A Treasure Hunt

I recently bought the Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes book. While the core rules remain the same, there are some new options for activation, as well as special rules for weapons and an expanded magic system.

In order to try the new activation, I played a battle between dwarves and orcs, using profiles given in the book. Note that now the standard force size is 400 points (up from 300) with more allowance for personalities.

The dwarf warband was composed of Captain Tormak (Leader Swordsman w/shield), Brelik (Hero Swordsman w/shield), 2x Trained Heavy Axeman, 2x Veteran Heavy Axeman, and 2x Veteran Crossbow Wielder.

The orcs had Warchief Krakk (War-Leader), 4x Armored Spearman and 4x Chosen Bowman.

The new book does not include scenarios so I used the Treasure Hunt scenario from the "basic" Song of Blades and Heroes. There are three treasure markers and both warbands compete to find the treasure and take it away through their starting edge of the map. This is the initial board setup. The treasure chests mark the possible locations of the treasure.

For some reason, the short movement stick was not included in the exported screenshot.

The plan for the dwarves was to have their leader activating as a group with the trained axemen, going for the treasure marker in the distant forest patch. The hero would go for the marker in the ruins, covered by the crossbowmen, and the two veterans would move to the closest marker.

The orcs split in three groups, with the leader and two spearmen going for the farthest marker, and two teams of spearman and bowmen going for the other two markers.


The orcs won the initiative and moved to the forest patch closer to them. However, the treasure was not there. Captain Tormak led his team to the other forest patch and had better luck. A dwarf crossbowman took the opportunity to move and fire at the orc warchief but missed.

I replaced the treasure chest with a red marker to represent the found treasure.

The warchief ordered the nearby orc team to move and attack the dwarves with the treasure. A bowman and spearman ganged up on a dwarf axeman, but they could not take him out. Meanwhile, the orc archers and dwarf crossbowmen exchanged fire but no one got hurt.

The pairs of axemen and spearmen spent most of the time idling.

Captain Tormak activated his team, killed the armored orc and the axeman got a gruesome kill on the orc archer. A nearby orc archer ran in fear when he saw his companion's head rolling out of the woods. Another orc archer knocked down a dwarf crossbowman, but did not kill him.

The knocked down dwarf managed to react and stand up before the orc could shoot him again.

After this, the orcs still tried to advance and at least cause some losses to the dwarves, but they managed to leave with the treasure, winning the scenario.

Conclusion
Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes remains the same fun game as usual. The new reaction option is probably great when playing against other people. For solo play, it adds another decision that is not particularly easy to automate. I will probably keep using the basic rules, maybe with some of the new traits and spells, when playing solo games.