Thursday Night Solo Game

 After a long hiatus, I finally rolled some dice across a table tonight, albeit a solo effort in the garage on my recently acquired 3' x 3' folding card table, and 1m2 of felt that I bought at the weekend for about $8.

It wasn't a Pulp game as yet - because I haven't decided on a rule set and don't have a hard copy of any of the possible solutions - must take them to work on a USB and get them printed off!

So, I fell back on my other primary skirmish option, the Border Reivers.

As it was getting on for 9pm when I set up, I decided on a small scale affair as a first trial for my garage gaming (I really should have started this two years ago in our first Covid lockdown.....). Two groups of three Reivers, with a Heidsman each, were sneaking up on a small village in the dead of night. The village had a "garrison" of a Heidsman, three reivers and three villagers. The rules used were "Borderer" by Matthew Hartley - a free set pilfered from a copy of WI. Lets see how it worked out!

The rules - I added a few house extras for this game - if attackers moved at 4cm (1/3 max speed) they were creeping stealthily and could only be spotted by a defender within 30cm on a roll of any double. Once within 10cm, they would be automatically spotted. Until the attackers were spotted, the defenders would patrol randomly on 2 D6 - Green 1 = move left 2 = move right 3 = move forward 4 = move back 5/6 stand still. Red indicates 1-6cm of movement. I also rolled for who went first, attackers or defenders. Until the alarm was raised, the villagers are abed in their hovels.

General overview of the game - the attackers are in the bottom right, creeping up behind the small copse of trees

The object of the raid - a small herd of black cattle

Group two moves through the trees

Move two - the attackers have not been spotted

One of the guards wanders forwards towards group one

But he does not see them as they creep forward through the pitch black night.....

A second guard has randomly emerged from the village and is within spotting range - he rolls - but sees nowt!

Turn four - the torch wielding guard was now within 12cm, so likely to spot group one next turn, so - they all rushed him and engaged in melee! 

3 green for the heidsman, two red each for the attacking reivers and a pair of white for the defending reiver - he was only just defeated! A roll on the melee chart resulted in a "surrender" result which I decided there and then meant he had been overpowered silently and the alarm was still not raised!

But then - wandering guard number two rolled a double 5 and spotted group two. As he is armed with a caliver, he lets fly with a shot - completely missing but raising the alarm!

One of the group one attackers escorting the surrendered guard to the rear.

Situation at start of move 6

The bow armed guard on the hill spotted group one and fired - to no effect!

The remaining group one reivers take cover from the bowman

One of group two moves against a sword armed villager..

...while the other two rush the caliver armed sentry

The heidsmans three green dice dealt to the sentry - he rolled a 6 on the result chart and was deid!

But in the other melee, two villagers took on a reiver, and whupped his ass (white dice are the villagers!)

Start of move seven

Its all getting a bit messy - the heidsman and reiver of group one take on two villagers, a reiver guard and the guards heidsmas, while the remaining heidsman and reiver of group two swing in from behind

I finally remembered to do the animal test - if a melee within 5cm - they have a chance to move off 1 D6 or - on a 6 - flee 2 D6. 

Result of melee between defending heidsman (green) and villager (white) versus a single attacking reiver. A draw - but the higher ranked figure always wins in a tied result - the attacking reiver sustained a wound

Group two joins the melee, with the lance armed reiver guarding two prisoners

Heidsman v heisdman - a draw! (You only count the one highest dice)

Other attacking heidsman v super peasant - aarrrgghh!

Attacking reiver v second peasant - they really should just have stayed home, shoudn't they?!

A couple of melee result rolls and additional melees later - the end result. A single wounded attacking heidsman and one remaining reiver have three of the defenders as prisoners. The first guard has been marched off the table into captivity and the cattle have been spooked and are halfway to Carlisle - not the best night reiving that has ever been done - but it was a nice little game to remind me of the rules and to finally get a game of sorts on the board!

Thanks for dropping by and I hope you leave a comment to mark your visit - cheers!