Medieval Battle-Bear Yourselves Valiantly

On the 27th of February the group got together at Guardian Games and we had another test run of the rules Bear Yourselves Valiantly.  If my count is correct this is the third time with this rule set.  We generally like them but are still making mistakes with some of the mechanics which is causing frustration for us. Over all we enjoy the rule set.  Also this game was a test run for Alyssa to GM the rules, who will be running a Roman vs. Celtic battle at Enfilade in May.  

This particular battle was just a line them up and beat on each other type of game.  We had 6 total players with Alyssa being the GM and me as her assistant. 

Four of players had a winger commander and two battle groups except the two players Ken and Kevin who were the respective Kings for their sides. They had the King, a wing commander and a battle group.  The wing commanders in this game each had 1 to 2 units to control as well.  My thought behind this was to give the forces a chance to exploit advantages or plug holes where needed.  Even the Kings had their own units.   I forgot to get a picture of the units on their starting lines.

This is was after the first set of moves with Kevin's army (the right side of the picture) pushing forward.  You can see how full the table is with miniatures. Outside of a dozen stands or so these is the total of all of my 10mm medievals on the table at once.  Looks AWESOME!

Dave was holding down Kevin's left flank and continued to push forward on Jesse who had one battle group Retreat after 1 turn.

On Kevin's Right Flank Jack pushed forward to only be met in the middle by Jeff's forces defending Ken's Left Flank.  The battle there would seesaw all night.

Dave's forces are moving in after Jesse's battle group retreated.

The middle of the battle field between the two Kings was a bloody mess.  Both sides hammered away at each other turn after turn.

A close up of the action between the two kings.

Jesse's battle group never recovered from their retreat but he was able to throw one stand from his other battle group in between the retreating force and Dave's steamroller.

More of Dave's forces engaging Jesse's.

The battle between Jack and Jeff was a bloody affair with Jack's Battle Group finally retreating. 

One last overview of the battle before we called it.

The battle ended up in a tie with the opposite flanks, Jesse and Jack's forces retreating.  Next time we run a game of this I will create some sort of victory conditions as I feel we have gotten over the hump, somewhat, of learning the rules enough to a go at a proper scenario.  The Yahoo Group for this rule set "Look Sarge! No Charts" are great at answering questions when we have issues and that has helped immensely. 

Overall we had a great time as usual. We have a great group that taunts each other and likes to have fun. We argue sometimes over rules but this a great bunch of people to be associated with and I'm glad they let me play.

Bear Yourselves Valiantly "Benevento 1266"

This past weekend I put on a game of "Bear Yourselves Valiantly" by John R. "Buck" Surdu and company.  I had played this particular set of rules while at Historicon in July and really loved how fast I picked up the mechanics and how quickly the game flowed.  I was able to find 1 vender at Historicon who had the rules (Silver Eagle Wargames) and bought them on the spot.  While on the plane home I started to read and digest the rules.  I setup a game for 8/15 and set about creating the special dice needed for the game and creating my own roster.  Since this was a test battle I didn't want to modify my current basing system so I creating slugs that accommodated the 3" frontage that the system suggested. I had bases for with that frontage from trying out Impetus.  

I hit up the local game store and bought some blank dice and cut and pasted the labels for command dice onto them. I made 5 sets only because the game store didn't have enough blanks for a 6th set of dice. The command dice work like this: a unit which is a base 3" wide or a commander, and lets say they want to charge, the unit rolls a d10 and a Green die and Blue die for infantry or a Yellow die for cavarly. If they roll higher than their morale value they will look at the blue or yellow die and that tells them what the unit does or does not do. For example you can close with a +1 in melee or just close and so on.  If you rolled lower or equal to your morale value then you would look at the green die. It could tell you to stand and don't close or close and be -1 in melee and so on.

As I read the rules I wrote down questions I had and sent a flurry of emails to the yahoo group. All were answered very quickly and adequately. 

As time rolled up to the appointed date I decided to pick medieval battle (since I had the troops) and then picked the battle of Benevento 1266 as the setup for the game.  This would turn out to be a my first mistake for that night.  Not really realizing how "slow" rough ground would make movement and most of the Benevento battlefield is fought over varying rolling hills.  I should have just lined up the forces on the table with a few scattered pieces of terrain and called it good. 

Saturday arrived and I loaded up the car and took off.  Now mind you I hadn't actually setup the battle previously to see how well it would fit onto the table I was going to use.  

We actually played this game twice. I screwed up the melee rules something fierce the first time around and was killing off stands fast than the plague.  So after I realized my mistake and much apologizing to my group we reset and started again.  I was confusing two sets of rules, Piquet and this one. Boy what a blunder. 

These two photos show the beginning setup of the forces.  The Ghibelline army has the low lands and are setup behind stream. Historically the Ghibelline forces were the attackers and why the commander Manfred of Sicily chose this place is beyond me.  Charles the 1st of Anjou holds the high ground and historically is the defender.  The historical outcome is Manfred is killed and Charles the 1st becomes King of Sicily and starts the Anjou rule in Sicily and Southern Italy.

Also Historically the 3 battle groups for each side lined up one behind the other. I didn't have the depth to do this so I improvised.

Two bases together created the 3" frontage for the game. Underneath is the slug and some Locktite Fun-Tac holding the bases onto the slug.  The label was a quick way to identify who was who.

A few more views of the forces gathered for this battle. There are a lot of mounted Men at Arms in this battle. Very little in the way of infantry especially on Manfred's side of things. He only brought Saracen Archers.

The battle kicked off with the Saracens making it across the river with the German Mercenary knights behind them.  Charles' infantry and crossbowmen waited for them to approach.

The bridge really slowed down the center battle group. In the rules an object like a bridge has a capacity and that means only a certain number of bases can cross it at one time. The bridge was a capacity 2. So only two units could be on the bridge at any one time.

Charles' right flank. The Knights are holding the high ground but it really isn't conducive for mounted combat.  Both sides closed in on each other. 

The Saracens continue to march forward.

Charles' crossbowmen open up and cause hits.  On the next phase the Saracen leader failed his morale roll and had to retreat. He never made it back into the game.

Charles' knights can't wait any longer and start to move toward the slowly advancing knights.

The right flank saw the majority of the action during the game.  Both sides causing each other to bounce back and return the next the round for more combat.

The Saracen archers retreat as the German Mercenary knights push forward. 

The bridge crossing.

More action on the right flank.

The Saracen archers retreated and attempt to rally and would attempt for the rest of the game.  The German knights take up a defensive position on the river banks.

Charles holds his troops from advancing.

The middle battle group starts to turn towards the right flank to help its fellow knights.

Charles' knights turn toward the German knights and close.

Manfred's left (Charles' right flank) crumbles with a failed morale roll and begins to retreat.  We played two more turns with Manfred's left retreating and the follow up by Charles' right flank.  We called the game after 3 hours, not counting the restart.

Over all the group liked the rules even though I screwed up some of the rules and so on.  They liked them enough that we are playing them again in September.  I will continue to reread the rules and ask questions over on the yahoo group.  I liked the rules and I'm trying to think of something to run at Enfilade this coming May.  Have to get a few more games under my belt first.