Scottorum Malleus, the 6mm armies muster.

Having given Age of Penda a couple of games I decided to give the earlier Scottorum Malleus a go, using my 6mm Medieval figures.  be warned though, I wanted to record a move by move account to serve as a reminder of game play for myself.  This is detailed!

Firstly I needed to get the basing correct, and again a 60 mm frontage looked like a good idea.  I swiftly amalgamated the 40 and 20mm basing system I had been using to produce enough units for two armies.

2 x Leaders, Good Cavalry, BR 6, 10 pts
8 x Knights as Good Cavalry, BR 5, 10 pts
2 x Sergeants as Ave Cavalry, BR 3, 6 pts
4 x Spearmen. Good Infantry, BR 4, 6 pts
2 x Levy, Average Infantry. BR 3, 4 pts

4 x Crossbow, Good Missile Infantry, BR 3, 6 pts
6 x Bowman Average Missile Infantry, BR 2, 4 pts
2 Bidowers, skirmishers, BR 2, 2 pts

TERRAIN Roll 
(amended for my collection)
2, 3         2 x Hills. 
4, 5,        2 x Woods.
6            1 Wood, 1 village
7            1 Wood, 1 Monastery/church and village
8            1 x Stream, 2 Marshes. 
9, 10      2 x Hills, 2 x Woods. 
11,         3 x Hills, 3 x Woods
12,         1 x town, 2 farmland, 1 hill/moor

The Squares are numbered 1 to 23, but the five baseline squares cannot have terrain allocated. Terrain is deployed in the three centre rows by rolling d6, twice. 

Row A 1-2

Row B 3-4

Row C 5-6

Column 1, Column 2, Column 3, Column 4, Col- 5

     1.                 2.                3.                4.              5.

On a roll of 6 dice again.

If terrain already in that square dice again.

Action tokens
1 x Mounted Charge
2 x Shoot one area
2 x Battle
1 x Murderous Barrage or Unstoppable force
4 x Move, one area.

Character Generation from Lion Rampant.

1.  King Henry: Commanding, 40 Army points

2.  Prince Edward: Blessed,  30 Army points

3.  Duke William: Vulnerable, 30 Army points

4.  Earl Hugh: Braveheart, 20 Army Points

5.  Count Geoffrey: Rash, 20 Army Points

6.  Baron Robert: Lionheart, 10 Army Points

Character Generation

2 The Snake:  this guy will sell out his current friends. Roll at the beginning of a battle. 

• 1 he fails to turn up, 
• 2 he is off table but waiting to see who loses the first unit before coming in from the flank on the winners side, 
• 3 he has openly joined the enemy, and deploys with them, 
• 4 he refuses to move until dealt a second move order, 
• 5 he will fight normally, but if the side he is with is reduced to six or less units he will quit the field, 
• 6 the Snake has decided you are the likely winner and will only quit the field of you are reduced to less than half of your original units.

3 Sly:  He hangs back, waiting for the enemy to come to him.  Never closes willingly.  Requires two move tokens to move an area.

4 Insipid: Needs a roll of 3, 4 , 5 or 6 to move or use a battle token.

5 Vulnerable:  killed in any enemy combat roll of three or more sixes.

6 Rash:  this guy will advance to close, no matter what the units around him do.  He has an automatic and mandatory "Move one unit" token for his bodyguard.

7 Commanding:  Once per turn he may change a token to a "wildcard," allowing him a choice of actions.

8 Strong:  Rolls an additional d6 in combat

9 Braveheart. has an automatic and mandatory "battle one unit" that his bodyguard must play. 

10 Lionheart:  Rolls an additional 2d6 for his personal unit, but never moves back towards his own baseline.

11 Blessed:  this leader has an automatic and mandatory "rally one unit" token, used for his bodyguard at the end of any combat his unit is involved in.

12 Great Leader: May draw and play an additional token from those remaining on the grid at the end of a turn.

The solo draw

One of the things most difficult to reproduce when using these rules solo is the draw from the tactics grid.  It is simple yet sophisticated.  To use it for solo gaming I made the tactics tokens themselves, rather than a grid and marker system.  These are blank on the reverse side, and are shuffled before being dealt out, four to each side. 

Starting with the side that held the initiative last turn a side blind draws a token, playing it, before passing play over.  If "Seize the initiative" is played this is interrupted as that side immediately plays another token, if it has one, and now holds the game initiative.

