Mr Tar II: REBELLION!!!!

 Hello you wonderful peeps!. You may recall that a month or two ago i had a bash at the great rules Mr Tar came up with for grid based gaming on his blog (you can find the rules here and my game using them over here). I enjoyed using the grid for gaming and the rules were very simple but very satisfying to use so i decided to have another go. I also wanted to revisit the forces of the last game to continue the story and examine what happened after Lord Tristan took over old Lord Holesters lands. This game jumps forward a few months from the end of the last.....

  'T'was a time of great up'eval in Fools Corse. Old Lord Holister t'was all dead n' that, in his place Lord Tristan the Boulde had taken 'is seat and pillaged 'is lands. Across the villages fear ruled as Lord Tristans men did as they would, taking from the poor and burnin 'ovels an such like. But some of Lord Holisters men survived the massacre at the dam and they were sure as shite not gonna lays down an' let is memory be dragged through the mud by the evil new lord. They hid in the forests around Fools Corse, living as outlaws and raiding the new Lords stores and killin' 'is men an stuff. As each day.....' ERE DAVE, DAVE.....DAVE!!!....WHY YOU TALKING LIKE THAT DAVE???!!!'.
Mouldy Dave came to with a start, 'Wassat... whereisitnow... whattayawant!!' he turned and came face to face with the boil covered mud splattered face of Riddled Larry, he was grinning in a kind of 'im not sure whats happening but if i smile hard enough i may just get away with whatever i just did wrong, in this case interrupted a weird moment where my only friend (with any legs of course, Drag along Stus' a right laugh) has been in a kind of trance monologuing away like a good 'en' type grin and holding a half chewed turnip. 'Why you talkin like that Dave?' asked Larry. 'I was doin' exposition Larry' Dave answered in a haughty know it all fashion. 'EH???' replied Larry, he said EH?? a lot to express a whole raft of deep and meaningful emotions, in this case confusion. He took a bite of turnip to help him think. 'Exposition Larry, its the job of explainin' important plot points through the act of speech, its a story tellin' mechanic used by writers too crap or lazy to properly expand on what has gone before, instead they just get a character the reader is already familiar with to dump a whole load of infomation for no real reason. Its normally shoe horned  into some situation of no real consequence to the overriding story arc'. 'EH??!!' replied Larry, his brain aching. 'Put simply Larry', started Dave 'That bell end at the keyboard that writes this crap cant be bothered to explain weeks of made up history so has dragged us one dimensional single note jokes out of the further reaches of his battered and abused mind to do it for him!'. 'Ooooooh', replied Larry. 'Fancy'..........................Larry and Dave stood for a moment looking awkward before Larry said 'Don't mind me, carry on'. 'You know what Larry, i don't feel like it, he can do his own bloody story telling......lazy bastard, who does he think he is, bet he i'nt even a proper writer, just some tool that plays with toy solders. And he cant even flesh out a character or explain a setting, for all the reader knows we're stood in a blank void, he has yet to give any thought to where we are supposed to be at this moment or to relay that info to the reader!, and anoth......'

Right thats quite enough of that, i'm not having that kind of unruly made up behavior on this blog thank you very much!. As Dave was saying, The survivors of the battle of the dam were living in the forests (setting, see forest...setting, stick that somewhere painful Dave!!) and raiding lord Tristans wagons, stores and patrols and generally trying to fan the flames of rebellion to bring about bloody revolution in the land. Having had enough of that, Tristan has sent a force into the forest to put a painful and very bloody end to this type of thing!. However the outlaws have caught wind of his plan and await the coming force........... in ambush!!!!!( cue dramatic music!).

.....So onto the game......

  The game is played between two forces. One represents the force sent by Lord Tristan to beat the bejezus out of anyone outlaw lookin' in the general forest area and one is the outlaws waiting to ambush them out of their clunky metal boots. The Outlaws begin in any hex within 2 hex's of any board edge and the ...em....lets call them ...i dont know....bastards set up within 3 hex's of the center of the board.

The forces are:
Outlaws: 1 unit of 4 Knights, 4 units of 5 serfs and 3 units of 3 serf archers. All the outlaw forces are on white bases with yellow trim.

Bastards: 2 units of 3 Knights, 3 units of 5 serfs and 2 units of 3 serf archers. These troops are all on blue bases with yellow trim.

The only addition i have made to the rules are to give Knights +1 to their saves, because they are each wearing more metalwork than all the serfs combined!.

Both forces are attempting to wipe out or run off the other, the outlaws move first.

The starting positions. Note to self, TURN THE BLIMMIN CAMERA!!!!.

The battle begins with the Outlaws erupting from the trees to surround the Lords men. Arrows are loosed to little effect as the forces close.

Arrows fly, no one dies!!!.

Before long scuffles break out all around the board!. On the left the Lords men charge the outlaw forces .

On the right the Lords horse engage the outlaws with their only support coming from a unit of archers.

In the middle the Outlaw knights charge into the surfs closest to them!.

back on the left the numbers of the Lords men begins to tell and gaps begin to show in the outlaw lines.

Not going well for the outlaws!

The right was a different story as the archers and then the Lords Knights were overwhelmed by the combined serf units!.

The Outlaw knights were having trouble with a single serf that refused to die, he made his saves for three rounds in a row pinning the knights in combat!........

'Raah i'm frickin' lance proof!!!!!'

........while on the left the outlaws were picked off until only one remained. but not for long!.

'Help i forgot my sword resistant underpants!!!'

On the right the result was reversed as the last of the Knight unit fell, although the outlaws took far heavier losses doing so.

A knight. Fallen.

The Outlaw knights finally managed to kill the near indestructible serf but it was to no avail......

.......as the losses finally told and the outlaw serfs headed for the hills the knights had little choice to do likewise to live to rebel another day. The outlaws were broken and the people of Fools Course face a very uncertain future!.

The brave rebellion is at an end!!.

That was a lot of fun. The rules as ever give a very clean, quick game and work well for a medieval ding dong even though they were written with Victorian scraps in mind. Giving the Knights a little more staying power by upping their saving throws worked out well and made them very good at mowing down serfs for the most part (*coughcrapoutlawscough*). I'm sure i will be using them again as i have some ideas of how to end this story with a final show down, i have a feeling these rules can handle a mass battle and i am keen to try them out for one!......if Dave and Larry play ball that is!...... 

Anyway, lots more to come on this one...'till next time......