Song of Blades and Heroes
Fantasy Miniatures Skirmish Rules Review
Song of Blades and Heroes is a fast play, skirmish level fantasy miniatures system for two or more players. The rules are simple, fast, and above all fun. This revised edition based on the original, Origins Award-nominated set adds many clarifications, tweaks, and additional materials developed with thousands of players over four years.
Contents
- Title: Song of Blades and Heroes – Fantasy Miniatures Skirmish Rules
- Period: Fantasy-Medieval
- Type: Tactical Wargame
- Time Scale: n.a.
- Ground Scale: 1:91 (10 mm = 1 yard) for 15 mm Figures
- Troop Scale: 1 figure = 1 human, creature, or swarm of critters
- Author: Andrea Sfiligoi
- Illustrators: Andrea Sfiligoi, Jim Hartman
- Format: 66 pages, soft bound
- Language: English
- Publisher: Ganesha Games
- Published: 2012
Evaluation
Song of Blades and Heroes is a simple and easy to learn skirmish game based on a clever activation system using one, two, or three dice per figure, at the player‘s discretion. While multiple successful activations allow a single figure to perform a string of actions in one turn, there is the inherent danger of multiple activation failures which may end the player‘s current game turn prematurely. As a result, player‘s are encouraged to activate their best fighters early in a turn, rather than risk losing the initiative when less experience figures fumble a multiple activation die-roll.
Song of Blades and Heroes is played with eight to 15 1:120 scale figures on a 2′ × 2′ table, or 3′ × 3′ table for 1:72 scale and larger figures. If 20 to 28 mm miniatures are deployed, ranged combat has an effective range of 180 mm and maximum range of 540 mm, compared to 120 mm and 360 mm for 15 mm figures, respectively.
Song of Blades and Heroes favors melee over ranged combat, allegedly because that makes for a better game. While players may spend extra points to make their personality figures “legendary shots” or give any archer, crossbowman, of slinger “unerring aim”, this in no way mitigates the unrealistic longbow and composite bow maximum effective range set at only 36 yards! That‘s simply ridiculous! Archers typically engaged enemy troops at 300 to 400 paces, the equivalent of effective musket range which also played a key role the design of fortifications.
Song of Blades and Heroes offers ready-made statistics for 200+ monsters and heroes, but it is actually quite easy to create a character by selecting a unique set of skills from the list of 135 abilities provided in the rules.
To keep things simple, Song of Blades and Heroes is played without reference to individual weapon statistics, which are presumed to be factored into the combat skill of a miniature. While this convention may work well on average, it does ignore the fact that lowly militia could and did defeat well-trained men-at-arms, provided they were armed with pikes and their morale held. Of course, ill-trained pike formations are probably beyond the scope of this set of skirmish rules.
Ranged combat in woods is handled in a counter-intuitive way (p. 21). Shooting inside a wooded area is allowed at short range, as it should be. Shooting out of woods is allowed, as well, if the figure is at the edge of the wooded area, so far so good. However, a figure shot at from the edge of a wooded area cannot return fire at the shooter. To do so, the figure is required to move up to the very edge of the wooded area and return fire from there, at point blank range. It makes little sense to treat a shooter positioned at the edge of a wooded area any differently than a shooter using a hedge or similar linear obstacle for cover. Other than Song of Blades and Heroes and its derivatives, wargame rules typically give the target of such shooting the opportunity to detect the shooter once the shooting starts, and to return fire at a target in soft cover.
Song of Blades and Heroes is a clever little game system designed for small skirmishes with a dozen or so figures per side, which can be played to conclusion in less than an hour.