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Saturday, June 11, 2011

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.

4 comments:

  1. I'll be interested to hear what you think, Bard. Hope you enjoy it!

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  2. You beat me to it, I will post my impressions later today, but I already played my first game. It played great, and you will see in the photos - 500 points of regiments really look good on the tabletop :)

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  3. Shane: Thanks! I'm already a fan of Chronicles of Arax, so I'm sure I will enjoy this one as well.

    Aleksandar: Excellent -- I can't wait to read your report!

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  4. Solo play, you say? I've tried a lot of solo gaming, and only found a very few that were satisfying. Looking forward to this writeup, specifically concerning that element.

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