Had a chance to get in a few games with John, a friend of mine yesterday. Introduced him to Chain Reaction Swordplay! from Two Hour Wargames. I tried to keep it simple but also showed him Warrior Heroes - Armies and Adventures and Rally Round The King. He wanted to play a Beastman warband so we used the WHAA tables. He created a Greater Beastman as his leader (named Grendel) and rolled three more Greater Beastmen, a Beastman and a Beastman Archer. This was a pretty tough group.
To introduce him to the game we used the CR-Swordplay rules. His first game was a patrol. We rolled for terrain and had a pretty open board. There was a hill and rough terrain where his band entered. Since it was a patrol we rolled for PEF locations as well as the EAL (which came up 5!). I chose the Northmen army to be the enemy. As the beastmen came onto the board the PEFs began moving towards them. As they resolved themselves I had two large main parties (C) and a small group. The beastmen gained the advantage quickly and Grendel charged the one main group, quickly killing one of them. My dice were cold and with the one kill that group failed the man down test as well as the group cohesion tests... and promptly routed from the table!
Grendel's other Greater Beastmen moved onto the other main group and an ensuing melee broke out with 6 Northmen going at it with two beastmen. Melee resolved into an evenly matched event. Next round Grendel charged into the melee and turned the tide for the beastmen.
The fight continued with a Greater Beastman going Out of Fight but the northmen suffered due to cold dice (I couldn't get more than one or two successes with 5 dice in melee).
The short end of the first battle, Grendel and the beastmen warband wiped out the balance of the northmen. Granted, I forgot to roll the man down tests to see if they ran away.
That battle lasted about an hour including set up of terrain and the flipping back through the book.
So, we tried another game as a follow on. Since Grendel and his followers had such an 'easy' time of the patrol we followed the campaign system in Swordplay! which led Grendel and his followers on a Raid - Attacker. This table came with a bit more terrain with forest all along the entering table edge and along the one side. Two buildings were located on the far side of the table. PEF were rolled for and the first one was located in the area just in front of the beastmen. They were resolved into a group of northmen of equal number. Activation resolved that the beastmen would go first. The second game proved to be the downfall of Grendel and his band as the dice reversed themselves. Two of the Greater Beastmen fell Obviously Dead in the first round of melee. Grendel and another Greater Beastman took out two northmen with an out of fight and obviously dead as well. The one northman archer took out the minor beastman.
At this point Grendel and his remaining band withdrew from the field as there were two more PEFs to resolve and his warband consisted of himself, one Greater Beastman and a Beastman Archer (who was Rep 3 and couldn't hit anything).
Overall a fun afternoon while our wives were off at the flea market! Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures...
Which now gives me a great idea for a solo campaign. The Northmen now send out a party to hunt down the remaining Beastmen who are roaming the highlands and attacking lone homesteads.
