Song Of Blades And Heros Battle Report: They Be Goblins! We Be Heros!

Recently there have been a number of battle reports posted on the Song of Blades yahoo group and reading them gave me an itch to play a game myself.  Conveniently enough I also have a bunch of freshly painted fantasy minis so throwing together a couple of war bands was a snap... especially because I actually used stats right out of the book!  Sure, it's a minor thing but I'm pretty sure I've gone with custom stats every time I've played so this was definitely something new.  But enough talk; its time to fight!

For this game, I decided to have a group of adventurers raiding a goblin camp, an ironic little twist that just made me smile inside.  On the adventurers side, they were led by the heroic cavalier with her stalwart companions the human barbarian, the human wizard, the human crossbow woman, the elf warrior, the dwarf crossbowman, and the gnome crossbowman.  For the goblins, the bugbear warrior was the leader, supported by the goblin shaman, the goblin archer, the troll, and goblin warriors A, B, C, D, and E.  As you can tell, I really went all out for this one, right?

The goblins deployed in the center of the board with a few of their numbers within their tents, while the adventurers were split into three groups moving onto the board.

The first turn, almost all of the adventurers moved forward.  The cavalier and the barbarian both moved to lock down two of the goblins, while the wizard and the human crossbow woman (let's call her the hunter) tried to get into position to try to get off some shots next turn.

Meanwhile, the gnome and the dwarf were busy discussing the finer points of beer making and failed to notice that the rest of the group had started the attack.

The bugbear warrior charged out of the tent and launched a devastating attack against the cavalier, driving her to the ground under his furious assault.

Meanwhile, the goblin in the wedding dress that had been charged by the barbarian swings wide and is knocked to the ground!

 

One of the goblins that had been herding the troll charged the barbarian and caught her by surprise, sending her crashing to the ground next to her first attacker...

 

...while yet another goblin surged forward and was able to inflict the killing blow on the now helpless barbarian.

On the other side of the camp, the goblin archer tries to finish off the cavalier but she is able to block the lethal blow with her shield.

 

With the rest of her warband stunned by the turn of events, the cavalier tries to get to her feet but she is still too shaken and can do little more than brace herself for the oncoming onslaught (you guessed it, she rolled three failures...).

Sensing victory was close at hand, the bugbear warrior bellows "And now you die hu-man!"  and slams his mace down at the cavalier.  With lightning quick reflexes, she manages to roll out of the way in the nick of time, narrowly avoiding the powerful attack!  The rest of the goblins howl in anger and frustration as they focus completely on the combat unfolding in the middle of the camp (and now it was the goblins turn to fail...).

Seeing her opening, the cavalier uses the momentum from her roll to get to her feet and launches herself at the goblin archer, slicing his body in half with the force of her attack (now that's what you call a gruesome kill!).  Shaken by having his victory stolen away from him so easily, the bugbear howls in confusion and fear and runs away from the battle, with the troll and two goblins in tow (though if I'd remembered that he was Fearless this wouldn't have happened... whoopsy!).

On the other side of the camp, the elf warrior charges only to be knocked down by her goblin target while the goblin shaman who had run out of his tent when the bugbear fled now turned and ran in the other direction as the wizard directed her magics against him.

 

At this point I remembered that the goblin war band never took their morale check for loosing half of their numbers, which quickly sent more of their numbers scurrying towards the edge of the table, including the shaman.

With most of their warband dead or fleeing, it was just a case of the adventurers mopping up the stragglers before they burned down the goblin camp, leaving nothing but ashes.  Victory for the... good guys?

Sure there were some serious mistakes in there that might have changed the course of the battle (forgetting about Fearless, forgetting about the morale check...) but honestly it was so much fun it just doesn't matter to me.  It was a chance to get my new models to the table and play a fun game which is a perfect combination in my book, and definitely makes me want to get this game back into the rotation, even if it is just for a few solo games.  Of course looking at the Relic Knights Kickstarter also has me wondering about adding some anime flavor to Song of Blades but more on that later.  Until next time...