the game as well. It's easy plug this system into just about any era of conflict from the early 1900s back so I'm sure we'll see more from this system in the future.

And finally, if you are interested in this type of game and would like to branch out a bit I have my eye on a just released game called Chainmail from Wothington Games by Richard Berg (not Borg). The four scenarios cover major battles in the Medieval period from the 12th to the 14th century. Looks interesting and quite similar to the Command and Colors system.

Here's a link:

http://www.worthingtongames.com/CMmail.html

Duck Crusader

Interesting, but that will make it the third miniatures/wargame by that name. One could hope for a little more originality in the name...

smeagol

BL I found very quick and entertaining to use.

Played it using a whole host of LOTR figures a collegue had collected.

At first i thought, hmmm card based doen't appeal to my tabletop wargamers mind. But once a game got going, everyone got quite hooked instantly, including me! Smile

Great watching 3 games going on at the same time on one 20ft long table and hex cloth lol

Jesse_James

Anyone painted there BL minis?

I have started the process today.

Duck Crusader

No, you maniac, but here's some helpful links maybe.

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/search.mv

*edit*Just type in Battlelore and topics, it won't hold the search for some reason.

Jesse_James

I already have my cavalry painted. Surprised