This week Anthony offered me a game of Battle Ravens which I've played once or twice before, but not for years (it came out in 2019 so probably around then). The game, by Dan Mersey, is a clever take on Shieldwall battles which involves no movement with forces lined up toe to toe.
Each player has a pool of 20 tokens which are allocated to 6 squares, each containing a number of stands of figures. These can be used to either attack, defend, or move a stand to a neighbouring square. Each player also has 4 Thralls, who can be used to allow a re-roll, and a hand of 5 cards which allow some special tactics. And that's pretty much it! It sounds very simple but requires a lot of thought in deciding where to assign the tokens and how to use them.
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| The Vikings and Saxons... nose to nose |
The other challenge is that if you manage to defeat all the stands in an opposing square then your opponent loses 3 of their precious tokens and a Thrall and this quickly makes things increasingly tough. Interestingly the units that win and break through are also then out of the game... I guess they're assumed to be busy pillaging and slaughtering!
The lack of manoeuvrability and control feels very Dark Ages and there's a lot of thought required about where the tokens go and how to use them.
For our game we didn't use the card stands which are supplied. But Anthony's lovely 54mm Vikings and Saxons which looked really impressive.
I really like the idea of using figures instead of the card figures, the 54mm ones look quite superb.
ReplyDeleteAnthony's figures were really lovely
DeleteSounds an interesting and visually appealing game.
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradgardland
They're deceptively simple but interesting rules
DeleteIt is an excellent game that I've played several times, a very clever take on an otherwise static situation. It looks great with those lovely figures.
ReplyDeleteThanks folks for your nice comments re my figures. They are from Irregular Miniatures' 54mm Dark Ages range.
ReplyDelete