Blood & Valor First Action:
Brits vs Germans WW1 late war
It has been almost 2 years since Kati and I got a game in to blog. Not to say we haven't been playing miniatures we just have been doing a lot of fantasy and not recording our games. For some reason we just do not have the drive to record our fantasy games. Which is reality doesn't make a lot of sense because they are just as interesting and can be wrapped into a nice story but I digress....
The good folks over at Firelock Games have been developing a new rule set that is for ww1. Based on my previous post it should be well known that we enjoy Firelock games rule set blood and plunder a lot and we also love ww1 war gaming so picking up Blood and Valor was a no brainier.
When I got the email that the rules had shipped I immediately dug out all the WW1 terrain and figures and set to making up a table. The day the rules arrived I dove right in.
Turn one started with us learning the bidding system. The system is pretty strait forward, you have a pool of initiative points that based off the units you have at the start of each turn. before each activation you bid up to 6 points and whoever bids the most goes first. this drains your pool and if you bid 0 points the unit only gets one action compared to the normal 2.
Kati went first and used her officer which can use command points to give units actions out of turn. She advanced out of her trench with about half of her force.
I responded by cracking a joke about how she was as naive as a captain in 1914 sending her men over the top in front of a HMG. Of course fate rewarded me with a complete miss on the roll.
My trench raiders would gain the reward of first causalities of the game from the German HMG that was better crewed then my own. 2 men gone out of 4 rendered them pretty useless.
I ran my rifle grenade squad out into the cover of crater.
The end of turn one saw the Germans aggressively advancing through the gap in their wire line and my Brits doing a more caution advance.
The rest of the turn was spent with both sides advancing and exchanging fire. The run markers which we used purple chips grant a unit a small bonus to being hit. It worked well.
End of turn 2 left us both feeling pretty worried that we would be ripped to bits before we could gain any objectives.
Turn 3 sees my men jump the wire after a successful wire check.
I advanced a firing line that scored a pretty good hit one her advanced guard.
End of turn stalemate
Turn 4 sees us both lose a unit of riflemen
Kati loses another rifle unit in turn 5
End of turn 5 we both realize this game would be decided by who controlled the center objective.
We both got our squad to the center.
The game ended with both of us holding the center and the two objectives in our own zone making it a tie. If the game ends in a tie then it comes down to points killed giving the game to Kati and her Germans.
So what did we think? After the game my worries that it wouldn't feel like ww1 were gone. The game played fast and intense. We felt like it played well and after the first turn the bidding system was a fun addition to the game. We are interested to try it again as we were finally in the swing of the game as it ended. We felt like the sniper and barrage under performed but we also kinda forgot about the barrage and the sniper missed a lot of easy shots due to bad rolls.
We usually use Chain of Command for our ww1 and we love chain of command but it can feel a little slow at times so we will see if the speed of play out ways the the historical feel of CoC
The good folks over at Firelock Games have been developing a new rule set that is for ww1. Based on my previous post it should be well known that we enjoy Firelock games rule set blood and plunder a lot and we also love ww1 war gaming so picking up Blood and Valor was a no brainier.
When I got the email that the rules had shipped I immediately dug out all the WW1 terrain and figures and set to making up a table. The day the rules arrived I dove right in.
No surprise the book its self is great and well made. The rules themselves are clean and easy to understand especially if you have played Blood and Plunder. Now upon reading the rules I have to admit I was a little worried. Like I already mentioned if you had played B&P you would have a good idea of the rules because they look at first glance like a direct port of B&P to another period. B&P are a solid set of rules that use a d10 system with range bands and stat lines and a fatigue system that represents the morale of your troops. There are differences and I figured I should play before I pass judgement(I am glad I did). Run tokens and an interesting bidding systems are a couple of the changes that looked promising.
