Bad Wars on Trial

Bad Wars Trial Game

This week at t'club Dave K and myself had decided to have another trial game using the AB Games rule set 'Bad Wars'. Previous quick trys had given a promising taste of the rules and highlighted some good points and looked to be promising but we were put off slightly by the exceedingly poor state of the writing and layout of the rule set.

Since it had been longer than we had planned to give the rules another try the learning curve was pretty steep at first but once going the ideas got to flow again, and indeed we picked up a couple of things we had previously missed.

Although the game was exceedingly frustrating, due to the fact that some things just weren't explained or seemed to suppose that the player is already familiar with the AB system and so not explained at all, all in all the rules do give the flavour and feeling of the period through various mechanics which give the non-professional armies an thoroughly non-professional result with troops sometimes not arriving on time or being forced to halt due to lack of command and the War Tokens, if used with some sensibilities can be quite funny or just adding to the period feel.

The game we played was a fairly small 1000pt a piece game with Dave having poor luck in the deployment phase and struggling to get his troops on the table and barely getting past the start line whereas my French got off to a better start but managed to defeat themselves in a thoroughly French manner and recklessly charging off willynilly at the enemy and Dave's artillery and crossbow dealing out death and destruction.

The actual feel of the shooting and combat is quite similar to WAB, and although different mechanics the result can be similar with good dice rolling resulting in devastating results. Such are fast play rules.

In summary, we are going to give the rules another try with some modifications to a couple of points mainly on the deployment and the War Tokens and try to put together some form of play sheet to ease the flow of the game since there are some gems buried in the debris worth salvaging.

On a similar but different note I see that Foundry have put their 'Condottiere' rules on for pre-order along with the first releases of their Condottiere range of Italian figures.

Condottiere Renaissance Rules

The foundry site has several page previews of the rules, (click on the title above to take you there) and these do look quite nicely produced with good production values but little in the way of info on the rules. What the previews do give is a couple of sneak peeks into other figures Foundry are going to release in this new range, which look to include mounted crossbow and arquebus and new landsknecht and men at arms along with the Italian infantry already released. These appear to be by the same sculptor who has done their new medievals, which I am sad to say is a shame. Some look to be OK and useable, others quite chunky, basic poses and little detail. Could be that these ones pictured in the rules are from the Medieval range. Still good to see more figures for this period and even some usable is a good thing. You can make your own mind up on what you think;

The new range can be viewed here.

I will no doubt pick up a copy of the rules to see if there any good as part of the perennial search for a good set of Renaissance Rules.

On a completely different note, a welcome to the Warblog is due to Galpy who has joined us this week. His blog 15mm Paint Shack should be checked out for some very fine 18th and 19th Century figures and lots of other goodness. 

Bad War - New Rule Set

This weeks club game was a quick test game of the new(ish) Renaissance rules from AB One Games called Bad War.

The basic rule set covers the Italian Wars and the 16th Century generally and is of the same ilk as the AB One's 'Father Tilly' Rules, which I had heard of but never played.

We have been looking about for a different set of Renaissance Rules for a while and have not found an alternative set we liked completely, and aren't fans of FOG (although the Ren Version do look interesting) so seeing these rules on TMP we decided to give them a go.

Plonking down a random mix of troops, we went through the rules for the first time.

After having gone through the rules and playing a few turns the agreed verdict was that they were a fun set of rules to play and would certainly give an alternative to the more serious rules available elsewhere. The only down side to them is the appalling layout and generally bad writing, I would guess they haven't been proof read or at least not by someone who didn't already know the rules. They have probably been cobbled together from the previous rule sets as there are a lot of redundant terminology which may be left over from 'Father Tilly'.

That aside, we did enjoy the mechanics (once understood) and liked the War Token idea and the fact that the game produced a light hearted, fun, fast play game.

We'll certainly be playing them again, although the Army Lists need seriously tweeked, maybe the author doesn't play the period?

AB One Games have also produced a couple of supplements for the rules; French Wars of Religion and Tudor Warfare, both of which look interesting if a bit pricey for 26 page pdf's, but I will probably pick these up too.

There are more supplements promised in the pipeline.

Also this week I've updated ALBAtwo with a few bits and bobs but mainly with piccies of the finished terrain piece, the first of my 'Abbey' terrain project.

Check out the full finished article in the Terrain Gallery here