Thursday 13 August 2015

Soldiers of God with Michael Perry

Earlier in the week I introduced Perry Miniatures to Soldiers of God and ran an intro game for Michael, on his very nice desert terrain boards with his superb Crusaders collection (a hard day's work that). The game went down well, with Michael taking command of the Crusaders and conducting a left echelon attack with his Knights supported by Turcopoles, whilst I fougth with the Saracens, using Advance and Harass, horse archers on both flanks. All the miniatures are from the excellent Perry range (as are many of mine).

Michael picked up the rules quickly and, after a couple of hours, his attack had narrowly broken my force, his Knights proving themselves some seriously tough-hombres as they battered their way forwards, being in melee from turn 1 until the end of the game. My horse archers struggled this time, I didn't see many Loose! action cards... but the repeated Rally cards probably kept me in the fight far longer and made the game closer than it felt. I always felt under the hammer on this one.

Here are some shots of the game in progress. You can see more pics on the Perry's fb page.

https://www.facebook.com/perryminiatures?fref=ts

Soldiers of God is now available from Perry Miniatures, in the books section of their website.

www.perry-miniatures.com

 The Saracens lines, horse archers left and right, infantry, archers and ghulam in the strong centre.

 The Crusader's right, men-at-arms backed by archers (and the bishop in command)

 Here they come! The Crusader's hammer-blow from their left, Knights and Turcopoles behind.

 In command in the centre, heroic action by this command stand would prevent my horse archers getting behind the centre and causing chaos.

On my right, the horse archers gallop forwards to torment the Knights, but this time in didn't work.


 and on the right, the same, skirmishing  light cavalry make easy work of the dried river bed.

Oops, the Knights move far faster than I thought, an extra March card and a Charge at the gallop sees them quickly catch my leading horse archers in an uneven melee, which by luck they later managed to withdraw from, battered but still in the fight - just.

 In their place, my first Ghulam unit wheels to face the oncoming Knights. 1 point of disorder gained from galloping into place.

 On the march, infantry slowly closing in the centre.

 The Knights and Ghulam smash into each other in a big cavalry fight on my right, and my Ghulams held up well, for a while, bu were always losing the fight.

 On the other end of the line, my horse archers lap around the Crusader's right flank, and their archers quickly manouevre to face them. The fierce archery duel would cost me a light cavalry unit for his archers and the bishop's comand stand, a good trade.

 Overview of the field, the centres still closing cautiously. The Turcopoles have launched flank attack on my infantry, which didn't go too well for them.

The Ghulam vs Knights melee continues, both spending cards to keep their men in the fight. In the end, my Ghulam broke in a gory massacre (not helped by some friendly fire missiles I threw-into the melee in desperation), but it was too late to save the day anyway.

My forces broke, with the Crusaders having just 2 morale value left. A defeat and my winning run is ended at 9 games!.

17 comments:

  1. Beautiful game! The rules seem to provide really interesting and fun games. /Mattias

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  2. Looks really good; the Perrys have a lovely collection. Is movement measured or is it abstracted somehow?

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  3. Movement is measured, but the distances are set by the players, whatever suits their table size / model scale best. 1 pace = whatever you need it too. In 28mm we use 1" = 1 pace.

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  4. Thanks- I shall have a look at the rules.

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  5. Great looking game! I look forward to getting the rules they look really interesting

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  6. Good report of a great looking game. I've played a couple of times now and really enjoy it. How do you prefer to resolve corner to corner contacts e.g. when one unit contacts a line of two - will the overlapping unit fight with just corner to corner contact or can it move in and attack the flank?

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  7. Looks like an awesome game. Many thanks.

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  8. Great looking game Warwick.

    I've got a game tomorrow....any chance you could provide a link (to download) the play sheet from the rule book please?

    The roster would be handy to :-)

    Looking forward to giving these a go.

    Kind regards

    Happy Wanderer

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  9. Great, I've got the rules. Warwick Is it possible to post the reference sheet in pdf and an army builder, pls .
    [I don´t want to damage the rulesbook -:)]

    Best regards

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  10. Great looking game! Thanks for sharing all the pics.

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  11. Sounds great, game and rules...beautiful armies and terrain!

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  12. I have some questions after our 1st game of SOG, is this the best place to post them?

    Heavy cavalry inflict an extra disorder point on their opponents when they "charge" is this only when they really charge into combat or does it include when they continue a melee with a charge card?

    Troops other than skirmishers can never voluntarily withdraw from a fight can they? As far as we can see a fight will always continue until one side is routed?

    Crusader holy knights with their ongoing 3+ attack and 3+ save seem almost unstoppable, have we missed something or is there a good tactic to cripple them?

    If a unit is hit in the flank their opponent gets +2 dice. After the 1st round of combat do they turn to face each other? I could see nothing of that type so assume no.

    A unit is disarray can not start a melee, but if an opponent starts one does it fight back with one less dice because now open formation or cant fight back at all.

    if during the turn you drop below the disarray amount do you go back into close formation?

    Presumably the fear card and the challenge card works on every unit in melee in that battle?

    A knight for example only uses his lance if he charges. SO if he is charged and does not get to use his lance are they gone or can he use them the next time he does charge?
    Ta
    Andy

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  13. This reply was emailed, but I'll repeat it here for all.


    Heavy cavalry inflict an extra disorder point on their opponents when they "charge" is this only when they really charge into combat or does it include when they continue a melee with a charge card?

    'Move into melee' so, yep, only on an actual move, not any melee on a charge card.

    Troops other than skirmishers can never voluntarily withdraw from a fight can they? As far as we can see a fight will always continue until one side is routed?

    Yep, only skirmishers can withdraw

    Crusader holy knights with their ongoing 3+ attack and 3+ save seem almost unstoppable, have we missed something or is there a good tactic to cripple them?

    Harass them with archery, do it a lot, and then do it some more... we have found that infantry, with support, can hold them for most of a battle, but you have to work hard at it with your cards. They are very expensive units, and very expensive when lost, but yep, frightening.

    If a unit is hit in the flank their opponent gets +2 dice. After the 1st round of combat do they turn to face each other? I could see nothing of that type so assume no.

    No, assumed right

    A unit is disarray can not start a melee, but if an opponent starts one does it fight back with one less dice because now open formation or cant fight back at all.

    They do zippo... too much of a chaotic mess to fight back.

    if during the turn you drop below the disarray amount do you go back into close formation?

    No, the lines are still messed up. You'd need a manouevre card for that.

    Presumably the fear card and the challenge card works on every unit in melee in that battle?

    You don't have to be in melee to use Fear, just in charge range. Pick one until to attack for each of your units. Same with Challenge, one challange per unit in melee that you want to issue a challenge with. Is that clear?

    A knight for example only uses his lance if he charges. SO if he is charged and does not get to use his lance are they gone or can he use them the next time he does charge?

    Lances are only lost after your own charge, so yes, they can still be used.

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  14. ...and Warwick, can we get a A4 side play sheet for download please. 👍

    Cheers

    Happy W

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  15. Nice set of rules, shitty support from the author

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  16. Hi Warwick
    Been reading through the rule book to day ready for my first game

    Is there any where I can print of a copy of the army roster that is in
    The back of the rule book
    Thanks D

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