Solo Test Play of "...And One For All" Rules

Last night I pulled four of my Frostgrave figures out to test play the Eureka Miniatures Three Musketeers rule set "...And One For All", which is available free to download from their website.

I set up the game as one "hero(ine) figure versus three swordsmen, to see how it worked out. The intro to the rules unashamedly says that they are designed to recreate the type of over the top sword fight that occurs in classic 1970's swash buckling films. Figures can move any distance (in a straight line) and interact with any scenery - ie jump on tables, throw chairs at opponents, swing from chandeliers (if you have them) etc.

I decided the hero would use red dice (D6) and the swordsmen would use white, so first up was a roll to decide who went first, which the swordsmen won.

The hero had a character value of 4 dice whilst the swordsmen had a value of 2.

The way the rules work is basically this: activated figures can do anything they want to. The action happens automatically, but then you have to roll to make sure you dont lose initiative. At the end of each "action" the figure rolls to make sure they still have the initiative. The dice used for this are called swash buckling dice in the rules. After each successful action, another swash buckling dice is added, and has to be rolled after a subsequent action. Any time 1 is rolled on the dice after any action, the initiative is lost.

I will run through the first couple of moves and hopefully how this works will become clear.

Move one, a swordsman successfully jumps onto the bench table, then on the second move up onto the table but then rolls a 1 and loses the initiative

The hero jumped onto the bench successfully but on the second move onto the table, rolled a 1 and lost initiative (this will become a common theme!)

The swords person (I guess I should say) jumped off the table and with her second move, threw a chair at the hero. This is called an "opposed action" in the rules. The active player rolls all the swashbuckling dice accumulated in the turn and the target rolls the number of dice that go with their character type - in the case of a hero, that's 4 dice. So, the opposed roll was two white dice for the attacker v's 4 red dice for the defending hero. The hero won, so avoided being hit by the chair!

As the attacking swords person did not roll a 1, they retain the initiative. She jumped up on the table, gaining another swashbuckling dice, and attacked the hero to duel. The swords person had 3 swashbuckling dice plus her two character dice, against the 4 character dice of the defending hero - result shown above. The white (swords person) won with a 6 over the red 5, and the hero was pushed back.

Following up on her advantage the attacking figure sprinted along the table top, now obliged to roll 4 swash buckling dice. The tactics of the game mean you do want to try to maximise the number of swash buckling dice BUT obviously, the more you accumulate, the greater the chance of rolling a 1 and losing the initiative,,,,,,,,

....but this time, fortune favoured the brave!

The attacking figure now duelled with the hero on the ground - she gets the 4 accumulated swash buckling dice, two character dice, PLUS one extra dice for an advantageous position - on the table. The hero gets her 4 character dice. I think I got the result wrong here - it should have been 3 x 6 scores = 6 +1 +1 =8 against the highest red 5 = 3 difference = stunned - but at the time I thought the fact there was 1 in the white dice meant the turn was over with no effect....

The game continued with the hero retreating behind the pile of scattered furniture - she the rolled a 1 on her swash buckling dice and lost the initiative!

A different swords person entered the fray, moving to the chair successfully and then throwing it at the hero. Her two white swash buckling dice went against the four red character dice of the defending hero - it was a draw - 4 each - so the attacker gains one attack point which was a push back on the hero.

On the next roll, the attacker rolled a 1 and lost the initiative, the hero rolled to recover from stunned - its simply an action like any other and any roll but a 1 is successful - then threw the chair back at the swords woman - who lost the roll by three, which meant she had dropped her weapon! The hero sprinted round the pile of thrown chairs and attacked.....

3 swash buckling dice plus 4 for character plus 1 because the opponent had dropped her weapon - 8 dice to the 2 character dice of the defender - but it was a DRAW - and because there is a 1 amongst the red dice, the hero had lost the initiative again!

Things carried on in much the same way for quite a number of turns - I recorded each event but to be honest I think it would be a bit boring for you to have to read a blow by blow account - because there was a lot of nothing much happening!

This sequence was the highlight of the encounter I guess - three ganged up on the hero, but she managed to hold them off. One of the attackers dropped her sword and the other two were pinned  and wounded (three wounds and you are dead!)

Having caused this damage, the hero then managed to lose the initiative in a duel with a weaponless opponent!

The opponents circled each other, hurling the occasional piece of furniture around....

The hero isolated a wounded player in an attack..

and for once, got a decent score - a six, plus an additional 4 x 6 = total score of 10 - which beat the opponent by 5 points and killed her!

I carried on the game for another half hour but could never reprise that success, so I wont inflict any more of this on you! 

I think my test has given me an idea of how the rules work and also suggested some changes I could make to improve them. I think I will try running it again, where ALL the dice count, so that if red has 4 dice and scores 6 5 5 and 3, and white scores 6 5 4 4, then it would be 3 to 1 in favour of red, so they would get a 2 result = stunned. I feel this might make the game go a bit quicker and get a result - although I don't want the game to be over in five minutes...so some testing to see how this works will be required. 

One thing is pretty obvious - these rules would not work well for multiple players controlling two or three figures each in a skirmish game - one move would take an hour to get through and potentially very little would happen...so I will have to find a different rule set if I ever want to get my gaming group involved in a mass brawl! To be fair to the designers though, the constant to and fro and inconclusiveness of the fighting DID have the flavour of a swash buckling movie where the protagonists battle away for ages, throwing chairs, leaping over furniture, ripping down curtains etc, whilst doing little actual damage to each other until the final scene when the rapier is thrust into the "baddies" belly!