To The Depths Of Hell We Go...

Hello everyone and welcome to another installment of the Dispatch!

For this one we are finally going to head into the exciting conclusion of the slightly modified Fear and Faith battle report. Will Brother Lucius and his condemned brethren be able to drive the vicious evil from the forest once and for all or will the wolfkin pack prove to be too powerful? And what was the fate of the girl the pack had stolen? Press onward to find out gentle readers!

All Alone In The Woods
A Slightly Modified Fear And Faith Battle Report

For this battle, I once again pulled out some of my forest terrain from the previous battle report (glad I made a bunch of the stuff!) plus that new piece I made, the summoning circle! The wolfkin are trying to open an infernal gateway in the circle while the redeemer must stop them and save the girl if possible.

What, a summoning circle? Just how the heck is that supposed to work? Glad you asked.

Truth be told, there are no mechanics for this kind of thing in Song of Blades or Fear and Faith but it was easy enough to work something out. Before the gate can be opened, the four sigils on the ground have to be activated. When the scenario opens, none of the sigils are activated yet. To activate the first one, the bloodmage just needs to be in the circle. Each successive sigil after that requires a quality check to activate. For the second sigil, one success is needed, for the third two are needed, and for the fourth three successes are needed. Once the fourth sigil is activated, the gateway is opened and the redeemer's warband automatically loses.

The wolfkin deployed around the summoning circle on top of the hill...

...while the Redeemer and his troops deployed along the edge of the board.

The wolfkin won the initiative and began with the bloodmage activating the first sigil of the circle while the rest of the pack advanced across the board.

The Redeemer's warband also advances across the board and one of the condemned blades manages to get off a lucky shot, taking down one of the wolfkin!

The wolfkin respond in kind as one of their warriors charges forward and kills the Redeemer himself while the bloodmage activates the second sigil.

Seeking revenge for the Redeemer's death, one of the brutes charges forward and attacks the wolfkin warriors but only manages to push it back. Meanwhile, the other brute engages the other remaining warrior while the blades run past and head for the hill.

The warrior makes short work of the brute but the blades are still free to try to get at the bloodmage on their next turn while the bloodmage activates the third sigil in the circle.

The blades charge up the hill but neither of them is able to get a shot off at the bloodmage, while the remaining brute is stuck in a stand off with one of the warriors.

The bloodmage fails to activate the last sigil this turn but one of the warriors charges one of the blades and manages to score a gruesome kill, sending the last blade running away from the carnage. To make matters worse, the blade then falls his morale roll for the warband being half strength and heads for the hills. This leaves only one brute to try to take out the bloodmage before he can activate the last sigil.

Still locked in combat, the brute makes a desperate attack against the warrior engaging him. One lucky kill is all it would take and the wolfkin would have to test their morale for half strength buying him more time. No such luck though as they match each other blow for blow.

These last seconds are all the bloodmage needs as he finally activates the last sigil and sacrifices the girls, ripping open a gateway to Hell itself.

All and all, I really like how this battle played out much more than the original games that I'd tried using the Fear and Faith rules. Not only does ShadowSea expand on the special abilities that are available in the basic game, it also introduces some new mechanics in the game as well. For example, in the basic rules you can only move into hand to hand and then spend an action to attack. ShadowSea takes this a step further and introduces the concept of charging, giving you an additional bonus in combat.

ShadowSea doesn't have a fear mechanic like Fear and Faith does but honestly I found it a cumbersome addition so this is no big loss in my opinion. Then again, it would be easy to add in back in if you wanted as the basic mechanics are so similar which is one of the nice things about the Song of Blades games. It seems relatively easy to takes pieces from one and add it to another so that you can create whatever type of game suits your fancy. In fact I'm in the process of making my own mod using the Malifaux universe but more on that later.

The Parting Shot...

And there you have it! Sorry this battle report has been so long in the making but it finally here. Hopefully you've enjoyed but if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave a comment here on the blog or you can drop me a line at SinCitySnowman@gmail.com. Until next time...

And Through The Woods To The Other Path Over Yonder...

Hello everyone and welcome to a slightly gear grinding installment of the Dispatch!

This week we are going to continue our look at Fear and Faith by Ganesha Games but with a slight twist. In the last installment, we set up the scenario with a little bit of flavor text and picked out the miniatures that were going to be used. Since then I crunched some numbers and put together some stats for Fear and Faith so I could give them a run-through to make sure that it was balanced in both numbers and game play. Unfortunately things didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped and some changes were in order. Just what am I talking about? Read on to find out!

All Alone In The Woods: Stating Up, Trying Out, And Then Completely Changing
A Slightly Modified Fear And Faith Battle Report

Originally I'd planned on digging a little deeper into the custom system used by the Song of Blades games to show just how I put together the various stat lines for this scenario. They came together quickly enough so I tried a few test runs with them to make sure that they would be balanced against each other in application as well as value. Turns out there were a few problems.

The biggest one is also one of the key flavor aspects of the scenario, none other than werewolf special rule and its nemesis, silver weapon. As it stands out of the book, werewolves are somewhat indestructible. Due to their supernatural origins, the only way to kill a werewolf is to use a silver weapon. Use anything else and you can pretty much just forget about it. The problem is that when you do use a silver weapon, you are almost guaranteed to kill it dead as silver is lethal to them. The real problem with this in my opinion is that there is no middle ground. Either they are bad ass and they rip you apart or look at them and they fall over dead. Doesn't make for a very exciting game now does it?

In an attempt to find a way around this problem, I went in a different direction and took a look at the ShadowSea ruleset. For those that aren't familiar with it, ShadowSea has been likened to a more advanced version of Song of Blades by the author of the original so I decided to pick it up and I was not disappointed.

Among the changes in ShadowSea are more detailed rules for interacting with the gaming environment, a more in depth magic system, and a full campaign setting for starters. After checking out some of the changes to the basic rules (such as charging into combat for a bonus), I flipped to the special abilities section to see what exactly they had in store. All and all, the list not only seemed more extensive but also more detailed in some ways. Skimming through the list I was able to pick out several different abilities that looked like they would be much more fitting for the scenario that I want to run so I grabbed a pen and got to work building my forces.

So how exactly did things turn out? Right now I'm still fine tuning things but things have been much closer in the test games that I've tried so I'm looking forward to doing more with the ShadowSea rules. As for the battle report, you'll have to come back for the next installment of the Dispatch as Brother Lucius and his band try to stop the vile wolfkin led by their bloodmage! Will they stop the evil plan of the bloodmage? Can the save the girl from a horrible fate? You'll just have to come back to find out!

The Parting Shot...

That wraps up another Dispatch but there is still some more to come as we wrap things up with a slightly modified Fear and Faith battle report! Will Brother Lucius and his followers be able to save the girl? Just what did the foul werewolves have in store for the child? All will become clear soon enough. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them right here on the blog or you can email me at SinCitySnowman@gmail.com plus you can like the blog on Facebook now too! Just click on the like button to the right. Go on. Do it. You know you want to. Until next time...