Knyghte, Pyke and Sworde

Mud and Blood!

Nordic Weasel Games came out with Knyghte, Pyke & Sworde a few months ago(?) (Has it been months?  Stupid Eternal Thursday Virus!) But I hadn't gotten around to playing it because I couldn't get to a printer to print it out, and honestly, my collection of "historical" type minis is sparse.

Eventually, though, I painted up barely enough guys to get a tiny little game going, and just took things slow so I could read the game from my phone.

And of course I'm glad I did.  I'm more of a sci-fi gi, but I'll bet a big game of this would be fun.  Maybe one of my friends will have a couple of good-sized era-appropriate armies to bash together.  (Or I'll just have to paint a lot more guys.)

Ye Setup

I played a "Saga" battle, which as far as I can tell just means it's not an "Objective" battle. The Objective battles look cool, though, in that they're semi-random, and each side gets their own objective.  But I wanted to keep things simple for my first game.

Not too simple, though, so instead of just murdering each other for 5 turns, I went with "Fight for the Hill", although the "hill" in this instance will be that tower in the middle.  The goal is to have more guys near the tower at the end of Turn 6.

Gotta get that sweet tower onto the table once in a while.

Now let's meet our teams.

On the left, we have the Red Team, with a Group of three Missile troops, a Scout, a Captain, and a Group of three Shield Troops.

The Red Captain is green.

On the right, we have the Blue Team.

And it's the same thing.  Shield Group, Scout, Captain, Missile.  They didn't have to be mirror images like this, but again, I was trying to keep things simple for my first game.

The Blue Captain is yellow.

Each Captain (in a pickup game such as this) rolls 2d6, keeping the highest die as a pool of Charisma points.  These can be used to spur figures under their command to further action.  If their Charisma starts at 6 or more, they can spend two Charisma per turn instead of just one!

The Blue Captain rolls 6 Charisma for this battle.  The Red Captain rolls 5.

Turne 1

The Blue Team wins initiative.

Just roll off.  1d6 vs 1d6.  High roll goes first.

Starting with the first player, each activates one of his units and either Moves, Engages, Shoots, or Runs.  With nobody in line of sight, the first turn is just spent advancing via standard Move.  They probably should have Run, but I guess they weren't really that interested in securing this tower before their first cup of coffee.

Red advances desultorily cautiously.

Blue advances slowly as they finish their Egg McMuffins.

Turne 2

Blue Team wins initiative again.

Red Captain spends a point of Charisma to have one of the Missile troops behind the wall take a long shot at the enemy Missile Group in the woods, but misses.  Everybody else just basically moves up.

Don't want to die with unspent Charisma, do you? </foreshadowing>

Turne 3

Blue Team wins initiative again.  Clearly the dice are in the pocket of "Big Blue".

Now for the first real attack.  The Blue Missiles shoot at the Red Captain, but fail.  In return, the Red Missiles shoot back at the Blue Missiles, but it's just a waste of ammunition.  Speaking of, each Missile Group only has three "volleys" of arrows for the game.  I actually forgot about this and had to go back and count.  Luckily I was taking notes.  They're both down to two shots left. (The one guy firing by himself earlier doesn't count.)

"Pew! Pew! Pew!"
That's what arrows sound like, right?  I mostly do sci-fi.

Finally, some action!  There's been plenty of mud, but where's the blood?  Two of the Red Shields gang up on one of the Blue Shields, but only wound him despite out-manning him.  That Blue Shield is pushed back and suffers attack and movement penalties for the rest of the game.

Yikes!  Does that seem like an awful lot of blood for one guy?

In retaliation, the Blue Captain (dressed in yellow, of course), bravely uses his huge Charisma to order the wounded Shield to advance on the enemy that attacked him!  The Blue Shield only wounds the Red Shield, but another Charisma point from the Blue Captain gives him another chance, and the Red Shield goes down!

Sometimes, a Group that suffers injuries or loses members has to test its Bravery, but it's a hard age and these are hard men, so a Group has to suffer two casualties in the same Turn to worry about it.

Blue Captain: "Hey, Shield!  Are you gonna take that crap from a Red?"

Alas, the Blue Shield's end-zone dance is cut short by the Red Captain.  He rolled a natural 6 to hit, so it's a Critical Strike, meaning he rolls an extra die for damage. 

Referee: "Excessive Celebration - Blue Team!  Penalty: Death!"

Turne 4

Red Team wins the initiative! (Finally.)

The Red Missiles shoot at the Blue Shields, hitting twice, but the Shields are Shields for a reason!  Their special ability is to ignore missile fire on a 5 or 6, and they totally get two sixes.

"Thonk! Thonk!"
Yeah, that's totally an arrow hitting a shield noise.  Nailed it!

Then the two remaining Blue Shields charge a Red Shield and the Red Captain!  The Red Shield slays the Blue, but the fight between the Red Captain and the other Blue Shield is a tie!

Except it's the Blue Shield Leader!  (He has the most rocks on his base, obviously.)  Every Group is led by a more experienced soldier, and that's this guy.  The old, grizzled veteran wins ties, even against Captains!  Moreover, he rolled a natural 6, which is a Critical Strike!  He rolls 3 dice vs Armor 3 and gets 4, 5, 6!  That's three successes, and it only takes two to Knock Out an enemy.

The enemy Captain is down!  All of the groups within 8 inches have to test Bravery!  The Shields fail and rout off of the table, but the Missiles hold fast!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the building, the Red (well, purple?) Scout sneaks around and stabs the Blue Scout, wounding him.  The Blue (well, yellow) Captain then activates, spending a point of Charisma to have the Scout attack at +1, offsetting his -1 for being wounded. Unfortunately, he only manages to drive the scout back! The Blue Captain steps around his ally and wounds the Red Scout himself, before spending another Charisma to send the BlueScout in again, finally Knocking the Red Scout Out!

C-C-C-Combo!

At this point, Red concedes.  The Red Missiles only have one more shot left, and aren't great in close quarters, and they're facing off against 3 enemy Missiles, a fresh Captain, and a wounded Scout.  They only have two turns left, and the Red Team can just stay hidden behind the tower, like chasing a dog around the dining room table.

Ye Ende

There you go.  For a pretty simple rules-set, this was surprisingly engaging.  And the fights all felt desperate and brutal, which I suppose is in keeping with the way things would be.  I'll definitely be interested in getting more figures together and playing against somebody who isn't me in the future.

A link for them what are interested:

Knyghte, Pyke & Sworde on WargameVault

(That ought to keep 'em busy for a while.)

Ĝis la revido!"

Jason "Ludanto" Smith C;E