Chronicles of Blood: First Impressions

Solo Nexus recently reported the release of the Shane Garvey's Chronicles of Blood solo fantasy wargame rules, published by Crystal Star Games and available at Drive Thru RPG.

I have not yet played with these rules but, after a first reading, I find them full of potential, and I'm eager to give them a go in the near future. The rules have a number of features I like:

• Designed specifically for solo play
• Straightforward simplicity – nothing fiddly
• Relatively small playing surface required
• No requirement to use any particular manufacturer's miniatures
• Little book keeping – just keeping track of hits each unit has taken
• FREE core rules with future $1 supplements planned (as was done for their earlier solo adventure game, Chronicles of Arax)

One other thing that I like about the rules is that while they are written for regiment-sized units, they look like they could very easily be played at other unit levels. For example, instead of saying an Elven Archer Regiment rolls d8 to attack with a range of 60 cm and a move of 15 cm etc., you could just give those same stats to a single soldier and make it a skirmish game. There's nothing inherent in the rules as far as I can see in my first reading that makes them have to be for regiments. I think you could play them without adaptation at pretty much any unit scale you'd like.

When I test them out, I'll use them for skirmish-level fights, probably in my Mithril Wars campaign in place of SBH for a game or two just to see how they work.