Evaluating WotR rules Take Two. Bloody Barons 2020

As previously trailed this was supposed to be a game of Armati, but I dumped it because...well I wrote a blog explaining why.

I have a stack of rules to try and I'm not going to get through them all in the time I need to, so this is going to get a bit "random" as the kids say. I ordered some figures from Peter Pig for a couple of DBA armies last week and I had them add Bloody Barons to the order. I have played Version One (2005) many years ago when it was new out, and caught a glimpse of Version Two in 2022 at the COW in Shrivenham. (BTW they're selling off remaining v1 copies for £3, so I had one of those too). As v2 has ended up on top of the pile because of the way I emptied the packet, I chose it for this week's game.

Typically for an RFCM rule book there's a whole load of pre-game stuff to generate a scenario. As we only have so long in an evening and because the pre-game looked harder to teach than the rest of the rules, I availed myself of one of the historic battle scenarios in the back of the book. I chose Mortimer's Cross as the set up was the closest there was to a straight set up and fight game*. 

The rules work on a grid (for this game look at the white dots, not black lines), with most units moving on tram lines. Sideways movement is possible at a risk of disorder, and no diagonals are allowed. The rules contain a lot of familiar RFCM mechanisms, but also a load of new ideas. The old Action Points system has gone, mercifully. Inconvenience comes from elsewhere.

I did give each side an artillery piece as well, just to see how the rules work. Chris and I took the Yorkists, against Phil & Steve, reprising their dream team from last week. 

Everyone had a playsheet, but only I had the rules. I read them through a couple of times, but this was really a learning game, so patience was required.

This photo is after a pair of moves. We've closed up and on the right (my side) we've exchanged bowshot and I've come of worse. I'm "Low on Arrows" (red counter), mostly "Out of Order" (green markers) and have taken some half base casualties (white rings). The rules work on "half base" hits, but I don't have any half bases, and I don't have enough full bases to double the size of units so I can take a base off as a half base. If you get what I mean.

Steve "Assaulted" me, and I came off second best. We were learning as we were going on, and I hadn't realised all the implications of being "Out of Order". I should have done even worse.

The combat system is BODs with quality based saving rolls. That gives you "hits", some of which convert to "casualties". Hits determine who wins (and the winner then gets bonus hits) but Casualties reduce your fighting strength and cause Morale checks. You are allowed to re-roll all of your dice in combat once per turn. This is a quick way of doing a bit of smoothing for extreme results. Theoretically.

Next up the middle two "Wards" collided. Despite having Edward of March, we came off worse and got pushed back. On my wing, my opponent's "Unreliable" commander had decided to fall back, rather than follow up. This give me a breathing space, and I was readying myself to swap out some damaged units for some recently arrived reserves.

This is the final picture of the game. Edward's Ward has been pushed off the table and is lost. Even with that re-roll Chris couldn't generate enough hits to hold on.

We hadn't reached to end of game count down, but that was probably that, so I put the kettle on and we talked it all through.

Chris isn't a fan. He thinks it is too finickity and complicated. To be honest, it isn't a Chris sort of game, as you have to pay attention to the process and do things in the right order rather than just get on with things. Phil was much more favourable, and it was clear during the game that the pieces of how it is supposed to work were dropping into place one by one for him. There are some things about it that I really liked. The zones work well, and the artillery reload rules are simple and clever. All units shoot (except pikes) so there's no nonsense about sending archers forwards and backwards. Commanders are important and can have a real affect. Movement is simple, and there's a nice mechanism to put jeopardy into doing anything other than going straight forwards or backward. It has an odd little mechanism for shuffling units around before you move, called "Pulling in". I can't work out what the justification for it is, but it works really well. As I said, Phil was more favourable towards the rules than Chris. Steve didn't express too much of an opinion. Phil's view is important as out of the four of us he spends as much time thinking about how WotR combat worked as I do, if not more.

I think that I'd happily play these rules a few times more, to really get to the bottom of how they work as an entity. I prefer them to several of the other specialist WotR rules I've played - for example I'd say they are vastly superior to "My Oath Sire!" and "Test of Resolve". I think I still prefer "Blood Red Roses" overall, but there's probably more flexibility with Bloody Barons. Must try "Never Mind the Billhooks" next, although that might need to be a solo game

So perhaps I'll forgive Martin over Edgecote Moor.

*I didn't choose the Edgcote game on principal. It's listed as "Edgecote Moor 26th July". At least in BBv1 it was called Edgcote. The main source for the scenarios is Haigh's Military Campaigns and a few Ospreys.