Games night II - Sun King and Pillage

This week we had a second game of Twilight of the Sun King also we tried some new Dark Ages skirmish rules - Pillage from Victrix. I also ended-up playing Pillage the next day with some players who'd done Sun King the evening before, so we had two bites at that. 

Twilight of the Sun King

Different forces this week with the Russians fighting the Swedes. The forces were also more balanced being taken from the rules army list generator.

20mm Russian Dragoons 

Russian infantry and guns

I was nt playing this game but it looked like the more numerous Russians were mostly attacking.   

 

Russian infantry attacks

Swedish horse gain and edge of their left flank

The cavalry did kill a few of each other with the Swedes having a slight advantage. The centre was a stalemate although lots of units had damage so a few more turns and it could have looked different.  

 

Tussle in the centre

Pillage

The rules are quite simple and old fashioned in many ways - no command friction, WYSIWYG on figures armament and no troop quality just weapon type vs armour for most things. So they are quick to pick-up and you can mostly play from the QRS with limited reference to the book. Our second game was largish (600 points) but that was only 24 models a side and so not a big model count either.    

The simplicity does mean that armies are pretty similar to each other with currently only the Vikings (Berserker) and Saxons (Huscarl) having any special troops to add flavour. I imagine they will build on this though with supplements. There are also army lists for various British western European factions - interestingly the points cost is partly about effectiveness and partly about rarity in the army. For example Javelins are free in the Irish list but armour is very costly whereases horses are cheaper for the Normans than the Saxons.     

 

There are rules covering shield walls and spearman supporting others so that adds some tactical options. One thing from both games though is that shooting if pretty deadly, especially at targets in the open. They suggest a 25% cap on missile armed troops but even at lower levels they tended to dominate tactics in our two games

Finally there are lots of rules to support scenario generation with loot, fire, civilians, buildings and boats all covered. Straight fights could be pretty short / simple but scenarios are where the fun is to be had.  

So definitely worth a look and a nice simple set supporting scenarios. My only quibble would be the price at £35. The rules are compact so it could easily have been a £10 Osprey book but they have added a generic history section, some "how to wargame" bits and sections on painting / terrain making. Is that a well meaning attempt to help the beginner or padding....you decide!