Wargame Shop: New New Warband and Noble Edition Dark Age Wargaming Rules

Wargame Shop: Dark Age Kingdoms is a time in Anglo-Saxon history when the kingdoms of Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia were at conflict with each other and the Vikings. The Brittonic Pics, Celtic Romano Britons, Welsh and Gaelic Irish bide their time for expansion. Fight the saga’s of the period using these Wargame skirmish action rules Available in two editions, The Warband Edition and The Noble Edition.

The figures use HEX bases, oh no I can hear you say, but I have been working with Warbases and they have produced a hex base conversion that a Saga miniature with a 25mm fits into, so that figures can still be used for both. Plus other useful tokens for the game. Check the rules here

WARBAND EDITION softback edition - The Romans have vacated the shores of the British Isles and the Dark Ages have befallen. Crossing from the shores of Europe the Angles, Saxon and Jutes have invaded and divided the land that will later become the unified Kingdom of England. The Heptarchy, the seven Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of Britain, in name Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Sussex, Kent, Essex and Wessex. For the past four hundred years a continuous power struggle has been fought between these seven kingdoms for overall supremacy, some have succeeded, whilst others have failed. Amid all this tussle the displaced tribes of the British Isles are still present, the Celtic Romano Britons in the South West/North, The Brittonic Picts in the North, the Welsh in the West. If this wasn’t enough the Vikings are raiding the coastlines from Scandinavia and have invaded with their Great Heathen Army.

Dark Age Kingdoms is set in this traumatic period between 865 to 900, where the four remaining Kingdoms of the Heptarchy, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia and Wessex are besieged by the Vikings with the fringe tribes trying to hold their own lands against all comers. Choose a faction and defend your Kingdom from friends and foes alike. Truly, Dark Age Kingdoms is an epic struggle of man against man. Each faction selects or buys a warband, this small fighting group of warriors is led by a warband leader. The leader is an exceptional fighter, the strongest and bravest warrior in the warband. This tribal leader or Thegn holds his fellow warriors in check and commands their respect. Enrich your warband with the addition of warrior personalities and special characters. Use the traits and special abilities of your faction to further stylise your warband and increase its skill level over multiple encounters.

Dark Age Kingdoms rules are based on a choice of actions and reactions that are the founding principles of this gaming system. The bound sequence is sub-divided into rounds and action phases. Each phase allows a specific warrior class to choose between inactivity or performing either a normal or special action. Warriors might be able to select a defensive reaction against an attack and the warband leader may even intervene and issue control actions that boost the activities of a warrior.

The gaming system uses two six-sided dice for the majority of all dice rolls that are required, this system gives a more even spread of results. Designed for skirmish games, but allowing for upwards of twenty-five figures aside, the rules are scalable and detailed. Incorporated within the rules are event cards, a set of one hundred cards that allow the warband leader to help or hinder a selected faction by unleashing an event upon them. The rules are designed to give a vast array of options, so no battle should ever be the same. Whether you elect to assemble all of your warband on the battlefield or leave some warriors in reserve in the hope to sway the battle later. The game system uses strategic command, event options, tactical actions and reaction to give a realistic and dramatic flavour to this period of history. Designed for 25mm Dark Age Wargames figures, these rules are fully supported at our website of wargameshop.uk. Where rule support and free downloads are available, including the playing card size event cards. Why not dust off your old Dark Age Saga era figures and give them a new lease of life.

NOBLE EDITION hardback edition - The Dark Age Kingdoms Noble Edition expands on the Warband Edition. The scale of encounters can be increased; the contingents still form warbands each led by a subordinate lord, over these a charismatic leader resides, maybe a Kingsthegn, Ætheling or even the King; The core rules remain the same, but with more actions and special rules, whilst personalities and special characters have been expanded upon. The inclusion of the Irish who have sailed from other the seas or are being attacked at home by the Vikings.

The warband can be enriched with the new inclusion of legendary characters and mercenary warriors. Fight a series of encounters with the continuance rules or quickly construct a mini-campaign with the use of the Kingdoms Campaign rules. This edition also includes the detailed description for the 150 event cards that can be drawn for use within each encounter. This is the original 100 event cards, expanded by an additional 50 noble event cards. Use ploys and treasure reward tokens to give objectives to a battle. Attempt to succeed in expanding your kingdom and become the one true King.

Wargame Shop: Your Magnificent 7 - Cinematic Western Gunfight Rules

Wargame Shop: A set of cowboy rules that allow you to recreate your favourite classic western movies on a tabletop. Each player becomes a director that casts seven characters into their roles that form a functioning frontier group. These groups are represented by seven popular western categories form the movies, these are the Lawmen Posse, Outlaw Gangs, Hired Hands, Gunfighter Band, Cowboy Ranch Family, U.S Cavalry Squad and lastly the Native War Party. Each frontier group has its own attributes that can be used to distinguish them from the other factions.

Cast experience for characters starts with the fledgling stars, the Greenhorns and progresses through Competent, Practised, Expert and finishes with Renowned movie stars. There is even a chance that characters will progress to become legendary, the megastars of the movie screens. Once the directors have cast the parts for their seven cast members and chosen a leader, then it’s time for Lights, Camera, Action… Does it start with a fast-draw showdown or just a random encounter or do you follow the script from your preferred western movie?

Both directors square-off against each other across the Wild West film set to determine who gains the upper hand by rolling initiative. The winner activates their most experienced cast first, whilst the loser activates their least experience members first. Directors alternate through their cast until all seven characters have performed their actions. When activated a character can expend their allocated actions on moving, shooting or brawling; possible combinations can be selected if characters have enough actions. Actions are all based around our founding gaming principles of action and reaction. What are these you might say? Well for instance, a character raises his revolver to shoot, their target rolls and notices a gun pointing at them, so they react; but do they go prone, dodge to cover or shoot their own gun. If it’s the latter then both characters have a ‘shoot-out’ and the winner fires first, they may fire simultaneously, but the loser will still fire last if they are still alive that is.

Autonomous extras or townsfolk, has we like to call them, can get in your way, run for cover when the shooting starts, seek out the local Town Marshal if they identify characters has a wanted felons or even have a ‘shoot-out’ against them. Directors gain clapperboard tokens as the production unfolds and these can be spent enhancing a character’s action scene, extending their performance with a Director’s Cut. The Director’s Cuts allows either a cinematic action or a cinematography technique to be performed once in their activation. What you’ll need besides these rules are a friendly opponent, seven 25/28mm miniatures that represent your magnificent 7 frontier group, a tabletop with Wild West terrain, an imperial tape measure and two six-sided dice.