It has been a while since we ran a session of Sword Weirdos, so we dusted off some of our minis and sat down for a spontanous and relaxing beer and bretzel session. Wargamer’s wellness so to speak.
Here is the recap of an unexpectedly fast and bloody game.
Session 0
While I was setting up the board and re-reading some rules passages, Eric created a new warband-roster for his 4 heroes. Sword Weirdos has quite a strong old-school RPG vibe in that regard. Choosing classes, grabing gear and so on. Last but not least, the use of lots of polyhedral dice definitely adds to the charm. For a more in depth commentary, check our initial review 🙂 .
We settled for 100 points. Both warbands had the adventuring party special trait and had 4, respecticely 5 members.
My Weirdos from left to right:
Mungo, the shaman ; Smasha, the barbarian ; Loosa, the commander ; Klabba, the fighter ; Sticky, the spy
Eric’s Weirdos from left to right: Archibaldo, the archer; Bargosh, the Dwarf fighter; Goshgolov, the Barbarian, Selestra, the Elf Magic user
Set-up
A bit rusty in the rules-department, we settled for the most generic and straightforward scenario from the Sword Weirdos rulebook: kill em all. The player taking out most points wins.
We used a 60x60cm board and filled it with some hills and some extra withered forest tiles. We defined the forest area as difficult terrain. Additionaly we decided the footprint would block line of sight and models within were in cover.
Since the board was relatively small, we settled for a corner to corner deployment.
The game
The game started with both sides moving into position with first shots and spells being released at enemies in line of sight.
Kills
Due to the small size battle field, the game quickly became quite bloody.
The dice, the weapons plus manouevers and the fact that your Might or Attack roll occasionally double or triple your opponent’s Defense rolls allow for instant kills. Somehow in our Space and Sword Weirdos games we like to mark this with insane amounts of red glass beads next to the killed unit. The first unit to become road kill was my Goblin Sticky.
Eric’s Barbarian leader Goshgolov had to bite the dust next. In an act of violent revenge, Smasha and Klabba ganged up against Goshgolov. Making skillful use of support boni, the goblins take out the skantily clad warrior.
At one moment, we witnessed something unprecedented. Loosa, the goblin commander charged Archibaldo, who previously killed Sticky. the Goblin boss had to spend 4 actions over two activations to kill the human archer. What made this exchange extraordinary, were the dice rolls. Three times we rolled the exact same numbers : 10-10 ; 9-9 ; 11-11. Still, Archibaldo died piteously in the fourth exchange.
Close Combat is very unforgiving in Sword weirdos. In my opinion it relies even more on a lucky roll of the dice since you not only have to check for hits, but also roll on the attack table for a random outcome.
Positioning plays a crucial role too. Assisting in combat grants boni and if your gangmember manages to inflict a staggered result on an enemy, his mate may make the killing blow. This happenend to a staggering Klabba, when Selestra decided she’d have a go at close combat.
a side note on … Magic (insert mysterious music here)
Unlike Space Weirdos, some Sword Weirdos have access to spells. The magic user class for instance may buy spells to a maximum of 25 points. Eric’s magic user, Selestra, had 3 spells for a total of 5 points. She was quite effective with her Sleep spell against my goblin.
Mungo, the goblin spellcaster, tried on several occasions to cast Charm on some of Eric’s henchmen. At one point, the goblin succeeded in mesmerizing Goshgolov the barbarian and consequently I could activate Goshgolov to hit one of his own gangmembers, Selestra. Sadly for me and (consequently) luckily for Eric, Goshgolov failed to hit the spellcaster. Goshgolov rose to the occasion and charged Klabba later that turn.
Eric had a more straightforward approach to magic. He decided his spellcaster Selestra should break the ranks of my weirdos with KABOOM magic. Using lightning bolt in a straight line, she managed to hit and take out Mungo. A heavy blow, especially since I already lost my ranged attack goblin 🙁
In the end…
At the end of round 4, Eric’s heroes won the game, having killed the most points worth of my goblins. Eric took out 59 points and myself only 49. Hence he won by 10 points.
The rules, fun and sportsmanship
As mentioned above, we hadn’t played the game in a while, and despite the elegance and simplicity of the rules, it took us a couple of activations to get the hang of them again. But then everything went very smoothly. We recommend having all your special rules written on the warband roster, though.
On several occasions, either of us put himself into an unfortunate situation because we forgot this or that rule. Of course, as gamers, we are supposed to know our rules. Then again, we are talking games and fun. Rules lawiering and stiffling may have their place in competitive play, but not in the amicable cadre of a game between friends.
It saddens me to admit, that Sticky’s death, the games first casualty, could have been avoided, had I not forgotten his spy-special rule: he was invisible at a distance greater than one stick. Eric graciously allowed me to ressurect the first casualty, but I decided to take responsability and left him for dead.
Of cats and dice
The club cats, Winnie and Sally, took a serious interest in our miniature skirmishes and invaded at several occasions the playing area.