Because this could mean one side drawing both "battle one area" tokens, I altered two of the "Move one area" tokens to read "Move or fight one area."  If I find this unbalanced the game I will amend it to "move or fight one unit. "

The Game

The Realm is in a state of rebellion.  The Prince, the Earl and the Baron have raised an army in the marches and marched towards the capital only to be blocked by the Kings forces.  The King, the Duke and the Count have 90 Army points, the Rebels have 70 pts.

The town of Dribbly-Rump in the County of Midshire.  The battle lines are drawn

The Prince seemeth overmatched.

The King, feeling Royally cocky.  To his front is my newest hill, built up card covered in felt.

And the King's Army.  In good spirits, but they haven't caught the smell of Dribbly-Rump yet.

Battle to be joined Wednesday Morn...  

Both sides blind draw four action tokens

The King starts with initiative, but his draw is terrible.

The Prince's draw is much better and he snaffes the initiative.

But the King acts first and uses the "mounted charge" to area move.  Its a valid tactic

The Prince responds, aggressively moving forward his centre.

Again the King is cautious.  He draws u his lines and diverts a group of Infantry units intending to send them into the town later.

The Prince uses his better tokens to move into a line.  The mounted unit at the far left of his line uses a mounted charge move to advance, but has to leave its supporting Infantry behind..   

A closer view of Dribbly Rump.  Not a tourist destination I think.

At the start of turn three the Prince still holds the initiative.  

The King draws: Shoot, Move, Rally and the Initaitive.  

The Prince draws Murderous barrage, Move, mounted charge and a second move.

The "bag of fate" has been kinder to the Prince, who still holds the Initiative, but the King wil see how the turn develops.

The "bag of fate!"

The Earl moves forward

The King charges the Prince, using Mounted charge, and moving into the area to fight immediately.  The fight begins.

4, 3 and 1 casualties,  The Prince is hammered.

Battle back, 1, 0 and 3.  Reasonable.

New turn.  The King has Initiative..

The King tries his luck with shooting.  

And in the centre the Prince comes back at the Kings Bodyguard with "Unstoppable Force."

Not too bad, as the King is damaged

The Battle back costs the Prince a unit.

And the King rallies by rolling a 6.  2 pips back on his BR.  Divine favour?

Next turn.  Once again the King has Initiative.

The King plays "Rally" again, regaining 2 pips on the Knight unit with him.

But this time its the Prince who aggressively uses Mounted Charge, and he thumps in at the units behind the King.

The Earl damages the King Supporting Duke's units in a nasty combat. 

But the Battle Back is also bloody.

The King then moves his foot nearer to the town.

The Count is dismounted and he tries a shot with his supporting bows.  Not too good really.

The Earl goes at it again.  The Duke is knocked about again.

But the battle back has both sides reeling.

The table overview at the end of the turn.  Honours are even so far I think.

The draw sees the King keep the Initiative, but the Prince has some useful tokens here

The King starts by rallying a pip

And the Count responds to the Baron moving up by shooting.

But the Baron has his own crossbow retinue troops and he gives it back

The Prince uses a move or battle one unit token to attack the King's bodyguard, leaving the big man reeling. 

That centre ground is the scene of some bloody fighting today.

A new turn and Initiative passes to the Prince.

He attempts a rally but fails.

The Earl kills off the Count.

And the King is supported only by a unit of Mounted Sergeants.

The Baron opens the shooting.

And the Earl now goes after those Sergeants.

The Prince sends some of his Infantry in to take the town.  That is actually my Bishop, marked by a Baccus Miniatures true Cross.

And the Count's men seem to be running low on arrows.

I`m anticipating the end game.  Both sides are reaching critical losses.

The King fights the Prince directly, almost knocking him out of the game.

And the Earl continues his battle with those Sergeants

Gambling it all the Prince tries an "Unstoppable Force," but te King Survives and strikes back.

This is all hanging in the balance now

The King uses his units to target the Prince, killing him.  That should be game over but I ran it until the end of the turn.

The Prince's men shoot again, and it's powerful wiping out the  King's bowmen.

The King rallies a BR point back

The Earl defeats those pesky Sergeants.  Job done

But the King is being targeted.

And the King is wiped out in a Murderous Barrage.  

The end.  We have a new King it seems.

Casualties, I collect in the micro dice for the fallen.  The King's side lost big time.

And our new King is the Earl.

An excellent game, and I apologise for the over detailed blogging report, its just that I wanted to follow the game exactly.

There is far more to this game than is apparent or such straight forward mechanisms, I think.  It seems simple but gave a great solo game I couldn't predict.