Song of Drums and Shakos

Tuesday night at Dragon's Lair, the local group was playing Song of Drums and Shakos Large Battles, a Napoleonics game using the Song of Blades and Heroes game engine.  The rules include activation rolls and contested combat rolls, but with SDS you add more dice to your roll instead of modifying a single die roll.  Also, every failed activation roll gives your opponent a chance to react with one of his units.

Careful readers will note that the miniatures are American Civil War troops, which we used to proxy the French and the British.  It didn't detract from my enjoyment of the game, but I kept hearing the Battle Hymn of the Republic whenever I looked at the table.

It was a fun game, with the rules slightly different than SoBaH, but still easy for a player of that game to pick up.  Since I was just using reference sheets, I can't tell you much more about the actual rules, but the game does play fast like all Ganesha Games offerings.

I'm not that familiar with the Napoleonic era, so I couldn't tell you how historically accurate the rules are, but Joe, who's more of a historical guy than I am, seemed satisfied with its verisimilitude.  And most important, we all enjoyed playing it.

Today's gaming find brought to you by HPB

Another score from Half-Price Books: Mutants and Death Ray Guns, a post-apocalyptic skirmish game based using the versatile Song of Blades and Heroes game engine from Ganesha Games.  If the fantasy game SoBaH is analogous to Dungeons & Dragons, then MDRG's related to Gamma World. 

It's got mutants, androids, hi-tech, and, of course ray guns.  It also has a campaign system that can be completed in one setting, since a single battle can be done in about half-an-hour to 45 minutes.  Fun stuff!

New Blog (of Void and Stars)

From the Void and Stars blog.

One of the creators of Song of Void and Stars, the upcoming starship combat rules from Ganesha Games, has started a blog to chronicle the game development.

Called, appropriately enough, Void and Stars, the blog only has a couple of entries so far.  The introductory post describes the game as a "task force"-level set of rules, with one or two capital ships and several escorts on each side.  Unlike most spaceship games, SoVaS also has character types (admirals, captains, engineers, and so on) that can affect play.

Of particular interest is this Song of Void and Stars playtest report.  It describes ships with characteristics such as "superior" or "assault" (and also launch missiles and fighters--successive missile salvos have a cumulative negative affect on their target) and "legendary" characters that can ensure automatic successes.  The game also has morale rules, so vessels will warp away to escape instead of fighting to the last ship.  I look forward to learning more about this game.

Latest Song of Void and Stars playtest

From Mémoires d'un joueur

French gamer Arsenus has conducted another playtest of Song of Void and Stars, this time three versus three.  You can read the French playtest report on his website, or go to Google's English translation of the playtest.  From the translation of his summary:

Combat is very tactical and you have to manage as the inertia of vessels which, on my little table, is really strenuous exercise!

I'm looking forward to seeing the SoVaS rules.  Thanks, Arsenus!

More Song of Void and Stars

Photo from Mémoires d'un joueur blog.

French wargamer Arsenus has posted a report of another playtest of the Song of Void and Stars rules to his blog.  This time it was a two-on-two battle, using the same game stats for the vessels but with Star Trek ships.  This report is in English as well as French, so no need for an online translation.

The report gives a few hints about rules for SoVaS.  Tabletop effects such as nebulae and pulsars can subtract from a craft's combat value.  Ships can attempt to repair damage.  Some of the special abilities for starships include:

• Evasive Maneuver
• Point Defense Support
• Target Painter
• Missile
• Light Fighter Hanger

In addition, publisher Andrea Sfiligoi gave a brief update in an email to the Song of Blades and Heroes mailing list:

It's a fast system where each player controls just a few ships (I have played with 4-5 although I'm certain you can play with more if you want a  longer game). Target release date is first half of 2012 but I can't be more accurate at the moment, as we need a point system and there is a ton of special rules to playtest.

(For earlier reports on the spaceship game using the SoBaH engine, go here and here.)

Merci, Arsenus, for the battle report; and grazie, Andreas, for sharing more details.

Sunday Starships: Song of Void and Stars

Photo from Mémoires d'un joueur blog.

Remember last spring when I mentioned that Ganesha Games, the publisher of Song of Blades and Heroes, was working on a spaceship game based on SoBaH?  I didn't either, till just now when the game's author posted a link to a playtest report of the new game, called Song of Void and Stars.  The blog, Mémoires d'un joueur (Memories of a player), is in French, so here's the blog post translated into English (courtesy Google translate). 

Like all machine translations, this one's a little inexact, but apparently the game uses different colored tokens to track damaged and destroyed ship systems.  I don't know if it's the playtester's idea or it's in the rules, but I do like the concept of using fighters to represent missiles in the game--let's face it, in most starship combat games, fighters are pretty much disposable ordnance.

In this particular playtest, damage to the Rebel ship knocked out its control systems, forcing it to fly through an asteroid field, making it easy for the Imperial vessel to finish it off.  Seems like SoVaS will be a quick-playing game that would allow me to put a lot of ships on the table.  I'm looking forward to learning more about Song of Void and Stars.

Song of Stars and Silence

I heard about this a couple of weeks ago, but once again I procrastinated until now.  Turns out Ganesha Games, publisher of Song of Blades and Heroes, is coming out with its own set of starship combat rules. 

Awhile back on that mailing list, the SoBaH author mentioned in passing that his company is working on a generic SF (presumably skirmish) game as well as a spaceship game.  I asked Andrea Sfiligoi for more details and learned the following:

• each player controls a small force (3-6 ships per player)
• games last about one hour
• comes with predesigned spaceships or players can build their own
• torpedoes, fighters, etc. are represented on the game table
• combat is two-dimensional
• damage system kept very simple to minimize use of counters (playtesters used puffs of colored smoke with different colors indicating different damage classes) 

I like the fast play, back-and-forth action, and customizable forces of Song of Blades and Heroes.  I will be interested in hearing more about how Ganesha ports those features into a spaceship game.  No word on what the game will be called, so I came up with Song of Stars and Silence.  What's your suggestion?