The last section of the book is of course the army lists which I was excited to read. I do not like being negative when discussing rules and a company that I adore but I am pretty honest and this is my/our blog. The army lists were very disappointing, Blood and Plunder's army list are a rich and exciting adventure. Full of unique stats and lots a flavor that make each nation diverse and very different. Blood and valor is the opposite the stats are generic and each nation has a unique rule but beyond that a riflemen is a riflemen with the same stat-line for each faction etc. Now one could argue that in this period most armies were trained about the same, while I disagree that a German storm trooper and a Ottoman trench raider are not equal, I will let that slide. You could do that and use the different squad layouts to make each nation feel different. In the rules as written your rifle squads all can be up to 12 men and get an LMG and grenades upgrades. American rifle squads were up to 17 men and french added two LMGs to squads for example. This could have added a rich and unique feel to each faction and since its a point based system it should in theory be balanced. Bolt Action of ww2 has a very similar point system but limits and expands squads based on historic unit sizes.
Anyway enough about the rules before we played lets get into the game.
The game is meant to be played on a 3x3 or 3x4 which felt weird as I set it up but as we played it honestly felt perfect for the amount of figures. I set up a table and because it had been awhile I put as much terrain as I could to capture the feel of ww1.
The game uses a point system that suggests 150pts so Kati and I built using this amount. She as usual played the Germans and I went with the Brits. We both went with a Captain which is the 2nd tier of leaders. you are required to take 2 core units of riflemen as well which we both gave LMGs and grenades too. We both took HMGs as support I took trench raiders and a third rifle squad with rifle grenades and Kati took a sniper and a barrage. Based on the units that you take they grant you initiative points for the bidding system. I ended up with a starting initiative of 13 and Kati with a 14. As you can see from the pics this is a small action game representing trench raids and small scale fighting.
We rolled off for scenario and got conquest which is an objective based scenario with a objective in the center and 2 in each deployment zones. The interesting thing to note about the scenario system is that it is a 6 round game and you get points at the end of the game for holding objectives. one point for objectives in your own zone 2 points for the center and 3 points for the opponents zone. So its all scored at the end of game and scoring off your own means you can score off of a stationary HMG.
Kati went first and used her officer which can use command points to give units actions out of turn. She advanced out of her trench with about half of her force.
I responded by cracking a joke about how she was as naive as a captain in 1914 sending her men over the top in front of a HMG. Of course fate rewarded me with a complete miss on the roll.
My trench raiders would gain the reward of first causalities of the game from the German HMG that was better crewed then my own. 2 men gone out of 4 rendered them pretty useless.
I ran my rifle grenade squad out into the cover of crater.
The end of turn one saw the Germans aggressively advancing through the gap in their wire line and my Brits doing a more caution advance.
I bid 6 points in the first activation to get my HMG firing and it paid off hitting the advancing squad hard.
The rest of the turn was spent with both sides advancing and exchanging fire. The run markers which we used purple chips grant a unit a small bonus to being hit. It worked well.
End of turn 2 left us both feeling pretty worried that we would be ripped to bits before we could gain any objectives.
Turn 3 sees my men jump the wire after a successful wire check.
I advanced a firing line that scored a pretty good hit one her advanced guard.
End of turn stalemate
Kati loses another rifle unit in turn 5
End of turn 5 we both realize this game would be decided by who controlled the center objective.
Kati used her commander to try to advance her last rifle unit of the wire. They failed their wire check and got hung.
The game ended with both of us holding the center and the two objectives in our own zone making it a tie. If the game ends in a tie then it comes down to points killed giving the game to Kati and her Germans.
So what did we think? After the game my worries that it wouldn't feel like ww1 were gone. The game played fast and intense. We felt like it played well and after the first turn the bidding system was a fun addition to the game. We are interested to try it again as we were finally in the swing of the game as it ended. We felt like the sniper and barrage under performed but we also kinda forgot about the barrage and the sniper missed a lot of easy shots due to bad rolls.
We usually use Chain of Command for our ww1 and we love chain of command but it can feel a little slow at times so we will see if the speed of play out ways the the historical feel of CoC
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