Blame Thorfin, Apparently

Having a lot of free time on my hands last week, I made one of my extremely rare visits to the other Leeds Wargames club, and on this occasion there were games going on and managed to score a place in one.  So that's good.

Some of the chaps were having a go at a set of Dark Age Rules, unfamiliar to me, but free on the net, called: Age of Blood.  This being organised by Rob of Keep Your Powder Dry.

We each took a small warband, headed out in the search for treasure.

By comparison to Saga, Age of Blood is a very different beast, a far more conventional game, with multiple characteristics for each warrior, varied weapon and armour combinations a traditional action based unit control sequence, etc, etc.  In short there is nothing particularly new here.

Whilst two of the other players had a fairly open skirmish around a hill, myself and Mick lined up our men into shield walls and went at it toe to toe; it soon came down to moving down the line in an almost DBMM style, rolling opposed D10's for combats, we quickly worked out how to decided the winner without consulting the rules, which thankfully sped up the process.

The rules at least gave the impression that we were ignoring a lot of potential here, but I'm certain it would require a solid scenario for the best of them to come through.  I think they are more suited to a Mordheim-esque, semi-role play, style of game.  There are rules for mythical beasts of the Scandinavian world in the rules and a campaign systam that at least makes this a sensible proposition.

Still, as a dark ages skirmish game, I found it old fashioned and slow compared to Saga.  However it needs less figures and is free so it certainly has a niche; you decide.